HOW THE POOR LIVE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3002, 27 September 1911, Page 87

HOW THE POOR LIVE.

LONDON INVESTIGATIONS. INSURINC4 FOR BURIAL.

By Mrs W. Pember Reeves. [Special to the Otago Daily Times.] 11.

Some food doeis appear to be in Kennington and Lambeth until we realise that it is .also of a worse quality. Food which is of a worse quality is not cheaper though the price may be lees. It is difficult to say whether condensed milk at or 2d per tin is to be bought in the West End, though condensed mi!2i at 5d and 8d a tin is sold there. If not, it is only because the worse quality of milk finds no demand among well-to-do people. The reason why it is sold everywhere in Lambeth is that the women there can only afford the cheapest. Bread in Lambeth is only cheaper because, it is not delivered. The housewife sends a child or goes herself to the shop and buys the legal weight. A roll or a piece of bread cut from a large loaf is thrown into the scale to bring the baker's loaf up to the legal weight. In the Weet End, where bread is delivered, it is always short weight. Sugar is 2d per lb in' Kennington, and the some sort of sugaj' is 2£d_ in Bayswater, but the sweetening quality is not the eame. Meat is to be bought cheaper off the barrows on Saturday night in Lambeth walk than it is to be bought in a West End shop. But the woman who buys it very often has to offer so much for a " piece." The barrow man docs not weigh it for her. She judges it by her eye. It has left the freezing chamber for ever, and often would not keep till Monday. On Sunday morning, if she did not take it, it would be offered again, perhaps at a lower price still, on the principle of " this stock must cleared." Those who wish to pick up " real bargains " in the meat line do it on Sunday morning off the barrows in the " Walk." The inhabitant of the West End woulii not buy that meat at that price or any price. Much of it is quite sound, but it is of inferior quality, full of gristle, and lacking in taste. Milk is sold at the same price in Kennington and Lambeth as it is in the West End. But milk is too expensive a luxury for the household on 20s a week, eo its price does not oome into the feeding scheme of the families dealt with. The very low grades of tea at Is 4d per lb are bought in Lambeth and Kennington often by the ounce. A penny an ounce is a common price. By the pound the same tea would sell at Is 2d. A family of father, mother, and six children might consume 4oz of such tea in a week, using with it a tin of condensed milk at 3d per ' THE DUTY OF INSURANCE. Another class of expenditure is life assurance. The poor are forced to insure against burial fees. Unless they are prepared to be turned into paupers they must pay for their own funerals. A pauper loses his parliamentary and municipal vote and his right to an old-age pension, among other disabilities. The expectation of death i*s very great in Lambeth and Kennington. Any child in a family may die—some child in a family of six is likely to die. A young child can be buried for about 30s—10s to the cemetery company and 20g to the undertaker. A coffin which is too long to be stowed under the driver's seat needs a hearee. This brings the undertaker's charge up to something over £4. At a certain age, too, the cemetery fees are raised to 15s instead of 10s. The danger of being faced with such an expense drives the decent, sober working man—and this investigation is confined absolutely to the expenditure of decent, sober working men —to make provision against it. He therefore insures each child at a rate of one penny per week. He himself is often insured for 2d per week, and the wife for Id or 2d! as the case may be. In case of death the parents stand to receive a sum from the insurance company which quite covens the cost of the funeral. But this plan works out expensively for the parents, since in all the penny policies examined in this investigation the money is only recoverable on death. There is no surrender value, and for default of payment all sums already paid in become the property of the company. The peculiar difficulty of these working people is that they are liable to be out of work at any moment. It is common, then, for their policies to lapse, when they lose all their previous savings. If when they get work again they take out fresh policies it means beginning all over again and having less paid them in case of need. A child insurance against burial fe an extravagance which has to be practised by the poor. The well4o-do classes are not in the same position, and are not compelled to. spend from onetwentieth to one-sixteenth of their income in this way. THE PROS AND CONS. It will be eeen, therefore, that though it ii 3 possible to live in Lambeth on 20s a week, and even to bring up a family on it, that is not because commodious, healthful houses are to be found there at low rents, nor because excellent, satisfying food is sold cheaply in those parts, nor because coal is plentiful and of low price. The question remains—How is it done? The answer is simply—By going without. Out of 20s a week income 8s is a largo proportion to pay for rent—over onethird. What middle-class father of a family would think himself justified in spending over one-third of his income on rent? A workingman with six children very often must spend 8s e Tnek i»n rent. That this amounte ti two-Sf She of his income can't be helped. They must eat the less. He may be the possessor of 25s a week, and in that case 8s is hardly cne-third, which is fortunate for him; and

he and his family can afford to eat a little more. For this one-third of his income it is interesting to see what the man with 20s to 25s a week gets. There may be three rooms. There probably are, each about JOft by 12ft. One is a living room, with kitchen range and perhaps also a copper for the weekly wash. The other two are bedrooms. In one the man and his wife and the youngest child may sleep—or even the two youngest children. In the other the remaining children sleep, all in one bed. In a family of six children there would be four left to inhabit the bed—two at the top and two at the bottom. When one of these children catches measles or whooping cough at school the malady goes round the bed. All the families dealt with in this investigation where there are sit children manage in this way. STOPPING THE LEAKS. The floors, the ceilings, the stairs, the walls are in a constant state of wanting repairs. The harassed landlord has no sooner mended the copper than the floor gees through. When the roof is mide watertight the walls are damp. The smell of smokey chimneys is always there, even when for the moment the chimney is not rmoking. The working-class hcuseholdei.- may find that his rooms are infested with bugs. To a New Zealander that is almost an unknown scourge: to an East End Londoner it is a very real and awful-one. I have remarked to one of our women, ''What a lovely day!" Her unexpected answer was, " Oh, I do 'ope it won't bring out the bugs." Before a confinement these women fumigate tho room they are to be ill in so that they may clear it as far as possible from the pest. In spite of all precautions one of our visitors has sat beside a woman who was helpless in bed and seen the dreaded creatures drop from the ceiling to the pillow. Decent working people do not become indifferent to such a state of things. They, often welcome the cold weather because it causes the vermin to disappear into the walls. CLOTHED FROM HEAVEN. So much, then, for the kind of accommodation to be had by the Lambeth householder for that one-third of his income. When housed in this unhealthy and uncomfortable manner how do the family clothe themselves? Usually the man keeps back a sum of 2s or 2s fcd from his wages each week. This sum pays his fares, if he cannot walk to his work, buys his tobacco and his beer and clothes him. It is easily seen that tho allowance for drink is not excessive. In two instances our men walk distances of seven and eight miles to work and seven and eight miles back because they cannot afford the fares Their boots wear out quickly, to be sure, on the hard pavement, but they manage to resole them themselves. ' Nearly every Lambeth man can do a little boot mending. The wife and children are clothed from Heaven. There is in some budgets a weekly sum of 6d or la put down for boot-club, and, in a very few, 6d or 9d for calico or clothing club. These clubs are generally run by local tradesmen, and it is a grave question whether the women get their money's worth back from them. They appear on the surface to be run entirely for the benefit of the tradesman who initates them. The women are attracted by the regular, weekly payments. It is the only way they know of laying up for the family needs. Whether, when they have paid Is a week for 10 weeks they get 10s worth of boots or material back it would be interesting to find out. One of our mothers, a thrifty, anxious woman with a weekly income of 21s 3d for housekeeping and live children, spends on s. d.

This leaves her 10s 4d with which to clothe, warm, light, clean, and feed her family —I am taking a random week. Of this she spends on s. d.

Add 2s 3d to 10s lid, and we have I3s 2s, leaving the sum of 8s Id to spend on food in the week. She has herself, her husband, and five children to feed. The husband often buys himself food while he is at work, so the whole of his nourishment does not come out of her 8s Id, but the whole of hers and the children's does, and he eats a full share of each meal. She spends on

The amount spent per head on food this week was Is 2d. Meat in South Lambeth comes to about 6d per pound if the quality is very humble. The middleclass housewife can buy excellent New Zealand frozen mutton by the side at per lb. One chop in Lambeth costs 3d or 4d, according to size. Therefore it is clear the 2s 6d a week on meat and suet does not buy more than 51b of meat. THE DAY'S MEALS. The bill of fare for this family, roughly speaking, is— Breakfast for Seven People.—One loaf, loz margarine. 4oz tea, |oz sugar, id worth condensed milk. Dinner for Seven People.—Sundays: Four pounds meat, one cabbage, potatoes. On five week days: Suet pudding, gravy,

potatoes, or, on one other day, lib meat, potatoes. Toa for Seven People.—One loaf, loa margarine, Aoz toa, £oz sugar, id worth of conlchemsed miilk. It will be -noticed in the week's budget given that on clothing other than boots and stockings only IJ-d waa spent on darning wool. Taking a week from the same woman's accounts where 6J>d was spent on flannelette and tape, it is to be seen that the meat expenditure sank from 2s 6d to 2s Bread happened to be higher in price that week, but the mother managed to earn by mangling for a neighbour, and was enabled to keep on with her 14 loaves. The result of any extra expenditure whatsoever is that the food goes down in proportion. When we began giving nourishment to this woman she said she was very doubtful about it, because it would " only encourage me appetite."

R«nt Insurance ••• Boot club Stocking club 8 0 1 8 1 0 0 3 10 11

Goal Gas Soap, soda., blue, Hearthstone Darning wool starch. ... 1 ... 0 ... 0 ... 0 ... 0 2 0 8 5 0J> ll 3

b. d Bread, 14 loaves ... 2 11 lib margarine ...0 6 ilb tea ... 0 4 21b sugar ... 0 4 2 tins condensed milk ... 0 6 181b potatoes ... 0 6 Vegetables ... 0 6 Meat and suet -...2 6 8 1