PRIDE OF REAL POOR.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5241, 20 February 1928, Page 2

PRIDE OF REAL POOR.

CASES FROM POVERTY STREET.

CRIPPLED' CARMEN.

Searching for want in Poverty Street is almost as discouraging as prospecting for gold, says a writer in a London paper. There is. so much dross in both. adventures. But great is the thrill when one strikes the vein of rich ore either in mines or lives. Since money libs been sent to me in trust on behalf of the deserving poor during this season of good will and good hope, I have visited Poverty Street, and there I have found much to admire and more to deplore.

Recently cases were published of men who had kept themselves artd their families on the dole f'°r, months, men who through prolonged idleness had lost the will to work. Here is a different case I> came across in Clerkenwell: J. is a. crippled .carman with a wif.e and one boy. After being out of work for a month he now has a job at 30s. He pays 15s a week rent, his, wife is ill, and he has to keep the home, which consists of one room containing a bed and a few chairs, on the remaining 15s. No dole here; only grit. J., I. think, is one of the cases my generous correspondents had in view'.

■ Hard cases of poverty are found among the middle .class, the so-aclled comfortable class who have crossed the poverty line. I • learned of a widow who owns house property, but who is so. poor that she had to go to prison because she could not pay her rates and taxes.

Many of her tenants ’do not pay their rent, but the chief cause of her present poverty was 'her marriage with a bigamist who is now' in gaol. Unfortunately for her, he was not arrested until he had ruined her. Then there is the case of the van boy who stole five apples. He was the only worker in a. family of eight who lost their Christmas dinner because young Harry had been “pinched.” The invalid husband’s unemployment money went to the landlord, and there was no food in the house. A genuine case this ! I have sent £5 to the probation officer at Marylebone Police Court, £1 for each apple.

Hard cases I found of the unmarried mother deserted by the father of her children. The deserted wife has her legal remedy; the unmarried mother has none, and when the crash comes, unless she can find work, she 'has to go into local institutions and be separated from her children.