A TRUE LOVE STORY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1081, 10 August 1912, Page 4

A TRUE LOVE STORY.

LONDON LIFE ON £i A

WEEK

Among the speakers at the annual conference of the Association of teachers of domestic subjects held in London was Mrs Pember Reeves, wife of New Zealand’s first High Commissioner. Mrs Reeve's’ contribution was an interesting discourse on “ Housekeeping on per week in London,” which is a vastly different thing to living on a pound a week in a country place. In the course of her paper Mrs Reeves said that if the family income was only week “ housekeeping ” had to be done on a part of it. The size of the family had, of course, much to do with the problem. The people about whom she was talking were people in regular work, absolutely steady and respectable. The wages a man got were divided into two parts, the amount he kept for himself, and the amouut he gave his wife. She had been surprised to find that in numerous cases the amount the man kept for himself was nothing. The wife gave him a penny or a half-penny tor a tram when it was necessary, but very often he did not get even that. A man getting 25s a week might keep 2s or 3s, or even 5s for himself. It seemed to be a convention that if the man gave the woman a week she had, besides keeping the family, in which there were five or six children, to pay 8s or 9s out of the £1 for rent. Insurance was the saving of this class, but they saved only for death, and to avoid the parish funeral. She had known cases were 2s a week went for this, but more often it was about nd. Coal to these people was, in normal times, is 2d to rs 6d per cwt. Gas, if they had it, they got by the dear method of the penny in the slot. That might be a shilling a week, in which case it would do part of the cooking. She knew a carter living on 24s a week. He gave his wife 21s, and out ol the remainder he clothed himselt, paid his fares, and bought his tobacco, and so forth. The wife led him. Their rent was 8s 6d, insurance is, coal is 6d, oil 3d, caudles id, gas 4d —ns 8d out of 2is. There was thus 9s 4d to spend on food for eight people. It was spent as follows: Bread 3s tea Bd, sugar Bd, butter (margarine) is id ; potatoes gd, greens 4b, meat 2s y-J-d ; that came to is 2d a head for eight people. But out of that a working man had to be kept. The woman told her that they could not keep a man in full work in good condition on less than 6d a day. The man’s food cost 3s 6d a week, That brought the average for the others down to lod, or less than i)4d a day ! The general menu consisted of bread and dripping, suet pudding, and potatoes. Children of this class of people seldom saw milk. This family had one kettle and two pots. The wife told her that every time she washed the pots she looked to see whether there was a hole. If she saw one she said she should fill it with soap so that the pot would last a bit longer. Asked if it would not make the food taste, she replied that she only used the best soap. That was the kind of life she found quite common. The children of families like that did not get fed at school. They were much too respectable. These children were the tidy, regular, well-behaved children. In answer to a criticism that she had said nothing about clothes, Mrs Reeves said she did not know how they managed. Some of them paid 6d a week to a boot club, and some to a calico club. The man nearly always mended the boots himself, and it was no wonder that the women looked untidy, for they bought fifth-hand, even tenth-hand, clothes.