HOW WORKING MEN LIVE IN ENGLAND.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue XV, 22 November 1880, Page 4

HOW WORKING MEN LIVE IN ENGLAND.

It is now some time since X was in New Zealand, and the accounts that are opming home of soup-kitchens and the unemployed, are co different from ail one's experience of the colony, that 1 hardly know what . to make of them. Still, I believe that the New Zealand *f bad " ia better than the English 'I good," if people did bat know it. I thought co, in conversing with a Loodon workman the other, day. He was a watohmaker, employed in one of the leading' London bouses. Fur special merit, he has two exhibition medals, which I saw. He has been two years with hja employers, , and has attained the -maximum 'salary here. Hie '- wages, are 32e per week. For two rooms he pays 7s per week, and in these two roomp, himself, wife, and six children are crowded. When the rent is paid, he has 3a l£d per bead for food, oiothes, gas, fire, doctor, and schooling, and contingencies. Beefsteak costs la 3d per Ib, and leg of mutton' ls per lb," I cannot but thick that if wages in the colony came down much lo^er, still ("which I hope will not happen) that a day laborer in New Zealand is incomparably better off than a skilled meohanic here. Existence is only pos sible in this country to the bulk of people by a careful screwing economy, whic s so far as I have seen, is hardly known in the colonies. Dr Barnardo calculates the cost of a child in bis borne at 7b 6d per week, yet tens of thousands of labouring people here have to keep their children, upon a third o< that. Last Saturday night I "saw a sight here which started these reflections About 10*301 was passing a butcher's shop. Round one of the open windows was a clamorous crowd of . perhaps seventy women and [children. They were boldiog up handkerchiefs and bags, and begging the butcher to t ike them. In each one taken he put a Mandful of bits and scraps for which tig recipient paid 3). It was sad to hear the clamour, '5 Take mine, sir,*" "Here please, mine ;" and to see the joy when . they were accepted as customers. That is one wey that people, live here. Many of the women were pinched, and yellow though they looked thoroughly respectable. They were not beggars por of that class. They were buying their Sunday, dinner— tbeir one bit of extravagance during (he seven days. While writing in this vein, I may mention another fact in illustration. A London firm summoned one of their clerks yesterday for embezzling the sum of £4 153 lid, which he had ! been sent to collect. The prisoner was a tall respectable-looking yooDg n&n 21 years of age. He admitted the .charge, but Btated in defence that his jwages were only 5a per week and that put of this he paid 3a 6i per week for to sleep at a coffee-bouse in Bethnol GreeD, which left him for, jail other purposes Is 61 per week. He was often without food, and was at the time receiving medical attendance. He had tried in vain to borrow 2a that day to keep himself from starving. I should like to know the secret by: .which a young man has are not done growiDg pays buloker, baker, tailor, and grooer, doctor, and- washerwoman upon Is 6d per week, and keeps up an appearance decent enough for a city joffice! This gay, beautiful, rich, mysterious, hungry London puzzles me more and more.