[All Rights Reserved.] STORIES OF_THE POOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2810, 22 January 1908, Page 98

[All Rights Reserved.] STORIES OF_THE POOR.

THE SPENDING OF THE SUPERFLUOUS. (By M. Loane, author of "Love Stories of the Poor," etc.) The existence of the superfluous, of more than is necessary for the maintenance of life, may be attributed to society as a whole, and the proportion of the superfluous which falls to any large class depends upon the general abilities of that class, but the expenditure of the superfluous is to a great extent a matter of individual choice and affords a key not only as to' moral character, but as to intellect. One's first observation is that the amount of the spuerfluous is usually estimated very differently by the workers receiving it, and by more cultivated onlookers. The number of superfluities that can be bought on a family income of a pound a week is simply amazing to witness, but it is partly because necessities, from certain points of view, are so narrowly limited. Even in homes where there is double or treble that sum coming in weekly, it is by no means unusual to find that one cheap comb serves six or seven people without the help of a single hairbrush ; on© broom, unaided by a dustpan, sweeps wood, stone, or matting, as the case may be ; the same tin or earthenware basin is used to wash the dinner things, to make a pudding, or to (mix starch, or is brought to the nurse to use for her patient. In the poorest houses, however, there are almost invariably photographs, vases, and ornaments in abundance. I doubt if any real conversation between members of two different classes is possible. All my conversations with my patients and their friends have been of an exceedingly onesided character j that is to say, in some cases T-. talked and in some they did, but we never took anything like equal parts. A question, a shade of surprise, the faintest dissent from their vi-ewe would generally be enough to silence them, and in many instances cause them to veer round suddenly, and bring forward opinions in direct opposition to those they had already expressed. HEALTH AND SONGS. Anxiety for their health always made me extremely anxious to introduce any labour-saving appliances within their means, and I spent a considerable part of my time -in eulogising the inventor of oilcloth. As a substitute for carpet one may call it execrable, but as an impermeable covering for boards to prevent the necessity of scrubbing them it is excellent, and my advice to my patients always was, "Go wit/hout everything but food until you have covered your kitchen and passage with oilcloth amd a few mats. Never scrub if you can help it, and •when you cannot avoid it use very little water, and let that water be clean." But this was not a popular method of laying out the superfluous ; they generally preferred scrubbing, and then spending an indefinite amount at the chemists on embrocation for rheumatism, or ointment for a bad knee. It often seems to me that the smaller the income the larger the proportion of it that is spent in drugs. "A bottle of stuff from the chemist's" ranks higher than anything direct from a doctor, probably because more money has to be paid for it. The desire for powerful medicines, and more particularly for those bitter in taste, is especially common among the aged poor. Half the complaints of many of the workhouse inmates, when they come out to see their friends, are of the obstinacy of the doctor and nurses in not allowing them to have what they want in that line. "Doctor says it would kill I to have

'un," grumbled one old man; but he would not be content until he had circumvented him by spending his few pence at a more obliging chemist's, and it was done without the prophesied result. He told me, however, that he had once followed a doctor's advice, and thought that he owed the last 40 y-ears of his life to his good sense in doing so. "I worked underground for seven years, and then the doctor said if I did stay any longer I would want a wooden dress, so I did come up and go back to farm work." Foreigners look on the love of strong drugs as a peculiarly English trait. A Swiss chemist told me that he often made up prescriptions for Englishmen that he would be afraid to give to a Continental. In fact, "An Englishman's dose" is their equivalent expression for our "enough to kill a horse." As a child I remember hearing the doctor of a great convict prison, who was much troubled by malingerers, describe how he had tried to clear them out of the hospital by the size and nauseousness and frequency of the doses of medicine, but the more he did this the more the men crowded in. He .'svereed the system, and made the potions small and few and tasteless, and the infirmary lost all attraction except for those really ill. It gave a pitiful idea of the appalling dulness of a convict's life, and the recollection has made me understand why the poorer and more uneducated my patients are and the more monotonous their inward and outward life, the more readily they spend money on quack medicines. I seldom find them popular among those who are eager newspaper readers, or in any way display J voluntary activity of mind or body. Dulness and apathy probably cause as many I follies and as much waste of time and money as excessive love of pleasure and excitement. SPOILT CHILDREN. Among all classes of wage-earners the superior type of parents are most anxious to spend part of the superfluous upon the higher education of their children, but they are often pathetically ignorant as to what branches oi learning it will be best for them to devote their time to, and still more vague as to the degree of proficiency in any art or science which . will enable them to earn a living by it. They are also lamentably in want of ! exact information as to the expense 1 which must be incurred before satisfactory results can be expected. It is pitiable to see fond fathers and mothers spending money they can ill afford to pay for lessons in music or painting for boys and girls who have not a grain of musical or artistic ability beyond what is common to the normal human being," encouraging them to "practice" and "get on with their drawing" for many hours a day, doing all the housework lest they should spoil their hands, and totally unable to see, until it is too late, that instead of giving their children a good trade they are preparing them for a future of bitter disappointment, harassing anxiety and semi-starvation. Popular opinion throws the blame 'of these fond dreams and fatal miscalculations entirely upon the young people themselves, but more often than not they were originated by their parents and persisted in owing to their blind infatuation, and in spite of the children's unwillingness to undergo the necessary drudgery and privation, and their occasional gleams of common sense and halfunderstanding of the uselessness and injuribusness of the plans laid out for them. I knew one young lad with far more gift for music than is common among these victims of mistaken parental ambition who saved himself by declaring firmly, "I am not a genius and I do not wish to be" a twentieth-rate bandsman," but such clearsightedness is rare at any age. Even if the parent's choice is a good and- reasonable one in itself, their igno- . ranee on the third pomt — the necessary cost in money and in time — frequently causes not merely disappointment but utterly disastrous results to their cnil,dren. This is especially .the. case with very poor parents who allow clever boys or girlsi to become pupil teachers without in the least realising how long it will b© before they can earn their entire livelihood, and the quality and amount of food that is necessary in order that young people may safely bear the threefold strain of growing, learning^ and teaching. "If rd known what it would mean," said the intelligent wife of a labourer, "Katie should have gone to service same as her sister done. Her health has broke down, and I've had her a whole year doing nothing at all ; now she's going to try the examination again, but I'm afraid there isn't much chance for her. The doctor says that if she is to work like that we ougnT to give her fish and all sorts of things, but how can we? I onlywish it had never been begun." A PROCESS OF EVOLUTION. I knew a vigorous, energetic, ambitious widow with three children, and she determined that they should all become school teachers, "cost what it may." The daughter has almost died from anaemia caused by the mental strain on poor .food, one of the sons is at present in an asylum, and the other is extremely likely to follow him. In lanother family where , the parents are perfectly normal people, j and the father earning a good living at an outdoor occupation, one son devoted to "art" has already paid two visits to an asylum, one is earning a miserable pittance, and the only daughter is almost entirely incapacitated by ansemia. These victims to the ignorant, wellintentioned, self -sacrificing spending of the superfluous are simply innumerable, and it is the more to be regretted because the parents are usually estimable ,

people, and the children, though noil geniuses, are above the average in intellect and — until the. unnecessary and intolerable strain comes- — are also above it in physical strength. Parents as a '-whole are certainly more* anxious about the education of their children than they used to be, and the State concerns itself with the malter more closely every year, but wher. listening to the life stories, of piosperous workmen and successful housewives of 60, 70, 80 and more years of age, one sometimes wonders if the young people themselves are as eager about self-culture in any form as many of them undoubtedly- were* in former days. A clever 1 old countryman, employed by rich and poor 1 alike when work of any importance was to*' be done, sadd to me recently, "When I were young, if I did want to learn anything, I gived a coat. Now you do have to giv_e a coat to get anyone to learn anything." In many families a considerable proportion of the superfluous is spent in furniture, which in no way adds to the immediate comfort of the possessors ; but as this form of outlay is almost invariably a sign that they are on the upward grade, it is by no' means to be scorned. ' -It/ my be sad to find that the best Toom In the house is only a storing place for the accumulated treasures, that the fixed bath is used as a soiled linen basket, and that tne jugs in the handsome toilet sets are full of paper instead of water, and that the proud owners still go downstairs unwashed and perform their very scanty ablutions at the sink a couple of hours later. Nevertheless, the habit of working and saving to possess these things has been formed, they add greatly to self respect, and the next generation, or even the younger members of the existing one, will acquire the habit of using them. It is true that there are instances where this desire for fine furniture i 6 so premature aa to be sheer folly. MISPLACED AMBITION. A few weeks ago, for example, a woman living in a wretched cottage, with a leaking roof and not a single dry wall offered to give £10 ready money for a second-hand piano, for which she had no more direct use than was implied by the vaguely-ex-pressed intention of "letting her little girl bagin music." It might be said in nei defence that the cottage was not her own, and that any money laid out on it might have been lost, but she could have had a far better house for the same money if she would have engaged it by the quarter instead of the week, and a person who could afford to spend nearly a year's rent? on a single article that she did not need would surely have been justified in riskirig the loss that might be entailed by the very - unlikely combination of events that her steady-going husband should be suddenly dismissed from, his employment, and _be( unable to find any other- work -vrithjtt cycling distance. Also there-were houseowners close to her who spend the superfluous chiefly on fine clothes (men, and) women alike), and their roofs and, -walk* were in very little better condition than hers. As a general rule a surprisingly smalt portion of the surplus is spent on mora ' abundant or more delicate food. When i people have once risen oeyond the pointi of wasting the margin in drink, or re* maining idle, rather than earn it, tbeizs desires are for better clothes, better fur-J niture, and better prospect* for theif ( children. The demand tor better housing, comes very late, and if circumstances make? it easy to obtain good quarters they and their children profit little by them, la five and seven-roomed houses supplied -with every convenience and occupied by a single family I have sometimes found an appalling amount of dirt, and a amply poi* sonous atmosphere. Those who can keep two Tooms in good order can easily rise to three, and those who. have managed four or five during a considerable period »na.y rise to seven; ordinarily human nature moves gradually, not by leaps and bounds. The only way of learning to spend the superfluous is to possess it and -have the control of it, but the lessons of eqg»rience can be far more quickly acquired if aid«* by principles that can to some extent to taught at -school, and the advantage of having suitable examples- close at nan<S cannot easily be over-rated.