SORROWS OF THE POOR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 83, 24 August 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

SORROWS OF THE POOR.

LONDON' LIFK ON £1 A WLKK. -Among the speakers at the annusil conference of tli« -Association of Tcacliits of domestic subjects held in London was .Mrs. I'ember Reeves, wife of New Zealand's first High Commissioner, Mrs. Reeves' contribution was an interesting discourse oil "Housekeeping oil £1 per week in London," wliicli is a vastly different thing to living on a pound a week in a country place. 11l the course of her paper Mrs. Reeves said that if the family income was only £1 a week, "housekeeping" had to lie 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 gave his wife and the amount he kept for himself. She had been surprised to find that in numerous eases the amount the man kept for himself was nothing. The wife gave him a penny or a halfpenny for a tram when it was necessary, but very often lie did not get even that.

FOOD AND KENT. A man getting 2os a week might keep 2s or 3s or even os for himself. It seemed to be a convention that if the man gave the woman £1 a week she had. nothing to complain about. Out of the £1 she had to pay rent, provide light, insurance, clothing, cleanliness and food. Rent was made the first call. It was quite a common thing for a 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 where 2s a week went for this, but more often it was about lid. Coal to these people was, in normal times, Is 2d to Is 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 of the remainder he clothed himself, paid his fares, and bought his tobacco, and so forth. The wife fed him. Their rent was 8s 6d, insurance Is, coal Is Gd, oil 3d, candles Id, gas 4d—lis 8d out of 21s. There was thus 9s 4d to spend on food for eight people. It was spent as follows: Bread 3s 2y 2 d, tea Bd, sugar Bd, butter (margarine) Is Id, potatoes 9d, greens 4d, meat 2s 7y a 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, less than iy 3 d a day!

WHAT THEY EAT. 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-beEaved 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.