"HAPPY" HOMES IN ENGLAND.

Tuapeka Times, Issue 432, 6 February 1875, Page 3

"HAPPY" HOMES IN ENGLAND.

A special reporter of "The Times" has been visiting Somersetshire, and he writes thus on October 24, respecting what he saw at a village named Wiveliscombe :— - I went into one of the houses of this row. In all probability it was the worse kept and in the worst repair. There was hardly a scrap of furniture in what may, by a stretch of fancy, be called the living room. The one bedroom upstairs was in a wretched condition. There were two tilthy beds. One consisted rf nothing but an old chaff mattress on the ground— its sole covering what looked like a patchwork counterpane, hardly distinguishable for dirt. A similar mattress, still more filthy, was stretched upon an old fourpost bedstead, and here, three weeks before, a girl of about 20 had given birth to an illegitimate child, while her father and two brothers slept on the floor of the same room. Further down the hill is a court best known as BilliDgsgate. Two of the cottages into which T went here, were of the same class, and even in worse. repair, with single I bed-rooms, boards gaping, and hardly able to bear a vigorous spring, roofs not watertight, and the concrete on the ground floor of the living room worn away in many places to the earth. A stalwart laborer and his wife lived in one of these hovels, with three children. The man said he earned 10s. *& week. His rent was Is. and the woman added that coal now cost them Is. 4d. a week. She went out to dig potatoes or to do any other work she could get, and then paid 2d. a day to an old woman to take care of the children. The stench was abominable. To any traveller in search of the unpicturesque another court, called Gullet, in another part of the village, may be safely recommended. A cottage in one corner contains a man and his wife with nine or ten children. The eldest girl, 15 years old, was taking care of the household at the time of visit, but the woman came in soon afterwards. Here again the earth showed through the concrete in the living-room. An outhouse opeuiug from this room was tumbling down, ihe stairs were dangerous and you had to take two at once to avoid a loose plank. There was one large bed-room, partitioned off into two. In the first of these rooms slept the man and his wife with the baby. Directly overhead a large piece of the planter ceiling had Jutely fall.su down, and' if the baby had been beneath it, as the woman said, there would have been an end to its little life. The man had attempted to cover this hole with a bit of old tarpaulin, but the thatch above it was also worn into holes, and in wet weather the rain came through "by the bucket." In the next room, where the children slept on two mattresses, large gaps in the wall gave ventilation enough and to spare. You could lie and look at the stars." At times, the woman said, when the wind was high, it blew down anything she could put to cover these gaps, and the children might almost as well sleep out of doors. Here also, in wet weather, the rain streamed through the thatch, and ran between the yawning boards into the living room below. Upstairs and down, dirt reigned supreme. Such a hovel, indeed, let alone scanty means and a swarm of children, was . enough to depress anybody, however tidy by nature. " Pigs are better lodged " said the woman bitterly, and I have, in fact, seen sties which might easily be made more comfortable. It "was of no use (she added) to ask the person from whom she rented the house to do any repairs, and where were they to find a belter house? Her rent book showed that for this miserable home and a small garden patch she had till lately paid 2s. 6d. a week ; but, I suppose, in consideration of its increasing wretchedness, the rent was now reduced to two shillings. Thjs, however, was not the abode of a farm laborer. This man was a mason's laborer, who "allowed" his wife (this was her expression) Us. a week for housekeeping and kept 2s. for himself. She thought this was not a large deduction, because out of it her husband clothed and shod himself, so that not much was left for "his pint of beer and bit of 'bacca." But of course she had to work too. So had her eldest daughter, and when both were away, the house and the young children were left in charge of a girl of 12. £

There are a good many allotments round Wiveliscombe and I could at first hardly believe the statemenb which reached me that these allotments are let at the rate of from LS to LlO or even Ll2 an acre. On enquiry, however, the statement turned out to be no exaggeration. The land belongs to more than one owner, and is let by the rod, the lowest rental being Is. Id., and the highest Is 6d., or L 8 13s. and Ll2 an acre. The land is of good quality; and the man who showed me his allotment said the laborers were glad to get hold of it even at these prices, their "second crop" of mangold or turnips generally paying the rent. He had more than a quarter of an acre but the majority of the holders occupy less land. The rents paid by the farmers in the neighbourhood, he added, are about 30s. or L 2. My informant was a small tradesman, not a laborer, and employed a man to spud the land at 3d. a rod, so tLat upon his 52 rods this work cost him 13s. In political economy I suppose the value of a thing is "jnsfc as much as it will bring" yet most people will have a strong opinion upon the greed which make 3 large profits through the laborers longing for a bit of land, and wrings from him reuts four or five times larger than those paid by the farmer.