On the face of it this family is perhaps exceptionally well-_Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social Reform

[Transcriber's note: Italic font is indicated by _underscores_.]

ESSAYS

SOCIAL REFORM

+--------------------------------------------------------------+

| |

| _Crown 8vo, price 5s._ |

| |

| AN INQUIRY INTO SOCIALISM. |

| |

| By THOMAS KIRKUP, |

| _Author of the Article on ‘Socialism’ in the |

| ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’_ |

| |

| -------------------- |

| |

| ‘A very thoughtful and sympathetic study of the modern |

| socialistic movement, with the history of which the author |

| has a very thorough acquaintance.’--Contemporary Review. |

| |

| ‘We have no hesitation in describing this as the clearest |

| statement we have read of the aims and methods of |

| Socialism.’--Westminster Review. |

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| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |

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| London: LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO. |

| |

+--------------------------------------------------------------+

PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM

_ESSAYS ON SOCIAL REFORM_

BY THE

REV. and MRS. SAMUEL A. BARNETT

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET

1888

_All rights reserved_

PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE

LONDON

------------------------------------------------------------------------

INTRODUCTION.

The following Essays have been written at different intervals during

our fifteen years’ residence in East London. They were written out of

the fulness of the moment with a view of giving a voice to some need

of which we had become conscious. They do not, therefore, pretend

to set forth any system for dealing with the social problem; they

are simply the voice of the dumb poor, of whose mind it has been

our privilege to get some understanding. They are published now in

response to the requests of many to whom they have been some guide in

the ways of service, and in the hope that the experience they offer

may bring rich and poor together. It will be noticed that two or three

great principles underlie all the reforms for which we ask. The equal

capacity of all to enjoy the best, the superiority of quiet ways over

those of striving and crying, character as the one thing needful are

the truths with which we have become familiar, and on these truths we

take our stand. Although the Essays do not pretend to form a connected

whole, it will be seen that their arrangement is subject to some

order. Those placed first set forth the poverty of the poor. Those

which follow suggest some means by which such poverty may be met (1)

by individual and (2) by united action, with some of the dangers to

which charitable effort seems to be liable. As we look back over the

experience which these Essays recall, we are conscious of shortcomings

and failure, but they are due to our own want of wisdom and of faith,

and we still believe that God’s will may be done on earth as it is in

heaven, and that the doing of His will means at last health and wealth.

Each Essay is signed by the writer, but in either case they represent

our common thought, as all that has been done represents our common

work.

SAMUEL A. BARNETT AND HENRIETTA O. BARNETT.

St. Jude’s, Whitechapel: _May 1888_.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. THE POVERTY OF THE POOR. By MRS. S. A. BARNETT

(July 1886) 1

II. RELIEF FUNDS AND THE POOR. By REV. S. A.

BARNETT (Nov. 1886) 22

III. PASSIONLESS REFORMERS. By MRS. S. A. BARNETT

(August 1882) 48

IV. TOWN COUNCILS AND SOCIAL REFORM. By REV. S. A.

BARNETT (Nov. 1883) 62

V. ‘AT HOME’ TO THE POOR. By MRS. S. A. BARNETT

(May 1881) 76

VI. UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENTS. By REV. S. A. BARNETT

(Feb. 1884) 96

VII. PICTURES FOR THE PEOPLE. By MRS. S. A. BARNETT

(March 1883) 109

VIII. THE YOUNG WOMEN IN OUR WORKHOUSES. By MRS.

S. A. BARNETT (Aug. 1879) 126

IX. A PEOPLE’S CHURCH. By REV. S. A. BARNETT (Nov.

1884) 142

X. CHARITABLE EFFORT. By MRS. S. A. BARNETT (Feb.

1884) 157

XI. SENSATIONALISM IN SOCIAL REFORM. By REV. S. A.

BARNETT (Feb. 1886) 173

XII. PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM. By REV. S. A. BARNETT

(April 1883) 191

XIII. THE WORK OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. By REV. S. A.

BARNETT (Nov. 1887) 204

------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRACTICABLE SOCIALISM.

_THE POVERTY OF THE POOR._[1]

[1] Reprinted, by permission, from the _National Review_ of July 1886.

It is useless to imagine that the nation is wealthier because in one

column of the newspaper we read an account of a sumptuous ball or of

the luxury of a City dinner if in another column there is the story of

‘death from starvation.’ It is folly, and worse than folly, to say that

our nation is religious because we meet her thousands streaming out of

the fashionable churches, so long as workhouse schools and institutions

are the only homes open to her orphan children and homeless waifs. The

nation does not consist of one class only; the nation is the whole, the

wealthy and the wise, the poor and the ignorant. Statistics, however

flattering, do not tell the whole truth about increased national

prosperity, or about progress in development, if there is a pauper

class constantly increasing, or a criminal class gaining its recruits

from the victims of poverty.

The nation, like the individual, is set in the midst of many and

great dangers, and, after the need of education and religion has

been allowed, it will be agreed that all other defences are vain if

it be impossible for the men and women and children of our vast city

population to reach the normal standard of robustness.

The question then arises, Why cannot and does not each man, woman,

and child attain to the normal standard of robustness? The answers to

this question would depend as much on the answerer as they do in the

game of ‘Old Soldier.’ The teetotallers would reply that drink was the

cause, but against this sweeping assertion I should like to give my

testimony, and it has been my privilege to live in close friendship and

neighbourhood of the working classes for nearly half my life. Much has

been said about the drinking habits of the poor, and the rich have too

often sheltered themselves from the recognition of the duties which

their wealth has imposed on them by the declaration that the poor are

unhelpable while they drink as they do. But the working classes, as

a rule, do not drink. There are, undoubtedly, thousands of men, and,

alas! unhappy women too, who seek the pleasure, or the oblivion, to be

obtained by alcohol; but drunkenness is not the rule among the working

classes, and, while honouring the work of the teetotallers, who give

themselves up to the reclamation of the drunken, I cannot agree with

them in their answer to the question. Drink is not the main cause

why the national defence to be found in robust health is in such a

defective condition.

Land reformers, socialists, co-operators, democrats would, in their

turn, each provide an answer to our question; but, if examined, the

root of each would be the same--in one word, it is Poverty, and this

means scarcity of food.

Let us now go into the kitchen and try and provide, with such knowledge

as dietetic science has given us, for a healthily hungry family of

eight children and father and mother. We must calculate that the man

requires 20 oz. of solid food per day, i.e. 16 oz. of carbonaceous or

strength-giving food and 4 oz. of nitrogenous or flesh-forming food.

(The army regulations allow 25 oz. a day, and our soldiers are recently

declared on high authority to be underfed.) The woman should eat 12

oz. of carbonaceous and 3 oz. of nitrogenous food; though if she is

doing much rough, hard work, such as all the cooking, cleaning, washing

of a family of eight children necessitate, she would probably need

another ounce per day of the flesh-repairing foods. For the children,

whose ages may vary from four to thirteen, it would be as well to

estimate that they would each require 8 oz. of carbonaceous and 2 oz.

of nitrogenous food per day: in all, 92 of carbonaceous and 23 oz. of

nitrogenous foods per day.[2]

[2] To those who have had experience of children’s appetites it may

seem as if their daily food had been under-estimated. A growing lad of

eleven or twelve will often eat more than his mother, but the eight

children, being of various ages, will probably eat together about this

quantity, and it is better, perhaps, to under- than over-state their

requirements.

For the breakfast of the family we will provide oatmeal porridge with

a pennyworth of treacle and another pennyworth of tinned milk. For

dinner they can have Irish stew, with 1¼ lb. of meat among the ten, a

pennyworth of rice, and an addition of twopennyworth of bread to obtain

the necessary quantity of strength-giving nutriment. For tea we can

manage coffee and bread, but with no butter and not even sugar for

the children; and yet, simple fare as this is, it will have cost 2_s._

5_d._ to feed the whole family and to obtain for them a sufficient

quantity of strength-giving food, and even at this expenditure they

have not been able to get that amount of nitrogenous food which is

necessary for the maintenance of robust health.

A little table of exact cost and quantities might not be

uninteresting:--

+--------------------------+-----------+--------------+-------------+

+--------------------------+-----------+--------------+-------------+

| PORRIDGE. | _s._ _d._ | oz. | oz. |

| 1¼ lb. Oatmeal | 2½ | 14 | 3 |

| 1½ pint Tinned Milk | 1½ | 2¼ | 1 |

| ½ lb. Treacle | 1½ | 7 | -- |

| | | | |

| 1¼ lb. Meat | 8 | 3½ | 3½ |

| 4 lb. Potatoes | 2½ | 14 | 2 |

| 1¼ lb. Onions | 1 | 5½ | 1¼ |

| A few Carrots | 1 | ¼ | -- |

| ½ lb. Rice | 1 | 7 | ½ |

| 1½ lb. Bread | 2¼ | 13½ | 2¼ |

| | | | |

| 2½ lb. Bread | 3¾ | 22½ | 3¾ |

| 2½ oz. Coffee | 2½ | ¼ | ¼ |

| 1½ pint Tinned Milk | 1½ | 2¼ | 1 |

| +-----------+--------------+-------------+

| Total | 2 5 | 92 | 18½ |

+--------------------------+-----------+--------------+-------------+

But note that the requisite quantities for the whole family are 92 oz.

of carbonaceous and 23 oz. of nitrogenous substances.

Another day we might provide them with cocoa and bread for breakfast;

lentil soup and toasted cheese for dinner; and rice pudding and bread

for tea; but this fare presupposes a certain knowledge of cooking,

which but few of the poor possess, as well as an acquaintance with the

dietetic properties of food, which, at present, is far removed from

even the most intelligent. This day’s fare compares favourably with

yesterday’s meals in the matter of cost, being 2½_d._ cheaper, but it

does not provide enough carbonaceous food, though it does not fall far

short of the necessary 23 oz. of nitrogenous substances.

+--------------------------+-----------+--------------+-------------+

+--------------------------+-----------+--------------+-------------+

| COCOA. | _s._ _d._ | oz. | oz. |

| 2½ lb. Bread | 3¾ | 22½ | 3¾ |

| 1½ oz. Cocoa | 1½ | ¾ | ¼ |

| 1 pint Tinned Milk | 1 | 1¼ | ½ |

| 2 oz. Sugar | ½ | 1½ | -- |

| | | | |

| 1½ lb. Lentils | 3 | 15 | 6 |

| 1 lb. Cheese | 8 | 4½ | 5½ |

| 1½ lb. Bread | 2¼ | 13½ | 2¼ |

| | | | |

| ¾ lb. Rice | 1½ | 10½ | ¾ |

| 1½ pint Tinned Milk | 1½ | 2¼ | 1 |

| 2 oz. Sugar | ¼ | 1½ | -- |

| 1½ lb. Bread | 2¼ | 13½ | 2¼ |

| +-----------+--------------+-------------+

| Total | 2 1½ | 86½ | 22¼ |

+--------------------------+-----------+--------------+-------------+

And how drear and uninteresting is this food compared to that on which

people of another class normally live! No refreshing cups of afternoon

tea; no pleasant fruit to give interest to the meal. Nothing but dull,

keep-me-alive sort of food, and not enough of that to fulfil all

Nature’s requirements.

But let us take another day’s meals, which can consist of hominy, milk,

and sugar for breakfast; potato soup and apple-and-sago pudding for

dinner; and fish and bread for tea; when fish is plentiful enough to

be obtained at 3_d._ a pound, and when apples are to be got at 1½_d._

a pound, which economical housekeepers know is not often the case in

London.

+--------------------------+-----------+--------------+-------------+

+--------------------------+-----------+--------------+-------------+

| SUGAR. | _s._ _d._ | oz. | oz. |

|1½ lb. Hominy | ¾ | 17¼ | 3¼ |

|3¼ pints Tinned Milk | 3¼ | 4½ | 2¼ |

|6 oz. Sugar | 1 | 4¼ | -- |

| | | | |

|5 lbs. Potatoes | 3½ | 17½ | 2½ |

|1½ pint Tinned Milk | 1½ | 2¼ | 1 |

|3 oz. Rice | ¾ | 2¼ | ¼ |

|3 oz. Dripping | 1½ | | -- |

|2½ lb. Apples | 3¾ | 5 | 1½ |

|6 oz. Sago | ¾ | 3¼ | ¾ |

|6 oz. Sugar | 1 | 4 | -- |

| | | | |

|2½ lb. Fish | 7½ | 1¼ | 7½ |

|2 lb. Bread | 3 | 18 | 3 |

|1½ pint Tinned Milk | 1½ | 2¼ | 1 |

|3 oz. Sugar | ½ | 2 | -- |

| +-----------+--------------+-------------+

| Total | 2 5 | 86 | 23½ |

+--------------------------+-----------+--------------+-------------+

Again, however, we have spent 2_s._ 5_d._ on food, and even now have

not got quite sufficient strength-giving or carbonaceous food.

An average of 2_s._ 4_d._ spent daily on food makes a total of 16_s._

4_d._ at the week’s end, leaving the labourer earning his 1_l._ a week

3_s._ 8_d._ with which to pay rent (and decent accommodation of two

rooms in London cannot be had for less than 5_s._ 6_d._ or 6_s._ a

week); to obtain schooling and lighting; to buy coals, clothes, and

boots; to bear the expense of breakages and necessary replacements; to

subscribe to a club against sickness or death; and to meet the doctor’s

bills for the children’s illnesses or the wife’s confinements. How is

it possible? Can 3_s._ 8_d._ do so much? No, it cannot; and so food

is stinted. The children have to put up with less than they need; the

mother ‘goes without sooner than let the children suffer,’ and thus the

new baby is born weakly and but half-nourished; the children develop

greediness in their never-satisfied and but partly fed frames; and

the father, too often insufficiently sustained, seeks alcohol, which,

anyhow, seems to ‘pick him up and hold him together,’ though his

teetotal mates assure him it is only a delusion.

And this is no fancy picture. I have now in my mind one Wilkins, a

steady, rough, honest, sober labourer, fairly intelligent, and the

father of thirteen children. The two eldest, girls of fourteen and

fifteen, are already out at service; but the eleven younger, being

under age, are still kept at school and supported by their father. He

earns 1_l._ regularly. They rent the whole house at 12_s._ a week,

and, letting off part, stand themselves at a weekly rent of 5_s._ for

three small rooms. Less than that, as the mother says, ‘I could not

nohow do with, what with all the washing for such a heavy family, and

bathing the little ones, and him coming home tired of an evening, and

needing a place to sit down in.’ The wife is a decent body, but rough

and uncultured; and as she is ignorant of the proper proportions of

nitrogenous and carbonaceous substance necessary for the preservation

of healthy life, as well as of the kinds of food in which they can be

best found, she feeds her family even less nutritiously than she could

do if she were better informed. Still the whole wage could only feed

them if it were all expended ever so wisely, leaving no margin for the

requirements already mentioned.

Take Mrs. Marshall’s family and circumstances. Mrs. Marshall is, to

all intents and purposes, a widow, her husband being in an asylum.

She herself is a superior woman, tall and handsome, and with clean

dapper ways and a slight hardness of manner that comes from bitter

disappointment and hopeless struggling. She has four children, two of

whom have been taken by the Poor Law authorities into their district

schools--a better plan than giving out-door relief, but, at the same

time, one that has the disadvantage of removing the little ones from

the home influence of a very good mother. Mrs. Marshall herself,

after vainly trying to get work, was taken as a scrubber at a public

institution, where she earns 9_s._ a week and her dinner. She works

from six in the morning till five at night, and then returns to her

fireless, cheerless room to find her two children back from school and

ready for their chief meal; for during her absence their breakfast and

dinner can only have consisted of bread and cold scraps. We will not

dwell on the hardship of having to turn to and light the fire, tidy

the room, and prepare the meal after having already done ten hours’

scrubbing or washing. The financial question is now before us, and

to that we will confine our thoughts. Out of her 9_s._ a week Mrs.

Marshall pays 3_s._ 3_d._ for rent; 2_d._ for schooling; 1_s._ for

light and firing (and this does not allow of the children having a

morning fire before they go to school); 9_d._ she puts by for boots and

clothing; and imagine what it must be to dress, so as to keep warm,

three people on 1_l._ 19_s._ a year! and 6_d._ she pays for her bits

of washing, for she cannot do them herself after all her heavy daily

work. (Pause, though, for a moment to consider how Mrs. Marshall’s

washerwoman must work when she does three changes of linen, aprons,

sheets, and a table-cloth for 6_d._ a week.)

Deduct from the 9_s._ weekly wage--

_s._ _d._

Rent 3 3

Schooling 2

Firing 1 0

Clothes 9

Washing 6

--------

5 8

and 3_s._ 4_d._ is left with which to provide breakfast and tea for a

hard-working woman for seven days in the week, dinner for Sunday, and

three meals daily for two growing children of ten and eleven. We have

seen how, even with economy, knowledge, strength, and time, proper food

cannot be obtained for less than 1_d._ or 1¼_d._ a meal, and this would

make a weekly total of 5_s._ 11¼_d._ 3_s._ 4_d._, with no time, with

little knowledge, and only the remnants of strength, which has been

used up in earning the 3_s._ 4_d._, is all Mrs. Marshall has with which

to meet these requirements.

And how do the rich look on these facts? ‘Well! nine shillings a week

is very fair wage for an unskilled working woman,’ was the remark I

heard after I had told these facts to mine host at a country house,

where we were eating the usual regulation dinner--soup, fish, _entrée_,

joint, game, sweets, and hot-house fruits, said with the complacency

of satisfaction which follows a glass of good wine. ‘Yes, about the

cost of your one dinner’s wine!’ replied one of the guests; but then he

was probably one of those ill-balanced people who judge people by what

they are rather than by what they have, and he may have thought that

the sad, lone woman, with her noble virtues of industry, patience, and

self-sacrificing love, had, despite her hard manners, more right to the

good things of this world than the suave old man owning fourteen acres

of lawn on which no children ever played, and stating, without shame,

first, the fact that he used eighty-two tons of coal yearly to warm his

own sitting-rooms, and then the opinion that 9_s._ a week was _fair_

wage on which to support a good woman and bring up two children.

While this wage is considered a ‘fair wage,’ the children must remain

half-nourished, and grow up incapable of honest toil and valuable

effort. While this wage is accepted as a right and normal thing, it

is useless to think that the nation will be guided through dangers

by means of heavy subscriptions to schools, to hospitals, and

sick-asylums. Robust health is impossible; so disease easily finds

a home, and teachers vainly try to develop brains ill supplied with

blood. By the doorway of semi-starvation disease is invited to enter

and find a home among the masses of our wage-earning people.

Before me are the dietary tables of the Whitechapel Workhouse--an

institution which stands (thanks to the self-devotion of its able

Clerk) high on the list for careful management and economical

administration. There are congregated the aged and infirm paupers,

and among them are some of Nature’s gentlefolk, the old and tired,

who, having learnt a few of life’s greatest lessons in their long walk

through life, ought to be giving them to the young and untried, instead

of wearying out their last days in the dull monotony of a useless and

regulated existence. Their dietary table allows them for breakfast and

supper one pint of tea (made of one ounce to a gallon of water) and

five ounces of bread and a tiny bit of butter. For dinner they have

meat three times a week, pea-soup and bread twice, suet pudding once,

and Irish stew on the other day. For the sake of comparison I will make

a food table of this diet, based on the same calculations of food value

as those that have been previously made for the family.

+----------------------------+-----------------------+--------------+

| Quantity of Food. | Carbonaceous | Nitrogenous. |

+----------------------------+-----------------------+--------------+

|BREAKFAST AND SUPPER--TEA, | | |

| BREAD, AND BUTTER. | oz. | oz. |

|10 oz. Bread | 5½ | ¾ |

|½ oz. Butter | ½ | -- |

|½ oz. Sugar | ½ | -- |

|⅛ pint Milk | less than ¼ | -- |

| | | |

|DINNER--MEAT AND POTATOES. | | |

|4 oz. Meat (cooked) | 1 | 1 |

|8 oz. Potatoes | 1¼ | ¼ |

|2 oz. Bread. | 1 | ¼ |

| +-----------------------+--------------+

| Total | 10½ | 2¼ |

+----------------------------+-----------------------+--------------+

Here we see that the total allowance comes only to 10½ oz. of

carbonaceous food and 2¼ oz. of nitrogenous food, against the estimated

quantity of 16 oz. carbonaceous and 4 oz. nitrogenous, which is

the necessary allowance for ordinary people, and against the 25 oz.

carbonaceous and 5 oz. nitrogenous, which is the regulation diet of the

Royal Engineers during peace. It is true that these old folk do not

need so much food, for their bodies have ceased to grow and develop,

and in aged persons the wear of the frame does not require such

replenishment as is the case with young and middle-aged people; but

even with this partial diet we find that the cost of maintaining each

of these old people is, for food alone, 3_s._ 11_d._ per head per week.

Here, then, we have a fact on which a calculation is easy to make, and

which, when made, forces us to see that the workman cannot keep his

family as well as the pauper is kept. Even on this simple fare it would

cost him close on 8_s._ a week to support himself so as to give him the

strength to earn his daily bread; while, if we imagine his family to

consist of a wife and six children, we find that his weekly food-bills

would amount to 1_l._ 8_s._, calculating his requirements on the same

basis as in the previous instances.

If we take, therefore, the case of a skilled workman earning his 2_l._

a week, we still find that, even when adequately fed (and keep in mind

the plainness and unattractiveness of the diet), he has only 12_s._ a

week to supply all other necessaries and out of which to lay by, not

only against old age and sickness, but against that ‘rainy day’ and

‘out of work from slackness’ which so often occur for weeks together in

the weather chart of our artisan population.

Or take another case, that of Mr. and Mrs. Stoneman, excellent folk:

the wife, a woman of such force and originality of character, such

patience and sweet persistency, as would make her an ornament in any

class; the husband an honest, steady man, not, perhaps, so clever as

his wife, but loving and admiring her none the less for that. They have

six children: the two eldest at work; the youngest a sweet tiny thing,

as spotlessly clean as water and care can keep it in this mud-coloured

atmosphere of Whitechapel. Her husband earns 23_s._ a week, excepting

when bad illness, lasting sometimes six and eight weeks, reduces his

wages to nothing; and then the sick man, his wife, and four children

have to live, pay rent, firing, and ‘doctor’s stuff’ on the club-money

of 14_s._ a week, for the boys’ earnings can only support themselves.

Which of us would consider that he could supply food and sick-luxuries

for even _one_ person on 14_s._ a week, the sum fixed by the rich as

board wages for an unneeded man-servant?

On the face of it this family is perhaps exceptionally well-off, for

the two big lads in it earn, the one 5_s._ the other 7_s._ a week,

which brings the united weekly wage up to 35_s._ a week. Mrs. Stoneman

is a friend of mine, and, in response to my request, she weighed all

the food at every meal, and here is the result.

At the time, however, that this was done Mrs. Stoneman’s children had

been sent by the Children’s Country Holiday Fund into the country for

a fortnight’s holiday. We must therefore suppose the family to consist

only of six, and the necessary quantity of food to sustain them in good

healthy working condition would be 76 oz. of carbonaceous food and 19

oz. of nitrogenous food.

SUNDAY MEALS.

+-----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------+

+-----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------+

| BUTTER AND FISH. | _s._ _d._ | oz. | oz. |

|1¼ lb. Bread | 2 | 11¼ | 1¾ |

|1½ oz. Butter | 1½ | 1 | -- |

|1 Haddock | 3 | -- | -- |

|½ oz. Tea | ¾ | -- | -- |

|2½ oz. Sugar | ¼ | 2 | ¼ |

|½ pint Tinned Milk | ½ | ¾ | ¼ |

| | | | |

|1 lb. 3 oz. Beef | 1 5 | 3¼ | 3¼ |

|3 lb. 10 oz. Potatoes | 2½ | 12¾ | 1¾ |

|1 lb. Beans | 2 | -- | -- |

|3 oz. Bread | ¼ | 1½ | -- |

|⅔ lb. Flour | 3 | 8 | ¾ |

|¼ lb. Lard | 2 | 3 | -- |

|1 lb. Apples | 2 | 2 | 1 |

|1⅓ oz. Sugar | ¼ | 1 | -- |

| | | | |

|¾ lb. Bread | 1¼ | 6¾ | 2¼ |

|2 oz. Butter | 2 | 1½ | -- |

|½ oz. Tea | ¼ | -- | -- |

|2½ oz. Sugar | ¼ | 2 | -- |

|½ pint Tinned Milk | ½ | ¾ | ¼ |

| | | | |

|1 lb. Bread | 1½ | 9 | 1½ |

|¼ lb. Cheese | 4 | 1 | 1¼ |

| +-----------+---------------+--------------+

| Total | 3 11½ | 67¾ | 14¼ |

+-----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------+

WEDNESDAY MEALS.

+-----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------+

+-----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------+

| BUTTER. | _s._ _d._ | oz. | oz. |

|2 lb. Bread | 3 | 18 | 3 |

|3¼ oz. Butter | 3¼ | 3 | -- |

|¼ oz. Tea | ½ | -- | -- |

|2 oz. Sugar | ½ | 1¾ | -- |

|½ pint Tinned Milk | ½ | ¾ | ¼ |

| | | | |

| 1 lb. Bacon | 6 | 3 | 3 |

| 2 lb. Potatoes | 1¾ | 7 | 1 |

| ¾ lb. Flour | 2 | 9 | ¾ |

| 2 oz. Suet | 1 | 1½ | -- |

| | | | |

| 3 lb. Bread | 4½ | 21 | 4½ |

| 2½ oz. Butter | 2½ | 2 | -- |

| ½ oz. Tea | 1 | -- | -- |

| 2½ oz. Sugar | ¾ | 2 | -- |

| ½ pint Tinned Milk | ½ | ¾ | ¼ |

| | | | |

| ¾ lb. Bread | 1 | 6¾ | 2¼ |

| 3 oz. Cheese | 1½ | ¾ | 1 |

| +-----------+---------------+--------------+

| Total | 2 6¼ | 77¼ | 16 |

+-----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------+

SATURDAY MEALS.

+-----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------+

+-----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------+

| BUTTER. | _s._ _d._ | oz. | oz. |

| 1½ lb. Bread | 2¼ | 13½ | 2¼ |

| 3 oz. Butter | 3 | 2¾ | -- |

| 3½ oz. Sugar | 1 | 3 | -- |

| 1 pint Tinned Milk | 1½ | 1¾ | ¾ |

| | | | |

| ¾ lb. Bread | 1 | 6¾ | 2¼ |

| ½ lb. Cheese | 4 | 2¼ | 2¾ |

| 1 pint Milk, Coffee | 1½ | 1¾ | ¾ |

| | | | |

| 2 lb. 4 oz. Bread | 3¼ | 20½ | 3¾ |

| 2½ oz. Butter | 2½ | 2 | -- |

| 2 Herrings | 2 | -- | -- |

| 2½ oz. Sugar | ¾ | 2 | -- |

| ½ pint Tinned Milk | ½ | 1 | ½ |

| | | | |

| 14 oz. Bread | 1¼ | 8½ | 1 |

| ¼ lb. Cheese | 2 | 1 | 1¼ |

| +-----------+---------------+--------------+

| Total | 2 2½ | 66¾ | 15¼ |

+-----------------------+-----------+---------------+--------------+

This is the food-table of one of the best of managers. It could not

well be simpler, and yet we see that it fails every day, sometimes

to the extent of one-third, in providing sufficient nitrogenous or

flesh-repairing food; but even so the cost for the three days makes a

total of 8_s._ 8½_d._, or, say, on an average, 3_s._ a day. Thus it

took 1_l._ 1_s._ a week to feed this family simply and wholesomely at a

time when two of its hungry members of eight and eleven were away. The

weekly rent to house it in two rooms takes 5_s._ 7_d._; to educate the

school-going members, 7_d._ a week must be paid; to keep the fire and

lights going (and this, of course, is more expensive than if the fuel

could be got in in large quantities) demands 2_s._ 6_d._ a week; and to

provide washing materials another 1_s._ must be deducted.

When these outgoings are met there remains but 4_s._ 4_d._ with which

to provide the food of the two then absent children, to pay club

subscriptions for three people (because each of the working members is

in a sick-club and burial club), to procure boots, clothes, and to lay

by against the days of illness, slackness, and old age.

Now these are the facts which, summed up in a sentence, amount to this,

that while wages are at the present rate the large mass of our people

cannot get enough food to maintain them in robust health, and bodily

health is here alone considered.

No mention has been made of the food a man requires to keep his whole

nature in robust health; of the books, the means of culture, the

opportunities of social intercourse, which are as necessary for his

mental health and development as food and drink are for his bodily.

No account has been taken of all that each human being needs to keep

his spiritual nature alive. The quiet times in the country or by the

sea, the knowledge of Nature’s mysteries, the opportunities for the

cultivation of natural affection. ‘Yes, it is seven years since me

and my daughter met,’ I heard a gentle old lady of sixty-nine say the

other day, one of God’s aristocracy, the upper class in virtue and

unselfishness. ‘You see, she lives a pretty step from here, and moving

about is not to be thought of when money is so scarce.’

The body’s needs are the most exacting; they make themselves felt with

daily recurring persistency, and, while they remain unsatisfied, it

is hard to give time or thought to the mental needs or the spiritual

requirements; but if our nation is to be wise and righteous, as well

as healthy and strong, they must be considered. A fair wage must allow

a man, not only to adequately feed himself and his family, but also

to provide the means of mental cultivation and spiritual development.

Indeed, some humanitarians assert that it should be sufficient to

give him a home wherein he may rest from noise, with books, pictures,

and society; and there are those who go so far as to suggest that it

should be sufficient to enable him to learn the larger lessons which

travellers gain from other nations, as well as the teaching which the

great dumb teachers wait to impart to ‘those with ears to hear’ of

fraternity, purity, and eternal hope.

Why is it that our wage-earners cannot get this? Why is it that, as we

indulge in such dreams, they sound impossible and almost impracticable,

though no reader of this Review will add undesirable? Is it because

our nation has not fought Ignorance, with pointed weapons, and by

its knights of proved prowess and valour? Or is it because our rulers

have not recognised the Greed of certain classes or individuals as a

national evil, and struggled against it with the strength of unity?

It cannot be the want of money in our land which causes so many to be

half-fed and cry silently from want of strength to make a noise. As we

stand at Hyde Park Corner, or wander in among the miles of streets of

‘gentlemen’s residences’ in the West End, our hearts are gladdened at

the sight of the wealth that is in our land; but they would be glad

with a deeper gladness if Wilkins was not getting slowly brutalised

by his struggle, if there were a chance of Alice and Johnnie Marshall

growing up as Nature meant them to grow, or if clever Mrs. Stoneman’s

patient efforts could be crowned with success. Money in plenty is in

our midst, but cruel, blinding Poverty keeps her company, and our

nation cannot boast herself of her wealth while half her people are but

partly fed, and too poor to use their minds or to aspire after holiness.

By the optimist we may be told that all mention of charitable aid

has been omitted; that in such a case as that of Wilkins, or of Mrs.

Marshall, there would be aid from the philanthropic; that old clothes

would do something to replenish the wardrobe, otherwise to be kept

supplied by 1_l._ 19_s._ a year; and that scraps and broken victuals

find their way from most back-doors into the homes of the poor. But,

though this may be true when the poor are scattered among the rich,

it is not true of that neighbourhood which I know best, where through

miles of streets the income of each resident does not exceed thirty

shillings a week, and where the four-roomed houses (as a rule, let out

to two or three families) are unrelieved by a single house inhabited

by only one family, or where they ‘keeps a servant.’

The advocates of children’s penny dinners may take these facts as

a strong argument in favour of their scheme, and feel that in this

simple method is the solution of the difficulty. But those who so think

cannot have considered the question in all its bearings. If feeding

the children enables us to limit the power of disease, it does so by

putting fresh weapons into the hands of the Greed of certain classes or

individuals, which is so ill-curbed and ineffectively conquered as to

be nothing loth to take advantage of every opportunity of working its

cruel will.

If the children are fed at school it enables the mother to go out

to work. The supply of female labour is thus increased, and married

women can offer their work at lower wages than widows or single ones,

because their labour is only supplementary to that of their husbands.

The consequence is that wages go down, because more women are in the

labour market than are needed, and those get the work who will take it

for the least remuneration. Thus, though Mrs. Harris may get work, her

children being ‘now fed by the ladies round at the school,’ she does

so at the expense of lowering Jane Metcalf’s wages; and, as Jane is

working to help her widowed mother to keep the four younger children

off the parish, the only result is that Tommie and Lizzie and the two

baby Metcalfs get worse food, and Jane finds life harder, and sometimes

sees temptation through magnifying-glasses.

Besides these economic results which must inevitably follow the plan of

feeding the children on any large scale, there are others which ensue

from the lightening of parental responsibility, and these everyone

who knows the poor can foresee without the gift of prophecy; the idle

father is made more idle, the gossiping mother less controlled, and

from the drunken parent is taken the last feeble bond which binds him

to sobriety and its hopeful consequences. But perhaps as important

as any of these results is the evil which follows the taking the

children from the home influence. In our English love of home is one

of our hopes for the future; and not the least conspicuous as a moral

training-ground is the family dinner-table. There the mother can teach

the little lessons of good manners and neat ways, and the larger truths

of unselfishness and thoughtfulness. There the whole family can meet,

and from the talks over meals, during the time which, as things now

are, is perhaps the only leisure of the busy mechanic, may grow that

sympathy between the older and younger people which must refresh and

gladden both. No; it is not by any charitable effort that this poverty

must be fought. A national want must be met by a national effort, and

the thought of the political economist, which has hitherto been devoted

to the question of production and accumulation of wealth, must now

turn its attention to the problem of its right use and distribution,

recognising that ‘the wise use of wealth in developing a complete human

life is of incomparably the greater moment both to men and nations.’

While more than half the English people are unable to live their

best life or reach their true standard of humanity, it is useless to

congratulate ourselves on our national supremacy or class our nation as

wealthy.

Some economists will reply that these sad conditions are but the

result of our freedom; that the boasted ‘liberty’ in our land must

result in the few strong making themselves stronger, and in the many

weak suffering from their weakness. But is this necessarily so? Is this

the only result to be expected from human beings having the power to

act as they please? Are not love, goodwill, and social instincts as

truly parts of human character as greed, selfishness, and sulkiness;

and may we not believe that human nature is great enough to care to use

its freedom for the good of all? Men have done noble things to obtain

this freedom. They have loved her with the ardour of a lover’s love,

with the patience of a silver wedded life; and now that they have her,

is she only to be used to injure the weak, and to make life cruel and

almost impossible to the large majority? ‘What is the right use of

freedom?’ The ancient answer was, ‘To love God.’ And can we love God

whom we have not seen when we love not our brother whom we have seen?

HENRIETTA O. BARNETT.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

II.

_RELIEF FUNDS AND THE POOR._[1]

[1] Reprinted, by permission, from the _Nineteenth Century_ of November

1886.

The poverty of the poor and the failure of the Mansion House Relief

Fund are the facts which stand out from the gloom of a winter when dark

weather, dull times, and discontent united to depress both the hopes of

the poor and the energy of their friends. The memory of days full of

unavailing complaint and of aimless pity is one from which all minds

readily turn, quieting their fears with the assumption that the poverty

was exaggerated or that the generosity of the rich is ample for all

occasions.

The facts, however, remain that the poor are very poor, and that the

fund failed as a means of relief; and these facts must be faced if a

lesson is to be learnt from the past, and a way discovered through the

perils of the future. The policies which occupy the leaders’ minds,

the interests of business, the theologies, the fashions, are but webs

woven in the trees while the storm is rising in the distance. Sounds

of the storm are already in the air, a murmuring among those who have

not enough, puffs of boasting from those who have too much, and a

muttering from those who are angry because while some are drunken

others are starving. The social question is rising for solution, and,

though for a moment it is forgotten, it will sweep to the front and

put aside as cobwebs the ‘deep’ concerns of leaders and teachers. The

danger is lest it be settled by passion and not by reason, lest, that

is, reforms be hurriedly undertaken in answer to some cry, and without

consideration of facts, their weight, their causes, and their relation.

The study of the condition of the people receives hardly as much

attention as that which Sir J. Lubbock gives to the ants and the wasps.

Bold good men discuss the poor, and cheques are given by irresponsible

benefactors; but there are few students who reverently and patiently

make observations on social conditions, accumulate facts, and watch

cause and effect. Scientific method is supreme everywhere except in

those human affairs which most concern humanity.

Ten years ago Arnold Toynbee demanded a ‘body of doctrine’ from those

who cared for the poor. He sought an intellectual basis for moral

fervour, and yet to-day what a muck-heap is our social legislation,

what a confusion of opinion there exists about the poor law, education

emigration, and land laws! All reformers are driving on; but what

is each driving at? Sometimes the same driver has aims obviously

incompatible, as when the Lord Mayor one day signs a report which

says that, ‘the spasmodic assistance given by the public in answer to

special appeals is really useless,’ and another day himself inaugurates

a relief fund by a special appeal.

One of the facts made evident last winter is the poverty of the poor,

and it is a fact about which the public mind is uncertain.

The working men when they appear at meetings seem to be well dressed in

black cloth, the statistics of trades-unions, friendly, co-operative,

and building societies show the members to be so numerous, and the

accumulated funds to be so far above thousands and so near to millions

sterling, that the necessary conclusion is, ‘There is no poverty among

the poor.’ But then the clergy or missionaries echo some ‘bitter

cry,’ and tell how there are thousands of working folk in danger of

starvation, thousands without warmth or clothing, and the necessary

conclusion is, ‘All the poor are poverty-stricken.’ The public mind

halts between these two conclusions and is uncertain.

The uncertainty is due partly to the vague use of the term ‘poor,’

by which is generally meant all those who are not tradespeople or

capitalists, and partly to an inability to appreciate the size of

London. The poor, it is obvious, form only a minority in the community,

and a minority suggests something unimportant, and notwithstanding the

size of London, it is regarded as a small and manageable body.

Last winter’s experience clears away all uncertainty, and shows that

there is a vast mass of people in London who have neither black coats

nor savings, and whose life is dwarfed and shortened by want of food

and clothing. In Whitechapel there is a population of 70,000: of these

some 20 per cent., exclusive of the Jewish population, applied at the

office of the Mansion House Relief Fund during the three months it

was opened. In St. George’s, East, there is a population of 50,000,

and of these 29 per cent. applied. Among all who applied the number

belonging to any trades-union or friendly society was very few.

In Whitechapel only six out of 1,700 applicants were members of a

benefit club. In St. George’s only 177 out of 3,578 called themselves

artisans. In Stepney 1,000 men applied before one mechanic came, and

only one member of a trades-union came under notice at all. In the

Tower Hamlets division of East London out of a population of 500,000,

17,384 applied, representing 86,920 persons. It may be safely assumed

that all in need did not apply, and that many thousands were assisted

by other agencies. The reports of some of the visitors expressly state

that the numbers they give are exclusive of many referred to the Jewish

Board of Guardians, the clergy, and other agencies, while numbers of

those who did apply either did not wait to have their names entered or

were so manifestly beyond the reach of money help that they were not

recorded among applicants. Especially noteworthy among the remarks of

the visitors is one, that all who applied would at any season of the

year apply in the same way and give the same evidence of poverty. ‘If

a fund was advertised as largely as this fund has been in summer, and

when trade was at its best, precisely the same people would apply.’ The

truth of the remark has been put to the test, and during the summer a

large number of those relieved in the winter have been visited, with

the result that they have been found apparently in like misery and

equally in need of assistance.

Of the poverty of those who made application there has been no

question. Some may have brought it on themselves by drink or by vice,

some may have been thriftless and without self-control; but all were

poor, so poor as to be without the things necessary for mere existence.

The men and women who crowded the relief offices had haggard and

drawn faces, their worn and thin bodies shivered under their rags of

clothing, and they gave no sign of strength or of hope. Their homes

were squalid, the children ill-fed, ill-clad, and joyless, their record

showed that for months they had received no regular wage, and that

their substance was more often at the pawnbroker’s than in the home.

Last winter’s experience shows that outside the classes of regular

wage-earning workmen, who are often included among ‘the poor,’ is a

mass of people numbering some tens of thousands who are without the

means of living. These are the poor, and their poverty is the common

concern.

Statistics prove what has long been known to those whose business lies

in poor places, and to them the reports of the increased prosperity

of the country have been like songs of gladness in a land of sorrow.

They know the streets in which every room is a home, the homes in which

there is no comfort for the sick, no easy-chair for the weary, no bath

for the tired, no fresh air, no means of keeping food, no space for

play, no possibility of quiet, and to them the news of the national

wealth and the sight of fashionable luxury seem but cruel satire. The

little dark rooms may bear traces of the man’s struggle or of the

woman’s patience, but the homes of the poor are sad, like the fields

of lost battles, where heroism has fought in vain. By no struggle and

by no patience can health be won in so few feet of cubic air, and no

parent dares to hope that he can make the time of youth so joyful as

to for ever hold his children to pleasures which are pure. The homes

of the poor are a mockery of the name, but yet how many would think

themselves happy if even such homes were secure, and if they were able

to look to the future without seeing starvation for their children

and the workhouse for themselves! One example will illustrate many.

The Browns are a family of five; they occupy one room. The man is a

labourer, London-born, quick-witted and slow-bodied, and, as many

labourers do, he fills up slack time with hawking; the woman takes

in her neighbours’ washing. Their room, twelve feet by ten feet, is

crowded with two bedsteads, the implements for washing, the coal-bin, a

table, a chest, and a few chairs; on the walls are some pictures, the

human protest against the doctrine that the poor can ‘live by bread

alone.’ The man earns sometimes 3_s._, often nothing, in the day; and

his wife brings in sometimes 6_d._ or 9_d._ a day, but her work fills

the room with damp and discomfort, and almost necessarily keeps the

husband out of doors. Both man and woman are still young, but they look

aged, and the children are thin and delicate. They seldom have enough

to eat and never enough to wear, they are rarely healthy, and are never

so happy as to thank God for their creation. Hard work will make these

children orphans, or bad air, cold, and hunger will make these parents

childless.

In the case of another family, where the wage is regular--the income

is 1_l._ a week--the outlook is not much brighter. Here there is the

same crowded room, for which 3_s._ a week is paid, the same weary,

half-starved faces, the same want of air and water. Here, too, the

parents dare not look forwards, because even if the income remains

permanent, it cannot secure necessaries for sickness, it cannot educate

or apprentice the children, and it cannot provide for their own old

age. No income, however, does remain permanent, and the regular hand is

always anxious lest a change in trade, or in his employer’s temper, may

send him adrift.

In the cases where there is drink, carelessness, or idleness everything

of course looks worse. The room is poorer and dirtier, the faces more

shrunken, and the clothes thinner. Indignation against sin does not

settle the matter. The poverty is manifest, and if the cause be in the

weakness of human nature, then the greater and the harder is the duty

of effecting its cure.