The Ruined Wives
Who does not remember the terrible rush for the last drop of drink when Prohibition seemed to be coming with the New Year? Long queues of women besieged the whisky shops in Glasgow. There were women of all ages, said the Daily Mail, tottering in grey hairs, young wives with babies in their arms, and men of the loafer type. “There was not a respectable citizen,” says the Mail, “who did not deplore this discreditable scene, but the remarks of passers-by provoked only torrents of insult.” The promise of the new year and the new Government, alas, was not fulfilled, and now in place of Drink Queues we have Food Queues. Let us see what drink is doing among our soldiers’ wives:
Of 3000 soldiers’ wives being cared for in South London, 2000 are splendid, while 1000 are sinking daily to lower and lower levels through drink.
Records of Shaftesbury Society
A soldier’s wife, with a separation allowance of 32s. 6d. a week, drank most of it away, ruined her home, neglected her children, and became a lunatic.
Records of Claybury Asylum
A young soldier’s wife, hitherto “quite an elegant type,” is rapidly becoming a drunkard. Women hitherto sober have not the courage to keep from women’s drinking parties, and young girls come out of factories and go to publichouses in little groups.
Records of Charity Organisation Society
Outside a public house in Dublin 15 small children were crying in the cold, waiting for their mothers. Ninety-four drunken women came out in 25 minutes. There were ten drunken soldiers, and two girls of 15 were thrown into the street hopelessly drunk.
Facts in “Irish Times,” April 20, 1915
In Dundee over 170 wives of soldiers gave way to drink last year, and cruelly neglected their homes.
Records of the N. S. P. C. C.
A soldier in the trenches received a letter from his little boy, which he sent to London with a pitiful appeal for help.
“Kindly do what you can for me and the well-being and welfare of my four beautiful children,” the poor soldier wrote. “I am enclosing a fearful letter I have received from my poor little lad, 14-1/2, the first and only letter I have received from him. Sir, I shall be most anxiously awaiting your reply, for this letter is the greatest blow I have ever received.”
This is the little boy’s letter:
Dear Dad: Just a line to let you know how everything is at home. Mother is drunk for a fortnight and sober for a week for months and months. I’ve stuck it now for seven months, and can’t stick it any longer. I tried to get into the Navy and passed all the tests, but mother would not sign the papers, for which I am sorry. If mum would sign I could go away to Portsmouth on Thursday, but she will not. At the present moment she is half drunk and keeps jawing me so that I could knife meself. I’ve lost my new job because mum would not wake me in the morning, and nothing for breakfast, and had to get mine and the children’s tea at tea-time. It pains me to write like this, but I can’t help it. I now seek your advice as to what to do. I hope you will enjoy Xmas, although there is not much hope for us. I now conclude with fondest love, X. Your heartbroken Son, Leslie.
A stream of nearly 15,000 men and women poured into 58 publichouses in Birmingham in less than four hours; over 6,000 were women. Into one house the people streamed at nearly 500 an hour.
Facts in “Review of Reviews,” October 1915
For months some wives of soldiers and sailors in Scotland were never really sober. “We have done our best,” says a worker among them, “going to their homes and doing all in our power, but it beats us.” In 23 families, with 178 children born, 61 were dead.
Facts told to Secretary for Scotland, July 1916
Will some Member of Parliament please ask
whether the ships that have brought in food for destruction by the drink trade could not have brought in a large proportion of the 3,500,000 tons of wheat now waiting for ships in Australia and the 2,000,000 tons waiting in Canada?