What is the chief cause you find precede the application for relief?—Excessive drink.
In respect to those trammels which it is described that the coal-whippers are in, what is the consequence as to their households? how do you find, when you visit those cases, that their houses are provided?—I would rather sleep in my coal-hole than in any of their hovels. I went into six houses yesterday, each house contains four rooms, and in some of those houses there were 30 souls. In the least house there were 17.
How many sleep in the same room?—In one room there were four widows and two children, in the most wretched place imaginable.
Are quarrels between man and wife frequent?—Yes; through drink.
Are separations frequent? Yes; separations through drink on the part of the wife.
How many cases have you of wives separated from their husbands in the same way? I have had 15.
The wives, then, have imbibed the habits of the husbands? Yes.
Is there no cleanliness on a Sunday? Oh dear, no!
No attendance to church? No.
As to the children, what is their condition? The children of most abject wretchedness. Those poor children are sent out to scour the streets, to pick up and do anything else they can; and not particular to thieving.