T. Briggs, labourer, one room, four children. Rent, 4s. No furniture; all sleep on floor. Daughter answered knock, absolutely naked; ran in and covered herself with a sack.
Mrs. Johnson, widow, one room, three children. Earnings, 6s. Rent, 3s. 6d.
W. Leigh, fancy boxmaker, two awful rooms, four children. Earnings, 14s. Rent, 6s.
H. Walker, hawker, two rooms, seven children. Earnings, 10s. Rent, 5s. 6d.
E. Thompson, out of work, five children. Living by pawning goods and clothes. Wife drinks. Rent, 4s.
G. Garrard, labourer, out looking for work, eight children. No income. Rent, 5s. 6d. Pawning last rags. No parish relief. Starving. Declines to go into workhouse.
These people may fairly be described as workers. They will accept employment if they can get it, but they positively refuse to go into the workhouse when they cannot. If they fail to get the rent together, they will go into a furnished apartment, i.e., a frightful hovel, with an awful bed, a broken table, and one chair in it. These places can be had by the night, and vary in price from sixpence to a shilling. They are largely used by the criminal classes, who do not care to accumulate household goods, which their frequent temporary retirements from society would leave at the mercy of others.
In the same district and in the same houses, mixing freely with their more honest neighbours, and quarrelling, fighting, and drinking with them, we find another class whose earnings are also precarious. I will quote one or two cases, as these people must be dislodged when the present buildings come down:
Mrs. Smith. Husband in gaol. One room, three children. She earns 6s. a week, and pays 2s. 6d. rent. The man has been away fourteen years for burglary. The day of his release he came home. (The manner in which the men coming from long terms of imprisonment find their wives is marvellous.) The woman gave him what money she had, and he went out at once and got drunk. In the evening he came back, quarrelled with his neighbour, and stabbed a woman in a fight. He was taken to the police-station, tried, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment.
F. Barker. One dreadful room, three children; father and mother both criminals. Have been getting three and six months at intervals for years. Sometimes both in gaol together. Their neighbours take the children and mind them till parents come out.