Round about a Pound a Week

by Mrs. Pember Reeves

To take an actual case of a one-room tenement. There are four children, all living. The man is a dusky, friendly soul who usually addresses an elderly visitor as “mate.” On first making his acquaintance, the visitor was so much struck by the brilliance of his teeth shining from his grimy face, that she ventured to express her admiration. “Yes, mate, an’ I tell yer why: ’cause I cleans ’em,” he answered delightedly, and after a short pause added, “once a week.” On one occasion the visitor, noticing that a slight pressure was needed on a certain part of the baby’s person, looked for a penny in her purse, found none, but was supplied by the interested father. The penny was quickly stitched into a bandage, and tied firmly over the required place. The next week saw the family in dire need of a penny to put in the gas-meter in order to save the dinner from being uncooked. At the moment of crisis a flash of genius inspired the father; the baby was undressed, the penny disinterred, and the dinner saved. The visitor, arriving in the middle of the scene, could but accept the position, sacrifice a leaden weight which kept the tail of her coat hanging as it should, and rebandage the baby.

The single room inhabited by this family is large—15 feet by 13 feet—and has two windows. Under the window facing the door is the large bed, in which sleep mother, father, and two children. A perambulator by the bedside accommodates the baby, and in the further corner is a small cot for the remaining child. The second window can be, and is, left partly open at night. At the foot of the bed which crosses the window is a small square table. Three wooden chairs and a chest of drawers complete the furniture, with the exception of a treadle machine purchased by the mother before her marriage on the time-payment system. The small fireplace has no oven, and open shelves go up each side of it. There are two saucepans, both burnt. There is no larder. On the floor lies a loose piece of linoleum, and over the fireplace is an overmantel with brackets and a cracked looking-glass. On the brackets are shells and ornaments. Tiny home-made window-boxes with plants in them decorate each window. The whole aspect of the room is cheerful. It is not stuffy, because the second window really is always open. The overmantel was saved for penny by penny before marriage, and is much valued. It gives the room an air, as its mistress proudly says.

Another family with eight children, all living, rent four rooms—two downstairs and two up. Downstairs is a sitting-room 10 feet by 12 feet. In it are a sofa, a table, four chairs, and the perambulator. A kitchen 10 feet by 10 feet contains a tiny table and six chairs. The cupboard beside the stove has mice in it. A gas-stove stands in the washhouse beside the copper. By it there is room for a cupboard for food, but it is a very hot cupboard in the summer. One bedroom with two windows, upstairs, has a large bed away from the window, in which sleep mother and three children. The baby sleeps in a cot beside the bed, and in a small cot under one window sleeps a fifth child. One chair and a table complete the furniture. In another bedroom, 10 feet by 8 feet, sleep two children in a single bed by night, and the father, who is a night-worker, and any child taking its morning rest, by day. The remaining child sleeps on the sofa downstairs, where the window has to be shut at night.

Another family with six children rent three rooms. The kitchen has the copper in it, and measures 12 feet by 10 feet. A table of 4 feet by 2 feet under the window, three chairs, a mantel-shelf, and a cupboard high up on the wall, complete the furniture. Food can be kept in a perforated box next the dust-hole by the back door. The room has a tiny recess under the stairs beside the stove, where stands the perambulator in the daytime, though it goes upstairs to form the baby’s bed at night. In one bedroom, 12 feet by 10 feet, is a big bed near the window, in which sleep father, mother, and one child, with the baby by the bedside. In another smaller room sleep four children under the window, in one bed. No other furniture.

It will be noticed that in none of the bedrooms are any washing arrangements. The daily ablutions, as a rule, are confined to face and hands when each person comes downstairs, with the exception of the little baby, who generally has some sort of wash over every day. Once a week, however, most of the children get a bath. In the family of eight children mentioned above, the baby has a daily bath in the washing-up basin. On Friday evenings two boys and a girl under five years of age are bathed, all in the same water, in a washing-tub before the kitchen fire. On Saturday nights two boys under eleven bathe in one water, which is then changed, and two girls of nine and twelve take their turn, the mother also washing their hair. The mother manages to bathe herself once a fortnight in the daytime when the five elder children are at school, and the father goes to public baths when he can find time and afford twopence.

A woman with six children under thirteen gives them all a bath with two waters between them on Saturday morning in the washing-tub. She generally has a bath herself on Sunday evening when her husband is out. All the water has to be carried upstairs, heated in her kettle, and carried down again when dirty. Her husband bathes, when he can afford twopence, at the public baths.

In another family, where there are four children in one room and only a very small washtub, the children get a bath on Saturday or Sunday. The mother manages to get hers when the two elder children are at school. The father, who can never afford a twopenny bath, gets a “wash-down” sometimes after the children have gone to sleep at night. “A bath it ain’t, not fer grown-up people,” explained his wife; “it’s just a bit at a time like.” Some families use the copper when it is built in the kitchen or in a well-built scullery. But it is more trouble to empty, and often belongs to the other people’s part of the house. All of these bathing arrangements imply a great deal of hard work for the mother of the family. Where the rooms are upstairs and water is not laid on, which is the case in a great many first-floor tenements, the work is excessive.

The equipment for cooking is as unsatisfactory as are the arrangements for sleeping or bathing. One kettle, one frying-pan, and two saucepans, both burnt, are often the complete outfit. The woman with 22s. a week upon which to rear a family may not be a professed cook and may not understand food values—she would probably be a still more discouraged woman than she is if she were and if she did—but she knows the weak points of her old saucepans, and the number of pennies she can afford to spend on coal and gas, and the amount of time she can allow herself in which to do her cooking. She is forced to give more weight to the consideration of possible time and possible money than to the considerations of excellence of cooking or extra food value. Also she must cook for her husband food which he likes rather than food which she may consider of greater scientific value, which he may dislike.

The visitors in this investigation hoped to carry with them a gospel of porridge to the hard-worked mothers of families in Lambeth. The women of Lambeth listened patiently, according to their way, agreed to all that was said, and did not begin to feed their families on porridge. Being there to watch and note rather than to teach and preach, the visitors waited to hear, when and how they could, what the objection was. It was not one reason, but many. Porridge needs long cooking; if on the gas, that means expense; if on an open fire, constant stirring and watching just when the mother is most busy getting the children up. Moreover, the fire is often not lit before breakfast. It was pointed out that porridge is a food which will keep when made. It could be cooked when the children are at school, and merely warmed up in the morning. The women agreed again, but still no porridge. It seemed, after further patient waiting on the part of the visitors, that the husbands and children could not abide porridge—to use the expressive language of the district, “they ’eaved at it.”