Thursday.—Dinner: What is left of stew and potatoes.
Friday.—Dinner: ½ lb. rashers (3d.), with potatoes given by mother.
Saturday.—Dinner: The other ½ lb. rashers, with potatoes given by mother.
A week’s budget runs thus:
| s. | d. | |
|---|---|---|
| Rent | 3 | 6 |
| Gas | 0 | 5 |
| Newspaper | 0 | 1 |
| Candle | 0 | 0¼ |
| Soap, 1d.; soda, ½d. | 0 | 1½ |
| Blacklead | 0 | 0½ |
| Paid off cradle | 0 | 6 |
| 4 | 8¼ | |
| s. | d. | |
| 9 loaves | 2 | 0¾ |
| 4 ozs. tea | 0 | 4 |
| 1 lb. sugar | 0 | 2 |
| 1 tin of milk | 0 | 3 |
| 4 ozs. butter | 0 | 3½ |
| 1½ lbs. meat | 0 | 9 |
| 3 | 10¼ |
It will be noticed that no coal appears. The time of year was summer, and the fire was never lighted during the thirteen weeks of their life on 8s. 6d. a week. The five pennyworth of gas was used entirely for cooking, and light was supplied by the farthing candle. The newspaper was their Sunday treat, and was read solemnly through from first column to last by both young people. It chronicled more murders and multiple births than any paper the visitor had ever seen. Mrs. T. would say in course of polite conversation: “Have you seen the news—five at a birth?” Then she would produce a picture of three nurses and two doctors, each holding a baby, and would murmur regretfully: “They’re most of ’em dead.”
The next case is that of a Mrs. X., a deserted wife, with three children under eight. Mrs. X. had “taken the law of” Mr. X., and there was “an order out against him” for 7s. a week. But as she was never able to make him pay it or any part of it, she had to exist with the three children on her earnings as an office cleaner in a large bank in the city, where she was paid 12s. a week. Unfortunately the bank was very far from her home, and she spent 2s. a week on fares, which sounds very extravagant, but it must be remembered that she went to her work twice a day. Her hours were six to nine in the mornings, and six in the evenings until finished. She rented a small room for 2s. 6d. a week until the sanitary authorities found her out, and obliged her to move into two smaller rooms at a rent of 4s. 6d. Owing to her lack of beds and bedding she and her three children were forced to sleep all in one bed in one of the two smaller rooms exactly as they did when she had but the one larger room. To mind the baby of two while she was at work morning and evening she paid a neighbour 1s. a week. Added to her regular wage of 12s. as office cleaner, she occasionally had a job on Saturdays, which brought her in 1s. more, so that her income sometimes amounted to 13s. a week.
Her menu ran as follows:
Sunday.—Breakfast: Half a loaf, margarine, and tea. Dinner: Sausages, 1 lb. (4d.), or “pieces” (4d.), potatoes, sometimes pot herbs, sometimes greens. Tea: Half a loaf, margarine, and tea.