Round about a Pound a Week

by Mrs. Pember Reeves

Mr. B., whose home was visited part of 1911 and all 1912, was a printer’s labourer, and brought his wife 28s. a week every week during the investigation. He had been in the army, and fought all through the South African War. He seemed to be a strong man. His wife was one of the few fairly tall women that were visited. She had been strong, but was worn out and very dreary. There were eight children, all undersized, and increasingly so as they went down the family. The ex-baby was a shrimp of a boy, only eleven months old when the baby—another boy—was born. The third youngest was a girl, and was so delicate that neither parent had expected to rear her. She weighed less than many a child of a year old when she was two and a half. The chief characteristics of these three youngest children were restlessness, diminutiveness, and a kind of elfin quickness. The baby, which was a normal child weighing 7 lbs. at birth, caught the inevitable measles and whooping-cough at four months and six months, and at a year weighed just 15 lbs. He could say words and scramble about in an extremely active way—so much so that his harassed mother had to tie him into the high chair at an earlier age than most children of his class. The eyes of all the children in this family needed daily attention, and showed great weakness. The eldest girl was supplied with spectacles at school, for the payment of which 2d. a week appeared for months in the mother’s budgets. There was no specific disease. The children were stunted by sheer force of circumstances, not, so far as could be ascertained, by heredity. The sleeping was extremely crowded, and the food allowance averaged 1s. 2½d. a week, or 2d. a day for the mother and children.

A third family is interesting for the reason that the mother firmly believed in enough to eat, and, being a particularly hard-working, clean woman, she could not bear to take dark underground rooms or to squeeze her family of seven children into a couple of rooms. She solved her problem by becoming a tenant of the Duchy of Cornwall estate. She got four tiny rooms for 8s., and kept them spotless. Her husband, who was a painter’s labourer and a devoted gardener, kept the tiny strip of yard gay with flowers, and kept the interior of the damp, ill-contrived little house fresh with “licks of paint” of motley colours and patches and odds and ends of a medley of papers. When work was slack, Mrs. C. simply did not pay the rent at all. As she said: “The Prince er Wales, ’e don’t want our little bits of sticks, and ’e won’t sell us up if we keeps the place a credit to ’im.” She seemed to be right, for they owed a great deal of rent, and were never threatened with ejection. She explained the principle on which she worked as follows: “Me and my young man we keeps the place nice, and wen ’e’s in work we pays the rent. Wen ’e’s out er work in the winter I gets twenty loaves and 2 lbs. er sixpenny fer the children, and a snack er meat fer ’im, and then I begins ter think about payin’ th’ agent out er anythink I ’as left. I’d be tellin’ a lie if I said I didn’t owe a bit in the rent-book, and now and agen th’ agent gets a shillin’ er two extra fer back money, but ’e carn’t ’elp seein’ ’ow creditable the place is. That piece er blue paper looks a fair treat through the winder, so ’e don’t make no fuss.” The house they lived in, and many like it, have been demolished, and a number of well-built houses are appearing in their stead. The Lambeth people declare that the rents have gone up, however, and that the displaced tenants will not be able to return, but this rumour has not been inquired into. What happened to the C.’s overdraft when they were obliged to turn out is not known. The children of this family were short and stumpy, but of solid build, and certainly had more vigour and staying-power than those of the two other families already mentioned in this chapter. The baby flourished. She weighed 7 lbs. at birth, and at one year she weighed 18 lbs. 10 ozs. She could drag herself up by a chair, and say many words. The system of feeding first and paying rent afterwards seemed to be justified as far as the children were concerned.

Another woman who lived in “the Duchy,” as they all call it, and whose house has since been demolished, had not the temperament which had the courage to owe. She paid her 8s. for rent with clockwork regularity, and fed her husband and four children and herself on a weekly average of 8s. 6d. a week. The average for herself and the children worked out at 1s. a week, or less than 2d. a day. All four children were very delicate. The baby, who weighed 8½ lbs. at birth, weighed 16 lbs. 8 ozs. at one year. The ex-baby suffered from consumption of the bowels, and was constantly in and out of hospital. The two elder children were tuberculous. The father was a printer’s labourer, and appeared to be fairly strong, though a small man. The mother was delicate and worn, but seemed to have no specific disease.

Some of the children in the different families had strong individuality. Emma, aged ten, stood about 4 feet 6 inches in her socks. Four years later, when she began to earn by carrying men’s dinners backwards and forwards to them at work, she measured 4 feet 10 inches. At ten she was a queer little figure, the eldest of six, with a baby always in her arms out of school-hours. She was not highly intelligent, but had a soothing way with children. Her short neck and large face gave the impression of something dwarf-like. But she was sturdy and tough to all appearance, and could scrub a floor or wring out a tubful of clothes in a masterly way. She had a dog-like devotion for a half deaf, half blind little mother, who nevertheless managed to keep two rooms, a husband, and six children in a state of extraordinary order, considering all things. When Emma’s school shoes were worn out, her mother took them over and wore them till there was no sole left, and Emma was provided with a “new” fifth-hand pair, which were generally twice too big. Emma’s mother found her a great comfort, and very reluctantly sent her to work in a factory at the age of fifteen. There she earned 6s. a week, and became the family bread-winner during the frequent illnesses of her father.

Lulu was ex-baby to the deserted wife, and was three years old when her mother was visited. She was a lovely child with brilliant dark eyes and an olive skin. She had round cheeks, which never seemed to lose their contour, though their poor little owner spent many weary weeks in hospital after four different operations for a disease which the visitor only knew by the name of “intersections,” pronounced by Lulu’s mother with awe and respect. Lulu would be playing, and suddenly she would be seized with violent pain and be hurried off in her mother’s arms to the hospital. The visitor was present on one of these occasions, when it seemed as though the whole street knew exactly what to do. One neighbour accompanied the mother and child, one took over the baby, another arranged with a nod and a word to take the mother’s place at work that afternoon, and in two minutes everything was settled. Lulu came out of hospital four weeks later, with pale but still round cheeks and a questioning look in her eyes which gave a pathetic touch to the baby face. She still lives—the very idol of her mother—to whom the two boys are as nothing in comparison.

Dorothy, a person of two and another ex-baby, was devoured with a desire to accompany her elder brothers and sisters to school. She was a fair, thin child, with bright blue-grey eyes and straight, wispy tow-coloured hair. Her tiny body was seething with restlessness and activity. She spent her days in a high chair, from which place she twice a day shrieked and wailed a protest when the elder, happier ones started for school. She was quick as a needle, and could spend hours “writing pictures” on a piece of paper with a hard, scratchy lead pencil. She had no appetite, and had to be coaxed to eat by promises, rarely fulfilled, of taking her for a walk as soon as mother’s work was done. She slept in the chair during the day, as her mother declared it was not safe to have her up stairs on the bed or she would be out the window or down the stairs directly she woke. She simply hated the baby, another girl, which had condemned her to second place and comparative neglect. At three, she was kindly allowed a place in a school near by, and her health visibly improved from that moment. She became almost pretty.

’Erbie was of an inquiring turn, and during fifteen months’ visiting had at different times managed to mangle his thumb, fall into the mud of the river at low tide, and get lost for ten hours, and be returned by the police. He was excessively sorry for himself, on each occasion, while his diminutive mother took the catastrophies with infinite calm. He was eight years old and a “good scholar.” Physically he was a small nondescript person, thin, and fair, and colourless, with neat features and a shrill voice, which penetrated into the core of the brain.

Joey had a tragedy attached to him, which clouded a portion of his days. He was guilty of telling a “boomer” to his parents. He said that he had been moved out of the infant school into the boys’ school when he hadn’t. One day his mother accompanied him to the school gate because it was raining, and she was protecting him with the family umbrella. Then the horrid truth was discovered, as the entrance for boys is in a different street to that for infants. Joey urgently declared that he had only been “kidding” his parents, and that when they were so wildly delighted and took his news so seriously he had not had the courage to tell them it was “kidding.” The net result was gloom and disgrace, which floated round Joey’s miserable head for many days. In the middle of this awful time he was moved, and the strained atmosphere was consequently relieved. He distinguished himself in his new class, however, by his answer to a question his teacher put to him as to the origin of Christmas Day. “You get a bigger bit of meat on yer plate than ever you seen before,” he replied, and after a pause he added, “and w’en ’E dies you gets a bun.” The teacher had called round to complain of this way of looking at things, and Joey was in deep disgrace again. He was a nice, chubby thing, with earnest ways and some imagination. His “boomer” preyed on him, and made him thin and anxious till the climax was over. The second offence worried him not at all. He was the pride and delight of two very simple and devoted parents. His two little sisters, both younger than himself, were extremely attached to him.

Benny was twelve and very, very serious. He was the boy who, without telling a soul of his plan, offered himself to the milkman as a boy who would leave milk on doorsteps. He earned 2s. 6d. a week for the job, and faithfully performed the duties for some weeks, till a man who kept a vegetable shop offered him the same money for hours which suited him better, and he changed his trade. He was a very small boy for his age, and had a grave, thin face with inflamed eyes. An overcoat, presented because the visitor could not bear to think of his doing his round in the rain and sitting all day at school afterwards in his wet clothes gave him the keenest flash of pleasure he had ever felt. He turned scarlet and then went white. He had a resolute mouth and a quiet voice and no constitution.

There is one little picture which must be described, though the child and its mother were unknown. The visitor in Lambeth Walk met a thin, decent woman carrying a pot of mignonette. By her side, a boy about seven years old was hopping along with a crutch under one arm. His other arm encircled a pot in which was a lovely blooming fuchsia, whose flowers swung to his movements. The woman was looking straight ahead with grave, preoccupied eyes, not heeding the child. His whole expression was one of such glorified beatitude that the onlooker, arrested by it, could only feel a pang of sharpest envy. They went on their way with their flowers, and round the next corner the visitor had to struggle through a deeply interested crowd, who were watching a man being taken to prison.