Saturday Meals.
| Quantity of Food | Cost | Strength- giving. | Flesh- repairing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breakfast—Bread and Butter. | s. d. | oz. | oz. |
| 1½ lb. Bread | 2¼ | 13½ | 2¼ |
| 3 oz. Butter | 3 | 2¾ | — |
| 3½ oz. Sugar | 1 | 3 | — |
| 1 pint Tinned Milk | 1½ | 1¾ | ¾ |
| Dinner—Bread and Cheese and Coffee. | |||
| ¾ lb. Bread | 1 | 6¾ | 2¼ |
| ½ lb. Cheese | 4 | 2¼ | 2¾ |
| 1 pint Milk, Coffee | 1½ | 1¾ | ¾ |
| Tea—Bread and Butter and Fish. | |||
| 2 lb. 4 oz. Bread | 3¼ | 20½ | 3¾ |
| 2½ oz. Butter | 2½ | 2 | — |
| 2 Herrings | 2 | — | — |
| 2½ oz. Sugar | ¾ | 2 | — |
| ½ pint Tinned Milk | ½ | 1 | ½ |
| Supper—Bread and Cheese. | |||
| 14 oz. Bread | 1¼ | 8½ | 1 |
| ¼ lb. Cheese | 2 | 1 | 1¼ |
| Total | 2 2½ | 66¾ | 15¼ |
This is the food-table of one of the best of managers. It could not well be simpler, and yet we see that it fails every day, sometimes to the extent of one-third, in providing sufficient nitrogenous or flesh-repairing food; but even so the cost for the three days makes a total of 8s. 8½d., or, say, on an average, 3s. a day. Thus it took 1l. 1s. a week to feed this family simply and wholesomely at a time when two of its hungry members of eight and eleven were away. The weekly rent to house it in two rooms takes 5s. 7d.; to educate the school-going members, 7d. a week must be paid; to keep the fire and lights going (and this, of course, is more expensive than if the fuel could be got in in large quantities) demands 2s. 6d. a week; and to provide washing materials another 1s. must be deducted.
When these outgoings are met there remains but 4s. 4d. with which to provide the food of the two then absent children, to pay club subscriptions for three people (because each of the working members is in a sick-club and burial club), to procure boots, clothes, and to lay by against the days of illness, slackness, and old age.
Now these are the facts which, summed up in a sentence, amount to this, that while wages are at the present rate the large mass of our people cannot get enough food to maintain them in robust health, and bodily health is here alone considered.
No mention has been made of the food a man requires to keep his whole nature in robust health; of the books, the means of culture, the opportunities of social intercourse, which are as necessary for his mental health and development as food and drink are for his bodily. No account has been taken of all that each human being needs to keep his spiritual nature alive. The quiet times in the country or by the sea, the knowledge of Nature’s mysteries, the opportunities for the cultivation of natural affection. ‘Yes, it is seven years since me and my daughter met,’ I heard a gentle old lady of sixty-nine say the other day, one of God’s aristocracy, the upper class in virtue and unselfishness. ‘You see, she lives a pretty step from here, and moving about is not to be thought of when money is so scarce.’
The body’s needs are the most exacting; they make themselves felt with daily recurring persistency, and, while they remain unsatisfied, it is hard to give time or thought to the mental needs or the spiritual requirements; but if our nation is to be wise and righteous, as well as healthy and strong, they must be considered. A fair wage must allow a man, not only to adequately feed himself and his family, but also to provide the means of mental cultivation and spiritual development. Indeed, some humanitarians assert that it should be sufficient to give him a home wherein he may rest from noise, with books, pictures, and society; and there are those who go so far as to suggest that it should be sufficient to enable him to learn the larger lessons which travellers gain from other nations, as well as the teaching which the great dumb teachers wait to impart to ‘those with ears to hear’ of fraternity, purity, and eternal hope.
Why is it that our wage-earners cannot get this? Why is it that, as we indulge in such dreams, they sound impossible and almost impracticable, though no reader of this Review will add undesirable? Is it because our nation has not fought Ignorance, with pointed weapons, and by its knights of proved prowess and valour? Or is it because our rulers have not recognised the Greed of certain classes or individuals as a national evil, and struggled against it with the strength of unity? It cannot be the want of money in our land which causes so many to be half-fed and cry silently from want of strength to make a noise. As we stand at Hyde Park Corner, or wander in among the miles of streets of ‘gentlemen’s residences’ in the West End, our hearts are gladdened at the sight of the wealth that is in our land; but they would be glad with a deeper gladness if Wilkins was not getting slowly brutalised by his struggle, if there were a chance of Alice and Johnnie Marshall growing up as Nature meant them to grow, or if clever Mrs. Stoneman’s patient efforts could be crowned with success. Money in plenty is in our midst, but cruel, blinding Poverty keeps her company, and our nation cannot boast herself of her wealth while half her people are but partly fed, and too poor to use their minds or to aspire after holiness.
By the optimist we may be told that all mention of charitable aid has been omitted; that in such a case as that of Wilkins, or of Mrs. Marshall, there would be aid from the philanthropic; that old clothes would do something to replenish the wardrobe, otherwise to be kept supplied by 1l. 19s. a year; and that scraps and broken victuals find their way from most back-doors into the homes of the poor. But, though this may be true when the poor are scattered among the rich, it is not true of that neighbourhood which I know best, where through miles of streets the income of each resident does not exceed thirty shillings a week, and where the four-roomed houses (as a rule, let out to two or three families) are unrelieved by a single house inhabited by only one family, or where they ‘keeps a servant.’