A CO-OPERATIVE DEPOT. 151 



co-operative societies do not seem to do this, 

 and even the local Co-operative Store at Street 

 was not, on the occasion of my visit, a 

 customer of the Poultry Depot. 



Though there are signs of comparative 

 prosperity in the immediate neighbourhood of 

 Street, when once you get outside the sphere 

 of urban fellowship, life is lived here at a low 

 ebb. Wages are low, and many of the 

 cottages dotted about the Polden Hills and 

 Sedgemoor are unfit for human habitation. 

 Tubercular bacilli seems to have a permanent 

 home in many of them. The lias stone, 

 suitable as it is for the flooring of pigsties, is 

 hardly good enough with which to pave the 

 living-room of a human being. Rheumatism 

 and consumption are the rule and not the 

 exception, but it is not altogether to the paved 

 floors that this disease is traceable. The great 

 cause for consumption here is the lack of good, 

 nourishing food for the children of the 

 cottagers, for which the parents cannot be 

 blamed. It is the direct result of low wasres. 



So deeply rooted is consumption here, 

 and so alarmingly universal, that a local 

 association has introduced lady doctors and 

 outdoor shelters, which can be hired. It 



