76 Environment and Efficiency 



" CLASS III. The families in this class are those whose 

 meals are apt to be irregular, either owing to a definite 

 shortage of food, which makes it necessary to go with- 

 out, or owing to a habit of eating whatever food is 

 obtainable at any hour of the day. There is still a 

 certain amount of cooked food. An example of this 

 class is, ' sometimes twopenny worth of meat and 

 potatoes, Quaker oats, bread and lard or dripping.' 

 Also, ' a turnip and some potatoes for dinner, sometimes 

 only bread ; meat and milk very rare,' &c. 



" CLASS IV. Here the food is definitely bad. It is irre- 

 gular and seldom, if ever, prepared. A diet of this 

 type consists of (i) ' mostly bread, tea, and scraps'; 

 (2) ' much bread, occasionally a halfpenny worth of 

 soup ' ; (3) * mostly bread, potatoes when they can be 

 afforded ' (York)." * 



Percentage of Children in each Class for each Group of Unions. 



Miss Williams remarks : "I think we may safely decide 

 that the children in Class IV. are all unsuitably, if not insuffi- 

 ciently fed. Bread and tea can never provide a suitable 

 or even a sufficient diet for growing children. And if we 

 regard the Unions investigated as a sample of the whole 

 country, this means that 15 per cent., or about 27,100 children, 

 are being fed on little else than bread and generally milkless 

 tea. This is not a really cheap diet. It is a poor one to 



1 Report on Children in receipt of Poor Relief, p. 61. 



