TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 781 



2. The State of the Poor in 1795 and 1833. 

 By Geo. Herbert Sargant. 



The working classes only emerged from a state of semi-slavery towards the 

 end of the eighteenth century. The dwellings of the poor in the eio-hteenth 

 century especially defective in their fireplaces. Clothing, in the south mostly 

 bought from a shop, in the north made at home ; great thrift in the north in their 

 clothes and m using clogs. The unhappy conditions under which miners and 

 refiners, &c., worked ; also those who worked in cotton mills, especially children 

 Fever and small-pox .prevailed. Agricidtural wagea varied from 5s. or 6* a week 

 (Cumberland, Devon) to los. (Kent) ; the average put at 9s. Mechanics' wattes 

 varied from lOs. to 42s. ; average put at 16s. or 18s. The labourer with the smaller 

 income lived better than the mechanic ; their children often uneducated. Diet in 

 the north varied, including much barley, oatmeal, and vegetables ; in the south 

 almost exclusively wheaten bread. Prejudices in the south in favour of plain 

 bread diet. Beer drunk constantly in the south, occasionally in the north 

 Labourers could save; mechanics subscribed to friendly societies. The general 

 condition of labourers from 1760 to 1790 was better than it had ever been before • 

 but the scarcity of 1795 produced famine, for which no remedies were provided in 

 the poor-laws, which were administered by irresponsible overseers. Obiections 

 to raising wages. Expedients resorted to to cope with the distress. The 

 allowance system by scale, resulting in early marriages, idleness, and loss of inde- 

 pendence. Workhouses mostly hotbeds of vice, and extravagant in diet. Poor 

 when unemployed by parish, idle and vicious. Jobbery caused by payment of 

 cottage rents out of rates. Paupers were purposely dirty and ragged to extort 

 relief; children and sick relatives neglected. Pauperisation spreading towards the 

 middle classes. Reformation efiected by enforcing labour from the able-bodied 

 and rent and rates from the cottagers. The flourishing condition of the unsettled 

 and the independent labourer, and general improvement in the condition of the 

 working classes. Wages in 183.3 similar to those in 1886. 



3. The Insufficient Earnings of London Indiistri/, and specially of Female 

 Labour. By William Westgarth. 



The author commented on the striking fact that over a large section of regular 

 London industrial life the usual earnings were more or less insufficient to maintain 

 the earner. Female labour was especially under this disadvantage, because a 

 woman was more helpless as to the cheap shifts in straits than a man! He took as 

 a typical case the needlewomen of East London, a vast class of London's regular 

 industry, estimated to number over a quarter of a mdlion, and to averao-e, from a 

 long day's work, an earning per liead of only one shilUng a day. Now" probably 

 no man, certainly no woman in any way possible to her respectabihty, can live in 

 London on a shilHng a day, or 6s. a week. Then how does all this class live from 

 day to day and year to year ? Why, sad to say, they do not live ; they die— die 

 morally and physically. But quickly as the way is ever thus cleared, it is ever 

 refilled by the fresh _tide of victims. The ranks of these needlewomen are probably 

 the main source of London's great social evil, and a social revolution would result 

 from solving their problem. 



Well, if we cannot help them to a greater money earning, we may help to make 

 the little money they do earn go further. This is to be done by means of co-opera- 

 tion and the wholesale scale. The author went into this question, looking on the 

 one hand at all the possibilities of the cheapest housing and dieting, and consider- 

 ing, on the other hand, the habits and wants, and even the prejudices, of those we 

 aim to help, in case we attempted plans which, however economical, would not 

 practically work. Experience tended to abolish bedrooms in which individuals 

 or families were huddled together day and night, and to substitute sleeping 

 berths, somewhat as in ships' cabins, with their common saloon as the day accom- 

 modation. "^ 



