and the Foor Law. 
91 
chairs, and household clock, are in due time all tlieir own. Still 
they have not bought cheaply, and, while they owed the broker 
a bill for furniture hire, had a cogent reason for not disputing 
his price list. 
Tlie doctor's bill proves a heavy item, but the doctor is kind, 
and will wait til! they can pay him ; he will have a tolerable 
test of his kindness, 1 fear. In addition is the monthly call of 
the bagman-clothier for a contribution for a dress nearly worn 
out, but not nearly paid for; also of the bagman-shoemaker for 
boots in the same predicament. So that \Yhiit with the rent and 
fixed outgoings, as well as incidental ones, the wife has looked 
trouble in the face, and trouble has returned the gaze, an 'I 
stamped upon her countenance a careworn expression before she 
is one-and-twenty. There is also another confinement ap- 
proaching, and this time there will be less difficulty in obtaining 
union relief, for the ice was broken on a former occasion, and 
if their case was good then, it is better now. In the meantime 
my specimen has joined his sick and benefit club. He had 
heard of several which offered various advantages, but nothing 
so good, he thinks, as the Black Bear Club, and so thinks 
the landlord who manages the club, which holds its meetings 
every other Saturday night. The club shall be described in its 
place. It is sufficient here to state that its cost (not counting 
extraordinary charges, such as for more beer than that supplied 
under rules, the cost of "regalia," and of the club-day) averages 
9c?. a week, which is hard upon 2/. a year. This sum my specimen 
does contrive to pay, notwithstanding that the pinch of poverty is 
pretty sharp upon him at the time when his family comprises 
half a dozen little children, not one of whom is strong enough to 
be worth 6rf. a day as a perambulating scarecrow on the farm. 
Time passes on, and the boys are worth money. The eldest 
lad works like a man for a shilling a day, and eats like two men. 
The second, hardly ten years of age, is employed as sheep-boy, 
or else on the land at Qd. a day. 
The average weekly earnings and expenditure of the fainily 
are much as follows. We take the rate of living in a neighbour- 
hood where rents, fuel, and repairs run high, and wages are 
correspondingly high : — 
Income. 
Father, average wages . . 
Motlier, ditto 
Eldest \>oy (7 days a week) 
Second ditto 
s. 
14 
Expenditure. 
Rent 
Club 
Food 
School 0 6 
Fuel and lights 2 0 
s. d. 
3 0 
0 9 
16 6 
22 9 
