Round about a Pound a Week. Mrs. Pember Reeves
If the man with £2,000 a year paid one-third of his income in rent, rates, and taxes, he would pay £666 a year, while the man with £500 a year would pay £166, and they would both be better able to afford these sums than the poor man is able to afford his £20 16s. Allowing that each of them has a wife and four children to maintain, there would at least be enough left in both families to give sufficient nourishment to every member. Fewer servants might be kept, there might be less travelling, plainer clothes, and less saving, but enough to eat there would be. But the poor man, having no expenditure other than food which can be cut down, is obliged, in order to pay one-third of his income in rent, to cut down food.
The chief item in every poor budget is rent, and on the whole and roughly speaking it is safe to say that a family with three or more children is likely to be spending between 7s. and 8s. a week on rent alone. Why do they spend so much when, as we see, it must mean cutting down such a primary necessary as food?
To find the answer to this question, an analysis was made of the conditions of thirty-one families with three or more children who happened to come within the scope of the investigation. The analysis took the form of a comparison of the death-rate in those families as related to the number of children in each, the household allowance of each, and the amount paid in rent by each. Household allowance was chosen rather than wage, as being necessarily in closer touch with household expenditure than is the actual wage, from which a varying amount of pocket-money for the man is generally taken.
Amount paid in rent was chosen rather than number of rooms, because low rent, though often meaning fewer rooms, may quite as likely mean basement rooms, or unusually small rooms, or rooms in a very old cottage below the level of an alley-way. One good upstairs room may cost as much as a couple of dark and damp basement rooms, and, though that one room may mean horrible overcrowding for a family of five or six persons, it may nevertheless be a wiser and healthier home than the two-roomed basement, where the overcrowding would nominally be less. As a matter of fact, owing to insufficient beds and bedding, the whole family would probably sleep in one of the two basement rooms, and therefore the air space at night would be no more adequate than in one room upstairs, while bronchitis and rheumatism would be added to the dangers of overcrowding.
The percentages given in the little table on p. 26 are calculated approximately to the nearest whole number below.
It is interesting to note that, while the death-rate increases from nothing in the case of families with only three children to 40 per cent. and over in the case of families with ten or eleven children, the intermediate percentages do not follow in numerical order. Families with five children have a worse death-rate than families with six, seven, or eight.
In the same way, if you compare death-rates according to household allowances, the death-rate of families with between 20s. and 22s. a week is actually higher than that of families with less than 20s.
Thirty-one Families with Three or More Children taken within the Investigation.
Total of 186 children; 46 dead; death-rate, 24·7.
Arranged according to Number in Family.
| Number born in Each Family. | Number of Families. | Number Dead. | Approximate Death-rate. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per Cent. | |||
| 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | 9 | 6 | 16 |
| 5 | 3 | 4 | 26 |
| 6 | 5 | 6 | 20 |
| 7 | 4 | 6 | 21 |
| 8 | 5 | 10 | 25 |
| 10 | 2 | 8 | 40 |
| 11 | 1 | 6 | 54 |
Arranged according to Household Allowance.
| Allowance. | Number of Families. | Number of Children Born. | Number Dead. | Approximate Death-rate. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per Cent. | ||||
| Over 22/0 a week | 11 | 73 | 11 | 15 |
| 20/0 to 22/0 | 9 | 59 | 19 | 32 |
| Less than 20/0 | 11 | 54 | 16 | 29 |
Arranged according to Rent.
| Rent. | Number of Families. | Number of Children born. | Number Dead. | Approximate Death-rate. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per Cent. | ||||
| Over 6/6 | 12 | 72 | 9 | 12 |
| 6/0 to 6/6 | 7 | 39 | 7 | 17 |
| Less than 6/0 | 12 | 75 | 30 | 40 |
(See Appendix A, p. 42.)
When, however, the amount paid in rent is the basis of the arrangement, the death-rate rises from 12 per cent. to 40 per cent. as the rent gets less.
It is hardly necessary to point out that the death-rate is a rough-and-ready test, and not to be considered as a close indication. If it were practicable to use the general health of those alive as well as the death-rate, it would be far better. Also, of course, no one of the three arrangements