All of which is hard enough.  But the thing happens; the husband and father breaks his leg or his neck.  No 4.5d. a day per mouth for food is coming in; no halfpennyworth of bread per meal; and, at the end of the week, no six shillings for rent.  So out they must go, to the streets or the workhouse, or to a miserable den, somewhere, in which the mother will desperately endeavour to hold the family together on the ten shillings she may possibly be able to earn.

While in London there are 1,292,737 people who receive twenty-one shillings or less a week per family, it must be remembered that we have investigated a family of five living on a twenty-one shilling basis.  There are larger families, there are many families that live on less than twenty-one shillings, and there is much irregular employment.  The question naturally arises, How do they live?  The answer is that they do not live.  They do not know what life is.  They drag out a subterbestial existence until mercifully released by death.

Before descending to the fouler depths, let the case of the telephone girls be cited.  Here are clean, fresh English maids, for whom a higher standard of living than that of the beasts is absolutely necessary.  Otherwise they cannot remain clean, fresh English maids.  On entering the service, a telephone girl receives a weekly wage of eleven shillings.  If she be quick and clever, she may, at the end of five years, attain a minimum wage of one pound.  Recently a table of such a girl’s weekly expenditure was furnished to Lord Londonderry.  Here it is:-

s.   d. 
Rent, fire, and light 7    6
Board at home         3    6
Board at the office   4    6
Street car fare       1    6
Laundry               1    0
Total                18    0

This leaves nothing for clothes, recreation, or sickness.  And yet many of the girls are receiving, not eighteen shillings, but eleven shillings, twelve shillings, and fourteen shillings per week.  They must have clothes and recreation, and—­

   Man to Man so oft unjust,
   Is always so to Woman.

At the Trades Union Congress now being held in London, the Gasworkers’ Union moved that instructions be given the Parliamentary Committee to introduce a Bill to prohibit the employment of children under fifteen years of age.  Mr. Shackleton, Member of Parliament and a representative of the Northern Counties Weavers, opposed the resolution on behalf of the textile workers, who, he said, could not dispense with the earnings of their children and live on the scale of wages which obtained.  The representatives of 514,000 workers voted against the resolution, while the representatives of 535,000 workers voted in favour of it.  When 514,000 workers oppose a resolution prohibiting child-labour under fifteen, it is evident that a less-than-living wage is being paid to an immense number of the adult workers of the country.

I have spoken with women in Whitechapel who receive right along less than one shilling for a twelve-hour day in the coat-making sweat shops; and with women trousers finishers who receive an average princely and weekly wage of three to four shillings.