Page:London - The People of the Abyss.djvu/353

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THE HUNGER WAIL
295

cash payment of two shillings sixpence a week is also made to each resident officer and servant.' If the pauper has ample food, why does the officer have more? And if the officer has not too much, can the pauper be properly fed on less than half the amount?"

But it is not alone the Ghetto-dweller, the prisoner, and the pauper that starve. Hodge, of the country, does not know what it is always to have a full belly. In truth, it is his empty belly which has driven him. to the city in such great numbers. Let us investigate the way of living of a laborer from a parish in the Bradfield Poor Law Union, Berks. Supposing him to have two children, steady work, a rent-free cottage, and an average weekly wage of thirteen shillings, which is equivalent to $3.25, then here is his weekly budget:—

s. d.
Bread (5 quarterns) 1 10 
Flour (1/2 gallon) 0 4 
Tea (1/4 lb.) 0 6 
Butter (1 lb.) 1 3 
Lard (1 lb.) 0 6 
Sugar (6 lb.) 1 0 
Bacon or other meat (about 4 lb.) 2 8 
Cheese (1 lb.) 0 8 
Milk (half-tin condensed) 0 31/4
Oil, candles, blue, soap, salt, pepper, etc. 1 0 
Coal 1 6 
Carried forward 11 s. 61/4 d.