Page:Lectures on Housing.djvu/33

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
AT RENTS THEY CAN AFFORD TO PAY
21

is nothing doing here to-day, I'm off." And he goes back to work in his garden, instead of hanging about the docks and fighting almost like a wild beast with other men for the few jobs that turn up. He has two occupations; he is a docker and he is a gardener. Again, many a bricklayer whose work is in Brussels never goes near the town in the winter time. He too, works at his garden, and leaves what bit of bricklaying there is in Brussels to his mate who lives there. Like the docker, he has two trades—an enormous advantage when work is scarce. Instead of walking up and down the streets—and there is nothing on God's earth that drags a man down faster than unemployment—instead of going pathetically from factory to factory asking for a job, he tills his bit of land. He may have to live for a time on potatoes, and a bit of bacon and greenstuff, but he does not starve, and he is ten times better off than his mate in the town. I was amazed, in Belgium, to see how the hardships of unemployment were mitigated