they wanted.  Now they lived in a little room in which there was not space ‘to swing a cat,’ and were without a single bite of food or bit of clothing, so that the baby when it came had to be wrapped up in an old shawl and the woman sent to the Infirmary.  The Sister in charge informed me that if they had them they could find employment for twice their strength of nurses without overlapping the work of any other charity.

The people with whom they deal are for the most part those who have a rooted objection to infirmaries, although the hospitals are much more used than was formerly the case.  The system of the Army is to make a charge of 6_s_. 6_d_. for attending a confinement, which, if paid, is generally collected in instalments of 3_d_. or 6_d_. a week.  Often, however, it is not paid, and the charge remains a mere formality.  She added that many of these poor people are most improvident, and make no provision whatsoever for these events, even if they can afford to do so.  The result is that the Army has to lend them baby garments and other things.

The Sister said in answer to my questions that there was a great deal of poverty in their district where many men were out of work, a number of them because they could find nothing to do.  She thought that things were certainly no better in this respect; indeed, the state of depression was chronic.  Owing to the bad summer of 1909, which affected the hop-picking and other businesses, the destitution that year was as great during the warm months as it usually is in the winter.

The poor of this district, she said, ’generally live upon fried fish and chips.  You know they cannot cook, anyway they don’t, and what they do cook is all done in the frying-pan, which is also a very convenient article to pawn.  They don’t understand economy, for when they have a bit of money they will buy in food and have a big feast, not thinking of the days when there will be little or nothing.  Then, again, they buy their goods in small portions; for instance, their coal by the ha’p’orth or their wood by the farthing’s-worth, which, in fact, works out at a great profit to the dealers.  Or they buy a farthing’s-worth of tea, which is boiled up again and again till it is awful-looking stuff.’

I asked her what she considered to be the main underlying cause of this misery.  She answered that she thought it was due ’to the people flocking from the country to the city,’ thereby confirming an opinion that I have long held and advanced.  She added that the overcrowding in the district was terrible, the regulations of the Public Health Authorities designed to check it being ‘a dead letter.’  In one case with which she had to do, a father, mother, and nine children lived in a room that measured 9 ft. by 9 ft., and the baby came into the world with the children looking on!