The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-11-23 00:00:00

A FARM LABOURER'S BALANCE•
SHEET.
An " East Sussex Incumbent" has sent the follow
log letter to The Times for publication
" •

If the following balance-sheet will help one half of the
world to know In any degree how some of the other half live,
It. details may possibly Ise Si worthy the space which they
will occupy as the balance-sheet of some huge bankruptcy
which you occasionally publish.
- • • - •

My informant lithe wife of a !abeam in my parish. She
is a permanent invalid, unable to earn a penny in any way,
but • thoroughly clever =loam Were it w t tor her Ill-
ness the two Items of weekly charity would, of course, have
no place in the lilt.
The detail. themselves have been more than once chal-
lenged by parbh officers and others, and have always been
plumed as scrupuloutly correct.
There were, when I got the Information, six children, the
eldest aged 14. Their nutted earnings for the year amounted
to Ell Iss.

Income per wook.—Husband'a day wages, 13s. 6d. ; wife
allowed by a friend IL ; pariah allowanco of Hour, 2s. , total,
ILL 61.

. _
Outgoings; per week.—Rent, On. ; 7 gallons of floor, 7s. :
21b. of Dutch cheese Is 3d. ; lib. of butter, Is 4d ; Ob, of
soap 2d. soda and blue, Id. ; salt and pepper, d.; 106. of
candles, lop. 200, of tea, 4d ;Ilk of mar, 7d. ; schooling,
7d ; cotton, mustard, &c, Si. ; milk, 3d. ; washing, Is. ;
mangling, 14. ; total, 15s. 100.
Extra earnings per annum.—lloppicklng (daughter), LI ;
acorns picked up, 15s. ; hop tying, El ; five days' barred,
over and above day waves. El 54. ; bop drying, over and above
day wages, FA oa. ; mowing, over and above day wages, £2;
profit on two pig, £l.—Total, £lO 13s. Add weekly income,
£42 186.—Orand total, £53 48.
_ Extra ,)

---e outgoings per snnum.—Benellt club, £1; daughter's
Benefit club, ss. Id. ; daughter's boots. 125. ; husband's
boots, 125. ; five children's boots, £1 10$. faggots, £2; extra
food for husband in hop drying, 10s. ; husband's clothes, El ;
tools, 75.—E8 44. ; add weekly outgoings, £4l fis. 6d.—total,
.£49 Is, ed.—and there is a balance of RS 145. es& per annum
for coals and meat, and for clothing for the wife and children.
The margin for wet days and drink for the labourer him-
self is not large.

Tht Tinted has the following leader on the above :
Wit*behind intention of helping half the world to team how
some of the remaining half manage to live, "Au Bast Sussex
Incumbent" sends us a short and simple balanceeheet, more
usefu Ito the mass of our readers, he thinks, than ff it were
the statement of some huge bankruptcy. We agree with him
in the opinion that, on public as well as on private grounds,
it greatly concerns all of as to know how labour lives,
and how the people we are all so apt to think incapable
of self-management do yet manage to exist, to look fairly
well and content, and to bring up large families. They
certainly achieve what their betters often fail to accomplish
with Incomparably greater opportunities and powers. How,
then, do they manage it? submitting to the teaching of
Nature and the rule of necessity. If a labourer can only
restrain his appetite and get with his money just what he
wants, nothing else than he wants, and no more than he
wants, Nature will de the rest for him. The figures of
necessity are almost universal and stereotyped, within a
considerable range of time and place. Though our cone-
spondent seems to think his balance-sheet a novelty—in-
deed, something like a discovery, it wonderfully tallies with
a whole fagot of like balance-ateets before us, gathered
from Informants forty years ago in a south-midland county.
Bread, of course, 15 a large and, as regards price, a ductuat-
hie Item , but the rule is a gallon of flour for each member of
the family above Infancy. If • grown-up person, or a fast-
growing person, has to depend chiefly on bread, he will eat
about one quarter, or 64 gallons a year. The average, how-
ever, le about • pound weight • day—that la, a gallon a week.
In the example given the family consists of a man. an invalid
wife, and six children, the eldest 14. Here, then, are seven gal-
lons, or 7s. a week. Then come two pounds of Dutch cheese
—most of it for the father, we suppose—a good basis for
physical, though not se good for mental exertion. Than
a pound of butter, costing now more than the two pounds of
cheese, chiefly for the mother and the children, who under-
stand by bed times supping on bread without butter. A
pound and a half of candles, costing Nil., ie a good deal to
, pay for darkness made viable, Schooling stands for 7d. ;
washing, including mangling, for Is. id.; soap, 2d. ; soda
and blue, id.; salt and pepper, a halfpenny ; two ounces of
tea, 4d. ; two pounds of sugar, 7d.: cotton, mustard, dec.,
3d. ; the weekly total, 15s. 10fd. All this is for rent, food,
and schooling, before we come to clothing, to fuel, to drink,
to extras, or casual expenses.
But this, as our correspondent states at once, Is an excep-
tional case. The mother cannot earn a penny, but in, on the
other hand, dowribed as • clever manager. She is, we sup-
pose, a strict disciplinarian, for the msaagement shown in
this balanceeheet is of the ordinary sort. In many parts
of Eng:and it is assumed that the mother, either by field
work, or by helping at the farm-house, or by needlework or
some handicraft, can earn about three shillings a week, and
with that clothe herself and all the children too young for
w rk. In the case before us the mother, being a per-
manent invalid, receives charitable assistance to that extent
without having to leave her family. On the other hand,
it appears that she has to put out her washing. Our cone'
spondent by the way, ought to have told us why the girl of
fourteen can earn nothing, and do nothing, except at hop-
picking audio the acorn season. Then we are told why the
rent 1e25 per week. It most be because there is a good
garden with It ; yet, unlees this be implied in the profitable
keeping of pigs, there is no mention of that addition to the
household resources. The pigs are set down as an annual
profit of £l. If that be all, they are not worth the trouble,
the Pulse', ce, the temptations, and the risk—all Important
considerations—and we are left to ask why the pigs are not
eaten on the premises. The milk account is very small for a
family. On the other hand, taking all the year round, and with
the use of lamps, light need not cost nearly a shilling a week.
Then, In the old accounts before us we find lard used to
econoniize butter, not to speak of "dripping,' which is not
always to be found. Sugar and tea are tow very much
cheaper than they were forty ye,.ra ago. Oil the whole,
mo-t of our readers will think this is very poor living for a
family of eight persons. including an invalid mother and a
growing girl. But there is a good deal more to be added on
the side of outgoings. The man's clothing, including his
boots, and the boots of the children, lion the old scale of ample
necessity, costing about what they would forty years ago. ,
For a hardworking man 2:s a year for clothes and 120. for
boots seems very little ; but it Is possible, for it is fact,
and a very extensive fact. Firing, in the form of fagots.
stands at £2, which is not much, compared with the cost of
fuel In some parts of England. The estimated earning., in-
cluding all extras, are £O3 45. ; the estimated outgoings, in-
cluding many extras, are £49 95. ed., leaving a oalance of
£3 14s. 6d. for coals aud meat, and for clothing for wife and
children, which, one Is disposed to add. is impossible. It
must be seen that this statement, on the face of it. indicates
either a larger amount of assistance from kind neighbours
than our clerical friend will acknowledge, or points to ulti-
mate bankruptcy as far as that 15 possible to a cottager.
It may be confidently stated that by far the greater part of
he working families of this country have to live, and do live,
on very much less than appears on this balance-sheet. It
must, indeed, be a fortunate and favoured agricultural
family that receives more than a pound a :week on the
average, with no one but the father in receipt of regular
wages. Most sericulture' families have very much less, and,
what is more, have not the toll benefit of their weekly earn-
ings. Supposing this man to spend five shillings a wee
in driuk, it is evident that the supply of food would have
to be curtailed, or the rent allowed to fall into arrear,
or all the little comforts to be stopped, or cleanli-
ness discarded, or the family allowed to go in mak
perhaps all together. Then, what if sickness or other cala-
mity fall on the family No doubt there are hundreds of
thoueands living in this country not in the enjoyment of this
scale of living, but in the want of it, looking back to it,
perheps hardly forward to it, as the ideal of their
existence. But let us not suppose that there Is not scope
for ingenuity or management in the cottage. The best
housewife is the homely, contented, unambitious, um
pretentious woman, who thinks of little on earth except
her husband and children, and desires no greater success
than to see them fed and clothed according to their means,
and able to do the work and duties of their station. It will
often be found that the merest drudge of • wife and mother,
with an almost Idiotic simplicity as to matters out of her
cottage, has better results to show than clever, talking, and
educated women with souls above their domestic duties.
The management of • rustic household is a very homely and
common affair ; but it certainly does require the constant
exercise of some ordinary virtues. It calls for content, dili-
gence, self-denial, punctuality, patience, and, now and then,
some forbearance—the virtues of a meek and quiet spirit,
warmed up with natural affection.