Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1883-05-27
THE HOMES OF TIE POOR.

| ward the homes OF the poor. Mr.. JOHN
| BRIGHT in recent statement of the
condition of the laborers of Glasgow
said ''that over 10000 families in that
city live in one room.n An intelligent
London correspondent OF the New
York Tribune, writing about the dock
laborers of that city, gives narrative
which is appalling enough for highly
colored and imagined tragedy, yet it is
cQrrroborated by such q mass Of testi-
mony that II must be accepted as true.
This is what he says Of the homes of
these dock laborers:
The streets in which they live are mar
row and choked up with dirt, and the
houses are only four.room cottages-and
in each room a family. Now and then a
family overflow Into second apartment,
| but this extravaganza is exceptional, and
| generally father, mother and children eat,
! live and sleep in one small room. And
for the decent maintenance OF even this
mesgre establishment the income is fire.
| quently all inadequate, for dock labor
| ers's toll is not renumerative. When the
| head of the family has job on hand his
| furniture consists of chair or two, table,
box. q shelf and a few pieces OF crockery,
| and bis children wear boots AS soon as
| he is out of work or taken ill the table
| goes to the pawnbrokers, then the chairs
! 20, then the crockery and the children's
| boots, and there is nothing left but bare
| walls, box, shelf and hungry and I'M
shod family.
This is frightful picture of poverty
and misery,an it is not to he wondered
at that Lord SALISBURY, with such
scenes before his mind, would say as he
did, in his address 10 the
Conservatives of Birmingbam: 81
hold that one of the most
burning questions is the housing of the
working classes in our great cities"
Great Britain does not have mono.
poly of squalid, homeless homes. In
the great cities of our own land, some.
thing of the same kind can beseen. 1t is
principally confined to the degraded
and confirmed pauper classes. But
there are many work people, chiefly of
the lowest order Of our foreign popula-
ton, who live in the same way.
In cities like New York where ground
is of great value and rents are high,
there is some excuse for honest and
frugal labolers budding together in
confined spaces, but the AFFECT sur
roundings of British homes is impossi- |
ble even in New York, except through
the fault of their occupants. There is
opportunity for better to all who have
health, though the space each family
occupies is small.
There is peril in this budding to-
gether of humanity which is even
greater here than it is in Europe There |
they already see its danger. They
are feeling the strong discomfort it
breeds, and they are breathing the
revolution which it flames, but over |
against this discomfort and air of rev.
olution there is the protection of a
strength of government which we have
not and never will have.
In the absence of this strength which !
we cannot have without overturning |
our priceless system of government,
there is greater necessity to avoid the
dangers which the British system has
builded up by impoverishing itspoor.
There are and perhaps always will be |
classof poor, reckless, improvidentand |
vagrant, for whom nothing can De done
in the way of elevation. But the provi-
dent and industrious do not fall in this
category. Whoever holds the lever OF
labor should he able to lift himself and |
his family into comfortable home, and |
out of the squalid misery iuto the
depth and mire of which so many hon.
est and industrious British labonrs are |
plunged. In this land that elevation is |
possible to all. And it is so simply be-
cause wages make it SO. Here the |
w0rkmen's wages enable them to live |
i'll more than one room and to have |
something more in their houses than |
"a chair or two, table, box, a shelf |
and few pieces of crockery," such as
are the only furnishing of the homes of
London dock labors. The poorest paid
laborer in this land can do better than |
that All who will toll faithfully and
will use their earnings providently can
surround themselves with comforts I'M |
known in the London homesI referred
to. Such at least is the present posi- |
bility.
But that will be no more possible than |
it is in London if the wages of our
workmen are reduce to the standard Of |
British workmen. Comfortable living |
is purely a question of earning. Exam
inc it from whatever standpoint we |
will, III the end We are driven back to |
this-that whoever cannot earn enough |
to live comfortably must fall back upon
the London and Glasgow mode oflife-
one room, "a chair, a box and few
bits of crockery." And that is strain |
our institutions would not long sur
vive.
Our workmen must earn, and their
earnings must be sufficient to lift them
above such conditions. This IS a
national necessity. For only so can
they who sometime, If they do not
now, must hold the power of numerical
msjorities, appreciate the value Of or
derby government, and use their power
of numbers, as good citizens, respect.
ing all other rights Of property and per-
sons.
But to earn enough to live in this
comfortable manner will be impossible
if the American standard Of wages is
reduced to that ofthe British. Forever
half a century our protective tariff,
though not always affordingample pro-
lection, has stood as barrier against
this equslizing of American and
British wapes and the reduction of