The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-13

culiar right to dub itself religious city consider the following statements: Dr. Bailie. the medical superintendent officer of health for Belfast, says of the home workers employed by the linen mills: Tt is to be regretted that no improvement has been noted in the rate of payment. which Is still far too low In the last week of De- cember, for instance a woman was ob- served embroidering small dots on cushion covers: there were 300 dots on each cushion. and for sewing these by hand she received the sum of one penny. She said that for a days work of this kind she would have difficulty in making Sd. One penny per hour Is the ordinary rate, and In many cases it falls below this.' The average weekly earnings in the linen mills of Belfast is 12s 31sd head In Oldham the textile workers earn Els. 4d. a head. My book gives an authentic &C., count of this universal sweating mark well. this universal sweating of women and children.
 In case heard at the Portadown Petty Sessions a draper said that some houses pay only Is. Tod dozen for making shirts. God pity the poori' exclaimed one of the magistrates. T can get plenty of them made at that price, retorted the draper. He was asked: What do you charge for that shirt?" Half crown And you pay 2s dozen for making them?" "Yes, but that is my business" A religious man.
 Miss Margaret Irwin, secretary to the Scottish council for Women's Trades. says that the Belfast worker is worse housed than the Scotch. Tn one particular instance" she states, q en- countered such filthy conditions that for the first time in many years of ex- perience in this work I found myself unable to enter the house and had to conduct the interview from the door way. The house was quite unfit for hu- man habitation." In the March quarter of last year the percentage of infant nor tality in West Belfast was 2S.1; in the whole of the other urban districts, 1S.S; in the June quarter 29.7, as against 170; in the September quarter 3S.6, against 30.S: in #he December quarter 24.f. against 1S.3i During last year 152l infants under one year of age died in the city of Belfast. A district nurse attributes the i'll health of the people to "the low wages paid to the laboring classes She stated In evi- dence that the quality of milk sold in the slums was not worth the money expended upon 1t. Tn slum areas she said, it was very poor, and IL was anything but clean
 clergyman in Belfast, the rector of St Aidan's church. says that part of his parish is plunged in dense and hopeless poverty" adding that this dense and hopeless poverty could not he equalled within the boundaries of st'-which means that it is very bad indeed
 These few statements arc surely enough to make the unprejudiced read CT wonder if Belfast is more religious than oldham. or Leicester or Notting- ham. And when it is remembered that many of the elericals in that city, well knowing these facts, still boast that Belfast is religious city. never on any account denounce the sweaters of linen mills and range themselves with the manufacturers to resist home rule on religious grounds. the unprejudiced reader will perhaps ask himself wheth- CT they have any conception at all of what a religious city ought to be.
 For myself. have never attempted to make Belfast worse than it is: II consider it a very ugly and cruel town. but in these respects not perhaps matchless elsewhere in the United Kingdom My purpose has been only to convince English people that the re- ligious boast is an odious iinposture and to prove by the mouth of it's own citizens that Belfast Is not by any means the exclusive city of God