Year: 1865

HOW THEY LIVE.


Nothing can be more astonishing to the
American people than the extreme lndlgen
cy and physical degeneracy of the British
working people. Mr.. Kay's work on the
Social Condition and Education Of the
People in England, published last year In
England, and reprinted in this country,
made some remarkable disclosures, bearing
especially upon the moral condition OF these
people At t. close of this work Mr.. Kay
says THE poor of England are more de-
pressed, more pauperized, more numerous
in comparison to the other classes, more If
religious, and very much worse educated
than the poor of any other European nation,
solely excepting Russia, Turkey, South 1t
ally, Portugal and Spain.


The medical officer Of the Privy Council
in England Is required TO submit annually
report of the proceedings OF that body
This duty has devolved upon hr. John 81
mon, whose series of reports for the last
four years is harmonized body OF practical
information on the causes and distribution
of disease. His last report, for 1864, Is full
of interesting and important truth respect
ing the amount and kind of food taken by
the working-classes. As Mr. Kay's book
related to the causes leading to moral de-
generacy, this report is concerned chiefly
with those which conduce to physical dete-
riOratiOn.


For the purposes of investigation inquiry
was made in only a few households which
seemed to be fair samples of their class
The inquirer set out with this theory; name
ly, that to prevent starvation or the diseases
connect d with it, woman must have IN
her fl od, daily, $500 grains OF carbon and
lS0 of nitrogen, or as much nOurlshment as
is contained in half quartern loaf of bread.
a man wants One-nlnth more.


Forty-two families of silk-weavers We're
examined, and it was found that these did
not quite come up to this minimum stand
ard; thirty-one families Of needle-women
fell far very short; OF farm-laborers tamll-
les more than one-third were below the
mark OF course this sacrifice of appetite
would be made after every other sort OF sac
rifice had been made, after necessary cloth
ing and fuel had been dispensed with.


1t was found among silk-weavers and
twisters that, while over twelve pounds OF
bread were necessary to each adult little
more than nine were eaten. By buying food
in pennyworths great deal Of money was
wasted The children working away from
home, instead of taking with them dinner
prepared by the mother, are supplied with
three half-pence or tWO-p pence day dinner
money, which they spend at a coosshop-
usually a penny upon pudding and halt
penny upon potatoes. When they spend
two-pence they are permitted to sit down
and have little gravy or fat added to their
meal


OF all classes the needle-women fare the
worst. They take to their calling when ev-
ery resource fails, and their average income
is below four shilings less than one dolarl
per week; sometimes, too, they are out OF
employment. They use little over an
ounce of tea per day, into which they rarely
put milk OF meat some buy two ounces
daily; others a quarter Of pound of cook
ed meat three times week, and twice that
amounton Sunday.


ve-stitchers, in order to earn five shil-
ings and sixpence a week, are compelled to
work from SIX in the morning until eleven
at night; and even children between nine
and fourteen years Of age are kept all day
at this employment.


As general result of the inquiry among
all these classes, it appears that OF bread
the needle-Women ate least, the shoemaker
most that OF the persons interrogated In all
classes, only four-three of them being kid
glovers-went wholly without sugar, the
kid-glovers generally using least sugar, the
needle-women and stocking makers most; ;
the balance Of carbon in the. diet being re-
adjusted in these cases by an exactly reverse
proportion in the use of butter. Only IN
five Of the whole number of cases was there
no meat at all eaten, and the five were all
found among the -weavers of Macclesheld
and Coventry. But twenty in every hundred
ate butchers meat in no appreclable guam
tity. prefering to use bacon. Beer OF the
ordinary strength was found to be drunk
very generally by the silk-weavers of Lon
don, and by the shoemakers, and a very
week beer by the stocking makers of parts
of Derbyshire In half the families who
were taken as fair types of the condition of
the poorer laboring class, beer formed no
part of the household dietary:


In the case of out. door laborers, where
there is not much meat used, it is all cook
ed for the Sundays dinner, usually the
only one at which the whole family is col
Iected and sits together in unwonted ease,
What is left from the Sunday dinner Is on
the following week days the husband 5, and
whether he take it with him bit by bit to
his daily dinner in the fields, or eat 1t at
home. it is his, as matter of course, un-
grndced. The household faith is that
the husband wins the bread, and must have
the best food" His physical well-being Is
the prop of the house. If he have eaten up
his remainder of meat or bacon by the md
die of the week, and there be butter or
cheese, he takes that for his dinner at the
close of the week, and the wife and children
~ bo,,o oro tban reduced TO dry bread