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47
broken chairs, a wooden box turned up on end and used as a table,
a ramshackle bedstead with laths broken or absent a bare cupboard,
and a few kitchen utensils. Some of the homes had very
little food, chiefly scraps of bread, margarine, tea and sugar.
Occasional cases were discovered where there was no food at all
in the tenement. Some had no coal, no coke, no firewood. The
health visitors saw very few fireguards in the homes they visited.
Arising out of this poverty is the practice of pawning. There are
mothers who regularly throughout the year pawn their own or
borrowed goods on Monday and redeem them on Saturday. In
many mean streets there are professional pawners—women, well
known to the pawnbrokers, who, for small payments, take
clothes and household goods to pawn for their neighbours. It is
stated that the advantages are twofold. The woman who pawns
through a recognised intermediary obtains a larger loan than she
would if she herself conducted the transaction. For the pawnbroker,
the professional pawner guarantees the good faith of the
owner, and will be able to exercise pressure in case of default.
As the needs become more urgent, the articles are said to be
pawned in the following order—the wedding ring, clock, husband's
best suit of clothes (10s.), husband's shirt (1s. 6d.), children's
boots, baby's long clothes (2s.), sheets, pillowcases, aprons, petticoats
and chemises all in one parcel (3s.), children's frocks or
dresses, mother's frocks or dresses, and lastly the wall pictures.
Some of the homes were in dark, dilapidated and domestically
dirty basements or attics. It is noteworthy that families with
numerous children are compelled by house owners in many instances
to occupy the basements. Such families are precluded
from living in upper rooms because when they occupy the higher
storeys the children at play make much noise and interfere with
the peaceable enjoyment of their holdings by those who occupy
the rooms underneath. One mother observed, "If you have
children, you are always pushed to the bottom of the house if you
live with respectable people. My children have always been ill
since we have had to live in these underground places." Many
of the tenements were verminous, many were crowded, a few were
overcrowded.