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of Police, Collectors of Rates and Taxes, Secretaries of Savings
Banks, and many others, asking their views on the subject.
I regret that in many cases, my correspondents have
contented themselves with merely forwarding lists of cases in
their opinion deserving of relief, but I submit to the Committee
the fact that in reply to my letters some hundreds of persons
have been recommended as in urgent need of assistance. I am
inclined to assume from this alone, that the distress in this
Parish must be exceptional, and very serious.
The divergence of opinion on this point is very noticeable;
but I attribute this to the fact that the really deserving poor of
this Parish are not of the very lowest classes, and are loath to
obtrude their poverty on the notice of the general observer, and
still more unwilling to apply to the Guardians for relief. But I
gather, from the replies to my letters, that the distress in this
Parish is greater than it has been for some years past. I would
quote, 011 this point, the reply of Father Hynn, whose knowledge
of the poor in the very poor neighbourhood of Pitman Street
entitles him to speak with authority, and who says that "the
distress is much deeper and more widely spread than it has been
for several years." General Merriman, the Chairman of the
Camberwell Committee of the Mansion House Fund, also states
from his experience in connection with that Committee, that
there exists in Camberwell "a considerable amount of abnormal
distress among 'out-of-work cases.' "
As to the classes and occupations of the persons affected, I
find that those connected with the building trade are the chief
sufferers, the building operations in this suburb having been,
during recent years, more extensive than those of any other
suburb of the Metropolis, except, perhaps, Wandsworth. To a
less extent all the mechanic class are sufferers, and there is no
doubt, also, that our Parish contains many clerks and small
tradesmen who are rendered destitute by the prevailing general
depression in trade.