ar earnings of from 18s. to 21s.,
including many dock-and water-side labourers, factory and warehouse
hands, car-men, messengers, porters, &c. "What they have comes in
regularly, and except in times of sickness in the family, actual want
rarely presses, unless the wife drinks."

"As a general rule these men have a hard struggle, but they are, as a
body, decent, steady men, paying their way and bringing up their
children respectably" (p. 50).

Mr Booth, in confining the title "poor" to this 35 per cent. of the
population of East London, takes, perhaps for sufficient reasons, a
somewhat narrow interpretation of the term. For in the same district no
less than 377,000, or over 42 per cent. of the inhabitants, live upon
earnings varying from 21s. to 30s. per week. So long as the father is in
regular work, and his family is not too large, a fair amount of material
comfort may doubtless be secured by those who approach the maximum. But
such an income leaves little margin for saving, and innumerable forms of
mishaps will bring such families down beneath the line of poverty.
Though the East End contains more poverty than some other parts of
London the difference is less than commonly supposed. Mr Booth estimated
that of the total population of the metropolis 30.7 per cent. were
living in poverty. The figure for York is placed by Mr Seebohm
Rowntree[4] at the slightly lower figure of 27.84. These figures (in
both cases exclusive of the population of the workhouses and other
public or private institutions) may be taken as fairly representative of
life in English industrial cities. A recent investigation of an ordinary
agricultural village in Bedfordshire[5] discloses a larger amount of
poverty--no less than 34.3 per cent. of the population falling below the
income necessary for physical efficiency.

Sec. 4. Prices for the Poor.--These figures relating to money income do not
bring home to us the evil of poverty. It is not enough to know what the
weekly earnings of a poor family are, we must inquire what they can buy
with them. Among the city poor, the evil of low wages is intensified by
high prices. In general, the poorer the family the higher the prices it
must pay for the necessaries of life. Rent is naturally the first item
in the poor man's budget. Here it is evident that the poor pay in
proportion to their poverty. The average rent in many large districts of
East London is 4s. for one room, 7s. for two. In the crowded parts