mer of 1909, which
affected the hop-picking and other businesses, the destitution that
year was as great during the warm months as it usually is in the
winter.

The poor of this district, she said, 'generally live upon fried fish
and chips. You know they cannot cook, anyway they don't, and what they
do cook is all done in the frying-pan, which is also a very convenient
article to pawn. They don't understand economy, for when they have a
bit of money they will buy in food and have a big feast, not thinking
of the days when there will be little or nothing. Then, again, they
buy their goods in small portions; for instance, their coal by the
ha'p'orth or their wood by the farthing's-worth, which, in fact, works
out at a great profit to the dealers. Or they buy a farthing's-worth
of tea, which is boiled up again and again till it is awful-looking
stuff.'

I asked her what she considered to be the main underlying cause of
this misery. She answered that she thought it was due 'to the people
flocking from the country to the city,' thereby confirming an opinion
that I have long held and advanced. She added that the overcrowding in
the district was terrible, the regulations of the Public Health
Authorities designed to check it being 'a dead letter.' In one case
with which she had to do, a father, mother, and nine children lived in
a room that measured 9 ft. by 9 ft., and the baby came into the world
with the children looking on!

The general weekly rent for a room containing a family is 5_s_., or if
it is furnished, 7_s_. 6_d_. The Sister described to me the furniture
of one for the use of which this extra half-crown is charged. It
consisted of a rickety bed, two chairs, one without a back and one
without a seat, and a little shaky table. The floor was bare, and she
estimated the total value of these articles at about their weekly rent
of 2_s_. 6_d_., if, indeed, they were worth carrying away. In this
chamber dwelt a coachman who was out of place, his wife, and three or
four children, I wonder what arrangement these poor folk make as to
the use of the one chair that has a bottom. To occupy the other must
be an empty honour. With reference to this man the Sister remarked
that as a result of the introduction of motor vehicles, busmen,
cabmen, and blacksmiths were joining the ranks of her melancholy
clientele in numbers.

This and some similar stories caused me to reflect on the remarkable
contrast between rents in the country