Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social ReformBarnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
General
Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social Reform
Barnett, S. A. (Samuel Augustus)
Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century; Social problems; Working class
This is the food-table of one of the best of managers. It could not
well be simpler, and yet we see that it fails every day, sometimes
to the extent of one-third, in providing sufficient nitrogenous or
flesh-repairing food; but even so the cost for the three days makes a
total of 8_s._ 8½_d._, or, say, on an average, 3_s._ a day. Thus it
took 1_l._ 1_s._ a week to feed this family simply and wholesomely at a
time when two of its hungry members of eight and eleven were away. The
weekly rent to house it in two rooms takes 5_s._ 7_d._; to educate the
school-going members, 7_d._ a week must be paid; to keep the fire and
lights going (and this, of course, is more expensive than if the fuel
could be got in in large quantities) demands 2_s._ 6_d._ a week; and to
provide washing materials another 1_s._ must be deducted.
When these outgoings are met there remains but 4_s._ 4_d._ with which
to provide the food of the two then absent children, to pay club
subscriptions for three people (because each of the working members is
in a sick-club and burial club), to procure boots, clothes, and to lay
by against the days of illness, slackness, and old age.
Now these are the facts which, summed up in a sentence, amount to this,
that while wages are at the present rate the large mass of our people
cannot get enough food to maintain them in robust health, and bodily
health is here alone considered.
No mention has been made of the food a man requires to keep his whole
nature in robust health; of the books, the means of culture, the
opportunities of social intercourse, which are as necessary for his
mental health and development as food and drink are for his bodily.
No account has been taken of all that each human being needs to keep
his spiritual nature alive. The quiet times in the country or by the
sea, the knowledge of Nature’s mysteries, the opportunities for the
cultivation of natural affection. ‘Yes, it is seven years since me
and my daughter met,’ I heard a gentle old lady of sixty-nine say the
other day, one of God’s aristocracy, the upper class in virtue and
unselfishness. ‘You see, she lives a pretty step from here, and moving
about is not to be thought of when money is so scarce.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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