WIDOWS WITH CHILDREN UNDER THE POOR LAW.[1] BY MRS. S. A. BARNETT. September, 1910. [1] A Paper read at the Church Congress, Cambridge. The last time that I addressed this Congress of “discreet and learned persons” was three years ago at Yarmouth, when I read a paper on “The Ethics of the Poor Law”. It was not a specially good nor interesting paper, but it brought me both letters and interviews, with the result that now the lives of many people, both children and old folk, are better and happier. God grant that this evening’s discussion may be as fruitful. First let us face the magnitude of the subject for discussion--“Widows with Children,” not out-of-works, not illegitimate, not deserted wives, all these classes are excluded, and our subject narrowed down to married women, with their legitimate offspring, who have lost the family’s bread-winner. Of these, to quote the Poor Law Commissioners’ Report,[2] in January, 1907, there were 34,749 widows and 96,342 children in receipt of relief. The large majority of these persons were receiving assistance in their own homes, there being only 1240 widows and 2998 children in receipt of indoor relief in the workhouses. [2] Majority Report, pp. 35, 36. Let us, then, follow some of these 96,342 children into their homes, and see what the nation is paying for:-- The first case is quoted from the Majority Report:[3]-- (4) “Widow with seven children, none working. Received 10s. per week relief. Rent £5 10s. Said to be paid by friends. I visited the home, and found it in a very dirty, I might say filthy, condition. The woman is a sloven. She went about the house in a dazed manner. I tried to get particulars of the way she spent her money, but found it impossible. One of the children was at home from school ill, but had not been seen by a doctor. It is obvious ... that a family of eight persons could not live on 10s. per week.” (5) “Mrs. W., a widow with five children, receives 10s. per week. She is a notorious drunkard, and has lately been turned out of a house in a street where drunkards abound, because her drunken habits disturbed the whole street. When we called she refused to open the door; the relieving officer concluded she was drunk.” [3] Majority Report, p. 150. That the Local Government Board inspectors are and have been fully aware that such conditions exist is shown again and again by their own words. Mr. Baldwyn Fleming said:[4]-- “There were many cases receiving outdoor relief where the circumstances ... were very undesirable.... The relieving officers were well acquainted with the cases.” [4] _Ibid._, p. 151. Mr. Wethered reported:-- “Some were clean and tidy, but in very many instances the rooms were dirty, ill kept, and sometimes verminous”. Mr. Bagenal’s experience speaks of the out-relief class as “Bankrupt in pocket and character,” and describes their homes in these words:--