How does a working man’s wife bring up a family on 20s. a week? Assuming that there are four children, and that it costs 4s. a week to feed a child, there would be but 4s. left on which to feed both parents, and nothing at all for coal, gas, clothes, insurance, soap, or rent. Four shillings is the amount allowed the foster-mother for food in the case of a child boarded out by some Boards of Guardians; therefore it would seem to be a justifiable figure to reckon upon. But for a woman with 20s. a week to spend it is evidently ridiculously high. If the calculation were to be made upon half this sum, would it be possible? The food for the children in that case would amount to 8s. To allow the same amount to each parent as to each child would not be an extravagance, and we should on that basis arrive at the sum of 12s. a week for the food of six people. That would leave 8s. for all other expenses. But rent alone may come to 6s. or 7s., and how could the woman on 20s. a week manage with 1s., or perhaps 2s., for coal, gas, insurance, clothes, cleaning materials, and thrift? The usual answer to a question of this kind is that the poor are very extravagant. It is no answer. It does not fit the question. But what matter if only it saves people from thinking? Another answer sometimes given is that everything in districts where people are poor is cheaper, because the people are poor, than it would be in districts where people are rich. Now, is that so? If it were, it might in some degree help to solve the problem. To take the item of rent:—a single room in Lambeth, 15 feet by 12 feet, upstairs, with two windows—a good room—costs a poor man 4s. a week. A house containing eighteen rooms in South Kensington, for rent, rates, and taxes, may cost a rich man £250 a year. If the rich man were to pay 4s. a week for every 20 square yards of his floor space, he would pay, not £250 a year, but £285. If he were to pay 4s. a week for the same amount of cubic space for which the Lambeth man is paying his 4s., he would pay, not £250 a year, but £500. Added to which he gets an elaborate system of water laid on (hot and cold), baths, waste pipes and sinks from top to bottom of the house. He also gets an amount of coal-cellarage which enables him to buy his coal cheap, and he gets good air and light and space round his house, so that he can keep his doctor’s bills down. He certainly has a better bargain for his £250 a year than the poor man has for his 4s. a week. Therefore it is not true to say that a family can be brought up on 20s. a week in Lambeth because a poor man can make a better bargain over his rent than can a rich man. As a matter of fact, we see that he actually pays more per cubic foot of space than the rich man does. A comparison might be made in something like the following way: A middle-class well-to-do man with income of £2,000 might pay in rent, rates, and taxes, £250—a proportion of his income which is equal to _one-eighth_.