Coal is another necessary for which the poor pay a larger price than the well-to-do. The Lambeth woman is compelled to buy her coal by the hundredweight for two reasons, the chief of which is that she is never in possession of a sum of ready money sufficient to buy it by the ton or by the half-ton. A few women, in their passion for regular weekly payments, make an arrangement with the coalman to leave 1 cwt. of coal every week throughout the year, for which they pay a settled price. In the summer the coal, if they are lucky enough to have room to keep it, accumulates. One such woman came through the coal strike without paying anything extra. She used only ½ cwt. a week from the coalman, and depended for the rest upon her store. But not all have the power to do this, because they have nowhere to keep their coal but a box on the landing or a cupboard beside the fireplace. They therefore pay in an ordinary winter 1s. 6d. a cwt., except for any specially cold spell, when they may pay 1s. 7d. or 1s. 8d. for a short time; and in the summer they probably pay 8d. or 8½d. for ½ cwt. a week. In districts of London where the inhabitants are rich enough to buy coal by the ton, the same quality as is used in Lambeth can be bought in an ordinary winter—even now, when the price is higher than it used to be—for 22s. 6d. a ton, with occasional short rises to 23s. 6d. in very cold weather. Householders who have a large cellar space have been able to buy the same quality of coal which the Lambeth people burn, in truck loads, at the cheap time of year, at a price of about 20s. a ton. The Lambeth woman who buys by the hundredweight deems herself lucky. Only those in regular work can always do that. Some people, poorer still, are driven to buy it by the 14 lbs. in bags which they fetch home themselves. For this they pay a higher proportionate price still. While, therefore, it has been in the power of the rich man to buy cheap coal at £1 a ton, the poor man has paid 30s. a ton in winter, and almost 27s. in summer—a price for which the rich man could and did get his best quality silkstone. Wood may cost 2d. a week, or in very parsimonious hands 1d. is made to do. Gas, by the penny-in-the-slot system, is used rather more for cooking than lighting. The expense in such a family as that under consideration would be about 1s. The budget now may run: s. d. Rent 8 0 Clothing club 0 6 Boot club 1 0 Burial insurance 0 11 Coal 1 6 Gas 1 0 Wood 0 1 Cleaning materials 0 5 ----- 13 5