The conditions of life secured in return for this continuous and monotonous toil are such as might well make death appear preferable. The poor dwelling—already probably overcrowded—is yet further crowded with matchboxes, a couple of gross of which, in separated pieces, occupy a considerable space. If the weather be at all damp, as English weather often is, even in summer, there must be a fire kept up, or the paste will not dry; and fire, paste, and hemp must all be paid for out of the worker’s pocket. From her working time, too, or from that of her child messenger, must be deducted the time lost in fetching and carrying back work, and, too often, in being kept waiting for it before it is given out. The history of one matchbox-making family visited by a representative of the Women’s Industrial Council may be given in detail, since no single member survives. The Jarvis household consisted of a father, mother, and nine children. They lived in an alley some fifty yards long and very narrow, entered through a row of posts from a street that runs northward from Whitechapel Road. Mr Booth’s “Poverty” map shows it coloured with the dark blue that signifies “Very poor, casual. Chronic want.” The houses in it, of which there were not many, were and are four-roomed cottages of two floors, and the Jarvis family occupied the upper floor of No. 9. Below them lived a young man with his wife and their baby, his mother, and three sisters; sixteen persons thus inhabiting the four rooms. All these people seem to have been industrious and respectable. Mr Jarvis, who had poor health, worked in the last summer of his life at matchbox-stamping, and earned “sometimes” 16s. a week. His wife worked constantly at matchbox-making, two of the girls nearly all day, and two of the boys out of school hours. The journey to and from the factory took from an hour to an hour and a half. In the beginning of the winter of 1897 the father fell ill, and had to go into the infirmary. The mother and the children remained at home, and the combined earnings of Mrs Jarvis and her four young helpers produced from 10d. to 1s. a day. It was at this time that the investigator of the Women’s Industrial Council paid her visit, and she notes in the brief space for “Remarks”: “This house was very poor and bare.... Family is often nearly starving.”