“Working Men’s Hotel, accommodation for 800 beds. 6d. per night. Tea, coffee, and cocoa always ready, ½d. per small cup, 1d. per large cup. Hot soup or porridge, 1d. and 1½d. per basin. Cut from the joint and two vegetables, 5d. on week-days only; on Sundays, 6d. Beefsteak pudding and two vegetables, 4½d.” His night’s stay, with supper and breakfast, would cost rather over one shilling. The other will go to ---- Hotel, S.W. (for men who do not work). £ _s._ _d._ Room 0 12 0 Dinner, with bottle of claret 1 7 0 Coffee, liqueur, whisky-and-soda 0 5 0 Breakfast 0 6 0 Tips 0 10 0 -------------- £3 0 0 (There are suites of rooms in these hotels for three to nine guineas a day, which are all occupied during the season.) * * * * * If, instead of these few isolated instances of the cost of living, clothes, and entertainment, a systematically compiled list could be furnished tabulating some hundreds of cases, it would give a much more complete idea of the habits and customs of this stratum of society. And it would show that the cases here quoted are fair examples of average normal expenditure. In both the extremes of excess, at the top and at the bottom, there are hopeless tragedies. (_a_) Mrs. L., a married daughter of the deceased, said the old couple occupied a back room for which they paid 1s. 6d. a week. _The Coroner._ Have the old people enough to live on? _Witness._ Father could not work, and mother sold matches and laces to keep things going as best she could, but, of course, she could not earn more than about 3s. a week. _The Coroner._ Then she cannot have had enough to eat, as after paying rent this old couple have only had 1s. 6d. a week to live on, a most awful thing to contemplate. _Witness._ No, I don’t think she did have enough to eat, and she had been very bad in health also. Poor old mother used to work very hard for years at the wash-tub, but her strength failed her at the last; but she battled on to keep dad. The Medical Officer said death was primarily due to pneumonia and pleurisy. _The Coroner._ Is it a case of want? _Witness._ Yes. _The Coroner._ Can I class it in my report as a death from starvation? _Witness._ Yes. _The Coroner._ It is a pitiful story and one that is getting all too frequent. The jury returned a verdict of “Death from starvation.”