labourers receive wages of 45s. a week and over, so that 140 families in this district try to exist on the sub-minimum wage. In these figures every head has been counted. Now, in the city there are at least nine such districts, and we are face to face with the problem of over 1,000 families in Cork struggling silently with want; the weekly income, brought in by strong men, insufficient to provide the necessaries of life. It is a large class, respectable and deserving, and the one most difficult to relieve, as long as employers fail in their duty. Any social organization using its endeavours to level up wages to the minimum living standard is not vainly employed; it has a noble work to do, but it must bare the sword.

[What is to be said of some members of our Boards, who, with public money, are just and generous, but are among the worst offenders against their own workmen ? At the least, they show a seriously defective responsibility, a bar to any position of trust, public or private.]

Irregular employment.--There are many quay-labourers in Cork. Previous to 1915, they were never poor; when they were idle, they lived on credit in the neighbouring small shops; when they worked, they brought in from £3 to £6 a week, and paid their debts and were happy. (Here is a silent mighty worker against poverty, the small shopkeeper, one of our great social workers, his little wealth daily used to preserve a happy social balance, often in hard straits himself, but never refusing help to his neighbours in need.) With the troubles of the sea began the trials of the quay-men. Fewer and fewer ships arrived; he felt himself unfitted, by temper and habit, for other employment; the recruiting office stood open before him, staring with figures of lavish bounty, and in he went. Most of them are gone now, some never to return; the few that remain are, for the most part, able to carry on before, and there is little or no poverty.

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as

Skilled workers in the building trade-carpenters, masons, painters, plumbers, etc.-normally have their quiet winter season, which they can tide over. In wartime, the trade is restricted and the idle season prolonged ; many are able to get work in neighbouring dockyards, and the rest, though wages have been increased, are forced to lower their standard of living. This is their war-burden, and is hard; but it cannot be said that they add to the burden of poverty. There is a scarcity of builders' labourers

at present, and the other trades generally have been lifted up by the war and continue brisk.

The weak and stricken.-A large class remains to be dealt with, a class which dwells at the workhouse gate, and is kept outside by the hook-and-crook of benign charity. Who Who give are never poorer, none the richer who refuse. While the ways of Providence are inscrutable, God ordinarily permits natural agents to perform their operations, of cause and effect, after their manner. A breadwinner is taken away from a young family and tender wife; the mother herself, the guardian of the home and all that it means, is taken in her prime, leaving a stricken hearth and its young inmates

Like sheep without a shepherd,

When the snow shuts out the sky.

Here are charges for our charitable societies, to follow up the trail, and fill in the ravages, of idleness, sickness, and premature death. Last year, the St. Vincent de Paul Society of ladies and gentlemen spent £3,400, principally on this class; they support families through tender years, they provide nourishing food for the delicate, they help to restore the sick, and afford comfort to the aged in their need. No household necessity is excluded from their gift, and St. Vincent has made many saints in our city and throughout the world, by the simple means of appointing them distributors of charity.

It was another saint, though his name be not on the calendar of the Church, who started our Sick Poor societies. The members collect pennies every week from door to door, and bestow all they have on sick cases; last year as much as £1,300 being spent by them in Cork. The Poor Law contributes as much as £178 a week towards the upkeep of 761 families. These are large sums for 1918, when there are so many lucrative employments-dockyards, munitions, the army and war-work of all kinds; and yet there are necessary and deserving cases every week, which the societies can never reach. Still other sources of charity exist, the clothing society, the milk fund, the coal fund; and while the extent of private charity cannot be measured by figures, it is not the least of the beneficent operations blessing our city.

Finally, who knows anything of the charity dispensed by the poor themselves? Remember that they help each

other every day with breakfasts, dinners, suppers, clothes; they share their meals and their warm fireplaces, and pay one another's rent when necessary. It is all pure charity, but all is certain to come back again with the turn of fortune's wheel. There is no more charitable class amongst us than the poor themselves.

And there is room for deceit. Everyone who gives charity knows that he will be taken in sometimes, and the man or the society that will never be taken in will keep his charity in his pocket for evermore. At times, too, this deceit is a mere trick, to be laughed over if successful; and as the poor are said to have but few pleasures, we might overlook this occasional one.

Grave abuse, however, is not frequent, and is easier to observe than to correct. Indiscriminate charity is sometimes put down as a main source, begetting beggars. Particular seasons, like Christmas time, usually afford the occasions, but at these particular times it is least of all easy to discriminate. Small sums, of a shilling or two, only sufficient for the briefest relief, bestowed on cases known to be deserving and in need, are best calculated to dull the finer feelings of the poor; the need returns quickly, and, certain that they are not asking, or will not receive much, they soon become beggars at the gate. And yet, this is highly discriminating charity, only wanting in carrying power. Is such a giver to refuse altogether, when he is not in a position to give more? Who will answer?

Housing.-Mark Twain, in his dream, sailed and sailed till he came to the end of the world and, looking over, saw all the old moons thrown out. Room might also be found there for a lot of our tenement houses. But the tenement is not without its virtue, and should not be utterly condemned, if some, even many, are unfit. Were the poor better known to their betters it were well for them. When the poor know each other best it is well for all. Therefore, tenement houses are good in principle and serve a useful purpose. If there were no poverty, if everyone had enough, then the privacy of one house, one family,' should be ideal. In our district of 5,600 souls, the poorest of the poor live in single houses, silent, desolate, alone. Some are known to the societies, some are known to the priests, even a few might, for a time, escape the closest vigilance. They are poorest, for they are without that golden neighbourliness which the tenement, be it good or bad, provides.

Of our 75 tenement houses, 40 are fit to be consigned to the away beyond.' Roofs are porous, stairs yielding with age and infirmity-a frequent step has disappeared altogether-broken floors, broken walls, broken ceilings, broken doors, broken windows, broken hearts. Dirt is of the essence, and must be there, everywhere. A cleanly family going in will become slattern in a week. And 184 families in our district, 800 souls, call this 'home,' and pay their rents every week.

These 184 families are accumulated in less than 250 rooms, some large, many not much larger than a good table. You would require the atmosphere of a Dickens' novel to describe existence in the top loft under the roof, rent ls. a week. In one street alone, 19 of these houses bring in sums ranging from 14s. down to 10s. a week each; in another street six houses at similar rents; in three other streets three such houses in each, and so on. And there are up to 400 houses of this class in the city, enclosing 2,000 families. Our city rulers have their own difficulties, and new buildings must be deferred; but much can be done to compel the luckless owners, by every force, legal, moral, and effectual, to put the wretched houses in order. No need to labour into further detail. Our small single houses are good, our laneways and narrows are excellent, our tenements are a disgrace, a blot on our public administration.

Life of the Poor.-By a kind dispensation, poverty is not misery. The children are the happiest in the world. They have the largest play-ground-the streets; and the longest time to play in-till dark and after. For six months they are boot-and-stockingless, and are like birds, just tethered by gravity, but never grave, ever trying to loose the fetters. They are elastic, unstable, as often off their feet as on. When accident or disease comes, they are whipped off to hospital; into it they carry light and life and fun, and they emerge with a spring. They have enough to eat, that is, if children ever have enough; without the ruddy bronze of the children of the fields, they are round and fat, with infinitely more energy. New clothes are a diversion, but they matter not, for the newness soon wears off. Parental control lacks that rigour which threatens to cloud the early sunshine of life, and the children grow up, well able to make their own fun, and filling the day with it.

Can age be desolate where youth is gay ?-a mercy of

the force of circumstance. Grievances they have, and trials, but won't nurse them; and when the day's work is done they wash, and so wipe away all tears. They have no cares for the morrow-the only cares that take root. The war is bad, not because dynasties of years are tottering, but because bread is 9d. a loaf; they pay the money, they have the bread, the trouble is over. Too much butter is bad for the exchequer; they cut it out. What is meat for the father makes sauce for the rest; they grow accustomed and cease to think, and are pleased. So, want and stint are battled through, and the victor is happy in his simple way. One terrible enemy they have, the stinging cold. It is hard to be happy and shivering. Free coal is generously provided, but unfortunately the system of distribution is open to grave abuse. Cheap coal, in some manner like the cheap milk, might be better; the direct gift of money might be better still; some new system is undoubtedly necessary to keep the great winter charity confined within proper limits.

The virtue of temperance is not more sinned against in the lanes than in the broadways; the vice of the poor makes the greater noise, that is all. Driven by want, by cold, hunger, nakedness, and utter absence of comfort, the very poor seek the warmth and shelter of the public-house, and sink further down; they are driven, they go not of their own will, and consequently their sin is small, if at all existing, in the sight of God.

To sum up. This essay intends merely to point out some home facts about the poor in Cork. It may be well to enlarge its purpose at the last moment, and draw attention to some constructive conclusions.

1. If the living wage were universally established, if offending employers (and we know every one of them) could be brought to feel their obligation in justice, no greater public good-after Home Government-could be realized. It is properly and finally a State remedy, to be assisted and accelerated by the moral influence of public opinion and the Press. This done, by whatever means, the problem of the poor, though always a burden, is easily solved down to the last head. (It might here be mentioned that in America many masters of labour increase a man's wage when he marries-some even double it-and add a further increase when every child is born.)

2. Though it seems an evident necessity, it is not a