bound to die since fifty-five per cent of the East End children die before they are five years old, the body is laid out in the same room. And if they are very poor, it is kept for some time until they can bury it. During the day it lies on the bed; during the night, when the living take the bed, the dead occupies the table, from which, in the morning, when the dead is put back into the bed, they eat their breakfast. Sometimes the body is placed on the shelf which serves as pantry for their food. Only a couple of weeks ago, an East End woman was in trouble, because, in this fashion, being unable to bury it, she had kept her dead child three weeks.
Now such a room as I have described, is not home but horror; and the men and women who flee away from it to the public house are to be pitied, not blamed. There are 300,000 people, in London, divided into families that live in single rooms, while there are 900,000 who are illegally housed according to the Public Health Act of 1891—a respectable recruiting ground for the drink traffic.
Then there are the insecurity of happiness, the precariousness of existence, the well-founded fear of the future—potent factors in driving people to drink. Wretchedness squirms for alleviation, and in the public house its pain is eased and forgetfulness is obtained. It is unhealthy. Certainly it is,
