You see, dad and we children held together,
and that accounts for it."
"But I don't see," I objected. "I should think, under such conditions,
that the vitality should decrease and the younger children be born weaker
and weaker."
"Not when they hold together," he replied. "Whenever you come along in
the East End and see a child of from eight to twelve, good-sized, well-
developed, and healthy-looking, just you ask and you will find that it is
the youngest in the family, or at least is one of the younger. The way
of it is this: the older children starve more than the younger ones. By
the time the younger ones come along, the older ones are starting to
work, and there is more money coming in, and more food to go around."
He pulled down his sleeve, a concrete instance of where chronic
semi-starvation kills not, but stunts. His voice was but one among the
myriads that raise the cry of the hunger wail in the greatest empire in
the world. On any one day, over 1,000,000 people are in receipt of poor-
law relief in the United Kingdom. One in eleven of the whole working-
class receive poor-law relief in the course of the year; 37,500,000
people receive less than 12 pounds per month, per family; and a constant
army of 8,000,000 lives on the border of starvation.
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