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I had not been in London more than a day or two, for example, when my attention was attracted to the following item in one of the morning papers:

STARVING FAMILY

CORONER'S APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC FOR AID

Telling of a terrible case of starvation in the Stoke Newington Coroner's Court, Dr. Wynn Westcott, the coroner, asked the press to bring a deserving case before the notice of the charitable public.

He said that he had held an inquest upon a three-weeks-old baby which had died of starvation. Its father had had no regular work for three years, and only a little casual work in that time. There was so little money that the mother, Mrs. Attewell, of White Hart Street, Stoke Newington, was half starved too. She had only had a crust of bread to sustain her on the day her child died, although she had done nine and a half hours' washing to assist the home.

The home was perfectly clean, although practically destitute of furniture. It was a most deserving case.

After reading this item I began studying the papers more closely, and I was surprised at the frequency with which items of this kind occurred. I learned that the Local Government Board, which is represented in the English Cabinet by Mr. John Burns, has issued since 1871 an annual report, or return, as it is called, of the cases in which, upon formal investigation by a coroner's jury, it appears that the persons came to their death in London as a result of starvation. I obtained a copy of the return for 1908, in which are included the statistics on starvation not merely for London but for the rest of England and Wales.