Читать книгу The Man Farthest Down: A Record of Observation and Study in Europe онлайн

25 страница из 39

The forms issued to coroners were explicit. They provided that the return should include only cases in which the jury found that death was brought about by starvation or privation due to destitution. Cases in which death was caused by cold, starvation, exposure, etc., unconnected with destitution, were not entered in this return. Of the one hundred and twenty-five cases of starvation reported, fifty-two occurred in London. In eleven cases death was described as due to starvation in conjunction with some other cause—that is to say, disease, drink, exposure, or self-neglect. In eighty of the one hundred and twenty-five cases no application was made for poor relief, or application was made only when the deceased had been in a dying condition.

A few days after I had succeeded in getting this report my attention was attracted one morning by the heading of a newspaper article: "How the Poor Die." The article was an account of the finding of the body of an unknown woman in a cellar in the basement of a house not very far from where I was stopping.