Two sons aged about 24, fine big men with powerful well-shaped bodies, narrow faces and red hair, but thin and listless from obvious undernourishment and with dull brutalised expressions. and me with some idea that we could help him. In the first one ( see notes) old father, out of work of course, obviously horribly bewildered by his notice to quit after 22 years tenancy and turning anxiously to F. (Firth, in Barnsley, has a notice to quit though only about 5/- in arrear and paying this off at 3d per week.) The people took us in and insisted on our seeing their houses. In the row called Spring Gardens we found public indignation because the landlords have served about half the row with notices to quit for arrears of, in some cases, only a few shillings. Rent of these, some of which are property of colliery, said to be about 3/. Houses about the worst I have seen, though we did not manage to get into the very worst ones, which were one-roomed or two-roomed cabins of stone, about 20’ by 15’ by 15’ high, or even less, and practically ruinous.
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