ABSTRACT
Widow and Orphan Fund tt ceases to exist-21,303 women who thought themselves provided for, submit in silent helplessness to see their only security against the workhouse swept away. What then is to become of the widows and orphans of our working men? The Poor Law Board is stringent in its requirements that out.door relief be reduced to the minimum. Political economy is clear on that point, so the question becomes urgent-what is to be done with the women and children when the bread-winner is taken away 7 Are they to go into the workhouse, or are they to starve out of it ~ Or how is this entail of helpless and blameless suffering to be cut off1 If working men cannot provide for their widows and orphans, can working women do anything to provide for themselves in this sad contingency 1 Why should the-y not subscribe to clubs of their own, or better still, why should they not be admitted into the same clubs as their fathers and brothers1 I am quite aware of the objection, that the sick allowances to married women are so large as to ruin any club-but why have sick allowances to married women 1 A sick wife may be a sorrow in a working man's house, but she does not lower his wages-she is not the bread-winner. As long as a woman is unmarried her demands from her club wou1d be just the same as those of her brother-sick allowance when off work, and an annuity in old age. If she marries, the sick allowance could easily be commuted for an allowance in case of widowhood. I can see no objection to women joining any of our clubs on these or similar equitable conditions; but if working men are so unwise as to disallow their claim, there are surely plenty of good women in England who will help their sisters to form clubs for themselves. In the meantime I think that the Poor Law Boal,d ought to make an express exception in fa vour of the widow and the fatherless-creatures who are dumb as well as desolate-they sign no petitions, they utter no cry; but they drift into hospitals and workhouses, and silently drop into the pauper's grave.-Yours, &c., "A WORKER."
