Sure, I paid 9s.6d.for the bed itself, which was sold for 1s.6d.We all sleep on straw now." This family was seven in number.

The mill at which they used to work had been stopped about ten months.

One of the family had found employment at another mill, three months out of the ten, and the old man himself had got a few days' work in that time.

The rest of the family had been wholly unemployed, during the ten months.

Except the little money this work brought in, and a trifle raised now and then by the sale of a bit of furniture when hunger and cold pressed them hard, the whole family had been living upon 5s.