From Workhouse to Westminster, the Life-Story of Will Crooks, M.P.
By George Haw. (Cassell and Co. 65.)—We do not propose to criticise this book. We always feel doubtful about biographies of living men, and the story of Mr. Crooks presents the difficulty in a very acute form. Political and economic questions of the liveliest present-day interest are suggested by it; the fires are not even covered by ashes, whether treacherous or not. There is a chapter, we see, on the Poplar inquiry. Mr. Crooks regrets that he retained the chairmanship of the Board after his return to Parliament, and Mr. Haw goes so far as to admit that there was some mismanagement. It is certainly a fact that many of the prices that were quoted in the course of the inquiry were considerably higher than those that are common in the expenditure of a middle-class family, and much higher than those which the artisan pays. Mr. Crooke says that a workman with a wife and two children with thirty shillings a week can only just keep himself in decency. Surely the figure is put too high, unless, indeed, the item of rent is very large. In the ordinary Home County village not one labourer in twenty gets as mush; and though he pays somewhat less rent than he would in London, his food is twenty per cent. dearer.
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