competitors.

In general the life of an urban working-man is a constant struggle against
poverty and sickness. Children come plentifully, rather too much so for
the unelastic possibilities of their parents' wages. The young wife does
not get stronger by frequent confinements; and the fare is bound to get
less nourishing as the mouths round the domestic board increase--always
simple, it often becomes insufficient. The mother, working hard already,
has to work harder still and to do laundry work at home or go out as a
charwoman, in order to increase the modest income. In industrial centres
women frequently work in the factories as well, though the law does at
least protect them against too long hours and premature work after
confinement.

Thanks to the Dutch thrift, burial funds and sickness funds come promptly
to the rescue when death lays his iron grip on the wasted form of the poor
town-bred babies, when illness saps the man's power to earn his usual
wages, and the family's income is for the time cut off. Of these benefit
funds there are about 450 in Holland, distributed amongst some 150 towns.
Half of them are burial funds, and half mixed burial and sickness funds;
their members number about two millions; yet, although they certainly do
much to prevent extreme poverty, they do it in a manner which in many
cases is little short of a scandal. Their legal status is rather
uncertain, and in consequence many managers do as they like, and make a
good thing for themselves out of their duty to the poor. Too often these
managers are supreme controllers of the funds, and the members have no
influence whatever. In many cases the only official the latter know is the
collector, who calls at their houses for the weekly contributions. This
official frequently resorts to questionable tricks for extorting money
from the poor helpless members, who simply and confidently pay what they