§ CAPTAIN O'SHEAasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether 98 women and 222 children, the wives and families of the men of the 15th Hussars, 2nd Battalion 60th, 83rd, and 92nd Regiments, now serving in South Africa, arrived from India in the "Jumna" on the 22nd instant, and are in great destitution, the majority having no homes, and at present subsisting on alms chiefly subscribed by officers in the Army, themselves a poorly paid class of public servants; and, whether Her Majesty's Government have any intention of organising a system outside the Poor Law, 1842 for the relief of distress in the families of soldiers on active service, in view of the fact that the women are by the circumstances of the case deprived of their only way of earning wages, viz.: as laundresses to the officers and men of their husbands' regiments?
§ MR. CHILDERSIn reply to my hon. and gallant Friend, I have to state that immediately on the arrival of the Jumna, orders were given for sending to their homes the wives and families of the soldiers who have gone to South Africa, but that those who did not wish to go to their homes should be accommodated in their depot barracks at Shorncliffe, Aberdeen, and Winchester. The families of the 83rd, whose depot is at Belfast, were allowed to remain in barracks at Portsmouth. They were granted fuel, lights, and the usual separation allowances; but in consideration of the sudden separation from their husbands, who had no time to make arrangements for remittances, and in anticipation of them, I ordered that special advances should be made to all these families, so that every non-commissioned officer's wife will receive 9d. a day, every private's, 7d., and 4d. for each child, from the date of their landing. In answer to the second Question, I can only now say that I will give my best attention to the question, which is by no means an easy one.