§ MR. CLYNES (Manchester, N.E.)To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he can state the number of deserted wives and the number of their children in the various Poor Law establishments in England and Wales, differentiating between London and the provinces, and in what number of cases efforts have been made by the Poor Law authorities to prosecute the husbands.
(Answered by Mr. John Burns.) Deserted wives and other women relieved apart from their husbands are classified together in the returns received by me, and the returns do not, as regards these classes, fully distinguish between indoor and outdoor relief. On the 1st January last the married women with children in receipt of relief without their husbands in England and Wales numbered 7,298, and they had 20,774 children dependent on them. These numbers include 1,164 women with 3,000 children who were chargeable to unions in London. Between a third and a fourth of the total number of these women is estimated to have been in receipt of indoor relief. The proportion in London estimated is one-half. I have no information as to the number of cases in which proceedings have been instituted by boards of guardians against the husbands of deserted women.