FROM+COUNTRY+TO+TOWN


 * FROM COUNTRY TO TOWN.**


 * People from the countryside are moving into the towns looking for better paid works as the numbers of factories are growing. I have talked to the Owen family, and they have told me why they decided to move into the town.**



For about one week ago, the Owen family moved into a small worker house near the capital city, London. The Owen family is a big family of seven, which consist of 5 small children with their mum, Rebecca and dad, George.

Yesterday I went down to the worker’s houses near the factories. I walked through a kind of a street, looking for the Owen’s house. The street was filthy and the houses had no windows at the front, no backyards and a sewer down in the middle of the street. When I found the right house, I went to the door and knocked three times. A little girl opened the door. She was standing in a big dress, and it looked very old. She stared at me, and said that I could go inside.

A man was standing in the biggest room, and I could see that it was George Owen. I said hello to him, and he told me to sit down. I heard voices and a woman came in. She was Owens wife. She smiled to me and gave me a small cup of coffee, which tasted a bit weak. They said that they were ready for a short interview, so I started.

I asked them why they decided to move into the town. The Owen family had lived on a farm for a long time, but George Owen told me that they had to move because the wages of a farm worker were very low and there were less jobs working on farms because of the invention and use of new machines such as threshers. And when we heard that the factory owners needed workers to work machines in mills and foundries, and also built houses to us, we thought that maybe this will give us a new chance. But what do you think about this new house I wondered. Rebecca Owen said quickly that she find the house small, because it has only two rooms, one downstairs and one upstairs. The whole family have to sleep together in the same room upstairs, and she said that they haven’t the toilet for themselves, and no running water. The whole street have to share an outdoor pump and a couple of outside toilets, she sighed.

She looked at me, and it was quiet for a while. Then she started to cry. George put his hand around her, and said that she cried because of their children. She is crying because few days ago we talked to the factory owner, and he told that he wanted the children to work in the cotton mills too. We don’t want the children to work when they’re so young, but we have no choice. All the children around here have to work long hours. But you still want to live here? I asked. Yes, he said. This is the only way to survive, and even though we are going to live a hard life here, we’re glad we can get away from a life in the slum.

And with these words I knew a bit more about the life in the worker’s houses. I took my coat on, and said goodbye to the Owen family. I went down the street, and when I turned around and wave to the children I could see the whole family outside the door, waving in the dirty smoke from the factories who covered the streets like a blanket.