Chapter II: Part 2

The sixth class consists also of widows; but they are remarkable for idleness, intemperance, or improvidence. We know of no means of washing the Ethiop white. To this class, money-relief is the most objectionable form of relief. An allowance of bread should be given for brief periods, and given in instalments. Sometimes it may be necessary to intimate that work may be required for the value given, and at other times the order may be made. It will, however, be found that the individuals of this class are careless about every thing. If they are dealt with leniently, they take advantage of the supposed imbecility of the guardians: if they are dealt with too severely, they become familiarised with the interior of a prison; and the instant the gloomy portal of the county jail loses its terrors, they place themselves in attitude of defiance. As the inmates of workhouses, they are dangerous spies, and are regarded with awe by master and matron; as recipients of out-door relief, they are insolent and full of threats. Perhaps the best mode of dealing with these cases may be ascertained, by allowing the attention to become abstracted from the mother, and concentrated upon the children. The mother is like a wild beast, whose nature and habits cannot now be subdued; but her cubs, her little ones, may still be tamed and humanised. At this point, reference may be made to a document which has not emanated from the Poor-law Commissioners, or from any parochial board, but from the magistrates of the county of Middlesex. It appears that a committee was appointed, in April last, to "inquire into the best means of checking the growth of juvenile crime, and promoting the reformation of juvenile offenders." At a meeting of the magistrates of Middlesex, on the 3d of December, the report of the committee was read, and "received amidst repeated cheering." The committee recommend that a bill should be introduced to Parliament, a draught of which is given in the report. The preamble states, "that the fearful extent of juvenile depravity and crime, in the metropolitan districts, and in large and populous towns, requires general and immediate interference on the part of the legislature; that the great causes of juvenile crime and depravity appear to be ignorance, destitution, and the absence of proper parental or friendly care; and that all children above the age of seven and under the age of fifteen years, suffering from these and similar causes, require protection, to prevent their getting into bad company, acquiring idle and dissolute habits, growing up in vice, and becoming an expense and burden on the county as criminals, and that such protection should be afforded by the county." There are fourteen clauses: the first and fifth may be quoted--"1_st_, That an asylum for unprotected and destitute children be founded in and for the county of Middlesex by legislative enactment, and placed under the direction and management of the justices of the peace for the county." "5_th_, That unprotected and destitute children shall be deemed to include all children above seven, and under fifteen years of age, under the following circumstances: --Children driven from their homes by the bad conduct of their parents; children neglected by their parents; children who are orphans, and neglected by their friends; children who are bastards; and children who are orphans, and have no one to protect them, or to provide for them, or for whom no one does provide; children who, from their own misconduct, have no protection or provision found them; children who are idle and dissolute, and whose parents or friends cannot control their bad conduct; children who are destitute of proper food, clothing, or education, owing to the poverty of their parents or friends, but whose friends or parents do not apply for, or receive parish relief; children who are destitute of employment; and children of the class which become juvenile offenders generally."

It is probable that a plan of this description might have a great and beneficial effect in diminishing juvenile crime; and it is conceivable that the clauses of the bill may be so framed as to develop all the good, and avoid the evil. It is to be feared, however, that the bill is founded on partial views. The children who agree with the descriptions given in clause number five, are the offspring of those who reside in poor neighbourhoods, where the inhabitants are already paying high rates,--high in proportion to the poverty of the locality. If this be so, then every possible species of opposition, which can be offered legally or illegally, will be directed against the bill, and against its being carried into operation. The authorities of these poor and populous parishes already find it a matter of extreme difficulty to collect the rates, and are overwhelmed by the number of those poor housekeepers who apply to be "excused their rates" on the ground of poverty. All the schemes of the present day have one good point only, or it may be discovered by minute observation that the original idea was a good one. The bill is brought forth with a grand display of benevolent feeling; and it is passed, after suffering further distortion in Parliament. The law is, after all, found to be inoperative, from the omission or misapprehension of a plain obvious matter of detail, or because it originated from partial views, or came directly from the brain of an unpractical theorist. It is, however, admitted, in the case of the magistrates' bill, that the _original idea_ is a good one. And if it should be realised, the children of the class of widows now under consideration, might in this "County Juvenile Asylum," find a home, and be saved from destruction.

The seventh class consists of women who have cohabited with men, and have families. The individuals composing it generally resemble those of the two classes last mentioned--_i.e._ they are industrious or idle, intemperate or sober. Generally, this class requires relief more urgently than the several classes of widows; because by their past conduct they are shut out from any participation in many of the charities. It is needless to say that strict investigation into their circumstances and proceedings is necessary.

The eighth and ninth classes consist of single women. The eighth is composed of women who have had two children, and are prostitutes; the ninth of those who have only committed the first offence. The inquiries of the officer, in the ordinary routine, would develop the facts. The utility of this distinction is, that it would afford boards of guardians an opportunity of dealing fairly with the latter class: the fact of the distinction being noted in all the books would attract their attention to the point. To confound these cases together, and to act with, equal severity to all, is obviously unjust. In those unions where the prohibitory order has been issued, all the individuals of both these classes are relieved only in the house. In the case of their admission, the cognisance of this distinction, not casually, not specially, because a guardian may have had his attention drawn to a particular case, but as a matter of routine, would necessarily lead to a good result. No board of guardians, when their attention has been regularly and officially directed to the facts of the case, could compel both classes to herd together in one common room.

The medical relief list is composed of poor persons who are suffering from acute disease, and are, in consequence of their illness and extreme poverty, receiving relief in money or food. Those who are in the receipt of other relief by order of the board, and who belonged to one of the other classes, would be excluded from this list. There are two modes of regulating the medical out-door relief in kind. One mode is to require the medical officers to attend the meetings of the boards of guardians. It is their duty to report upon the state of health of each out-door sick person at specified times, and to state the kind of nutriment adapted to each case. The board is thus furnished with a sanatory report from one officer, and a report upon circumstances from the other. This is a satisfactory system. The other mode is, for the medical officer to report to the relieving officer in a prescribed form, that A B is ill with consumption, and requires ---- food per diem. The relieving officer has a veto. If, upon visiting the case, he is satisfied that the head of the family can supply the articles recommended, the relief is withheld. The case is reported to the next board, who issue the necessary instructions thereon. The first plan is undoubtedly the preferable one, in all those parishes or unions where the population is large and the area small. But in all large rural unions, where the medical officers are many and their labours great, from bad roads and extent of district, the plan would be inapplicable. As regards the second method, it would be found to prevail as a rule, that, in the majority of cases, the recommendation of the medical officer is regarded by the relieving officer as tantamount to an order. The exception would be in those unions where the board is infested by persons who know of no means of estimating the value of an officer excepting by his supposed power of reducing expenditure; and in those parishes where the inhabitants are poor and embarrassed. And it is to be feared that this evil, against which the press exclaim so loudly, will continue to predominate so long as the existing unequal charge upon parishes continues. The magnates of St. George, Hanover Square, can afford to be magnanimous and humane. In St. Luke, Middlesex, or St. Leonard, Shoreditch, where the rate-payers are poor, it is a different matter altogether. And yet it is in these poor neighbourhoods that the poor live; and where they live, there they must be relieved.

The administration of the relief given in consequence of poverty and illness requires great care. The list contains the most meritorious of the poor: and as the relief given is of the greatest value, it is the relief most sought after by "cadgers" and impostors. The great abuses which creep into the administration of out-door relief do not arise from the relief of the able-bodied, but from affording relief to persons who allege that they are suffering from bodily ailments without proper investigation. In ordinarily well managed parishes, impostors, cadgers, and mendicants have no chance of obtaining relief in money. Therefore the whole of their practised cunning is brought to bear upon this more valuable form of relief. Now, from the peculiar habits of this class of persons, there is often strong ground for the claim. They will starve three days, and complete the week in revel and debauchery. Those periods, which they consider days of prosperity, are too often occasions for emaciating their bodies by drinking gin and eating unnutritious food. A chilly, foggy, November night is the time when the supposed widow can parade her children on the highway with the best chance of exciting the compassion of the passersby; and it is the time, too, when, if there is any predisposition to disease, the circumstances are most favourable for its development. It is to this class that the workhouse may be offered--as an infirmary. It is a fact, however, that those of this class who suffer from external diseases, and especially those which may be exposed with impunity, do not desire to enter a workhouse, and will not remain there until they are completely cured. And then, with reference to children who are exposed at night in the streets, notwithstanding the parents may be warned that they are sowing the seeds of incurable disease in the bodies of these infants, and are offered relief sufficient to constitute the greater part of their support; yet, however they may promise, they will continue to sleep in the day-time, and prowl about as homeless outcasts in distant neighborhoods at night. It is useless to offer them the workhouse; they will refuse it, and make, the offer a ground of appeal to the benevolent. As regards the children, the medical officer declares that his medicines are useless, and even dangerous. They are taken in the morning, the child is exposed in the evening, and in a few months it dies--_a natural death_? Here is lower depth of crime and misery which baffles the benevolent and wise.[5]

The aged, the infirm, the sufferers from chronic disease, the permanently disabled, the several classes of widows, the single women who have one or more children, and those who are chargeable mainly from temporary illness, have been collected and separated from the dense mass of pauperism. Who are those that remain? There is much error abroad upon this question. They are legion, whether they be regarded in connexion with the causes which have led to their impoverishment, or with reference to their various modes of obtaining a livelihood. Reference has already been made to that portion of the population of England who are in a transition state--_i.e._ those whose ordinary employment has been superseded by more rapid and cheaper methods, and who have thereby lost their ordinary means of livelihood, and been drifted down from stage to stage until they have reached the lowest depth, and have at last been compelled to ask for a morsel of bread at the workhouse door. Then it will appear upon inquiry that each separate locality will present its peculiar species of casual poor, who fall into a state of destitution from the action of peculiar causes. It frequently happens that the individuals were never trained to any ordinary species of labour. At an early period of their lives, they were put in the way to learn a trade, but from early habits of idleness, from the criminal neglect of masters or parents, from natural incapacity for the particular trade, or from an unconquerable dislike to it, they have never been able to earn "salt to their porridge," as the saying is. They never received a regular or an average amount of wage. If they are tailors, they compete with old women in making "slopwork" for the lower class of salesmen. Or they convert old coat tails into decent cloth caps, and may be industrious enough to supply a tribe of women with a Saturday night's stock. As cobblers, they ply the craft of "translation"--a trade, even in this lower acceptation of the term, peculiarly liable to abuse. To the unlearned, it may be necessary to state that translation is the act of converting old boots into new ones, and is done with thin strips of varnished leather, and plenty of wax and large nails. There are carpenters, whose ingenuity is confined to the manufacture of money-boxes, cigar-cases, and children's stools. Smiths, male and female, forge garden rakes, small pokers, and gridirons, as the season may suggest. And then their wives and children, or other men's wives and children, hawk them for sale in populous neighbourhoods on market evenings. Tin funnels are sold "at the low price of a halfpenny." Minute and useless candlesticks, wire forks, children's toys, and old umbrellas, are a few specimens of this miscellaneous merchandise, the sale of which brings bread to hundreds of families. They live in foetid alleys, are not cleanly, and are sometimes intemperate; hence they are peculiarly liable to the attacks of disease. During illness, there are many things which the sick man craves which a parochial officer cannot grant, and which a medical man could neither recommend nor allow. The desire is gratified by the sale of a useful and indispensable tool; and thus, by degrees, he exits off his own means of subsistence. Then, like manufacturers of a higher grade, he may mistake the public wants, and the articles he has made may remain unsaleable on his hands, or he may fall into the error of over-production like a Manchester house. Then, in seasons when those commodities which constitute the common diet of the poor are scarce and dear, the persons who deal in them who are unable to buy, or uncertain to sell, are thrown back upon the few shillings which compose their capital. In large cities and towns, and in the neighbourhood of great markets, there are crowds of poor persons who gain their livelihood by the purchase and sale of the articles of daily food, and their combined purchases form a large item in the business of those markets. The costermongers, or costardmongers, consist of various grades. That brisk-looking man, who is riding so proudly in his donkey-cart, with his wife at his elbow, may be a very mean person in the estimation of the passer-by, but, in his world, he is a man of importance. He watches the "turns of the market," and being either in the possession of capital himself, or in a position to command it, he is able to compete with large dealers. He is a money-lender; and, if security be left with him--a poor woman's marriage certificate, or her wedding-ring is sufficient--he will enable her to buy her "little lot." Through him many are able to procure a stock at a trifling expenditure, who otherwise would be unable to buy in sufficient quantities to satisfy the original salesman. This class has its peculiar casualties, and in consequence become chargeable to parishes. Their habits may be irregular and intemperate. Or a poor woman may have expended her last farthing in the purchase of a tempting basket of fish. Her child falls ill, or she herself is unable, from the same cause, or from an accidental injury, to stand the necessary number of hours in the drenching rain; and so her stock is spoiled, and she suffers a greater calamity in her sphere than the brewer whose consignment of ale has turned sour on an India voyage.

In the vicinity of cathedrals and abbeys, in districts where dowagers and elderly maiden ladies most do congregate, and in

"Those back-streets to peace so dear,"

there is always to be found a great number of kindly-disposed people, who have wherewithal to make life flow smoothly, leisure to listen to tales of wo, and the ability and inclination liberally to relieve. Now wherever these benevolent persons may be located, there will a troop of jackals herd, and run them down. Wherever public or private charities exist, there do these persons thrive. Their organisation, the degree to which they endure occasional privations and exposure, the recklessness with which they endanger the health and lives of those connected with them, is so passing strange, and, if fully expatiated upon, would be a chapter in the history of man and society, so disgusting, as to be unfit and morally unsafe to publish. Among the beings who infest these neighbourhoods, are men and women of keen wit--too keen, in truth--who have been well educated. Clerks who have been discharged for peculation. Women who, from the turbulence of their passions, have descended from the position of governesses, and who possess talent and tact equal to any emergency. They can write petitions in the highest style of excellence, as regards composition and penmanship. And they can also write letters on dirty slips of paper, in such a manner as that the homely phrase and the supposed ignorance of the petitioner shall be correctly sustained. They know all the charitable people of the district. They know the species of distress each person is most likely to relieve, and the days and hours they are most likely to be seen. They are in a position to instruct the several members of the fraternity as to the habits and foibles of the "gentlefolks." One is open-handed, but apt to exact a large degree of humility, and must be approached with deference. Another, if applied to at the wrong time, may give liberally to rid himself of their importunities. Another is rough and noisy; but if the applicant can endure it--which these people can, but decent people cannot--a largess is certain. With one, clean linen, a well-starched front, or a neat cap-border, is a desideratum, because it is supposed to indicate that the wearers were once in a better sphere. Another will only relieve those who are clothed in well-patched rags, or "real misery;" and then the appearance must be that of squalid destitution.

It happened the other day that an individual, in the regular exercise of his duty, was engaged in making inquiries in one of these neighbourhoods. The cooped-up dwellings were situated in the centre of a mass of buildings, round which a carriage might roll in five minutes, and yet nothing would appear to excite suspicions that within the area of a few hundred yards, so much real distress, and so much deceit, vice, and crime were in existence. The visitor has left the crowded thoroughfare, and entered a narrow cutting which leads to the heart of the mass of houses. In former days the street was the abode of the wealthy. Many of these aristocratic dwellings are still standing. They large and high. The rooms were once magnificent. Their great size is still visible, notwithstanding the partitions which now divide them. The elaborate, quaint, and, in some instances, beautiful style of ornament on the ceilings, the massive mouldings, and richly carved chimney-pieces, satisfy the observer that, in former days, they were the abodes of wealth and luxury. They are now tottering with age: the other day, the interior of one of them fell inwards. These houses may be entered, one after another, without intrusion. To the uninitiated, the rooms present the appearance of an unoccupied hospital. All the rooms on the upper floors are entirely filled with beds. If they are entered at the close of a cold winter evening, the aspect is cold and desolate. If you pause on the landing, you may hear sounds of voices. The whole of the occupants of these rooms are congregated at the bottom of the building. You should not enter, for, at the sight of a stranger, they would instantly reassume their several characters. If you look through a chink in the partition, you will see an assemblage of men, women, and children, in whose aspect and mien--if you can read the biography of a human being by studying the lines on the countenance--you may read many a tale and strange eventful history,--illustrating the adage that "truth is stranger than fiction." If the hour be midnight, and the season winter, the large hall will be lit up by a blazing fire. Around it are grouped men and women of all ages. Some are dressed as sailors. In a corner, some Malays are eating their mess alone. They pay their threepence, and are not disturbed:--they are supposed, with truth, to be unacquainted with the rules of English boxing, and to carry knives. Their white dresses and turbans, their dark but bright and expressive countenances, their jet-black hair, and strange language, give an air of romance to the scene. There are widows with children, traveling tinkers, and knife-grinders. All these are talking, laughing, shouting, singing, and crying in discordant chorus. There is no lack of good cheer; and it is but justice to add, that the less fortunate, providing they are "no sneaks," are allowed a share. At the door, or busily employed among the guests, is mine host, and his female companion:--"old cadgers" both, but stalwart, and able to maintain the "respectability" of the house.

The visitor passes on, and turns down a lane. By day or night, it hath an ancient and a fish-like smell. Apparently the dwellings are inhabited by the very poor. In the day time there are no noises, except that of women bawling to their children, who are sitting in the middle of the causeway, making dikes of vegetable mud and soap-suds. There are no sewers;--the commissioners have no power to make them,--and do not ask for it. There is nothing outwardly to indicate that the inhabitants are other than honest. If you open the doors, you may perceive that the staircases are double and barricaded, that rooms communicate with each other, and that, in the rear, there are facilities for hiding or escape. If you stroll about this place at night, you may be surprised by the sight of two policemen patrolling together. You will be an object of scrutiny and suspicion,--notwithstanding your respectable appearance. And then, as you appear to have no business in the neighbourhood, you will be civilly greeted with, "You are entering a dangerous neighbourhood, sir!" In the newspapers of the following day, you may read of a gang of housebreakers, or coiners, having been secured in this spot. And if it be revisited when a group of felons have just left the wharf, you will find it a scene of drunken lamentation.

In this lane is a _cul-de-sac_. It is inhabited by persons with respect to whose actual condition the shrewdest investigator is at fault. The visitor enters a dwelling, and climbs the narrow staircase. Upon entering the small room, he is almost stifled by the foetid smells. In one corner, on a mattress, lies a man, whose gaunt arms, wasted frame, milky eye-balls, and dry cough, sufficiently indicate the havoc which disease is doing at the seat of life. A fire has been recently kindled by the hand of charity. Near it, and seated upon a tub, is a woman, busily employed in toasting a slice of ham, which is conveyed rapidly out of sight upon hearing the ascending footsteps. Her dress is gay, but soiled, and her face is familiar to the pedestrian. Upon the entrance of the visitor, the Bible is hastily seized, and an attitude of devotion assumed. The question the visitor asks, is, Are you married? "Oh yes, I was married at a village near Bury, in Suffolk; I was travelling as a mountebank at the time." The tale is not well told. After a few interrogatories, and the utterance of a score of lies, the truth appears,--he was never in the county of Suffolk in his life. In a few days he makes a merit of his confession, and marries,--a week before his death.

Within a few yards, another scene is presented. This is a case of a man, his wife, and his large family. The visitor is shown into a miserable apartment, destitute of furniture; and, upon some loose shavings in a corner, a child has been left to cry itself to sleep. The case is relieved as one of great suffering. Relief flows freely. The wife appears ill; and the medical man is much puzzled by her account of the symptoms. Apparently she has been intemperate; but, according to the symptoms, it should be something between rheumatism and tic-doloreux. By-and-by a quarrel ensues, about the division of the spoil. An anonymous letter is received, declaring that the party has several residences,--that the room in which such a scene of destitution was presented, was not their ordinary place of habitation,--that they are in the receipt of fixed charities, names being given, and concluding with the allegation, subsequently verified, that their weekly receipts exceeded a mechanic's highest wage. The bubble bursts, and the family migrates.

It is hardly necessary to remark, that this order of applicants require strict attention on the part of the parochial officers. It is of importance to ascertain whether the several applicants really do any work,--whether they cannot get it, or are likely to be disconcerted at the offer of it. If they belong to the orders last described, the fact of visitation from an officer, with a note-book in his hand, would, of itself, be a disagreeable circumstance, not to be endured unless necessity compelled. It is frequently a matter of difficulty to collect the facts; and appearances are very deceitful. Idleness assumes the garb and language of industry. Idleness can take the part of industry, and perform it with technical accuracy; and it will be rendered more interesting than the original. When an industrious man falls into misfortune, he is more disposed to conceal, than to expose it ostentatiously. His language is often abrupt and rude: betraying a conflict with his own feelings of independence and pride. This a judicious and accustomed eye can discern. But it must not be forgotten that the relieving officer's inquiries have no legitimate reference to features, or doubtful signs, but to places and facts. These facts being added together, as they are collected from time to time, in the appropriate page in the report book, the board of guardians would have no difficulty in estimating the real character and circumstances of these applicants.

With the further consideration of the casual poor, the subject of _Out-door employment_ may be usefully connected. We may state at once as our opinion, that any scheme which proposes to test destitution by offering the workhouse with its terrors, on the one hand, or which offers out-door employment _indiscriminately_ to the able-bodied on the other, is detrimental to the interests of society. It is admitted that the offer of work to the well-disposed independent labourer may scare him away; he will consume his savings, sell his furniture, and break his constitution, rather than accept the relief on the terms offered. And some may be content with this. They may rejoice at the sight of the shillings saved. But it will soon be found, that when work has been offered indiscriminately, and after the lapse of time, that a large and yearly increasing number of labourers of various classes will accept the relief and do the work. This fact indicates with accuracy that the moral feelings of the labouring population are in process of deterioration. Then how unjust it is! Here is a stout, broad-shouldered, hard-handed, weather-tanned railway navigator, who would perform the hardest task with the greatest case and indifference; but it is a very different matter to the sedentary Liliputian workman of a manufacturing town. We can understand why the smooth-fingered silk-weavers of Spitalfields complained of being set to break stones. It is still presumed that the great object is to diminish pauperism. It is not a question of this day or this year, or of a parish or union; but of the age and nation. This being so, we have to ascertain which of two modes is the preferable one: should labour be offered to all comers, or should the right to make the performance of labour a condition of receiving relief, be reserved as a right, and used with caution and discrimination? Let us inquire. Among the higher classes of society, the gradations of rank are distinctly marked. Among the middle classes, the gradations and varieties of social position are more numerous, less distinctly marked, and therefore fenced round with a world of form and ceremony. And as we descend, and enter the lower ranks, and approach the lowest, the distinctions and grades multiply. To the common observer, these distinctions may be unworthy of regard; but to the parties themselves, they are of importance. The higher grades among the poor have attained their position by the exercise of tact and talent, and by hard labour. Not that the accident of birth, or the position of the parents, are circumstances destitute of force--the son often follows the employment of the father, and the eldest son in many trades is permitted to do so, without the sacrifice of expense and time involved in an apprenticeship. There is a broad line of demarcation drawn between the skilled and unskilled trades. There are lines, equally as distinct, drawn between skilled trades, which correspond with the ancient guilds of cities. And in the present day, when the several ancient trades are so minutely divided, and subdivided, there are grades of workmen corresponding. Reference is not made to those distinctions which are recognised by the masters, but to those especially which obtain among the men themselves; for it is with their feelings we have to do. Now, these distinctions do not involve questions of difference and separation merely, but those also of resemblance and unity. Each "tradesman"[6] stands by his order; and that not only to preserve its dignity and privileges inviolate, but to render mutual aid. Many vanities may be associated with this, and many mummeries may be enacted, at which many who believe themselves wise may fancy they blush; but the mechanic is only guarding in an imperfect manner an ancient institution. It is when we look at labour from this point of view, that we begin to conceive how it happens that so few regular labourers, in proportion to the mass, become chargeable to parishes; and this, notwithstanding the vicissitudes of their several employments. This inwardly sustaining power, of which the world in general is ignorant, is worthy of study. The intensity varies as we descend. In a populous parish, there are many who, from the action of a thousand disturbing influences, drop from the ranks. Now, is it not obvious, that to offer, with the eyes of the understanding and judgment firmly closed, to each able-bodied applicant a degrading employment, must drag him to its level? In most cases the feeling of repugnance on the part of the head of the family against applying for relief in person--a rule in all parishes--is so intense, as to require the fact of his family being in a state bordering on starvation, to weaken it. If he is required to do labour for the relief proffered, in a place where he is known, and among an order of workmen who are pauperised and below him, who would welcome him with sneers and derision, the chances are that he will not accept the relief on the terms offered. Is pauperism checked thereby? Wait and see. It is likely he will not remain in a place where all his cherished associations have been so rudely broken up. Home he has none. The four naked walls, the mattress on the floor, the single rug, his sickly and fretful children--and these regarded with a jaundiced eye, are not the objects and associations which make up the idea of home. He hears strange tales from trampers about an abundance of work in other places, and misguidedly he wanders, with or without his wife and children, in search of the imaginary spot. He travels from town to town, and subsists on the pittance which the trades allow, so long as he journeys to the south. His original feeling of independence has become weakened: its main prop has been removed. The apprehension of what the denizens of our little world may say, is frequently a powerful auxiliary to a steady and moral course of action. This houseless man, by leaving his native village, or his usual haunts in the crowded city, has deprived himself of this sustaining power; and he falls, morally and socially. Another, with less strength of body, is subdued by his privations, and receives that relief as a sufferer from low fever or incipient consumption, which was withheld from him while in health. All this is natural, and it is true in point of fact. The inference is, that no able-bodied applicant should be set to work, until it formally and clearly appears from a statement of facts, in the relieving officer's report book, that he is idle or drunken. In the regular order of business, the man would be charged with the fault by the chairman, and should be allowed the benefit of any doubt. The applicant may say, "I worked last for A. B. at ----, and I left with others when the job was finished." Let him have relief without labour, until the fact is ascertained. And as a page is opened to each case in the report book, the statement resulting from the inquiry is recorded, and is either for, or against him. If he pleads for another chance, give it him. Let the labour be regarded in all cases as a _dernier resort_.

What work should be given? This is mainly a local question: a few general remarks may, however, be made. Under the old system, the out-door work done by paupers, gradually assimilated with that performed by independent labourers, and at last became undistinguishable. It appears to have been a practice, if a man alleged that he was unable to support his family, to set him to work; and the parishioners were required to employ the labour. Now, the parishioners already employed as much labour as they required, and the individuals they preferred, and the necessity of employing the pauper labour, had the effect of reducing the wages of the independent labourer: he was either employed less, or paid less. Thus the labourer, who by his industry, and the exercise of temperance and frugality, had saved, and was therefore in a position to weather a long and dreary winter, by the influence of this baneful system, was reduced to the level of the idle and intemperate. This evil maybe averted. The old abuses were attributable to the fact, that the several parishes and hamlets were so small, and so poor, as to, render it impossible to adopt any system of management. The work given should be hard work, and preserved as distinct as possible from that performed by the independent labourer; and, in course of time, a wholesome feeling of aversion would grow up respecting it, similar to that which was entertained against the workhouse, before it became the compulsory residence of the casually unfortunate, as well as of those who had sunk morally and socially. The work given should be public work; or work which has a remote reference to a private good, but which no individual under ordinary circumstances would perform. For example, there is stone-breaking, and the general preparation of materials for the repair of the highway; the levelling of hills, and the raising of valleys; the clearing of main ditches; the draining of mosses; the dredging of rivers; the reclaiming of lands from the waste, or the sea; the collecting of certain manures; the raising of embankments to prevent the overflow of rivers; the cleansing of streets and the performance of certain kinds of labour for union-houses and other institutions supported at the public expense; and if the highway trusts should be consolidated, and placed under competent management, it is likely that some of the labour required might be performed by paupers.

The labour done must be tasked and estimated. This is indispensable. To allow an able-bodied man to lie upon his back, and bask in the mid-day sun, while he lazily picks up grass and weeds with his outstretched hands, and throws it in the air, may be considered as employment; but to call it labour is absurd. Pauper labour is proverbially unproductive, _i.e._ it costs nearly its value in superintendence. But, if it is resorted to, it must be watched with care, or its introduction will be injurious. Now, during the last few years, a class of men have arisen from the labouring class, who might be found qualified to superintend this labour. Railway enterprise has developed a certain order of skill which might be rendered available. It is well known that the several miles of railway are divided into a number of contracts, which are again divided, and taken by sub-contractors, and the sub-division proceeds until yards of work are taken by the men who engage or govern the lower class of labourers. A similar class of men is to be found on the banks of rivers, who are known as gangers. Then there are discharged sergeants and corporals, and even privates, who can produce their discharge with a favourable report upon character endorsed upon it. We know the severity of the army, in this particular. A discharge, with that portion of it cut off on which the endorsement favourable to the soldier's character should have been, ought not to lead necessarily to the inference that his character has been bad in a civil point of view. But, if the endorsement exists, we may rest assured that he has been staid in his deportment, clean in his person, careful in the performance of his duty, and regular as regards time. The classes of sergeants and corporals have the additional advantage of being accustomed to order, as well as to obey. Discharged soldiers generally require an active employment, or they sink morally and socially. Men from this class might be selected with advantage.

But some may exclaim, what an expense! Possibly! It remains, however, to be seen whether the weight is not felt because the pressure is unequal. A guardian of an ancient parish and borough, in an agricultural district, observed the other day, "This new removal act is a serious matter to us,--as the cottars in the out-parishes die off, the cottages are pulled down, and this impoverished borough will have to support the children, because they reside here." Of course, while the inducement to such proceedings exists, and the poor are compelled to support the poor, every attempt at permanent improvement will meet with either active opposition or passive resistance. Then, again, it is said, that as the manufacturing system has created a weak and dangerous population, and one likely to be suddenly impoverished by the vicissitudes of the system, they should be compelled to relieve it when those adverse periods arrive. Does the rating of the manufacturer bear any proportion to his capital, the extent of his business, or his profits? His poor-rate receipt records an inappreciable item of expenditure. The pressure of the rate is not upon him, but upon the householders of the suburbs where the poor reside. It is not just that the manufacturer who owns a mill, or he who merely owns a warehouse, and employs out-door work-people--that the dealer in money, the discounter, the various large agencies, the merchant who transacts his business in a single office and sends his ship all over the world, and the great carriers, because their business happens not to be rateable according to the law, should bear no greater burden than the shop-keepers in a great London thoroughfare. It is likely that there would be a _temporary_ increase of expenditure; but then justice would be done to the aged, the infirm, and the sick. In this respect the expenditure would increase; but as regards the able-bodied there would be a reduction, and in this way: If a man is thrown out of work, and his habits being known, he is relieved; he is thereby sustained, and when work begins to abound he starts fairly. If he is compelled to sink, the chances are he will never rise. Every guardian in the kingdom knows, from personal observation, how difficult it is to dispose of a family which has been forced into the union-house, and has lost a home. It is confidently expected, if out-door relief, accompanied by labour, be given only to those able-bodied applicants who are known, from the facts of their history as officially reported, to be idle, dissolute, and intemperate;--if the labour required to be done be public work; if it be apportioned and tasked by judiciously chosen task-masters, and given to each individual at a low rate of prices, lower than those of ordinary labour, and paid in food, or even in lodging when specially applied for and deemed necessary,--then, as regards the able-bodied applicants, the nearest approach will have been made to a perfect system. And if the system here sketched, or rather if the hints which have been dropped from time to time in the progress of this article, be collected and arranged, it is believed, that inasmuch as they have reference to the moral principles of our nature, as well as to the physical condition of the pauper, they will operate beneficially upon the poor of England. And if it should appear, from the statistics officially reported by a _minister_ in the regular exercise of his duty in parliament, that the number of poor receiving relief who belong to the first three classes have slightly increased, that report should be considered as highly satisfactory, and not as a disclosure injurious to national honour. It is not a matter of which Englishmen ought to be ashamed, or a subject to be bewailed, that the aged, the infirm, and the sick among the very poor, are not allowed either to perish, or to have their cherished habits and associations destroyed. Then, as regards the class of widows, if it should appear that the numbers do not go on increasing in the ratio of deaths, but continue nearly stationary, the report would be still satisfactory; because the inference from it would be, that, as new cases have been added, old ones must have discontinued. And the report respecting the two great divisions of the able-bodied--those who are not set to do work, and those who are--would be pregnant with information. And lastly, that part of the report which discloses the number of cases which have not been distributed in the several classes, would be of great value, as indicating the quarter where the inspectors under the orders of Government might most advantageously make their inquiries.

The classes and orders of poor that ordinarily become chargeable to parishes have been commented upon; and a few of the peculiar traits have been sketched of that motley group, which cannot be classified in any other way, than as persons who, from their admitted idleness, ought to be set to labour; or as persons to whom the exaction of labour in return for relief would be detrimental,--and not only detrimental to their personal interests, but to those of society. We have also stirred up and exposed the dregs of society: an operation neither pleasant nor useful under ordinary circumstances. But our inquiries have been pathological. And it is the duty of the physician or surgeon to probe the wound, and examine minutely the abscess, and then to institute inquiries equally minute and more general into the habits and constitution of the patient. Then the physician may have occasion to comment, in the lecture-room, upon this class of diseases; and he would then show how many circumstances must be considered and estimated before the true mode of treatment can be known. And as quacks thrive upon ignorance and credulity, he might gratify the curious student by an exposition upon the facility with which imaginary cures might be effected. He might show that by the employment of quack medicines the diseased part might be made to assume the appearance of health. The abscess can be closed; but the corruption, of which the open wound was only the outlet, will still circulate through the system, deteriorate the blood, and at last seriously derange the vital organs. The reader will apply these remedies in the proper quarter. And then, as in the consideration of the first series of classes we had occasion to dwell mainly upon those characteristics of the poor which attract regard and sympathy, it became necessary, in order that the general idea might be in accordance with the general bearing of the facts, to conduct the reader into strange scenes, and among classes of human beings, which might otherwise have been disregarded or unknown. The reader now sees distinctly that which the clamour and clash of rigourists and universal-benevolence-men might have led him to overlook, viz.--_that pauperism includes in its legions the most virtuous, the most vicious, the most industrious, and the most idle_; and refers to decent, honest poverty as well as to squalid destitution. We may conclude by averring, that the tendency of an extended system of out-door relief, administered in the manner, and according to the principles laid down, would be, to raise one class from the state of pauperism,--to confront distresses which the complexity of civilised society, and the extension of the manufacturing systems have occasioned, boldly, firmly, and humanely,--to distinguish between the honest industrious poor, and the lazy vagabond--to give one a fair chance of obtaining employment, and to remove inducements from the other to prowl about and live upon the public. And if this can be in any degree attained, it will so far stand out in bold contrast to the doctrines of _The Edinburgh Review_, and the practice of the Poor-Law Commissioners, which have reference only to the health of the animal fibre, and not to the soul which gives it life.

THE POACHER;

OR, JUTLAND A HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS SINCE.

From the Danish.

I.--THE DEER-RIDER.

The Danish isles have such a pleasant, friendly, peaceful aspect, that, when carried by our imagination back to their origin, the idea of any violent shock of nature never enters into our thoughts. They seem neither to have been cast up by an earthquake, nor to have been formed by a flood, but rather to have gradually appeared from amid the subsiding ocean. Their plains are level and extensive, their hills few, small, and gently rounded. No steep precipices, no deep hollows remind one of the throes at Nature's birth; the woods do not hang in savage grandeur on cloud-capt ridges, but stretch themselves, like living fences, around the fruitful fields. The brooks do not rush down in foaming cataracts, through deep and dark clefts, but glide, still and clear, among sedge and underwood. When, from the delightful Fyen, we pass over to Jutland, we seem, at first, only to have crossed a river, and can hardly be convinced that we are on the continent, so closely resembling and near akin with the islands is the aspect of the peninsula. But the further we penetrate, the greater is the change in the appearance of the country. The valleys are deeper, the hills steeper; the woods appear older and more decayed; many a rush-grown marsh, many a spot of earth covered with stunted heath, huge stones on the ridgy lands--every thing, in short, bears testimony to inferior culture, and scantier population. Narrow roads with deep wheel-ruts, and a high rising in the middle, indicate less traffic and intercourse among the inhabitants, whose dwellings towards the west appear more and more miserable, lower and lower, as if they crouched before the west wind's violent assault. In proportion as the heaths appear more frequent and more extensive, the churches and villages are fewer and farther from each other. In the farm-yards, instead of wood, are to be seen stacks of turf; and instead of neat gardens, we find only kale-yards. Vast heath-covered marshes, neglected and turned to no account, tell us in intelligible language that there is a superabundance of them.

No boundaries, no rows of willows, mark the division of one man's land from another's. It appears as if all were still held in common. If, at length, we approach the hilly range of Jutland, vast flat heaths lie spread before us, at first literally strewn with barrows of the dead; but the number of which gradually decreases, so that it may reasonably be supposed that this tract had never, in former times, been cultivated. This high ridge of land, it is thought, and not improbably, was the part of the peninsula that first made its appearance, rising from the ocean and casting it on either side, where the waves, rolling down, washed up the hills and hollowed out the valleys. On the east side of this heath, appear, here, and there, some patches of stunted oaks, which may serve a compass to travellers, the tops of the trees being all bent towards the east. On the large heath-covered hills but little verdure is to be seen,--a solitary grass-plot, or a young asp, of which one asks, with surprise, how it came here? If a brook or river runs through the heath, no meadow, no bush indicates its presence: deep down between hollowed-out hills, it winds its lonely course, and with a speed as if it were hurrying out of the desert.

Across such a stream rode, one beautiful autumn-day, a young well-dressed man, towards a small field of rye, which the distant owner had manured by scraping off the surface, and burning it to ashes. He and his people were just in the act of reaping it, when the horseman approached them, and inquired the road to the manor-house of Ansbjerg. The farmer, having first requited his question with another,--to wit, where did the traveller come from?--told him what he knew already, that he had missed his way; and then calling a boy who was binding the sheaves, ordered him to set the stranger in the right road. Before, however, the boy could begin to put this order in execution, a sight presented itself which, for a moment, drew all the attention both of the traveller and the harvest people. From the nearest heath-covered hill there came directly towards them, at full speed, a deer with a man on his back. The latter, a tall stout figure, clad in brown from head to foot, sat jammed in between the antlers of the crown-deer, which had cast them back, as these animals are wont to do when running. This extraordinary rider had apparently lost his hat in his progress, as his long dark hair flowed back from his head, like the mane of a horse in full gallop. His hand was in incessant motion, from his attempt to plunge a knife it held into the neck of the deer, but which the violent springs of the animal prevented him from hitting. When the deer-rider approached near enough to the astonished spectators, which was almost instantaneously, the farmer, at once recognising him, cried, "Hallo, Mads! where are you going to?"