Chapter XII: Introduction (12)

The return to fresh air and to something like country life was delightful. It had been, I must avow, an immense strain on my resolution to live in Bristol among all the sordid surroundings of Miss Carpenter’s house; and when once in a way in those days I left them and caught a glimpse of the country, the effort to force myself back was a hard one. One soft spring day, I remember, I had gone across the Downs and sat for half an hour under a certain horse-chestnut tree, which was that day in all the exquisite beauty of its young green leaves. I felt _this_ was all I wanted to be happy—merely to live in the beauty and peace of Nature, as of old at Newbridge; and I reflected that, of course, I _could_ do it, at once, by breaking off with Miss Carpenter and giving up my work in hideous Bristol. But, _per contra_, I had concluded that this work was wanted to be done and that I could do it; and had seriously given myself to it, believing that so I could best do God’s will. Thus there went on in my mind for a little while a very stiff fight, one of those which leave us either stronger or weaker ever after. _Now_ at last, without any effort on my part, the bond which held me to live in Red Lodge House, was loosened, and I was able both to go on with my work in Bristol and also to breathe the fresh air in the morning and to see the sun rise and set, and often to enjoy a healthful run over those beautiful Downs. By degrees, also, I made several friendships in the neighbourhood, some most dear and faithful ones which have lasted ever since; and many people were very kind to me and helped me in various ways in my work. I shall speak of these friends in another chapter.

One of my superstitions has long been that if any particular task seems to us at the first outlook specially against the grain, it will continually happen that in the order of things it comes knocking at our door and practically saying to our consciences: “Are you going to get up and do what is wanted, or sit still and please yourself with something else?” In this guise of disagreeability, workhouse visiting first presented itself to me. Miss Carpenter frequently mentioned the workhouse as a place which ought to be looked after; and which she believed sadly wanted voluntary inspection; but the very name conveyed to me such an impression of dreary hopelessness that I shrank from the thought. When St. Paul coupled _Hope_ with Faith and Charity he might have said “these three are one,” for without the Hope of achieving some good (or at least of stopping some evil) it is hard to gird ourselves to any practical exertion for our fellow-creatures. To lift up the criminal and perishing classes of the community and cut off the root of crime and vice by training children in morality and religion, this was a soul-inspiring idea. But to bring a small modicum of cheer to the aged and miserable paupers, who may be supposed generally to be undergoing the inevitable penalties of idle or drunken lives, was far from equally uplifting! However, my first chance-visit to St. Peter’s in Bristol with Miss Elliot, showed me so much to be done, so many claims to sympathy and pity, and the sore lack of somebody, unconnected officially with the place, to meet them, that I at once felt that here I must put in my oar.

The condition of the English workhouses generally at that period (1859) was very different from what it is now. I visited many of them in the following year or two in London and the provincial towns, and _this_ is what I saw. The sick lay on wretched beds, fit only for able-bodied tramps, and were nursed mostly by old pauper women of the very lowest class. The infirm wards were very frequently placed in the worst possible positions. I remember one (in London) which resounded all day long with din from an iron-foundry just beneath, so that one could not hear oneself speak; and another, of which the windows could not be opened in the hottest weather, because carpets were taken to be beaten in the court below. The treatment of the pauper children was no less deplorable. They were joyless, spiritless little creatures, without “mothering” (as blessed Mrs. Senior said a few years later), without toys, without the chance of learning anything practical for use in after life, even to the lighting of a fire or cooking a potato. Their poor faces were often scarred by disease and half blinded by ophthalmia. The girls wore the hideous workhouse cotton frocks, not half warm enough to keep them healthy in those bare, draughty wards, and heavy hob-nailed shoes which acted like galley-slaves’ bullets on their feet when they were turned to “play” in a high-walled, sunless yard, which was sometimes, as I have seen, six inches deep in coarse gravel. As to the infants, if they happened to have a good motherly matron it was so far well, though even she (mostly busy elsewhere) could do but little to make the crabbed old pauper nurses kind and patient. But how often, we might ask, were the workhouse matrons of those days really kind-hearted and motherly? Of course they were selected by the gentlemen guardians (there were no ladies then on the Boards) for quite other merits; and as Miss Carpenter once remarked to me from the depth of her experience:—

“_There never yet was man so clever but the Matron of an Institution could bamboozle him about every department of her business!_”

I have sat in the Infants’ ward when an entire Board of about two dozen gentlemen tramped through it, for what they considered to be “inspection”; and anything more helpless and absurd than those masculine “authorities” appeared as they glanced at the little cots (never daring to open one of them) while the awakened babies screamed at them in chorus, it has seldom been my lot to witness.

On one occasion I visited an enormous workhouse in a provincial town where there were nearly 500 sick and infirm patients. The Matron told me she had but lately been appointed to her post. I said, “It is a tremendously heavy charge for you, especially with only these pauper nurses. No doubt you have gone through a course of Hospital training, and know how to direct everything?”

“O, dear. No! Madam!” replied the lady with a toss of her cap-strings; “I never nursed anybody I can assure you, except my ’usband, before I came here. It was misfortune brought me to this!”

How many other Masters and Matrons throughout the country received their appointments with as little fitness for them and simply as favours from influential or easy-going guardians, who may guess?

I had at this time become acquainted with the friend whose comradeship—cemented in the dreary wards of Bristol Workhouse more than 30 years ago—has been ever since one of the great pleasures of my life. All those who know Miss Elliot, daughter of the late Dean of Bristol, will admit that it would be very superfluous, not to say impertinent, to enlarge on the privileges of friendship with her. Miss Elliot was at that time living at the old Deanery close to Bristol Cathedral, and taking part in every good work which was going on in the city and neighbourhood. Among other things she had been teaching regularly for years in Miss Carpenter’s Reformatory, regardless of the prejudice against her unitarianism; and one day she called at Miss Carpenter’s house to ask her what was to be done with Kitty, who had been very naughty. Miss Carpenter asked her to see the lady who had come to work with her; and we met for the first time. Miss Elliot begged me to return her visit, and though nothing was further from my mind at that time than to enter into anything like society, I was tempted by the great attractions of my brilliant young friend and her sister and of the witty and wide-minded Dean, and before long (especially after I went to live alone) I enjoyed much intercourse with the delightful household.

Miss Elliot had been in the habit of visiting a poor old woman named Mrs. Buckley, who had formerly lived close to the Deanery and had been removed to the workhouse; and one day she asked me to accompany her on her errand. This being over, I wandered off to the various wards where other poor women, and also the old and invalid men, spent their dreary days, and soon perceived how large a field was open for usefulness in the place.

The first matter which occupied us was the condition of the sick and infirm paupers; first of the women only; later of both men and women. The good Master and Matron admitted us quite freely to the wards, and we saw and knew everything which was going on. St. Peter’s was an exceptional workhouse in many respects. The house was evidently at one time (about A.D. 1600, like Red Lodge) the mansion of some merchant prince of Bristol, erected in the midst of the city. The outer walls are still splendid specimens of old English wood and stonework; and, within, the Board-room exhibits still a magnificent chimney-piece. The larger part of the building, however, has been pulled about and fashioned into large wards, with oak-beamed rafters on the upper floor, and intricate stairs and passages in all directions. Able-bodied paupers and casuals were lodged elsewhere (at Stapleton Workhouse) and were not admitted here. There were only the sick, the aged, the infirm, the insane and epileptic patients and lying-in women.

Here are some notes of the inmates of this place by Miss Elliot:—

“1. An old woman of nearly 80, and as I thought beyond power of
understanding me. Once however when I was saying ‘good-bye’ before an
absence of some months, I was attracted by her feeble efforts to catch
my attention. She took my hand and gasped out ‘God bless you; you wont
find me when you come back. Thank you for coming.’ I said most truly
that I had never been any good to her, and how sorry I was I had never
spoken to her. ‘Oh, but I see your face; it is always a great pleasure
and seems bright. I was praying for you last night. I don’t sleep much
of a night. I thank you for coming.’... 2. A woman between fifty and
sixty dying of liver disease. She had been early left a widow, had
struggled bravely, and reared her son so well that he became foreman
at one of the first printing establishments in the city. His master
gave us an excellent character of him. The poor mother unhappily had
some illness which long confined her in another hospital, and when she
left it her son was dead; dead without her care in his last hours. The
worn-out and broken-down mother, too weak and hopeless to work any
longer, came to her last place of refuge in the workhouse. There, day
by day, we found her sitting on the side of her bed, reading and
trying to talk cheerfully, but always breaking down utterly when she
came to speak of her son. 3. Opposite to her an old woman of ninety
lies, too weak to sit up. One day, not thinking her asleep, I went to
her bedside. I shall never forget the start of joy, the eager hand,
‘Oh, Mary, Mary, you are come! Is it you at last?’ ‘Ah, poor dear,’
said the women round her, ‘she most always dreams of Mary. ’Tis her
daughter, ladies, in London; she has written to her often, but don’t
get any answer.’ The poor old woman made profuse apologies for her
mistake, and laid her head wearily on the pillow where she had rested
and dreamed, literally for years, of Mary.

“4. Further on is a girl of sixteen, paralyzed hopelessly for life.
She had been maid-of-all-work in a family of twelve, and under her
fearful drudgery had broken down thus early. ‘Oh, ma’am,’ she said
with bursts of agony, ‘I did work; I was always willing to work, if
God would let me; I did work while I could, but I shall never get
well; Never!’ Alas, she may live as long as the poor cripple who died
here last summer, after lying forty-six years in the same bed, gazing
on the same blank, white wall. 5. The most cheerful woman in the ward
is one who can never rise from her bed; but she is a good needlewoman,
and is constantly employed in making _shrouds_. It would seem as if
the dismal work gave her an interest in something outside the ward,
and she is quite eager when the demand for her manufacture is
especially great!

“In the Surgical Ward are some eight or ten patients; all in painful
diseases. One is a young girl dying of consumption, complicated with
the most awful wounds on her poor limbs. ‘But they don’t hurt so bad,’
she says, ‘as any one would think who looked at them; and it will soon
be all over. I was just thinking it was four years to-day since I was
brought into the Penitentiary,’ (it was after an attempt to drown
herself after a sad life at Aldershot); ‘and now I have been here
three years. God has been very good to me, and brought me safe when I
didn’t deserve it.’ Over her head stands a print of the Lost Sheep,
and she likes to have that parable read to her. Very soon that sweet,
fair young face, as innocent as I have ever seen in the world, will
bear no more marks of pain. Life’s whole tragedy will have been ended,
and she is only just nineteen!”

[A few weeks later, on Easter Sunday morning when the rising sun was
shining into the curtainless ward, the few patients who were awake saw
this poor girl, who had not been able to raise herself or sit upright
for many weeks, suddenly start forward, sitting straight up in bed
with her arms lifted and an expression of ecstacy on her face, and
something like a cry of joy on her lips. Then she fell back, and all
was over. The incident, which was in every way striking and affecting,
helped me to recall the conviction (set forth in my _Peak in Darien_),
that the dying do, sometimes, catch a glimpse of blessed friends
waiting for them on the threshold.]

“A little way off lies a woman dying in severest sufferings which have
lasted long, and may yet last for weeks. Such part of her poor face as
may be seen expresses almost angelic patience and submission, and the
little she can say is all of gratitude to God and man. On the box
beside her bed there stands usually a cup with a few flowers, or even
leaves or weeds—something to which, in the midst of that sickening
disease, she can look for beauty. When we bring her flowers her
pleasure is almost too affecting to witness. She says she remembers
when she used to climb the hedge rows to gather them in the ‘beautiful
country.’”

Among the few ways open to us of relieving the miseries of these sick wards and of the parallel ones on the other side occupied by male sufferers, were the following:—The introduction of a few easy chairs with cushions for those who could sit by the fire in winter, and whose thinly-clothed frames could not bear the benches. Also bed-rests,—long knitted ones, fastened to the lower posts of the bed and passed behind the patient’s back, so as to form a kind of sitting hammock,—very great comforts where there is only one small bolster or pillow and the patient wants to sit up in bed. Occasionally we gave little packets of good tea; workhouse tea at that time being almost too nauseous to drink. We also brought pictures to hang on the walls. These we bought coloured and cheaply framed or varnished. Their effect upon the old women, especially pictures of children, was startling. One poor soul who had been lying opposite the same blank wall for twenty years, when I laid one of the coloured engravings on her bed preparatory to hanging it before her, actually _kissed_ the face of the little child in the picture, and burst into tears.

Further, we brought a canary in a cage to hang in the window. This seems an odd gift, but it was so successful that I believe the good visitors who came after us have maintained a series of canaries ever since our time. The common interest excited by the bird brought friendliness and cheerfulness among the poor old souls, some of whom had kept up “a coolness” for years while living next to one another on their beds! The sleepless ones gloried in the summer-morning-song of Dicky, and every poor visitor, daughter or granddaughter, was sure to bring a handful of groundsel to the general rejoicing of Dicky’s friends. Of course, we also brought flowers whenever we could contrive it; or a little summer fruit or winter apples.

Lastly, Books, magazines, and simple papers of various kinds; such as _Household Words_, _Chambers’ Magazine_, &c. These were eagerly borrowed and exchanged, especially among the men. Nothing could be more dreary than the lives of those who were not actually suffering from any acute malady but were paralysed or otherwise disabled from work. I remember a ship-steward who had been struck with hemiplegia, and had spent the savings of his life time—no less than £800,—in futile efforts at cure. Another was a once-smart groom whom my friend exhorted to patience and thankfulness. “Yes, Ma’am,” he replied promptly, “I will be _very_ thankful,—when I get out!”

As an example of the kind of way in which every sort of wretchedness drains into a workhouse and of what need there is for someone to watch for it there, I may record how we one day perceived at the far end of a very large ward a figure not at all of the normal workhouse stamp,—an unmistakeable gentleman,—sitting on the side of his bed. With some diffidence we offered him the most recent and least childish of our literature. He accepted the papers graciously, and we learnt from the Master that the poor man had been found on the Downs a few days before with his throat cut; happily not irreparably. He had come from Australia to Europe to dispute some considerable property, and had lost both his lawsuit and the friendship of all his English relatives, and was starving, and totally unable to pay his passage back to his wife and children at the Antipodes. We got up a little subscription, and the good Freemasons, finding him to be a Brother, did the rest, and sent him home across the seas, rejoicing, and with his throat mended!

But the cases of the _incurable_ poor weighed heavily on us, and as we studied it more, we came to see how exceedingly piteous is their destiny. We found that it is not an accidental misfortune, but a regular descent down the well-worn channels of Poverty, Disease and Death, for men and women to go to one or other of the 270 hospitals for _curable_ patients which then existed in England (there must be many more now), and after a longer or shorter sojourn, to be pronounced “incurable,” destined perhaps to linger for a year or several years, but to die inevitably from Consumption, Cancer or some other of the dreadful maladies which afflict human nature. What then becomes of them? Their homes, if they had any before going into the hospital, are almost sure to be too crowded to receive them back, or too poor to supply them with both support and nursing for months of helplessness. There is no resource for them but the workhouse, and there they sink down, hopeless and miserable; the hospital comforts of good beds and furniture and carefully prepared food and skilled nurses all lost, and only the hard workhouse bed to lie, and _die_ upon. The burst of agony with which many a poor creature has told me: “I am sent here because I am incurable,” remains one of the saddest of my memories.

Miss Elliot’s keen and practical mind turned over the problem of how this misery could be in some degree alleviated. There was no use in trying to get sufficient Hospitals for Incurables opened to meet the want. There were only two at that time in England, and they received (as they do now) a rather different class from those with whom we are concerned; namely, the deformed and permanently diseased. At the lowest rate of £30 a year it would have needed £900,000 a year to house the 30,000 patients whom we should have wished to take from the workhouses. The only possible plan was to improve their condition _in_ the workhouses; and this we fondly hoped might be done (without burdening the ratepayers) by our plan, which was as follows:—

That the incurables in workhouses should be avowedly distinguished from other paupers, and separate wards be allowed to them. That into those wards private charity be freely admitted and permitted to introduce, with the sanction of the medical officer, such comforts as would alleviate the sufferings of the inmates, _e.g._, good spring beds, or air beds; easy-chairs, air-cushions, small refreshments such as good tea and lemons and oranges (often an immense boon to the sick); also snuff, cough lozenges, spectacles, flowers in the window, books and papers; and, above all, kindly visitors.

The plan was approved by a great many experienced men and women; and, as it would not have added a shilling anywhere to the rates, we were very hopeful that it might be generally adopted. Several pamphlets which we wrote, “_The Workhouse as a Hospital_,” “_Destitute Incurables_,” and the “_Sick in Workhouses_,” and “_Remarks on Incurables_,” were widely circulated. The newspapers were very kind, and leaders or letters giving us a helping hand were inserted in nearly all, except the _Saturday Review_, which refused even one of its own regular contributors’ requests to introduce the subject. I wrote an article called _Workhouse Sketches_ for Macmillan’s Magazine, dealing with the whole subject, and begged that it might be inserted gratuitously. To my delight the editor, Mr. Masson, wrote to me the following kind letter which I have kept among my pleasant souvenirs:—

“23, Henrietta Street,
“Covent Garden,
“February 18th, 1861.

“Dear Madam,

“As soon as possible in this part of the month, when there is much to
do with the forthcoming number, I have read your paper. Having an
almost countless number of MSS. in hand, I greatly feared I might,
though very reluctantly, be compelled to return it, but the reading of
it has so convinced me of the great importance of arousing interest in
the subject, and the paper itself is so touching, that I think I
ought, with whatever difficulty, to find a place for it....

“In any case accept my best thanks for the opportunity of reading so
admirable and powerful an experience; and allow me to express my
regret that I had not the pleasure of meeting you at Mrs. Reid’s.

“I am, dear Madam,
“Yours very truly,
“DAVID MASSON.

“Miss Frances Power Cobbe.

“Should you object to your name appearing in connexion with this
paper? It is our usual practice.”

The paper appeared and soon after, to my equal astonishment and delight, came a cheque for £14. It was the first money I had ever earned and when I had cashed the cheque I held the sovereigns in my hand and tossed them with a sense of pride and satisfaction which the gold of the Indies, if gained by inheritance, would not have given me! Naturally I went down straight to St. Peter’s and gave the poor old souls such a tea as had not been known before in the memory of the “oldest inhabitant.”

We also printed, and ourselves directed and posted circulars to the 666 Unions which then existed in England. We received a great many friendly letters in reply, and promises of help from Guardians in carrying out our plan. A certain number of Unions, I think 15, actually adopted it and set it going. We also induced the Social Science people, then very active and influential, to take it up, and papers on it were read at the Congresses in Glasgow and Dublin; the latter by myself. The Hon. Sec. (then the young poetess Isa Craig) wrote to me as follows:

“National Association
“For the Promotion of Social Science,
“3, Waterloo Place, Pall Mall,
“28th December, 1860.

“Dear Miss Cobbe,

“The case of the poor ‘incurables’ is truly heartrending. I cried over
the proof of your paper—a queer proceeding on the part of the
Sub-editor of the Social Science Transactions, but I hope an earnest
of the sympathy your noble appeal shall meet with wherever our volume
goes, setting in action the roused sense of humanity and _justice_ to
remedy such bitter wrong and misery.

“Yours sincerely,
“ISA CRAIG.”

A weightier testimony was that of the late Master of Balliol. The following letters from him on the subject are, I think, very characteristic and charming:—

“Coll. de Ball., Oxon.
“Hawhead, near Selkirk,
“Sept. 24th.

“Dear Miss Cobbe,

“I am very much obliged to you for sending me the extract from the
newspaper which contains the plan for Destitute Incurables. I entirely
agree in the object and greatly like the touching and simple manner in
which you have described it.

“The only thing that occurs to me in passing is whether the system of
outdoor relief to incurables should not also be extended? Many would
still require to be received into the house (I do not wish in any
degree to take away from the poor the obligation to support their
Incurables outdoors, and it is, perhaps, better to trust to the
natural human pity of a cottage than to the better attendance, warmth,
&c., of a workhouse). But I daresay you are right in sticking to a
simple point.

“All the world seems to be divided into Political Economists, Poor Law
Commissioners, Guardians, Policemen, and Philanthropists, Enthusiasts,
and Christian Socialists. Is there not a large intermediate ground
which anyone who can write might occupy, and who could combine a real
knowledge of the problems to be solved with the enthusiasm which
impels a person to devote their life to solving them?

“The way would be to hide the philanthropy altogether as a weakness of
the flesh; and sensible people would then be willing to listen.

“I entirely like the plan and wish it success....

“I am afraid that I am not likely to have an opportunity of making the
scheme known. But if you have any other objects in which I can help
you I shall think it a great pleasure to do so.

“Remember me most kindly to the Dean and his daughters. I thought they
were not going to banish themselves to Cannes. Wherever they are I
cannot easily forget them.

“I hope you enjoy Garibaldi’s success. It is one of the very few
public events that seem to make life happier.

“Believe me, with sincere respect,
“Yours truly,
“B. JOWETT.”

“Coll. de Ball., Oxon.

“Dear Miss Cobbe,

“I write a line to thank you for the little pamphlet you have sent me
which I read and like very much.

“There is no end of good that you may do by writing in that simple and
touching style upon social questions.

“But don’t go to war with Political Economy. 1st. Because the P. E.’s
are a powerful and dangerous class. 2nd. Because it is impossible for
ladies and gentlemen to fill up the interstices of legislation if they
run counter to the common motives of self-interest. 3rd. (You won’t
agree to this) Because the P. E.’s have really done more for the
labouring classes by their advocacy of free trade, &c., than all the
Philanthropists put together.

“I wish that it were possible as a matter of taste to get rid of all
philanthropic expressions, ‘missions, &c.,’ which are distasteful to
the educated. But I suppose they are necessary for the Collection of
Money. And no doubt as a matter of taste there is a good deal that
might be corrected in the Political Economists.

“The light of the feelings never teaches the best way of dealing with
the world _en masse_ and the dry light never finds its way to the
heart either of man or beast.

“You see I want all the humanities combined with Political Economy.
Perhaps, it may be replied that such a combination is not possible in
human nature.

“Excuse my speculations and believe me in haste,

“Yours very truly,
“B. JOWETT.”

About the same time that we began to visit the Bristol work house, Miss Louisa Twining bravely undertook a systematic reform of the whole system throughout the country. It was an enormous task, but she had great energy, and a fund of good sense; and with the support of Lord Mount-Temple (then Hon. William Cowper-Temple), Mrs. Tait, and several other excellent and influential persons, she carried out a grand reformation through the length and breadth of the land. Her _Workhouse Visiting Society_, and the monthly _Journal_ she edited as its organ, brought by degrees good sense and good feeling quietly and unostentatiously to bear on the Boards of Guardians and their officials all over the country, and one abuse after another was disclosed, discussed, condemned, and finally, in most cases abolished. I went up for a short visit to London at one time on purpose to learn all I could from _General_ Twining (as I used to call her), and then returned to Bristol. I have been gratified to read in her charming _Recollections_ published last year (1893), that in her well-qualified judgment Miss Elliot’s work and mine was really the beginning of much that has subsequently been done for the sick and for workhouse girls. She says:

“In 1861[16] began the consideration of ‘Destitute Incurables,’ which
was in its results to bring forth such a complete reform in the care
of the sick in Workhouses, or at least I am surely justified in
considering it one of the good seeds sown, which brought forth fruit
in due season. One of the first to press the claims of these helpless
ones on the notice of the public, who were, almost universally,
utterly ignorant of their existence and their needs, was Frances Power
Cobbe, who was then introduced to me; she lived near Bristol, and with
her friend Miss Elliot, also of that place, had long visited the
workhouse, and become acquainted with the inmates, helping more
especially the school children, and befriending the girls after they
went to service. This may be said to be one of the first beginnings of
all those efforts now so largely developed by more than one society
expressly for this object.

“I accompanied Miss Cobbe to the St. Giles’s Schools and to the
Strand, West London, and Holborn Unions, and to the Hospital for
Incurables at Putney, in aid of her plans.”—_Recollections_, p. 170.

While our plan for the Incurables was still in progress, I was obliged to spend a winter in Italy for my health, and on my way I went over the Hotel Dieu and the Salpêtrière in Paris, and several hospitals in Italy, to learn how best to treat this class of sufferers. I did not gain much. There were no arrangements that I noticed as better or more humane than our own, and in many cases they seemed to be worse. In particular the proximity of infectious with other cases in the Hotel Dieu was a great evil. I was examining the bed of a poor victim of rheumatism when, on looking a few feet across the floor, I beheld the most awful case of small-pox which could be conceived. Both in Paris, Florence and the great San-Spirito Hospital in Rome, the nurses, who in those days all were Sisters of Charity, seemed to me very heartless; proud of their tidy cupboards full of lint and bandages, but very indifferent to their patients. Walking a little in advance of one of them in Florence, I came into a ward where a poor woman was lying in a bed behind the door, in the last “agony.” A label at the foot of her bed bore the inscription “_Olio Santo_,” showing that her condition had been observed—yet there was no friendly breast on which the poor creature’s head could rest, no hand to wipe the deathsweats from her face. I called hastily to the Nun for help, but she replied with great coolness, “_Ci vuole del cotone!_” and seemed astonished when I used my own handkerchief. In San-Spirito the doctor who conducted me, and who was personally known to me, told me he would rather have our English pauper nurses than the Sisters. This, however, may have been a choice grounded on other reasons beside humanity to the patients. At the terrible hospital “degli Incurabili,” in the via de’ Greci, Rome, I saw fearful cases of disease (cancer, &c.), receiving so little comfort in the way of diet that the wretched creatures rose all down the wards, literally _screaming_ to me for money to buy food, coffee, and so on. I asked the Sister, “Had they no lady visitors?” “O yes: there was the Princess So and so, and the Countess So and so, saintly ladies, who came once a week or once a month.” “Then do they not provide the things these poor souls want?” “No, Signora, they don’t do that.” “Then, in Heaven’s name, what do they come to do for them?” It was some moments before I could be made to understand, “_Per pettinarle, Signora!_”—To comb their hair! The task was so disgusting that the great ladies came on purpose to perform it as a work of merit; for the good of their _own_ souls!

The saddest sight which I ever beheld, however, I think was not in these Italian hospitals but in the Salpêtrière in Paris. As I was going round the wards with a Sister, I noticed on a bed opposite us a very handsome woman lying with her head a little raised and her marble neck somewhat exposed, while her arms lay rigidly on each side out of the bed-clothes. “What is the matter with that patient?” I asked. Before the Nun could tell me that, (except in her head,) she was completely paralyzed, there came in response to me an unearthly, inarticulate cry like that of an animal in agony; and I understood that the hapless creature was trying to call me. I went and stood over her and her eyes burnt into mine with the hungry eagerness of a woman famishing for sympathy and comfort in her awful affliction. She was a _living statue_; unable even to speak, much less to move hand or foot; yet still young; not over thirty I should think, and likely to live for years on that bed! The horror of her fate and the piteousness of the appeal in her eyes, and her inarticulate moans and cries, completely broke me down. I poured out all I could think of to say to comfort her, of prayer and patience and eternal hope; and at last was releasing her hand which I had been holding, and on which my tears had been falling fast,—when I felt a thrill run down her poor stiffened arm. It was the uttermost efforts she could make, striving with all her might to return my pressure.

In recent years I have heard of “scientific experiments” conducted by the late Dr. Charcot and a coterie of medical men, upon the patients of the Salpêtrière. When I have read of these, I have thought of that paralyzed woman with dread lest she might be yet alive to suffer; and with indignation against the Science which counts cases like these of uttermost human affliction, “interesting” subjects for investigation!

Some years after this time, hearing of the great Asylum designed by Mr. Holloway, I made an effort to bring influence from many quarters to bear on him to induce him to change its destination at that early stage, and make it the much-needed Home for Incurables. Many ladies and gentlemen whose names I hoped would carry weight with him, were kindly willing to write to him on the subject. Among them was the Hon. Mrs. Monsell, then Lady Superior of Clewer. Her letter to me on the subject was so wise that I have preserved it. Mr. Holloway, however, was inexorable. Would to Heaven that some other millionaire, instead of spending tens of thousands on Palaces of Delight and places of public amusement, would take to heart the case of those most wretched of human beings, the Destitute Incurables, who are still sent every year by thousands to die in the workhouses of England and Ireland with scarcely one of the comforts which their miserable condition demands.

“House of Mercy,
“Clewer,
“Windsor.

“Madam,

“I have read your letter with much interest, and have at once
forwarded it to Mrs. Wellesley, asking her to show it to Princess
Christian, and also to speak to Mrs. Gladstone.

“I have no doubt that a large sum of money would be better expended on
an _Incurable_ than on a _Convalescent_ Hospital. It would be wiser
not to congregate so many Convalescents. For _Incurables_, under good
management and liberal Christian teaching, it would not signify how
many were gathered together, provided the space were large enough for
the work.

“By ‘liberal Christian teaching’ I mean, that, while I presume Mr.
Holloway would make it a Church of England Institution, Roman
Catholics ought to have the comfort of free access from their own
teachers.

“An Incurable Hospital without the religious element fairly
represented, and the blessing which Religion brings to each
individually, would be a miserable desolation. But there should be the
most entire freedom of conscience allowed to each, in what, if that
great sum were expended, must become a National Institution.

“I earnestly hope Mr. Holloway will take the subject of the needs of
Incurables into consideration. In our own Hospital, at St. Andrew’s,
and St. Raphael’s, Torquay, we shrink from turning out our dying
cases, and yet it does not do to let them die in the wards with
convalescent patients. Few can estimate the misery of the incurable
cases; and the expense connected with the nursing is so great, it is
not easy for private benevolence to provide Incurable Hospitals on a
small scale. Besides, they need room for classification. The truth is,
an Incurable Hospital is a far more difficult machine to work than a
Convalescent; and so the work, if well done, would be far nobler.

“Believe me, Madam,
“Yours faithfully,
“H. MONSELL.

“June 23rd, 1874.”

In concluding these observations generally on the _Sick in Workhouses_ I should like to offer to humane visitors one definite result of my own experience. “Do not imagine that what will best cheer the poor souls will be _your_ conversation, however well designed to entertain or instruct them. That which will really brighten their dreary lives is, to be _made to talk themselves_, and to enjoy the privilege of a good listener. Draw them out about their old homes in ‘the beautiful country,’ as they always call it; or in whatever town sheltered them in childhood. Ask about their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, everything connected with their early lives, and tell them if possible any late news about the place and people connected therewith by ever so slight a thread. But before all things make THEM talk; and show yourself interested in what they say.”

CHAPTER
XII.
_BRISTOL._
_WORKHOUSE GIRLS._

Beside the poor sick and aged people in the Workhouse, the attention of Miss Elliot and myself was much drawn to the girls who were sent out from thence to service on attaining (about) their sixteenth year. On all hands, and notably from Miss Twining and from some excellent Irish philanthropists, we heard the most deplorable reports of the incompetence of the poor children to perform the simplest duties of domestic life, and their consequent dismissal from one place after another till they ended in ruin. It was stated at the time (1862), on good authority, that, on tracing the subsequent history of 80 girls who had been brought up in a single London Workhouse, _every one_ was found to be on the streets! In short these hapless “children of the State,” as my friend Miss Florence Davenport Hill most properly named them, seemed at that time as if they were being trained on purpose to fall into a life of sin; having nothing to keep them out of it,—no friends, no affections, no homes, no training for any kind of useful labour, no habits of self-control or self-guidance.

It was never realized by the _men_ (who, in those days, alone managed our pauper system) that girls cannot be trained _en masse_ to be general servants, nurses, cooks, or anything else. The strict routine, the vast half-furnished wards, the huge utensils and furnaces of a large workhouse, have too little in common with the ways of family life and the furniture of a common kitchen, to furnish any sort of practising ground for household service. The Report of the Royal Commission on Education, issued about that time, concluded that Workhouse Schools leave the pauper taint on the children, _but_ “that District and separate schools give an education to the children contained in them which effectually tends to emancipate them from pauperism.” Accordingly, the vast District schools, containing each the children from many Unions, was then in full blast, and the girls were taught extremely well to read, write and cipher; but were neither taught to cook for any ordinary household, or to scour, or sweep, or nurse, or serve the humblest table. What was far more deplorable, they were not, and could not be, taught to love or trust any human being, since no one loved or cared for them; or to exercise even so much self-control as should help them to forbear from stealing lumps of sugar out of the first bowl left in their way. “But,” we may be told, “they received excellent religious instruction!” Let any one try to realize the idea of God which any child can possibly reach _who has never been loved_; and he will then perhaps rightly estimate the value of such “religious instruction” in a dreary pauper school. I have never quite seen the force of the argument “If a man love not his neighbour whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen?” But the converse is very clear. “If a man _hath not been beloved_ by his neighbour or his parents, how shall he believe in the Love of the invisible God?” Religion is a plant which grows and flourishes in an atmosphere of a certain degree of warmth and softness, but not in the Frozen Zone of lovelessness, wherein is no sweetness, no beauty, no tenderness.

How to prevent the girls who left Bristol workhouse from falling into the same gulf as the unhappy ones in London, occupied very much the thoughts of Miss Elliot and her sister (afterwards Mrs. Montague Blackett) and myself, in 1851 and 1860–61. Our friend, Miss Sarah Stephen (daughter of Sergeant Stephen, niece of Sir James), then residing in Clifton, had for some time been working successfully a Preventive Mission for the poorer class of girls in Bristol; with a good motherly old woman as her agent to look after them. This naturally helped us to an idea which developed itself into the following plan—

Miss Elliot and her sister, as I have said, resided at that time with their father at the old Bristol Deanery, close to the Cathedral in College Green. This house was known to every one in the city, which was a great advantage at starting. A Sunday afternoon School for workhouse girls only, was opened by the two kind and wise sisters; and soon frequented by a happy little class. The first step in each case (which eventually fell chiefly to my share of the business) was to receive notice from the Workhouse of the address of every girl when sent out to her first service, and thereupon to go at once and call on her new mistress, and ask her permission for the little servant’s attendance at the Deanery Class. As Miss Eliott wrote most truly, in speaking of the need of haste in this preliminary visit—

“There are few times in a girl’s life when kindness is more valued by
her, or more necessary to her, than when she is taken from the shelter
and routine of school life and plunged suddenly and alone into a new
struggling world full of temptations and trials. That this is the
turning point in the life of many I feel confident, and I think delay
in beginning friendly intercourse most dangerous; they, like other
human beings, will seek friends of some kind. We found them very ready
to take good ones if the chance were offered, and, as it seemed,
grateful for such chance. But good friends failing them, they will
most assuredly find bad ones.”—(_Workhouse Girls. Notes by M. Elliot_,
p. 7.)

As a rule the mistresses, who were all of the humbler sort and of course persons of good reputation, seemed to welcome my rather intrusive visit and questions, which were, of course, made with every possible courtesy. A little by-play about the insufficient outfit given by the Workhouse, and an offer of small additional adornments for Sundays, was generally well received; and the happy fact of having such an ostensibly and unmistakeably respectable address for the Sunday school, secured many assents which might otherwise have been denied. The mistresses were generally in a state of chronic vexation at their little servants’ stupidity and incompetence; and on this head I could produce great effect by inveighing against the useless Workhouse education. There was often difficulty in getting leave of absence for the girls on Sunday afternoon, but with the patience and good humour of the teachers (who gave their lessons to as many or as few as came to them), there was always something of a class, and the poor girls themselves were most eager to lose no chance of attending.

A little reading of _Pilgrim’s Progress_ and other good books: more explanations and talk; much hymn singing and repeating of hymns learned during the week; and a penny banking account,—such were some of the devices of the kind teachers to reach the hearts of their little pupils. And very effectually they did so, as the 30 letters which they wrote between them to Miss Elliot when she, or they, left Bristol, amply testified. Here is one of these epistles; surely a model of prudence and candour on the occasion of the approaching marriage of the writer! The back-handed compliment to the looks of her betrothed is specially delightful.

“You pointed out one thing in your kind letter, that to be sure that
the young man was steady. I have been with him now two years, and I
hope I know his failings; and I can say I have never known any one so
steady and trustworthy as he is. I might have bettered myself as
regards the outside looks; but, dear Madam, I think of the future, and
what my home would be then; and perhaps if I married a gay man, I
should always be unhappy. But John has a kind heart, and all he thinks
of is to make others happy; and I hope I shall never have a cause to
regret my choice, and I will try and do my best to do my duty, so that
one day you may see me comfortable. Dear Madam, I cannot thank you
enough for your kindness to me.”

The whole experiment was marvellously successful. Nearly all the poor children seemed to have been improved in various ways as well as certainly made happier by their Sundays at the Deanery, and not one of them, I believe, turned out ill afterwards or fell into any serious trouble. Many of them married respectably. In short it proved to be a good plan, which we have had no hesitation in recommending ever since. Eventually it was taken up by humane ladies in London, and there it slowly developed into the now imposing society with the long name (commonly abbreviated into M.A.B.Y.S.) the _Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants_. Two or three years ago when I attended and spoke at the annual meeting of this large body, with the Lord Mayor of London in the chair and a Bishop to address us, it seemed very astonishing and delightful to Miss Elliot and me that our small beginnings of thirty years before should have swelled to such an assembly!

My experience of the wrongs and perils of young servant girls, acquired during my work as _Whipper-in_ to the Deanery class, remains a painful memory, and supplies strong arguments in favour of extending some such protection to such girls generally. Some cases of oppression and injustice on the part of mistresses (themselves, no doubt, poor and over-strained, and not unnaturally exasperated by their poor little slave’s incompetence) were very cruel. I heard of one case which had occurred just before we began our work, wherein the girl had been left in charge of a small shop. A man came in out of the street, and seeing only this helpless child of fifteen behind the counter, laid hands on something (worth sixpence as it proved) and walked off with it without payment. When the mistress returned the girl told her what had happened, whereupon she and her husband stormed and scolded; and eventually _turned the girl out of the house_! This was at nine o’clock at night, in one of the lowest parts of Bristol, and the unhappy girl had not a shilling in her possession. A murder would scarcely have been more wicked.

Sometimes the mistresses sent their servants away without paying them any wages at all, making up their accounts in a style like this: “I owe you five and sixpence; but you broke my teapot, which was worth three shillings; and you burnt a tablecover worth two, and broke two plates and a saucer, and lost a spoon, and I gave you an old pair of boots, worth at least eighteen-pence, so _you owe me_ half-a-crown; and if you don’t go away quietly I’ll call the police and give you in charge!” The mere name of the police would inevitably terrify the poor little drudge into submission to her oppressor. That the law could ever _defend_ and not punish her would be quite outside her comprehension.

The wretched holes under stairs, or in cellars, or garrets, where these girls were made to sleep, were often most unhealthy; and their exposure to cold, with only the thin workhouse cotton frock, leaving arms and neck bare, was cruel in winter. One day I had an example of this, not easily to be forgotten. I had just received notice that a girl of sixteen had been sent from the workhouse (Bristol or Clifton, I forget which) to a place in St. Philip’s, at the far end of Bristol. It was a snowy day but I walked to the place with the same odd conviction over me of which I have spoken, that I was bound to go at _once_. When I reached the house, I found it was one a little above the usual class for workhouse-girl servants and had an area. The snow was falling fast, and as I knocked I looked down into the area and saw a girl in her cotton dress standing out at a wash-tub;—head, neck and arms all bare, and the snow falling on them with the bitter wind eddying through the area. Presently the door was opened and there stood the girl, in such a condition of bronchitis as I hardly ever saw in my life. When the mistress appeared I told her civilly that I was very sorry, but that the girl was in mortal danger of inflammation of the lungs and _must_ be put to bed immediately. “O, that was entirely out of the question.” “But it _must_ be done,” I said. Eventually after much angry altercation, the woman consented to my fetching a fly, putting the girl into it, driving with her to the Infirmary (for which I had always tickets) and leaving her there in charge of a friendly doctor. Next day when I called to enquire, he told me she could scarcely have lived after another hour of exposure, and that she could recover only by the most stringent and immediate treatment. It was another instance of the verification of my superstition.