Chapter V: The Workhouse System of Britain (1)

The English writers generally point to the poor-laws of their country as a proud evidence of the merciful and benevolent character of the government. Look at those laws! so much have we done in the cause of humanity. See how much money we expend every year for the relief of the poor! Our workhouses are maintained at an enormous expense. Very well; but it takes somewhat from the character of the doctor, to ascertain that he gave the wound he makes a show of healing. What are the sources of the immense pauperism of Britain? The enormous monopoly of the soil, and the vast expense of civil and ecclesiastical aristocracy. The first takes work from one portion of the people, and the latter takes the profits of work from the other portion. The "glorious institutions" of Britain crowd the workhouses; and we are now going to show the horrible system under which paupers are held in these establishments.

The labouring classes are constantly exposed to the chance of going to the workhouse. Their wages are so low, or so preyed upon by taxes, that they have no opportunity of providing for a "rainy day." A few weeks' sickness, a few weeks' absence of work, and, starvation staring them in the face, they are forced to apply to the parish authorities for relief. Once within the gate of the workhouse, many never entertain the idea of coming out until they are carried forth in their coffins.

Each parish has a workhouse, which is under the control of several guardians, who, again, are under the orders of a Board of Commissioners sitting at London. Many—perhaps a majority—of the guardians of the parishes are persons without those humane feelings which should belong to such officials, and numerous petty brutalities are added to those which are inherent in the British workhouse system.

Robert Southey says—

"When the poor are incapable of contributing any longer to their
own support, they are removed to what is called the workhouse.
I cannot express to you the feelings of hopelessness and
dread with which all the decent poor look on to this wretched
termination of a life of labour. To this place all vagrants are
sent for punishment; unmarried women with child go here to be
delivered; and poor orphans and base-born children are brought
up here until they are of age to be apprenticed off; the other
inmates are of those unhappy people who are utterly helpless,
parish idiots and madmen, the blind and the palsied, and the
old who are fairly worn out. It is not in the nature of things
that the superintendents of such institutions as these should be
gentle-hearted, when the superintendence is undertaken merely
for the sake of the salary. To this society of wretchedness
the labouring poor of England look as their last resting-place
on this side of the grave; and, rather than enter abodes so
miserable, they endure the severest privations as long as it is
possible to exist. A feeling of honest pride makes them shrink
from a place where guilt and poverty are confounded; and it is
heart-breaking for those who have reared a family of their own
to be subjected, in their old age, to the harsh and unfeeling
authority of persons younger than themselves, neither better born
nor better bred."

This is no less true, than admirable as a specimen of prose. It was true when Southey penned it, and it is true now. Let us look at some of the provisions of the poor-laws of England, which form the much-lauded system of charity.

One of these provisions refuses relief to those who will not accept that relief except in the character of inmates of the workhouse, and thus compels the poor applicants to either perish of want or tear asunder all the ties of home. To force the wretched father from the abode of his family, is a piece of cruelty at which every humane breast must revolt. What wonder that many perish for want of food, rather than leave all that is dear to them on earth? If they must die, they prefer to depart surrounded by affectionate relatives, rather than by callous "guardians of the poor," who calculate the trouble and the expense of the burial before the breath leaves the body. The framers of the poor-laws forgot—perchance—that, "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

Another provision of the poor-laws denies the consolations of religion to those whose conscientious scruples will not allow them to worship according to the forms of the established church. This is totally at variance with the spirit of true Christianity, and a most barbarous privation. One would think that British legislators doubted the supreme efficacy of the Christian faith in saving souls from destruction. Why should not the balm be applied, regardless of the formal ceremonies, if it possesses any healing virtues? But the glory of the English Church is its iron observance of forms; and, rather than relax one jot, it would permit the souls of millions to be swept away into the gloom of eternal night.

Then, there is the separation regulation, dragging after it a long train of horrors and heart-rending sufferings—violating the law of holy writ—"Whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder"—and trampling upon the best feelings of human nature.

A thrilling illustration of the operation of this law is narrated by Mr. James Grant.[90] We quote:—

"Two persons, man and wife, of very advanced years, were at
last, through the infirmities consequent on old age, rendered
incapable of providing for themselves. Their friends were like
themselves, poor; but, so long as they could, they afforded
them all the assistance in their power. The infirmities of the
aged couple became greater and greater; so, as a necessary
consequence, did their wants. The guardians of the poor—their
parish being under the operation of the new measure—refused to
afford them the slightest relief. What was to be done? They had
no alternative but starvation and the workhouse. To have gone to
the workhouse, even had they been permitted to live together,
could have been painful enough to their feelings; but to go there
to be separated from each other, was a thought at which their
hearts sickened. They had been married for nearly half a century;
and during all that time had lived in the greatest harmony
together. I am speaking the language of unexaggerated truth when
I say, that their affection for each other increased, instead
of suffering diminution, as they advanced in years. A purer or
stronger attachment than theirs has never, perhaps, existed in a
world in which there is so much of mutability as in ours. Many
were the joys and many were the sorrows which they had equally
shared with each other. Their joys were increased, because
participated in by both: their sorrows were lessened, because of
the consolations they assiduously administered to each other when
the dispensations of Providence assumed a lowering aspect. The
reverses they had experienced, in the course of their long and
eventful union, had only served to attach them the more strongly
to each other, just as the tempestuous blast only serves to
cause the oak to strike its roots more deeply in the earth. With
minds originally constituted alike, and that constitution being
based on a virtuous foundation, it was, indeed, to be expected
that the lapse of years would only tend to strengthen their
attachment. Nothing, in a word, could have exceeded the ardour
of their sympathy with each other. The only happiness which this
world could afford them was derived from the circumstance of
being in each other's company; and the one looked forward to the
possibility of being left alone, when the other was snatched away
by death, with feelings of the deepest pain and apprehension.
Their wish was, in subordination to the will of the Supreme
Being, that as they had been so long united in life, so in death
they might not be divided. Their wish was in one sense realized,
though not in the sense they had desired. The pressure of want,
aggravated by the increasing infirmities of the female, imposed
on her the necessity of repairing to the workhouse. The husband
would most willingly have followed, had they been permitted
to live together when there, in the hope that they should,
even in that miserable place, be able to assuage each other's
griefs, as they had so often done before. That was a permission,
however, which was not to be granted to them. The husband
therefore determined that he would live on a morsel of bread and
a draught of cold water, where he was, rather than submit to
the degradation of a workhouse, in which he would be separated
from her who had been the partner of his joys and griefs for
upward of half a century. The hour of parting came; and a sad
and sorrowful hour it was to the aged couple. Who shall describe
their feelings on the occasion? Who can even enter into those
feelings? No one. They could only be conceived by themselves.
The process of separation was as full of anguish to their mental
nature as is the severance of a limb from the body to the
physical constitution. And that separation was aggravated by the
circumstance, that both felt a presentiment, so strong as to have
all the force of a thorough conviction, that their separation was
to be final as regarded this world. What, then, must have been
the agonies of the parting hour in the case of a couple whose
mental powers were still unimpaired, and who had lived in the
most perfect harmony for the protracted period of fifty years?
They were, I repeat, not only such as admit of no description,
but no one, who has not been similarly circumstanced, can even
form an idea of them. The downcast look, the tender glances
they emitted to each other, the swimming eye, the moist cheek,
the deep-drawn sigh, the choked utterance, the affectionate
embrace—all told, in the language of resistless eloquence, of
the anguish caused by their separation. The scene was affecting
in the extreme, even to the mere spectator. It was one which must
have softened the hardest heart, as it drew tears from every
eye which witnessed it; what, then, must the actual realization
of it in all its power have been to the parties themselves? The
separation did take place; the poor woman was wrenched from the
almost death-like grasp of her husband. She was transferred to
the workhouse; and he was left alone in the miserable hovel in
which they had so long remained together. And what followed?
What followed! That may be soon told: it is a short history. The
former pined away, and died in three weeks after the separation;
and the husband only survived three weeks more. Their parting was
thus but for a short time, though final as regarded this world.
Ere six weeks had elapsed they again met together—

Met on that happy, happy shore,
Where friends do meet to part no more."

Here was an outrage, shocking to every heart of ordinary sensibility, committed by authority of the British government, in due execution of its "charitable enactments." In searching for a parallel, we can only find it among those savage tribes who kill their aged and infirm brethren to save trouble and expense. Yet such actions are sanctioned by the government of a civilized nation, in the middle of the nineteenth century; and that, too, when the government is parading its philanthropy in the face of the world, and, pharisaically, thanking God that it is not as other nations are, authorizing sin and wrong.

It was said by the advocates of this regulation of separation, that paupers themselves have no objection to be separated from each other; because, generally speaking, they have become old and unable to assist each other, before they throw themselves permanently on the parish—in other words, that the poor have not the same affection for relatives and friends that the wealthy have. Well, that argument was characteristic of a land where the fineness of a man's feelings are assumed to be exactly in proportion to the position of his ancestry and the length of his purse—perfectly in keeping, as an artist would say. A pauper husband and wife, after living together, perhaps for thirty years, become old and desire to be separated, according to the representations of the British aristocrat. His iron logic allows no hearts to the poor. To breathe is human—to feel is aristocratic.

Equally to be condemned is the regulation which prohibits the visits to the workhouse of the friends of the inmates. The only shadow of a reason for this is an alleged inconvenience attending the admission of those persons who are not inmates; and for such a reason the wife is prevented from seeing her husband, the children from seeing their father, and the poor heart-broken inmate from seeing a friend—perhaps the only one he has in the world. We might suppose that the authors of this regulation had discovered that adversity multiplies friends, instead of driving them away from its gloom. Paupers must be blessed beyond the rest of mankind in that respect. Instances are recorded in which dying paupers have been refused the consolation of a last visit from their children, under the operation of this outrageous law. Mr. James Grant mentions a case that came to his notice:—

"An instance occurred a few months since in a workhouse in the
suburbs of the metropolis, in which intelligence was accidentally
conveyed to a daughter that her father was on his death-bed; she
hurried that moment to the workhouse, but was refused admission.
With tears in her eyes, and a heart that was ready to break, she
pleaded the urgency of the case. The functionary was deaf to
her entreaties; as soon might she have addressed them to the
brick wall before her. His answer was, 'It is contrary to the
regulations of the place; come again at a certain hour,' She
applied to the medical gentleman who attended the workhouse, and
through his exertions obtained admission. She flew to the ward
in which her father was confined: he lay cold, motionless, and
unconscious before her—his spirit was gone; he had breathed
his last five minutes before. Well may we exclaim, when we hear
of such things, 'Do we live in a Christian country? Is this a
civilized land?'"

Certainly, Mr. Grant, it is a land of freedom and philanthropy unknown upon the rest of the earth's surface.

From a survey of the poor-laws it appears that poverty is considered criminal in Great Britain. The workhouses, which are declared to have been established for the relief of the poor, are worse than prisons for solitary confinement; for the visits of friends and the consolations of religion, except under particular forms, are denied to the unhappy inmates, while they are permitted to the criminal in his dungeon.

What an English pauper is may be learned from the following description of the "bold peasantry," which we extract from one of the countless pamphlets on pauperism written by Englishmen.

"What is that defective being, with calfless legs and stooping
shoulders, weak in body and mind, inert, pusillanimous and
stupid, whose premature wrinkles and furtive glance tell of
misery and degradation? That is an English peasant or pauper;
for the words are synonymous. His sire was a pauper, and his
mother's milk wanted nourishment. From infancy his food has been
bad, as well as insufficient; and he now feels the pains of
unsatisfied hunger nearly whenever he is awake. But half-clothed,
and never supplied with more warmth than suffices to cook his
scanty meals, cold and wet come to him, and stay by him, with
the weather. He is married, of course; for to this he would have
been driven by the poor-laws, even if he had been, as he never
was, sufficiently comfortable and prudent to dread the burden
of a family. But, though instinct and the overseer have given
him a wife, he has not tasted the highest joys of husband and
father. His partner and his little ones being, like himself,
often hungry, seldom warm, sometimes sick without aid, and always
sorrowful without hope, are greedy, selfish, and vexing; so,
to use his own expression, he 'hates the sight of them,' and
resorts to his hovel only because a hedge affords less shelter
from the wind and rain. Compelled by parish law to support his
family, which means to join them in consuming an allowance from
the parish, he frequently conspires with his wife to get that
allowance increased, or prevent its being diminished. This brings
begging, trickery, and quarrelling; and ends in settled craft.
Though he has the inclination he wants the courage to become,
like more energetic men of his class, a poacher or smuggler on
a large scale; but he pilfers occasionally, and teaches his
children to lie and steal. His subdued and slavish manner toward
his great neighbours shows that they treat him with suspicion
and harshness. Consequently he at once dreads and hates them;
but he will never harm them by violent means. Too degraded to be
desperate, he is only thoroughly depraved. His miserable career
will be short; rheumatism and asthma are conducting him to the
workhouse, where he will breathe his last without one pleasant
recollection, and so make room for another wretch, who may live
and die in the same way. This is a sample of one class of English
peasants. Another class is composed of men who, though paupers
to the extent of being in part supported by the parish, were not
bred and born in extreme destitution, and who, therefore, in so
far as the moral depends on the physical man, are qualified to
become wise, virtuous, and happy. They have large muscles, an
upright mien, and a quick perception. With strength, energy, and
skill, they would earn a comfortable subsistence as labourers,
if the modern fashion of paying wages out of the poor-box did
not interfere with the due course of things, and reduce all
the labourers of a parish, the old and the young, the weak
and the strong, the idle and the industrious, to that lowest
rate of wages, or rather of weekly payment to each, which, in
each case, is barely sufficient for the support of life. If
there were no poor-laws, or if the poor-laws were such that
labour was paid in proportion to the work performed, and not
according to a scale founded on the power of gastric juice under
various circumstances, these superior men would be employed in
preference to the inferior beings described above, would earn
twice as much as the others could earn, and would have every
motive for industry, providence, and general good conduct. As
it is, their superior capacity as labourers is of no advantage
to them. They have no motive for being industrious or prudent.
What they obtain between labour and the rate is but just enough
to support them miserably. They are tempted to marry for the
sake of an extra allowance from the parish: and they would be
sunk to the lowest point of degradation but for the energy of
their minds, which they owe to their physical strength. Courage
and tenderness are said to be allied: men of this class usually
make good husbands and affectionate parents. Impelled by want of
food, clothes, and warmth, for themselves and their families,
they become poachers wherever game abounds, and smugglers when
opportunity serves. By poaching or smuggling, or both, many of
them are enabled to fill the bellies of their children, to put
decent clothes on the backs of their wives, and to keep the
cottage whole, with a good fire in it, from year's end to year's
end. The villains! why are they not taken up? They are taken up
sometimes, and are hunted always, by those who administer rural
law. In this way they learn to consider two sets of laws—those
for the protection of game, and those for the protection of
home manufactures—as specially made for their injury. Be just
to our unpaid magistrates! who perform their duty, even to the
shedding of man's blood, in defence of pheasants and restrictions
on trade. Thus the bolder sort of husbandry labourers, by
engaging in murderous conflicts with gamekeepers and preventive
men, become accustomed to deeds of violence, and, by living
in jails, qualified for the most desperate courses. They also
imbibe feelings of dislike, or rather of bitter hatred, toward
the rural magistracy, whom they regard as oppressors and natural
enemies; closely resembling, in this respect, the defective
class of peasants from whom they differ in so many particulars.
Between these two descriptions of peasantry there is another,
which partakes of the characteristics of both classes, but in
a slighter degree, except as regards their fear and hatred of
the rural aristocracy. In the districts where paupers and game
abound, it would be difficult to find many labourers not coming
under one of these descriptions. By courtesy, the entire body
is called the bold peasantry of England. But is nothing done by
the 'nobility, clergy, and gentry,' to conciliate the affection
of the pauper mass, by whose toil all their own wealth is
produced? Charity! The charity of the poor-laws, which paupers
have been taught to consider a right, which operates as a curse
to the able-bodied and well-disposed, while it but just enables
the infirm of all ages to linger on in pain and sorrow. Soup!
Dogs'-meat, the paupers call it. They are very ungrateful; but
there is a way of relieving a man's necessities which will make
him hate you; and it is in this way, generally, that soup is
given to the poor. Books, good little books, which teach patience
and submission to the powers that be! With which such paupers
as obtain them usually boil their kettles, when not deterred by
fear of the reverend donor. Of this gift the design is so plain
and offensive, that its effect is contrary to what was intended,
just as children from whom obedience is very strictly exacted are
commonly rebels at heart. What else? is nothing else done by the
rural rich to win the love of the rural poor? Speaking generally,
since all rules have exceptions, the privileged classes of our
rural districts take infinite pains to be abhorred by their
poorest neighbours. They enclose commons. They stop footpaths.
They wall in their parks. They set spring-guns and man-traps.
They spend on the keep of high-bred dogs what would support half
as many children, and yet persecute a labouring man for owning
one friend in his cur. They make rates of wages, elaborately
calculating the minimum of food that will keep together the soul
and body of a clodhopper. They breed game in profusion for their
own amusement, and having thus tempted the poor man to knock
down a hare for his pot, they send him to the treadmill, or the
antipodes, for that inexpiable offence. They build jails, and
fill them. They make new crimes and new punishments for the poor.
They interfere with the marriages of the poor, compelling some,
and forbidding others, to come together. They shut up paupers in
workhouses, separating husband and wife, in pounds by day and
wards by night. They harness poor men to carts. They superintend
alehouses, decry skittles, deprecate beer-shops, meddle with
fairs, and otherwise curtail the already narrow amusements of
the poor. Even in church, where some of them solemnly preach
that all are equal, they sit on cushions, in pews boarded,
matted, and sheltered by curtains from the wind and the vulgar
gaze, while the lower order must put up with a bare bench on a
stone floor, which is good enough for them. Everywhere they are
ostentatious in the display of wealth and enjoyment; while, in
their intercourse with the poor, they are suspicious, quick at
taking offence, vindictive when displeased, haughty, overbearing,
tyrannical, and wolfish; as it seems in the nature of man to be
toward such of his fellows as, like sheep, are without the power
to resist."

In London, a species of slavery pertains to the workhouse system which has justly excited much indignation. This is the employment of paupers as scavengers in the streets, without due compensation, and compelling them to wear badges, as if they were convicted criminals. Mr. Mayhew has some judicious remarks upon this subject:—

"If pauperism be a disgrace, then it is unjust to turn a man into
the public thoroughfare, wearing the badge of beggary, to be
pointed at and scorned for his poverty, especially when we are
growing so particularly studious of our criminals that we make
them wear masks to prevent even their faces being seen.[91] Nor
is it consistent with the principles of an enlightened national
morality that we should force a body of honest men to labour
upon the highways, branded with a degrading garb, like convicts.
Neither is it _wise_ to do so, for the shame of poverty soon
becomes deadened by the repeated exposure to public scorn; and
thus the occasional recipient of parish relief is ultimately
converted into the hardened and habitual pauper. "Once a pauper
always a pauper," I was assured was the parish rule; and here
lies the _rationale_ of the fact. Not long ago this system of
employing _badged_ paupers to labour on the public thoroughfares
was carried to a much more offensive extent than it is even at
present. At one time the pauper labourers of a certain parish
had the attention of every passer-by attracted to them while at
their work, for on the back of each man's garb—a sort of smock
frock—was marked, with sufficient prominence, 'CLERKENWELL.
STOP IT!' This public intimation that the labourers were not
only paupers, but regarded as thieves, and expected to purloin
the parish dress they wore, attracted public attention, and was
severely commented upon at a meeting. The 'STOP IT!' therefore
was cancelled, and the frocks are now _merely_ lettered
'CLERKENWELL.' Before the alteration the men very generally wore
the garment inside out."

The pauper scavengers employed by the metropolitan parishes are divided into three classes: 1. The in-door paupers, who receive no wages whatever, their lodging, food, and clothing being considered to be sufficient remuneration for their labour; 2. The out-door paupers, who are paid partly in money and partly in kind, and employed in some cases three days, and in others six days in the week; 3. The unemployed labourers of the district, who are set to scavenging work by the parish and paid a regular money-wage—the employment being constant, and the rate of remuneration varying from 1_s._ 3_d._ to 2_s._ 6_d._ a day for each of the six days, or from 7_s._ 6_d._ to 15_s._ a week.

The first class of pauper-scavengers, or those who receive nothing for their labour beyond their lodging, food, and clothing, are treated as slaves. The labour is compulsory, without inducements for exertion, and conducted upon the same system which the authorities of the parish would use for working cattle. One of these scavengers gave the following account of this degrading labour to Mr. Mayhew:—

"'Street-sweeping,' he said, 'degrades a man, and if a man's poor
he hasn't no call to be degraded. Why can't they set the thieves
and pickpockets to sweep? they could be watched easy enough;
there's always idle fellers as reckons theirselves real gents,
as can be got for watching and sitch easy jobs, for they gets
as much for them as three men's paid for hard work in a week. I
never was in a prison, but I've heerd that people there is better
fed and better cared for than in workusses. What's the meaning of
that, sir, I'd like to know. You can't tell me, but I can tell
you. The workus is made as ugly as it can be, that poor people
may be got to leave it, and chance dying in the street rather.'
[Here the man indulged in a gabbled detail of a series of pauper
grievances which I had a difficulty in diverting or interrupting.
On my asking if the other paupers had the same opinion as to the
street-sweeping as he had, he replied:—] 'To be sure they has;
all them that has sense to have a 'pinion at all has; there's
not two sides to it anyhow. No, I don't want to be kept and do
nothink. I want _proper_ work. And by the rights of it I might
as well be kept with nothink to do as — or —' [parish
officials]. 'Have they nothing to do?' I asked. 'Nothink, but to
make mischief and get what ought to go to the poor. It's salaries
and such like as swallers the rates, and that's what every poor
family knows as knows any think. Did I ever like my work better?
Certainly not. Do I take any pains with it? Well, where would be
the good? I can sweep well enough, when I please, but if I could
do more than the best man as ever Mr. Drake paid a pound a week
to, it wouldn't be a bit better for me—not a bit, sir, I assure
you. We all takes it easy whenever we can, but the work _must_ be
done. The only good about it is that you get outside the house.
It's a change that way certainly. But we work like horses and is
treated like asses.'"

The second mode of pauper scavenging, viz. that performed by out-door paupers, and paid for partly in money and partly in kind, is strongly condemned, as having mischievous and degrading tendencies. The men thus employed are certainly not independent labourers, though the means of their subsistence are partly the fruits of their toil. Their exceedingly scant payment keeps them hard at work for a very unreasonable period. Should they refuse to obey the parish regulations in regard to the work, the pangs of hunger are sure to reach them and compel them to submit. Death is the only door of escape. From a married man employed by the parish in this work, Mr. Mayhew obtained the following interesting narrative, which is a sad revelation of pauper slavery:—

"'I was brought up as a type-founder; my father, who was one,
learnt me his trade; but he died when I was quite a young man,
or I might have been better perfected in it. I was comfortably
off enough then, and got married. Very soon after that I was
taken ill with an abscess in my neck, you can see the mark of it
still,' [He showed me the mark.] 'For six months I wasn't able
to do a thing, and I was a part of the time, I don't recollect
how long, in St. Bartholomew's Hospital. I was weak and ill when
I came out, and hardly fit for work; I couldn't hear of any work
I could get, for there was a great bother in the trade between
master and men. Before I went into the hospital, there was money
to pay to doctors; and when I came out I could earn nothing, so
every thing went; yes, sir, every thing. My wife made a little
matter with charing for families she'd lived in, but things are
in a bad way if a poor woman has to keep her husband. She was
taken ill at last, and then there was nothing but the parish
for us. I suffered a great deal before it come to that. It was
awful. No one can know what it is but them that suffers it. But I
didn't know what in the world to do. We lived then in St. Luke's,
and were passed to our own parish, and were three months in the
workhouse. The living was good enough, better than it is now,
I've heard, but I was miserable.' ['And I was _very_ miserable,'
interposed the wife, 'for I had been brought up comfortable; my
father was a respectable tradesman in St. George's-in-the-East,
and I had been in good situations.'] 'We made ourselves,' said
the husband, 'as useful as we could, but we were parted of
course. At the three months' end, I had 10_s._ given to me to
come out with, and was told I might start costermongering on it.
But to a man not up to the trade, 10_s._ won't go very far to
keep up costering. I didn't feel master enough of my own trade by
this time to try for work at it, and work wasn't at all regular.
There were good hands earning only 12_s._ a week. The 10_s._
soon went, and I had again to apply for relief, and got an order
for the stone-yard to go and break stones. Ten bushels was to be
broken for 15_d._ It was dreadful hard work at first. My hands
got all blistered and bloody, and I've gone home and cried with
pain and wretchedness. At first it was on to three days before
I could break the ten bushels. I felt shivered to bits all over
my arms and shoulders, and my head was splitting. I then got to
do it in two days, and then in one, and it grew easier. But all
this time I had only what was reckoned three days' work in a
week. That is, you see, sir, I had only three times ten bushels
of stones given to break in a week, and earned only 3_s._ 9_d._
Yes, I lived on it, and paid 1_s._ 6_d._ a week rent, for the
neighbours took care of a few sticks for us, and the parish or a
broker wouldn't have found them worth carriage. My wife was then
in the country with a sister. I lived upon bread and dripping,
went without fire or candle (or had one only very seldom) though
it wasn't warm weather. I can safely say that for eight weeks
I never tasted one bite of meat, and hardly a bite of butter.
When I couldn't sleep of a night, but that wasn't often, it was
terrible, very. I washed what bits of things I had then, myself,
and had sometimes to get a ha'porth of soap as a favour, as the
chandler said she 'didn't make less than a penn'orth.' If I ate
too much dripping, it made me feel sick. I hardly know how much
bread and dripping I ate in a week. I spent what money I had
in it and bread, and sometimes went without. I was very weak,
you may be sure, sir; and if I'd had the influenza or any thing
that way, I should have gone off like a shot, for I seemed to
have no constitution left. But my wife came back again and got
work at charing, and made about 4_s._ a week at it; but we were
still very badly off. Then I got to work on the roads every day,
and had 1_s._ and a quartern loaf a day, which was a rise. I
had only one child then, but men with larger families got two
quartern loaves a day. Single men got 9_d._ a day. It was far
easier work than stone-breaking too. The hours were from eight
to five in winter, and from seven to six in summer. But there's
always changes going on, and we were put on 1_s._ 1½_d._ a
day and a quartern loaf, and only three days a week. All the
same as to time of course. The bread wasn't good; it was only
cheap. I suppose there was twenty of us working most of the
times as I was. The gangsman, as you call him, but that's more
for the regular hands, was a servant of the parish, and a great
tyrant. Yes, indeed, when we had a talk among ourselves, there
was nothing but grumbling heard of. Some of the tales I've heard
were shocking; worse than what I've gone through. Everybody was
grumbling, except perhaps two men that had been twenty years in
the streets, and were like born paupers. They didn't feel it,
for there's a great difference in men. They knew no better. But
anybody might have been frightened to hear some of the men talk
and curse. We've stopped work to abuse the parish officers as
might be passing. We've mobbed the overseers; and a number of
us, I was one, were taken before the magistrate for it: but we
told him how badly we were off, and he discharged us, and gave us
orders into the workhouse, and told 'em to see if nothing could
be done for us. We were there till next morning, and then sent
away without any thing being said.'"

"'It's a sad life, sir, is a parish worker's. I wish to God I
could get out of it. But when a man has children he can't stop
and say, "I can't do this," and "I won't do that." Last week,
now, in costering, I lost 6_s._ [he meant that his expenses, of
every kind, exceeded his receipts by 6_s._,] and though I can
distil nectar, or any thing that way, [this was said somewhat
laughingly,] it's only when the weather's hot and fine that any
good at all can be done with it. I think, too, that there's
not the money among working-men that there once was. Any thing
regular in the way of pay must always be looked at by a man with
a family.

"'Of course the streets must be properly swept, and if I can
sweep them as well as Mr. Dodd's men, for I know one of them very
well, why should I have only 1_s._ 4½_d._ a week and three
loaves, and he have 16_s._, I think it is. I don't drink, my
wife knows I don't, [the wife assented,] and it seems as if in a
parish a man must be kept down when he is down, and then blamed
for it. I may not understand all about it, but it looks queer."'

The third system of parish work, where the labourer is employed regularly, and paid a certain sum out of the parochial fund, is superior to either of the other modes; but still, the labourers are very scantily paid, subjected to a great deal of tyranny by brutal officers, and miserably provided. They endure the severest toil for a wretched pittance, without being able to choose their masters or their employment. No slaves could be more completely at the mercy of their masters.

The common practice of apprenticing children born and reared in workhouses, to masters who may feed, clothe, and beat them as they please, is touchingly illustrated in Dickens's famous story of Oliver Twist. After Oliver had been subjected for some time to the tender mercies of guardians and overseers in the workhouse, it was advertised that any person wanting an apprentice could obtain him, and five pounds as a premium. He narrowly escaped being apprenticed to a sweep, and finally fell into the hands of Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker. In the house of that dismal personage, he was fed upon cold bits, badly clothed, knocked about unmercifully, and worked with great severity. Such is the common fate of parish apprentices; and we do not think a more truthful conception of the _beauties_ of the system could be conveyed than by quoting from the experience of Dickens's workhouse boy:—

"Oliver had not been within the walls of the workhouse a quarter
of an hour, and had scarcely completed the demolition of a second
slice of bread, when Mr. Bumble, who had handed him over to the
care of an old woman, returned, and, telling him it was a board
night, informed him that the board had said he was to appear
before it forthwith.

"Not having a very clearly defined notion what a live board was,
Oliver was rather astounded by this intelligence, and was not
quite certain whether he ought to laugh or cry. He had no time
to think about the matter, however; for Mr. Bumble gave him a
tap on the head with his cane to wake him up, and another on his
back to make him lively, and, bidding him follow, conducted him
into a large whitewashed room, where eight or ten fat gentlemen
were sitting round a table, at the top of which, seated in an
armchair rather higher than the rest, was a particularly fat
gentleman with a very round, red face.

"'Bow to the board,' said Bumble. Oliver brushed away two or
three tears that were lingering in his eyes, and seeing no board
but the table, fortunately bowed to that.

"'What's your name, boy?' said the gentleman in the high chair.

"Oliver was frightened at the sight of so many gentlemen, which
made him tremble: and the beadle gave him another tap behind,
which made him cry; and these two causes made him answer in a
very low and hesitating voice; whereupon a gentleman in a white
waistcoat said he was a fool, which was a capital way of raising
his spirit, and putting him quite at his ease.

"'Boy,' said the gentleman in the high chair: 'listen to me. You
know you're an orphan, I suppose?'"

"'What's that, sir?" inquired poor Oliver.

"'The boy _is_ a fool—I thought he was,' said the gentleman
in the white waistcoat in a very decided tone. If one member
of a class be blessed with an intuitive perception of others
of the same race, the gentleman in the white waistcoat was
unquestionably well qualified to pronounce an opinion on the
matter.

"'Hush!' said the gentleman who had spoken first. 'You know
you've got no father or mother, and that you are brought up by
the parish, don't you?'

"'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver, weeping bitterly.

"'What are you crying for?' inquired the gentleman in the white
waistcoat; and to be sure it was very extraordinary. What _could_
he be crying for?

"'I hope you say your prayers every night,' said another
gentleman in a gruff voice, 'and pray for the people who feed
you, and take care of you, like a Christian.'

"'Yes, sir,' stammered the boy. The gentleman who spoke last was
unconsciously right. It would have been _very_ like a Christian,
and a marvellously good Christian, too, if Oliver had prayed for
the people who fed and took care of _him_. But he hadn't, because
nobody had taught him.

"'Well you have come here to be educated, and taught a useful
trade,' said the red-faced gentleman in the high chair.

"'So you'll begin to pick oakum to-morrow morning at six
o'clock,' added the surly one in the white waistcoat.

"For the combination of both these blessings in the one simple
process of picking oakum, Oliver bowed low by the direction of
the beadle, and was then hurried away to a large ward, where,
on a rough hard bed, he sobbed himself to sleep. What a noble
illustration of the tender laws of this favoured country! they
let the paupers go to sleep!

"Poor Oliver! he little thought, as he lay sleeping in happy
unconsciousness of all around him, that the board had that very
day arrived at a decision which would exercise the most material
influence over all his future fortunes. But they had. And this
was it:—

"The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical
men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse,
they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have
discovered,—the poor people liked it! It was a regular place
of public entertainment for the poorer classes,—a tavern where
there was nothing to pay,—a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and
supper, all the year round,—a brick and mortar elysium, where
it was all play and no work. 'Oho!' said the board, looking very
knowing; 'we are the fellows to set this to rights; we'll stop
it all in no time.' So they established the rule, that all poor
people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody,
not they,) of being starved by a gradual process in the house,
or by a quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted
with the water-works to lay on an unlimited supply of water, and
with a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of
oat-meal: and issued three meals of thin gruel a-day, with an
onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sundays. They made a great
many other wise and humane regulations having reference to the
ladies, which it is not necessary to repeat; kindly undertook to
divorce poor married people, in consequence of the great expense
of a suit in Doctors' Commons; and, instead of compelling a
man to support his family, as they had theretofore done, took
his family away from him, and made him a bachelor! There is no
telling how many applicants for relief under these last two heads
would not have started up in all classes of society, if it had
not been coupled with the workhouse. But they were long-headed
men, and they had provided for this difficulty. The relief was
inseparable from the workhouse and the gruel; and that frightened
people.

"For the first three months after Oliver Twist was removed, the
system was in full operation. It was rather expensive at first,
in consequence of the increase in the undertaker's bill, and the
necessity of taking in the clothes of all the paupers, which
fluttered loosely on their wasted, shrunken forms, after a week
or two's gruel. But the number of workhouse inmates got thin, as
well as the paupers; and the board were in ecstasies. The room
in which the boys were fed was a large stone hall, with a copper
at one end, out of which the master, dressed in an apron for
the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel
at meal-times; of which composition each boy had one porringer,
and no more,—except on festive occasions, and then he had two
ounces and a quarter of bread besides. The bowls never wanted
washing—the boys polished them with their spoons, till they
shone again; and when they had performed this operation, (which
never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large as the
bowls,) they would sit staring at the copper with such eager
eyes, as if they could devour the very bricks of which it was
composed; employing themselves meanwhile in sucking their fingers
most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes
of gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally
excellent appetites: Oliver Twist and his companions suffered
the tortures of slow starvation for three months; at last they
got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was
tall for his age, and hadn't been used to that sort of thing,
(for his father had kept a small cook's shop,) hinted darkly to
his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel _per
diem_, he was afraid he should some night eat the boy who slept
next him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age. He had
a wild, hungry eye, and they implicitly believed him. A council
was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the master after
supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to Oliver
Twist.

The evening arrived: the boys took their places; the master, in
his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper
assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served
out, and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel
disappeared, and the boys whispered to each other and winked at
Oliver, while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was,
he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose
from the table, and, advancing, basin and spoon in hand, to the
master, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity—

"'Please, sir, I want some more.'

"The master was a fat, healthy man, but he turned very pale.
He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some
seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants
were paralyzed with wonder, and the boys with fear.

"'What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice.

"'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'

"The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle,
pinioned him in his arms, and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

"The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble
rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the
gentleman in the high chair, said—

"'Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir;—Oliver Twist has asked
for more.' There was a general start. Horror was depicted on
every countenance.

"'For _more_!' said Mr. Limbkins. 'Compose yourself, Bumble, and
answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more,
after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?'

"'He did, sir,' replied Bumble.

"'That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white
waistcoat; 'I know that boy will be hung.'

"Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion. An
animated discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant
confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of
the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would
take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish; in other words,
five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who
wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling.

"'I never was more convinced of any thing in my life,' said the
gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and
read the bill next morning,—'I never was more convinced of any
thing in my life, than I am that that boy will come to be hung.'

"For a week after the commission of the impious and profane
offence of asking for more, Oliver remained a close prisoner in
the dark and solitary room to which he had been consigned by the
wisdom and mercy of the board. It appears, at first sight, not
unreasonable to suppose, that, if he had entertained a becoming
feeling of respect for the prediction of the gentleman in the
white waistcoat, he would have established that sage individual's
prophetic character, once and for ever, by tying one end of his
pocket-handkerchief to a hook in the wall, and attaching himself
to the other. To the performance of this feat, however, there was
one obstacle, namely, that pocket-handkerchiefs being decided
articles of luxury, had been, for all future times and ages,
removed from the noses of paupers by the express order of the
board in council assembled, solemnly given and pronounced under
their hands and seals. There was a still greater obstacle in
Oliver's youth and childishness. He only cried bitterly all day;
and when the long, dismal night came on, he spread his little
hands before his eyes to shut out the darkness, and crouching in
the corner, tried to sleep, ever and anon waking with a start and
tremble, and drawing himself closer and closer to the wall, as if
to feel even its cold hard surface were a protection in the gloom
and loneliness which surrounded him.

"Let it not be supposed by the enemies of 'the system,' that,
during the period of his solitary incarceration, Oliver was
denied the benefit of exercise, the pleasure of society, or the
advantages of religious consolation. As for exercise, it was nice
cold weather, and he was allowed to perform his ablutions every
morning under the pump, in a stone yard, in the presence of Mr.
Bumble, who prevented his catching cold, and caused a tingling
sensation to pervade his frame, by repeated applications of the
cane; as for society, he was carried every other day into the
hall where the boys dined, and there sociably flogged, as a
public warning and example; and, so far from being denied the
advantages of religious consolation, he was kicked into the same
apartment every evening at prayer-time, and there permitted to
listen to, and console his mind with, a general supplication of
the boys, containing a special clause therein inserted by the
authority of the board, in which they entreated to be made good,
virtuous, contented, and obedient, and to be guarded from the
sins and vices of Oliver Twist, whom the supplication distinctly
set forth to be under the exclusive patronage and protection
of the powers of wickedness, and an article direct from the
manufactory of the devil himself.

"It chanced one morning, while Oliver's affairs were in
this auspicious and comfortable state, that Mr. Gamfield,
chimney-sweeper, was wending his way adown the High-street,
deeply cogitating in his mind his ways and means of paying
certain arrears of rent, for which his landlord had become rather
pressing. Mr. Gamfield's most sanguine calculation of funds
could not raise them within full five pounds of the desired
amount; and, in a species of arithmetical desperation, he was
alternately cudgelling his brains and his donkey, when, passing
the workhouse, his eyes encountered the bill on the gate.

"'Woo!' said Mr. Gamfield to the donkey.

"The donkey was in a state of profound abstraction—wondering,
probably, whether he was destined to be regaled with a
cabbage-stalk or two, when he had disposed of the two sacks of
soot with which the little cart was laden; so, without noticing
the word of command, he jogged onward.