The Press.
London, England, 1853-10-01 00:00:00

SANIARITANISM IN MARYLEBONE.

A GENTLEMAN, passing by the private entrance
to St. Marylebone workhouse the other night
at ten o'clock, saw " three wretched women
" huddled together, lying on the pavement."
They had been refused admittance into the
house, and one of them said that " for the last
" five weeks she had slept on the same pave-
" meet, only four nights excepted." The
workhouse porters. with n most unusual civi
lfty,regretted, while admitting,, the facts, adding
that the ordinary number of hapless outcasts
thus left on the pavement outside the house spe.
dally provided by the law for their reception
was twenty. From the porters Mr. llomxsox
—the benevolent man who had pitied those
forlorn creatures—went to the police. They,
too, were polite, but acted strictly on the
policy of non-intervention, except that the ser
geant on duty makes a regular nightly report
of the exact number of victims to the law tit•
the relief of the poor who at eleven o'clock may
he lying on the pavement in their hopeless
misery. At ten o'clock at night, it seems, they
receive one pound of bread front the work-
house, which, being " outdoor relief," ex-
pressly precludes them from shelter under the
roof of the workhouse. Finding that the police
could not receive the four women in charge as
vagrants, Mr. Rom silos found them beds in a
common lodging house, and wrote to the ma-
gistrates of the Marylebone Police Court to
know whether a repetition of such disgraceful
scenes could not be prevented. At this point
the universal politeness ceased—neither Mr.
11110t4nTON nor Mr. I.oNa PM a reply.

THE PRESS.

Is it seriously pretended that such crimes
against social morality us that here brought
to light are inevitable in a city which boasts
itself the metropolis of Christian civilisation
Here we have a magniti4vnt organisation of
poor " relief" spreading throughout the coun-
try. yet resolving itself into polite porters, de-
liberately shutting the door of the poor•-house
on the poOr at WU at night. and polite police-
men coming an hour• after regularly to istart
the exact number of wretched beings thus left
to shiver in the bitter 4.°141, pallopg to the
There is something horribly revolting ht the
manner Of this utfair. Had the workhouse
Cerberus been brutal. us is the wont of those
functionaries, or had the polio° proclaimed
ignorance, this outrage on common hultmnity
might have beau set down to accident. host
think of the systematic routine of the
bland janitor, and the punctual statistical
gleaning by the police-ser•ge'ant! A ease
like this opens up the whole question of
the principle on which poverty, or even pau-
perism. is relieved in this city. if the un-
doubted difference between the two is to be
deteeted, and the deserving distinguished
iron► the undeserving accordingly, certainly it
will not be by the rigid rule which gives hlls-
eriminately one pound of bread to a woman
at the workhouse door. and leaves her to
perish with cold on the pavement dining the
night. To some it may be a salutary " test ;"
to others a cruel torture. A judge, quick to
see and firm to decide, is required in both
eases, but more especially in the latter. In
the instance before us, the regret of the porter
and the vigilance of 111 e police pritsii facie
suggest a necessity for this resolving and ab
solving power. Here is a sphere for the ac-
tivity of the Sir BENJAMIN Ilium and the minor
patriots of Marylebone. On an iniquity prac-
tised at their very doors they ought to speak
with a forty vestryman power, before which
even Somerset-house should soften. At all
events, no " test," no logical deduction of the
economists, however perfect, can justify the
exposure of twenty wretched women to the
horrors of a wintry night on the pavement at
a workhouse door, with only one pound of
bread and a Somerset-house " regulation " be-
tween them, and the slow torture of starvation
or a more sudden and summary disposal 4)1
their eases.