The Express.
London, England, 1864-12-30 00:00:00

LYCEIJIL.

THt9 EVEMO, MY WIFE'S OUT. Mr. Widdicomb.
I" SLA.s. Messrs. Fechter, Ryder, Fltzpatrlck, Charles, Ray-
mond, Mclntyre, Moreland, Collett, Cllffo.o : Mow C. Leclercy.
—And BEAR-FACED IMPOSTORS. Mr. d iddlcomb.

raw smog, Lt I TLB BUSY BBC : or, the Otd Lady of
Threadneedle-strert. Steadamea S. Lane, W. Clautord, a 4 L
Ja:obe : Mr. G at First-rate Pautoalreista..— and TUE
WORK-01.11LS OF L MlN.—Commence at half-past E.

MOH WATER AT LONDON-MIDGE.
THIS DAT Morning, th. 411m....Afteosoos. 3b. lOra.
Tollo.sow Morning. 3b. 32m. ....Afternoon, 3b. Stn.

LONDON, FRIDAY, DLOAWBER 30.

THE deaths in the same week of TIMOTHY DALY
and JLiev HALE have naturally drawn a good deal
of attention to the working of the Poor-law in
London. The two cases have just enough of ap-
parent connexion to suggest the idea that the one
may explain the other ; and it is so natural to
wish to reduce such miserable incidents to the ope-
ration of a general rule, which it may be in our
power to amend, that we are not surprised to find
that such an attempt has been made in the present
instance. It is clear that MARY HALE died of
sheer starvation rather than go into the work-
house ; it is clear, also, that TIMOTHY Datv died
of exhaustion produced, in his own estimation, by
neglect and ill-treatment in the workhouse ; and
to attribute this persistent refusal on the part of
the deceased woman to her dread of meeting a
similar fate to that of the deceased man may seem
to furnish a very simple link to unite the two
cases.

It cannot be said, however, that this theory
finds no countenance front the evidence adduced
at the inquests. No apprehension of possible ill-
usage within the walls of the workhouse can ac-
count for the sickening spectacle which met the eyes
of the Coroner's Jury upon entering MARI' Hates
garret. The able-bodied vagrant may shun the
coarse fare, the hard lodging, and the strict con-
finement which is the lot of an indoor pauper ; but
these would all have been luxuries compared with
the bed of old rags and newspapers, the teapot and
two broken plates encrusted with the dirt which
had accumulated in months of disuse, and the
almost entire solitude in which Malty HALL had
lived fur the last year and a half, and in which she
ultimately died. Nor does it appear that Timoniv
Dais, though undoubtedly impressed with a strong
dislike of the Union doctor, experienced any neglect
to which he would not have been equally exposed
if he had remained in his own home ; and while
we are very far from saying that this is a sutti-
ciently high standard fur workhouse hospital treat-
ment, it is not low enough to account for a con-
firmed and rooted determination to prefer death
to indoor relief. but, in truth, this feeling does
not seem to be uncommon even on the part of the
extreme poor. In the evidence taken before
the recent Pour ILlief Committee of the House of
Commons we Mud the magistrates at the Thames
and Worship-street Police Courts agreeing that,
throughout the east and northeast of London,
there are numhers of the most deserving poor who
would sooner die than go near the poorhouse, a
reluctance which Mr. KNuX attributes to that
" feeling of independence which exists among the
.` people, to a very high degree, even in the midst
" of their misery."

We do not a-Cinder that many persons are dis-
posed to regard such a fact as this in the light of
a conclusive reason in favour of an alteration in
the law. It, it is argued, the classes for whom the
workhouse is intended hold themselves aloof from
the assistance winch it offers, what better proof
could you have that it has failed in attaining its
object ? Tile end for which the workhouse was
designed was to provide a maintenance for paupers
who have no other means of support. if the latter
will not accept the relief thus offered, ought it not
to be dispensed to them in some other way?
If the poor sill not come to the guardians,
ought nut the guardians to go to the poor? Ques-
tions of this kind leave altogether out of sight one
very important fact. Thirty years ago we had
very nearly succeeded in demoralizing the labour-
ing classes, while we seemed to be on the high
road to pauperiznig the whole country. All the
poverty, vice, and degradation into which the tin-
re!erined Poor-law had plunged us sprang by
direct descent from forgetting that it is impossible
to urike the condition of the man maintained by
public aid as comfortable as the condition of the
111.111 maintained by his own labour without offer-
ing a direct premium to idleness, and providing
fur an indclinite increase of pauperism. The
aim of the Poor-law Amendment Act
was twofoll : to reassert the principle that
every destitute person has a claim upon the com-
munity for seplen-t, and at the same time to secure
that this claim saould never be put forward upon
any less weighty ground. If the result of the
change has Lecii ta restore or create among the
English poor a spirit of honourable independence,
to make them feel that subsistence ou public aid
is !,, a disgrace, and to deter them from
having recourse to such an expedient until every-
thing else has been tried, we have little reason to
Le dissatisfied with the measure of 1834. The
people who are now so ashamed of seeking relief
from the pari-li are the same people who formerly
preferred parish pay to all other means of support;
and the change in the popular feeling can only be
attributed t tile y uu.i penitentiary character with
which sad experience had proved it was necessary
to invest the poorhouse.

It is impossible, unfortunately, to isy down any
general rule which shall not be occasionally pro-