The Express.
London, England, 1865-01-24 00:00:00

TB ROMILISti POOR.

In all discussions respeoting the present emulition
of the metropolitan poor the one based of guardians

refusing to pe'oeide a atonal ward have had a large
&hereof blame. The thirty-eight workhouses in which,
according to Mr. Parnell's report, ample sleeping
accommodation might be found, have not received
a tithe of the attention bestowed upon the one which
bad quietly ignored public opinion and the three- I
thins of the Poor-law Board. Some critics censured
the Poor-law Inspector for withholding the uame of
the pet-scant workhouse, and several of our contem-
poraries complained indignantly that the hard-
hearted and unfeeling men composing the local
board ware not held up to public reprobation. One
obvious mode of discovering both the situation of
the wardleas workhouse, and the whereabouts of
its directors, was of course personal inquiry in the
different perishes. Passing by all wherein the
smug poor were known to be looked after in sane
fashion, and restricting questions to those out of ,
the regular beat of philanthropic inquiry, the
number in doubt becomes as small as the area in
which they are situate is large. We have shown
from time to time that in all the workhouses
situate in London proper something has been
done. The unfortunate site of such a one
as that of Clerkenwell, with its narrow
and confined yards, its cramped and crowded
outbuildings, and its old-faahioued appliances, pre-
cludes its guardians from even thinking of the
certificate of the Poor-law Board, or the reimburse-
ment from the common fund, of which the certifi-
cate is the forerunner. The anomalous situation
of the workhouse of the Strand Union, with its
Bt. Pancras'
parishioners on one side of it and
those of St. Marylebone on the other, is, rightly or
wrongly, held to a sufficient reason for not admit-
ting appLioants into its doors who are unfurnished
with a ticket from Bow-street. The possible pur-
chase of that of St. Martin-in-the-Fields by the
crown, and the consequent reluctance of the guar-
dians to build new wards in place of the badly
ventilated cellar ones and others now in use, has
rendered them as ineligible as their Clerkenwell
neighbours for certificate and reimbursement ; and
without repeating instances where a compromise
between inclination and duty has been effected, all
who have studied the subject are aware that the
various metropolitan guardians have been so far
roused by admonition and warning as to admit
their responsibility by making some alteration and
enlargement in their casual accommodation. The
exception has been the one workhouse alluded to,
but not named by Mr. Parnell; and as it in its turn
has seen the necessity of partially conforming to the
common dictates of humanity, there can be no
reason for concealing its locality or for withholding I
Its name. The Lewisham workhouse has foe the
first time in its history agreed to furnish casual
wards for wayfarers and wanderers • sock wards •
are now in course of completion, and will be opened '
in about ten days from this date. Simultaneously,
thee, with the public announcement that to
Lewisham was due the unenviable distinction of
being the one metropolitan parish wherein the
claims of the houselses poor were positively and
openly ignored, we have to record the send-cunver-
moo of its guardians, as proved by the moderate
concession they are making to public opinion ; for
the proceedings of these suburban parochial
authorities even now fall miserably short of what is
commonly supposed to be their duty. They neither
conform with the instructions of the Poor-law
Board, nor intend doing so when their wards are
completed. Until the lad few weeks "we decline
to recognise vagrancy" would seem to have been
their stook answer So every appeal • and that the
old spirit is not yet dead, may be inferred from the
fact that all houselees persona taken in will have
bare shelter sad nothing more. We have seen
much of the variations in workhouse rule, but
the climax of stern restriction is surely arrived at I,
here, where the casual pauper is to be sent to bed I
supperlees, and dismissed in the morning without I
breaking his fait. On the other hand, be will be
neither subjected to the bath nor called upon to
perform a task of work, so that the extent of the
workhouse hospitality he will taste will be, it is
perhaps argued, proportionate to the amount of
workhouse discipline he will experience. The ridi-
culous assumption of "not recognising" vagrancy,
as if shutting our eyes to an evil were equivalent
to rooting it out, cannot be too strongly condom/0d ;
and the half-and-half measures which result in a
ward for eighteen people being prepared, while food
for them is denied, will render the Lewisham parish
authorities unenviably notorious in all coming dis-
missions on the working of Mr. Villiers' Act. We •
were informed during a recent visit that while
vagrant& were not " recognised " they have been
accommodated, half surreptitiously, as it were, in
the ordinary receiving-room of the workhouse; but
the books take no cognisance of this, and to the
sublime vision of the Lewisham guardians,
vagrants, "casuals," wayfarers, and wanderers
have been as if they were not. The
" Homeless Poor Book," which gives " the age,
occupation, last resting place, and proposed desti-
nation of every " casual " housed, is of course not
kept, and the only record of the paupers taken in
Is in one of the ordinary books. This, without enter-
ing into particulars, shows that but 3 were so re-
lieved in the week ended 24th December ; but I in
the first week in January, Bin the second, and 12
in the third. Before the date first quoted there is
no notice of vagrants, and for anything contained
in the books, all applications may have been rigo-
rs/ugly refused.
We have thus a noteworthy instance of the lengths
to which boards of guardians can go. We saw the
other day, in the published correspondence between
a metropolitan parochial officer and his official supe-
riors, and subsequently with the Poor-law Board,
bow limited is the power of the latter ; and if we
wanted further evidence it is furnished in the quiet
defiance hurled at it by many another local board.
Of course, if a person in urgent necessity
had applied at the Lewisham workhouse
door, had been refused admission in due
course, andrhad expired of exposure and want, one
or other of the officials might have been indicted,
and punished for manslaughter. But short of such
a catastrophe as this, it is difficult to see how stupid,
obstructive, and bard-hearted enactments are to be
flailed. "Pariah boards have neither," as
Eldon said of a corporation, " souls to
be saved, nor bodies to be kicked;" and
a measure bringing them more within the
scope and spirit of the law, even at the cost of
reducing some of their much vaunted self-governing
powers, would seem to be one of the crying morns-
sities of the day. That any body of men should be
permitted for years to "decline to recognise va-
grants," and should even now refuse them food, is
such a monstrous anomaly as to furnish in itself a
substantial argument for change. The power of
summurily enforcing a few simple and humane
rules, and of peremptorily dosing all guardians
proved to be foolish and inefficient, would save us
from such scandals as the history of the Lewisham
workhouse affords, and do much to allay the feel-
ing of soreness and dissatisfaction which is un-
doubtedly provoked whenever public attention is
called to the administration of parochial law.
Passing from the more than doubtful conduct of
a particular set of guardians to the broad question,
bow far are the great bulk of our London work-
houses placing their new casual wards at the dia-
posid of the classes for whom they are professedly
designed, we are compelled to state that our expe-
rience during the last ten days has not been re-
assuring. We have latterly confined our inquiries
to the poor people in the streets, and after making
liberal allowance for exaggeration, after compar-
ing the statements of one person with those of
another as to place and time, and after choosing
such hours and weather for our researches
as were least likely to bring out impos-
tors, we are spin driven to the conclusion
that some link is wanting between
the shivering wretches on the pavement and the
comparatively comfortable beds in the workhouse.
It is difficult to believe that any one, however
averse from week, would deliberately sleep under
an archway or on church steps on such nights
as the last weak has given as ; and when we are
told that admission has been refused at *peel-
Sad workhouses, the statement carries with it
may of the marks of truth. It must be mum-