The Express.
London, England, 1866-02-10 00:00:00

day. There was a shade more formality in the
reception than is usual, the proclamation of the
conditions upon which a bed and supper would be
granted being monotonously called out much as if
it were an extract from an act of parliament
All present having silently consented to be
searched and bathed, and to perform a task
4 work, the customary particulars were recorded,
and the searching commenced. Four very common
old pocketknives and the broken end of a car-
penter'. tool represented the portable property of
the Idifaipor forty ragged wretches before as Up.
to this point all was satisfactory. But the charges
brought against the Mile-end guardians referred
mainly to the bathing arrangements, and were, we
regret to say, fully corroborated by what we saw.
At the side of the workhouse, and gained by a
separate door, is the entrance to the yard, bath, and
ward for 'pale casuals. At one end of the yard is
the bath shed ; at the other is the entrance to the
sleeping-room, while a rough seat stretches along
the end opposite the bathing place, which is covered
in at top, but %%lite open at the Bide. On this seat,
which is practically out of doors, the casuals wait
their turn to be bathed, and herein, and in the
bitter walk from bath to bed, the grievance we went
to Mile-end to investigate consists. It is a substantial
one, and reflects grave discredit on the guardians.
The bath last night was comfortably hot, and
seemed to be of the temperature most of us would
chooes. Half-a-dozen casuals are, however, con-
fessedly bathed before the water is changed. After
each bather had remained in it a few minutes,. he
dried himself hastily, bad a workhouse shirt given
him to put on, and then, with system relaxed, and
pores open, was =ditto trudge almost naked across
the sloppy yard to bed. As the Lambeth autho-
rities made a point of the walk from the bath-
room of their workhouse to its labour shed being
only a few feet, and of its being roofed in, though
open at the side, it is perhaps dimmable to say that
" across the yard" at Mile-end means a distance
of from twenty to thirty feet, every part of which
is unsheltered as the open street. It is easy to
believe that those who sleep here, and undergo the
stern preliminary regimen, do not recover from the
intense and sudden chill throughout the night, and
the process seemed to us barbarous and cruel in
the extreme. The yard was full of little
pools and puddles from heavy rain. Across it
were some planks running from the bath closet to
the bath chamber. These were probably laid down
originally I. prevent the paupers' naked feet
coming in contact with the stones, but were satu-
rated with wet, and to first •plunge a delicate
underfed lad or man into hot water which was at
about 80 decreed!, and to then condemn him to run
into the moist night air in his shirt, even if he be
allowed to supplement that garment with a wrap
for his shoulders, seems little short of homicide.
Of course we saw everything under favourable air-
eumstanoes. The casuals were allowed to put on
their boots after bathing, so that their naked feet
did not come in contact with the dripping roadway.
But it was admitted in answer to our questions
that no foot covering is provided by the guar-
dians, and that shoeless tramps have to bear the
dangerous exposure as best they can. If the incle-
ment weather of a few weeks back be recalled, and
it be fully understood that in rain or frost, or snow
or sleet, the casual paupers of Mile-end are made to
undergo open air exercise in scanty shirta after
their impoverished frames have been soaked in hot
water, the dangerously cruel harshness of the treat.
ment will be readily realised.
The certified sleeping ward is clean and fairly
appointed with the customary barrack beds, each
sleeper having a couple of rugs allotted to him, and
the divisions between each being sufficient for their
purpose. There is no fire in the ward, but at the
time of our visit—that is at the commencement of
the evening, and many hours before the people oc-
cupying it would be discharged—it was well heated
by a fire outside. The supervision and control of
the tramps sheltered are decidedly defective. That
a pauper should be instructed to look in every hour
through the night, and to make a report if he finds
anything amine, seems to be just one of those laws
made to be broken, and in the absence of any paid
wardsman or superintendent, there can be little
doubt that the casuals spend the night hours prac-
tically in their own way.
It is right to add that some new casual wards are
in course of completion, and that we are assured
that the harsh barbarity of punishing feeble half-
starved men by compelling them to take cold, will
be at an end directly these fresh sleeping-places
come into use. It will be time to comment upon
this improvement when it has taken place, but it
would be an instructive item in the formidable list
of parochial shortcomings if it could be ascertained
how many deaths have occurred during the last
two years through forted and cruel exposure, which
an outlay of five pounds in temporary boardingi
would have prevented.