The Sun.
London, England, 1837-02-25 00:00:00

functionary to another, wkether he wants medical aid, relief,
or work, until at last, utterly worn out, he sits down in hope •
less despondency." My informant next to the Report of the
Poor-law Commissioners, adverted to the notorious fact, that
they bring forward no evidence but that of their dependents ;
that they did not mention the season, or even the month of the
year, at which the evidence on which they rely was given ;
that they made an assertion which was perhaps applicable to
harvest time, " that the poor are now all employed," appli-
cable to the whole year ; and that they garbled or suppressed
the evidence they received just as suited their own purpose(
Of this his informant mentioned one instance so extreme.
(finery, that he could not refrain from mentioning it to the
House. The clerk to the Petworth union wrote a letter
to the Commissioners, stating, as might be seen in their
report, that " the people were much more orderly,
&c., than they had been heretofore in the town of Pet worth."
All:this was true, as far as it weet; but the Commissioners
had most dextrously availed themselves of the beginning of
that letter, thereby to prove that all this amelioration has been
pro(.luced by the oreration of the new law ; but they found it
convenient to stop short at that precise point of the clerk's let-
ter where lie goes on to observe that this state of tranquil-
lity was owing to the parish having been recently placed under
the provisions of the Police Act, to a regular system of po-
lice having been established, and to the town being lighted.
The disorders which attack the poor come on suddenly, are
rapid in their progress, and fatal in their consequences, unless
attended to early. The forms necessary to obtain relief are se
tedious and so difficult,"that the patient incurs a serious risk of
dying before they are complied with. The Hon. Gentleman
then proceeded to mention an instance in point. A most creel
practice is followed under the new system, which is to deny
to the pauper what frequently is the only solace to his depart-
ing moments—the hope that his dust will be gathered to the
dust of his forefathers—that his remains will he placed by the
side of a father, a mother, a wife, or a child, who have gone
before him. But no ; this is a luxury of feeling, an overflow-
ing of hope, not to be permitted to approach the workhouse bed-
side. Where the pauper dies, there he is to be buried. And in
perpetrating this cruelty to the pauper a great injustice is super-
added not only to the officiating clergyman, but also to the
rate-payers of the parish which has been so unfortunate as to
have an united poorhouse established within its precincts. The
clergyman is called (and attempts have been made to compel
him) to bury all who may die in the said house ; and the
parish, be it small or large, is to be taxed to find burial room.
Another piece of injustice is also committed. These unhappy
people are brought to an union workhouse, elderly persons,
who from their time of life and increasing infirmities may
think their end approaching. Persons broken down by king
illness, or who have met with some alarming accident, may
much wish for the attendance of a clergyman ; mothers,
anxious by the doubtful state of their new-born offspring, are
desirous that they should be baptized without delay. Some or
other of such persons are constantly sending to the minister of
the parish where this union-house is situate, to entreat him to
attend them. If he is a man of humane and Christian feel-
ings, he will not hesitate to go to these afflicted people; and in
doing so will feel within his own breast a reward far beyond
all that the Poor-law Commissioners can give or refuse ;
but looking at the matter in another and secular point of view,
what right have any set of men thus to act ?---(Hear, hear.)
Do these Poor-law Commissioners work for nothing ?
( Hear.) No; upon what principle, then, of common honesty,
or common practice in the ordinary affairs of life, do they ex-
pect of the clergy generally that they should graciously attend
to calls thus unjustly made upon them ?"—(Cries of " Read,
read," accompanied by some noise and murmurs.) He begged
to observe, that if the interruptions within the wills of that
House amounted to the howlings that had lately been heard in
the neighbourhood, they should not prevent him from making
what observations he thought proper.
Mr. CURTEIS wished to know whether an Hon. Member
had a right to read his speech.---( Cries of " Order.") The
Hon. Gentleman had stated that he received his information
from a clergyman, who was a magistrate of Sussex • he begged
to inform the Hon. Gentleman that there was no clergyman in
the Commission-4 Hear, hear.)
Mr. WALTER believed that his informant was a clergy-
man, and his impression was that he was in the Commission.
Captain DUNDA S begged to know what the Hon. Mem-
ber meant by the term " howlings ?"—( Order, and hear.)
The SPEAKER said that the Hon. Member could not
read his speech, but he was at liberty to read documents.
Mr. WALTER was reading merely an extract from a let-
ter.—( Hear, hear.) The Hon. Gentleman than proceeded
with the letter :—" Ten days ago I was suffering from an
attack of cold, and thought that tho prevailing epidemic
was coming upon me. I had just been sent for to a house
where the mother was dead, and the daughter-in-law dying
of the disorder. In my return from thence in the damp of
the evening I was met by a messenger, saying that a child
of a woman who had been brought into our united workhouse,
from a parish eleven miles distant, was dying, and she wished
it to be baptized. I conceived that I had nothing whatever to
do, rigidly speaking, with this poor infant: it belonged not
to my parish ; it had been obtruded into our workhouse with-
out any act or consent of mine ; and I was not bound to be
chaplain to all who might thus be sent thither. A chaplain
ought to have been provided by those who made these ar-
rangements. But, on the other hand, I reflected that a
child was not to die unbaptized, that a mother was not to be
made wretched, because a set of brutal, or, to use a mild
term, thoughtless man, had, in the language of the Poor-law
Commissioners, made an order,' and with the right liberal
spirit of the day left all the rest to chance, the god of their
fondest worship; so I went, at much risk to my own health.
and baptised the child, and on the same principle I have
buried their dead ; but I strongly protest against being called
upon to do either, and maintain that, where masses are brought
together undeK this new law, neither Commissioners nor
Guardians have any right to lay any additional burden upon
the minister of a parish, or to call upon the parishioners to
find burial room for as many as they may be pleased to send
thither to look for their last earthly location." A clergyman
furnishes me with the following :--" The union to which my
parish is annexed is the Paulersbury and Stony Stratford
Union, consisting of fifteen parishes, a population of about
8,000, and the Guardians all renting farmers and tradesmen."
Hear.) He had another set of cases from another Cler-
gyman, of which he begged to read a few. The Honour-
able Member was proceeding to read, when he was inter-
rupted by
Mr. CURTEIS, who rose again to. order. The Hon.
Member was reading a printed Book—(Cries, of " Order,
order !")
_ _

Mr. WALTER was actually reading a letter, and this lee
had a right to do in the form that was most convenient.
Mr. CURTE IS said it was a printed letter.—( Order.)
Mr. WALTER said that this was most unhandsome treat-
ment. The letter was from a clergyman who was well known
to many Hon. Members of that House. The Hon. Member
then proceeded to read the following :—" The Board is held
now once a fortnight at Stony Stratford, the extreme point Of
the Union, which extends nearly nine miles. There was only
one relieving officer and one medical man till the spring of
1836 (when another surgeon was appointed to the Union);
consequently many of the paupers had to send eight miles for
relief. In 1836 I made several representations to the Poor-
law Commissioners of repeated instances of cruel and oppres-
sive cases. One man had to send nearly 20 miles before he
could obtain any medical assistance. No distinction is made
between the honest, industrious lobourer, the old and infirm
pauper, the idle and dissolute. The allowances to the poor aro
by no means equal to their absolute wants. One instance will
suffice for all. An industrious, sober, and hard-working la-
bourer, with a wife and three young children, had no work for
seven weeks; he went for relief or work to the Board, but could
find none ; he asked my advice ; I told him to go to the Board
of guardians; for several weeks they would neither give lines
relief nor work ; at last they allowed him four small loaves for
himself, his wife, and three young children, and they told hint
to walk every morning for bread from Pury to Stratford (sit
miles), then to Yarely Gobion, nearly five miles, and the dis-
tance to his house was four more ; this he did for many weeks.
Another man of good character complained to me that he had
no work, and no adequate means of supporting himself and
family : I sent him to the Board, and the following conversa-
tion took place between the pauper and the Chairman, a tenant
of the Duke of Grafton's, and a parishioner of mine :—= What
is your name, and what do you want ?—work, or relief. Who
sent you here ? Mr. —,' Why did not Mr. _ come
himself, or employ you, or lower his tithes ?' This wise
remark was made at the time when there were weekly rob-
beries and fires in the neighbourhoOd. I went up to London
immediately, and named to one of the Central Board myself
the conduct of the Chairman ; he merely observed, If this
be true, it is very bad.' Ilie poor were living, from 1835 to
the spring of 1836, in a poorhouse not weather-proof, the rain
pouring in on the wretched inmates as they lay in their beds ;
no means of religious instruction, no classification, or employ'
meat for the paupers. The sick poor of Ashton and Hart'
well have been grossly neglected by the relieving officer. A
poor sick pauper of Hartwell (I speak on the best authority)
died in consequence of the carelessness of the relieving officer
and Board of Guardians." Another clergyman write, thus
from Stoke Ash, in Suffolk :—" I shall lay a simple statement
of a case before you, which, occurring as it did in my ovf4
parish, and verified as it has been upon oath before me, voi
serve to show the cruel, tyrannical, and merciless operetion
of that Act which professes to have been instituted for the
benefit of the truly distressed poor. An able-bodied
0
bourer in the ,parish of Stoke Ash, in the county. .
Suffolk, having a family of ten children (two at service'
eight were living at home with their father and In°'
ther), without employment and without victuals, are
plied on Tuesday, the 15th of November last, to the Board c;
Guardians at Eye, to request some relief, and was refuse.;.
'
On Thursday, the 17th, he was compelled to leave his
and family to seek for work. On Tuesday, the 22d, his wtof
informed the relieving officer she was going to the Board_o
Guardians to apply for relief, as her husband was gone fro
home after work, and she had no victuals ; he said, 010
might return home, the Guardians would not relieve he
and she did return home without money or food. Subjoiiri
ico
are a number of affidavits, which show the severe pricatother
which the woman had fortitude enough to endure rang
than be immured with her family in the workhouse E°ih Ho
the seven weeks and a half her husband was absent.
returned home, it appears, on the Bth of Januury, 1831
onlying been absent seven weeks .and three days. He could
1_
re
get ten days and a half work the time lie was gone ; of ce-y,
he brought no money home. His wife and family had
little else to eat but dry bread the time he was absent, at'
r
some days only turnips. When he came home he b Guar-
employment, and could get no relief from the Board of
our
diens until Tuesday, the 24th ; he was ill, and his wi7 four
plied. They had no money or victuals, and waited until oto
o'clock before she got any allowance. She bad then to 6.. 1,0
flour°,
tue
the relieving officer for the order of four stone of
would not give it to her that night, but forced her to Te.4ici.o
next morning to Mendlesham for it (about seven masVake,
and back again). When she returned home she ha.d t
and could not get it ready for her children before. -six o'c'