The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-07 00:00:00

pleasant to those who come under its statutes.
Parliament may do its utmost, administrators exert
themselves, and the public feel quite satisfied that
the best has been done, and that henceforth there

v...., .....__
will not be so many appalling cases of wretched
want and deaths from starvation to be recorded.
Mistaken mortals, they forget and are ignorant of
the important fact, that between the formation of
the laws and the recipients of their good intentions
there lurks a fatal influence which casts a blighting
shade over all who come in its way. It recals to
mind the old story of the wicked fairy who was
always forgotten at the christening feast, and ar-
rived in time to undo the effect of all the gifts
showered down by her beneficent sisters, when we
contemplate the marring effects of the Poor-law
agents, and the fatal blunders which their

insatiable rage for economy everlastingly
entail. It is irritating to reflect upon the apparent
hopeless task of mitigating the sufferings of destitur
tion which the perusal of this report • brings before
us. The best way to realise the efficiency of the
Poor-law, as it is carried out, is to consider the
fact that the accommodation is too much for the
needy, yet we find many dying of cold and starva-
tion outside the walls where the grim shelter is pro-
vided. Perhaps the most direct way of ascertain-
ing the cause of the failure—for such it egregiously
and unmistakeably is—will be to reflect upon the
circumstance that the persons who carry out the laws
seem to ignore the fact that they are dealing with
human beings. The consequence of this is that a
very important agency is overlooked, and thus want,
cold, deprivation, and death are welcomed rather than
the ordeal through which the sufferer knows he
must pass if he enter the house be gone through. A
feeling which is never engendered by the treatment
of criminals certainly is created by the intercourse
of paupers with officials, and that is the knowledge
that they are looked upon with contempt. Unless
this idea is removed, or in a great measure counter-
acted by more benign measures and more generous
treatment, it is idle to hope or expect much pro-
gress to be made ; and until the day arrives when
the affliction of poverty is counted more worthy of
respect and regard than the commission of crime, it
will be found that complaining will not cease from
our streets, and that gaunt famine and grim want
will slay their thousands in defiance of acts of Par-
liament and statutes for the relief of the destitute. It is
worthy of note that the new regulations passed last
session for the benefit of the homeless vagrants are
rendered comparatively futile by the maladminis-
tration of the decree enforced. It is possible to in-
sist upon the poor being admitted for a night's
shelter, but it seems a work of supererogation to
enable them to be so treated that they will again
seek such shelter, or advise others to do so. The
tender mercies of workhouse treatment seem suffi-
cient to defy the rules and regulations which justice
enforces and humanity counsels. When all is done
and said, the ruthless guardian, the stern official, is
king after all, and the latter end is worse than the
beginning, became in a Christian land it has 'been
seen that laws are powerless, and the sympathy of the
community of no avail to afford protection to those so
grievously in need of it. Little more than half the
number of beds are required for the accommodation
of those for whom they are provided, the utmost
that the Unions can receive being 1,400, and the
greatest number that have availed themselves of
these extra chances being 712. So much for the
counteracting influence of parish administration of
Parliamentary enactments. It is one thing to
peruse in this Report the fair-seeming and well-
sounding arrangements that are made, and another
to draw on the memory for a history of the dis-
graceful and deplorable incidents of deaths from
want. The practice of refusing out-door relief is
inhuman, and also most suicidal in a business way.
Many, by timely aid, might be rehabilitated, instead
of sinking into hopeless penury, turning vagrants,
or enduring one misery after another until
the burden of life is gladly laid down and another
victim passes away, a mockery to our civilisation,
and a reproach on our charity. Why it is persisted
in, that the destitute must come into the Union,
would be incomprehensible if a sad answer was not
at hand to give to the inquirer. In other words, it
is a genteel way of informing them that they had
better die off and get rid of the surplus population,
for many have attested with their lives the fact that
they prefer death at home to life in the Workhouse.
Too many have passed from the jurisdiction of man's
laws into the presence of their GOD for any doubt
to be entertained upon the subject by those
competent to judge. Unless the guardians of
the several districts will insist upon out-door
relief being more readily afforded it is im-
possible that any change for the better can
take place among our destitute. To be a pauper is
rightly reckoned as one of the greatest afflictions of
the thousand ills to which flesh is heir. Lord
STANLEY, whose remarks upon public affairs gene-
rally bear the evidence of keen observation, never
made .a truer statement than when he said that to
pauperise a man was to degrade him. Why, in the
name of common sense, should it be the study of
those intrusted with important functions to attain
this object, it is difficult to understand, except upon
the supposition, that refusal is almost certain, and
hence a saving is effected. It is always easier to
discourse upon an evil than to suggest a remedy, to
find fault with an old system than to propose a new
one, but this affair of the Poor Laws is an old
grievance. No one will venture to say that it is ex-
aggeration to style it a grievance. Sir ROBERT
PEEL called Ireland his difficulty ; may we not term
this a national difficulty, and more, a national dis-
grace. The richest country in the world cannot or
will not save its starving children from death. The
enterprise that amazes mankind is powerless to con-
front this difficulty, and the zeal which sends mis-
sionaries to the uttermost ends of the earth stops
short at home for lack of ability or good will. The
good things of this world are not to be despised, but
if the desire of accumulating wealth gives rise to
this hard and harsh treatment of the poor, this
neglect of the destitute, and this immolation of the
needy, it will belabour that profits not, and, like
the skeleton at the Egyptian feasts, the starving
victims of our Poor Laws will belie our sense of
justice, and remain a scandal to the generation in
which we live.

The arrival of the Bombay mail brings us intel-
ligence up to the 14th of December. Happily there
is no news of great importance, although some
agitation has been created in Calcutta by Mr.
MAINE'S Bill for abolishing Grand Juries. It seems
that this measure is very unpopular among the non-
official class of Anglo-Indians, who apprehend
great inconvenience and even injustice from the pro-
posed abolition. Grand juries,
and, in fact, juries
of every
kind, are certainly an invaluable safeguard.
They are a legal guarantee for the liberties of the
subject, and,
consequently, their suspension or dis-
continuance must naturally be looked upon with a
jealous eye. This jealousy in the case of the Indian
Bill has been increased by an alteration which has
been made in it since it was first proposed. It was
then intended to place non-official Europeans on
the Mofussil bench, and to imitate, in some degree,
our Quarter Sessions' Courts. This 1 tention has
been abandoned, and the European community con-
sequently look with great ouspicion on the abolition