The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-21 00:00:00

mere sophism, which cannot deceive any one long.
True Reform will increase the effective power of the
whole nation for all purposes of government, but it
cannot leave the relative power of classes the same
as before. What one class gains in this sense must
be lost by another, but the loss will be far more
than compensated if it should substitute the legiti-
mate influences of intellectual and moral superiority
for those now abused by electioneering agents.
Another delusion is the belief in the magical effi-

cacy of " a principle." A rental franchise, accord-
ing to Mr. Disraeli, is an " expedient ;" a rating
franchise contains a " principle." Let any one

attempt to define these terms, as applied to politics,
and he will find how unmeaning the c mtrast is.
N'Vhat legislators have to seek is not a " principle,"
but that practical solution of the problem which
promises most benefit, and is likely to entail least
injustice or inconvenience. Equally barren is the

eternal controversy as to the proper conception
of the franchise. You may call it a right, a trust,
a privilege, or a function ; but the designation
adopted will produce not the slightest effect on
the conduct of the man who exercises it, sublimely

unconscious of these subtle abstractions.

The

statesnian deals with ascertained facts and probable
consequences. Forms of expression which repre-
sent neither of these do not impose upon him, and
he abstains from using them, lest they should im-
pose upon others.
THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE ON " THE POOR."—
Sidney Smith used to say that when some people
read a charitable appeal they are very much
moved to put their hands into their neighbour's
pockets and subscribe. Those who write philan-
thropically, and those who read such writings for
the sake of grumbling at shortcomings and offer-
ing a dole of pure and naked pity to the suffer-
ers from poverty, have excellent intentions.
And if we grant that the way to the workhouse,
like a certain dangerous way about which the
saints used to write, is paved with good intentions,
perhaps we shall not be far from the truth. No
pauper knocks at the gate of a poorhouse who has
not trodden on a whole pavement of good in-
tentions by the way. These may be strewn for
them by friends or enemies, or partly even by
themselves ; but, there they are, and the poor
have had enough of them. When they get into the
prison—we were nearly calling it voluntary, but
considered that a mistake—they may stand in
need of sermons, and instructions, and a great
many more good intentions ; but they also stand
in need of bread, and that is a keener want to them
than all the others. Some wiseacre says that all
men are governed by their stomachs, and it would
not offend the feelings of the poor to say they
formed no exception to this rule. There is, how-
ever, great danger of our looking upon the poor
as animals with empty crops, instead of as rational
men. The State provides them food and lodging,
indifferent enough to be sure, but something
which may be put down on the other side of an
equation as amounting to such, and then the public
conscience is believed. This is a mistake which
our good old Catholic forefathers never dreamt
of committing. They did not think the poor
were made of a material differing from the stuff
which composes a rich man. They remembered
that many of the poor had been rich, and they
knew very well that they had feelings. It seems
beneath the majesty of law, perhaps, to take the
feelings of the poor into account. But they have
feelings for all that, and the good old Catholic
instincts dealt with them accordingly. This
accounts for the old poor which live now-a-days
only in hovels, or in countries unblessed with
workhouses and poor-law guardians. The old
Irish beggar was a rare being. He travelled miles
every day, was the walking newspaper of his dis-
trict, said his " Paters and Ayes," or his De Pro-
fundis, for those who gave him an alms, or their
deceased relatives, carried more gossip than a dozen
ordinary tattlers, and knew the genealogies of the
fairies and the legends of saints with extraordin-
ary accuracy. People tried to have their hearth
blessed with a deoraig (wanderer) every night,
and put something in his bag for the morn-
ing. Beggars did not steal in those days, for they
had a great deal of self-respect, if not religion,
and they were as much afraid of a bad name as
anybody else. The Scotch gaberlunzie was much
the same sort of being, and the jolly beggars of
Old England had their codes of honour and eti-
quette. If this class of beings received they
also gave, and indeed the politics of the parish
were not dear at a morsel of bread which could
be easily spared. The beggars had a circle of
friends, too, and paid visit and refused invitations,
when they were vexed, much after the fashion of
grand people. Why, they were an institution.
If they levied black mail occasionally, it was
only by lampoons or sorry jokes, whereas the
poor-rates are no joke at all. We do not get a
joke itself in return for our modern way of helping
the poor to a crust, after their paid officials
have feasted on the pittance which the law wrings
out of us. Let us think of the privations of the
poor in workhouses. They cannot trudge about
the parish and make speeches. They caflnot change
their lodgings every night. They cannot have a
crowd of smiling faces welcoming them to the
comfortable farmhouse. They cannot gather up
news, nor manufacture stories. They cannot, in
fact, be beggars. These are real privations, be-
cause they betoken a want of enjoyment. It
would be a very hazardous thing to take up the
cudgels for beggary. It is a source of many evils,
but we have yet to learn the way of putting it
down, without entailing worse. If a man be sent
to prison for asking a halfpenny in the street, it
is very likely that he will revenge himself on
society by taking one without the asking when
he gets out again. Beggary is bad, only when
associated with roguery ; we should try to catch
the rogue and let the beggar have his fling. That
is the point. Who can catch a rogue ? And,
when he is caught, is he not very like the prover-
bial Tartar ? Of course we try to send rogues to
catch other rogues ; but it requires something
more than prison walls to take the roguery out of
a man. Rogues have feelings as well as poor
people, but they stand on our corns and forfeit the
right to a consideration for them. They are
bad, and very bad ; it would be a great thing if
we could find out how to make them good.
Perhaps we could go a great way towards this
praiseworthy object by preventing the develop-
ment of a beggar into a rogue. It must be con-
fessed that few take to roguery as a vocation,
and that the ranks of this fraternity are generally
recruited from those of poverty. Beyond the
hypothesis we have advanced, namely, that poor
people have feelings, there lies another which is
equally tenable—to wit, that they have a holy
claim on our regard. There is the injunction of
Our Lord, and the fact that they are always with
us and represent Him. A singular privilege for
poor outcasts, and one that ought to be recog-
nised. Perhaps it would be coming nearer the
truth if we concluded that it was this notion of
the poor which made them the objects of so much
care to the Church and her faithful children at
all times. This age is particularly squeamish
with regard to the poor. It will fill books with
empty talk, in order to get the poor out of our
sight. It has a great horror of rags, except when
they are going to the paper-mill. But when the
wearers of rags can be put together, and counted
like so many quires of paper, and then bound up
in red-tape, it has no objection to consider them
as a commodity for legislature. It is very diffi-
cult to revive the holy love of the poor which
once pervaded Christians, but it is not perhaps so
difficult to do them the amount of good which the
possession of such a love would cause in altered
circumstances. The system of poor law, as now
in vogue, is acknowledged to be a failure. It is
unnatural and impracticable. It will as soon meet
the requirements of poverty as an Act of Parlia-
ment will change human nature. There is one
feature of the poor law which would go a great
way towards alleviating misery if it were extended
—that is, out-door relief. If there were hospices
erected at public expense, where poor bodies might
call and get a dinner for the asking, and where
they might get a lodging, when in want (.1 one,
without their being subjected to the trammels
of unbending officialism, the evils which puzzle
our Administration would be, in a great measure,
remedied. These hospices might be small places,
erected here and there within easy reach of the
sufferers. The large sums of money now spent in
erecting those gaunt, ugly buildings called work-
houses would be better employed than it is, and
go farther than one might at first sight suppose.
Boards of Guardians could be dispensed with,
and society would not lament their loss. The poor
would be free to go about among their friends, in-
stead of being caged up like wild cats. Individual
charity would have more congenial exercise in
helping suffering with its own hand than it has
now through committees. But, is there any like-
lihood of such a change ? Very little. Com-
mittees are very fond of speeches, and circulars,
and reports, and balances, and boards of guardians
make such wooden palisades with their heads
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break a poor-law fence and
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spread-
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way into the public mind.
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them at the price of their liberty, and it will be
very easy to make us do the right thing. Casuals
and exposures, and dismissals of masters, and
public indignation, and newspaper articles are