The Sun.
London, England, 1867-11-26 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE " WESTMINSTER GAZETTE."

Sin,—The Weseminster Gazette of November 2,
contains an able article on a subject of momentous
importance—" Chronic Pauperism." It would be
an ungracious, and, I hope, a vain attempt, to
endeavour to discourage the writer of that article
in the praiseworthy efforts he is making, in so bold
and exemplary a manner, to arouse the nation to
t, grapple with an evil from which there is no escape,
and which must be faced." So far from wishing to
discourage him, I bid him God speed, and would
do all that in me lies to aid his exertions. He will
not, I hope, accuse me of any discouraging inten-
tion if I suggest that possibly he may not have
considered, in its full extent, the enormous diffi-
culty of the subject. I remember hearing, several
years ago, that some wealthy and benevolent in-
dividual, who then mourned over the chronic
pauperism of the country, had offered the sum of
£5OO, to be awarded by competent judges, to any
writer who should account for the fact, which he
assumed, that wealth implies poverty, and that in
the richest countries the direst distress is to be
found. Ido not vouch for the precise words, but
this was the sense of the proposal. As may be sup-
posed, a sum of £5OO would call out many an essay.
But I perfectly remember hearing that the sum
was never paid, the judges declaring that every
essay had utterly failed to deserve it. If then, to
every peculiar circumstance named by our author,
as well as to the religious aspect of the affair, is to
be added the fact that, under the most favourable
circumstances, exactly in proportion to the wealth
of a nation there is a tendency to poverty, one gets
a glimpse of the enormous difficulty of the task to
which we are invited. Of the fact that there is a
degree of squalid poverty in England unknown
elsewhere there cannot, in my mind, be a question.
At the same time, we must be well aware that the
fact is by no means universally admitted. Many,
on the contrary, will be found stoutly Lc) deny it.
Whether from the self-complacency which is so
marked a feature in the character of John Bull,
or from his ignorance of other countries, or from
both causes combined, certain it is that thts feel-
ing of very many amongst us is, that English
paupers are as superior to all other paupers as
every thing in England is to every thing every-
where else. But never was mistake more entire.
I remember spending a day, some years ago, in
Paris with the late lamented Baron Alderson. I
spent the day with him by appointment, in order
to meet a mutual friend, who had engaged to ac-
company him into the most abject scenes of poverty
in that great metropolis. Our friend, an English
convent, resident for many years in Paris, was
an active member of the Society of St. Vincent de
Paul, and a constant visitor in the most wretched
districts of the town. He came, at Baron Alder-
son's expressed desire, to show him the lowest
points which misery had reached. We spent several
hours in the investigation, and were introduced,
no doubt, into scenes of great suffering and desti-
tution. But I well remember how often Baron
Alderson requested that he might be shown abodes
of still deeper poverty. When assured that he
had seen the worst, his verdict was that he could
state, from actual experience, that there was a de-
gree of destitution and degradation in London
utterly unknown in Paris. Again, it was my lot,
in days long past, to accompany some friends from
the Continent on their first visit to London. I
spent several interesting days in lionizing them
about the town. It was the height of the season,
and our principal :thoroughfares were thronged
with equipages such as no other city on earth can
parallel. But there was another side to the picture
which we English are apt to overlook, but which
my friends were not slow to discover, and to which
they frequently called my attention. As we passed
down Regent-street, or Bond-street, I was often
asked to cast my eye upon some gaunt spectacle
of misery which dared to stalk about in grim
contrast to the splendid pageant which was passing
by. I have learned a lesson from those few days.
I have often pondered on them during a lengthened
residence in a third-rate, but most happy Conti-
nental kingdom, where the gorgeous magnificence,
and the intense misery of London, are alike un-
known. Often, too, as I now pass along our crowded
streets, I remember, and remember it to stamp it
with my full concurrence, the conclusion come to
by my friends as the result of their visit to London,
that they did not know which had most astonished
them, its magnificence or its misery.
The fact, then, conceded, how is it to be met ?
What is to be done ? How is this gigantic evil,
which, if increased beyond a certain point, must
be our ruin, to be faced? This is the question of
questions. Hie labor hoc opus est. Were I com-
petent to give an answer, I feel, sir, that I must
take an over-weaning view of your good nature
were I to count on your affording me space for
my lucubrations. I feel, however, earnestly anxious
on this subject, and I express the hope, in all sim-
plicity, that abler pens than mine may challenge
a space in your columns, and occupy it with a
power to which I cannot aspire.

Just, however, to break ground in this great
and momentous field I single out one point. At
first sight it may appear a small one ; but ample
experience justifies me in asserting my conviction
that the more it is examined the more wide-spread
and important will be found its bearing on this
great question. I allude to the case of our do-
mestic servants. • It would astonish any one who
has spent no time—happy for us if we spent more
—in visiting the poor, how large an influence, both
by their numbers, and still more by their habits
of life, those who have once been servants exercise
on the poverty which surrounds them. I venture
to say that no one who has not made the matter
a subject of special observation would believe,
beforehand, what a large proportion of our poor
have once been in the service of those above them.
And yet a moment's consideration might prepare
them for the fact. Look round at the countless
number of houses in this vast metropolis where
servants are employed. Remember, too, that the
good old days, which some of us can recollect, have
well nigh passed away, when it was a servant's
pride to have grown grey in the service of his or
her employer, when as children we loved to see in
the chimney-corner some venerable old figure who
talked to us of our grandfathers or great grand-
fathers. The family compact now-a-days seems to
be a short sojourn—extravagant indulgence—pay-
ment as long as you are able to work hard—and the
moment that, from whim on one side, or insolence
on the other, either party is dissatisfied, let us part
never to meet again. The numbers, therefore, who
under such a system pass from comfortable abodes
into the lanes and alleys of our great cities is
enormous. And not only so, but of all poor the
most hopelessly poor are old servants. Such was
my experience during several bitter years spent as
the Protestant incumbent of an important parish
containing upwards of 12,000 souls. Whenever I
entered an abode where misery sat enthroned amidst
emblems of more than usual despair—an abode
whence a husband, on returning home, would be
sure to turn away sickened and appalled to seek
refuge in the nearest gin palace, I feel confident
that in the mistress of that dreary chamber it was
an even chance that I saw one who had been once
a servant. The utter appearance of desolation,
the inability to make an effort, the revolting mix-
ture of faded bed ornaments with rags which no
darning needle had ever attempted to repair, these
have often told me their tale. Oftentimes have
my suspicions resulted in despairing descriptions
of luxurious mansions where, in past days, luxury
and extravagance were the rule both for employers
and employed. We have, then, in the midst of us
a class whose numbers are incalculable, whose ex-
travagance when momentary assistance is afforded,
whose despair when want arrives, exert the most
baneful influence, in a thousand ways, on the
surrounding population. And whose is the fault ?
The fault, if not wholly, mainly of employers. It
is a sad and solemn reflection for the rich that the
class which comes into nearest contact with them is,
perhaps, the very worst in the community. We
too often ruin our servants. We take many of
them from the humblest abodes and introduce them
at once to habits of reckless and uncontrolled
extravagance. We wonder at the result, And

amuse ourselves with the racy utterances and
whimsical portraits of a flunkeyism which is the
creature of our own hands. And truth is often
stranger than these fictions. If we cannot always,
from the realities of daily life, equal the wit of
Punch, we can, at all events, frequently adduce
facts which come up to or go beyond any of his
fanciful representations. I knew an instance the
other day myself of a poor woman to whom, from
sheer charity, employment was given in order to
rescue her from utter destitution. The spell of old
age of service was upon her. Sne indignantly threw
up her means of subsistence, because on one
occasion salt meat formed the staple of her repast,
and because on another there was no pudding after
dinner. For this fact I pledge myself, and for this,
further, that the last words uttered by this mis-
guided woman, on indignantly throwing up her
livelihood, were, that accustomed as she was at
home to pudding after dinner, she could not pos-
sibly serve where it was not supplied ! A very
short time and she was begging at the door on
which she had turned her back. Punch may
easily furnish pictures of greater wit than this,
but I defy him to go beyond it in extravagance.
And here I crave Punch's pardon for a moment. I
have often, I own, smiled—as who can fail to do ?
—at his masterly sketches, and cannot wonder at
his purveying for so productive a market. But,
nevertheless, I cannot but lament that one of our
most crying evils--one from which all suffer and
against which all protest--one which involves, I
fear, great guilt, and beyond a doubt involves
deep misery, should be turned into one of the
surest and readiest sources of popular amusement.
What, then, is to be done ? A mighty work is here
in this one department. Many will turn aside
from it as impracticable. And yet if so—if this
one evil presents overwhelming difficulties, what
are we to say of those which we are told we must
face, and whose name is legion ? Towards the
amelioration of chronic pauperism one essential
step—if there be a shadow of reason in what I
have thus feebly urged—is the amelioration of
the condition of our servants. To effect this we
must review our whole position, and submit to
learn lessons from the past. We must define
anew the relations which ought to subsist between
masters and servants. We must sit at the feet
of our grandmothers, and learn how, in the good
old time, they managed their households.
We must take our stand, and try to recall
the days when the dietary and the dress,
especially, of 'under-servants were the sub-
jects of strict regulation when Master and
Mistress, and not Mr. and Mrs. A. or B.—were
the respected names by which the heads of a family
were designated. The same causes will once more
produce the same effects. Our servants will ruin
their place. Instead of our maid-servants aping
their mistresses, if not trying to eclipse them, in
dress and habits of self -indulgence, their very
costume will mark their dependent condition.
Their dietary, plain but ample, will present some
difference between their table and that of those
they serve. Upper servants will catch a new spirit
and exercise a healthy influence on the lower
ranks of the establishment. Kindnesses which,
under our present system, are grumbled at as in-
sufficient, will sink into grateful hearts. The aim
and pride of servants will be to keep their places,
and to remain connected with those whose discipline
and tenderness combined have trained them to
habits of order, obedience, and attachment. Houses
will become abodes of friends observing strictly the
post to which Providence has called them, instead
of abodes in which hard taskmasters on the one
hand, and conspirators against their authority on
the other, are herded under the same roof. When
circumstances oblige servants to seek homes of
their own, they will enter them better members of
society and not worse, in virtue of their previous
connection with the rich. Neighbours will have
them as well-ordered links between the upper and
the lower classes, as the heads of economical, tidy,
and virtuous homes, and not, as at present, as the
victims of a poverty peculiar to themselves. Their
homes will no longer be the watchwords of
wretchedness, disaffection, and disorder, but will
be pointed out as examples of cleanliness, comfort,
and decorum.—l am, sir, your very faithful
servant, J. H. W.

London, Nov. 13.

7HE CONDITION OF AUSTRIA.

A letter from Vienna, dated Nov. 15, says :—The
political and social condition of Austria is at the
present moment so decomposed, so entirely rotten,
that a thinking man, truly attached to the land
and the dynasty, can only with difficulty and
with much reluctance bring himself openly to dis-
cuss the subject. But since I must speak my mind,
I will do so simply and honestly, that those of
your readers who are not so well acquainted
with the state of things here may be enabled to
form a correct opinion of our present unenviable
condition. To-day I will confine myself to the
discussion of the Concordat question. The ad-
dress of the bishops and the answer of the
Emperor, has brought this conflict to a point.
There are some respectable Catholics who think
the bishops would have acted wiser to have kept
silent ; the reasons adduced for this opinion have
failed to convince me ; but that the Emperor
would have done well to have kept silent, or,
better still, to have given quite a different answer,
of that I have never had the slightest doubt. We
are embarked in the Revolution, if as yet only
latent—if, as the Historzsch-Politische Blotter of
Munich lately expressed it, the dominant Radi-
calism will be for awhile content with climbing to
the roof-top of our old monarchy over the servile
backs of the Ministers, Baron Beust and Count
Andrassy. The latent Revolution rules here, and
an open Revolution would long since have broken
out in the streets of Vienna, had not our poor
Emperor confided the Government to the foreign
Saxon Baron, who, to make use again of a very
telling expression of the Historich-Politische Blotter,
jumps into the water, to fetch and carry at the
call of the leading Jewish journals. To such a
pass is it come in Vienna, that such a palliative
can be snatched at as a means of rescue from
worse things. Had our Emperor as much politi-
cal as military courage, he would not have turned
out of his path to avoid the risk of a Vienna street
Revolution. He is now, indeed, bound hand and
foot ; the Minister domineers over the Emperor, the
Chamber domineers over the Minister, and the
Chamber, in turn, is swamped and domineered
over by the revolutionary Jews, the mob, and the
half-educated youth, to whom Professor Arndts, in
the teeth of their tumultuous bearing, has just read
a lesson on boy-government. He has suddenly be-
come as unpopular a professor as he had before
been popular. As a member of the Upper
House he had the courage to present addresses in
favour of the Concordat. In this chaotic state of
things the bishops of Austria, or, rather, those
of the western half of the old empire, have had
the courage to speak the truth on the subject of the
Concordat—the whole truth, the overpowering
truth, bright and full as the sun at midday—ex-
posing the falsehoods with which the very air here
is, as it were, full as with a swarm of noxious
insects. This brings to my mind the following
saying of our Holy Father, Pius IX., spoken in
very similar circumstances :—" The greatest evil
of our times is the unprecedented growth and
power of falsehood. This might closes around me
day by day in ever changing form, and I have
no weapon to oppose to it but that of the pure
and simple truth." The bishops of Austria have
followed the example of this great Pope. I trust
in God that sooner or later this, the only practical
and correct path, will lead to victory. But it is
also true that an immediate success was not to
be expected. Nor was it to be looked for that the
Emperor all at once should find the courage to
oppose his :veto to the present Ministry, which
most certainly is now doing the bidding of the
Revolution. The Emperor reproaches the bishops
with not taking sufficiently into consideration his
quality of constitutional sovereign ; apparently the
Emperor meant to indicate by these words that he
was a monarch fettered by the Revolution. For
his quality of constitutional sovereign could not
hinder him from clihmiming hip Ma:tiger, much less

from dissolving the present, without doubt, illegal
Chamber. But, as a monarch robbed by the Revo-
lution of all freedom of action, the Emperor could
not claim any special consideration on the part
of the bishops ; while, on the other side, it be-
hoved the bishops to defend the most sacred la'
terests of the Church and of the Empire. He who
places himself at the side of the Revolution—who
identifies himself with it—he can only impute to
himself the consequences of his own deeds.
You know me well enough to understand the Pain
which such an expression of opinion costs me. it
would be difficult to find any one more devoted
to the House of Austria and to the Emperor
Francis Joseph than I am. But the sacred Pria-
ciples here in question stand higher in my re-
gard than all princes and dynasties. On this point
every honourable man must bear witness to the
truth, as the bishops have done. That the evil per-
petrated may be yet retrieved, I will not deny ; hilt;
unfortunately, as far as I am aware, matters stall"'
with us at the present moment as described/
doubtless, also, not without deep pain, by the Ms'
torich-Politische Bliitter in its last number. The
House of Hapsburg has solemnly yielded up its
claim to the protectorate of the Catholic Church,
and delivered up the interests of the Church to the
good:pleasure of a furious Radicalism, and to a l'ar"
liament built on this same Radicalism. Franc's
Joseph has burst asunder the last bond which
yet bound together the various nationalities
of Austria, the common interests of Catholicism ;
and that at a moment when at Rome signs,
are abroad calculated to raise the despondent
energies even of the weak. At a moment when
Louis Napoleon, turning towards the Calla"
lie Church, with a glance at anti-Roman Prus-
sia, lets fall hearty blows on the back of poor
Italy, in the hope that their smart may be felt by
the Prussian ass which bears it---at such a moment
the Emperor of Austria suns himself in the beams
of an ephemeral Viennese mob-popularity, f°r"
getting that the same bearing which in the Jewish
capital of Vienna wins for him the hearts of the
clamorous, estranges a many hundred times greater
number of true and faithful hearts over the whole
Empire. To discover what sort of a rabble it is
that are feting the Emperor, it is not necessall
to descend so low as the streets ; it is sufficient
to cast a glance upon the Chamber of our repre-
sentatives. There, for instance, we see Dr.
Miihlfeld, who, report says, rejoices in the 05'
session of four wives (I am, indeed, persona
acquainted with him, though I have never enter
his harem). He is the champion of the onslaught
on the Concordat, and has lately delivered a re°t
vulgar speech filled with unmeaning denunciations
against the bishops. As the honourable member
for Tyrol, Professor Greuter, showed his disal);
proval of such unbecoming attackS, the demagogues
only let loose a strain of still more vulgar abuse'
which was followed by a clamour of applause frarc`t
his party, in which Professor Greuter was made °,
appear to join one of the heroes of their partY
the renowned Dr. Schindler having had recoursy
to the dignified device of hiding himself behind
Professor Greuter, and then calling out, Bralr°,si
bravo !" The same Dr. Miihlfeld advance
as a proof of the nullity of the Concordat that
s
as a State contract it could have no validity ;
such a pact was only possible between two terePard
Sovereigns, and that as a law of the State it colic
only have effect until abrogated. An enduring State
compact, as the introductory patent termed it, was
a contradictio in adjecto. Absurd as such ranting
5
may appear to a jurist, it is not these discourses
which excite the greatest furore among the Rache3,
public. These demagogues, in order to stir to ,11
depths the feelings of the populace, make use °f
eloquence hovering on the steep heights of wad
ness. For instance, they insist that the battle
lionigsgratz requires the abolition of the Concor
Since this watchword has been passed, that to theo;
Concordat is to be attributed the defeat ot
Austria, not a word more is heard of the wail,
of llinterlodungsgewchren, of the faults ill the
Exercier-Reglonent, ofthe abuses in the uletto
of advancement. A wit, lately, who happen °
be thrown into the society of such wiseacres, the
were attributing the conquests of Prussia to t
Concordat, asked with an innocent mien 1":0
paragraphs they had in mind ; heshould lik°
refer to them, especially as he was at a loss to I.e,
34
concile the victories of Custozza and Lissa

articles so injurious to our service. •ed
The Morgen Post, which has particularly NOfl
itself in bringing the Concordat into connectio
0
with our defeat in Konigsgriitz, following out ~
little things as well as in great this mania, attilt
buted the other day to the Concordat the fact the
a clergyman was seen, as reported, walking in
st
town park with a dog unbound (which is aga'llol2
the police regulations). And, doubtless, their
ir
of readers have no misgivings but that the C°o
cordat contains articles which free the clergy fr°,loo
the police regulations which bind the Prof ;1,0
public as to dogs. Neither do they doubt a
i 4
u-.t
existence of certain articles in the Concor°
which makes it absolutely impossible for us to 1811
quish a Prussian army.
fat
But do not let all this lead you to imaa—e soy
these party leaders, taken on the whole, hale lef
degree of weight or solid influence with the Peergo
or even with the journalists. A few weeks 131'0
the Presse declared it to be a melancholy fatiyes
only too true, that the House of Represerttavo"
was in a state of complete inner dissolution' ato
that new ideas and new leaders must be founiva
carry on the labours of the Reichsrath. s :
the Neue Free Presse says in one of its 11101300
—" Our House of Representatives has a the
uncertain existence ; its leader is chanco•
crisis in which we find ourselves is felt ill or
House in all its members. As it is at preseuticto
stituted—we speak it with deep sorrow—this l'cljoi
is a picture of desolation, a languid body that se4 A
rather to vegetate than to live. No one li3lof
compact party in this House to fall back on ; 1211+
has either Baron von Beust one. Thi3 Ass,oePlior
which has the pretension of being a popular l'ett
of
sentative Assembly, dissolves into a nurabe;ioo
small, powerless fractions, and these frac'eotts
again melt into a number of single heterogeall
individuals. Such condemnations resound%jell
sides, and such is the political power before art
not only such a pitiable wight, as our la
Reichs Kanzler, but before which Francis /cis cl•
Emperor of Austria, has bowed his head, de- tbei
ing at the same time from his bishops that
./co#
also, as he has done, should bow before it• tad
possums, was the answer. A Catholic sp-i
Catholic strength yet lives in Austrian hearts.

a to
The Republicans of Maryland have preSepte,oo
Chief Justice Chase a copy of the recent decision by Lod'
he freed coloured apprentices, printed on satin Allairr
somely framed. We wonder what the Chief Jut: aer
do with it, perhaps hand it down to his posterity as
nir of a just judge.

wife 01