Evansville daily journal. (Evansville, Ind.) 1863-1866, 1866-01-12
e tFroEa the London Telegraph, Dec ID.
A Christmas story of English Life.

9ue "a fFrora the London Telegraph, Dec. 49,
IA Christmas Story of English Life.
HOW the Poor ara Treated In that
"Right-and Tight Little lsland.'s
C1 Stories are all the vogue now-Christ-
mas stories, told on cresm-tinted paper,
= with gold edges to it, and with ever 80
. much crimson and green on the covers;
stories all about princess, giants and
fairies, and showing how, in that delight
= full and highly desirable world of fiction,
the bad people always come to grief and
81 the good ones ;.marry and live happy
. ever afterwards" No misery lasts long,
in them; no ugly problems are left un-
Z solved. The last pages, instead of being
blistered with tears, as those of life are
so often, wind up with q jolly settlement
with everybody and everything. Letthe
i little ones think it is all true. Time
ti- enough for them to find out what q very
different world they will have to deal
with, and what agony, despair, and crime
close the last chapter of many a story
-, that God writes in the great book OF
60 Lille which has Eternity on both sides Of
its covers. We have little story to
tell TO the oldslers before they sit down
10 their Christmas dinners with that con-
.- Viction which roast beef and plum pud-
ding inspire, that everything has gone
10 right since Christianity came. Our
story is not very fit for Christmas, ex-
cept to make the beef taste of tears and
the plum pudding stick in the throat
with shame and pity Before you set lo
work upon these religions luxuries, good
public, permit US to ask " if you have
, such thing as two shillings about you."
+. d. CAc L., .Fi
that sum for any number of weeks.
Well, spend them now as you like; but
last summer you might have bought q
i, childs life and a woman's soul for two
shilliHgs sterling. People ought not TO
- complain that "things are dear when
such bargain as that can be made in
England Now we repeat that it is too
e l. late; for the child,s life-price one shiI-
hng--is gone to Him who in all His
Treasury of planets and suns has nothing
q richer or dearer than child's life and
1tg the woman soul is so stained with muir
der, that the shilling is wanted now for
five Yards of hemp rope TO choke it out
rof her on the gslows. In spite OF these
particulars, so tantalizing to CONNER
eial people, the story, we say agaln,i is !
not nice story; the details are very I'M
pleasant, the characters stale and vulgar
a. to the last degree. and the, chief person
.s age widow of forty-two, haggard and
grizzIed before her time. Such as it is,
however, this is how it was told at the
Leicester Ass;zes Eliza Adkins, was
n tho widow of farm servant, who died
and left her with one child, aged four
Let us note in passing that the story
% books would have made some provision I
or other for an honest woman in such a
d. case Reality didn't The mother went
.dn into service, and put the child out to
nurse; but that demands funds, and Eliza
.da Adkins only Just earned her own LIVING, |
so she applied to the workhouse for two
sw shillings weekly to maintain the child |
- The workbouse said she must come in
with it, which she did. After she had
+ been in Loughborough Workhouse a
week. she left it, according to hsr- own \
story, because the treatment was so
sla bad i could not stay, and because they
'HJ dragged the child away and beat it, and
Il couldn't bear it." According to the
q story of the officials, confirmed by the
es guardians, she went away because the |
workhouse was thoroughly comfortable,
b and because . these paupers" have a
nasty way of bringing everybody into
publicity and trouble. - -
,fl Anyhow, Eliza Adkins, with the child
n ing q pair of little boots in it, some
Rooseberries and bit Of rope, came
forth. If the public prefers it, let us
take the guardians view and say she 1
would not stay in the workhouse because
people of her kind liked starving. The
next scene lie cottage at Pegg 8 Green,
where she called in and asked leave to
sit down. There is nothing like direct
narration in Christmas stories, so we
= ~ viii ask Sarah Castledine to go on here.
a She was the cottager and she testified
~ that "the prisoner had child on her
r. back. COY about four years old, and
- asked if she could sit down, and she and
the child sat down for about an hour.
q She said she had come a long way and
had long way to 60 to meet a friend
a. She asked il the water was still in the
pits The water had broken into some
pits sometime ago. l told her | thought
they were at work again. She asked if
there was as much charity given away
as there used to be- told her | thought
not. The boy began to look tired and
~ y faint, and she took him on her knee and
he went to sleep. She said it had very
bad boots on she had better pair,
but she had taken them off to ease its
feet. She was all of tremble while
-4ls a. our house. When she left | was GO
ing out on an errand, and my mother
said could carry the child little way.
She said, sOh, no; will carry it myself
o4 When it swakes it will walk as we'll as
ever She left our house between eight
and nine, and went in the direction of
Thringston, and i saw her no more.
~ You must dip good public, into the last
esd part of our story to do full justice to this
little bit of narrative, and then we doubt
C.,l fl,ar- yhriaf fol
of the day SC interesting. The friend
she was-going long way to meet was
that good old friend of the poor and
4 y broken hearted, whom it is wicked to go
+ ~ to meet, and for whom we must all wait
death. She meant to drown the child
and hang herself; loving the boy soswell,
meantime-the storybooks would never
have thought of this--that she takes of
J baa the boots that pinch him, as ,he toddles
by her side "to meet the friend" "Are
- the pits full of waterY' Mol Then
,. = friend death won't be met there; but the
.a1 well at Kingston win do She passes
o that about nightfall, and, having made
L- = M her mind, Eliza Adkins falls to casual
topics Much charity given away
here2 she asks. Sarah Castledine
.ee "thinks not" Eliza Adkins obviously
''-'' +" thinks not too" since, for lack Of two
d. shiIlings a week, she is going to send her
little son presently to Heaven, and her
self, if the pulpits are "all right, to hell.
And look at these paupers that murder,
y and cottagers that pOach. What bru-
tai set they srel Sarah Castledine, in
stigated by her mother, wants to ecarry
the woman's child, and the widow, with
the well and rope in her mind, is yet wo-
man enough not to trouble the poor peo-
- 4 ple WE'LL we have spoiled our story by
telling all the plot; but we do think that
ANlh The little conversation at Pegs Green
reads the better for what's coming.
What's coming has, of course, been
guessed; the summer night passed, and
Eliza Adkins turnes up in the morning
AZ another cottage, without the child.
a1a Having murdered him and meaning to
murder herself, a lie or two more or less
t6z7h can't improve the Devils bargain; SO she
saws be died of Group, and the neghors