Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-26
THE POOR OF LONDON,
n Scene In a York demonstrating Pre-
s7sissns on PdMperism.
TIondOn I,ettar

where did you sleep last night?"
"In the street."
"Where did you sleep the night before ~
Eat the Poplar work-house."
"Where did you sleep on Saturday last ?'
"At the Bow street police station
"Why were you taken there?"
''For what, I suppose, they call being
drunk"
"How did you manage to get drunk?
You say you have not blessed farthing."
ut were my last fourpence. Ihad had
nothing to eat. Try the public's stuff, what
they give us on an empty stomach, and if
you are not after having the bloody police
after you, my name is not Mary Jane.''
"Where is your husband?.,
"Curse him! Who knows?"
"Where are your children?"
"At the Redhill reformatory."
SLOW old are you"
"Thirty four"
The person who gave that age looked
| over fifty. Her face was wrinkled, her
mouth toothless.
The above conversation took place in the
| room of a work-house situated in densely
populated parish of London, where pau
pers begging admission are first interviewed
by the relieving officer en- duty. Beside
| the relieving officer, fine and intelligent
young man, the poor woman, and myself,
there was in this gloomy apartment an old
pauper, an inmate of tho work-house,
| who was busy looking over some registers
| to ascertain how many times the applicant
had been placed in the charge of the par
ochial and other authorities. This search
proved that this wretched creature had
pretty fairly divided her time between the
work-house and the prison. Her clothes
were indescribable. Her indifference was
heartrending; half-idiotic, half-impudent
laugh constantly distorted the wearied
| features of her bestial face.
As it was evident from the rest of the
| Interrogation she was submitted to that
she could not find work for the present,
| she received ticket Of admission. The
English workhouse is only open to paupers
above sixteen, incapable of earning their
living by reason of age, of incurable in
firmities, or of impossibility to find work.
The workhouse also shelters for one night
the paupers who, when passing through the
parish, have not then the means of paying
for bed in common lodging house.
Before the great reform of 1884 the
English workhouse was sort of hell on
earth. Paupers of all ages and both sexes,
from small children upwards, the healthy
and the sick, the decent and the criminal,
were all mixed in a manner most perilou 8
| for the body as we'll as for the soul. The
| workhouse of that period was q hotbed of
disease and of vice. Things are quite differ
ent to-day. and much-needed classification
| has divided the sin-door maintenance" sys-
tenn into four perfectly distinct and sepa-
rate institutions: the work house, the pur-
pose of which has just been defined; the
infrmary for the sick; the school for poor
| orphans, and children whose parents are at
| the work house; and the asylum for the
| lunatic.
All these different places where charity
tries to mitigate the dreadful trials and
sufferings of poverty are managed, under
the supervision and control of the govern
ment, by each English parish, or, accord
ing to their population, by two or more of
them.
The English are very generous nation,
| and there is only one serious fault to find
with their system of charity. They carry
it too far. The principle upon which it
rests is beautiful in theory, but disastrous
in practice. This principle is that the
pauper is of right entitled to public assist
| ance. This creates improvidence, discour-
| ages industry, increases the evils it would
| cure. The workingman, knowing that
when he has exhausted his resources he has
only to apply to the work house, spends
recklessly what he earns. have met with
more than one disorderly rufian of either
sex who, when reproached for dissipating
wages in drink, has told me: "Why should
we save? The parish is bound to support
! u.s."
The man who works steadily and saves
part of his earnings, seeing that he is
taxed for the poor rates, ceases to be in
dustrious, OF leaves Che country which de-
prives him of the best part of his savings
to hand them in one form or other of as
sistance to the man who has preferred to
be idle or profigate. "Why," says first
| rate English laborer in Lincolnshire to his
| employer, ''should remain in country
which forces men who like to work to keep
up the men who don't?'' And he buys his
| passage to America.
| This principle, which rids men of the
cares of the future, tends also to harden
| the heart, and often completely stiles in
it the most natural and noble affections.
Mothers desert their children; grown up
children forsake their parents. You see
| that poor old man yonder, with the ema-
ciated face. the beut body, the trembling
hands, breaking stones along the road, with
ten companions not much brisker than
himself? He is supported by the parish.
The poor mans days are getting short;
before the end of the month he may be
taken to that pretty cemetery hard by. His
son is horse dealer in a very good way
Of business.
| I entered one day work-house not q
hundred miles from Charing Gross. An
old woman On the eve of celebrating her
ninetieth birthday was lying on her bed,
half paralyzed, but the brain was sane and
clear. Her intelligent face bore an e1-
preston of inexpressibls sadness. Surely
this old dame was born in more cheerful
room than this dismal dormitory, and
must have had friends of another stamp
than the ignorant and vulgar women who
keep her company. am right. The
nearest and only surviving relative of
this mysterious inmate is clergyman who
possesses two ivings in the north of Eng
land. Those only who have cruelty suffered
can conceive the regret and the fortunes of
this forlorn creature to whom an implaca-
BILE memory contrasted, till her dying hour,
the horror of her present life with the joys
of her early years and the hopes of her ma
ture days.
| Far from me the idea of saving. still