The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-05-21
---------- THE ENGLISH WORKHOUSE

RecollectlOnS or the lHsllIutioh,
 Two more Americans confess to hav
 ing had all the experience that their constitutions can stand in the British mule transport service to South Africa. They are H. J. Hyde, a native of God frey, Kan, and Frank Goddard of Dem yer. Hyde is a man in middle life. Goddard is about twenty-five. They arrived at Southport from CardlH, Wales, on the transport Dawlish, light, having worked their passage by scrub ping decks and doing other menial work.
 "I was fishing for a living around Pensacola when 1 read in a Pensacola paper of employment of men as care takers of mules on the way to south Africa" said Hyde. The fish were going down the bay, and as it was very cold work in winter and as the adver- tisement said there were fine chances to make money at Cape Town, l took the direction and came up here with about seventy-hye dollars in my pocket.
 q as sent to the Huronia, and we left here November 1 with 1,196 mules. After the voyage of forty-two days to Cape Town, tifty-six of us, all care takers of mules, were dumped on the beach with two pounds apiece, British money, and were left to shift for our selves. It was quietly intimated to us that we might enlist in the English army.
 "As for Goddard nd myself, we new CT had any intention of fighting the Boers, because we knew we would come back to this country some time, and would get chilly reception when that became known. However, all eX- cept ten of the fifty-six men did enlist for the very service I have mentioned. Goddard and myself joined fortunes, and for ten days we worked on new railroad at Sir Lowry's Pass We were supposed to get five shilings day but board was so high that we quit when we got one pound sixpence apiece in debt. d
 Well, finding prospects for employ ment so gloomy, we began to try to get back to America. We went to the American consul-general, J.. G. stone, at Cape Town. He told us frankly that our chances for getting back to Ameri- ca direct were very slim. There were eighty-two empty transports, besides many sailing vessels, lying in Table bay, ready to sail for America when they got orders, but they were all Brit ish, and the American consuls intiu- ence with their commanders was very slight, particularly as so many British subjects wanted to get away by work I ing their passage But all the same he did everything he could for us, and | fially got us off on the steamship Hermes for Buenos Ayres. We worked eur way to Buenos Ayres by helping to move four hundred tons of coal,
 | Prom Buenos Ayres we were fortu- nate enough to ship as deckhands on the cattle ship Heraclides for Liverpool, and at tft end of our voyage we had four pounds apiece. We applied to MT, 1 Doyle, the American consul in Liver pool, for a little influence toward get | ting to America, but he turned away | from us, and said he did not even be- | leve we were American citizens, though we showed passports from Consul Gem eral Stone.
 "We remained in Liverpool three weeks, spending two pounds six shi- lings of our sea pay for clothes and the rest for board. Then seeing no pros pect for leaving from Liverpool we set out for Cardiff, Wales, one hundred and eighty-one miles During that journey we were housed at night in warehouses at the following named places: War rington, Wrexham, Shrewsbury, Bridge North, Ludlow, Hereford, Monmouth, Newport, Cardiff and Berry.
 Now, I want to tell my fellow-citi- Zens something about an English work house, so they will try to keep from be- ing caught broke in England. Tn the first place, don't try to sleep out, If they catch you it means seven hours a day for three months on treadmill, like horse You apply for lodging at | the workhouse, which is twenty to thir- ty miles from the one you last stopped
 in, and are locked in cell For food you get four ounces of bread three times day, and you stay two nights and one day In the morning after the first night, at the back of your cell, you are shown from seven to thirteen hun dred pounds of coarse stone, the quan- tity being gauged by your apparent strength, and that's your task. It will 1 take you all day to break this stone in pieces small enough to go out between
 the bars of your cell, which is the test for size. If you are through at night you are given another four ounces of bread and your second nights lodging, and in the morning you are set free. That is the life my partner and myself lived while on the way from Liverpool 1 t0 Cardiff. Tie Worhhouses of Eng nd are filled with men too old to do a good days work at common labor, and they spend their latter days walking from one to another, breaking these stone tasks for four ounces of bread for a meal and a plain board to sleep on. l Why, even the laboring men get little more. I've seen strong men at Cardiff i going down to the docks to do hard nights work on a halfpennys worth of tea and small loaf of bread A work 1 ingman there thinks himself lucky when he gets that, and re very seldom tastes meat,