Year: 1864

word with tho authorities behind, he
admits one or two more, and then the
door is shut quietly, but inevitebly (;
and it is no good for those who remain
to look up any more at the light above
the door, and hope for the warmth
within, and they turn their faces
away to the night


9g WHAT THE POOR SAY.


"They do not grumble the mass
of them hardly make one murmur !;
they know their fate and that it is in
evitable, and they submit in passive
despair. Only one Irishwoman begins
to raise wall of complaint, and
seems, alone of them all, inclined to
relieve herself by hard words against
the Workhouse authorities. They
break the circle and begin to shrink
away, but as the Irishwoman turns
and sees a gentleman waiting behind,
she raises her voico to louder and
director tone of complaint; and then
the others, who seemed to want even
spirit enough to beg, follow her loud
and less sensitive example, and gather
in doubtful and puzzled circle round
the stranger; and then, when he can
get the Irishwoman to be quiet, he
may hear in dull, impassive tones
where the helpless creatures round
him come from and what they have
been doing. 1t is always the same
story: No work for threo months.
1t has been a dull time for trade. -
Some have had no work since
the summer Another 'hopes for
work in February One woman, a
single woman, has only had few
weeks work oil the spring and sum-
mer.' She has no home and no friends
in London, and she answers all ques-
tons with sort of humbled apathy,
which is almost more painful to listen
to than sharp suffering. If they are
asllod what they VIII do, tLoy shr"s
themselves and say they suppose they
must sleep on the stones they can
get O lodging in st. Giles for three
pence That half hopeless hint is the
only approach they make to begging.
1t is night, and a man must have Il
hard heart to have Witnessed and
questioned their misery and not given
them enough to get a lodging all
round; and then, with tho strange
confidence of fellow-despair, those
who have the money will be trusted
to 60 and get lodgings, and the remain
der will linger, until they are fetched,
under the cold shelter of a door in the
wall of the Workhouse.


PITIABLE sPECTADLEs.


awe believe a similar scene, some
times worse than this, is to be witness
ed noarly every night at the door of
st. Martins Workhouse. At almost
any hour of tho night men and women
may be seen huddled together on the
steps Of the National Gnllory or the
doorsteps of the house = the men often
with no coat, torn and filthy shirt,
and useless ehoes, and the women in
ragged, wet and filthy dresses, which
hang about them i'll still moro desc
late ruin than even the broken-down
appearance Of the men. Or, more
pitiable still, one may come upon an
undistinguishablo lump of rags, and
on bonding down to examine it find it
to be girl bent up with her head be-
tween her knees, shrinking from the
weather in the bare recess OF door
step, and asleep; and it seems more
charitable to leave her to forget her
misery for an hour or two than to
give her something and wake her
again 10 desolation.


cones first impulse, perhaps, is to
blame tho workhouse authorities for
this state Of things, and to relieve ones
sense of pain 10y indulging i'll indig-
nation against them. But it would
be unjust to charge them with all this
misery. 1t would be hard, at least at
st. Martins, to find anything to COM
plain of, even in the manner of the
official who admits the applicants
Ilo may be business-like, but he is not
rough, and it is impossible, and not
desirable, that he should be anything
more. Besides, it would be particu-
larly hard TO lay any special fault at
the door of the authorities Of st.
Martins, for the reason why this des-
titution collects around their work
house is that they are more liberal
than most of the ncighboring parish
es. They ordinarily admit twelve
men and twelve women into the cas-
ual ward, whereas some of the other
parishes only admit five of each sex.
The consequence is that these DESC
late creatures arc attracted to st. Mar
tins, thinking that they have most
chance there"