"Lord! how the people suffer day by day
A lingering death, through lack of honest bread;
And yet are gentle on their starving way,
By faith in future good and justice led."
--BLACKBURN BARD.
It is a curious thing to note the various combinations of
circumstance which exist among the families of the poor. On the
surface they seem much the same; and they are reckoned up according
to number, income, and the like. But there are great differences of
feeling and cultivation amongst them; and then, every household has
a story of its own, which no statistics can tell. There is hardly a
family which has not had some sickness, some stroke of disaster,
some peculiar sorrow, or crippling hindrance, arising within itself,
which makes its condition unlike the rest. In this respect each
family is one string in the great harp of humanity--a string which,
touched by the finger of Heaven, contributes a special utterance to
that universal harmony which is too fine for mortal ears.
From the old weaver's house in "Coal Yard" we went to a place close
by, called "Castle Yard," one of the most unwholesome nooks I have
seen in Wigan yet, though there are many such in that part of the
town. It was a close, pestilent, little cul de sac, shut in by a
dead brick wall at the far end. Here we called upon an Irish family,
seven in number. The mother and two of her daughters were in. The
mother had sore eyes. The place was dirty, and the air inside was
close and foul. The miserable bits of furniture left were fit for
nothing but a bonfire. "Good morning, Mrs K_," said my friend, as we
entered the stifling house; "how are you geting on?" The mother
stood in the middle of the floor, wiping her sore eyes, and then
folding her hands in a tattered apron; whilst her daughters gazed
upon us vacantly from the background. "Oh, then," replied the woman,
"things is worse wid us entirely, sir, than whenever ye wor here
before. I dunno what will we do whin the winter comes." In reply to
me, she said, "We are seven altogether, wid my husband an' myself. I
have one lad was ill o' the yallow jaundice this many months, an'
there is somethin' quare hangin' over that boy this day; I dunno
whatever shall we do wid him. I was thinkin' this long time could I
get a ricommind to see would the doctor give him anythin' to rise an
appetite in him at all. By the same token, I know it is not a
convanient time for makin' appetites in poor folk just now. But
perhaps the doctor might be able to do him some good, by the way he
would be ready when times mind. Faith, my hands is full wid one
thing an' another. Ah, thin; but God is good, after all. We dunno
what is He goin' to do through the dark stroke is an' us this day."
Here my friend interrupted her, saying, "Don't you think, Mrs K_,
that you would be more comfortable if you were to keep your house
cleaner? It costs nothing, you know, but a little labour; and you
have nothing else to do just now." "Ah, then," replied she; "see
here, now. I was just gettin' the mug ready for that same, whenever
ye wor comin' into the yard, I was. "Here she turned sharply round,
and said to one of the girls, who was standing in the background,
"Go on, wid ye, now; and clane the flure. Didn't I tell ye many a
time this day?" The girl smiled, and shuffled away into a dingy
little room at the rear of the cottage. "Faith, sir," continued the
woman, beating time with her hand in the air; "faith, sir, it is not
aisy for a poor woman to manage unbiddable childer." "What part of
Ireland do you come from, Mrs K_?" said I. She hesitated a second or
two, and played with her chin; then, blushing slightly, she replied
in a subdued tone, "County Galway, sir." "Well," said I, "you've no
need to be ashamed of that." The woman seemed reassured, and
answered at once, "Oh, indeed then, sir, I am not ashamed--why would
I? I am more nor seventeen year now in England, an' I never
disguised my speech, nor disowned my country--nor I never will,
aither, plase God." She had said before that her husband was forty-
five years of age; and now I inquired what age she was. "I am the
same age as my husband," replied she. "Forty-five," said I. "No,
indeed, I am not forty-five," answered she; "nor forty naither."
"Are you thirty-eight?" "May be I am; I dunno. I don't think I am
thirty-eight naither; I am the same age as my husband." It was no
use talking, so the subject was dropped. As we came away, the woman
followed my friend to the door, earnestly pleading the cause of some
family in the neighbourhood, who were in great distress. "See now,"
said she, "they are a large family, and the poor crayters are
starvin'. He is a shoemaker, an' he doesn't be gettin' any work this
longtime. Oh, indeed, then, Mr Lea, God knows thim people is badly
off." My friend promised to visit the family she had spoken of, and
we came away. The smell of the house, and of the court altogether,
was so sickening that we were glad to get into the air of the open
street again.
It was now about half-past eleven, and my friend said, "We have
another workroom for young women in the schoolroom of St Catherine's
Church. It is about five minutes' walk from here; we have just time
to see it before they break up for dinner." It was a large, square,
brick building, standing by the road side, upon high ground, at the
upper end of Scholes. The church is about fifty yards east of the
schoolhouse. This workroom was more airy, and better lighted than
the one at the Mechanics' Institution. The floor was flagged, which
will make it colder than the other in winter time. There were four
hundred girls in this room, some engaged in sewing and knitting,
others in reading and writing. They are employed four days in the
week, and they are paid ninepence a day, as at the other two rooms
in the town. It really was a pleasant thing to see their clear,
healthy, blond complexions; their clothing, so clean and whole,
however poor; and their orderly deportment. But they had been
accustomed to work, and their work had given them a discipline which
is not sufficiently valued. There are people who have written a
great deal, and know very little about the influence of factory
labour upon health,--it would be worth their while to see some of
these workrooms. I think it would sweep cobwebs away from the
corners of their minds. The clothing made up in these workrooms is
of a kind suitable for the wear of working people, and is intended
to be given away to the neediest among them, in the coming winter. I
noticed a feature here which escaped me in the room at the
Mechanics' Institution. On one side of the room there was a flight
of wooden stairs, about six yards wide. Upon these steps were seated
a number of children, with books in their hands. These youngsters
were evidently restless, though not noisy; and they were not very
attentive to their books. These children were the worst clad and
least clean part of the assembly; and it was natural that they
should be so, for they were habitual beggars, gathered from the
streets, and brought there to be taught and fed. When they were
pointed out to me, I could not help thinking that the money which
has been spent upon ragged schools is an excellent investment in the
sense of world-wide good. I remarked to one of the ladies teaching
there, how very clean and healthy the young women looked. She said
that the girls had lately been more in the open air than usual.
"And," said she, speaking of the class she was superintending, "I
find these poor girls as apt learners as any other class of young
people I ever knew." We left the room just before they were
dismissed to dinner.
A few yards from the school, and by the same roadside, we came to a
little cottage at the end of a row. "We will call here," said my
friend; "I know the people very well. "A little, tidy, good-looking
woman sat by the fire, nursing an infant at the breast. The house
was clean, and all the humble furniture of the poor man's cottage
seemed to be still in its place. There were two shelves of books
hanging against the walls, and a pile of tracts and pamphlets, a
foot deep, on a small table at the back of the room. I soon found,
however, that these people were going through their share of the
prevalent suffering. The family was six in number. The comely little
woman said that her husband was a weaver of "Cross-over;" and I
suppose he would earn about six or seven shillings a week at that
kind of work; but he had been long out of work. His wife said, "I've
had to pop my husban's trousers an' waistcoat many a time to pay th'
rent o' this house." She then began to talk about her first-born,
and the theme was too much for her. "My owdest child was thirteen
when he died," said she. "Eh, he was a fine child. We lost him about
two years sin'. He was killed. He fell down that little pit o'
Wright's, Mr Lea, he did." Then the little woman began to cry, "Eh,
my poor lad! Eh, my fine little lad! Oh dear,--oh dear o' me!" What
better thing could we have done than to say nothing at such a
moment. We waited a few minutes until she became calm, and then she
began to talk about a benevolent young governess who used to live in
that quarter, and who had gone about doing good there, amongst "all
sorts and conditions of men," especially the poorest.
"Eh," said she; "that was a good woman, if ever there was one. Hoo
teached a class o' fifty at church school here, though hoo wur a
Dissenter. An' hoo used to come to this house every Sunday neet, an'
read th' Scripturs; an' th' place wur olez crammed--th' stairs an
o'. Up-groon fellows used to come an' larn fro her, just same as
childer--they did for sure--great rough colliers, an' o' mak's. Hoo
used to warn 'em again drinkin', an' get 'em to promise that they
wouldn't taste for sich a time. An' if ever they broke their
promise, they olez towd her th' truth, and owned to it at once. They
like as iv they couldn't for shame tell her a lie. There's one of
her scholars, a blacksmith--he's above fifty year owd--iv yo were to
mention her name to him just now, he'd begin a-cryin', an' he'd ha'
to walk eawt o'th heause afore he could sattle hissel'. Eh, hoo wur
a fine woman; an' everything that hoo said wur so striking. Hoo
writes to her scholars here, once a week; an' hoo wants 'em to write
back to her, as mony on 'em as con do. See yo; that's one ov her
letters!"