I keep a shop in the City, and open it every morning as Bow Church
bells are ringing out eight o'clock. I pay a very heavy rent, as well
as Queen's taxes and poor's-rates; and I could do neither, to say
nothing of maintaining my family, if I did not mind my business, and
work hard. But by the help of constant attention and industry, I am
happy to say, I am able to make my shop keep me and my family too,
which it does comfortably, and lifts me, in some sort, above the
world, and enables me to bear the character, which I should always
like to retain, of a respectable man.
We dwellers in London City proper are supposed to entertain a very
high regard for respectability, and so we do; and I am going now to
detail the operations of what, I suppose, must be called an
institution altogether peculiar to the City, of which the world out of
the City knows very little, and which has been in being I don't know
how many centuries--before there were any poor-laws, or any 'good
Queen Bess;' and which must have been a respectable affair--if I am
any judge of what that means--from the very first, whenever that was.
It is a good thing to relieve necessity in any shape, and a better
thing to help it to help itself; but to dispense charity without doing
a mischief in some way or other, either by rewarding imposture,
encouraging idleness, or repressing the springs of self-reliance or
self-exertion, is about the hardest business I have ever had to do
with, and I have had some knotty affairs to get through in my time.
Now, the various wards of the City do every year, I think, manage this
difficult matter very carefully and efficiently, though not without a
good deal of trouble; and as I think their mode of doing it sets a
good example, I have made up my mind to let the public know something
about the Inquest for the Poor, which comes off in December every
year. I believe it will be a novelty to most people out of the City
limits, and to not a few within them as well. What I know about it, I
have derived from experience: that, indeed, is all I have to relate;
and when I have told my tale, the reader will be as wise as I am, in
this respect at least.
About the middle of last December, I received a citation to attend a
wardmote, to be held in the schoolroom of my parish. I was in
expectation of this summons, as, the parishioners being called upon in
rotation, I knew that my turn would come on upon this occasion. The
number of tradesmen, who must be all of respectable character,
summoned to the first meeting, is always greater than the number
required to serve on the inquest, because many find it very
inconvenient, and others find it impossible, to give their services.
Valid excuses are admitted in plea against the performance of the
duty; but a frivolous excuse is not allowed; and a tradesman, whose
turn it is to serve, if he can prefer no good reason for not serving,
must serve or pay the fine. Six guineas is the heavy penalty inflicted
upon a recusant who declines service altogether. This preliminary
meeting is called merely to insure a sufficient company to be in
attendance in the vestry of ---- Church, at the general wardmote held
on St Thomas's Day.
After an early breakfast on the morning of the day above named, I
repaired to the vestry, which was very fully attended, and where, in
the course of the forenoon, the common-councilmen for the ward were
elected for the ensuing year, and, their election settled, were all
duly admonished respecting their duties by the chairman. Then, from
the number of respectable tradesmen in attendance, myself and eleven
others were elected to prosecute the inquest for that year on behalf
of the poor; and we in our turn were admonished by the same authority,
that we were not to compass any treason, nor to conspire against Her
Majesty the Queen--than which, I am very sure, nothing could have been
further from our thoughts. The inquest being thus incorporated, we
proceeded to elect a foreman and a treasurer, and to decree fines for
non-attendance. The fines were appropriated to the payment of
expenses, no part of the money collected being available for any other
purpose than that of charity. The collection commenced by a
contribution from each member of the inquest, each giving liberally,
and setting a generous example. All these necessary preliminaries
being settled, every man of us got into a handsome cloak, trimmed with
fur, hired for the occasion, at a cost of five shillings per head,
and, with the beadle of the ward blazing in scarlet and gold, pacing
majestically beneath a three-cornered hat, and pushing a ponderous
gold mace in advance, we were marched off to Guildhall, to pass muster
before Gog and Magog, and to be presented to his worship the lord
mayor. His lordship, who was surrounded by a staff of officials in
gorgeous liveries, was very glad to see us: indeed he told us so--said
that he was extremely gratified at receiving so highly respectable a
company, and expressed more than once his satisfaction at finding that
we were so ready to act in the cause of charity as to sacrifice our
valuable time, and unite together for the succour of the distressed.
He addressed us, in fact, for nearly a minute and a half; after which,
as time was pressing, and others were waiting to be presented, we were
signaled forward to a side-door, and made a very sudden exit into the
street, whence we marched back to the vestry to disrobe, with the
exception of some few of our number, who knowing that the business of
the charity was done for the day, abandoned their cloaks to the care
of the owner, who contrives generally to be in attendance at this
critical moment, and proceeded to look after their own private
affairs. We all met, however, in the evening, and partook of a
substantial dinner, to which, according to a custom which has
prevailed from time immemorial, the church-wardens of the parish and
the foreman and treasurer of the inquest of the preceding year were
invited. The dinner went off, as a dinner should do, with perfect
harmony and good-feeling; and some very excellent speeches were made
on the subject of the inquest--its undeniable efficacy and utility,
and its great antiquity. We broke up at a sober hour, each member
being charged to present himself at the vestry at nine in the morning
on that day week, under the penalty of half-a-guinea.
It would have suited my interests very well, when the day came round,
to have forfeited my half-guinea, and have attended exclusively to my
own business; but judging it more to my credit to go through with the
work I had undertaken, I was at my post, together with several of my
colleagues, before the hour had struck. Some of our members did not
come at all the first day, but sent their half-guineas; others, having
to come in from the suburbs before omnibus-time, arrived too late, and
were fined in smaller sums for the breach of punctuality. Our party
being at length complete, to the number of ten, we indue our cloaks,
and, pioneered by the ward-beadle with his ponderous mace, we sally
forth to feel the charitable pulse of several parishes. Ten good men
and true, swathed to the chin in voluminous folds of broad-cloth
fringed with fur, and headed by the ample proportions of the
mace-bearer in scarlet and cloth of gold; our apparition, and our
mission too, were plainly a mystery to the major part of the
population, who, seeing us but once a year, and then but momentarily,
as the procession emerges suddenly from one door to plunge into
another, do not very well know what to make of it. 'Is that there a
buryin' or a marryin'?' 'What's that lot o' fellows after?' 'What's up
now, Jem?'--such are a few of the inquiries which from time to time
testified the astonishment of the uninitiated; to all of which our
imperturbable leader opposed a face as impenetrable as that of the
sphinx of the desert. We should have been sadly at a loss, by the way,
without him. He knew every soul in the whole ward who would come down
to the extent of a sixpence for the sake of the poor; and he led his
small phalanx boldly to the charge through all impediments. Under his
guidance, we did what certainly we should never have attempted without
it. We stormed the stout citadels of the merchants, and carried their
strongholds up as high as the third and fourth floors, and captured
many a poor man's dinner from the very jaws of the cash-box. We dived
into cellars, and crouched and crept into subterranean dens. We
threaded muddy lanes, and wandered among bewildering wharfs, and
mounted lofts and sheds, and squeezed ourselves into all sorts of
out-of-the-way slums. We climbed ladders leading up into creaking
timber galleries, and got into regions of old planks and cobwebs, dim
with dust and odorous with ancient smells. We assailed the scholar at
his studies, and the craftsman at his labour, and from all and each we
met with a courteous reception, and gathered the sinews of
benevolence. The dispositions of men vary in few things more than in
their several modes of conferring a favour. Some of our most liberal
donors thoughtfully sent their bank-notes to the vestry, to save us
the trouble of waiting upon them; others, on the contrary, levied the
full value of their gifts, by keeping us wearily waiting before we got
them. A barber, whom we found at his block busily weaving a wig, and
whose diminutive crib would not contain half our company, apologised
because it was not in his power to do much for us, and then
diffidently tendered a guinea. A portly dealer in feminine luxuries
talked largely of the claims of our indigent brethren, and the sacred
obligations of charity, and wound up his sonorous homily with the
climax of half-a-crown. We found one burly gentleman, buried up to the
elbows in red-tape and legal documents, who professed a perfect
horror, a rooted antipathy, to the poor in every shape, and who had a
decided conviction that poverty was a nuisance which ought to be put
down. When he had said all this, and a great deal more, he very
consistently lent a hand towards abating the nuisance, by presenting
us with a contribution of double his usual annual subscription. When
we had got out of earshot, our experienced chaperon remarked to me:
'When I hered him agoin' on so, I knowed he was agoin' to come down
'ansome. He's a wery nice genelman, what enjoys a grumble, and don't
mind paying for it!'
Our domiciliary visits occupied between three and four days, and the
rain fell in torrents during the whole time. We were wet through in
spite of the cloaks we wore, but canvassed the whole district
successfully notwithstanding, and probably collected every shilling
that was to be got. Our guide had so often felt the pulse of the whole
ward in this way, that he never suffered us to waste our time or our
demands upon those whom he knew to be impracticable; and thus we got
through the business much more quickly, as well as more prosperously,
than we could possibly have done had we been left to our own
resources. The result of our united labours was a purse of nearly
L.200; and now came the more pleasant part of our duty--the
distribution of alms, at a season when poverty is most severely felt,
to the most deserving of the most needy.
The distribution took place a few days after the collection was
finished. In the interim, blank tickets had been distributed to such
of the donors as chose to receive them, upon which they inscribed the
names of the poor persons whom they recommended for relief. The vestry
where we were elected was the scene of the distribution. The body of
the church was allotted for the accommodation of the poor
ticket-holders, who formed a numerous and very motley crowd, and who
were called in to receive their dole in rotation, by the ward-beadle,
from a list which he had prepared. I suspect, however, that the system
of rotation was not very rigidly observed, inasmuch as half-a-dozen
women, with squalling children in their arms, were among the very
first who were called in and dealt with, by which means something like
peace and quietness were obtained while the claims of the crowd of the
remaining applicants were severally considered. What followed was a
very different affair from that which transpires weekly at the parish
pay-table. I have been church-warden, overseer, and guardian of
various parishes in my time, and I have seen the poor in all
conditions and under all circumstances, and I thought I knew them well
enough; but I derived a new lesson now, and learned that it is
possible for humanity to undergo the direst misfortunes without losing
heart and hope--to drain the cup of misery to the dregs without
becoming utterly selfish--and to be long immersed in the lowest depths
of necessity, and yet be human still. I shall describe one or two of
these hapless claimants upon the benevolence of their wealthy
fellow-citizens, premising that a few of them only are the recipients
of parish pay. They see no disgrace, perhaps, in participating in a
voluntary alms, because it is voluntary, and, as such, cannot be
regarded as the peculiar property of that numerous class who assert
and maintain a life-interest in compulsory funds legally levied for
their support.
One of the first who seemed to attract general sympathy was an old,
old man, trembling on the very verge of the grave, who had outlived
almost every faculty of mind and body. He could walk only by instinct,
advancing his foot mechanically, to save himself from falling, when
he was pushed gently forwards. When standing, he could not seat
himself--and when sitting, he could not get up without help. In
whatever posture he was placed, there he remained. Altogether
insensible to question and remark, he looked wildly round upon us, and
smiled, and winked with both eyes. These were his sole remaining
capabilities--to wink, and to look agreeable. He had been recommended
as an object worthy of charity by a liberal donor, and he was brought
in person to justify the recommendation. He was clean, and neat, and
tidily dressed, but evidently in a state of perfect unconsciousness of
everything around him. He had lived once, but it was in times long
past and gone: you might guess him to be what age you chose, but you
could hardly think him older than he was; time, who had stolen his
faculties, had forgotten to wreck the casket that contained them: the
spirit of life had left its tenement, and by some strange mistake, the
animated machine had gone on without it. My neighbour, the watchmaker,
compared him to a clock with the striking-train run down, and the
works rusty beyond repair. He could not thank us for the alms we gave
him, but he did all he could--he winked, and smiled, and tried to make
a bow, but failed in the attempt, and resigned himself cheerfully to
the care of his friends, who carried him off.
Another quiet applicant was a lady, whose natural-born gentility
poverty might obscure but could not conceal. Years of want and
struggling deprivation had dimmed her charms; but they had neither
bowed nor bent her stately form, nor quenched the inherent virtue of
self-respect, nor deprived her of the correct and appropriate diction,
and the winning and courteous expression which once graced a
drawing-room. She was introduced to us by the beadle as Lady W----;
and although draped in very humble and well-worn apparel, she looked
what she was--a gentlewoman in every sense of the word; though beyond
an empty title, she possessed hardly anything in the world. She
answered our inquiries with a natural courtesy, which at least some of
us felt to be a condescension. 'Gentlemen,' she said, 'it is true, as
your attendant states, that I am a lady. In my youth, I married a
titled man. I make no boast of that--it was, indeed, my misfortune. I
was brought up and educated to occupy a station inferior to few: I
filled that station for many years; it is not for me to say how
appropriately; and though calamity has overtaken me now, and I have
been familiar with necessity for so long a time, yet I feel that I am
a lady still. I may be reproached with poverty, and that I can bear;
but I trust I shall never be justly reproached with having fallen to
the level of my circumstances. I am grateful to you for the assistance
you so kindly render me; and I can express that sentiment, and feel it
deeply, too, without humiliation, because the aid you supply is as
voluntary on your part as its acceptance is necessary on mine.' When
our foreman had instinctively wrapped the donation awarded to her in a
quarter sheet of letter-paper, and presented her with it, she bent
with a dignified obeisance, and silently withdrew.
A third applicant, worthy of a passing notice, was a lady of a very
different stamp. Who or what she had been in former years, I could not
ascertain, but she appeared before us in the character of a
middle-aged mince-pie monomaniac, and jam-tart amateur. The poor
harmless creature was clad in the veriest shreds of dusky feminine
attire, which barely shielded her limbs from the inclemency of the
weather. She had a notion that she, too, was a lady, and that, being a
lady, she was bound to live by the consumption of pastry, and nothing
else. We were admonished by our custodian that whatever amount we
awarded her, whether it were much or little, would be forthwith
consigned to the confectioner, in exchange for mince-pies and tarts of
the very best quality; and I regret to say, that this announcement had
the effect of reducing considerably the sum she derived from the
charity of the ward, and effectually preventing the consummation of
any very formidable debauch with her favourite viands. But the poor
simpleton was as merry as she was innocent and harmless; and all
unsuspicious of the latent grudge which had lessened her gratuity,
tripped hastily off, to enjoy at least one delicious repast.
After we had sat some hours, a very distressing case was brought
forward. A poor woman, the wife of a working-man, and the mother of a
young family, had been deserted by her husband, who had left her,
besides her own children, the charge of his bedridden parents. Under
this accumulation of burdens, she had been heroically struggling for
some months, in the vain attempt, by her single energies, to ward off
the approach of want, and to act at the same time the part of nurse to
the old couple. She had succeeded in a great measure, and modestly
sought but a little help to enable her to persevere in her arduous
undertaking.
Then came an old man, verging on fourscore, the very _beau ideal_ of
the merchant's serving-man of the last century. He had once been
comparatively prosperous, but, judging from his cheerful face, perhaps
hardly ever happier than he was now. For fifty years of his life, he
had been _custos_ and confidential house keeper to a well-known firm,
which, after four or five generations of unvarying prosperity, had
sunk in the panic of 1846 into the gulf of bankruptcy. In the general
wreck that followed, old Benjamin was forgotten, or remembered only
with a pang of unavailing regret. He found a refuge, however, in some
small garret, where he contrives to preserve his cheerfulness and his
pigtail, the only outward and visible sign of his former
respectability, and where he acts as master of the ceremonies to a
clique of ancient ladies, his fellow-lodgers, to whom he is at once
the guardian and the beau of the fourth floor. When he had received
his own little modicum of benevolence, he pleaded hard for the
immediate settlement of the claim of one of his fair _coterie_, a
widow of fourscore and five; and finding that his request could not be
complied with, but that she must be left till her turn came, he
retired to a corner of the room, and waited a full hour and more,
until her business was settled, when he bowed ceremoniously, till his
pigtail pointed to the zenith, and tendering his arm, escorted her
home with all the vivacity and politeness of the days of hoops and
high-heeled shoes. I have scarcely yet found out the reason why it was
that the spectacle of this happy, kind old soul, made me feel a
little, only a little, ashamed of myself.
This cosy old couple had hardly tripped out of sight, when our prosy
synod was honoured by the advent of a real and extraordinary
phenomenon. This was nothing less than a half-crazy poetess, who
prided herself on speaking in rhyme--and such rhyme, amusing from its
very badness. On she was going at a great rate, when she was called to
order in a manner which admitted of no demur.
'Mrs Margaret Maggs!' roared the beadle; and the tenth Muse, brought
to a sudden stand-still, ceased her oracular utterances, and, grasping
her modicum of shining silver, vanished from the presence.
The distribution lasted the whole of the day; and it was a weary day
for some of the poor applicants, whose turn came last, and who almost
fainted for want of refreshment. But all who deserved it, went home
effectually relieved and gladdened; and many who did not, got a lesson
upon the occasion, and learned that Charity is not always as blind as
she is supposed to be. The whole of the money collected is not
distributed at once. About a third part of the amount is reserved
until the approach of the next ensuing winter, when a second
distribution takes place, generally to the same applicants.
I have heard it insinuated before now, that City functionaries of all
sorts are prone to take too good care of themselves, whenever they
meet to consider the wants of the poor. I may perhaps be allowed to
say, that when we have a feast, we pay for it; and that not one
farthing of any collection made in the City for the poor was ever, to
my knowledge, appropriated to any other purpose. As a respectable man,
I, for one, would never countenance any intromission of that kind.