To give the reader an idea of the motley assemblage to be found in
these places, I subjoin the following table (taken from the Report),
by which it will be seen that almost every quarter of the globe
contributes its quota of wretchedness:--
PLACES TO WHICH THE INDIVIDUALS SHELTERED BY THE HOUSELESS POOR SOCIETY
DURING THE WINTER 1848-49 APPEARED TO BELONG.
Africa 12
America 78
Bedfordshire 55
Berkshire 267
Buckinghamshire 88
Cambridgeshire 88
Cheshire 40
Cornwall 32
Cumberland 12
Derbyshire 48
Denmark 6
Devonshire 209
Dorsetshire 46
Durham 54
East Indies 19
Essex 392
France 14
Germany 53
Gibraltar 3
Gloucestershire 163
Guernsey 32
Hampshire 414
Herefordshire 45
Hertfordshire 181
Huntingdonshire 25
Ireland 8068
Italy 7
Jersey 15
Kent 523
Lancashire 811
Leicestershire 75
Lincolnshire 85
London 343
Middlesex 214
Norfolk 163
Northamptonshire 67
Northumberland 72
Nottinghamshire 68
Oxfordshire 100
Poland 4
Portugal 5
Russia 7
Rutlandshire 24
Scotland 230
Shropshire 42
Somersetshire 246
Spain 10
St. Helena 8
Staffordshire 129
Suffolk 133
Surrey 204
Sussex 147
Wales 122
Warwickshire 160
West Indies 25
Westmoreland 6
Wiltshire 87
Worcestershire 36
Yorkshire 126
Unknown 29
Born at sea 5
[Illustration: VAGRANT FROM THE REFUGE IN PLAYHOUSE YARD, CRIPPLEGATE.
[_From a Photograph._]]
These places of shelter for the houseless are only open at certain
periods of the year; and at this season a large proportion of the
country labourers who are out of employ flock to London, either
to seek for work in the wintertime, or to avail themselves of the
food and lodging afforded by these charitable institutions. Others,
again, who are professional vagrants, tramping through the country,
and sleeping at the different unions on their road, come to town as
regularly as noblemen every winter, and make their appearance annually
in these quarters. Moreover, it is at this season of the year that the
sufferings and privations of the really poor and destitute are rendered
tenfold more severe than at any other period; and it is at the houses
of refuge that the great mass of London, or rather English and Irish,
poverty and misery, is to be met with.
The congregation at the Refuges for the Destitute is, indeed, a sort
of ragged congress of nations--a convocation of squalor and misery--a
synopsis of destitution, degradation, and suffering, to be seen,
perhaps, nowhere else.
Nor are the returns of the bodily ailments of the wretched inmates
of these abodes less instructive as to their miserable modes of
life, their continual exposure to the weather, and their want of
proper nutriment. The subjoined medical report of the diseases and
bodily afflictions to which these poor creatures are liable, tells
a tale of suffering which, to persons with even the smallest amount
of pathological knowledge, must need no comment. The catarrh and
influenza, the rheumatism, bronchitis, ague, asthma, lumbago--all
speak of many long nights’ exposure to the wet and cold; whereas the
abscesses, ulcers, the diarrhœa, and the excessive debility from
starvation, tell, in a manner that precludes all doubt, of the want of
proper sustenance and extreme privation of these, the very poorest of
all the poor.
_Medical Report for 1848-49. Of the persons who applied at the general
asylum, there were afflicted with_--
Catarrh and influenza 149
Incipient fever 52
Rheumatism 50
Atrophy 3
Dropsy 3
Incised wounds 3
Diarrhœa 60
Cholera 2
Bronchitis 13
Abscess 15
Ulcers 11
Affections of the head 12
Ague 13
Excessive debility from starvation 17
Inflammation of lungs 2
Asthma 10
Epilepsy 4
Diseased joints 4
Erysipelas 3
Rupture 3
Cramps and pains in bowels 2
Spitting of blood 4
Lumbago 1
Rheumatic ophthalmia 2
Strumous disease 2
Sprains 1
Fractures 4
Pregnant 30
The returns of the different callings of the individuals seeking for
the shelter of the refuges are equally curious and worthy of study.
These, however, I shall reserve for my next letter, as, by comparing
the returns for each year since the opening of the institution, now
thirty years ago, we shall be enabled to arrive at almost an historical
account of the distress of the different trades since the year 1820.
These tables I am now preparing from the valuable yearly reports
of the Society, one of the most deserving among all our charitable
institutions, and one which, especially at this bitter season, calls
for the support of all those who would give a meal and a bed to such as
are too poor to have either.