to Bristol, there was a Town Councillor, Mr. T. Territ Taylor, a
jeweller, carrying on his business in College Green. At a time when a
bad fever seemed to have become endemic in the district of St. Jude’s,
this gentleman told us that in his opinion it would never be banished
till some fresh legislation were obtained for the _compulsory_
destruction of insanitary dwellings, such as abounded in that quarter.
We wondered whether it would be possible to interest some influential
M.P.’s among our acquaintances in Mr. Taylor’s views, and after many
delays and much consultation with them, I wrote an article in _Fraser’s
Magazine_ for February, 1866, in which I was able to print a full sketch
by Mr. Taylor of his matured project, and to give the reasons which
appeared to us to make such legislation as he advocated exceedingly
desirable. I said:—
“The supply of lodgings for the indigent classes in the great towns
has long failed to equal the demand. Each year the case becomes worse,
as population increases, and no tendency arises for capital to be
invested in meeting the want....
“But, it is asked, why does not capital come in here, as everywhere
else, and supply a want as soon as it exists? The reason is simple.
Property in our poor lodgings is very undesirable for large
capitalists. It can be made to pay a high interest only on three
conditions:—1st, That the labour of collecting the rents (which is
always excessive) shall not be deducted from the returns by agents;
2nd, That very little mercy shall be shown to tenants in distress;
3rd, That small expense be incurred in attempting to keep in repair,
paint, or otherwise refresh the houses, which, being inhabited by the
roughest of the community, require double outlay to preserve in
anything better than a squalid and rack-rent condition.
“Convinced long ago of this fact, philanthropists have for years
attempted to mitigate the evil by building, in London and other great
towns, model lodging-houses for the Working Classes, and after long
remaining a doubtful experiment, a success has been achieved in the
case of Mr. Peabody’s, Alderman Waterlow’s, and perhaps some others.
But as regards the two great objects we are considering,—the elevation
of the Indigent, and the prevention of pestilence,—these schemes only
point the way to an enterprise too large for any private funds. All
the existing model lodging-houses not only fix their rents above the
means of the Indigent class, but actually make it a rule not to admit
the persons of whom the class chiefly consists—namely, those who get
their living upon the streets. Thus, for the elevation of the Indigent
and the purifying of those cesspools of wretchedness, wherein cholera
and fever have their source, these model lodging-houses are even
professedly unavailing.”—Reprinted in _Hours of Work and Play_, pp.
46, 47.
Mr. Thomas Hare had, shortly before, set forth in the _Times_ a
startlingly magnificent scheme whereby a great Board should raise money,
partly from the Rates, to build splendid rows of workmen’s
lodging-houses, of which the workmen would eventually, in this ingenious
plan become freeholders. Mr. Taylor’s plan was much more modest, and
involved in fact only one principal point, the grant of compulsory
powers to purchase, indispensable where the refusal of one landlord
might invalidate, for sanitary purposes, the purification of a district;
and the greed of the class would inevitably render the proposed
renovation preposterously costly. Mr. Taylor’s Scheme, as drawn up by
himself and placed in our hands, was briefly as follows:—
“An Act of Parliament must be obtained to enable Town Councils and
Local Boards of Health (or other Boards, as may hereafter be thought
best) to purchase, under compulsory powers, the property in
overcrowded and pestilential districts within their jurisdiction, and
build thereon suitable dwellings for the labouring classes.
“The usual powers must be given to borrow money of the Government at a
low rate of interest, on condition of repayment within a specified
time, say from 15 to 20 years, as in the case of the County Lunatic
Asylums.”
Miss Elliot and I having shown this sketch to our friends, a Bill was
drawn up embodying it with some additions; “_For the improvement of the
Dwellings of the Working Classes_,” and was presented to Parliament by
Mr. McCullagh Torrens and my cousin John Locke, in 1867. But though both
the Governments of Lord Derby and of Lord Russell the latter of whom
Miss Elliot had interested personally in the matter were favourable to
the Bill, it was not passed till the following Session; when it became
law (with considerable modifications); as 31, 32 Vict., Cap. cxxx., “_An
Act to provide better dwellings for Artisans and Labourers_,” 31st July,
1868.
CHAPTER
XIII.
_BRISTOL._
_FRIENDS._
_What is Chance?_ How often does that question recur in the course of
every history, small or great? My whole course of life was deflected by
the mishap of stepping a little awry out of a train at Bath, and
miscalculating the height of the platform, which is there unusually low.
I had gone to spend a day with a friend, and on my way back to Bristol I
thus sprained my ankle. I was at that time forty years of age (a date I
now alas! regard as quite the prime of life!), and in splendid health
and spirits, fully intending to continue for the rest of my days
labouring on the same lines as prospects of usefulness might open. I
remember feeling the delight of walking over the springy sward of the
Downs and laughing as I said to myself “I do believe I could walk down
anybody and perhaps _talk_ down anybody too!” The next week I was a poor
cripple on crutches, never to take a step without them for four long
years, during which period I grew practically into an old woman, and
(unhappily for me) into a very large and heavy one for want of the
exercise to which I had been accustomed. The morning after my mishap,
finding my ankle much swollen and being in a great hurry to go on with
my work, I sent for one of the principal surgeons in Bristol, who bound
the limb so tightly that the circulation (always rather feeble) was
impeded, and every sort of distressful condition supervened. Of course
the surgeon threw the blame on me for attempting to use the leg; but it
was very little I _could_ do in this way even if I had tried, without
excessive pain; and, after a few weeks, I went to London in the full
confidence that I had only to bespeak “the best advice” to be speedily
cured. I did get what all the world would still consider the “best
advice;” but bad was that best. Guineas I could ill spare ran away like
water while the great surgeon came and went, doing me no good at all;
the evil conditions growing worse daily. I returned back from London and
spent some wretched months at Clifton. An artery, I believe, was
stopped, and there was danger of inflammation of the joint. At last with
infinite regret I gave up the hope of ever recovering such activity as
would permit me to carry on my work either in the schools or workhouse.
No one who has not known the miseries of lameness, the perpetual
contention with ignoble difficulties which it involves, can judge how
hard a trial it is to an active mind to become a cripple.
Still believing in my simplicity that great surgeons might remedy every
evil, I went again to London to consult the most eminent, and by the
mistake of a friend, it chanced that I summoned two very great
personages on the same day, though, fortunately, at different hours. The
case was, of course, of the simplest; but the two gentlemen gave me
precisely opposite advice. _One_ sent me abroad to certain baths, which
proved to be the wrong ones for my trouble, and gave me a letter to his
friend there, a certain Baron. The moment the Baron-Doctor saw my foot
he exclaimed that it ought never to have been allowed to get into the
state of swollen veins and arrested circulation in which he found it;
astringents and all sorts of measures ought to have been applied. In
truth I was in a most miserable condition, for I could not drop the limb
for two minutes without the blood running into it till it became like an
ink-bottle, when, if I held it up, it became as white as if dead. And
all this had been getting worse and worse while I was consulting ten
doctors in succession, and chiefly the most eminent in England! The
Baron-Doctor first told me that the waters _would_ bring out the gout,
and then, when I objected, assured me they should _not_ bring it out;
after which I relinquished the privilege of his visits and he charged me
for an entire course of treatment.
The _second_ great London surgeon told me _not_ to go abroad, but to
have a gutta-percha boot made for my leg to keep it stiff. I had the
boot made, (with much distress and expense), took it abroad in my trunk,
and asked the successor of the Baron-Doctor (who could make the waters
give the gout or not as he pleased), “Whether he advised me to wear the
wonderful machine?” The good old Frenchman, who was also Mayor of his
town, and who did me more good than anybody else, replied cautiously,
“If you wish, Madame, to be lame for life you will wear that boot. A
great many English come to us here to be unstiffened after having had
their joints stiffened by English surgeons’ devices of this sort, but we
can do nothing for them. A joint once thoroughly stiff can never be
restored.” It may be guessed that the expensive boot was quietly
deposited on the nearest heap of rubbish.
After that experience I tried the baths in Savoy and others in Italy.
But my lameness seemed permanent. A great Italian Doctor could think of
nothing better than to put a few walnut-leaves on my ankle—a process
which might perhaps have effected something in fifty years! Only the
good and great Nélaton, whom I consulted in Paris, told me he believed I
should recover some time; but he could not tell me anything to do to
hasten the event. Returned to London I sent for Sir William Fergusson,
and that honest man on hearing my story said simply: “And if you had
gone to nobody and not bandaged your ankle, but merely bathed it, you
would have been well in three weeks.” Thus I learned from the best
authority, that I had paid for the folly of consulting an eminent
surgeon for a common sprain, by four years of miserable helplessness and
by the breaking up of my whole plan of life.
I must conclude this dismal record by one last trait of medical
character. I had determined, after seeing Fergusson, to consult no other
doctor; indeed I could ill afford to do so. But a friend conveyed to me
a message from a London surgeon of repute (since dead) that he would
like to be allowed to treat me gratuitously; having felt much interest
in my books. I was simple enough to fall into the trap and to feel
grateful for his offer: and I paid him several visits, during which he
chatted pleasantly, and once did some trifling thing to relieve my foot.
One day I wrote and asked him kindly to advise me by letter about some
directions he had given me; whereupon he answered tartly that he “could
not correspond; and that I must always attend at his house.” The
suspicion dawned on me, and soon reached conviction, that what he wanted
was not so much to cure _me_, as to swell the scanty show of patients in
his waiting-room! Of course after this, I speedily retreated; offering
many thanks and some small, and as I hoped, acceptable _souvenir_ with
inscription to lie on his table. But when I thought this had concluded
my relations with Mr. ——, I found I had reckoned without my—_doctor_!
One after another he wrote to me three or four peremptory notes
requesting me to send him introductions for himself or his family, to
influential friends of mine rather out of his sphere. I would rather
have paid him fifty fees than have felt bound to give these
introductions.
Finally I ceased to do anything whatever to my unfortunate ankle, except
what most of my advisers had forbidden, namely, to walk upon it,—and a
year or two afterwards I climbed Cader Idris; walking quietly with my
friend to the summit. Sitting there, on the Giants’ Chair we passed an
unanimous resolution. It was: “_Hang the Doctors!_”
I must now set down a few recollections of the many friends and
interesting acquaintances whom I met at Bristol. In the first place I
may say briefly that all Miss Carpenter’s friends (mostly Unitarians)
were very kind to me, and that though I did not go out to any sort of
entertainment while I lived with her, it was not for lack of hospitable
invitations.
The family next to that of the Dean with which I became closely
acquainted and to which I owed most, was that of Matthew Davenport Hill,
the Recorder of Birmingham, whose labours (summed up in his own
_Repression of Crime_ and in his _Biography_ by his daughters) did more,
I believe, than those of any other philanthropist beside Mary Carpenter,
to improve the treatment of both adult and juvenile crime in England. I
am not competent to offer judgment on the many questions of
jurisprudence with which he dealt, but I can well testify to the
exceeding goodness of his large heart, the massiveness of his grasp of
his subjects, and (never-to-be-forgotten) his most delightful humour. He
was a man who from unlucky chances never attained a position
commensurate with his abilities and his worth, but who was beloved and
admired in no ordinary degree by all who came near him. His family of
sons and daughters formed a centre of usefulness in the neighbourhood of
Bristol as they have since done in London, where Miss Hill is, I
believe, now the senior member of the School Board, while her sister,
Miss Florence Davenport Hill, has been equally active as a Poor Law
Guardian, and most especially as the promoter of the great and
farreaching reform in the management of pauper orphans, known as the
system of Boarding-out, of which I have spoken in the last chapter. I
must not indulge myself by writing at too great length of such friends,
but will insert here a few notes I made of Recorder Hill’s wonderfully
interesting conversation during a Christmas visit I paid to him at Heath
House.
“Dec. 26th. I spent yesterday and last night with my kind friends the
Hills at Heath House. In the evening I drew out the Recorder to speak
of questions of evidence, and he told me many remarkable anecdotes in
his own practice at the Bar, of doubtful identity, &c. On one occasion
a case was tried three times; and he observed how the _certainty_ of
the witnesses, the clearness of details, and unhesitating asseveration
of facts which at first had been doubtfully stated, _grew_ in each
trial. He said ‘the most dangerous of all witnesses are those who
_honestly_ give _false_ witness—a most numerous class.’
“To-day he invited me to walk with him on his terrace and up and down
the approach. The snow lay thick on the grass, but the sun shone
bright, and I walked for more than an hour and a-half beside the dear
old man. He told me how he had by degrees learned to distrust all
ideas of Retribution, and to believe in the ‘aggressive power of love
and kindness,’ (a phrase Lady Byron had liked); and how at last it
struck him that all this was in the new Testament; and that few,
except religious Christians, ever aided the great causes of
philanthropy. I said, it was quite true, Christ had revealed that
religion of love; and that there were unhappily very few who, having
intellectually doubted the Christian creed, pressed on further to any
clear or fervent religion beyond; but that without religion, _i.e._,
love of God, I hardly believed it possible to work for man. He said he
had known nearly all the eminent men of his time in every line, and
had somehow got close to them, and had never found one of them really
believe Christianity. I said, ‘No; no strong intellect of our day
could do so, altogether; but that I thought it was faithless in us to
doubt that if we pushed bravely on to whatever seemed _truth_ we
should there find all the more reason to love God and man, and never
lose any _real_ good of Christianity.’ He agreed, but said, ‘You are a
watchmaker, I am a weaver; this is your work, I have a different
one,—and I cannot afford to part with the Evangelicals, who are my
best helpers. Thus though I wholly disagree with them about Sunday I
never publish my difference.’ I said I felt the great danger of
pushing uneducated people beyond the bounds of an authoritative creed,
and for my own part would think it safest that Jowett’s views should
prevail for a generation, preparatory to Theism.
“Then we spoke of Immortality, and he expressed himself nobly on the
thought that all our differences of rich and poor, wise or ignorant,
are lost in comparison of that one fact of our common Immortality. As
he said, he felt that waiting a moment jostled in a crowd at a railway
station, was a larger point in comparison of his whole life than this
life is, to the future. We joined in condemning Emerson and George
Eliot’s ideas of the ‘little value’ of ordinary souls. His burst of
indignation at her phrase ‘_Guano races of men_’ was very fine. He
said, talking of Reformatories, ‘A century hence,—in 1960,—some people
will walk this terrace and talk of the great improvement of the new
asylums where hopeless criminals and vicious persons will be
permanently consigned. They will not be formally condemned for life,
but we shall all know that they will never fulfil the conditions of
their release. They will not be made unhappy, but forced to work and
kept under strong control; the happiest state for them.’”
Here is a very flattering letter from Mr. Hill written a few years
later, on receipt of a copy of my _Italics_:—
“The Hawthorns,
“Edgbaston, Birmingham,
“25th Oct., 1864.
“My dear Miss Cobbe,
“Although I am kept out of court to-day at the instance of my
physician, who threatens me with bronchitis if I do not keep house,
yet it has been a day not devoid of much enjoyment. Your charming book
which, alas, I have nearly finished, is carrying me through it only
too rapidly. What a harvest of observation, thought, reading, and
discourse have you brought home from Italy! But I am too much
overwhelmed with it to talk much about it, especially in the
obfuscated state of my intellect to which I am just now reduced. But I
must just tell you how I am amused in midst of my admiration, with
your humility as regards your sex; said humility being a cloak which,
opening a little at one page, discloses a rich garment of pride
underneath (_vide_ page 438 towards the bottom). I say no more, only
as I don’t mean to give up the follies of youth for the next eight
years, that is until I am eighty, I don’t choose to be called
‘venerable.’ One might as well consent to become an Archdeacon at
once!
“Your portraits are delightful, some of the originals I know, and the
likeness is good, but alas, idealized!
“To call your book a ‘trifling’ work is just as absurd as to call me
‘venerable.’ It deals nobly, fearlessly, and I will add in many parts
_profoundly_, with the greatest questions that can employ human
intellect or touch the human heart, and although I do not always agree
with you, I always respect your opinions and learn from the arguments
by which they are supported. But certainly in the vast majority of
instances I do agree with you, and more than agree, which is a cold,
unimpressive term.
“Most truly yours,
“M. D. HILL.”
“Heath House, Stapleton, Bristol,
“17th August, 1871.
“My dear Miss Cobbe,
“That is to say falsest of woman-kind! You have cruelly jilted me.
Florry wrote to say you were coming here as you ought to have done
long ago. Well, as your countryman, Ossian, or his double, Macpherson,
says, ‘Age is dark and unlovely,’ and therefore the rival of the
American Giantess turns a broad back upon me. I must submit to my
fall....
“Though I take in the _Echo_, I have not lately seen any article which
I could confidently attribute to your pen.
“I have, however, been much gratified with your article on _The
Devil_, the only writing I ever read on the origin of evil which did
not appear to me absolutely contemptible. Talking of these matters,
Coleridge said to Thelwall (_ex relatione_ Thelwall), ‘God has all the
power that _is_, but there is no power over a contradiction expressed
or implied.’ Your suggestion that the existence of evil is due to
contradiction, is, I have no doubt, very just, but my stupid head is
this morning quite unable to put on paper what is foggily floating in
my mind, and so I leave it.
“I spent a good part of yesterday morning in reading the _Westminster
Review_ of Walt Whitman’s works, which quite laid hold of me.
“Most truly yours,
“M. D. HILL.”
Another interesting person whom I first came to know at Bristol, (where
he visited at the Deanery and at Dr. Symonds’ house,) was the late
Master of Balliol. I have already cited some kind letters from him
referring to our plans for Incurables and Workhouse Girls. I will be
vain enough to quote here, with the permission of the friend to whom
they were addressed, some of his remarks about my _Intuitive Morals_ and
_Broken Lights_; and also his opinion of Theodore Parker, which will
interest many readers:—
“From Rev. Benjamin Jowett.
“January 22nd, 1861.
“I heard of your friend Miss Cobbe the other day at Fulham.... Pray
urge her to go on with her books and try to make them more
interesting. (This can only be done by throwing more feeling into them
and adapting them more to what other people are thinking and feeling
about). I am not speaking of changing her ideas, but the mode of
expressing them. The great labour of writing is adapting what you say
to others. She has great ability, and there is something really fine
and striking in her views of things, so that it is worth while she
should consider the form of her writings.”...
“April 16th, 1861.
“Let me pass to a more interesting subject—Miss Cobbe. Since I wrote
to you last I have read the greater part of her book” (_Intuitive
Morals_) “which I quite agree with you in thinking full of interest.
It shows great power and knowledge of the subject, yet I should fear
it would be hardly intelligible to anyone who had not been nourished
at some time of their lives on the philosophy of Kant; and also she
seems to me to be too exclusive and antagonistic towards other
systems—_e.g._, the Utilitarian. All systems of Philosophy have their
place and use, and lay hold on some minds, and therefore though they
are not all equally true, it is no use to rail at Bentham and the
Utilitarians after the manner of _Blackwood’s Magazine_. Perhaps,
however, Miss Cobbe would retort on me that her attacks on the
Utilitarians have their place and their use too; only they were not
meant for people who ‘revel in Scepticism’ like me (the _Saturday
Review_ says, is it not very Irish of them to say so?) Pray exhort her
to write (for it is really worth while) and not to spend her money and
time wholly in schemes of philanthropy. For a woman of her ability,
writing offers a great field, better in many respects than practical
life.”
“October 10th, 1861.
“A day or two ago I was at Clifton and saw Miss Cobbe, who might be
truly described as very ‘jolly.’ I went to a five o’clock tea with her
and met various people—an aged physician named Dr. Brabant who about
thirty years ago gave up his practice to study Hebrew and became the
friend of German Theologians; Miss Blagden, whom you probably know, an
amiable lady who has written a novel and is the owner of a little
white puppy wearing a scarlet coat; Dr. Goodeve, an Indian Medical
Officer; and various others.”...
“February 2nd, 1862.
“Remember me to Miss Cobbe. I hope she gains from you sound notions on
Political Economy. I shall always maintain that Philanthropy is
intolerable when not based on sound ideas of Political Economy.”
“June 4th, 1862.
“The articles in the _Daily News_ I did not see. Were they Miss
Cobbe’s? I read her paper in Fraser in which the story of the Carnival
was extremely well told.”...
“March 15th, 1863.