CHAPTER XII.

HOPE EXTINCT.

There had been a lingering hope among some who would fain have stood out

longer, that this day’s post would have brought the wherewithal to build

up new expectations and prolong the struggle. The wiser ones had

resolved that not even the receipt of 200_l._ should shake their

determination to return to work; but there was no question about the

matter, for no money came.—A prodigious amount of business was done in

the few hours preceding the final meeting. The masters met and settled

that they would give no more than the medium wages,—that is, the rate

given by Wentworth; Elliot carelessly consenting to lower his, and

Mortimer being with difficulty persuaded to raise his. Rowe was

consulted only as a matter of form, and the other firms had to make

slight differences or none at all. They agreed to yield the point of

their men belonging to the Union, since it appeared vain to contest it

while of importance, and needless when not so.—The men settled that they

must agree to a medium rate of wages, and make what they could of having

obtained an equalization, such as it was, and of being permitted to

adhere to the Union.—Clack agitated for his own private interest,—to get

himself appointed to some salaried office in the Union, as he was no

more likely to obtain employment from the masters than Allen.—So much

was settled beforehand as to leave little to be done at the meeting but

to make a public declaration of agreement.

With dark countenances and lagging steps the people came,—not in proud

procession, with banners and music and a soldier-like march, but in

small parties or singly, dropping into the track from by-streets and

lanes, and looking as if they were going to punishment rather than to

consultation. There was a larger proportion than usual of ragged women

and crying babies; for, as the women had been all along opposed to the

strike, they were sensible of a feeling of mournful triumph in seeing it

dissolved. Bray was present, without his pipe and his bells, for this

was no time for lively music; but he carried his drum to be used as a

signal for silence if the speakers should find any difficulty in

obtaining a hearing. He beat a roll between each proposition submitted

and agreed to; and thus did his last service to the turn-out he had

watched from its commencement.

Proposed:—That as the masters are represented to be inclined to

concession, the men shall do their part towards promoting an adjustment

of their differences, agreeing to take such and such a rate of wages,

provided that the masters pay all alike, and that the men be not

disturbed in their peaceable adherence to the Union.—Agreed.

Proposed: that the men shall set apart a portion of their weekly

earnings, as soon as able to do so, and in proportion to the size of

their families, in order to liquidate the debt incurred on account of

the strike now about to be closed.—Murmurs.

Allen came forward to state the gross amount of subscriptions and

expenses, intimating that the account-books would be left at the

Committee-room for one month, open to the inspection of all who could

prove themselves to belong to the Union. It would be seen through what

unavoidable circumstances a debt had been incurred, and how essential it

was to the honour of the body that it should be liquidated as soon as

possible.

No reasonable exception could be made to any of the items of

expenditure. The people could only wonder that there should be such

crowds of children to receive pay, so many lying-in women to be

relieved, so many sick persons to be aided, and so much to pay for

printing and advertising. They could not deny that the expenses of the

Committee had been very small.

This explanation finished, Allen’s part was done. He had neither faults

of his own nor favours of theirs to acknowledge. He spoke not of

himself, but, when he had rendered his account, gravely made his bow and

retired.

Clack then came forward, and, supported by a powerful party of friends

near the waggon, succeeded in obtaining the public ear. With more

success than delicacy, he enlarged upon his public services, pleaded his

betrothment to one who was now suffering under the persecution of the

masters, as a title to their support, as well as the certainty that he

should not again be employed by any firm in Manchester. He declared that

were it only through zeal for their rights, he would marry Ann Howlett

as soon as she came out of prison——

“If she will have you,” cried somebody; and the crowd laughed.

Clack repeated his declaration without noticing the doubt, and moreover

declared his willingness to travel into every county in England,

Scotland, and Ireland, in behalf of the Union. He boasted of his

connexions in all places, and pointed out the wisdom there would be in

employing him as a missionary of the Union, in preparation for any

future struggle.—This proposal went a degree too far in impudence, or

Clack might, perhaps, have gained his object; for he seemed to have

recovered his hold on the people in proportion as that of better men had

been weakened. A plain statement from the Committee that, as they were

in debt, they had no power at present to appoint a missionary, served,

however, to disappoint Clack’s hopes. He skilfully laid hold of the

words “at present,” and left it an understood matter between himself and

the people that the office was to be his by and by.

Within half an hour, not a trace of the meeting was left but the

trampled grass and the empty waggon. The people seemed to try who could

flee the fastest, some to obtain the first access to the masters, some

to get out of sight of a scene which had become disagreeable, and some

few to talk big at the Spread-Eagle of what might have happened if this

cowardly Committee would but have stood out a little longer.

Allen’s steps were directed to Mr. Wentworth’s counting-house. “I will

ask work of him and of him only, in this line,” thought he. “If I fail,

I must take to some other occupation. They can hardly be all shut

against an honest man.”

“I am sorry for you, Allen,” was Mr. Wentworth’s reply when, with some

difficulty, Allen had made his way through a crowd of people on the same

errand with himself. “But you shall pronounce upon the case yourself. I

can employ now only two-thirds of the number who turned out from me. Of

these, at least half left me unwillingly, and have therefore the first

title to employment; and the rest have worked for my firm for many

years. At the best, I must refuse many whose services I should be glad

to keep; judge then whether I can take on a stranger, be he who he may.”

Allen bowed and had no more to say.

“If the firm you worked under cannot take you on, I fear you have little

chance, Allen; for all are circumstanced like myself, I believe.”

Allen shook his head, and would trespass no longer on Mr. Wentworth’s

time.

In the street he met Bray, who was looking for him to say farewell,

while Hannah was doing the same to little Martha. Where were they going,

and why so soon?

There was nothing to stay for now, Bray thought; for he had no liking to

see honest men stand idle in the labour-market, except by their own

choice. Choice made the entire difference in the case. As for where he

was going,—he and Hannah must find out where people were most fond of

street music and dancing, and would pay the best for it. And this put

him in mind of what he had to say. He was as much obliged as Hannah

herself, and more, by the hospitality with which she had been received

at Allen’s house; but his friend could not suppose he meant his daughter

to be any charge upon the family in times like these. On this account,

and for old friendship’s sake, and from the sympathy which one

proscribed man should feel for another, he hoped Allen would do him the

favour to pocket this little bit of paper and say no more about

it.—Allen agreed so far as to defer saying much about it till better

times should come. He only just told Bray that the bank note was most

acceptable at present for a very particular purpose, wrung his friend’s

hand, and ran home to fetch his wife, that the suit of clothes might be

rebought without loss of time. They proved a dear bargain; but that was

a secondary consideration, poor as Allen was. He went to rest that

night, satisfied that his honour was redeemed, and that his wife would

scarcely venture to put it in pawn again.

His wife said to herself that she had no idea he could have been so

stern as he was all this day; she scarcely knew him for William

Allen.—Many people made the same observation from this time forward. His

sternness only appeared when matters of honour were in question, and no

one who knew by what means he had been made jealous on this point

wondered at the tone of decision in which a once weak and timid man

could speak. But there were other circumstances which made them scarcely

able to believe him the same William Allen. He no longer touched his hat

to the masters, or appeared to see them as they passed. He no longer

repaired to the Spread-Eagle to hear or tell the news, or to take part

in consultation on the affairs of the workmen of Manchester, though he

was ever ready to give his advice with freedom and mildness when called

upon. He stated that he was a friend to their interests, and therefore

anxious to avoid injuring them by being one of the body. He would not

even represent his children, who grew up one after another to be

employed in the factories, while their father toiled in the streets with

his water-cart in summer and his broom in winter; enduring to be pointed

out to strangers as the leader of an unsuccessful strike, as long as his

family were not included with himself in the sentence of proscription.

When will it be understood by all that it rests with all to bring about

a time when opposition of interests shall cease? When will masters and

men work cheerfully together for their common good, respect instead of

proscribing each other, and be equally proud to have such men as

Wentworth and William Allen of their fellowship?

_Summary of Principles illustrated in this Volume._

---------------------

COMMODITIES, being produced by capital and labour, are the joint

property of the capitalist and labourer.

The capitalist pays in advance to the labourers their share of the

commodity, and thus becomes its sole owner.

The portion thus paid is WAGES.

REAL WAGES are the articles of use and consumption that the labourer

receives in return for his labour.

NOMINAL WAGES are the portion he receives of these things reckoned in

money.

The fund from which wages are paid in any country consists of the

articles required for the use and consumption of labourers which that

country contains.

THE PROPORTION OF THIS FUND RECEIVED BY INDIVIDUALS MUST MAINLY DEPEND

ON THE NUMBER AMONG WHOM THE FUND IS DIVIDED.

The rate of wages in any country depends, therefore, not on the wealth

which that country contains, but on the proportion between its capital

and its population.

As population has a tendency to increase faster than capital, wages can

be prevented from falling to the lowest point only by adjusting the

proportion of population to capital.

The lowest point to which wages can be permanently reduced is that which

affords a bare subsistence to the labourer.

The highest point to which wages can be permanently raised is that which

leaves to the capitalist just profit enough to make it worth his while

to invest his capital.

The variations of the rate of wages between these extreme points

depending mainly on the supply of labour offered to the capitalist, the

rate of wages is mainly determined by the sellers, not the buyers of

labour.

Combinations of labourers against capitalists (whatever other effects

they may have) cannot secure a permanent rise of wages unless the supply

of labour falls short of the demand;—in which case, strikes are usually

unnecessary.

Nothing can permanently affect the rate of wages which does not affect

the proportion of population to capital.

Legislative interference does not affect this proportion, and is

therefore useless.

Strikes affect it only by wasting capital, and are therefore worse than

useless.

Combinations may avail or not, according to the reasonableness of their

objects.

Whether reasonable or not, combinations are not subjects for legislative

interference; the law having no cognizance of their causes.

Disturbance of the peace being otherwise provided against, combinations

are wisely therefore now left unregarded by the law.

The condition of labourers may be best improved,—

1st. By inventions and discoveries which create capital.

2d. By husbanding instead of wasting capital:—for instance by making

savings instead of supporting strikes.

3d. BY ADJUSTING THE PROPORTION OF POPULATION TO CAPITAL.

----------------------------------------------------------------

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES, STAMFORD-STREET.

COUSIN MARSHALL.

---------------------

CHAPTER I.

A VERY HOT MORNING.

The gray light of a summer’s morning was dawning on the cathedral towers

of the city of ——, when Mr. Burke, a surgeon, returned on horseback from

the country, where he had been detained by a patient till past midnight.

It was Sunday morning, and he was therefore less surprised than grieved

to see what kind of people they were who still loitered in the streets,

and occasionally disturbed the repose of those who slept after their

weekly toils. Here and there lay on a door-step, or in the kennel, a

working man, who had spent his week’s wages at the alehouse, and on

being turned out when the clock struck twelve, had sunk down in a

drunken sleep. Farther on were more of the same class, reeling in the

middle of the street, or holding by the walls of the houses, with just

sense enough to make their way gradually homewards, where their wives

were either watching anxiously, or disturbed with miserable dreams on

their account. The sound of the horse’s hoofs on the pavement roused the

watchmen, of whom one rubbed his eyes, and came out of his box to learn

the hour from the church clock, while another began to make a clearance

of the tipplers, bidding them move on with threats which were lost upon

their drowsy ears. One of these guardians of the night, however, was too

far gone in slumber to be roused like the rest. Perhaps his own snoring

prevented his hearing that any one passed by. Mr. Burke tickled this

man’s ear with his riding whip, and asked him the meaning of certain

clouds of dun smoke which were curling up, apparently at some little

distance, between the gazers and the pale eastern sky. The watchman’s

wit served him just so far as to suggest that there ought to be no smoke

in that direction at this hour of a Sunday morning, and that he supposed

smoke must come from fire. Upon this hint, Mr. Burke rode off at full

trot, through such byways as would lead him most directly to the spot.

Before he got there, however, his fears were confirmed by the various

methods in which information of a fire is given. Rattles were sprung in

quick succession, shouts and whoops were echoed from street to street, a

red blaze was reflected from every chimney, and glittered like the

setting sun on the windows of the upper storys, and the clangor of bells

followed in less time than could have been supposed possible. Window

after window was thrown up, as Mr. Burke passed, and nightcapped heads

popped out with the incessant inquiry—“Fire! Where?”

This was what Mr. Burke was as anxious as any one to know, and he

therefore increased his speed till he arrived on the spot, and found

that it was not a dwelling-house, but a large grocery warehouse, that

was in flames. Having satisfied himself that no lives were in danger,

and that every one was on the alert, he hastened homewards to deposit

his horse, and quiet his sister’s alarms, and returned to give

assistance.

When he came back, two or three engines were on the spot, but unable to

work from a deficiency of water. The river was not far distant; but so

many impediments arose from the disposition of some of the crowd to

speculate idly on the causes of the fire, and of others to bustle about

without doing any good, that the flames were gaining ground frightfully.

As more gentlemen arrived, however, they assisted Mr. Burke in his

exertions to form two lines down to the river side, by one of which the

full, and by the other the empty, buckets might be passed with

regularity and speed. Meanwhile, the crowd felt themselves at liberty to

crack their jokes, as nothing but property was yet at stake.

A child clapped its hands in glee, as a pale blue flame shot up where

there had been no light before.

“That’s rum,” said a man. “If there be raisins beside it, ’tis a pity we

are not near enough to play snap-dragon.”

“There will be a fine treat for the little ones when all is cool again,”

observed another. “A fine store of lollipops under the ruins. Look how

the hogsheads of sugar light one after another, like so many torches!”

“They say tea is best made of river water,” said a third; “and it can’t

but boil in such a fire; so suppose you fetch your tea-service,

neighbour.”

“Rather tea than beer,” replied another. “Did you taste the beer from

the brewery fire? Pah! ’twas like what sea-water will be when the world

is burnt.”

“I missed my share then,” answered the neighbour; “but I got two or

three gallons of what was let out because the white-washer’s boy was

drowned in it. That was none the worse, that I could find out. My wife

was squeamish about it, so I had it all to myself. Heyday! what’s this

about? Why, they won’t let a man look on in peace!”

The constables were now vigorously clearing a space for the firemen, as

there was some apprehension that the flames were spreading backwards,

where there were courts and alleys crowded with dwellings of the poor.

The fear was soon perceived to be too well founded. From an arched

passage close by the burning building there presently issued a

half-dressed woman with two children clinging to her, a third girl

shivering and crying just behind, and a boy following with his arms full

of clothes and bedding. Mr. Burke was with them instantly.

“Have the houses behind caught fire?”

“Ours has, sir; and it can’t be saved, for there is no way to it but

this. Not a thing could we get out but what we have on; but, thank God,

we are all safe!”

“O, mammy, mammy!” cried the elder girl. “She has not been out of bed

this week, sir. She’ll die with cold.”

Mr. Burke had observed the ghastly look of the woman. He now bade her

compose herself, and promised that the children should be taken care of,

if she would tell him where she wished to go. She answered doubtfully

that her sister lived in the next street.

“O, not there, mother!” said the boy. “Let us go to John Marshall’s.”

“’Tis too far, Ned. My sister will surely take us in at such a time as

this. Lord have mercy! The flames dizzy one so!”

And the poor woman fell against the wall. Mr. Burke raised her, and

bidding Ned go before to show the way, he half led and half carried her

the short distance to her sister’s house, the little ones running

barefooted, holding by the skirts of his coat. On their way, they met a

man whom the children proclaimed with one voice to be John Marshall.

“I was coming to you,” said he, supporting the widow Bridgeman on the

other side. “This is a sad plight I see you in, cousin; but cheer up! If

you can get as far as our place, my wife bids me say you will be kindly

welcome.”

Mr. Burke thought the nearest resting-place was the best; and Marshall

yielded, hoping the sister’s door would be open, as it ought. It was but

half open, and in that half stood the sister, Mrs. Bell, arguing with

Ned that the place was too small for her own family, and that his mother

would be more comfortable elsewhere, and so forth. Mr. Burke cut short

the argument by pushing a way, and depositing his charge upon the bed

within. He then gave his name to the amazed Mrs. Bell, desired her to

lend the children some clothing, and to keep her sister quiet till he

should come again, sent Marshall for his wife, who would apparently

nurse the widow Bridgeman better than her own sister, and then returned

with Ned to see if any of the widow’s little furniture could be saved.

Before they reached the spot, however, the tenement was burned to the

ground, and the two or three next to it were pulled down to stop the

fire, so that nothing more was to be done.

The widow seemed at first so much revived by the treatment which Mr.

Burke ordered, and her cousin Marshall administered, that there was room

for hope that the shock would leave her little worse than it found her;

and the benevolent surgeon went home at six o’clock to refresh himself,

bearing tidings to his sister, not only that the fire was extinguished,

but that it appeared to have done no irreparable mischief beyond the

destruction of property. He was not fully aware, however, in how weak a

state his patient had previously been.

“Mammy!” said little Ann Bridgeman, who sat on a low stool, with a blue

apron of her aunt’s over her shoulders, her only covering except her

shift, “Mammy, there goes the church bell.”

“Hush!” said Jane, the eldest, who was more considerate.

“Mammy is awake,” persisted Ann, looking again into the curtainless bed

to see that the widow’s eyes were open. “Do you hear the bell, mammy?

And we cannot go to church.”

“’Tis a strange Sunday, indeed, my child,” replied her mother. “When I

prayed last night, after all our work was done, that this might be a day

of rest, I little thought what would happen.”

Her cousin, Mrs. Marshall, came to her and begged that she would try to

rest, and not to trouble herself with uneasy thoughts.

“My mind is so tossed about!” replied the poor woman. “It distracts me

to think what we are to do next. And there sit the poor children without

so much as a petticoat to wear; and the room is all as if the fire was

roaring about me; and a letter from my husband, the only one I ever had,

that I thought to have carried to my grave with me, is burned; and I

might as well have saved it, if I had had a minute’s thought; and——”

The sick woman burst into a hysterical cry which shook her frame so,

that her cousin began to think how she could calm her. She ventured on a

bold experiment when she found that her patient’s talk still ran upon

the letter, and that the consolations of Mrs. Bell, who now came to the

bedside, only made the matter worse.

“Well now, I wonder,” said Mrs. Bell, “that you should trouble yourself

so about a letter, when you will be sure to remember what is in it. One

would think it was a bank note by the way you cry after it.”

“A bank note!” cried the poor woman. “I would have set light to my house

with a handful of bank notes, if I had had them, sooner than lose that

letter; and yet nobody would think so by the way I left it behind me.

There it was in the box with my rent, and with my mother’s gold thimble,

nigh at hand as I got out of bed, and I might just as well have saved

it. O Lord! what a wretch I am!” she cried. “Take the children away!

Don’t let them come near me any more. Lord forgive me! Lord have mercy

upon me!” and she raved fearfully.

“She’s out of her senses,” said Mrs. Bell, “and all for that trumpery

letter. I’ll make her believe we have found it.”

“And so make her worse than ever when she discovers the trick,” said

Mrs. Marshall. “No, that won’t do.” And she turned to the sick woman,—“I

say, Mary, you would not mind so much about the letter if you were to

see your husband very soon, would you?”

“Surely no,” replied the widow, looking perplexed, but immediately calm.

“But my husband is gone, long ago, is not he? But perhaps I am going

too. Is that what you mean, cousin Marshall?”

“I don’t know whether you be or no, Mary; but you have no strength for

raving as you did just now. If you wish to live for your children’s

sake, you must be quiet.”

“I was thinking a deal about dying last night, and what was to become of

the children; but I forgot all about it to-day. Poor things! they have

no friends but you two,” looking from Mrs. Bell to her cousin Marshall.

“You will see to them, I am sure. You will not cast them out upon the

world; and depend upon it, it will be repaid to you. I will pray God day

and night, just as I would here, to watch over them and reward those

that are kind to them; particularly whichever of you takes Sally; for I

am much afraid Sally will go blind.” As she gazed earnestly in the faces

of her relations, Mrs. Bell tried to put her off with bidding her make

her mind easy, and trust in Providence, and hope to live. Her cousin

Marshall did better.

“I will take charge of Sally and of one of the others,” said she. “I

promise it to you; and you may trust my promise, because my husband and

I have planned it many a time when we saw what a weakly way you were in.

They shall be brought up like our own children, and you know how that

is.”

“God bless you for ever, cousin! And as for the other two——”

“Leave that to me,” replied Mrs. Marshall, who saw that the patient’s

countenance began to resume its unsettled expression. “Leave it all to

me, and trust to my promise.”

“Just one thing more,” said the widow, starting up as her cousin would

have retired. “Dear me! how confused my head is,—and all because you

have moved the bed opposite the window, which my head never could bear.

Listen now. In the cupboard on the left side the bed,—at least, that is

where it was,—you will find a japanned box that I keep my rent in. At

the bottom of that box there is a letter——”

“Well, well, Mary. That will do by-and-by.”

“Let me finish, cousin. Give that letter to Ned, and bid him keep it,

because——”

“Aye, I understand. Because it is his father’s writing, and the only one

you ever had.”

“Why, you know all about it!” exclaimed the widow, smiling, with a look

of surprise. “I did not know I had ever told anybody. Well, now, I can’t

keep awake any longer; but be sure you wake me in time in the morning. I

must be up to wash the children’s things, for they want them sadly.”

She dropped asleep instantly when her cousin had hung a shawl at the

foot of the bed to hide the strange window. Ned had gone some minutes

before for Mr. Burke, who pronounced, on seeing her, that she would

probably never wake again. This proved true; and before night she was no

more.

The fire created a great sensation in the city. The local newspapers

described it as the most awful that had occurred in the place within the

memory of man; and the London prints copied from them. Strangers came in

from the country to visit the smoking ruins, and the firm to whom the

warehouses belonged were almost overwhelmed with sympathy and offers of

assistance. Mrs. Bell was disposed to make a profit out of all this. She

would have stationed Ned, in a tattered shirt, on the ruins of his

mother’s dwelling to beg, and have herself carried about a petition in

behalf of the orphan children. The funeral, at least, ought, she

thought, to be paid for by charity; but there was no moving the

Marshalls on any of these points. They were so sure that the widow would

have died, at all events, in a very short time, that they could not see

why the fire should throw the expense of her funeral on the public; and

even Mrs. Bell could not pretend that anything of much value had been

lost in the fire except the rent, which would never be called for. The

Marshalls countenanced Ned’s dislike to go near the idle boys who were

practising leaping on the ruins, and found it a far more natural and

pleasant thing to dress the little Bridgemans in some of their own

children’s clothes and take them home, than to appeal to strangers on

their behalf.

“You may do as you please, neighbour,” cried Mrs. Bell, after an

argument upon this subject. “If you choose to burden yourselves with two

children in addition to your own five, it is no concern of mine; only

don’t expect me to put any such dead-weight upon my husband’s neck.”

“Your husband earns better wages than mine, Mrs. Bell.”

“And that is what makes me wonder at your folly in not sending the

children to the workhouse at once. No need to tell me what a little way

a man’s wages go in families like yours and mine.”

“You have a good deal of help in other ways to make out with, indeed,

neighbour,” observed Mrs. Marshall. “You have found the gentry very kind

to you this year; so much so that I think the least you can do is to

keep these children from being a burden on the rates, for the little

time till they can shift for themselves.—I believe you bought neither

coals nor blankets last winter.”

“Bless your heart, cousin, the coals we got did not last half the winter

through; for my husband likes a good fire when he can get it, and always

expected to find one in the grate when he came home from the Leopard,

however late at night it might be; and I had to sell one of the blankets

presently. The other, on the bed there, is the only one we have till

winter, when I hope to get a new one, if the ladies are not too

particular about my having had two already. But, really, it tries one’s

patience to wait upon them ladies. Do you know I am disappointed again

about the bag of linen against my confinement. I may be down any day

now, and every bag is engaged, so that they can’t promise with any

certainty. So I must just take my chance for getting through somehow.”

“And how is your baby provided?”

“O, they gave me a few trifles for it, which will do till I get about

again, and can carry it to show how poorly it is off.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Marshall, “I do wonder you can bear to live from hand

to mouth in that way. You got your first set of baby-linen at the same

time that I did, and with your own money; and why yours should not have

lasted as well as mine, I can’t think. Mine are not all worn out yet,

and I always managed to replace, by timely saving, those that were.

However, if you can’t clothe your own children, I don’t wonder so much

that you will not feed your sister’s. Poor things! must they go to the

workhouse?”

“Unless you choose to take them all, cousin. So wonderful a manager as

you are, perhaps you might contrive it.”

Mrs. Marshall shook her head mournfully. She had not lodging room for

more than two girls among her own, and could not have engaged that her

husband’s rent should be ready if more than two in addition were to

share their daily meals. As it was, they must give up one dish of meat a

week, and make some other reductions of the same kind.

“Better ask the gentry to help you, at once,” said Mrs. Bell; “but I

suppose you are too proud?”

“We will try what our own charity can do before we ask it from those who

have less concern in the matter,” said Mrs. Marshall. “There is one

thing I mean to ask, however, because I cannot anyhow get it for them

myself; and that is, to have them taught like my own children. Poor

Sally must learn to knit while she has some eyesight left.”

“Which of the others do you mean to take?” enquired Mrs. Bell, as if

quite unconcerned in the matter.

Mrs. Marshall called in the four children from the next room to consult

them, to her cousin’s utter amazement. She told them the plain

truth,—that she had promised their mother to take charge of two of them,

and that one of the two should be Sally; that the other two must live in

the workhouse till they could earn their own subsistence; and that she

wished them to agree with her which had best remain with her and Sally.

Ned looked at his aunt with tears in his eyes; to which she answered by

promising to see him sometimes, and to bring him some gingerbread when

she had a penny to spare. Ned, who was too old to be spoken to in this

way, brushed his sleeve across his eyes, and observed to cousin Marshall

that Jane had better go with him to the workhouse, because she was the

oldest and would be soonest out of it, and because Sally liked to have

little Ann to do things for her that she could not see to do herself.

Cousin Marshall was quite of this opinion; and so the matter was

settled.

A long private conversation followed after Mrs. Bell had left the room;

if conversation it might be called which consisted of sobs and tears on

the part of the children, and exhortations and pity on that of their

friend.

“Remember, Ned,” said she, “the one thing you must be always thinking

about after you go into the workhouse is how soon you can get out again.

It is God’s will that has taken your mother from you, and that has made

your relations poor, and so we must try and not think your lot a

disgrace; but it will be a disgrace if you stay long. Keep this up in

Jane’s mind too, for I am afraid of her forgetting it, as she is rather

giddy.—I am not sorry, Jane, to see you cry so much, because I hope it

will make you remember this strange day. I have heard of workhouse

frolics, my dear. Never let me hear of them from you. You will have a

service, I hope, in a few years, and you must try to make yourself fit

to live with a different sort of people from those you will find in the

workhouse.”

Mrs. Bell, who had come back in time to hear the last few words, began

to tell all she had heard about the pleasant kind of life people might

lead in a workhouse if they chose; but her cousin cut her short by

bidding the children take leave at once.

Few events wrung tears from this stout-hearted woman; but she kept her

apron to her eyes the whole way home, and could not speak to any body

all day.

---------------------

CHAPTER II.

AN INTERIOR.

Miss Burke had gone into the country the morning after the fire, and

remained some weeks. When she returned, she inquired of her brother what

had become of the family who had been burnt out. She was an occasional

visitor at the workhouse school, and besides knew some of the elderly

paupers, and went to see them now and then. Her visits were made as

disagreeable as possible by the matron, who hated spies, as she

declared, and had good reasons for doing so; many practices going

forward under her management which would not bear inspection. She was

sometimes politic enough to keep out of sight, when she was aware that

something wrong had already met the lady’s eye; but she more frequently

confronted her near the entrance with such incivility as might, she

hoped, drive her away without having seen anything. The master was an

indolent, easy man, much afraid of the more disorderly paupers, and yet

more of his wife. He seldom appeared to strangers till called for; but

was then quite disposed to make the best of everything, and to agree in

all opinions that were offered. There was little more use, though less

inconvenience, in pointing out abuses and suggesting remedies to him

than to his wife; yet Mr. Burke and his sister conscientiously

persevered in doing this,—the gentleman from the lights he obtained in

his office of surgeon to the workhouse infirmary, and the lady, from her

brother’s reports and her own observations.

Miss Burke’s first inquiry at the workhouse gate was for nurse Rudrum.

The porter’s office consisted merely in opening the gate; so that when

the lady had entered the court, she had to make further search. The

court was half-full of people, yet two women were washing dirty linen at

the pump in the midst. Several men were seated cutting pegs for the

tilers and shoemakers, and others patching shoes for their

fellow-paupers; while several women stood round with their knitting,

laughing loud; and some of the younger ones venturing upon a few

practical jokes more coarse than amusing. At a little distance, sat two

young women shelling peas for a grand corporation dinner that was to

take place the next day, and beside them stood a little girl whose

business was apparently to clean a spit on which she was leaning, but

who was fully occupied in listening to the conversation which went on

over the pea-basket. This group looking the least formidable, Miss Burke

approached to make her inquiry. Being unperceived, the conversation was

carried on in the same loud tone till she came quite near, when one of

the young women exclaimed,

“I don’t want to hear any more about it. I wonder you had the heart to

do it.”

“To do what?” asked Miss Burke. “Something that you do not look ashamed

of,” she continued, turning to the first speaker.

“Lord, no,” said the girl with a bold stare. “It is only that a young

mistress of mine, that died and left a child a week old, bade me see

that it was taken care of till her husband came back, who was gone

abroad; and I could not be troubled with the little thing, so I took it

direct to the Foundling Hospital; and I heard that the father came home

soon after, and the people at the hospital could not the least tell

which was his child, or whether it was one that had died. I kept out of

the way, for I could not have helped them, and should only have got

abused; for they say the young man was like one gone mad.”

“And was it out of your own head that you took the child there, or who

mentioned the hospital to you?”

“I knew enough about it myself,” said the woman with a meaning laugh,

“to manage the thing without asking anybody. It is a fine place, that

Foundling Hospital, as I have good reason to say.”

“Pray find the matron,” said Miss Burke to the little spit-cleaner, who

was listening with open mouth; “and ask whether Miss Burke can be

admitted to see nurse Rudrum. I think,” she continued, when the little

girl was out of hearing, “you might choose your conversation better in

children’s company.”

“And in other people’s company too,” said the other sheller of peas.

“I’ve not been used to such a place as this, and I can’t bear it.”

“You’ll soon get used to it, Susan, my love,” replied the bold one.

“Where do you come from, Susan, and why are you here?” inquired Miss

Burke.

With many blushes, Susan told that she was a servant out of place,

without friends and with no one to give her a character, her last master

and mistress having gone off in debt and left her to be suspected of

knowing of their frauds, though she had been so ignorant of them as not

to have attempted to secure her own wages. It was a hard case, and she

did not know how to help herself; but she would submit to any drudgery

to get out of the workhouse.

“And who are you?” said the lady to the other. “Are you a servant out of

place too?”

“Yes.”

“And without a character?”

“O yes, quite,” said the woman with a laugh. “It is well for me that

there are some places where characters don’t signify so much as the

parson tells us. Susan and I are on the same footing here.”

Susan rose in an agony, and by mistake emptied the shelled peas in her

lap among the husks.

“There! never mind picking them out again,” said the other. “If I take

such a trouble, it shall be for my own supper, when the rest are done.”

“So you really think,” said Miss Burke, “that you and Susan are on the

same footing because you live under the same roof and sit on the same

seat? I hope Susan will soon find that you are mistaken.”

At this moment appeared Mrs. Wilkes the matron, shouting so that all the

yard might hear.

“Is it nurse Rudrum you want? She is out of her mind and not in a state

for prayer. Gentlefolks are enough to send poor people out of their

minds with praying and preaching.”

“I am not going either to pray or preach,” replied Miss Burke; “and you

well know that it is some years since nurse Rudrum was in her right

mind. I only ask the way to her.”

“Yonder lies your way, madam. Only take care of the other mad people,

that’s all.”

Surprised and vexed to perceive Miss Burke persevering in her purpose,

notwithstanding this terrifying warning, she continued,

“Remember, if you please, that the doctors don’t allow their patients to

be made methodists of; though God knows how many are sent here by the

methodists. You’ll please to take it all upon yourself, ma’am.”

Miss Burke, not seeing how all this concerned herself and nurse Rudrum,

who were about equally far from methodism, pursued her way, as well as

she could guess, to the right ward.—She could not easily miss it when

once within hearing of nurse Rudrum’s never-ceasing voice, or the tip

tap of her ancient high-heeled shoes, which she was indulged in wearing,

as it was a fancy not likely to spread. Nurse was employed as usual,

pacing to and fro in the ward appropriated to the harmless insane,

knitting as fast as her well-practised fingers would go, and talking

about Jupiter.

“Miss Burke, I declare,” cried she, as soon as her visitor appeared.

“You are welcome, as you always are—always very welcome; but,” and she

came nearer and looked very mysterious, “you are come from them people

at a distance, I doubt. Now don’t deny it if you be. If they have

practised upon me, you didn’t know it; so no need to deny it, you know.”

“I am come from Mr. Earle’s, nurse; and Mr. Earle sent his love to you,

and hopes you will accept some tea and sugar; and the young ladies will

come and see you when they visit me, and in the meanwhile they have sent

you a Sunday shawl.”

A dozen curtseys, and “My duty to them, my duty and many thanks; and I

dare say it is because they are so sorry about them people at a distance

that practise upon my ancle, without so much as shaking their heads.”

“O, your ancle! I was to ask particularly how your ancle is. You seem

able to walk pretty briskly.”

“That’s to disappoint ’em, you see,” and she laughed knowingly. “I only

tell _you_, you know, so you’ll be quiet. They can’t touch me anywhere

else, because of Jupiter in my cradle.”

“What was that, nurse?”

“O that was when they made me a watch-planet; and a fine thing it was to

keep me from harm,—all except my ancle, you see. It was Jupiter, you

know; and I feel it all over me now sometimes,—most in my elbows. It was

only Jupiter; none of the rest of them. That was my mother’s doing; for

Jupiter is the most religious of all the planets.”

And so she ran on till her visitor interrupted her with questions about

some of her companions in the ward.

“Aye—a queer set for me to be amongst, a’n’t they? That poor man! Look

at his sash;” and she giggled while she showed how a poor idiot was

fastened by a leathern belt to a ring in the wall. “He spins a good deal

as it is; but if he could walk about, he would do nothing. He has no

more sense than a child, and people of that sort are always for tramp,

tramp, tramping from morning till night, till it wearies one’s ears to

hear them.”

And nurse resumed her walk. When she returned to the same place, she

went on,—

“If these people could be made to hold their tongues, they would be

better company; but you never heard such a clatter; they won’t hear one

speak. That girl sings to her spinning-wheel the whole day long, and she

has but one tune. They say I am growing deaf; but I’m sure I hear that

song for ever, as much when she is not singing as when she is. But do

you think that I am growing deaf, really now?”

Miss Burke could only say that when people got to nurse’s age, and so

on.

“Well now, ’tis only because of Jupiter,—listening as a watch-planet

should, you know. You should have heard his music last night;—that that

I used to sing to the little Earles, when master Charles was afraid to

go to bed alone because of the ghost-story I told him; and I put him to

bed in Miss Emma’s room for once, and nobody knew: so don’t tell my

mistress, for she never forgave such a thing.”

Miss Burke smiled and sighed; for this master Charles was now a man of

forty, and Mrs. Earle had been in her grave nearly twenty years. As the

visitor was about to take leave, nurse laid her hand on the lady’s arm,

drew up her tight little person to its best advantage, and gravely said,

“One thing more, Miss Burke. You will give me leave to ask why I am

detained in this place, among idiots and dolts that are no companions

for me? This is a poor reward for my long service, and so you may tell

Mr. Earle.”

“We hoped you had everything comfortable, nurse. You always seem in good

spirits.”

“Comfortable! You mean as to tea and sugar and shawls; but what is that

compared with the company I keep? The Earles don’t know what they miss

by what they do. Many a time I would go and see them, and carry them a

piece of gingerbread, if I was not prevented.”

“Well, nurse, you shall come and see them at our house by and by. In the

meanwhile,—you know the boys in the yard are very rude, and they are too

apt to teaze old people. We think you are more comfortable out of their

way.”

Nurse still looked haughty and dissatisfied.

“Besides,” continued Miss Burke, “watch-planets are not common, you

know; and who knows how they might be treated in the world?”

“True, true, true,” cried the delighted old woman. “There are but two in

the world besides me, and they are at Canterbury, where my mother lived

nurse twenty years. ’Tis only them that study the stars that bow before

watch-planets. Well! we shall all study the stars up above, and then

will be the time for us watch-planets.”

So saying, nurse Rudrum returned to the track she had worn in the floor,

and Miss Burke heard the well known pit pat all the way down stairs.

The lady now turned into the school, where she was equally welcome to

mistress and scholars, especially after an absence of some duration, as

now. The mistress, Mrs. Mott, was not exactly the person the ladies

would have appointed to the office, if the choice had been left to them;

but, all things considered, the appointment might have been worse

filled. Mrs. Mott, a starched, grim-looking personage, had kept a dame

school in a village for many years, during which time she had acquired a

very high opinion of herself and her modes of tuition;—an opinion which

she continued to instil into the guardians of the poor, by whom she was

appointed to her present office; their choice being also aided by the

consideration that Mrs. Mott must have parish assistance at all events,

and might as well do something in exchange for it. The ladies who

interested themselves about the children, seeing that the choice lay

between having no school at all and having Mrs. Mott for a

schoolmistress, made the best of the latter alternative.

When the lady entered, Mrs. Mott was doing what she rather prided

herself upon,—carrying on two affairs at once. She was fixing work for

the girls,—plying her needle as fast as possible—and leading a hymn

which the children sang after her, kneeling on their benches, with their

hands clasped before them, and every little body rocking from side to

side to mark the time. When it was over, and the children scrambled down

into their seats, a universal grin of pleasure greeted Miss Burke from

her old acquaintance, and a stare of wonder from the new comers who yet

knew her only by reputation. Mrs. Mott, meanwhile, went on drawing out

her thread most indefatigably, and murmuring as if under some emotion.

“Good morning, Mrs. Mott. It is some time since I saw you last.”

“Time, madam! Aye: time is given, time is given where all else is given.

’Tis ours to seize it ere it flies.”

“How are your family, Mrs. Mott? I hope your sons are doing better.”

“Son, madam, son! I suppose you don’t know that the Lord has made choice

of Jack?”

Miss Burke was much concerned; and tried to hear the story

notwithstanding a hubbub at the bottom of the school, which at length

roused the teacher’s wrath.

“Tommy bit Jemmy,” was the reply of twenty little voices to the inquiry

of what was the matter.

“Tommy is a bad boy and must be punished,” was the verdict; and the

sentence speedily followed. “We are going to prayers, and I will have no

disturbance while prayers are going on; but I will have justice. So, as

soon as prayers are over, Jemmy shall bite Tommy in whatever part he

chooses.”

Miss Burke considered how she might best interfere with the process

without setting aside the mistress’s authority. She waited till prayers

were over, and then called the two boys before her. She represented to

the sobbing culprit the enormity of biting human flesh, and then asked

Jemmy if he had any urgent desire to bite Tommy.

“I don’t want to bite him, unless I’m bid,” was the reply.

“Very well; then, suppose you forgive him instead. This will make him

very careful not to hurt you another time. Will it not, Tommy?”

Tommy agreed, and words instead of wounds were exchanged.

The next inquiry was for the Bridgemans. Ned was called out of the ranks

of departing school-boys, and Jane was sent for, being detained from

school this day to help to prepare for the corporation dinner. On her

appearance, she was recognized as the cleaner of spits, who had listened

so eagerly to the praises of the Foundling Hospital. Miss Burke told

them how she had heard of their circumstances, and her intention to

visit them from time to time. She asked them if they were happy.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Jane, readily; “a deal happier than we thought.”

Ned, however, only bit his lip to keep back his tears. Miss Burke framed

her speech to suit both.

“You know,” she said, “that we all consider that you are here only for a

time, and we trust a short time. It has pleased God to take from you

your natural protectors and teachers; and children like you must be

taken care of, and taught, before you can find a way in the world. But,

if you choose, you may soon make yourselves fit for a better and a

happier place than this; and the more cheerfully you set about it, Ned,

the more quickly you will learn. You, Jane, should seek out the more

sober and quiet young women to talk to, instead of listening to the

foolish gossip that goes on in the yard. Has Susan been kind to you?”

“She always keeps by herself when she can, ma’am.”

“She will be kind to you, however, I am sure, if you deserve it; and I

believe she can teach you many things you will like to learn.”

In order to unloose Ned’s tongue, the lady made several inquiries about

their comforts. They had nothing to complain of but that they did not

like milk-broth, which composed their dinner twice a week, and that the

workhouse dress was very hot and heavy. The first evil could not be

helped—the other seemed very reasonable; and Miss Burke determined to

urge an objection to it through her brother, as it appeared that a thick

woollen dress was the most liable to dirt of any that could be fixed

upon, and the most unseemly when worn into holes; besides this, the

children were exposed to colds from the temptation to throw off the

dress when heated, and from exchanging it for their own old clothes on

Sundays and holidays. Jane had, as her brother declared, been scarcely

ever without colds since she entered the workhouse, as cousin Marshall

had been kind enough to provide her with a complete suit on her

entrance, which Jane was fond of wearing whenever she went to church, or

to the gardens, or——”

“To the gardens! What gardens?”

The public tea-gardens, where the girls and boys were treated very often

on Sundays, sometimes under guidance, and sometimes without any. Jane

was very eloquent in describing these frolics, and others which took

place within the walls.

Miss Burke had little hope of counteracting such influences as these by

an occasional visit; but she now said what she thought most likely to

impress the mind of the poor girl, and then proceeded to find Susan, in

order to recommend Jane to her care. She was glad to see Wilkes, the

master, unaccompanied by his wife, and conversing with a gentleman whom

she knew to be one of the visitors. Before she reached them, she

perceived that Ned was following her with a wistful look.

“Have you anything more to say to me?” she inquired.

“Only, ma’am, that perhaps you may know when we may get out. I should

like to see the time when we shall get out.”

“I wish I could tell you, my dear boy; but I can only guess, like you. I

guess it will be when Jane is fit for service, and you for labour in the

fields or elsewhere.”

“I can labour now,” said the boy, brightening. “If they would try me, I

am sure I could dig all day.”

“Be patient, Ned; and then, if you turn out a clever workman when the

right time comes, who knows but you may not only keep out of the

workhouse yourself, but prevent somebody else from coming in?”

Ned smiled, pulled his forelock, and went away cheered.

Mr. Nugent, the visitor, met Miss Burke with an observation on the

improvement of workhouses which rendered them accessible to female

benevolence; whereas they were once places where no lady could set her

foot. Miss Burke gravely replied that there was much yet for benevolence

to do. The necessary evils of a workhouse were bad enough; and it was

afflicting to see them needlessly aggravated,—to see poverty and

indigence confounded, and blameless and culpable indigence, temporary

distress, and permanent destitution, all mixed up together, and placed

under the same treatment. These distinctions were somewhat too nice for

the gentleman’s perceptions; at least, while announced in abstract

terms. He stood in an attitude of perplexed attention, while Wilkes

asked whether she would have the paupers live in separate dwellings.

Miss Burke observed that the evil began out of the workhouse; and that

the want of proper distinctions there made classification in the house

an imperative duty.

“We are too apt,” she said, “to regard all the poor alike, and to speak

of them as one class, whether or not they are dependent; that is,

whether they are indigent or only poor. There must always be poor in

every society; that is, persons who can live by their industry, but have

nothing beforehand. But that there should be able-bodied indigent, that

is, capable persons who cannot support themselves, is a disgrace to

every society, and ought to be so far regarded as such as to make us

very careful how we confound the poor and the indigent.”

“I assure you, ma’am,” said Wilkes, “it grieves me very much to see

honest working men, or sober servants out of place, come here to be

mixed up with rogues and vagabonds.”

“But they are all indigent alike,” observed Mr. Nugent, “or your honest

labourers would not have to come here.”

“All indigent, certainly, sir; but not all alike. We have had cottagers

here for a time, after losing cows and pigs by accident; and even little

farmers after a fire on their premises; and labourers, when many

hundreds were turned off at once from the public works. Now, this sort

of indigence is very different from that which springs out of vice.”

“It seems to me,” said Miss Burke, “that as wide a distinction ought to

be made between temporary and lasting indigence, and between innocent

and guilty indigence, within the workhouse, as between poverty and

indigence out of it; and as the numbers are, I believe, very unequal, I

should think it might easily be done. I suppose, Mr. Wilkes, those who

require permanent support, the invalids and the thoroughly depraved, are

few in comparison with those who come in and go out again after a time.”

“Very few indeed, ma’am. Mr. Nugent knows that our numbers are for ever

varying. One year we may have seven hundred in the house, and another

year not so much as three hundred. It seems to me the surest way of

making the industrious into vagabonds, and the sober into rogues, to mix

them all up together; to say nothing of the corruption to the children.”

“I heard the other day,” said Mr. Nugent, “that few of the children who

have been brought up here turn out well. But it can’t be helped, madam.

The plan of out-door pay must have its limits, and our building a new

house for the moral or immoral, is out of the question in the present

state of the funds. The rate has increased fearfully of late, as your

brother will tell you. I confess I do not see what is to become of the

system altogether, if we go on as we have been doing for the last five

years.”

Miss Burke observed that she was far from wishing to urge any new

expenses. She rather believed that much money would be saved by enabling

the industrious to pursue their employments undisturbed, and by keeping

the young and well-disposed out of the contagion of bad example. She

pointed out the case of Susan as one of great hardship, and that of

little Jane as one of much danger. Wilkes confirmed the fact of Susan

being a good girl, and a well-qualified servant, and told that the other

woman had been discharged from various services for theft and other

crimes.

Mr. Nugent who, in the midst of his talk about improvement, disliked

trouble and innovation, related that an attempt at classification had

once been made by building a wall across the yard, to separate the men

and women; but that the wall had been pulled down in a riot of the

paupers, after which it was considered too formidable an undertaking to

rebuild it.

Miss Burke thought, on her way home, that classification must begin

among the guardians of the poor, before much reformation could be looked

for. The intrepid and active among the gentlemen, if separated from the

fearful and indolent, might carry the day against the ill-conducted

paupers; but such a result was scarcely to be hoped while the termagant

Mrs. Wilkes monopolized all authority within the walls, and the majority

of the guardians insisted on the let-alone plan of policy being pursued;

a plan under which everything was let alone but the rates, which

increased formidably from year to year.

---------------------

CHAPTER III.

TEA AND TALK.

Mr. Burke came in earlier than usual this evening, the first time since

his sister’s return that he could enjoy her society in peace. When he

arrived wet and chilly from a stormy ride, and found a little fire, just

enough for a rainy summer’s evening, burning brightly in the grate, the

tea apparatus prepared, his slippers set ready, his study gown awaiting

him, and a pile of new medical books laid within reach, as if to offer

him the choice of reading or conversation, he wished within himself that

Louisa would leave home no more till he was married, if that time should

ever come. This wish was pardonable; for he was, to use his own

expression, so accustomed to be spoiled by his sister that he scarcely

knew what comfort was while she was away.

“Any notes or messages for me, Louisa?” he inquired, before resigning

himself to his domestic luxuries.

“Alas, yes!” she replied, handing him two or three from their appointed

receptacle.

“These will all do to-morrow,” he cried; “so make tea while I change my

coat.” A direction which was gladly obeyed. On his return he flung the

books on a distant table, stretched himself out with feet on fender,

coaxed his dog with one hand, and stirred his steaming cup with the

other.

“I wish I were a clergyman,” were his first words.

“To have parsonage comforts without getting wet through in earning them,

I suppose,” said Louisa, laughing.

“You are far from the mark, Louisa.”

Louisa made many guesses, all wrong, about capricious patients,

provoking consulting physicians, unpaid bills, jealous competitors, and

other causes of annoyance.

“No, no, dear. It is a deeper matter than any of these. The greatest

question now moving in the world is, ‘What is charity?’”

“Alas, yes! And who can answer it? Johnson gave a deficient answer, and

Paley a wrong one; and who can wonder that multitudes make mistakes

after them?”

“A clergyman, Louisa, a wise clergyman who discerns times and seasons,

may set many right; and God knows how many need it! He will not follow

up a text from Paul with a definition from Johnson and an exhortation

from Paley. He will not suppose because charity once meant alms-giving

that it means it still; or that a kind-hearted man must be right in

thinking kindness of heart all-sufficient, whether its manifestation be

injurious or beneficial. He will not recommend keeping the heart soft by

giving green gooseberries to a griped child,—as he might fairly do if he

carried out Paley’s principle to its extent.”

“A professional illustration,” replied Louisa. “You want me to carry it

on unto the better charity of giving the child bitter medicine. But,

brother, let the clergyman preach as wisely and benignantly as he may,

why should you envy him? Cannot you, do not you, preach as eloquently by

example?”

“That is the very thing,” replied her brother. “I am afraid my example

preaches against my principles.—O, dear, if it was but as easy to know

how to do right as to do it!”

“What can have wounded your conscience to-day?” replied Louisa. “You are

generally as ready in applying principles as decided in acting upon

them. What can have placed you in a new position since morning?”

“Nothing: but my eyes are more opened to that in which I already stood;

and really, Louisa, it is a very questionable one. I will tell you.—I am

a medical officer of various charities which would be good if benevolent

intention and careful management could make them so, but of the tendency

of which I think very ill. The question is whether I am not doing more

harm than good by officiating at the Dispensary and Lying-in Hospital,

while it is clear to me that the absence of these charities would be an

absence of evil to society?”

“You must remember, brother, that your secession would have no other

effect than to put another medical officer in your place. I am afraid

you are not yet of consequence enough,” laughing, “to show that these

institutions must stand or fall with you.”

“That argument of yours, Louisa, has done long and good service to many

a bad cause. I can allow it no more weight with me than with a

discontented Catholic in good old Luther’s days. No; my plea to my own

doubts has hitherto been that my office gave me the opportunity of

promoting my own views both among the benefactors and the poor; but I

begin to think I may do so much more effectually by resigning my office

in those charities which I consider to be doing harm, openly stating my

reasons, of course.”

“Have you long meditated this, brother?”

“Yes, for several months; but a particular circumstance has roused my

attention to-day. These anniversary times always disgust me,—these

stated periods for lauding the benevolent and exhibiting the benefited.

I am sure the annual dinner would be better attended by the subscribers

to the Dispensary, for instance, if the custom of parading round the

room as many of the patients as could be got hold of were discontinued.

But it is the matter of fact of the Report, and the way in which it is

viewed by the patrons, that has startled me to-day. I was referred to,

as usual, by the secretary and one or two more for information

respecting certain classes of patients, and I was shown the Report which

is to be read after dinner to-morrow. You will scarcely guess what is

the principal topic of congratulation in it.”

“That Lord B—— takes the chair to-morrow, perhaps? Now, do not look

angry, but let me guess again. That the subscriptions have increased?”

“Aim in an opposite direction, and you will hit it.”

“That the funds are insufficient? Can this be it?”

“Just so. The number of patients has increased so much, that a further

appeal is made to the public in behalf of this admirable charity, which

has this year relieved just double the number it relieved ten years

ago.”

“I thought,” said Louisa, “that its primary recommendation, ten years

ago, was that it was to lessen the amount of sickness among the poor.”

“True,” replied her brother; “and upon this understanding many

subscribed who are now rejoicing over the numbers of the sick. If the

plague were to visit us, they might see the matter in its right light.

They would scarcely rejoice that five hundred more were brought to the

pest-house daily.”

“But how comes the increase?” inquired Louisa. “I understand it in the

case of the Lying-in Charity, which seems to me the worst in existence,

except perhaps foundling hospitals; but this is different——”

“From all other institutions, it is to be hoped,” interrupted her

brother. “It is dreadful to see the numbers of poor women disappointed

of a reception at the last moment, and totally unprovided. The more are

admitted, the more are thus disappointed; and those who are relieved

quit the hospital in a miserable state of destitution.”

“Probably, brother. What else could be expected under so direct a bounty

on improvidence—under so high a premium on population? But how do you

imagine the number of sick increases so fast? Are your Dispensary

patients in due proportion to the general increase of numbers in the

place?”

“Alas, no! They are much more numerous. Not only do numbers increase

very rapidly; but from their increasing beyond the means of comfortable

subsistence, the people are subject to a multitude of diseases arising

from hardship alone. It would make your heart ache if I were to tell you

how large a proportion of my Dispensary patients are children born puny

from the destitution of their parents, or weakly boys and girls, stunted

by bad nursing, or women who want rest and warmth more than medicine, or

men whom I can never cure until they are provided with better food.”

“How you must wish sometimes that your surgery was stocked with coals

and butcher’s meat!”

“If it were, Louisa, the evil would only be increased, provided this

sort of medicine were given gratis, like my drugs. There is harm enough

done by the poor taking for granted that they are to be supplied with

medicine and advice gratis all their lives: the evil is increasing every

day by their looking on assistance in child-birth as their due; and if

they learn to expect food and warmth in like manner, their misery will

be complete.”

“But what can we do, brother? Distress exists: no immediate remedy is in

the hands of the poor themselves. What can be done?”

“These are difficulties, Louisa, which dog the heels of all bad

institutions.—We must do this. We must make the best of a vast amount of

present misery, thankful that we see at length the error of having

caused it. We must steadily refuse to increase it, and employ all the

energies of thinking heads and benevolent hearts in preventing its

recurrence, and shortening to the utmost its duration. Here is ample

scope for all the tenderness of sensibility which moralists would

encourage, and for all the wisdom which can alone convert that

tenderness into true charity.”

“What should be our first step, brother?”

“To ascertain clearly the problem which we are to solve. The grand

question seems to me to be this—_How to reduce the number of the

indigent?_ which includes, of course, the question, How to prevent the

poor becoming indigent?”

“If this had been the problem originally proposed, brother, there would

have been little indigence now: but formerly people looked no further

than the immediate relief of distress, and thought the reality of the

misery a sufficient warrant for alms-giving.”

“And what is the consequence, Louisa? Just this: that the funds raised

for the relief of pauperism in this country exceed threefold the total

revenues of Sweden and Denmark. Aye; our charitable fund exceeds the

whole revenue of Spain; and yet distress is more prevalent than ever,

and goes on to increase every year. The failure of British benevolence,

vast as it is in amount, has hitherto been complete; and all for want of

right direction.”

“Well, brother, how would you direct it? How would you set about

_lessening the number of the indigent_?”

“I would aim at two objects: increasing the fund on which labourers

subsist, and proportioning their numbers to this fund.—For the first of

these purposes, not only should the usual means of increasing capital be

actively plied, but the immense amount which is now unproductively

consumed by the indigent should be applied to purposes of production.

This cannot be done suddenly; but it should be done intrepidly,

steadily, and at a gradually increasing rate. This would have the

effect, at the same time, of fulfilling the other important object,—that

of limiting the number of consumers to a due proportion to the fund on

which they subsist.”

“You would gradually abolish all charitable institutions then——O no! not

all. There are some that neither lessen capital nor increase population.

You would let such remain.”

“There are some which I would extend as vigorously and perseveringly as

possible; viz. all which have the enlightenment of the people for their

object. Schools should be multiplied and improved without any other

limit than the number and capabilities of the people.”

“What! all schools? Schools where maintenance is given as well as

education?”

“The maintenance part of the plan should be dropped, and the instruction

remain.”

“But, brother, if one great evil of gratuitous assistance is that the

poor become dependent upon a false support, does not this apply in the

case of a gratuitous education?”

“The time will come, I trust, Louisa, when the poorer classes will

provide wholly for themselves and their families; but at present we must

be content with making them provide what is essential to existence. To

enable them to do this, they must be educated; and as education is not

essential to existence, we may fairly offer it gratis till they have

learned to consider it indispensable. Even now, I would have all those

pay something for the education of their children who can; but let all

be educated, whether they pay or not.”

“The blind, and the deaf and dumb, I suppose, among others?”

“Yes; and in these cases I would allow of maintenance also, since the

unproductive consumption of capital in these cases is so small as to be

imperceptible, and such relief does not act as a premium upon

population. A man will scarcely be in any degree induced to marry by the

prospect of his blind or deaf children being taken off his hands, as the

chances are ten thousand to one against any of his offspring being thus

infirm. Such relief should be given till there are none to claim it.”

“I heard the other day, brother, of a marriage taking place between a

blind man and woman in the asylum at X——.”

“Indeed! If anything could make me put these institutions on my

proscribed list, it would be such a fact as that. The man could play the

organ, and the woman knit, and make sash-line, I suppose?”

“Just so; and they could each do several other things, but, of course,

not those common offices which are essential to the rearing of a family.

It struck me immediately as a crime against society. Well—what other

charities should stand?”

“Whatever else I resign, Louisa, I shall retain my office at the

Casualty Hospital. I hope this kind of relief will be dispensed with in

a future age; but the people are not yet in a condition to provide

against the fractures, wounds and bruises which befall them in following

their occupations. This institution may rank with Blind Asylums.”

“And what do you think of alms-houses for the aged?”

“That they are very bad things. Only consider the numbers of young

people that marry under the expectation of getting their helpless

parents maintained by the public! There are cases of peculiar hardship,

through deprivation of natural protection, where the aged should be

taken care of by the public. But the instances are very rare where old

people have no relations; and it should be as universal a rule that

working men should support their parents, as that they should support

their children. If this rule were allowed, we might see some revival of

that genial spirit of charity and social duty among the poor, whose

extinction we are apt to mourn, without reflecting that we ourselves

have caused it by the injudicious direction of our own benevolence.—This

reminds me of the Bridgemans. Mark how those poor children are disposed

of. Two are taken care of by distant relations who have never in their

lives accepted charity, except the schooling of their children. A nearer

relation, who has, to my knowledge, uselessly consumed many a pound of

the charitable fund, sends the other two to the workhouse.”

“A case very appropriate to what you have been saying, brother. But how

is poor Sally? Can nothing save her sight?”

“Nothing, I fear. I have already spoken of her case to several governors

of the Blind Asylum, where I hope she may be received on the first

vacancy. The Marshalls are too sensible, I am sure, not to see the

advantage of getting her placed there; and it may be the means of

releasing one of the others from the workhouse.”

Louisa now related her morning’s adventures. Her brother smiled as he

warned her that she would, no doubt, be pronounced an eccentric young

woman by Mr. Nugent, and declared that he thought her in the way to be

admirably disciplined, between the railings of Mrs. Wilkes, the rude

wonder of the paupers, and the more refined speculations of those who

had different notions of charity from herself.

Louisa considered that an important constituent of charity was its

capability of “bearing all things.” She blushed while she described to

her best friend the little trials she was exposed to in her attempts to

do good. Abuse from beggars she little regarded, as it was the portion

of all who passed along the streets of this ill-regulated city without

giving alms; much harder things to bear were the astonishment of her

fellow-members of the school committee at her refusing to sanction large

gifts of clothing to the children; the glances of the visitors of the

soup and blanket charities, when she declined subscribing and yielding

her services; and, above all, the observations of relatives whom she

respected, and old friends whom she loved, on the hardness of heart and

laxity of principle shown by those who thought and acted as she did.

“Laxity of principle!” exclaimed her brother. “That is a singular charge

to bring in such a case;—as if less vigour of principle was required to

reflect on the wisest, and to adopt unusual, methods of doing good than

to let kindly emotions run in the ruts of ancient institutions! I should

say that the vigour of principle is on your side.”

“Better make no decision about it, brother. It is not the province of

charity to meddle with motives, whatever its real province may be.—But

about your medical offices;—it seems to me that you must resign them,

thinking as you do.”

“And then what a hard-hearted, brutal fellow I shall be thought,” said

her brother, smiling.

“No, no: only an oddity. But the speculations upon you may prove good

for the cause of charity.”

“It shall be done, Louisa; and that as soon as we have determined on the

best manner. I shall give up the Dispensary and the Lying-in Charity,

and keep the Casualty Hospital. As for the Workhouse Infirmary——”

“Aye; I was wondering what you would say to that.”

“I like it no better, but considerably worse, than many others; but it

stands on a different footing, inasmuch as it is established by law; and

it seems to me that I must follow other methods of abolition than that

of withdrawing my services. There is no place of appeal for such an act,

as there is in the case of a voluntary charity.”

“There is little enough that is voluntary in this case, to be sure,

brother. Such complaints about the rate from the payers! Such an

assertion on the part of the poor of their right to a maintenance by the

state! Whence arises this right?”

“I do not admit it,” replied her brother. “Those who do admit it, differ

respecting its origin. Some assert the right of every individual born

into any community to a maintenance from the state; regarding the state

and its members as holding the relation of parent and children. This

seems to me altogether a fallacy;—originating in benevolent feelings, no

doubt, but supported only by a false analogy. The state cannot control

the number of its members, nor increase, at its will, the

subsistence-fund; and, therefore, if it engaged to support all the

members that might be born to it, it would engage for more than it might

have the power to perform.—Others, who admit this in the abstract, plead

for the right of the indigent of Great Britain to a maintenance from the

state, on the ground of the disabilities to which the poor are

peculiarly liable in this country, from the aristocratic nature of some

of our institutions, the oppressive amount of taxation, and its pressure

upon the lower classes. I admit a claim to relief here; but the relief

should not be given, even could it be effectual, in the shape of an

arbitrary institution like that of our pauper system. The only

appropriate relief is to be found in the removal of the grievances

complained of; in the modification of certain of our institutions; in

the lightening, and, yet more, in the equalization of taxation.—Mark

what a state we have arrived at from our mistaken recognition of this

_right_ to support! Though the subsistence-fund has increased at a rapid

rate within a hundred years, through the improvements introduced by art

and civilization, the poor-rate has, in that time, increased from five

or six hundred thousand pounds a year to upwards of eight millions!”

“Some say,” observed his sister, “that it is not the recognition of the

right which has caused the mischief, but the imperfect fulfilment of the

original law. You know better than I whether this is true.”

“It is clear,” replied her brother, “that neither the letter nor the

spirit of the original law was adhered to; but it is also clear that, in

that law, the state promised more than it could perform. Did you ever

read the famous clause of the famous 43d of Elizabeth? No? There lies

Blackstone. I will show it you.”

“But first tell me what state the poor were in when that act was

passed.”

“For the credit of Elizabeth’s government, it is certainly necessary to

premise what you inquire about.—From the year 597, that is, from Pope

Gregory’s time, tithes paid to the clergy were expressly directed to be

divided into four parts, as Blackstone here tells us, you see; one part

for the bishops, one for the clergyman, incumbent, or parson; one for

repairing and keeping up the church; and one for the maintenance of the

poor.”

“But do the clergy pay a fourth part of their tithes to the poor?”

“O no,” replied her brother, laughing. “That troublesome order was got

rid of many hundred years ago; and so was the clause respecting the

share of the bishops; so that tithes became, in a short time, a very

pretty consideration. Well; though some notice of the poor was

occasionally taken by the legislature, no complaints of their state made

much noise till Henry VIII. suppressed the monasteries. These

monasteries had supported crowds of idle poor, who were now turned loose

upon the country; and with them a multitude of vagabond monks, who were

a nuisance to the whole kingdom. It became necessary to stop the

roaming, begging, and thieving, which went on to the dismay and injury

of all honest people; and for this purpose, the famous act of Elizabeth

was framed. This statute enacts, ‘That the churchwardens and overseers

shall take order, from time to time, (with the consent of two or more

justices,) for setting to work the children of all such whose parents

shall not be thought able to keep and maintain their children; and also

for setting to work all such persons, married or unmarried, having no

means to maintain them, and using no ordinary or daily trade to get

their living by; and also to raise, by taxation, &c., a convenient stock

of flax, to set the poor on work; and also competent sums of money for

and towards the necessary relief of the lame, impotent, old, blind, and

such other among them, being poor and not able to work.’ You see how

this is aimed at vagabonds as well as designed for the impotent. Many a

monkish bosom, no doubt, heaved a sigh at the mention of ‘a convenient

stock of flax’.”

“Surely, brother,” said Louisa, “the state promises by this act just

what you said no state could fairly promise, without having the control

of its numbers; it promises to support all its indigent members.”

“It does; and it promises another thing equally impossible of

fulfilment. Here is an engagement to find employment for all who would

not or could not procure it for themselves. Now, as the employment of

labour must depend on the amount of the subsistence-fund, no law on

earth can enforce the employment of more labour than that fund can

support.”

“Then this promise has not been fulfilled, I suppose?”

“Many attempts have been made to fulfil it, all of which have had the

effect of diverting industry from its natural channel, and taking the

occupation of the independent labourer out of his hands to put it into

that of the pauper. This is so ruinous an operation, that the wonder is

how the pauper system has failed to swallow up all our resources, and

make us a nation of paupers.”

“In which case,” observed Louisa, “the state would be found to have

engaged to maintain itself in a pauper condition. What a blunder!

Twenty-four millions of paupers are bound by law to maintain twenty-four

millions of paupers!”

“This is the condition we shall infallibly be brought to, Louisa, unless

we take speedy means to stop ourselves. We are rolling down faster and

faster towards the gulf, and two of our three estates, Lords and

Commons, have declared that we shall soon be in it;—that in a few more

years the profits of all kind of property will be absorbed by the

increasing rates, and capital will therefore cease to be invested; land

will be let out of cultivation, manufactures will be discontinued,

commerce will cease, and the nation become a vast congregation of

paupers.”

“Dreadful! brother. How can we all go quietly about our daily business

with such a prospect before us?”

“A large proportion of the nation knows little about the matter; some

hope that fate, or Providence, or something will interfere to save us;

others think that it is no business of theirs; and those whose business

it is are at a loss what to do.”

“But how long has there been so much cause for alarm?”

“Only within a few years. Thanks to the ungracious mode of executing the

law, it effected less mischief during a century and a half than might

have been anticipated. When persons could be relieved only in their own

parishes, and when that relief was given in a manner which exposed the

applicant to a feeling of degradation among his neighbours, few asked

relief who could by any means subsist without it. Workhouses, too, were

regarded as odious places, and to the workhouse paupers must go, in

those days, if out of employ; and all who had any sense of comfort or

decency delayed to the very last moment classing themselves with

paupers. So that, up to 1795, the state was less burdened with pauperism

than, from the bad system it had adopted, it deserved.”

“What makes you fix that precise date?”

“Because in that year a change took place in the administration of the

poor-laws, which has altered the state of the country disastrously.

There was a scarcity that season, and consequently much difficulty with

our paupers, among whom now appeared not only the helpless, but

able-bodied, industrious men, who could no longer maintain their

families. It was most unfortunately agreed by the county magistrates,

first of Berkshire, and afterwards of other parts of the middle and

south of England, that such and such ought to be and should henceforth

be the weekly income of the labouring poor; and a table was published

exhibiting the proportions of this income according to the size of

families and the price of bread.”

“But how could that mend the matter?” exclaimed Louisa. “These

magistrates and the public could not increase the quantity of bread, and

where was the use then of giving money? It was merely taking bread from

those who had earned it, to give it to those who had not.”

“Just so; but these magistrates did not happen to view the matter as you

do; and we have great cause to rue their short-sightedness.—Mark how the

system has worked!—All labourers are given to understand that they ought

to have a gallon loaf of wheaten bread weekly for each member of their

families, and one over; that is, three loaves for two people, and eleven

for ten. John comes and says that his wife and four children and himself

must have seven loaves, costing twelve shillings; but that he can earn

only nine shillings. As a matter of course, three shillings are given

him from the parish.—Next comes Will. He has a wife and six children,

and must have nine loaves, or fourteen shillings and eightpence. He

earns ten shillings, and receives the rest from the parish. Hal is a

vagabond whom no capitalist will admit within his gates. Work is out of

the question; but his family must be fed, and want eight loaves: so the

parish pays him thirteen shillings and eightpence.”

“So that in fact,” observed Louisa, “eleven loaves are earned by these

three families, and the twelve still deficient are taken from other

earners. How very unjust! How very ruinous! But does this kind of

management still go on?”

“Universally in the agricultural counties, with such slight variations

as are introduced by local circumstances.—Great allowance must be made

for the pressure of difficulties at the time when this system was

adopted; but the system itself is execrable, however well-meaning its

authors. The industry of the lower classes has been half ruined by it,

and their sense of independence almost annihilated. The public burdens

have become well nigh overwhelming; and the proportion of supply and

demand in all the departments of industry is so deranged that there is

no saying when it can be rectified.”

“It is rather hard upon the poor,” observed Louisa, “that we should

complain of their improvidence when we bribe them to it by promising

subsistence at all events. Paupers will spend and marry faster than

their betters as long as this system lasts.”

“It makes one indignant to see it,” replied her brother. “I am now

attending an industrious young man, a shopkeeper, who has been attached

for years, but will not marry till his circumstances justify it. He has

paid more to the rates every year; and half a dozen vagabond paupers

have married in his parish during the time that he has been waiting.”

“All these things, brother, bring us round to the question, what are we

to do?”

“You must enlighten the children in your school, and all the poor you

have any influence over, Louisa. As for me,—it is unnecessary to open my

lips upon it to my country patients, for I seldom enter a farmhouse

without hearing complaints of the system. But our towns are too quiet

about the matter. General, calm, enlightened deliberation is required,

and that without loss of time.—I am prepared with testimony respecting

the increase of sickness and mortality which accompanies the

augmentation of the poor-rate. Most happy should I be to have the

opportunity of delivering it.”

“Our wise men,” said Louisa, “must start afresh the old question, and

the nation must gather round them to be taught anew, ‘_What is

Charity?_’”

---------------------

CHAPTER IV.

PAUPER LIFE.

No one could pass the gates of the workhouse on pay-day without seeing

how much misery existed among the claimants of out-door relief; but few

could guess, without following these applicants to their homes, how much

guilt attended, not only their poverty, but the advancement of their

claims;—guilt which would never have been dreamed of unless suggested

and encouraged by a system which destroys the natural connexion between

labour and its rewards.

Mrs. Bell’s husband was now out of work, after having earned and

regularly spent twenty-five shillings a week for many months. His third

child had died after a long illness, and one which had proved expensive

to the parish, from whence this family now derived four and sixpence a

week. Mrs. Bell, who always went herself to receive the weekly

allowance, lest her husband, through his dislike of the business, should

not “manage it cleverly,” took credit to herself for having given notice

that the doctor need not take any more trouble about her poor boy, as he

was past hope and nothing more could be done for him; but she omitted to

state the reason of his being past hope, (viz., that he was dead,)

because it would have been inconvenient to give up the allowance

received on his account. So no doctor came to ask awkward questions, and

the money was a great comfort indeed. Mrs. Bell had truly managed the

whole matter very “cleverly.” She got another blanket, even out of due

season, because the boy was apt to be cold at night. The Sick Poor

Society allowed her a certain sum weekly as long as the child lived; and

two or three kind neighbours gave her leave to call at their houses when

they had a wholesome joint for dinner, to carry away a slice and

vegetables for the patient; and if all these desired her to call on the

same day, she managed to borrow a couple of basins and obey directions;

for though the patient could not eat three dinners at a time, nor

perhaps even one, there were others in the house who liked savoury meat,

and it was only returning their thanks for the “nourishing cordial” in

poor Bob’s name. Then came the lamentations over the impossibility of

burying him decently, and the thanksgivings for a half-crown here and

there for the purpose; and then hints about any old rag of black, and

the pain to maternal feelings of having no mourning for so dear a child;

and the tears at sight of the black stuff gown, and the black silk

bonnet, and the black cotton shawl,—all so much too good for her before

they were put into her hands, but pronounced rusty, rotten old rubbish

when surveyed at home. Then came the commands to the children to say

nothing about Bob unless they were asked, and the jealousy of that

prying, malicious old widow Pine, who peeped through her lattice a full

hour before she should properly have awaked, and just in time to see the

coffin carried out of the yard. Lastly came the subtraction of poor

Bob’s parish allowance from the rest before the money was delivered into

her husband’s hand. The early waking of widow Pine, and the use she

might make of what she saw, no mortal could prevent; but all that

devolved upon herself, Mrs. Bell flattered herself that she had “managed

very cleverly.”

One day when she was going to the workhouse for her allowance, her

husband accompanied her part of the way. Widow Pine was before them in

the street, stepping feebly along, supported by a stick in one hand and

by the wall on the other side.

“She’ll trip over the tatters of her gown,” exclaimed Bell. “Poor old

soul! she is not fit to walk the streets,—bent double, and ready to be

knocked down by the first push. She will not trouble the parish long.”

“She will die in the streets,” replied his wife, “and with bad words in

her mouth. She is for ever prying about people’s affairs, and saying

malicious things of her neighbours. The old hypocrite! she sits

see-sawing herself, and drawling hymns while she combs her grey hair

that never was cut, and all the while pricking up her ears for scandal.”

“You and she never had much love to lose,” replied Bell, obeying his

wife’s motion to cross the street to avoid passing at the widow’s elbow.

She saw them, however, and sent her well-known piping after them,

striking the pavement with her stick, to attract the notice of the

passers by.

“I wish you joy of your blue gown, Mrs. Bell! ’Tis no great thing to

lose a child that comes to life again every parish pay-day!”

“Never mind the old wretch,” said Bell. “By the by, I have observed you

put off your black sometimes. What is it for?”

“The officers are so quick-sighted about a new gown. They might take off

some pay if they knew I had a friend that would give me a gown; and it

really is a rag not worth disputing about.”

The husband was satisfied, but much annoyed with the abuse that came

from over the way.

“I’ll crush you, yet!” railed the old woman. “I can, and I will, such a

pack of knaves and liars as you are! You’ll soon hear from the parish, I

warrant you! You’ll soon be posted for cheats!”

“I say, goody, hold your foul tongue, or I’ll correct you as you little

think for,” said Bell.

“You! what harm can you do me, I wonder?—you that are lost, and I a holy

person.”

“A holy person! How do you mean holy?” asked Bell, laughing.

“How do you mean holy! Why, sure of heaven, to be sure. I’m sure of

heaven, I tell you, and you are lost! God has given me nothing else, for

a miserable life I’ve had of it; but he has given me grace, and is not

that enough?”

“You must keep it close locked up somewhere, for never a one found out

you had it,” said Mrs. Bell. “I doubt the Talbots that have been so kind

to you have never seen much of your grace.”

“Kind to me! The proud, mean, slandering folks! You little know the

Talbots if you think they can be generous to anybody. They’ll meet you

hereafter when I shall be in a better place!”

“That is pretty well,” said Bell, “when you have had bed and board,

clothes and comfort, from that family from your youth up. Suppose I tell

them what you say, neighbour.”

“As you please. It is only what I have told them myself. I shall look to

hear you curse them soon, Mrs. Bell, for they have been told how you

take parish money for your dead child. So you got a blanket to keep the

boy warm? He is in a hot place now,—a little unregenerate devil as he

was! If he was not to be saved, you are well off to be rid of him so

soon.”

The husband and wife quickened their pace till they got out of hearing,

the one full of disgust, the other of the fear of detection. She was

anxious to receive her money before the widow should arrive; but there

was already such a crowd about the gates that she saw she must wait long

for her turn.

Two of the paupers had secured a seat on the door-step of an opposite

house: the one, a well-known beggar, whose occupation had never been

effectually interfered with by the police; the other, a young man, who

was jeered at as a stranger by some who weekly resorted to this place.

One gave him joy of his admission to the pauper brotherhood; another

asked how he liked waiting on the great; a third observed that he could

not judge till he had waited two hours in the snow of a winter’s noon.