however comfortable otherwise. They were forbidden, or at all events
lacked the means, to follow out their natural instinct of adorning
themselves; all were well dressed in one homely uniform of blue-checked
gowns, with such caps upon their heads as English servants wear.
Generally, too, they had one dowdy English aspect, and a vulgar type of
features so nearly alike that they seemed literally to constitute a
sisterhood. We have few of these absolutely unilluminated faces among
our native American population, individuals of whom must be singularly
unfortunate, if, mixing as we do, no drop of gentle blood has
contributed to refine the turbid element, no gleam of hereditary
intelligence has lighted up the stolid eyes, which their forefathers
brought from the Old Country. Even in this English almshouse, however,
there was at least one person who claimed to be intimately connected
with rank and wealth. The governor, after suggesting that this person
would probably be gratified by our visit, ushered us into a small
parlor, which was furnished a little more like a room in a private
dwelling than others that we entered, and had a row of religious books
and fashionable novels on the mantelpiece. An old lady sat at a bright
coal-fire, reading a romance, and rose to receive us with a certain
pomp of manner and elaborate display of ceremonious courtesy, which, in
spite of myself, made me inwardly question the genuineness of her
aristocratic pretensions. But, at any rate, she looked like a
respectable old soul, and was evidently gladdened to the very core of
her frost-bitten heart by the awful punctiliousness with which we
responded to her gracious and hospitable, though unfamiliar welcome.
After a little polite conversation, we retired; and the governor, with a
lowered voice and an air of deference, told us that she had been a lady
of quality, and had ridden in her own equipage, not many years before,
and now lived in continual expectation that some of her rich relatives
would drive up in their carriages to take her away. Meanwhile, he added,
she was treated with great respect by her fellow-paupers. I could not
help thinking, from a few criticisable peculiarities in her talk and
manner, that there might have been a mistake on the governor's part, and
perhaps a venial exaggeration on the old lady's, concerning her former
position in society; but what struck me was the forcible instance of
that most prevalent of English vanities, the pretension to aristocratic
connection, on one side, and the submission and reverence with which it
was accepted by the governor and his household, on the other. Among
ourselves, I think, when wealth and eminent position have taken their
departure, they seldom leave a pallid ghost behind them,--or, if it
sometimes stalks abroad, few recognize it.
We went into several other rooms, at the doors of which, pausing on the
outside, we could hear the volubility, and sometimes the wrangling, of
the female inhabitants within, but invariably found silence and peace
when we stepped over the threshold. The women were grouped together in
their sitting-rooms, sometimes three or four, sometimes a larger number,
classified by their spontaneous affinities, I suppose, and all busied,
so far as I can remember, with the one occupation of knitting coarse
yarn stockings. Hardly any of them, I am sorry to say, had a brisk or
cheerful air, though it often stirred them up to a momentary vivacity to
be accosted by the governor, and they seemed to like being noticed,
however slightly, by the visitors. The happiest person whom I saw there
(and running hastily through my experiences, I hardly recollect to have
seen a happier one in my life, if you take a careless flow of spirits
as happiness) was an old woman that lay in bed among ten or twelve
heavy-looking females, who plied their knitting-work round about her.
She laughed, when we entered, and immediately began to talk to us, in a
thin, little, spirited quaver, claiming to be more than a century old;
and the governor (in whatever way he happened to be cognizant of the
fact) confirmed her age to be a hundred and four. Her jauntiness and
cackling merriment were really wonderful. It was as if she had got
through with all her actual business in life two or three generations
ago, and now, freed from every responsibility for herself or others, had
only to keep up a mirthful state of mind till the short time, or long
time (and, happy as she was, she appeared not to care whether it were
long or short), before Death, who had misplaced her name in his list,
might remember to take her away. She had gone quite round the circle of
human existence, and come back to the play-ground again. And so she had
grown to be a kind of miraculous old pet, the plaything of people
seventy or eighty years younger than herself, who talked and laughed
with her as if she were a child, finding great delight in her wayward
and strangely playful responses, into some of which she cunningly
conveyed a gibe that caused their ears to tingle a little. She had done
getting out of bed in this world, and lay there to be waited upon like a
queen or a baby.
In the same room sat a pauper who had once been an actress of
considerable repute, but was compelled to give up her profession by a
softening of the brain. The disease seemed to have stolen the continuity
out of her life, and disturbed all healthy relationship between the
thoughts within her and the world without. On our first entrance, she
looked cheerfully at us, and showed herself ready to engage in
conversation; but suddenly, while we were talking with the century-old
crone, the poor actress began to weep, contorting her face with
extravagant stage-grimaces, and wringing her hands for some inscrutable
sorrow. It might have been a reminiscence of actual calamity in her past
life, or, quite as probably, it was but a dramatic woe, beneath which
she had staggered and shrieked and wrung her hands with hundreds of
repetitions in the sight of crowded theatres, and been as often
comforted by thunders of applause. But my idea of the mystery was, that
she had a sense of wrong in seeing the aged woman (whose empty vivacity
was like the rattling of dry peas in a bladder) chosen as the central
object of interest to the visitors, while she herself, who had agitated
thousands of hearts with a breath, sat starving for the admiration that
was her natural food. I appeal to the whole society of artists of the
Beautiful and the Imaginative,--poets, romancers, painters, sculptors,
actors,--whether or no this is a grief that may be felt even amid the
torpor of a dissolving brain!
We looked into a good many sleeping-chambers, where were rows of beds,
mostly calculated for two occupants, and provided with sheets and
pillow-cases that resembled sackcloth. It appeared to me that the sense
of beauty was insufficiently regarded in all the arrangements of the
almshouse; a little cheap luxury for the eye, at least, might do the
poor folks a substantial good. But, at all events, there was the beauty
of perfect neatness and orderliness, which, being heretofore known to
few of them, was perhaps as much as they could well digest in the
remnant of their lives. We were invited into the laundry, where a great
washing and drying were in process, the whole atmosphere being hot and
vaporous with the steam of wet garments and bedclothes. This atmosphere
was the pauper-life of the past week or fortnight resolved into a
gaseous state, and breathing it, however fastidiously, we were forced to
inhale the strange element into our inmost being. Had the Queen been
there, I know not how she could have escaped the necessity. What an
intimate brotherhood is this in which we dwell, do what we may to put an
artificial remoteness between the high creature and the low one! A poor
man's breath, borne on the vehicle of tobacco-smoke, floats into a
palace-window and reaches the nostrils of a monarch. It is but an
example, obvious to the sense, of the innumerable and secret channels by
which, at every moment of our lives, the flow and reflux of a common
humanity pervade us all. How superficial are the niceties of such as
pretend to keep aloof! Let the whole world be cleansed, or not a man or
woman of us all can be clean.
By and by we came to the ward where the children were kept, on entering
which, we saw, in the first place, several unlovely and unwholesome
little people lazily playing together in a court-yard. And here a
singular incommodity befell one member of our party. Among the children
was a wretched, pale, half-torpid little thing (about six years old,
perhaps, but I know not whether a girl or a boy), with a humor in its
eyes and face, which the governor said was the scurvy, and which
appeared to bedim its powers of vision, so that it toddled about
gropingly, as if in quest of it did not precisely know what. This
child--this sickly, wretched, humor-eaten infant, the offspring of
unspeakable sin and sorrow, whom it must have required several
generations of guilty progenitors to render so pitiable an object as we
beheld it--immediately took an unaccountable fancy to the gentleman just
hinted at. It prowled about him like a pet kitten, rubbing against his
legs, following everywhere at his heels, pulling at his coat-tails, and,
at last, exerting all the speed that its poor limbs were capable of, got
directly before him and held forth its arms, mutely insisting on being
taken up. It said not a word, being perhaps underwitted and incapable of
prattle. But it smiled up in his face,--a sort of woful gleam was that
smile, through the sickly blotches that covered its features,--and
found means to express such a perfect confidence that it was going to be
fondled and made much of, that there was no possibility in a human heart
of balking its expectation. It was as if God had promised the poor child
this favor on behalf of that individual, and he was bound to fulfill the
contract, or else no longer call himself a man among men. Nevertheless,
it could be no easy thing for him to do, he being a person burdened with
more than an Englishman's customary reserve, shy of actual contact with
human beings, afflicted with a peculiar distaste for whatever was ugly,
and, furthermore, accustomed to that habit of observation from an
insulated standpoint which is said (but, I hope, erroneously) to have
the tendency of putting ice into the blood.
So I watched the struggle in his mind with a good deal of interest, and
am seriously of opinion that he did an heroic act, and effected more
than he dreamed of towards his final salvation, when he took up the
loathsome child and caressed it as tenderly as if he had been its
father. To be sure, we all smiled at him, at the time, but doubtless
would have acted pretty much the same in a similar stress of
circumstances. The child, at any rate, appeared to be satisfied with
his behavior; for when he had held it a considerable time, and set it
down, it still favored him with its company, keeping fast hold of his
forefinger till we reached the confines of the place. And on our return
through the court-yard, after visiting another part of the
establishment, here again was this same little Wretchedness waiting for
its victim, with a smile of joyful, and yet dull recognition about its
scabby mouth and in its rheumy eyes. No doubt, the child's mission in
reference to our friend was to remind him that he was responsible, in
his degree, for all the sufferings and misdemeanors of the world in
which he lived, and was not entitled to look upon a particle of its dark
calamity as if it were none of his concern: the offspring of a brother's
iniquity being his own blood-relation, and the guilt, likewise, a burden
on him, unless he expiated it by better deeds.[17]
[17] _February 28, 1856._ "After this, we went to the ward [West Derby
Workhouse] where the children were kept, and, on entering this, we saw,
in the first place, two or three unlovely and unwholesome little imps,
who were lazily playing together. One of them (a child about six years
old, but I know not whether girl or boy) immediately took the strangest
fancy for me. It was a wretched, pale, half-torpid little thing, with a
humor in its eyes which the governor said was the scurvy. I never saw,
till a few moments afterwards, a child that I should feel less inclined
to fondle. But this little, sickly, humor-eaten fright prowled around
me, taking hold of my skirts, following at my heels, and at last held up
its hands, smiled in my face, and, standing directly before me, insisted
on my taking it up! Not that it said a word, for I rather think it was
underwitted, and could not talk; but its face expressed such perfect
confidence that it was going to be taken up and made much of, that it
was impossible not to do it. It was as if God had promised the child
this favor on my behalf, and that I must needs fulfill the contract. I
held my undesirable burden a little while; and, after setting the child
down, it still followed me, holding two of my fingers and playing with
them, just as if it were a child of my own. It was a foundling, and out
of all human kind it chose me to be its father! We went up stairs into
another ward; and, on coming down again, there was this same child
waiting for me, with a sickly smile round its defaced mouth, and in its
dim red eyes.... I never should have forgiven myself if I had repelled
its advances."--II. 184.
All the children in this ward seemed to be invalids, and, going
upstairs, we found more of them in the same or a worse condition than
the little creature just described, with their mothers (or more probably
other women, for the infants were mostly foundlings) in attendance as
nurses. The matron of the ward, a middle-aged woman, remarkably kind and
motherly in aspect, was walking to and fro across the chamber--on that
weary journey in which careful mothers and nurses travel so continually
and so far, and gain never a step of progress--with an unquiet baby in
her arms. She assured us that she enjoyed her occupation, being
exceedingly fond of children; and, in fact, the absence of timidity in
all the little people was a sufficient proof that they could have had no
experience of harsh treatment, though, on the other hand, none of them
appeared to be attracted to one individual more than another. In this
point they differed widely from the poor child below stairs. They seemed
to recognize a universal motherhood in womankind, and cared not which
individual might be the mother of the moment. I found their tameness as
shocking as did Alexander Selkirk that of the brute subjects of his else
solitary kingdom. It was a sort of tame familiarity, a perfect
indifference to the approach of strangers, such as I never noticed in
other children. I accounted for it partly by their nerveless, unstrung
state of body, incapable of the quick thrills of delight and fear which
play upon the lively harp-strings of a healthy child's nature, and
partly by their woful lack of acquaintance with a private home, and
their being therefore destitute of the sweet home-bred shyness, which is
like the sanctity of heaven about a mother-petted child. Their condition
was like that of chickens hatched in an oven, and growing up without the
especial guardianship of a matron hen: both the chicken and the child,
methinks, must needs want something that is essential to their
respective characters.
In this chamber (which was spacious, containing a large number of beds)
there was a clear fire burning on the hearth, as in all the other
occupied rooms; and directly in front of the blaze sat a woman holding a
baby, which, beyond all reach of comparison, was the most horrible
object that ever afflicted my sight. Days afterwards--nay, even now,
when I bring it up vividly before my mind's eye--it seemed to lie upon
the floor of my heart, polluting my moral being with the sense of
something grievously amiss in the entire conditions of humanity. The
holiest man could not be otherwise than full of wickedness, the chastest
virgin seemed impure, in a world where such a babe was possible. The
governor whispered me, apart, that, like nearly all the rest of them, it
was the child of unhealthy parents. Ah, yes! There was the mischief.
This spectral infant, a hideous mockery of the visible link which Love
creates between man and woman, was born of disease and sin. Diseased Sin
was its father, and Sinful Disease its mother, and their offspring lay
in the woman's arms like a nursing Pestilence, which, could it live and
grow up, would make the world a more accursed abode than ever
heretofore. Thank Heaven, it could not live! This baby, if we must give
it that sweet name, seemed to be three or four months old, but, being
such an unthrifty changeling, might have been considerably older. It was
all covered with blotches, and preternaturally dark and discolored; it
was withered away, quite shrunken and fleshless; it breathed only amid
pantings and gaspings, and moaned painfully at every gasp. The only
comfort in reference to it was the evident impossibility of its
surviving to draw many more of those miserable, moaning breaths; and it
would have been infinitely less heart-depressing to see it die, right
before my eyes, than to depart and carry it alive in my remembrance,
still suffering the incalculable torture of its little life. I can by
no means express how horrible this infant was, neither ought I to
attempt it. And yet I must add one final touch. Young as the poor little
creature was, its pain and misery had endowed it with a premature
intelligence, insomuch that its eyes seemed to stare at the by-standers
out of their sunken sockets knowingly and appealingly, as if summoning
us one and all to witness the deadly wrong of its existence. At least, I
so interpreted its look, when it positively met and responded to my own
awe-stricken gaze, and therefore I lay the case, as far as I am able,
before mankind, on whom God has imposed the necessity to suffer in soul
and body till this dark and dreadful wrong be righted.
Thence we went to the school-rooms, which were underneath the chapel.
The pupils, like the children whom we had just seen, were, in large
proportion, foundlings. Almost without exception, they looked sickly,
with marks of eruptive trouble in their doltish faces, and a general
tendency to diseases of the eye. Moreover, the poor little wretches
appeared to be uneasy within their skins, and screwed themselves about
on the benches in a disagreeably suggestive way, as if they had
inherited the evil habits of their parents as an innermost garment of
the same texture and material as the shirt of Nessus, and must wear it
with unspeakable discomfort as long as they lived. I saw only a single
child that looked healthy; and on my pointing him out, the governor
informed me that this little boy, the sole exception to the miserable
aspect of his school-fellows, was not a foundling, nor properly a
workhouse child, being born of respectable parentage, and his father one
of the officers of the institution. As for the remainder,--the hundred
pale abortions to be counted against one rosy-cheeked boy,--what shall
we say or do? Depressed by the sight of so much misery, and uninventive
of remedies for the evils that force themselves on my perception, I can
do little more than recur to the idea already hinted at in the early
part of this article, regarding the speedy necessity of a new deluge. So
far as these children are concerned, at any rate, it would be a blessing
to the human race, which they will contribute to enervate and
corrupt,--a greater blessing to themselves, who inherit no patrimony but
disease and vice, and in whose souls, if there be a spark of God's life,
this seems the only possible mode of keeping it aglow,--if every one of
them could be drowned to-night, by their best friends, instead of being
put tenderly to bed. This heroic method of treating human maladies,
moral and material, is certainly beyond the scope of man's discretionary
rights, and probably will not be adopted by Divine Providence until the
opportunity of milder reformation shall have been offered us again and
again, through a series of future ages.
It may be fair to acknowledge that the humane and excellent governor, as
well as other persons better acquainted with the subject than myself,
took a less gloomy view of it, though still so dark a one as to involve
scanty consolation. They remarked that individuals of the male sex,
picked up in the streets and nurtured in the workhouse, sometimes
succeed tolerably well in life, because they are taught trades before
being turned into the world, and, by dint of immaculate behavior and
good luck, are not unlikely to get employment and earn a livelihood. The
case is different with the girls. They can only go to service, and are
invariably rejected by families of respectability on account of their
origin, and for the better reason of their unfitness to fill
satisfactorily even the meanest situations in a well-ordered English
household. Their resource is to take service with people only a step or
two above the poorest class, with whom they fare scantily, endure harsh
treatment, lead shifting and precarious lives, and finally drop into the
slough of evil, through which, in their best estate, they do but pick
their slimy way on stepping-stones.
From the schools we went to the bake-house, and the brew-house (for such
cruelty is not harbored in the heart of a true Englishman as to deny a
pauper his daily allowance of beer), and through the kitchens, where we
beheld an immense pot over the fire, surging and walloping with some
kind of a savory stew that filled it up to its brim. We also visited a
tailor's shop, and a shoemaker's shop, in both of which a number of men,
and pale, diminutive apprentices, were at work, diligently enough,
though seemingly with small heart in the business. Finally, the governor
ushered us into a shed, inside of which was piled up an immense quantity
of new coffins. They were of the plainest description, made of pine
boards, probably of American growth, not very nicely smoothed by the
plane, neither painted nor stained with black, but provided with a loop
of rope at either end for the convenience of lifting the rude box and
its inmate into the cart that shall carry them to the burial-ground.
There, in holes ten feet deep, the paupers are buried one above another,
mingling their relics indistinguishably. In another world may they
resume their individuality, and find it a happier one than here!
As we departed, a character came under our notice which I have met with
in all almshouses, whether of the city or village, or in England or
America. It was the familiar simpleton, who shuffled across the
court-yard, clattering his wooden-soled shoes, to greet us with a howl
or a laugh, I hardly know which, holding out his hand for a penny, and
chuckling grossly when it was given him. All underwitted persons, so far
as my experience goes, have this craving for copper coin, and appear to
estimate its value by a miraculous instinct, which is one of the
earliest gleams of human intelligence while the nobler faculties are yet
in abeyance. There may come a time, even in this world, when we shall
all understand that our tendency to the individual appropriation of gold
and broad acres, fine houses, and such good and beautiful things as are
equally enjoyable by a multitude, is but a trait of imperfectly
developed intelligence, like the simpleton's cupidity of a penny. When
that day dawns,--and probably not till then,--I imagine that there will
be no more poor streets nor need of almshouses.