---
Title: Notebook “Social cases. 1869” (1868). I: Cuttings, August to December 1868
Description: Newspaper cuttings of August–December 1868 collected by Marx: deaths of paupers, workhouse punishments, starvation inquests, a woman left to die in a Hackney police cell, the slums of Lambeth, the truck system, distress in East London, the charities of London and pauperism, and Bailey Denton on the technical education of the agricultural labourer.
Author: Karl Marx
Date: 1868
URL: https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/originales/1868%20Notebook%20%C2%ABSocial%20cases.%201869%C2%BB.%20I.%20Cuttings%2C%20August%20to%20December%201868
---


*Newspaper cuttings collected by Karl Marx in the notebook “Social cases. 1869” (IISG, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Papers, P 3), as transcribed in MEGAdigital (MEGA² IV/19). The source of each cutting, as identified by the MEGA editors, is given in the notes; the handwritten dates added by Jenny Marx (daughter) are not reproduced.[^lic] [Traducción al español](https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/1868%20Cuaderno%20%C2%ABSocial%20cases.%201869%C2%BB.%20I.%20Recortes%20de%20agosto%20a%20diciembre%20de%201868)*

## Social cases. *1869*

### *1869*

#### PLACING A PAUPER IN THE DEAD-HOUSE.[^f1]

Mary Ann Smith, a strong and healthy-looking young woman, nineteen years of age, was charged, at Greenwich Police-court on Tuesday, with refractory conduct in Rotherhithe workhouse. Mr. Aylward, the master of the workhouse, said that one of the male inmates complained of not having been served with his tea, and it being the prisoner’s duty to provide him with it, he (the master) directed her to do so, but she refused, and became very impudent, upon which he ordered her to be placed in the refractory ward. The prisoner, when asked what she had to say in defence, said the master placed her in the dead-house, and asked, “Is that a place to put any one in, where they keep the dead bodies till they are taken away to be buried? Mr. Aylward said the building in which the refractory ward was situated was being altered, and there was no other place, except the dead-house, in which to confine persons like the prisoner; but no dead bodies had been placed there for the previous ten days. Mr. Boustred, the clerk, said the prisoner had once before been charged with refractory conduct. Mr. Patterson committed her to Wandsworth Gaol for ten days.

* * *

#### PRISONERS AND PAUPERS.—[^f2]

On Monday afternoon Dr. Lankester, the coroner for Central Middlesex, held an inquest at the House of Correction, Coldbath-fields, respecting the death of John Ball, aged sixty-five, who on the 4th of August last was convicted and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with hard labour for conspiring to defraud. Deceased had been a meat salesman in Newgate-market. On account of his age he was not put to hard labour. On the 4th instant he was attacked with a fainting fit while in chapel. He was removed to the infirmary, where he died on Thursday week. Dr. Smiles, the medical officer of the prison, said deceased appeared pale, as if through loss of blood. He was given three glasses of brandy daily for a time, and then six glasses of port wine instead. He died from degeneration of the heart. He said he was a moderate drinker, but Dr. Smiles thought he must have drunk a great deal. The coroner instanced a case in which a lady and gentleman were found dead who were stated to be “moderate drinkers,” whereas they had been in the habit of drinking four pints of spirits daily—gin, whisky and brandy. The new diet of the prisoners was referred to, when Dr. Smiles said the prisoners now had suet puddings. The coroner remarked that he had often said that the prisoners required more fat with their food. He had within the last three months held two inquests in that prison out of an average of 1,700 prisoners. A juror asked what the first-class diet was. Dr. Smiles replied that for four days in the week they had 4oz of meat for dinner, and on the other three days a pint of soup with potatoes. Each day they had 20oz of bread with cocoa for breakfast and gruel for supper. Independent of that they had suet pudding as stated. In feat, a surgeon in the neighbouring workhouse was surprised that the prisoners received so generous a diet. Dr. Lankester added that, as far as the diet was concerned, he would rather be prisoner than a pauper. Verdict—“Death from natural causes.”

#### A PAUPER’S DEATH—[^f3]

The other day, a pauper, who was at work is the stone-breaking yard of the Woolwich Union, and who, it is said, had been ailing for five years, complained to his comrade that he was unable to do the heavy work which was required in return for the relief afforded to him. At length, he deliberately folded his coat, lay down, using the coat as a pillow, and, after one long breath expired. The body was afterwards placed on a stretcher and taken to the house in which his wife resided. The coroner was made acquainted with the case, but did not think it was necessary to hold any inquiry respecting it.

#### SOUTHWARK.[^f4]

##### PAUPERS IN CANVAS.—

In the course of Monday two hearty-looking young girls, 15 and 16 years of age, dressed in rough canvas, marked all over, in large black letters, Bermondsey Workhouse, attended before Mr. Partridge, and complained of the master of Bermondsey Workhouse sending them out in such a state. They were the derision of all the boys in the streets, and were so ashamed of the dresses that they asked his worship to assist them in having them removed. The elder girl said that on the previous night they had wandered about until wet to the skin, and sought refuge in the casual ward. Their clothes were in rags and filthy and in the morning they could not put them on again. When they asked for others the dresses they now wore were given to them, and they were turned out of the workhouse. Mr. Partridge directed Walton, one of the warrant officers of the court, to take them to the workhouse, and ask the master to give them other clothes that ware not so conspicuous and disgraceful. Walton took the girls, as desired, and in a short time returned with them accompanied by Dr. Higgins, certified surgeon to factories, who met him in the street. Walton informed his worship that he had seen the master of the workhouse, who told him that the girls had torn up their clothing, and the dresses they wore were the only ones the parish gave to such persons, to prevent them from pawning or disposing of them. Dr. Higgins stigmatised the conduct of the authorities of Bermondsey parish to be disgraceful in the extreme—sending out two young women in such a plight. He would willingly attend before the guardians with the poor girls to ascertain whether they approved of such conduct on the part of their officers. Mr. Partridge directed Walton to take the girls before the board of guardians on their first meeting, and to take care of the girls in the meantime. Dr. Higgins would attend with them. The poor girls thanked his worship and Dr. Higgins for their kindness.

#### SUICIDE THROUGH ALLEGED PAROCHIAL ILL-TREATMENT.[^f5]

On Monday, Dr. Lankester held an inquest at the College Arms, Crowndale-road, St. Pancras, on the body of George Franklin, aged seventy-one. The deceased, it was alleged, had cut his throat through ill treatment on the part of a parish medical officer, and starvation, in the St. Pancras Workhouse.

Mary Ann Franklin, 25, Oxford-terrace, King’s road, said: Deceased was my husband. He was seventy-one years of age. He was a commercial traveller. He died last Thursday evening in St. Pancras Workhouse. He cut his throat last Tuesday evening. When I went home that evening he had been taken to the workhouse. I am positive he cut his throat through the cruelties of the parish doctor. He had been ill for twelve months. He received great cruelty from Dr. Harley, who would not give him any nurishment. Dr. Harley is the parish doctor, and all he would give my husband was a bottle of medicine and two shilling’s worth of meat and a little brandy all the time. A fortnight ago my husband went to the house with an order for order for the infirmary; but he was put into the able-bodied part of the house. He had no proper nourishment, and could not eat the food that was given him. He came home last Saturday week because he could not put up with the treatment in the house any longer. The doctor at the house refused to put him in the infirmary. My husband said he was starved at the house, and he might just as well starve at home or cut his throat. The treatment drove him mad. Last Monday I sent for two doctors, and they came, but he was delirious; and although I gave him enough to eat at home, he kept crying out to me not to send him back to the workhouse. His flannel shirt was taken from him at the house, and he caught a fresh cold through it. He had to ask for another shirt from the doctor, and he came out with one with the parish mark on it. A gentleman is in court that he wrote to, complaining of the treatment.

Dr. Gibson, of the workhouse infirmary, said he knew nothing of the deceased’s first stay in the house. Deceased was admitted on the 11th of August, with his throat cut. I asked him how it happened, and he said he was shaving, and his wife jobbed his elbow. He was delirious. He died on the 13th inst. I made a post mortem examination. There was an effusion of blood on the brain, and that might have caused the delirium. The lungs were diseased. The liver was cancerous, and the right kidney as well. The immediate cause of his death was the bleeding from the wound in the throat. The delirium, which was the result of the clot on the brain, could not have been caused by the alleged cruelty.

Dr. Harley said this was the first time he had heard of the charge of cruelty, and he was not prepared to say what he prescribed for deceased last winter. He (witness) ordered medicine and nourishment.

Mrs. Franklin: My husband refused to see Dr. Harvey any more, and went to University College Hospital, and the surgeons there said they never saw a man so reduced by starvation before, and they ordered him six hot dinners a week. Dr. Harley only saw my husband three times—once for each order, and if he denies that he is a false man. I call him a perfect brute.

Dr. Harley, continuing, said that prior to deceased entering the workhouse, he (witness) went to see him, and was met with a volley of abuse from the wife, who threatened to pitch him down stairs. Deceased said, “Do not talk to that vile woman any more, but come and sit down and hear what I have got to say.” Witness gave an order for the infirmary. After deceased came out of the workhouse witness saw him again, and gave an order for nourishment. The relieving-officer having said that Mrs. Franklin was not satisfied with this, witness gave a fresh order for the infirmary, which was not used.

Mr. Evans, medical officer to the male portion of the inmates of the house, said deceased was sent to the old men’s ward, because witness did not think it a case for the infirmary. It was the rule of the establishment to take the men’s shirts away when they came in and give them fresh ones. Witness could not say whether he went two days without a shirt. Witness did not order any deviation from the ordinary diet.

In answer to the coroner, Mrs. Franklin said it was not true that she jobbed her husband’s elbow and caused him to out his throat. It could be proved that she was out of the house at the time he did it.

The Coroner remarked that this would go to show that deceased in his delirium did not tell the truth on other points.

Mr. Main, who lived in the same house as deceased, said that deceased called witness’s wife, who went to the stairs, and said, “Do you want to speak to me, Mr. Franklin?” Deceased answered, “Yes, Mrs. Main; I’ve cut my throat.” Mrs. Main fell backward down the stairs. Witness sent for a doctor. Deceased said he had cut his throat because of the bad treatment in the workhouse. Witness ran to the workhouse for assistance, but they told him there they could do nothing—he must fetch a policeman. Witness went to the station-house, and two policemen took deceased to the workhouse on a stretcher. At the workhouse, deceased said he cut his throat for three reasons—two of which were, “That he was sorry for his wife working for him so,” and “because he was not treated well in the house.” Deceased and his wife had lived very comfortably together.

The Coroner said the delirium which resulted in deceased’s cutting his throat was caused by a clot of blood on the brain. If the jury thought this had been brought on by any ill-treatment to which deceased had been subjected, it would be best for them to adjourn for further inquiry. For his part he did not think such a case had been established.

Upon Mr. Watson (a guardian) undertaking to draw the attention of the board of guardian to the charges made against their officers,

The jury returned a verdict that deceased committed suicide whilst in an unsound state of mind.

#### ST. LUKE’S WORKHOUSE.[^f6]

##### TO THE EDITOR.

SIR,—I was unable before writing to you on the 30th ult. to discover Ann Hutton’s lodging and question her further. My information was gained from the statement made by her in the imbecile ward, where the matron’s interruptions rendered it difficult to obtain a clear account. I have seen the woman this morning, and ascertained from her that she was not pursued to the master’s office, but that the matron and under-matron were waiting for her when she returned to the ward she had left.

She has also explained to me that the deficiency in the amount of her beer was about a quarter of a pint—that the quantity served to her was always less than her allowance when the matron drew it, but that when others drew it she usually received her full allowance.

It is fair to all parties to mention these errors of detail in my letter.

To the particulars which I sent you in my last she now adds the following:—

That her liberty to go out was taken away about six weeks previously to her confinement in the imbecile ward, and that the chairman of the visiting committee (Mr. Adams) told her that she should never go outside the gate again. That when first she was placed amongst the imbeciles she was for 14 nights immured in the padded ward, being incarcerated at half-past five in the afternoon and liberated at half-past seven the following morning. She complains that during this time she had neither pillow, sheet, nor blanket except for the last two nights, but was left to sleep on a flock bed with no covering but a hard tick, and that she was so cold as to be unable to dispense with her shoes and stockings.

The guardians of St. Luke’s say that she was not punished. What is punishment?—I am, Sir, your obliged servant,

WM. MILLINGTON St. Barnabas, King-square, Dec. 2.

#### “CONVICTED BY MISTAKE.”[^f7]

Under the heading “Convicted by Mistake,” the following extraordinary letter appears in the *Western Morning News:*—

“Sir,—The two girls Evans and Selway, who were sent to the Exeter Reformatory for four years by a Devonport magistrate for stealing five baby napkins, have lately been liberated. Will it be credited that they were convicted by mistake? The girls pleaded “Not guilty,” but wished the magistrate to deal with the case summarily, in order to avoid a long imprisonment prior to the sessions. The girls themselves and the parents inform me that there was no evidence; but they believe, although they could not hear distinctly, that a policeman made some remark to the effect that one of the girls had confessed, or was going to confess; and this careless expression, which of course was not evidence, induced the magistrate to pass the heavy sentence. These children are really deserving of commiseration, for their sufferings were very severe during their solitary confinement in prison, where it was my duty to pay them a daily visit. But this is not all; there is another aspect. Society is interested in it. Where magistrates act irrespective of evidence the liberty of the subject is endangered. If I have been misinformed, and if the story is susceptible of an explanation, I shall be pleased to be set right. The Mayor was present, and also the magistrates’ clerk, who can readily refer to the depositions.

E. T. May. Formerly Chaplain to the Devonport Gaol.”

#### SHOCKING DEATH FROM STARVATION.[^f8]

Mr. Humphreys, the coroner, held an inquest at the Black Dog Tavern, Church-street, Bethnal-green, on Friday, respecting the death of James Bridges, aged fifty-one years.

Cecilia Bridges, 5, Turville-buildings, Bethnal-green, said the deceased was a willow cutter. He had been badly off for some time. The witness and three children lived in one room, for which they paid 2s. a week. One of the deceased’s sons worked with him when he could get work. Witness tried to support the family by selling clothes in Petticoat-lane on Sundays, but she never made more than 3s. The whole family earned 5s. a week. On Monday week the deceased got a job in Dog-row, and he had to work in an open yard the whole of the day. In the evening he returned home, threw 6d. down on the table, and said, “Have pity on me; I am dying through weakness. What I have suffered this day no one knows. I have been shivering with cold. My heart pains me.” Witness said to him, “Why did you not go the workhouse as I asked you, and they would have given you relief?” He replied, “Nonsense, you know we applied there last winter, and they refused us relief.” Witness then went to the workhouse, and they said, “Go and work.” Witness replied, “We have neither food nor fire.” “We have plenty of those tales,” said the gentleman; “send your husband.” “He has been, and was refused.” The gentleman then spoke very loud, and said, “I shall not give you anything; there is the door,” “Give me a loaf of bread,” said the witness. “No,” said the gentleman, “I shall not give you anything; there is the door.” That was on Saturday, and witness then went home. She, her husband, and their three children all lay down on the floor. They remained lying there until the middle of Sunday, when William, their eldest boy, got up and went out. He returned in a short time with 3d., which he had borrowed from another boy. He bought one pound of bread and a little tea with the money. On Tuesday the deceased died. Before he died the deceased said, “I have been walking about in search of work for three days. I have had no food day or night during those three days, except half a half penny loaf and a little cold water.” On the Saturday before his death he walked to the workhouse, but the doors were closed, and he thought that he should never reach home again, he felt so weak. The family had had no meat for five months; they felt happy when they got a hering to divide among them. The night before the deceased died he said he would make another effort to walk to the workhouse. Witness believed that he died from want of food.

Dr. C. C. Richards, parish doctor, said that he attended the deceased for a few hours before his death. He died from effusion of serum on the brain and in the cavities of the chest, caused by want of food and other necessaries.

Mr. Robert Arnott, relieving officer, said that on Monday he gave a doctor’s order for the deceased, and in the afternoon his assistant visited the case, and reported that a family was in great poverty. They then got 2lb. of mutton, a loaf of bread, and a quart of milk. He was not the relieving officer who had last winter refused relief.

Mrs. Bridges, recalled, said that the relieving officer who refused to give the family relief was Mr. Pringle. Mr. Arnott had been kind to her.

The foreman: Are we to understand that the doors of the relieving office are closed during the absence of the relieving officers?

Mr. Arnott: Yes.

The foreman: During what hours are the doors open?

Mr. Arnott: The hours are given on the brass plate at the door. They are from nine to ten in the morning, and from five to six o’clock in the evening. But let it be understood that the office is generally open from nine to one o’clock. It is often closed before one o’clock. If we were to keep the doors open people would be coming in all day. While the office is closed we are visiting the applicants for relief at their own houses.

The foreman: When the office is closed, supposing a case of necessity should arise, say food or a doctor’s order is wanted, is there no way of getting assistance?

Mr. Arnott: The doors are closed from one to five o’clock and during that time no relief can be got.

A juror: Then someone ought to be left in the office during those hours.

The jury then deliberated for half an hour, and the foreman said: We find that the man died from starvation, and we think that the family ought to have gone to the workhouse sooner.

A juror: We do not wish to append that; there is blame attached to the workhouse people. The wife applied for relief, and she was rebuked, and told there was the door. The family had gone to the work house.

An animated discussion then ensued, and the following verdict was recorded:—“That the deceased died from effusion of serum on the brain and into the cavities of the chest caused by want and privation”

#### MISERY IN LONDON.[^f9]

On entering one of the houses in Millwall at haphazard we saw a woman surrounded by five young children in a most deplorable condition. They were all shoeless, and were otherwise wretchedly clad. Wan and haggard to the last degree, they were suffering from cutaneous disease, the result of impoverishment of blood, consequent upon long continued deprivation of nourishment. The woman stated that her husband worked in the labour-yard for the usual allowance; none of them had tasted meat for six weeks. She was suffering severely, for she was on the point of giving birth to another child. Her husband was the tenant of the whole house, and was bound to pay 5s. a week rent—a sum which it is needless to say was not paid. She had a lodger, who found it equally impossible to pay her 1s. 9d. a week for the room upstairs. With a view of adding to her husband’s miserable pittance she went a week ago to a rope factory in the Isle of Dogs and got a quarter of a hundredweight of oakum to pick. She and her children had worked at it ever since, and her husband, when he returned from the stone-yard at night, had assisted them; but, weak as they were from hunger, they had not yet been able to complete the task. For this week’s work of the woman, the five children, and the husband at night, the remuneration would be 1s. Going up-stairs, we found the front room occupied by seven persons, composing the family of the lodger already mentioned. The head of the family, a man in the prime of life, was seated on a stool in the corner; he was suffering terribly from neuralgic pains; his boots allowed his feet to be seen through their gaping sides; his other clothing was of the scantiest. The children were all young; they were starved and half clad; the expression of their gaunt faces denoted suffering from poverty of the direst kind. The mother, a respectable looking woman, very pale and feeble, spoke in a tone of pious resignation. She had that during the past two years her husband had had only six weeks continuous employment. He got occasional half-crowns by hanging about the docks, but ten days ago that resource failed altogether in consequence of his becoming too prostrate to work anymore. The parish allowance was, she said, quite insufficient to keep body and soul together. Nearly the whole of what they got they gave to the youngest child, as being the least able to bear the hunger. She mentioned—and it was a singular instance of the way in which the poor help the poor—that the woman below stairs at times gave them one of the loaves which her husband earned in the stone yard, to save them from total starvation. While this sad story of hopeless misery was being related, the father sat writhing in pain and sobbing loudly. In another house in the same street was a family which had only partaken of one meal since Sunday. To obtain it, the shoes of one of daughters, a girl of twelve, had been pawned for a shilling. They were in hopes of getting something on the Tuesday evening by the sale of the pawn-ticket for sixpence.—*The Eastern Post.*

OUR unpaid Magistrates seem to have become suddenly possessed by a fanatical spirit of severity. From several distant points we receive simultaneously accounts of sentences being passed upon defendants in revolting disproportion to their offences. On Saturday a poor woman named SARAH JONES was brought before the Mayor and two magistrates of Chester for “stealing” “wheat,” a crime which appears to have consisted in gleaning cars in a field after the final operations of the harvest had been completed. The prosecutor, Mr. ROBERTS, said that he saw JONES picking up wheat, and sent a boy to her to tell her to desist. She appears to have been, as many of her class are, under the impression that gleaning is a legal right of the poor, and continued to pick up the ears. Mr. ROBERTS thereupon went to her himself, and took a handful of wheat from her. The prosecutor was asked by the magistrate whether there was any wheat crop on the ground where the prisoner was, and said, “No, it had been raked there.” This served to show that, at the most, the poor woman was only gleaning. Mr. ROBERTS added, however, as his reason for prosecuting, that “he wanted to” make an example of someone.” We take this, in connection with his other statements, to mean that he wished to elicit from the bench such a declaration of the law, accompanied with some slight penalty, as would remove a prevailing misconception from the minds of his poorer neighbours, and save him future trouble. That this was his intention appeared plainly afterwards, when he asked for mitigation of the sentence. We cannot, therefore, agree with those who on the strength of the sessions report have blamed him as if he were a cruel man, willing to bring any amount of suffering upon the poor woman for the sake of protecting his property. The subject of gleaning is one as to which it is very easy to be misled by sentiment. The practice is a very ancient one, and connects itself with some exceedingly pleasant ideas of social economy. But the propriety and advisability of retaining it under all circumstances is open to question. The fact that in many cases gleaning is merely an excuse for stealing may make the kindest farmer resolve not to permit it in his fields. But be this as it may, in the present case the Mayor of CHESTER, after the woman had expressed her sorrow, and pleaded that she did not know she was acting illegally, said to her, “You must go to gaol for seven days.” This excessive and irrational severity shocked Mr. JOHNSON, another magistrate, who declared that “he would be no party” to the sentence. The woman burst into tears, and said, “Seven” days for that? Do not send me to gaol from “my four children, and one sucking at the “breast.” The prosecutor, too, said that “he did” not ask for so much as that” and afterwards the prisoner was ordered to pay a fine and costs amounting together to 13s. 8d. or go to prison for three days. As the money was not forthcoming, to prison the woman went. This is a sentence which no man who had had any experience of the administration of justice would have pronounced. An observation of the magistrates’ clerk, “There is no other way of putting this “sort of thing down,” expressed, no doubt, the honest belief of the convicting magistrates; but it only shows their unfitness for the office which they unfortunately fill. A qualified police magistrate considers what punishment is sufficient to deter from the repetition of an offence, and does not exceed it; moreover, in thus judging he distinguishes between offences which have their origin in prejudice fostered by time and usage, and an obstinate defiance of the law. The blind and blundering honesty of many of our unpaid magistrates is unequal to the task of drawing such distinctions, and hence with the best intentions they continually outrage public sentiment.[^f10]

#### WINTER PROSPECTS IN EAST LONDON.[^f11]

Even amid the excitement and turmoil of the parliamentary elections there is amongst those most familiar with the social condition of East London a considerable amount of uneasiness respecting the prospects of its myriads of unemployed poor during the coming rigorous of winter; and, to say the least, there are numerous cogent reasons for entertaining disagreeable forebodings. An unusually fine and prolonged summer, an exceptionally early and abundant harvest, and the briskness of trade in various parts of the kingdom, have all failed to produce any perceptible diminution in the existing vast amount of metropolitan pauperism. Whether this constantly-augmenting amount of pauperism is the result of a depression of local trade, or of increased habits of intemperance and improvidence amongst the labouring classes, or of some equally effectual predisposing cause, may be a matter for dispute, but there everywhere exists a singular unanimity of opinion that the evil must be promptly met, whatever be the cost. But how is this to be done? This forms the problem which the East London parochial authorities are now attempting to solve, although, in their perplexity, they scarcely know in which way to begin. The more they extend the means of relief the larger becomes the mass of destitution with which they have to deal. It is as if poverty begat poverty. The number of metropolitan paupers during the last week of July in the present year was no less than 127,119, an increase of 7.7 per cent on the number during the corresponding period in 1867. Of this great pauper army by far the largest proportion belonged to the eastern metropolitan districts, including Poplar, in which parish there are at the present moment something like 7,000 persons in receipt of parochial relief, the number three years ago not exceeding 700! It is sad to note the seeming helplessness of the East London poor. They seem to have become as mere children evincing little willingness or ability in seconding the efforts to rescue them from the abyss of poverty into which they have fallen; in fact, they appear to have acquired much of the fatalism characteristic of the Asiatic race, and to have tacitly accepted the curse of pauperism as their unavoidable destiny. Even the very children seem to have become affected with the social taint, for they no longer taunt each other with their parent’s acceptance of the workhouse dole. The Poplar guardians recently sent a deputation into Lancashire for the purpose of investigating the various modes of relief adopted during the cotton famine; but there is this difference between the distress formerly existing in the cotton-manufacturing districts and that now prevailing in East London—the former was of an exceptional and temporary character, while the latter bids fair to become permanent; various causes, amongst which must be named the indiscriminate bestowal of charity, having converted what, under a more systematic system of outside relief, would have proved merely a limited mass of destitution, into a corresponding amount of chronic pauperism.

Coincident with the steady increase of the pauper population, a fresh, but not unexpected evil is also beginning to manifest itself. Much of the relief afforded to the poor, although sufficient to maintain life, is utterly insufficient for the purpose of preserving the body in a state of health. Hence the increasing prevalence of sickness and fever amongst the East London poor. The generally debilitated condition of these poor creatures almost exceeds belief. A glance at the shivering crowds which daily cluster round the doors of the relieving officers shows how easy would be the triumph of pestilence if it once attacked the thin, emaciated forms which tremble like aspens in the cold November wind. Nothing but the numerous sanitary improvements effected during recent years, together with the unceasing vigilance of the various medical officers of health, has hitherto prevented London from falling a victim to the ravages of a terribly fatal epidemic. Even as it is, there exists no lack of danger. The increasing amount of pauper fever is painfully illustrated, not merely by the overcrowded state of the workhouse infirmaries, or the daily increase of applications at the local dispensaries and hospitals, but also by the fact that while the number of recipients of parochial relief is constantly receiving fresh accessions, the proportion of able-bodied paupers exhibits a steady decline. A few days since, Mr. Orton, the Limehouse medical officer of health, had his attention directed to several cases of fever in Ratcliff. On the matter being inquired into, it was found that the disease was less the result of sanitary deficiencies than the effect of low living produced by extreme poverty. Similar experiences have been obtained in Shadwell, Bethnalgreen, Whitechapel, and elsewhere. In Mile-end Old Town, a family, consisting of a father, mother, and five children, the eldest a girl of fourteen, were discovered by the relieving officer living in a small and wretchedly furnished room. They were all suffering from fever. The man and woman lay helplessly in one corner of the cheerless apartment, the eldest girl was crouching before the almost fireless grate, while three other children were huddled together on an old and rickety sofa, where a thin shawl was made to act as blanket and counterpane. Food, clothing, and other necessaries were immediately supplied, and within a few hours afterwards the father and three of the children were being conveyed to the Fever Hospital. Unfortunately in one case the assistance arrived too late, the head of the family, succumbing to the effects of the fever, dying in a day or two afterwards. Numerous other instances of fever are reported from the same district, no less than 32 cases having been sent during a single week to the Fever Hospital, the demands upon which institution are growing so excessive that the scale of hospital charges has recently been increased. The fever, it should be observed, is confined almost wholly to the outdoor paupers.

As if this increase of local pauperism and the widening spread of pauper sickness were not sufficient, the luckless East-end ratepayers find themselves threatened with fresh financial burdens, in consequence of their parochial representatives having been commanded by the now almost omnipotent Poor-law Board to erect new infirmaries, schools, and workhouse buildings. The buildings certainly are much needed; but the present is a most inconvenient time for adding to the rapidly rising amount of local taxation—the more so considering that the time cannot be far distant when the equalization of metropolitan taxation will have become an accomplished fact. In Poplar the present workhouse is to be pulled down, and a new one erected in its stead, at a cost of 50,000*l.* A similar sum is to be expended in Shoreditch on the erection of a new infirmary and schools. But who is ultimately to pay the piper? Large numbers of the smaller class of shopkeepers, affected by the surrounding poverty of the districts in which they reside, can scarcely manage to pay the rates; while as for the compound householder, his abolition is everywhere proving a prolific source of loss and trouble to the different parishes. In some places it is said that not a penny has yet been obtained from the new rate-paying class, and that the parish officials dare not put in the brokers, least the defaulters should be driven to the workhouse. Moreover, large numbers of these people are recipients of parochial relief. How seriously these things affect local taxation is shown by the circumstance, that the amount of poor rates to be collected in Hackney for the half-year ending Lady-day, 1869, is 36,161*l.*, or more than was collected during the whole year ending Lady-day, 1868, when the amount was 35,368*l.* The standard of revolt which has been raised by the ratepayers of St. Pancras will speedily find adherents from other parishes, where the people are becoming tired of paying for public improvements at the West-end, and, at the same time, having to bear singlehanded their own heavy parochial expenses.

Such facts, however, only serve to stimulate the energies of the numerous earnest-hearted, men engaged in the praiseworthy task of supplementing work of parochial relief; but, as in former years, the old difficulty arising from the multiplicity of independent relief organizations is again being severely felt. The number of philanthropic funds, annuity societies, charitable associations, and the like, in East London, is enormous. They annually absorb vast sums of money without effecting any corresponding amount of good but, on the contrary, assisting largely in the evil labour of increasing the amount of pauper feeling amongst those whom they are professedly intended to relieve. The East-end Central Relief Committee, the head-quarters of which are in Poplar, desirous of doing something towards putting an end to this anomalous state of things, are endeavouring to effect an arrangement with the East London Mission and Relief Committee, whereby some degree of co-operation might be secured for the purpose of detecting imposture. The latter body combines religious instruction with the administration of relief, a circumstance which seriously impedes its real effectiveness. The East-end Central Relief Committee, on the contrary, base their operations on the system so successfully pursued in Lancashire during the cotton famine. It aims principally at relieving the really deserving poor, especially those on the verge of pauperism; and is its committee including several of the local parish guardians, any attempt at fraud is speedily detected. The recent letter of the Rev. J. F. Kitto, one of its members affords ample proof of the wise and enlightened manner in which the operations of the committee are conducted, and one cannot help regretting that its example should not be more extensively imitated, especially at a moment when the eastern portions of the metropolis are threatened with an amount of distress and privation compared with which all previous visitations of a like character must inevitably appear tame and insignificant.

#### OUR DAILY CONTEMPORARIES.[^f12]

##### ROBBING THE POOR.—

The *Times* says:—A return has just been printed, by order of the House of Commons, of the number of persons within the metropolitan parishes who, within the latter half of last year, were convicted of using false weights and measures. The return is lamentably extensive, occupying no less than sixteen folio pages. The whole number of convictions which it records within six months are no less than 659. If we put out of question the more rural parishes, we have considerably more than 500 convictions. In other words, there are known to have been between five and six hundred shops in the metropolis at which the quantities of goods sold were systematically falsified. The offenders are retail dealers in the commonest necessaries of life, and the loss chiefly falls on the poor. It is sad to think how grievous this loss must be. The number of little transactions which passed through these five or six hundred shops before the false measure was discovered must have been incalculable and the aggregate loss immense. There is nothing, perhaps, in which the poor are so unfortunate as in the conditions under which most of their current purchases are made. Their food is adulterated, it is excessively dear for its quality, and we now see that in numerous cases they have also to suffer from scant measure. A half pint of beer, for instance, in a public-house will cost two pence, though it will not be so wholesome as what a private gentleman drinks for less than a penny, and will, besides, be stinted in quantity. This is probably no unfair example of the waste generally inflicted on the small resources of the poor. They would, indeed, have abundant occasion to betake themselves to cooperative stores. The classes who have lately been forwarding that system are endeavouring to escape from comparatively moderate overcharge compared with that which oppresses the classes beneath them. It is true, a little more forethought and energy would be sufficient to deliver a great number of the poor from this thraldom. There is no reason why they should not pay a few shillings now and then for a cask of good and cheap beer, instead of buying it in pots every day from the public-house. There is no reason why their wives should not buy a great portion of their portion of their greengrocery at market, and purchase grocery and chandlery in rather larger quantities at better shops. But there will always be a large class who will never practice, or be in a position to practice, this kind of economy; and it is really a great hardship that they should be exposed to such grievous injustice as is indicated by the present [return.]

#### LAMBETH INTERIORS.[^f13]

The letter we published under the above heading a few days since rather understated than overstated its case. To visit the parish of St. Mary the Less, Lambeth, and its neighbour Vauxhall, is to become acquainted with a vast and densely populated district in which the first laws of health are systematically outraged or ignored. Damp floors and walls, close stifling rooms, insufficient cubical space, defective water supply, overcrowding and its attendant evils physical and moral, foul smells, bad drains, sewers and cesspools so near the surface that the rank, black soil oozing up between the rotting bricks of the flooring is itself putrescent; open and exposed dust heaps, of which dust is the least harmful part, are to be seen and smelt and shuddered at on every side. The recognized principles by which the health of a community is secured are forgotten or violated; and those epidemical diseases the rise and progress of which so often baffle medical science have here their nursery and their root. Moreover, the disorders engendered by the filth and misery in which the inhabitants of this typically poor neighbourhood are allowed to live and die inevitably spread, and in unhealthy seasons society pays the penalty in illness and loss of life for its wilful indifference and neglect of the poor. The house we are about to describe are tenanted by industrious people, many of whom have votes under the new Reform Bill, and they are periodically inspected by local officials. The duty of these gentlemen is to see that the most obvious sanitary requirements are fulfilled, and it is impossible to avoid the conviction that it is not performed. In winter, and in bad seasons, the poverty and distress are wide-spread and severe; but at the time of our visit on a Saturday the breadwinner was in most instances away and at work, and it was the wife or children who showed us over house and yard.

The stables recently converted into dwelling places were by no means the worst specimens we saw and consisted of single room with open waterbutt and panless closet in common, the latter having no regular supply of water and depending upon the landlord’s personal labours for being kept sweet. Here we found what was a common phase of terrorism. The people who read of agricultural tyranny, and who properly sympathize with the unrighteous interference of landlords with their tenants; who regard the small farmer as being under exceptional pressure, and the dwellers upon an estate as writhing under, or docilely submitting to, a dictation unknown to the denizens of large towns, should make themselves acquainted with the terms upon which small house property is held in London. The representative landlord who is, perhaps, a member of the vestry or is at least able to control some of the tradesmen who sit there, makes silent submission to things as they are a condition of tenancy. To complain is to be turns out. To aid the clergyman or district visitor, or philanthropic inquirer, by admitting what is as palpable as the pavement they walk upon, or the discoloured walls they see, is to play into the hands of the enemy, and to arouse the landlord’s wrath. There is no fear of his houses remaining unlet. Wretched as they are, there are scores of applicants ready to enter them directly the present holders quit, and the one answer to complaints is—“Can’t afford to do what you require, and if you don’t like it you can go.”

#### LAMBETH PIGSTYES.[^f14]

##### TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY NEWS.

SIR,—May I call the attention of the Inspectors of nuisances and other efficient officers connected with this parish to the state of the water in Pheasant-cottages, Salamanca-place, Gunnell’s-court, Salamanca-court, Salamanca-cottages, Lemon-cottages, Little Lemon-court, Granby’s-buildings, Salamanca-street, Jolly Gardeners-place, and several houses in New-street and Hampshire-place, &c. Little Lemon-court consists of four houses, 5s. 6d. a week each, and occupied by labourers and their families; the houses are swarming with rats, the rain pours in torrents through the roofs, the plastering is falling off the walls in the upper rooms. No water has ever been laid on, there are no dust-bins, and at No. 1, the stairs are only supported by a temporary prop. The state of Great Lemon-court is even worse; the eight pigsties are occupied by 90 persons. The partition walls are broken, the water-butts are old and unpitched, the closets dilapidated, and the smell from the drains is abominable. The court is the dust-bin. In Salamanca-court the rents are from 4s. to 7s. 6d. per week; there are 88 inhabitants in the 13 houses; what were originally intended for washhouses and closets extend down the center of the court; they are all but roofless; the only water for drinking is kept in rotten uncovered casks close to the closets; the washhouses, like many others, have neither coppers nor grates, nor have they fastenings of any kind to the doors. At No. 9, a woman fell through the ceiling; all the roofs, more or less, let in rain. At No. 1, they have no water at all. A few houses in Salamanca-street belong to the same landlord, and the rest to a landlord who is also proprietor of houses in Hampshire-place in the same state of repair. At No. 3 another person fell through the ceiling; a few of the houses are undermined by the rats, and the water-butts are old and filthy in the extreme. The vestry should insist upon all the butts in the parish being raised on brick piers high enough to enable the people to get the water out conveniently, instead of baling it out as they do at present. The dustmen, too, are over fastidious; refusing to remove any dust unless paid black mail by the poor people. No. 7 is a woodcutter; he pays 5s. 6d. a week for a den that would be dear at 6d.; the rooms are barely 9 feet square, and I am surprised any man can allow 17 human beings to live in a place worse than a dog kennel. In the yard the water is putrid, and the drains can never be worse—in fact the house should be pulled down. Granby’s buildings are each from 6s. 6d. to 8s. a week; they are fifteen in number, and contain 172 persons. At No. 1 the rain comes in the drain is stopped up, the house thoroughly out of repair. Two families have had the fever, and very likely others may take it, owing to the state of the drains and the houses, the landlords refusing to make the necessary repairs. Salamanca-place is the name of two houses; the rent is 4s. a week each—tiles off the roof, the ceilings broken down, the place full of rats, attracted by tallow chandelling and soap boiling. The people in Salamanca-street, too, are doubly benefited by the scent and smoke from Hunt’s bone-yard. At Gunnell’s-court the rain comes into all the kitchens, and the people have no conveniences for washing. In Jolly Gardeners-court, which it would be more appropriate to call cellars, the houses are unfit for any person to live in. I shall not occupy your space with a description of anymore; but should these houses not be put in thorough repair, and the needful sanitary alterations immediately commenced, I shall forward a statement, with the details of my note-book, to the Home Secretary. At 72, New-street, Princes-road, the water runs to waste because the people have only a washing tub to catch it in. At 11, Norfolk-street, a poor woman lies dangerously ill with the fever, brought on by the state the landlord keeps the house in. I was accosted by a person the other day, who told me the Inspector of nuisances and he considered me very impertinent and insolent to interfere with private property. I asked him who he was, and he said his name was Curtis; he followed me to a house, and put his arms across the door to prevent me leaving, and then having abused me in what he considered a satisfactory manner, he wound up by telling me that he was a gentleman, and that I was very insolent, that I was a Roman catholic Jesuit in disguise, and should be ashamed of myself, and he would like to know who made me a ruler and judge over the people. I have since discovered the “gentleman” is a retired petty haberdasher of Lambeth Walk, and if he or any other landlord in Lambeth molests me again in the public streets, I shall resort to legal proceedings against them. I have taken nearly three entire days to visit about seventy houses, which would never have been in their present condition if the local officers had attended to their duty, a duty I have no desire to usurp if it were done properly.—I am, &c.,

A DISTRICT VISITOR. St. Mary the Less, Lambeth.

P.S.—The people pay 4d. in the pound three times a year for lighting and repairing the highways. Why are the courts and alleys not paved, and lighted by a gas lamp each?

#### OCTOBER 26[^f15]

IT has probably not escaped the notice or our readers that Anti-Truck Associations are once more coming into activity. The Truck system was a very real and very serious evil in the early days of the vast development of our manufacturing industry. So long ago as the Parliament which preceded that which passed the first Reform Bill a special Act was passed for its suppression, and that Act, known as the Truck Act, is a kind of Magna Charta to the working population of the mining and manufacturing districts. The system which this Act was intended to suppress is not one which presents its worst side to the superficial observer. “Truck” is simply the payment of wages in goods instead of in coin. It probably arose in the most natural manner in the early days of mining and manufacturing enterprise. An employer took a number of men into some district remote from towns, built houses for them to live in, and opened shops for the supply of all the necessaries of life and comfort. The people, finding these shops an immense convenience, gradually began to run up bills in anticipation of their wages, and as the proprietor of the shop was the person from whom the wages were due it soon became customary for the payment of money to be dispensed with, and for the week’s wages merely to be entered as a set off to the weeks account. In this way the workman gradually became entirely dependent on the employer. Many families never had any money of their own; they bought all they wanted at the truck shop, where there was perpetual credit to the amount of their weekly income, and where they paid such prices as the employer chose to demand. Even under the most conscientious management this system was entirely destructive of the self-help and the independence of the working classes, and under the control of hard and grasping individuals it became nothing less than a new form of serfdom. The workman or labourer received his keep in return for his service; he was always in debt to his employer; and as he had no means of removing in order to better his condition, and no power of making terms as to the payment for his labour, he was as much bound to the mine, or the factory, or the works, as a serf was bound to the soil. It was to abolish this industrial feudalism that the Truck Act (1 and 2 William IV., c. 37) was passed. That Act provided that the wages of labour should be paid in a current coin of the realm, and that if they were paid in any other way such payment should be null and void, and the wages should be recoverable just as though no such payment in goods had ever been made. But if we may judge from the statements made in a case lately tried in the Wrexham County Court and from the extensive formation of Anti-Truck Associations in the mining districts, this Act has not been entirely fatal to the system. There is a perpetual temptation to recur to it in the profit it gives the employer and the convenience which, when honestly worked, it gives to unthrifty workmen; and these special organizations are needful to enforce a law which there seems to be a perpetual disposition to evade or defeat.

The case tried at Wrexham was one in which the question was raised, what payment in money really is. It was a case in which wages had practically been paid in goods instead of in coin. The New British Iron Company was sued by JOHN GRIFFITHS for 6*l.* 14s. wages due. It was admitted that goods to that amount had been received by the plaintiff, but it was pleaded by the defendants that the sum had been actually paid in cash. The question turned on the point whether the company’s method of payment was really a cash payment or not. They, with the best intention towards the men in their employ, had established a system of monthly settlements and weekly advances, with a small fortnightly cash payment called “sist”. The weekly advances were made at the shop where the goods were supplied to the workmen. Every Thursday the time-keeper sent to this shop a note of the amount of the man’s earnings, and when his wife went to the shop to buy goods this note was given her. She got goods at the counter for the amount, and the clerk who had served her having signed the note, she left the goods on the counter, took the note to a cash clerk, received the money, paid it over the counter for the goods, and was then at liberty to take them away. But, it should be noticed, she did not get the cash until she had bought the goods. There is no reason for supposing that she could go and draw the money and take it elsewhere; she must in fact spend it before it is paid to her; and spend it in the shop where she receives it. The jury, under the distinct ruling of the judge, declared this not to be payment in cash, but in goods, and gave a verdict for the amount the plaintiff claimed. The judge afterwards granted a case for appeal; but the verdict of the jury is so completely the common-sense view of the matter that its reversal is very improbable, and if we are correctly informed, the Company, desiring to act in the spirit as well as according to the letter of the law, has already changed their system of payment. But even should such a case as this eventually prove not to come within the meaning of the Truck Act, that Act must undergo early amendment to make its provisions more imperative and complete.

It is a part of public policy to give to the wage receiving classes the completest possible control of their wages. The objections to the Truck system are rather to it as a whole than to individual examples of it. It is very probable that in wages by rendering to the workman unable to seek a better market for his labour, and heightens prices by creating a monopoly in the supply. It keeps the people in perpetual leading strings, prevents them from saving, renders thrift and foresight needless, and reduces the whole population which becomes subject to it to the position of a dependent class. It is true that the half patriarchal relation it introduces between employers and employed may sometimes be of immense advantage to the people, just as an enlightened despotism may sometimes do more wisely than free governments; but unusual virtue on one side and unusual simplicity on the other are necessary to prevent it from degenerating into a degrading tyranny. The law cannot make provision for these unusual cases. It presumes that in the ordinary relations of society only ordinary virtue can be depended on, and it discourages relationships which need extraordinary virtue to make them bearable. The Truck system is hostile to the self-dependence and self-respect of all who are subject to it. If they must deal at a certain shop there is neither encouragement nor opportunity to make the best of their earnings, while power to spend money before it is actually in possession is certain to lead to extravagance and waste. The practical result of the system has been found to be in all cases to pauperise the people. Wherever it is in operation, poverty and degradation result from it. There is a sort of education in the act of laying out money to advantage which no class can do without, and it is of the utmost importance in the new position which the working classes are assuming in the State, that nothing which militates against their independence should be permitted. The law guarantees them the receipt of their wages in coin in order that they may retain complete control over the expenditure of their earnings, and it is in every way desirable that so just and beneficent a law should be everywhere enforced.

#### EXTRAORDINARY DEATH OF A WOMAN IN A POLICE CELL.[^f16]

##### SERIOUS CHARGE AGAINST THE POLICE.

Last evening Mr. John Humphreys, coroner, held an inquest at the Old Mermaid Tavern, High-street, Hackney, respecting the death of Mrs. Hannah Saunders, aged 55 years.

The deceased was the wife of a cab proprietor and her family alleged that her death had been caused by treatment which she had received while a prisoner in the Hackney Police-station, after the officers in charge of her had been informed that she was in a dangerous state.

Mr. William Saunders, 58, Great Chard-street, Hoxton, deposed that the deceased was his wife, and that the family had lived in one house 16 years. Witness had had a quarrel with the landlord and he gave him notice to quit, but witness refused to leave, and that fact preyed upon her mind. On Sunday he was informed that the police had arrested her on the charge of attempting to commit suicide. He went to the station, and after seeing his wife he told the police that she was ill and he offered to bail her out, but they refused to allow him to do so. She died five hours afterwards from the effects of the cold in the damp cell. Before her death repeated applications were made to the police for additional clothing for her, as she was very cold, the cell being paved with stone. She had nothing to rest upon except a wooden bench, and that was so uncomfortable that she had to sit upon it. Her feet—she had only stocking on touched the wet stones. She had been locked up in the cell for 24 hours and there was no light in it.

Jones Saunders, a boy aged 12, said that on Saturday evening, at half-past 6 o’clock, his mother bid him “Good bye” in so strange a manner that he was induced to follow her, but he lost sight of her while she was turning the corner of Huntington-street. She said to him when she was going out, “You will have to get a new mother.”

John Robson, a policeman, said that between 8 and 9 o’clock on Saturday night he heard a splash in the Regent’s Canal, near the Sir Walter Scott bridge, and upon going to see what was the matter, he so a dark object in the water. He procured the drags, and in seven minutes the deceased was taken out alive. She was carried to the Sir. Walter Scott Tavern and her clothes were taken off with the exception of her chemise. Dr. Thornton was sent for, and he said, “She is all right for removal,” and he left. Her chemise was quite wet, and she was then placed on a stretcher. The people at the tavern did not find her any clothes; but Mr. Jones, a fruiterer, seeing her lying on the stretcher in her wet chemise covered her with a sack which he lent for the purpose. She was then carried from the Queen’sroad Bridge, Dalston, to the Hackney police-station. Witness charged her with attempting to commit suicide. The reason why he sent for the stretcher was that she was naked for a time before it arrived.

Coroner—What evidence had you when you arrested that woman and took her to a police station instead of taking her to an hospital that she ever intended to commit suicide?

Witness—None. I do not know how she came in the water.

Coroner—Have you any instructions how to act in such a case?

Witness—None. The deceased was sensible when she was on the stretcher, for she said, “What are you going to do with me?” I told her, and she replied, “I never was in the water.”

Mr. Saunders said that his wife had stated that she was not sensible until after she was put in the cell.

The witness stated that the deceased was put into the cell at the station house about 9 o’clock.

A juror—With her chemise all wet?

Witness—Yes. I was then sent to the workhouse for clothes, and I brought back two skirts, a petticoat, a chemise, a pair of stockings, and a gown.

P. S. Hawkins, 33 N, said that when the deceased was brought into the station she was placed lying on a stretcher in front of the fire. She refused her name and address. Witness sent for clothing and a female searcher to put the clothes on. At 25 minutes past 9 o’clock she was placed in the cell. During the night she never complained. After she was put in the cell she got nothing to eat, but at 7 o’clock on Sunday morning she was given same coffee. At half-past 4 a.m. she gave the address of her husband.

Ellen Howes, the female searcher, deposed that the deceased said to her, “I hope you will take the wet clothes off, and put dry ones on.” She seemed quite stupid—witness thought from drink and from going into the water.

F. Eden, 504 N, deposed that at 7 o’clock on Sunday evening he found the deceased dead in the cell. A doctor was then called in to see her.

Sergeant J. Keenon said that he and his inspector had refused to allow the deceased out on bail when her husband requested them to do it. She had said to him during Sunday, “I do not feel well.” She did not say that her feet were cold.

By Mr. Saunders—He thought that the cell was a fit place for the deceased to be locked up in, taking into consideration the state in which she was after she had been in the canal. Witness let her husband see her in the cell.

Inspector J. Gibbons said that he refused to take bail on the ground that attempted suicide is not a bailable offence. The cell was warm, and was heated by a furnace underneath. The police regulated the amount of heat which the furnace was to give. The police have no regulations about the removal of half drowned people to hospitals or infirmaries. It is left to their judgment. If the deceased had been insensible she would have been taken to an hospital.

By the Coroner—Witness did not know the fact that sudden immersion is likely to produce shock and cause death 24 hours after the person has been taken out of the water. He did not think it necessary to send for the divisional surgeon to see the deceased.

Mrs. Mary Burdott, 60, Great Chard-street, said that she saw the deceased in the cell on Sunday at 2 o’clock. She said that she was very cold, and had not slept. She complained of her head and chest. She had nothing to lie on except a hard bench. Her feet were on the cold stone pavement, which was wet. The cell was very cold indeed. Witness gave her some brandy, and brought her some clothes. She said, “I am so cold.” She was so ill that she could not be dressed in the additional clothing. Witness told the inspector that the cell was dreadfully cold, and that the deceased begged for a coat to throw over her feet. Witness entreated of the police to let her out on bail. The family brought a cab to the door, and they asked the police to let the prisoner out, so that she might be placed in a warm bed. They asked the police to give the woman a bed while she was lying in the cell, but they refused to do so. The deceased told witness that she was not sensible until she awoke in the dark cell. The cell was not a fit place for a person in the condition of the deceased to have been placed in.

For the defense Inspector Gibbons called.

Mary Tuppley, the wife of a boot-closer, who stated that she was an inmate of the East London Union. On Boxing-day she became intoxicated, and the police put her in a cell. While she was there the deceased was brought in. There was no light in the cell, and the deceased was placed lying on a wooden bench, and she spoke of the cold. It was a very cold and damp cell, and it had a disagreeable smell. The deceased could not eat when she was offered a bit of bread and butter. On Sunday night she fell off the bench on to the stones, and then she groaned. Witness called the policeman in, and he turned his light upon the woman’s face, and it was very white. She was then dead. The doctor came and said so. She ought never to have been put in the cell, for she ought to have been taken to some place where a sick woman, who was very cold, could have been put into a bed to get warm. She asked the police for an old coat during the Saturday night, but they would not give her one. The cell was in a filthy state, but the police refused to clean it.

Mrs. Burdatt deposed to the same fact.

Mr. W. H. Wright, police surgeon, said that he saw the deceased after death. A post mortem examination of her body proved that her lungs were inflated and distended with water. She was suffering from disease of the heart and liver. She had died from shock caused by the immersion in the water. Great care ought to have been used to prevent fatal results after the immersion. Attention and warmth were absolutely necessary. The police cell was not a fit place for her to have been put in. She ought to have been removed to a hospital, and if witness had been called in to see her he should have ordered her removal to one. The cell was warm when witness was in it.

The Coroner said that the police had, without evidence, charged a half-drowned woman with attempting to commit suicide, and then carried her through the streets only covered by a sack. She never had a chance for her life, for in the cell she was deprived of ventilation and warmth.

The Jury, after a long consultation, returned a verdict, “That the deceased expired from the effects of shock caused by immersion in the water while she was in a state of unsound mind, and they censure the police for not calling in the divisional surgeon, and locking her in a cell the whole of a night when she might have been taken to the German Hospital or to a workhouse infirmary, and they say that the police should in future call in the divisional surgeon of the force to see persons who have been rescued from drowning.”

#### EAST LONDON DISTRESS.[^f17]

The dismal cry of distress and misery is again being heard in the semi-pauperised districts of East London, where poverty and sickness are rapidly crushing the latent energies and hopes of the unemployed labouring classes, and reducing them to a state of helpless and child-like despair. It is true that in Poplar and some other parishes the number of those in receipt of out-door relief exhibits a marked diminution; but this decrease is only on the exceptionally high figures of last year, and may at any moment be replaced by a vast increase, so extremely precarious is the present condition of large masses of the poorer East-end population. In fact, nothing but the continued mildness of the weather, so unusual at this season of the year, has hitherto prevented East London from becoming the scene of an unprecedented amount of pauperism, almost beyond the means of boards of guardians and relief committees to grapple with effectually. The three local industries which exhibit the greatest amount of depression are silk-weaving, ship-building, and sugar-baking. Besides these there are a variety of minor trades, employing, when in full activity, many thousands of men, women, and children, all of which have remained in a state of complete stagnation ever since the great financial crisis of 1866. The results of that panic continue to be visible in every direction, and must for some time to come exercise a most depressing influence on trade and commercial enterprise in East London. The numerous dealers in books, jewellery, and articles of luxury generally, complain that their business has largely fallen off of late, in consequence of the numbers of professional persons and tradespeople whose incomes have become materially reduced within the last two years, to say nothing of the multitude of clerks, book-keepers, engineers’ assistants, and others of a like class, who have for months past been without employment. All these circumstances assist materially in restricting the prosperity of East London industry. Some of the trades most affected are those connected with the manufacture of articles of personal attire or ornament. In these the majority of workers are females, and the results of their continued deprivation of employment are visible in the greatly increased number of unfortunate creatures haunting the metropolitan thoroughfares after dark. The number of small houses unoccupied in Hackney, Poplar, and elsewhere is incredibly large, and of those which have tenants not a few are the residences of rate-receivers rather than of rate players. Hackney is one of the wealthiest and most prosperous of East London parishes, yet a few days since no less than 4,800 summonses for payment of poor rates were issued, not a small proportion of which related to the irrepressible compound householder. In the Isle of Dogs the state of affairs is positively deplorable. Lancashire during the worst days of the cotton famine never exhibited a more discouraging spectacle. The parochial authorities are acting nobly in the emergency, performing all that the law empowers them, but they can do little more than enable the miserable artisans and their families to keep body and soul together. It is most pitiable; yet what else can be done?

No wonder that the cry in favour of emigration is daily becoming stronger. The destitute workmen are ready to go anywhere—to Canada, to Australia, to Natal, no matter what colony, so long as they can escape from the region of misery and despair in which they at present drag on their weary existence. Last year two successful efforts were made to enable a few of the more deserving artisan families to proceed to Canada: one of these was conducted under the auspices of the Eastend Emigration and Relief Fund, the other being a private venture on the part of the Hon. Mr. and Mrs. Hobart, Lady Mary Feilding, and a few other benevolent persons. The extremely satisfactory nature of the intelligence received concerning the behavior, condition, and prospects of the emigrants sent out by these agencies renders it extremely probable that further efforts will be made this winter by both bodies, but the general impression is that the government ought to take the matter up; and there is some talk of a deputation of unemployed artisans being sent to Downing-street, with the view of laying their case before the new ministry. The Canadian government is well satisfied with the East London emigrants and evinces considerable readiness to facilitate further endeavours to increase their number. Many of the letters received from the emigrants are very touching. The writers appear to feel like people who have stepped from the midst of death to life. One man writes that “Susy”—his wife—“has now plenty of milk for baby.” The full significance of that simple sentence can be understood only by those who have visited the homes of the poor, and beard the starving babes piteously wailing for the milk which their mothers could not give them. Such things are more common than most people dream of, not merely in homes where the bed consists simply of a heap of straw, but in abodes where the clean and tidy furniture affords few indications to the inexperienced observer of the poverty and destitution which reign within. At Rochdale, during the Lancashire distress, some of the most saddening cases were those of factory operatives who were prevented only by the combined assistance of the parochial authorities and relief committee from breaking up their comfortable little homes, and disposing of the furniture purchased at the cost of years of economy and thrift. Similar instances are painfully common in East London. There is scarcely a minister of religion, no matter what his creed may be, who is not familiar with several such, and it speaks well for the large-hearted charity of the various religious denominations that in numerous instances they have quietly and unostentatiously given much of the help so greatly needed by their poor and deserving fellow-creatures.

As might have been expected, the two leading relief organizations, the East Central Relief Committee and the East London Mission and Relief Society, have resumed operations, this time in active concert with each other and with the various poor-law authorities, for the purpose of preventing imposture. The principle of relief adopted by the two associations seems to be leave the great mass of pauperism, including the chronic element, to be dealt with by the various parochial boards, confining their own operations to the supplementing of parish relief in deserving cases, and to the assistance of those who have not actually crossed the thin line separating the rate-receiver from the rate-payer. The East London Mission and Relief Society have determined to confine their operations almost entirely to the establishment of sewing classes, which are to be so conducted as to give poor women moderate employment, without drawing them too much from their homes. These sewing classes have been productive of much good. There are literally thousands of working class females who have never learned the use of the needle, and who are utterly incapable of performing the slightest repair to their attire. To many of these the sewing classes have formed an invaluable means of instruction, and small as is the weekly pittance received, it has in more than one case assisted in preventing the recipient being driven into a career of sin and infamy. It is most satisfactory to find that both associations have expressed their intention of avoiding anything which may have the least tendency to increase the already too prevalent pauper-feeling; that, wherever possible, the assistance given shall be in the nature of payment for work done. In many cases, however, the poor creatures have become too debilitated to perform even the easiest kinds of labour. Severe privation and insufficient food are causing sickness and low fever to become largely on the increase amongst the unemployed. Where the parents suffer so severely, the children do not escape, and but for the dinners occasionally provided for them by the hands of charity, the rate of infantile sickness and mortality would be considerably increased. These children’s dinners form one of the most practical and efficient forms of benevolence possible, and are less open to abuse than any other. Of their utility during such periods of privation as the present, there can be no question. The distress in Poplar, it should be remembered, is likely to be affected for the worse by that prevailing in Woolwich, concerning which we shall have something to say at another time, many of the artisans formerly employed in the Royal Arsenal and dockyards of the latter town having their residences in the Isle of Dogs. Altogether, the Christmas Prospects of the East London poor are anything but encouraging.

#### LONDON CHARITIES AND PAUPERISM.[^f18]

Last evening a paper embodying startling facts as to the expenditure of the charities of London and the extent to which pauperism is encouraged by them was read by Dr. Hawksley, at a meeting which was held in the room of the Society of Arts. It was held under the auspices of the London Association for the Prevention of Pauperism and Crime, which, it was stated incidentally, is about to convene a conference with the view of adopting practical measures for the attainment of its objects. The meeting was presided over by the Earl of Shaftesbury, and among those present were Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Mr. W. Cowper, Mr. J. Ruskin, Dr. Stallard, the Rev. H. Solly, and the Rev. Septimus Hansard. The noble Chairman at once introduced Dr. Hawksley to the meeting.

The paper commenced by referring to one read in June last by the Rev. H. Solly. That led to the appointment of a committee, which divided itself into sections for systematized work, and the result was the formation of this association. In the division of labour it fell to the author to take a survey of the means in operation to oppose pauperism; and the facts made out were thought by his colleagues sufficiently important to form the basis of a special discussion. These were some of the result arrived at:—There are in London 606 charities which give their annual income, and 382 which do not. The income of the first number is 3,857,119*l.* To allow for those whose sphere of operation was out of London, or only partially in it 144,655*l.* was subtracted, leaving 2,712,464*l.* Estimating the income of the charities which do not give returns at the same ratio, 1,499,176*l.* was added and that made a total of 4,211,630*l.* Classifying the charities, it was found that 121,414*l.* was spent in treating mental or corporeal disease, 951,302*l.* in supplying the ordinary necessaries of life, and 426,460*l.* for educational, training, moral, and religious purposes. So far Fry’s *London Charities* was used as a catalogue, by no means complete. In 1861 Mr. Sampson Low estimated the income of 640 institutions at 2,441,967*l.*, stating the ratio of increase in the preceding ten years, and if that ratio had been maintained the income might be set down now at 3,011,753*l.*, which showed that the present calculation was supported by that of seven years ago. There could, then, be little doubt that four millions was collected and distributed annually by the charities of London, while another million might be set down for offertory collections, &c., and an additional quarter of a million for private almsgiving. The police magistrates distributed about 9,600*l.* per annum. The parochial expenditure in 1867 equaled another million and a quarter, exclusive of the common fund expenditure for infirmaries &c. State expenditure in London for education might be set down at 100,000*l.*, and for the repression and punishment of the crime which might fairly be put down to want of moral and industrial training at 80,000*l*. The result was that at least 7,000,000*l.* was spent annually in London in dealing with the requirements of poverty. If one-eighth of the whole population, or 400,000 persons, were dependent on the other seven-eighths, the sum named would supply to each 17*l.* a head for every man, woman, and child, or to every family of five persons 85*l.* per annum, with 50,000*l.* to spare for the expenses of collection and distribution. During the last ten years the population of London had increased one-sixth; the pauper part of it had increased one-half. Of offenders and suspected persons known to the police and at large in London there were, in 1867, 8,964; and in 1868, 10,342. The discontinuance of transportation turned 2,000 convicts loose upon the community every year, in addition to 100,000 of all sorts from our gaols. In London there were 100,000 children destitute of proper guardianship, and exposed for the most part to the training of beggars and thieves. He doubted whether a parallel to this picture could be found out of the Kingdom of Dahomey. He attributed this condition of things to erroneous method and want of organization. The new Poor Law dealt with destitution only in its completed state, and did not attempt to prevent pauperism. Through it we attempted to discharge the duties of humanity by proxy; we multiplied workhouse and officials, prisons and police, and how much did we do to prevent pauperism and crime? Including training and industrial schools, he had made out a list of 30 preventive institutions with an income of 60,000*l.* per annum. The second error of method (indirectly connected with this subject) was the diminution of our food supply by the pollution of our rivers. Experience had shown that we had an army of professional beggars, and that the aid afforded by our institutions often failed to reach those most in need of it. Reviewing the various causes of the failure of charitable agency to check pauperism, Dr. Hawksley submitted the following suggestions to remedy them;—First, a modification of our Poor Law system. There should be a more discriminating treatment of adults, and sufficient support given to the aged and infirm in their own homes, as well as to the sick (allowing for obviously exceptional cases). The ablebodied in health to work should be set on labour that would pay for maintenance. All children found without proper guardianship ought to be apprehended and sent to industrial schools, the parents being made, if possible, to contribute to their support. The schools should be made as far as possible self-supporting by apprenticing the children in sufficient time to make their labour profitable, or by employing the partially in factories. The difficulties in the way of the successful administration of the charities of London he proposed to remove in this way:—(a) By the union of all the charities, including the parochial, in a common understanding and obligation to attend only to applications authorized by an office of registration and inquiry placed in every parish or district. (b) Each office to be in communication with the others, and all to be subject to a central one, which latter would act as an office, not only of general control, but also for the general audit of charity accounts and for inspection of the annual reports of the same. The district office, on the other hand, would be constantly open to the application of all distressed or sick poor; the officer in charge would enter the particulars of the Applicant and his requirements in such a way as would identify the individual, and be evidence of truth or falsity of statement; he would then, or subsequently, either personally or by the agency of a district visitor, go and verify the statement, and he would at the time of application, if necessary, supply to the applicant a card directing him or her to the most appropriate charity or institution for the requisite relief, the card so given being the necessary but all-sufficient requirement by the charity or institution to which it was directed. In some instances it would be possible, when the inspector found that the applicant was not altogether destitute, to write on the card,—“The bearer can pay something towards the expenses of the charity;” and this would be as useful to the applicant as the institution, for everything that favours independence tends to diminish the mean and unmanly spirit of unnecessary dependency. Such machinery of a central and of district offices would constitute, in effect, a “police of charity.” It would require for its effectual working a large staff of voluntary or unpaid district visitors, who would be selected for their fitness, and act under the direction and government of systematic rules of conduct, and management. The district officer would teach them their duties and be responsible for their conduct, keeping a record, to be carefully and daily filled up, in which the particulars of every applicant would be “ledgered up,” and which would serve as a book of reference by other officers or by the public at all times, so that, when any one applied to private persons for relief, the latter could directly ascertain what had already been done in his or her behalf. If it were objected that such a system of charity police would be very expensive, it was easy to suggest how that would be met. Let charities pay 1*l.* per cent. of their annual income to a common fund for this purpose, and only 400,000*l.* of their income 40,000*l.* per annum would be immediately produced. There are 36 unions in the metropolitan area—suppose an average of five district offices to each union, and the expenses of each office equaled 200*l.* a year, the cost of the 180 offices would thus be 36,000*l.* per annum, leaving 4,000*l.* per annum for the central office. It might be found that fewer offices would do, but if not the work performed by them would be of the highest public utility. We should then obtain a public and independent audit of all charitable accounts and reports, which would strengthen the position of the good and deserving charities, and either reform or annihilate the bad ones. This agency would supply the poor with an easy, sure, and expeditious method of obtaining succor for the destitute and the real sufferer, for the office would possess the power of opening the door at once to the most suitable help at all hours of the day or night. Next, we should be able to prevent entirely the trade of begging, by identifying every dependent person, and obliging him to keep to his own district for relief, the correspondence of the offices making it impossible for the same person to obtain a ticket of relief from two offices, aided as the offices would be by the weekly reports of the different charities, and also by the reports of the district visitors. Put this system in complete action, and the law might mercifully sweep every beggar from the streets. The machinery thus sketched out would subserve other useful purposes. Each of those district offices might constitute a center of parochial usefulness to which Mr. Solly’s notions of working men’s clubs might be affiliated, or in other cases the head-quarters might be allied to them of those organizations of frankpledge, of registration, and of friendly supervision which were devised to favour the honourable industry of the rearmed criminal. In some concluding remarks Dr. Hawksley discussed a scheme for amending the Poor-Law, suggested by Dr. Stallard which he said was sound in principle, but he did not think it necessary to appoint Poor-law magistrates.

The Rev. H. SOLLY read passages from some of the evidence taken by the sub-committee in corroboration of the conclusions in Dr. Hawksley’s paper as to the encouragement of pauperism by indiscriminate charity. Instances were adduced in which persons had been detected going from one clergyman to another, and seeking relief as a trade. In some cases numbers of confirmed paupers had organized themselves into gangs, who exchanged information as to the institutions and individuals that could be easily imposed upon. In other persons spent a considerable portion of their time in identifying themselves with several places of worship in order to obtain the relief dispensed at each.

A lengthy discussion ensued.

The Rev. SEPTIMUS HANSARD, of Bethnal-green, said the facts revealed were startling and disgraceful to Englishmen. That people were dying of starvation while so much was spent in charity was a scandal to us in the eyes of Europe. He hoped this Parliament would set about the reform of the Poor-law, and he would suggest that given districts of London should combine their charitable agencies. Surely that might be done which was being done or attempted in Liverpool and Edinburgh. He disapproved the building of large schools, because they deprived children of home influence. Two hundred countesses would degenerate in character if brought up together without being subject to home influence. It was perfectly idle to talk of stopping the flow of charity by any well-organized scheme; but he believed that system would prompt rather than retard charity. It was indiscriminate relief, sanctioned, he was sorry to say, by the press, and adopted by the public, to ease their own consciences, that had produced chronic pauperism in the East-end of London.

Mr. RUSKIN said we did not know how the poor lived and died, and these were the things we had to learn. The first thing to be done was to register the poor, and this was not impossible if everyone in his own sphere would take pains to ascertain what he could concerning the poor about him. Let people give to those they knew and prevent them becoming beggars and criminals. Let us educate the poor by teaching them how to live and maintain themselves, for there was no education without employment; and the work was to be done by the organization of agencies that were to be found in abundance in all ranks society, and especially in the drawing-rooms of the wealthy.

Dr. STALLARD (who is to bring some phases of the subject before a special meeting of the Social Science Association on Monday evening) said he was well acquainted with a district of London which illustrated all the positions laid down in Dr. Hawksley’s paper, and, after giving some instances of imposture, he defended his proposal to appoint magistrates for the administration of relief, contending that that office demanded more knowledge and discretion, and involved more serious consequences than the ordinary administration of justice. He did not think it possible or necessary to interfere with individual or institutional charity, but with a dozen districts of London, under as many magistrates, he believed we should gradually accomplish our purpose—the diminution of pauperism.

Dr. RICHARDSON said we need not discuss the question of charities if the Legislature would provide work for those who wanted it, treat as criminals those who would not work, and make provision for the helpless, both young and aged.

Mr. FORBES, amid general applause, asked the meeting not to overlook intemperance as a cause of pauperism, and the temperance movement as an important agent to prevent and cure it.

Mr. MEASOR advocated the employment of persons out of work upon waste lands, the organization of a more effective scheme of emigration, and the complete registration of labour to facilitate discrimination between the worthy and the unworthy.

#### THE AGRICULTURAL LABOURER.—VI. TECHNICAL EDUCATION.[^f19]

##### TO THE EDITOR OF THE DAILY NEWS.

SIR,—Before entering upon the special topic which I have reserved for this letter—technical education—let me say a word with reference to an observation in my last, in which I stated that “where there is a superabundance of labourers in any particular district, a migration from one part of the country to another is doubtless desirable.” I am led to recur to this observation, because I find in an interesting and able article in the *Edinburgh Review* that the writer takes the same view and declares that” a migration of labour from the overstocked to the dearer market is the proper mode of rectifying the balance.” I think it right to say that this conclusion should be accepted with reservation, for however desirable it may be to encourage migration at certain seasons, there is not an agricultural district in Great Britain where a scarcity of hands exists all the year round. From autumn wheat sowing, ending in November, to spring bean sowing, beginning in February, there is an interim when there are sufficient hands in all districts to do the work of the period. At such time the importation of additional labourers would have the effect of lowering the price of labour below what it ought to be, and below what it now is, for it would be contrary to common sense to suppose that any farmer who has at one time to pay for his labour perhaps more than its real value, would at another offer eager applicants for work higher wages than they are willing to take. The migration of labourers from one agricultural district to another should, therefore, be seasonal, and with the power of locomotion afforded by railways there is no reason why it should not be of that character. It will have been observed in the statistics which I gave in my last letter, that among the purely agricultural counties in which the population has declined, there are those which are considered to be the very best farmed counties in England. I refer to Lincolnshire and Norfolk, where the average of weekly (money) wages is 13s. per week. In those counties, consisting chiefly of tillage farms, labourers are often scarce at certain seasons. At harvest additional hands are wanted to supply the place of the Irishmen who, before the potato famine, were accustomed to congregate there. At such time the benefit of importing the surplus labourers of the grass counties of the west would be great, but if it led to permanent settlement that benefit would be counteracted by the evil which would arise from excess of supply during the winter months. For many generations past it has been the custom for the surplus labourers of the eastern counties to travel “up country” at hay time, and return with money in their pockets, in good time for corn harvest at home. This practice still continues, showing that seasonal migration is practicable. To make an increase of farm wages permanent, not only must the migration of surplus hands be regulated by reference to all branches of industry and the demands of seasons, but the labour itself must be made more valuable to the employer; and this is the point to which may observations will now be directed.

Reverting to the subject of education; it will hardly be believed that, in spite of all that has been said on the subject in recent years, the children of the agricultural labourer leave school earlier now than they did a few years back. Such, however, is the case. While one boy remains at school till the age of thirteen, three will leave at the age of ten, the parents being fully satisfied that they have done their duty if their children can only read and write a little, and do a sum of addition. The accomplishment of writing is valued much higher than either reading or cyphering, as it is tangible evidence of ability in itself, which can be turned to good account directly an opportunity is found. If a lad is wanted at the village shop, or in the doctor’s surgery, or at the squireʼs stables, the bit of writing is the first thing shown by the parent. Should he be unable to furnish this passport to attention he is consigned to the farm either as a bird-keeper, crow-clapper, plough-boy, pig-keeper, cowman’s boy, or shepherd’s boy, it matters not which, nor how little or much he does in either capacity; one day he is kicked and cuffed by the ploughman the next by the herdsman, and the third by the shepherd, or he is sent with the pigs in search of acorns and finds himself under the hedge picking blackberries. It is true he may exercise his voice in singing while bird-keeping, but as this involves an effort he only does it when he sees his master coming. This literally and truly has been, and still is, the occupation of nearly every village boy during that time of his life when his mind is most susceptible of useful impressions. Though not altogether idle his mind is an empty one.

He sauntered on, not knowing what he sought, and whistled as he went, for want of thought.

It is possible that the budding labourer can thus fit himself for earning higher wages than his father did? Can he “better himself” in agriculture under such a system as this? I contend that the system can be readily altered, and that a boy intended to be brought up as an agricultural labourer can serve a species of apprenticeship, first in one department, for a time sufficient to qualify him fully in it, and then in another, if it be necessary to fit himself for more descriptions of servitude than one. Hitherto we have appeared to think that with the farm operative it has not been necessary he should learn his business, but seeing that a little time back the generality of farmers themselves were little better taught than labourers are now, it may not be long before we look at matters very differently. One of the resolutions passed at the meetting held at Willis’s Rooms on the 21st of March last was to the effect “that as one means of raising the agricultural labourer from his present depressed condition, it is desirable to form district protection societies;” or in other words, to form labourer’s unions; and it was assumed that the proper elements existed upon which to base them. Now, what is the case? In all the better trades’ societies in the country the first rule is that “no one shall be admitted unless he possesses good abilities as a workman,” and the next “that he shall not work for less than the average rate of wages paid to members in the same branch of trade in which he is employed.” The quality of work regulates the price above the average, but not below. In fact, there is no restriction on wages for superior work, though there is positive veto to any man’s taking less than the average price of labour (prevailing outside the union), let the value of that labour be what it may. A workman for instance may gain 30s. per week though the mean rate of wages in the district is only 18s., but he must not take work at less wages than this latter amount. It is thus in these free trade times, when meat and bread has been reduced to the lowest cost by open competition, that trade operatives maintain the price of labour by a dictation which would appear to be opposed to every principle of national economy. The justification of trade combinations formed upon such grounds as these is, that the members have each had to pay a premium as an apprentice, and may have worked five or seven years at a merely nominal rate of wage to acquire a knowledge of their art, and that, therefore, they have a right to assume that they have those good qualities as workmen which will sanction their demanding at least the average rate of wages paid to members of the same branch of trade as themselves who have not been placed under the same test of ability. The act of apprenticeship is, in truth, the very basis of unions, and if protective societies are to be supported at all in agriculture, this crucial requirement must be acknowledged and acted upon. The demand for higher wages without regard to capabilities cannot be maintained by any species of reason; and if labour is to be made worth more money to an employer, it can only be done by means of technical—*i.e.*, practical—instruction in early life, which is in other words an apprenticeship. To say that because a labourer does not earn enough to satisfy himself and his family he must necessarily be paid more, without proving that his employer can afford to pay it, is irrational, and to expect that any farmer will increase the wages he pays upon the mere presumption that with more money to be spent in food (bad beer?) he will get more work, amounts to an absurdity only to be equaled by the statement that the labourer of the farm requires only physical strength to perform his duties in the most profitable manner. If physical strength was the only measure of a labourer’s capability, the means of improvement would be simple. Nourishing food would be all that would be required, and certainly good wholesome meat and drink do much to increase the powers of all hard-working men, but it is too frequently found, when mind does not act upon matter, that the strongest men lose their strength in carelessness and idleness, and bring themselves to a level with the weakest. The truth of this may be observed every day in the farmers’ fields. Let a man be of what bodily strength he may, with a very small amount of intelligence, acting upon a good will, the labour of a weak and small man will be of the same value as that of a strong and big man. If the exertions of both are maintained by good beef or mutton, instead of being lowered by that miserable, pernicious compound of the village miscalled “beer,” each will do more work; but I question whether any improvement by such means, uninfluenced by intelligence of mind, will be equal in value to the extra cost of the meat. This was shown during the cotton famine, when, at the instigation of Mr. Tollemache, the member for Cheshire, a number of factory hands were employed in drainage works on his estate. When they first took the graft in their hands they could make no progress, and a great many of the stronger men refused to proceed; but some few of the more intelligent formed themselves into gangs, and soon earned as much money as the more practiced hands, although they were inferior specimens of physical strength. In my daily practice I have found that though good food maintains physical ability, when there is a will to work, good practical example—which is technical instruction—has much greater effect. For many years past I have adopted the weekly wage of 20s. as the basis of payment to the able-bodied labourers employed by the General Land Drainage and Improvement Company, and system upon which I have proceeded has been to make the earnings of a few good practiced bands of medium capability the data for paying all other hands. The price of piecework is generally fixed by the foreman of the works at such an amount as to apportion to the standard men from 16s. to 20s. a week according to the length of the day after paying for the repair of tools. While these wages are earned by them, the local labourers at commencement will seldom earn more than from 10s. to 12s. at the very time that the best hands will be gaining from 20s. to 24s. Gradually, however as the local men learn the proper use of their tools, get technical instruction from those about them, and take a pride in their work, they improve, and ultimately obtain the same wages. I can illustrate this fact by a striking case. In the year 1852 I had the control of some extensive drainage works in Dorsetshire. Wages in the district were from 7s. to 9s. a week. Impressed that such pay was inconsistent with suitable labour, I imported some north countrymen from Northumberland practiced in draining, to afford an example to such local men as chose to enter the trenches. I guaranteed to the northern men a minimum of 18s. a week, although I could have obtained the services of as many Dorsetshire men as I desired to employ at half that price. Many local labourers entered upon the work, and as soon as they knew what the north countrymen were getting and saw the character of the work executed by them, they applied all their energies in imitation. At first they took to bear and cider as a means of gaining strength, but they soon saw their error and imitated the northern men by taking to good meat and bread instead of an excess of drink. Eventually by the example afforded them—the technical education given by the Northumberland men—and by the effect of improved food, the despised Dorsetshire men were enabled to earn as much as their teachers, and it was not long before I actually removed them into the North of England to compete with Yorkshiremen in their own county, and the first place at which they were engaged was Swine, in Holderness, where there did not exist a public-house or beer-shop in the village. But perhaps the best illustration of the effect of practical instruction in conjunction with good food is to be found in the British navvy, who is really nothing more than a superior agricultural labourer. While making the railway in the Crimea during the late war the navvies received in rations twenty ounces of bread, twenty ounces of meat, two ounces of peas, two ounces of rice, one and three-quarter ounces of coffee, and four ounces of rum, and it will be readily understood how such food, given under special circumstances, supported the energies called into activity by the force of example and judicious organization. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that the genuine navvy is an illiterate brawler capable only of great physical exertions, as I have heard stated. On the contrary, there is not a more respectable labourer, and I question whether among the trade operatives, who are generally considered his superior, there exists greater intrepidity, perseverance, coolness, and courage, than is to be found in the sturdy navvy. Those men who disgrace the class by drunkenness are village vagrants in the glow of life, who leave their own parish for railways and public works under the false notion that they can get higher wages for the same amount of exertion and intel-ligence as that which they applied to farm work at home. When the better-minded men have found their mistake and made use of their capabilities they make as good workmen as the older hands, and eventually earn from 15s. to 20s. a week and more, instead of 9s. or 10s.

Returning to agriculture; there is not a farmer in the country who, be he engaged in sheep farming, in dairying, in tillage, or in mixed farming, does not know the superior value of a labourer well acquainted with special duties, and I assert that there is not any branch of work connected with either description of farming that does not require learning before it can be practiced perfectly, and which would not be better learnt by a regular apprenticeship in youth than by the irregular system which now prevails. A shepherd, for instance, whose wages are 16s. a week, besides perquisites, is an essential labourer on most farms, and I venture to say that at this moment there is hardly any other description of agricultural service in which there are fewer capable men. A good shepherd, in fact, is one of the most difficult men to obtain, and the loss for want of them is very great. Again, good horsekeepers are almost as difficult to obtain as good shepherds. From my own experience I can say that the difference between a good horsekeeper and a bad one is not to be measured by the simple difference between scanty and liberal wages. Any one accustomed to horses knows immediately by the appearance or touch of their skins whether the man in charge of them knows his business, and he will confirm my opinion that any difference in wages will be more than counterbalanced by the saving in the corn which horses consume when well attended to, and the better service they obtain from them, compared with that gained when they are indifferently treated. The same remark will apply to the tending of neat stock. Speaking again from my own experience, I have found that cattle under the charge of a man who thoroughly understands them will fatten quicker, and in every respect do much better with less food than under a man who, from attempting indiscriminately all the duties of the farm, is master of none. In the minor matter of poultry, I have known many pounds lost by the want of proper treatment, and have found a labourer’s wife having special knowledge of the matter, with a small plot of ground raise more poultry than has been produced from a farm of several hundred acres.

If this be admitted to be the case with live stock, it will be unnecessary for me to point out the advantages of employing men in the use of implements who have taken pains to understand them. The loss sustained by farmers from their careless treatment is great. Few labourers know how to adjust them if they get out of order; and one who thoroughly understands the steam-engine so as to take charge of it when ploughing land or thrashing corn is indeed a prodigy in his parish. And why should we dread the purchase and use of steam-engines on our farms on the ground that we have not a labourer who could take care of them, when tuition in youth would supply the omission without difficulty? It is true that the implement makers now and then undertake to tutor a farm labourer in the management of the engine, if previously assured of his intelligence. This circumstance, while it shows how an individual difficulty may be overcome, must go some way to prove that technical education is to be attained in the lowest grade of agriculturists as in the more refined artisan class.

It would be tedious to pass through all the branches of a farmer’s business to show how technical knowledge in the labourer would apply. There is hardly an operation in tillage that would not be done better if the operator had thoroughly understood it in early life. Take the simple operations of ploughing, drilling, and sowing. Is not a good workman worth 1s. or 2s. more per week than a bad one? The same question may be asked as to hedging, ditching, draining and thatching, in which there is no comparison between an expert man and an unpracticed one. How, then, are these practices to be taught in youth? The only reasonable ground that parents have for keeping their children from school is the circumstance that, having hungry stomachs to fill and active bodies to clothe, they have not the means of providing for them without some assistance on the part of the children themselves; and so weighty is this excuse for sending them into the field instead of the school, that many authorities are led to doubt the policy of compulsory education, however limited it may be. What I would suggest is, that those children who are sent out to earn their food and clothes by labour should be placed in a situation on the farm to obtain fundamental technical knowledge, not one day doing one thing and the next another; but by putting them for a sufficient time under the shepherd, or the horsekeeper, or the stockkeeper, or the engineer, the hedger or the ditcher, the thatcher or the drainer, so that they may learn, as far as such labourers can teach them, their respective duties. There is no practical difficulty, though there may be some slight inconvenience, in the adoption of this plan. By it a youth employed on the farm would be systematically engaged, or I would rather say apprenticed, in one occupation until he has learned it thoroughly; and in order to encourage his master for the time being—that is, the shepherd, the dairyman, or the engineman—to teach him what he knows, a bonus or prize should be given to such as do that duty properly, the boys themselves receiving prizes, too, according to the knowledge they have acquired. It would not be long before the farmers took an interest in the system, for it would be the same with farm teachers, as it is with many other teachers, that they themselves would learn much while they were in the act of teaching, and then the farmers themselves would derive advantage from what would be going on. At the present moment the daughters of the agricultural labourer are far better taught as they grow into womanhood than are the sons in their approach to manhood, for as soon as they can go into service the farmers’ wives, for their own sakes, teach them the duties of the cook or the housemaid. The difficulty in the case of farm tuition would be in finding qualified examiners. Already throughout the country, in the autumn, we have matches in ploughing, ditching, and draining, and the interest the labourers take in the competitions may be accepted as some proof that, under proper control, competitive trial may be extended to farming youths engaged in various agricultural duties. Assuming that with the demand for examiners the supply was found, what is to prevent an examination of young shepherds in the practice of shearing sheep, or in the mode of treatment for foot-rot, fly, or tick, on the proper management of the ewe during the lambing time, the effects of different foods, and the best means of diversifying food so as to secure health, and so forth? Why should not a ploughboy practically demonstrate the best way in which he would dress a horse, give him a ball, and treat him under certain ailments, prepare his food, drive a team, &c.? The same I would ask of all live stock, from a fowl to a bullock, and when we approach the matter of implements and their uses, the examination would ramify to almost an unlimited extent. And the like may be said with regard to all field operations, commencing with the preparation of the land for seed, and ending with the thrashing of the corn and the consumption of fodder. I believe it cannot be denied that technical knowledge obtained in youth—first, at school in the way indicated in my last letter, and next as an apprentice on the farm, as sketched out in this—will render the labourer not only able to earn higher wage, but will give him an interest in his calling which he will never lose. And this is what we must aim at in agriculture, if we would satisfy both the employer and the employed.

I will not at present trouble you further. At a future time I will, with your permission, make some remarks on provident institutions, by which the savings of the labourer may be turned to the best advantage. I have been content with drawing attention simply to the way in which his condition may be improved, and his capability of earning better wages increased.—I am, &c.,

J. BAILEY DENTON. Stevenage.

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[^f1]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 950, 25 October 1868, p. 4.
[^f2]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 955, 29 November 1868, p. 6.
[^f3]: Newspaper not identified (MEGAdigital).
[^f4]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 951, 1 November 1868, p. 6.
[^f5]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 941, 23 August 1868, p. 3.
[^f6]: *The Standard*, 3 December 1868, p. 3.
[^f7]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 941, 23 August 1868, p. 4.
[^f8]: Newspaper not identified; the same text in *The Times*, 14 November 1868, p. 3 (MEGAdigital).
[^f9]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 957, 13 December 1868, p. 4.
[^f10]: *The Daily News*, No. 6952, 13 August 1868, p. 4.
[^f11]: *The Daily News*, No. 7025, 6 December 1868, p. 5.
[^f12]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 943, 6 September 1868, p. 2.
[^f13]: *The Daily News*, No. 7001, 9 October 1868, p. 5.
[^f14]: *The Daily News*, No. 7027, 9 November 1868, p. 6.
[^f15]: *The Daily News*, No. 7015, 26 October 1868, p. 4.
[^f16]: *The Daily News*, No. 7072, 31 December 1868, p. 3.
[^f17]: *The Daily News*, No. 7069, 28 December 1868, p. 5.
[^f18]: Newspaper not identified (MEGAdigital).
[^f19]: *The Daily News*, No. 7052, 8 December 1868, p. 2.
[^lic]: Text from MEGAdigital (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften), MEGA² IV/19, licence CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/); the editorial apparatus of the MEGA is not reproduced. Words in square brackets are missing or damaged in the cuttings and supplied by the MEGA editors.