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Title: Notebook “Social cases. 1869” (1869). II: Cuttings, December 1868 to February 1869
Description: Newspaper cuttings of December 1868 to February 1869 collected by Marx: the Peabody dwellings, the inmates of provincial workhouses, short time in the Lancashire cotton trade, child mortality in the gang and pit districts, the accounts of the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund, the death in the Hackney police cell, the hanging of Priscilla Biggadyke, emigration from Woolwich, the starvation inquest in the Isle of Dogs, pauper nursing in St. Pancras workhouse, and the failure of the Poor Law.
Author: Karl Marx
Date: 1869
URL: https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/originales/1869%20Notebook%20%C2%ABSocial%20cases.%201869%C2%BB.%20II.%20Cuttings%2C%20December%201868%20to%20February%201869
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*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/1869%20Cuaderno%20%C2%ABSocial%20cases.%201869%C2%BB.%20II.%20Recortes%20de%20diciembre%20de%201868%20a%20febrero%20de%201869)*

#### THE PEABODY GIFT.[^f20]

The following letter has been addressed to the editor of the *Times*:—

“Sir,—Every one must be astonished by the magnificence of the gift to the poor of London by Mr. Peabody. Still there is a prevalent opinion that the really poor of London have reaped no benefit whatever by the gift, by reason of the mods adopted by the trustees in carrying out the donor’s wishes. I have called attention publicly to the *fact* that, about six months since, one building was half-full of lodgers, one building two-thirds occupied, and the remaining house was full. This state of part emptiness could not possibly be in accordance with Mr. Peabody’s wishes. Since then, however, the rooms have been all taken, and are now full, but at such rentals as to entirely exclude the poor, in any acceptation of the term. It is the well-to-do manager of some City business or careful clerk who is encouraged in these homes and no one who has the slightest look of manual labour or poverty. The whole scheme has degenerated into a commercial speculation. It is made to pay as high a rate of interest as can possibly be squeezed out of it, to the exclusion of the poor. There are two of the buildings, one situated in Shoreditch parish and one in Lime house, where upon inquiry it is found that not one poor person from either of those populous parishes has been able to avail himself of these so called homes, so that as a means of relief to the neighbourhood those buildings are of no avail. What society wants at the East-end of London is one or more buildings where the arrangement is such that one room can be let at 1s. per week. There are a large number of poor widows and single women who have to struggle very hard for but few shillings a week, and many of them having seen better days would be glad of the accommodation offered, and the quiet and order such a buildings should afford. If the trustees would but lower their views so as to come within the reach of the poor of London, they would indeed confer a benefit on all society; but it is no boon while conducted as at present.—I am, yours respectfully,

E. R. Rigby, a Member of the Board of Guardians City of London Union. London, Dec. 8.”

#### THE INMATES OF PROVINCIAL WORKHOUSES.[^f21]

An interesting return has lately been published, which exhibits the character of the classes confined in provincial workhouses. It relates to the able-bodied—or those who are considered able to maintain themselves, whatever their age may be—and to the sick and infirm, suffering from various disorders at every time of life. The number of able-bodied male adults is, however, the true index of the use to which workhouses were intended to be put, for the majority of able-bodied females consists of young women who go in to be confined, and of those who are unable to support their illegitimate children without relief. The number of able-bodied males—and be it observed that there is a general tendency on the part of officials to over-state their power to work—is about five per cent of the entire number of inmates. On the 1st of July, 1867, there were 226 workhouses without a single male able-bodied inmate; and even on the 1st of January, 1868, 118 workhouses were in the same case; whilst at the former date there were 251 more which had not more than five, and at the latter date 163. On the 1st of July 477 workhouses or 75 per cent of the whole number in the kingdom, had either no able-bodied male inmate, or less than five. In July there were 14 workhouses, many of them of considerable size, without an able-bodied inmate of either sex; and in January six workhouses, containing 565 inmates, were in the same state. At Chesterfield, 248 helpless people were without a single able-bodied person; and at Warrington there were 300 inmates, of whom one male and one female only were considered able to do a fair day’s work. Of adults in workhouses, an average of 75 per cent., at every period of the year, are quite unable to maintain themselves.

If we turn to the tables which represent the nature of the ailments from which the inmates suffer, we find only about 5 per cent of the entire number of inmates, or 7.5 per cent of the adult inmates generally, to be suffering from acute disease, other than syphilis and fever. Deducting the mean number of able-bodied inmates who may be supposed to have nothing the matter with them—7.7 per cent of the inmates suffer either from syphilis, fever, or acute disease—the remainder consists of children and persons laboring under chronic complaints and old age, of whom the latter constitute by far the larger part. These statistics abundantly prove that the character of the workhouse inmates has changed equally I the provinces as in London. Erected for the treatment of able paupers, they have practically become gigantic almshouses, in which the orphan and illegitimate children, the aged, sick and infirm, and imbeciles, are more or less permanently lodged.

But with respect to the sick it will be interesting to pursue the subject into somewhat further detail. And first, with respect to fever and zymotic disease, we observe that the Poor-law Board has been in the habit of insisting on the erection of separate fever wards in nearly every workhouse, involving a nurse and separate attendance for the sick. It appears from the returns from which we are quoting that this separate arrangement is, for the most part, and for all practical purposes, of little use, and might be much more economically managed by a fever hospital common to a very considerable district. Thus out of 634 workhouses no less than 434 had not a single case of fever or zymotic disease, and 121 more had less than three in each. Of the whole number of workhouses only thirty-one had more than ten cases in each. There was not a single case of zymotic disease in the workhouses in the countries of Bedford and Rutland. Two-thirds of the entire cases are to be found in 16 workhouses, nearly all of which were in densely populated and more or less unwholesome districts. It is probable that the workhouse in Liverpool is the chief fever hospital of the town, as it contained 68 cases in January and 107 in July. There were also numerous fever patients at Manchester, Preston, Portsea, Birmingham, Bristol, and Sunderland. In these cases it is only proper that the wards should be separated completely from the rest of the workhouse. But we believe that it is a waste of expenditure to insist that every little workhouse with less than 100 inmates should be provided in the same way. With respect to venereal disease, in summer and winter there is an average of 857 patients, of whom two-thirds are females. Here also the distribution is most unequal. Even in the winter, which is selected by many as a preferable time for treatment, there were 463 workhouses without a single patient. There was not one patient in the counties of Cornwall and Rutland; only one in six workhouses in Bedfordshire; only four in 17 workhouses in Suffolk; and only eight cases in 18 workhouses in Norfolk. In Wolverhampton, Lancashire, and Birmingham, the workhouses appear to be the Lock hospitals of the several districts, and contained 213 cases. No less than 344, or one-third of all the cases recorded, are to be found in thirteen workhouses. As it is most important that venereal disease should be treated in separate wards, it is obvious that a proper Lock hospital for each county or large town ought to be provided, and that the provision of separate wards in every workhouse is a most extravagant system. In many cases the separation of the patients amounts to solitary confinement; and in the returns before us there are 100 persons who have no companion labouring under the same disease.

Of the acute cases, which average about 5,000 in the various workhouses, three-fifths are to be found in 50 workhouses, 169 had not a single acute case under treatment, and 90 had only one. Liverpool workhouse stands conspicuously out as a hospital for the treatment of acute disease. On the 1st of January 735 acute cases were under treatment. Barton, Salford, and Chorlton stand next with 286,238, and 177 patients in each respectively, and then at a far off distance come Preston, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Croydon with less than 50 patients each.

We now come to the classes which are more or less perfectly incompetent to maintain themselves. Of these the imbeciles must be noticed first. They vary very slightly in number, only a few being permitted to leave the workhouse during the summer season. They average about 3,700. There are 28 workhouses into which, apparently, they are not admitted, as none have been returned. Amongst these there are not more than 400 children, so that they constitute 7 per cent of the incompetent adult inmates.

The chronic sick and aged may be classed to-gether. They average about 9,339, and one-fifth more are to be found in winter than in July. They constitute one-fifth of the incompetent classes, and they all require medical treatment from time to time. One-third of the cases are on the medical books.

Lastly, there are the aged and infirm who require no medical treatment or only extra diet. They number 11,748 in the summer and 16,091 in the winter, showing that many of them are able under favourable circumstances to earn a living, and only seek the workhouse in the winter when the weather keeps them within doors. Lastly, an average of 31,516 are on the doctors’ books, a proportion largely increased by the necessity of entering pauper nurses and helpers in order to give them extra diet.

In conclusion, no return could more clearly demonstrate the insufficiency, and at the same time wasteful and extravagant arrangements, of the present system. Nothing more clearly demonstrates that there is need of a special medical department at the Poor-law Board. The return incontestably prove that a great saving would be effected by combining large areas for special purposes, as for the care of imbeciles, the treatment of fever and venereal disease, and above all for the management of the able-bodied class, who cannot be properly employed whilst they are associated with the mass of old age, sickness, chronic misery, and childhood, which is the more general characteristic of the present inmates.

#### DISTRESS IN SHADWELL.[^f22]

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

SIR,—May we beg the aid of your powerful journal in an appeal to the generous British public? Shadwell is a very poor and suffering parish. The situation is unhealthy, and the tenements and habits of the poor are squalid. During the ensuing winter, we fear there will be among us much distress from probable frost and hard weather closing the docks, and thus throwing most of our labourers out of work. To meet this evil, we shall receive great assistance from the kind and considerate exertions of the guardians; but there are frequent instances of distress which can be relieved only by special local superintendence and succour; as *e.g.,* by timely grants of coals, broth, and the more delicate nutriments. These, our long established local committee has been wont to furnish to all in need, irrespective of religious persuasion. Will you kindly aid us in procuring funds?—We are, &c.,

BRENCHLEY KINGSFORD, M. A., Rector of Shadwell. HENRY SHEAFE KING, THOMAS BARTON ROSE, Churchwardens. To any of us contributions may be sent.

#### HOW THE POOR TENANTS OF THE LAMBETH PIGSTYES ARE FLEECED.[^f23]

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

SIR,—Having read of a tenant residing at Camberwell who refused to be swindled out of the taxes by his landlord, who, with others, had previously paid them under the compounding system, I find there are very many poor people in this parish who not only pay exorbitant rents, but in addition the entire rates. The landlord in Camberwell, however, appears to have met with his match, for the tenant tendered his tax receipt for rent. The landlord refused to accept it, and distrained upon the goods. The tenant then brought an action at the country court for damages and an illegal distress, and was awarded by Mr. Pitt Taylor 4*l.* and costs. In George’s-street, in this parish, a poor man has a coal-shed and three dilapidated rooms, for which he pays 50s. a month. He tells me it is as much as he can do to pay his rent, but nevertheless he must make up the rates too; if they are not paid, expenses are added. If the poor people really derived the least benefit it would not so much matter; but they do not. Since the abolition of compounding every tenant in Lambeth has had 4d., 6d. and even 1s. a week added to the already sufficiently high rent. Surely the Reform Act was never intended to grind the poor in this horrible manner. A poor woman in William-street, Lambeth, told me to-day that for four rooms, in the most deplorable state of filth and repair, she pays 7s. a week. Since February she has paid respectively 18s. 4½d., 19s. 10½d. and on the last occasion 17s. 3d. At another house they pay for two rooms 5s. 6d. a week in the same state of repair and the rates. At another abode in this street the landlord in addition to 7s. a week rent proposed that the tenant should pay another shilling a week if he (the landlord) benevolently paid the rate. And in High-street, not far from the manufactory of an eminent potter and a late M.P. for the borough, a poor old widow has resided and earned her bread by washing and turning a mangle for 35 years; the eminent gentleman, with all the solicitude of a guardian of such like people, in the first instance charged the woman 5s. 6d. for three rooms; then on the passing of the new act, 6s. 6d.; at last he told her he could not be bothered paying the taxes—she must pay 6s. and all the rates herself, which she is really quite unable to do; so her children have to make up the amount. Thus he profits not only an additional sixpence a week under the excuse of the taxes, but also to their full amount besides. When such people condescend to turn the grindstone for the poor, what can be expected from the half-educated pettifogging tradesmen who compose the vestry and the board of guardians? With regard to the workhouse. On last Friday a man applied for himself and family, in a state of the greatest destitution. He had two loaves doled out, and on these bread five human beings starved till Monday. But these two loaves, generously provided out of more than 67,000*l.* a year, appear rather to have whetted than appeased the appetites of these audacious paupers, for the man had the boldness to present himself again for relief—we never, as a rule, in this parish pamper paupers—two loaves were handed him, with the stern intimation that he need never apply again, as he would get nothing more. Why? In spite of so many indulgences, such as fat mutton, and a good deal of abuse, the poor people, somehow, do not take kindly to the “house.” Some say they would rather be drowned than go in. The diet, the pauper-nursing, accompanied by occasional doses of morphine to keep the patients quiet, the handling poor sick people get, all tend to make this national institution anything but attractive. Indeed, I am not certain whether the board of guardians could not be indicted for keeping a disorderly house, for it resembles a bear garden more than anything else.—I am, &c.,

A DISTRICT VISITOR. St. Mary’s-the-Less, Lambeth.

WHATEVER the weatherwise may say of the prospects of the winter, it needs no great wisdom to predict that for some portions of the community there are hard times at hand.[^f24]

There is chronic distress in the East End of this metropolis, and a frost would be almost equivalent to famine among the labourers there. In Lancashire it seems that the effects of the cotton famine are not yet over, but that masters and men have now, after an interval of sunshine, to pass through the skirts of the storm. Short time in the cotton trade has been getting far too common as the winter has come on, and will, it appears, be far more common yet. Of 712 firms which answered a circular of the Cotton Spinners’ Association sixty per cent are already working short time, the average time of working being four and a half days in the week. Eighty-two per cent of the firms were so convinced that short time was inevitable that they expressed willingness to adopt it; and at a very large meeting of the trade held at the Manchester Town-hall, on Tuesday, it was resolved to recommend it to the whole trade, and an unanimous resolution was passed pledging all present to run their mills only thirty hours a week during the months of January and February, on condition that one-half the trade came into the arrangement. That condition will probably be satisfied, for it is most obviously the interest of the manufacturers to limit production for a time. For two years past their profits have been growing less and less. One of the speakers at the meeting, Mr. R. HAWORTH, said that they had had two years of the most unprofitable and disheartening trade he had ever known; and Mr. B. WHITWORTH, M.P., said that he did not know a single foreign market which was returning a fair profit on the day’s prices in Manchester; and that if they did not at once limit production, “there” would be nothing but disaster through that “part of the country.” Mr. FISH, of Blackburn expressed a similar opinion. “In short time lay “their only chance of salvation for the next two “or three years;” and the Chairman of the meeting (Mr. W. M. PEARSON) described the question before the meeting as being “whether they would “drag on a miserable existence from day to day “which would dissipate all their hard earnings.” Of course we take even the grumblings of cotton spinners *cum grano salis,* as they themselves would take the grumblings of farmers. But when they tell us they are doing business at a loss, and give proof of their earnestness by resolving to reduce it by one-half at a stroke, we see every reason for believing them. A resolution for half time adopted by so large and influential meeting shows that a serious crisis has arrived in the great staple manufacture which has its headquarters at Manchester.

The resolution to work half time will throw a gloom over the Christmas holiday in all the manufacturing towns of Lancashire. Hitherto the chief loss occasioned by the bad condition of the market has fallen upon the manufacturers, now the work-people must consent to share it. This time, too, the fault of the bad situation does not lie at the doors of the manufacturers. It is not said that the markets of the world are full, and that they have made a winding-sheet for their trade by weaving more cotton cloth than would be needful to wrap up the planet itself. On the contrary, cotton goods are everywhere wanted, but they are wanted at a lower price than that at which Manchester can make them. There has been over production; not that more has been made than the world wants, but more than the world can buy at the price. The supply of the raw material is not equal to the demand. The cotton spinners have gone on spinning more than they could sell at a profit, and by doing so they have lowered the value of manufactured goods by oversupply, and raised the price of the raw cotton by over demand, and so have burned their candle at both ends till they have begun to burn their fingers. The price of cotton has gone up 3d. to 3½d. a pound, but the price of manufactured goods has gone down. Mr. WHITWORTH said that in 1860, when cotton was 6½d. a pound, he could get a higher price for shirtings than he can now get with cotton at 11d.; and if that statement is a fair representation of the condition of the trade, the least commercial reader can at once see that the loss on the manufacture must now be considerable, unless the profits in 1860 were enormous. It is obvious, too, that there is only one remedy for this state of things. If the mills go on spinning at their full rate, the balance between the cost of raw material and the value of goods will not only fail to right itself, but will get worse, till goods are worth less than the cotton they are made of, and the whole cost of manufacture is a dead loss to the manufacturers, and a crash comes from which it may take years to recover. Such a calamity was warded off once by a short time movement among the operatives, it can only be avoided now by a short time movement of the manufacturers. To diminish the supply of goods will be to diminish the demand for cotton; and while the one will rise in value the other will fall in price. The balance of trade may thus be restored, and it is estimated that two months of this self-denying ordinance will allow the supplies of cotton to accumulate sufficiently to lower the price, and to make the trade once more healthy and profitable.

The strange thing is, however, that this balance does not restore itself. That spinners should go on spinning at a loss, is one of the strange phenomena of Lancashire trade. Is this one aspect of English inability to understand when we are beaten? The Lancashire people are the most energetic portion of the nation. Their enterprise is wonderful. The vast fabrics which make their county look like a land of giants are so many monuments of their untiring energy. But, as Mr. WHITWORTH said, “there is no other trade “in the world which does not lessen “its production when the demand for the “manufactured article falls off.” The cotton spinner, on the contrary, goes on spinning, as though by some necessity of nature, till, like a silkworm, he is buried in his own products. One speaker probably let out a part of the secret when he said that he could not go on working his mill thirty hours a week if his neighbour was working sixty. A mutual agreement to limit production ought to be possible in such circumstances, and should it be arrived at, it will be the salvation of the Lancashire trade. To the workpeople it comes, unhappily, as a blessing in disguise. To them half-time means hard times; and hard times are doubly hard when they come in the hard season. It means half-pay during the two winter months; and though happily it does not mean a population half-clothed and half-fed, the feeding must be plain and clothing somewhat scanty, for there will be little to earn and many to keep. But the Lancashire people are sufficiently instructed in the laws of trade to take the hardship kindly. They know that it is not legislation which puts the burden on their backs, and they will take half-time for two months of winter as better than the risk of no work at all through the spring and the summer.

Among other lamentable facts, the Commissioners who inquired into the working of the gang system in the Eastern Counties of England found out that, in consequence of the field-work to which mothers resorted, the children of the agricultural poor died very fast.[^f25]

Hoe in hand, a mother joined a gang, and worked from morning till night—leaving a young infant, meanwhile, in charge of another child only a few years older than itself, and perhaps giving the infant a sleeping draught to keep it quiet. The same practice, it is said, was once common in the cotton districts, when, more frequently than they are now, mothers were mill-workers. Hence, in those districts, and the “gang” counties, the rate of infant mortality was alarmingly high; the neglected children dying in infancy, or growing up with weakened frames that foreshadowed premature decay. It appears that in the colliery districts, also, the death-rate among children is equally alarming; and in those places the mortality cannot be explained by the occupation of the mothers in any handiwork which would divert their attention from their families. A pitman is well paid; he keeps a good table; his wife is seldom engaged away from home; and yet, as stated by “A Clergyman” in a letter to a contemporary, “all through the pit district in the county of Durham the mortality of children is something fearful.” “A Clergyman” seeks an explanation in the fact that colliery doctors are often unfit for their work; and he cites the case of one who as a pitman said, though “a clever chap enough is a sad drunken dog.” That is not the cause. Colliery doctors, so far from being all drunken dogs, are often most steady and exemplary practitioners. But they have to deal with rough materials. Of all English workmen, pitmen are perhaps the most ignorant, most reckless, and most contemptuous of sanitary arrangements. Though they earn good wages, and live more luxuriously than many middle-class families, their homes are often models of what the laws of health forbid houses to be. Hardy children can brave the effects of the uncleanliness, the close beds, and the draughts, which are the agreeable accompaniments of a pitman’s cottage; but delicate children cannot. That is the reason why so many children are carried off in the pit villages. And the remedy is, not higher wages, better food, warmer clothing, or less drunken doctors, but more knowledge. It is the school, not the drug-shop, that is at fault.

#### THE METROPOLITAN POOR ACT, 1867.[^f26]

##### ASSESSMENT TO THE METOROPOLITAN COMMON POOR FUND.

The following official documents have been forwarded to us for publication:

We, the Poor-law Board, acting under the Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867, do hereby assess on the several unions and parishes and places where there is no poor rate in the metropolis, the undermentioned amounts as their respective contributions to the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund, in respect of the half-year ended at Lady-day, 1868:

| Unions, Parish, or Place. | Annual rateable value. | Amount of contribution. |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bermondsey, St. Mary Magd. | £216,868 | £1,807 | 4 | 8 |
| Bethnal-green, St. Matthew | 220,906 | 1,840 | 17 | 8 |
| Camberwell, St. Giles | 414,314 | 3,452 | 12 | 4 |
| Chelsea, St. Luke | 279,890 | 2,332 | 8 | 4 |
| Clerkenwell, St. James | 231,021 | 1,925 | 3 | 6 |
| Fulham | 256,980 | 2,141 | 10 | 0 |
| George, St., Hanover-square | 905,812 | 7,548 | S | S |
| George, St., in the East | 181,119 | 1,509 | 6 | 6 |
| George, St., the Martyr, Southwark | 167,669 | 1,397 | 4 | 10 |
| Giles, St., in the Fields, and St. George, Bloomsbury | 254,819 | 2,123 | 9 | 10 |
| Greenwich | 368,892 | 3,074 | 2 | 0 |
| Hackney | 510,407 | 4,253 | 7 | 10 |
| Hampstead, St. John | 204,772 | 1,706 | 8 | 8 |
| Holborn | 184,546 | 1,537 | 17 | 8 |
| Islington, St. Mary | 840,611 | 7,005 | 1 | 10 |
| Kensington, St. Mary Abbots | 713,459 | 5,945 | 9 | 10 |
| Lambeth, St. Mary | 761,028 | 6,341 | 18 | 0 |
| Lewisham | 292,149 | 2,434 | 11 | 6 |
| London, City of | 1,836,135 | 15,301 | 2 | 6 |
| London, East | 187,895 | 1,565 | 15 | 10 |
| London, West | 170,035 | 1,416 | 19 | 2 |
| Luke, St., Middlesex | 224,888 | 1,874 | 1 | 4 |
| Margaret, St., and St. John, Westminster | 461,932 | 3,849 | 8 | 8 |
| Marylebone, St. | 1,017,073 | 8,475 | 12 | 2 |
| Mile End Old Town | 240,418 | 2,003 | 9 | 8 |
| Newington, St. Mary | 232,472 | 1,937 | 5 | 4 |
| Olave, St. | 126,400 | 1,053 | 6 | 8 |
| Paddington | 729,838 | 6,081 | 19 | 8 |
| Pancras, St. | 1,049,417 | 8,745 | 2 | 10 |
| Poplar | 473,359 | 3,944 | 13 | 2 |
| Rotherhithe, St. Mary | 116,921 | 974 | 6 | 10 |
| Saint Saviour’s | 216,545 | 1,804 | 10 | 10 |
| Shoreditch, St. Leonard | 366,239 | 3,051 | 19 | 10 |
| Stepney | 246,756 | 2,056 | 6 | 0 |
| Strand | 461,013 | 3,841 | 15 | 6 |
| Wandsworth and Clapham | 601,521 | 5,012 | 13 | 6 |
| Westminster | 531,221 | 4,426 | 16 | 10 |
| Whitechapel | 267,071 | 2,225 | 11 | 10 |
| Woolwich | 256,357 | 2,136 | 6 | 2 |
| The Charter House | 1,948 | 16 | 4 | 8 |
| Gray’s-inn | 12,652 | 105 | 8 | 8 |
| The Close of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter | 1,456 | 12 | 2 | 8 |
| Inner Temple | 19,866 | 165 | 11 | 0 |
| Middle Temple | 13,000 | 108 | 6 | 8 |
| Lincoln’s-inn | 17,244 | 143 | 14 | 0 |
| Totals | £16,884,934 | £140,707 | 15 | 8 |

Given under our hand and seal of office this 11th day December, 1868.

DEVON, President. H. FLEMING, Secretary.

* * *

##### TO JOHN LAMBERT, ESQUIRE, RECEIVER OF THE METROPOLITAN COMMON POOR FUND.

We, the Poor-law Board acting under the Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867, do issue this our precept under our seal to you, and do hereby direct you to repay out of the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund to the guardians of the several under-mentioned unions and parishes in the metropolis, and to the masters of the bench, treasurer, governors, or other body or persons having the chief control or authority in the several other under-mentioned places in the schedule here-under written, being the amounts actually expended on account of such unions, parishes, and places respectively during the half-year ended at Lady-day, 1868, in respect of expenses which are to be repaid out of the said Common Poor Fund. The schedule referred to:—

| Names of Unions, Parishes, and Places. | Expenditure repayable out of Metropolitan Common Poor Fund to each Union, Parish, and Place. |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bermondsey, St. Mary Magdalen | £2,074 | 3 | 2 |
| Bethnal-green, St. Matthew | 6,659 | 19 | 10 |
| Camberwell, St. Giles | 4,091 | 18 | 6 |
| Chelsea, St. Luke | 3,092 | 16 | 7 |
| Clerkenwell, St. James | 773 | 17 | 0 |
| Fulham | 1,484 | 14 | 2 |
| George, St., Hanover-square | 3,570 | 12 | 9 |
| George, St., in the East | 4,028 | 9 | 10 |
| George, St., the Martyr, Southwark | 2,417 | 1 | 3 |
| Giles, St., in the Fields, and St. George, Bloomsbury | 1,238 | 5 | 2 |
| Greenwich | 5,115 | 16 | 6 |
| Hackney | 2,652 | 1 | 6 |
| Hampstead, St. John | 912 | 12 | 1 |
| Holborn | 1,127 | 7 | 7 |
| Islington, St. Mary | 3,386 | 4 | 5 |
| Kensington, St. Mary Abbots | 2,235 | 11 | 10 |
| Lambeth, St. Mary | 7,574 | 2 | 9 |
| Lewisham | 1,516 | 10 | 7 |
| London, City of | 4,228 | 9 | 5 |
| London, East | 2,411 | 5 | 8 |
| London, West | 2,008 | 17 | 10 |
| Luke, St., Middlesex | 1,343 | 0 | 5 |
| Margaret, St., and St. John, Westminster | 2,056 | 4 | 7 |
| Marylebone, St. | 8,288 | 12 | 5 |
| Mile End Old Town | 3,000 | 2 | 4 |
| Newington, St. Mary | 3,767 | 5 | 0 |
| Olave, St. | 1,137 | 0 | 0 |
| Paddington | 1,616 | 4 | 1 |
| Pancras, St. | 8,449 | 7 | 11 |
| Poplar | 5,768 | 14 | 4 |
| Rotherhithe, St. Mary | 1,540 | 13 | 10 |
| Saint Saviour | 2,207 | 15 | 4 |
| Shoreditch, St. Leonard | 4,095 | 17 | 6 |
| Stepney | 5,778 | 6 | 2 |
| Strand | 2,929 | 10 | 11 |
| Strand (St. Martin in the Fields) | 1,909 | 3 | 8 |
| Westminster | 3,590 | 4 | 2 |
| Wandsworth and Clapham | 3,153 | 16 | 0 |
| Whitechapel | 6,823 | 19 | 10 |
| Woolwich | nil. |  |  |
| The Charter House | nil. |  |  |
| Gray’s-inn | nil. |  |  |
| The Close of the Collegiate Church of St. Peter | nil. |  |  |
| Inner Temple | nil. |  |  |
| Middle Temple | nil. |  |  |
| Lincoln’s-inn | nil. |  |  |
| Total | £130,056 | 17 | 11 |

Given under our hand and seal of office this 11th day of December, 1868.

DEVON, President. H. FLEMING, Secretary.

#### THE POOR OF ST. MARY’S THE LESS, LAMBETH.[^f27]

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

SIR,—There is at present a very great amount of distress existing in this parish, owing to sickness and the great number of men out of employment, the sickness arising in a great measure from the state of the dwellings of the poor and their very great privations. I noticed with surprise, as it happened to be in direct contradiction to the evidence of one’s own daily experience, Dr. Puckle’s late report at the vestry meeting, a few days ago, on the health of Lambeth. I have only to say, in reference to his curious statement, the report supplied to the guardians by the parish doctor tells a very different tale. Dr. Puckle extracts, it seems, for the public edification only the fevers that are designated by name, not always in the power of the medical attendant to supply for the first day or two—it may turn out to be the most virulent—but reported by the parish doctor as simply “fever,” it is, if there are many of such cases, I can quite understand the wherefore, more convenient to ignore the presence of disease altogether. Several families have suffered in my district from typhoid fever lately, and four members of one poor family have had it one after the other, owing to the gross neglect of the vestry in allowing the pigsties to remain, in spite of every warning, in a perfectly uninhabitable condition for months, and the result is the death of one of the children. In one court the fever not long since went from one house to another. A poor widow lost her daughter, aged 16, on whom the support of the family partly depended, and yet here the common sanitary precaution of whitewashing walls and ceilings to prevent infection has not been taken by the medical officer, Dr. Puckle, whose duty it is to inspect such places, and insist on this being done. The fever arose from the horrible foulness of the cesspools and the consequent impurity of the water in uncovered mutilated casks in close proximity to the insufferable stench. To judge by the state of the hundreds of houses I have visited, situations in the Lambeth Board of Health are complete sinecures. This delightful and salubrious locality is situated through an archway facing the work-house, and contains 22 pigsties. The vestry may be certain of one thing, I am only biding my time. As to threats of personal violence, I smile at them as I do at the vestry man who lately said he would kick me. Poor people shall have what their hard earned money pays for. I appeal to your readers to lend a helping hand, not only to those who are suffering from poverty and sickness, but also to such poor people who may require a little assistance when turned out of their houses, as many of them fully expect to be when they tender their tax receipts for rent. To give an idea of the profits arising from the Lambeth interiors, eight of them in George’s-street were bought for 130*l.* and the rents vary from 1*l.* for a shop, 12s. 6d. for three rooms and a coal-shed (the tenant pays the rates) and 8s. for the others (all four roomed). The Rev. Canon Gregory, A. M., St. Mary’s-vicarage, Lambeth, S. E., will thankfully receive any contributions of money, wine, or clothing for the poor.—I am, &c.,

A DISTRICT VISITOR. St. Mary’s-the-Less, Lambeth, S. E.

#### THE DEATH AT THE HACKNEY POLICE STATION.[^f28]

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

SIR,—The conduct of the police at the Hackney police-station to the poor woman who died there on Sunday evening, as narrated in your report of the inquest, is a matter of grand public importance. Private, sergeant, and inspector, all showed want of promptitude in dealing with an emergency; want of knowledge of the extent of their duty, and want of the commonest feelings of humanity.

A policeman heard a splash at 9 o’clock on Saturday night, got the drags, and fished out an old woman nearly sixty years of age, very nearly drowned, and who had been in the water seven minutes on a winter’s night. He took her to a neighbouring tavern, but, beyond taking off all her clothes but her chemise, which was left on wet, does not appear to have done anything to dry, or warm, or restore the poor creature. She was then, nearly naked, laid upon a stretcher, and the police were proceeding to carry her in that state through the streets, on a cold night in December, and nobody interfered but a fruiterer named Jones, whose small act of kindness stands out conspicuously from the cruel narrative, and he, seeing her lying on the stretcher with nothing on but a wet chemise, lent a sack to cover her, for decency’s and humanity’s sake. The police carried her, not to the hospital, but the station-house, and the policeman Robson, who admitted at the inquest that he did not know how she came into the water, charged her with attempting to commit suicide. It does not appear who took the charge, or whether any one at the station took the trouble to ascertain whether there were any grounds for taking her into custody. A policeman at the station sent to the workhouse for some clothing, and the female searcher put it upon the sick woman, who, in the meantime, was lying in front of the fire at the station covered with the sack, and then the police put a woman, who had just been saved from a watery grave, who was old and insensible, into a cell with a stone floor, with no bed in it, no light in it, and a drunken woman, and in this dark cell the half-drowned woman first returned to consciousness, and here she was left without bed, food, refreshment, or attention till the following morning. Up to this time the police had been ignorant of the woman’s name, but on the Sunday morning it was found she was the wife of a cab proprietor, and as she had lived in the same house for sixteen years, might have been presumed to have been a respectable person. There were officers at the station who had probably been selected for promotion on account of their knowledge of criminal law and their consideration for the feelings of others; a Sergeant Keenon and an Inspector Gibbons, whose duty it was to decide whether the charge should be taken, and, if they thought it should be, to see that in the manner of their confinement of the accused they did not take upon themselves to inflict upon her the extreme penalty of the law in the shape of a lingering death. Sergeant Keenon was bold enough to avow his belief that the cell was a fit place to put a woman in under the circumstances, and Inspector Gibbons justified his refusal to take bail, on the ground that attempted suicide was not a bailable offence; but the public will be curious to know whether he took any trouble to ascertain if there was any ground for the charge. He said the police had no regulations with regard to the treatment of half-drowned people; it was left to what he facetiously called their “judgment”; but added, the woman would have been sent to the hospital if she had been insensible. I trust that if you, Mr. Editor, are ever unlucky enough to fall into a canal on a night in December, and are taken up for it, you may be insensible, or, if not, may have sense enough to pretend to be. The police cannot plead ignorance. Mrs. Burdett told the inspector on Sunday the cell was dreadfully cold and the woman so ill that additional clothing could not be got on to her, and the drunken woman asked the police for an old coat to put over the woman’s feet, and they refused to lend it. Her husband and friends on Sunday begged the police to let her out, and, failing this, begged that, considering her state of health, she might have a bed, and this also was refused; and, cold and dying, this respectable woman, who had lived in the same house for 16 years, who, so far as the police knew, had committed no crime, was locked up in the cold and damp to spend another night with the now sober companion, who in the darkness heard a fall and a groan, and 504 N came and turned his lamp on the pale face, and finding his prisoner dead sent for the doctor!

And all this happened in a country where there are many active and wealthy agencies for saving life and easing woe, and where there is a Royal Humane Society, with drags in constant readiness, which in this instance were used to drag a woman from a speedy death from drowning to a lingering death on a wooden bench in a dismal cell in a police station.

It is not long since a gentleman was found insensible in the street, and taken to the police station, put in a cell, and left to die, and it is high time the public knew more of what goes on in the various polices stations, how far confinement in them is harsh beyond the need for safe custody of the prisoner, and under what circumstances prisoners are locked up in the dark with drunken people. The disgusting cruelty of the Hackney police must make all persons who are liable to sudden attacks of illness pray that, if attacked in the street, it may not be in the district where Inspector Gibbons acts upon his “judgment.”—I am, &c.,

J. S.

#### AN AGED PAUPER SCALDED TO DEATH.[^f29]

An inquiry, which has excited much public interest, has been held this week, in the board-room of the Newbury Union Workhouse, before Dr. Bunny, coroner, touching the death of an imbecile inmate of the infirmary, named Ann Kempster, caused by most severe scalds, produced by being placed in a bath of far too high a temperature. Several members of the board of guardians and also relatives of the unfortunate woman were present throughout the investigation. The nurse, Elizabeth Allen, an imbecile pauper named Elizabeth Bird, who acted as assistant nurse, and a girl, Mary Ann Harmsworth, were the parties connected with the matter, and the coroner cautioned them that they were not required to say anything that would implicate themselves; and he also stated that he could not examine either of them. Mr. F. E. Ryott, medical officer of the union, and Mr. and Mrs. Ward, the master and matron, were examined at considerable length, and from their evidence it appeared that the deceased was admitted to the infirmary in April last, and since that time had been bedridden and dangerously ill. The medical officer had certified her as a person of unsound mind, and she rarely spoke to anyone, but had at times expressed herself satisfied with the attention paid her. Her habits were very filthy, and it was necessary that her whole body should be washed every morning. To accomplish this it was customary to place her in a bath fitted up in a small room adjoining the ward. Attached to the bath was a hot water tap, but not a corresponding means of obtaining cold water; the cold water tap being fixed over a sink some yards distant. It did not appear that any thermometer was kept in the bath-room; but it was stated by the master that, generally speaking, the water was too cold. On Monday morning last the nurse, Mrs. Allen, was attending a case of confinement in the lying-in ward, and whilst taking some linen to the laundry Bird and Harmsworth placed the deceased in the bath, and the water was so hot that it scalded the poor creature on the right leg, up her right side and arm, and also a portion of the buttock. She was allowed to remain in the bath for several minutes, and immediately she was taken out the nurse applied the remedies ordered by the medical officer in such cases. An additional supply of oil was required, and the matron immediately sent a note to the medical officer, requesting him to send some, but making no mention of what had occurred. The master was absent from the house at the time on business, and as soon as he returned the matron told him what had happened. He consulted with the nurse, and thinking all had been done that could be, and knowing it was the usual day for the medical officer to attend, did not send for him. Mr. Ryott’s assistant afterwards came up, and on his return reported the case, and Mr. Ryott without delay proceeded to the workhouse, when he found the poor women gnashing her teeth and pulseless. He saw at once that she could not recover from the scalds which she had sustained. Her age was 71 years. Death took place on Tuesday morning, the nurse being the only person present, having scarcely left her from the time she was taken out of the bath. Mr. Ryott immediately instituted inquiries, and both Bird and Harmsworth told him that what they had done was without the nurse’s knowledge or order, and that they did it from a good motive, namely, to get their work over quickly. An able-bodied inmate named Clark told the coroner she had assisted in the infirmary for months, and it was the practice of the nurse to test the temperature of the water immersed, and to remain in attendance until they were taken out. Mr. Ryott said that deceased was bathed without his knowledge; that the bath would not hurt her; and that, in fact, it was the best means of washing her. The master accounted for the high temperature of the water by the circumstance that little hot water was drawn out of the different taps in the workhouse on the preceding day. It was customary to add buckets of cold water to the bath when the water was too hot for bath purposes. The woman Bird had been a most useful assistant nurse for 10 years, but was not quite sound in her intellect. The direction given her was that she should invariably act under the instructions of the nurse. The coroner told the master that neither he nor the nurse were judges of the case, and ought to have sent immediately to the medical officer, requiring his prompt attendance. The nurse volunteered to state what she knew of the matter, and seemed much affected at what had occurred, but, acting under the coroner’s advice, she withheld her statement. The jury, after half an hour’s deliberation, returned a verdict that deceased died from scalding. They exonerated the nurse from blame, but considered that responsible persons should be employed to assist the nurse, which had not been the case in this instance.

In the Isle of Dogs (the shipbuilding district of London) 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 East-end Emigration and Relief Fund, the other being a private venture on the part of the Hon. Mr. and Mrs. Hoebart, Lady Mary Feillding, 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 their latest London emigrants and evince 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 heard the starving babes piteously waiting 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 committees 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.—*Daily News.*[^f30]

#### PAUPERISM, CHARITY, AND POOR LAWS.[^f31]

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

SIR,—Will you permit me to draw your attention to the somewhat extraordinary way in which the *Times* has veered round on the subject of starvation as a cause of pauperism. In the original article on Dr. Stallardʼs paper read at the Social Science Association, after admitting the facts detailed concerning the great increase of pauperism, the *Times* charged Dr. Stallard with leading the Association in the wrong direction. An increased number of persons relieved without a corresponding increase of expenditure is not, in the opinion of the *Times*, any evidence of increased pauperism, but of the growth and development of the system of small doles supplementing the wages of the ordinary class of poor, nor is the number of patients evidence of increased sickness, because, according to Dr. Stallard’s admission, the administration of medical orders is abused. In maintaining that there is a real increase of pauperism, Dr. Stallard is supported by the *Times*, and the fact is important that there is an increase of 52 per cent in the number of patients attended gratuitously at 22 public hospitals. The moral, says the *Times*, is obvious, but it is strangely misapprehended by Dr. Stallard.

He treats these facts as evidence of the actual development of sickness and weakness—in other words, of the spread of the legitimate causes of pauperism—and he urges the adoption of a less restrictive system. Starvation, he says, cannot be relied on as a stimulus to labour. The population must be kept in the mind, and with the physical ability to work. The *Times* is really disappointed to see well-intentioned labour so wholly misdirected, and in its opinion the poor are not demoralized by sickness and want, but by the “small doles” alluded to. What is wanted is not a wider, but a narrower administration of the law, which one should have thought needless, seeing there is an average death by starvation recorded weekly.

Want, says the *Times*, is the commonest of all incentives to exertion, and “repression by starvation is the only check upon idleness which is universally applicable.” In this argument Dr. Stallard is not quite fairly treated. He nowhere says that want is not a stimulus to work, but that it cannot exclusively be relied upon, nor beyond a certain point. First, because starvation is not the certain consequence of idleness where indiscriminate charity prevails; secondly, because if real and prolonged, it leads to physical incapacity; and lastly, because the cause of destitution—viz., want of work—is often a matter beyond the labourer’s control and power to remedy.

But on Wednesday last a change has come over the *Times*, possibly resulting from a careful perusal of Dr. Stallard’s paper, since most of his arguments are reproduced with singular cogency and effect.

“Bad fare and other miseries may bring down the strongest frame, and the strongest heart too, and a man then ceases to be able to help himself, for what brains he has will suffer with the rest of his system. To be hungry is a bad thing or a good thing just according to circumstances, and there are times and places where it only drives a man to despair, to pauperism, to recklessness, and to crime. It is now admitted to be a lamentable fact, which we cannot shut our eyes to, that one of the most common results of continued distress is an increasing want of resource, and even dread of enterprise.”

These are exactly Dr. Stallard’s views and the obvious deduction is that the public must exercise such a reasonable discretion as will prevent the poor, and especially the honest and industrious poor, from falling into continued distress and want—or in other words, into sickness and pauperism. This the Poor-Law, as now administered, does not do. It does not offer to the industrious man, when destitute, the opportunity of maintaining himself by independent labour; it does not profess to do anything more than to relieve destitution when it endangers life. Whether this opportunity of labour shall be given by emigration or home employment is a question of the highest moment, and both may be advantageous in their way. If, however, as Dr. Stallard states, discriminate and excessive charity on the one hand, and the repressive Poor-law system on the other, contribute to the increase of pauperism, the subject is worthy the attention of the legislature, since it cannot be denied that the state of the indigent classes is becoming most oppressive upon the ratepayers, and serious, if not dangerous, to the community at large.—I am, &c.,

OBSERVER.

#### WAS SHE A MURDERESS?[^f32]

Priscilla Biggadyke was hanged in Lincoln Castle on Monday morning. She was poor, ignorant, and had no friends to defend her with zeal, and to supplicate for her the mercy of the Crown. The evidence against her was entirely circumstantial, or made up of little facts said to be inconsistent with innocence, and consistent with guilt. It is an axiom in the administration of our criminal law that “circumstances cannot lie” and it is true on one condition—that the circumstances are truly related. Priscilla Biggadyke lived with her husband in a small two-roomed cottage at Stickney, in Lincolnshire. They had two lodgers, Proctor and Ironmonger, and they all slept together in the same room. The result of such an arrangement was a natural one, and Biggadyke became jealous of his wife. Misery reigned in the household, and the wife was sometimes heard to utter her wishes for her husband’s removal from life. One day he came home and partook of a hearty meal of short-cake and cold mutton. He was violently seized, and the symptoms disclosed to the experienced eye of the surgeon the presence of an active poison. The surgeon took away with him the vomit of the dying man, and the wife asked if he suspected anything? She afterwards carried to the doctor a piece of the cake her husband had eaten, but the doctor said he did not wish to see it. The husband died next morning, at six o’clock, and then began the inconsistent statements of the wife, voluntarily made as soon as she found that her husband had died of the administration of a dose of arsenic. She was taken into custody, and to the superintendent of police said that she “found in her husband’s pocket a paper written on, saying that he had done it himself, as he was in dept.” She was reminded that her husband could not write, to which she replied that he might have got someone to write it for him, and that she had destroyed the paper. Afterwards, she made another statement, accusing Proctor, her lodger, who had, she said, poured some white powder into her husband’s tea-cup, and that he had placed some more in the medicine-bottle sent by the doctor, which, so mixed, she had given to her husband. Proctor was, with her, committed for trial; but the grand jury, under the advice of Mr. Justice Byles, threw out the bill against him. No poison was found in the house, nor does it appear to have been proved that she had purchased any; but some months before it was proved that she had offered to give white mercury to a friend.

The jury found the woman “Guilty,” but recommended her to mercy, on the ground that the evidence was entirely circumstantial; but this recommendation Mr. Justice Byles refused to accept, and she was sentenced to death, without hope of mercy. In the interval between sentence and execution, the convict steadily refused to make any confession of her guilt, and even showed some temper when she was very closely pressed by her relations. We come to the last scene of all—to the scene of the last hour, when the chaplain came to play his part. The poor woman was pinioned, and fainted during the operation; so that, even after she recovered, she heard little of the service for the dead, recited over a living being! She hoped that “her troubles were now all over,” and asked, plaintively, “Shall we be much longer?” The procession had arrived at the foot of the drop, and then the woman was detained on the threshold of death, in order that a little melodramatic scene might be enacted, which we believe is without a parallel, and which we hope will never be matched. Why should prisoners capitally convicted be teased and tortured to confess? We should accept the verdict of twelve sworn men, and hold it sacred. The chaplain of Lincoln Castle is of a different opinion, and it is to be regretted that the undersheriff and the governor had not more firmness and humanity than to interfere in the conversation between chaplain and convict as it was about to commence. The prisoner was asked by the chaplain if she persisted in the declaration of her innocence—“Whether she had anything to do with the crime in thought, word, or deed?” Standing at the foot of the steps leading to the floor of the scaffold, she replied in a firm voice, “I had not, sir.” That ought to have been sufficient; but the chaplain was allowed to pronounce an exhortation at his leisure and in order to enable him to do it the prisoner was “accommodated with a chair.” The speech of the reverend chaplain is a little too long for entire quotation here, but some of it is too remarkable not to provoke comment. “I implore you not to pass away from this world into another without confessing your sins generally, but *especially* this particular sin”—the very sin which the poor tortured and pinioned convict had just solemnly and firmly denied she had been privy to in thought, word, or deed. And then the priest peeped out. “I had hoped that you would have enabled me, as a minister of Christ, to have pronounced the forgiveness of your sins.” This was very cruel, for it assumed the existence of a human representation in the power of pardon, and it asked for a confession of a crime as the basis of the pardon. But suppose the poor woman had not been guilty in thought, word, or deed? Of what value would the human pardon have been for a crime never committed? And still the poor woman persisted in saying that she had no connection with the death of her husband, but still the chaplain would not let her go to her death. He left her in the hands of God—in whose hands she had always been—in the hope that she had confessed to Him, and lied to man. But still a little more torture for the convict. “What a satisfaction for your children, your relations, and your friends, to know that you had passed from death into life.” And then came out the priest again—“I fear I cannot offer you any consolation; I must leave you in the hands of God. Had you made a declaration of your sins, I should have done what, as a minister of Christ, *I am entitled to do*. I should have told you that ‘your sins, though many, are forgiven.’ I am sorry that I cannot exercise that *authority* at the present moment.”

And so the poor woman was led up the steps to her doom, and the executioner—the most humane person present—was permitted to do his office. But suppose that the convict had turned upon the chaplain, and asked him for authority to forgive her? or had asked him if he felt entitled, as a gentleman and a Christian, to assume her guilt as a certainly, which twelve sworn men had only found on circumstantial evidence which suggested, by its very doubtfulness, a recommendation to mercy? Mercy! The woman was poor, ignorant, perhaps immoral, and had no friends to plead in her behalf. It is not such as she to whom Home Secretaries extend mercy. Had she been the wife of a gentleman, a member of a family of the ruling class, then scientific evidence would have been forthcoming as to her insanity, founded upon her condition at the time of the deed. It is to convicts of the Victor Townley order—cold-blooded, matter-of-fact murderers—that reprieves are granted, in fact, even before evidence of insanity is offered. [It is the men of the] class of Samuel Wright, who [kill women in the] heat of passion, upon whom capital sentences are executed. Poverty makes all the difference. There is only one law; there are two mode of administering it—one for the rich, and one for the poor. At least, we may protect poor criminals from impertinence, and the vanity of priests claiming the power of remission of sins. And we may suggest to the landlords and farmers of Lincolnshire, who permit the condition of barbarism known as overcrowding, to ask themselves this question—“Was Priscilla Biggadyke *alone* guilty?”—if guilty she was, which we doubt. “Let him that is without sin,” in this matter of overcrowding, “cast the first stone”—after the chaplain.

A lot of little children, most of them under twelve, played pitch and toss near Stafford. Somebody accused them. The magistrates found them guilty, and fined them sixpence each. Their mothers would have paid that, but the costs were £4 0s. 6d. They were handcuffed, bound to a thick chain, and marched to Stafford for a month’s imprisonment. They were met on the road by a gentleman, who inquired, interested other gentlemen, paid the money, and released the children. Had the children been the children of the magistrates who sentenced them, their condemnation would have been simply impossible.[^f33]

#### EMIGRATION.[^f34]

The last returns of metropolitan pauperism show that in the fourth week of December, 1868, there were 143,406 paupers in London, as compared with 147,610 in the corresponding week of the year before. The reduction was thus 4204. It is somewhat remarkable that the districts designated as the west, north, and south, all show an increase as compared with 1867, the only decrease being in the central district and the east. The union of Poplar alone exhibits a decrease of 2279 or more than half the total decrease of the metropolis. Poplar, however, still displays a formidable list, its aggregate of paupers being 7333. In the south district, Woolwich and Greenwich combined show a total of 11,155 paupers, as against 8446 for last year; an increase, therefore, of 2709. The cause of this latter augmentation is not far to seek, the abandonment of Woolwich Dockyard and the great reductions in the Arsenal having thrown an immense number of people out of work. The Woolwich Relief Committee has 2000 individuals on their funds. The materials for a great accession of paupers are now accumulating in that locality. Dire distress is overtaking hundreds of families, and it is by no means easy to say how the employment thus lost in Woolwich is to be obtained elsewhere.

Though we thus preface our remarks on emigration with poor-law statistics, it must not be inferred that we are going to describe a process of pauper emigration. For the present, we have simply to show how emigration may prevent pauperism. The East-end Emigration and Relief Committee have expended, for the purposes of migration and emigration, since July, 1867, the sum of 6370*l.* But it by no means follows that all whom they have sent cut of the kingdom have been paupers. On the contrary, the rule has rather been the other way, particularly during the season of 1868. Yet the effect has undoubtedly been to intercept some of those streams which otherwise would have gone to swell the great pauper list of Poplar may be partly attributed to the fact that most of the parties who were thus assisted to move off, either to another part of the kingdom or out of it altogether, were from Poplar. A certain amount of pauperism was thus prevented, and it is a circumstance not to be lost sight of that when a man once becomes a pauper, it is a very troublesome matter to induce the colonies to receive him. The difficulty which arose in the way of emigration to Canada last year was partly founded in this circumstance. It was alleged that England was shipping off her paupers to Canada with a view to get rid of them, and Canada, on her part, exhibited a very decided unwillingness to receive them—so much so that even the emigration of the poor, though non-pauper class, was for a time placed in jeopardy; and but for the kindly intervention of the Hon. Mr. Rose, the Canadian Finance Minister, who happened just then to be in England, the emigration movement in the direction of Canada must have been seriously checked.

The East-end Emigration Committee have now resolved to extend the sphere of their operations to all parts of the metropolis where their intervention is obviously called for—of course on the presumption that they have the necessary means to second their intentions. Woolwich is, therefore, a fair field for their labours. Unfortunately the funds at the disposal of the committee just now are very limited; nevertheless they have succeeded in assisting a small party of the Woolwich unemployed to set out for Queensland. Yesterday afternoon, these individuals, about twenty-five in number, reckoning men, women, and children, went on board the Flying Cloud, then lying in the East India Docks, and they are now on their way down the river. Of the vessel herself we may say that she is a fine clipper built sailing vessel of 1139 tons register, belonging to the Black Ball line. The accommodation provided for the emigrants seemed very good. The party sent from Woolwich is undoubtedly a small instalment; but if the opportunity be properly cultivated, it may be the beginning of great things. In addition to the Woolwich emigrants, there were others from all parts of the country, making up a total of 190 assisted emigrants, in addition to 50 who paid their own passage. The Queensland government makes grants in aid of emigration from Europe to their own shores, and both single men and married couples are thus assisted to go out. The voyage being long and the expense considerable, it was necessary for the Woolwich emigrants to be still further assisted by the East-end committee, the Woolwich committee also contributing a small sum per head. It is a fact of considerable importance at the present time, that from some cause or other, the government of Queensland, as well as that of South Australia, prefers acting independently of our Emigration Commissioners. In these days of economy and retrenchment, it might be fair to ask what the Emigration Board, established under the wing of our own Colonial Office, is really doing to promote emigration. Not even in the case of Canada can we discover that the board is of any essential service. With just one or two exceptions, the emigration movement in England seems to be carried on by volunteer committees and the agents of the colonial governments, all of whom act as if there was no Emigration Board in existence. It is commonly the case that correspondence of considerable importance, instead of being conducted by our government department, is really in the hands of private individuals, who communicate with the colonial authorities, and receive replies as regularly as if this were the only recognized mode of proceeding. The Emigration Commissioners look on, inspect the vessels, and collect the statistics, while the money is raised and expended without passing through their hands, and the work is done either by honorary agents or by those who are in the service of the colonial authorities. It may be well it should be so; but in that case the utility of maintaining an emigration department becomes doubtful. On the other hand, it would seem desirable that the strength of the government should, if possible, be brought to bear on a task which demands large resources and the most powerful appliances.

The liberality of the Queensland government in making grants in aid of immigration enables them in some degree to choose their immigrants. As we surveyed the party on board the Flying Cloud we could not but regret that so many stalwart workers and promising families should be taken from our shores. We should add, by-the-by, that free passages are granted to single women, domestic servants, and to a limited number of married couples of the class of farm labourers or shepherds with not more than one child under twelve years of age. In all cases, whether the emigrants go free, or are simply “assisted,” the agent of the Queensland government selects the individuals or families, and, as a matter of course, he picks for the best. A significant incident occurred in the case of the Woolwich party. One man was rejected solely on the ground that he had been for the last three months in the receipt of parochial relief.

* * *

#### DISTRESS IN LONDON.—[^f35]

A considerable number of building firms having, on Saturday week, discharged a great many of their workmen, including bricklayers, stonemasons, joiners, plasterers, and bricklayers’ labourers, a large amount of unemployed labour has been thrown upon the metropolis; and, during the week, evidences of the fact were presented in the northern, southern, and western metropolitan districts. Gangs of men, not of the “common labourer” type, but composed of comfortably clad men, having all the appearance of skilled artisans, paraded many of the squares, chanting, in some cases, only the old refrain, “We’ve got no work to do.” In South London, the districts of Walworth, Kennington, and Camberwell were visited by the men, who in these places were tolerably successful in their solicitations. Gangs went through Russell, Bedford, Gordon, and Tavistock-squares, and then proceeded to the north-western district. In the west-end, the principal squares and portions of the Chelsea and Kensington districts were visited, and in almost every place where the unemployed men asked alms, their decent appearance elicited substantial sympathy. Not only workmen, but clerks and timekeepers, have lost their employment by reason of the reductions in building firms referred to, which have been caused by the completion of some large contracts and the temporary suspension of others.

#### JUSTICES’ JUSTICE IN ESSEX.[^f36]

##### TO THE EDITOR OF REYNOLDS’S NEWSPAPER.

SIR,—Knowing your wish for justice, alike for poor and affluent, and for which you are a most strenuous advocate, I beg to send you the following account how “the gentlemen” of the Harwich bench of magistrates dispense it to the first named class. On the 29th day of December last a vessel belonging to Whitstable, through stress of weather, sought the harbour for shelter from the gales that were then prevailing, the crew being almost exhausted with their struggle with the wind and waves for the past four days. Anxious to acquaint his owner of the comparative safety of the ship, and his wife of his own, the captain sent one of his men to the post. On the way back to his ship, he drank one pint of porter. The exhausted state in which the man was failed to be proof against this moderate quantity and he sat down and fell asleep. Shortly after, one of that most ever watchful (for any case like this, but ever wanting when help is really needed) class of men called policemen discovered him, and forth with the poor sailor was looked up for the night. Next day he was fined 14s. 6d. by those members of the great unpaid who misadminister the law at Harwich. For what offence was he punished some of your readers may ask. Ay, indeed—for what? For not resisting the demand of Nature which she makes imperative; for sleeping when the weary eyelids refuse longer to keep open; for resting when both body and brain refuse to work continuously!

Shall I—shall any one—pity them for their finite wisdom, their gross disregard for humanity’s laws? No; but rather let us all raise our voices, and help to aid in abolishing that foul stain on English judicature—“the Unpaid Magistracy.” Sweep it away, and forever, and rid the country of the sad disgrace brought on it by such cases as John Cross’s and many others of a like nature. Let our laws, of which every Englishman ought to be proud, but with which many are disgusted, by the way they are misused, be administered by persons, not only learned in the law, but with reason and discretion in their brain; by competent stipendiary magistrates, who did they so far forget themselves as to allow might to overrule right, could and would be removed from their posts, never again to be vested with judicial power. In conclusion, I would ask your powerful aid to assist in preventing country squires and farmers making our laws a mockery and disgrace whose every judgment is but another proof that they are out of their proper sphere, and are totally unfit and incompetent for the position they occupy. Hoping you will oblige by the insertion of this,

I am, sir, yours respectfully, T. S.

#### LIFE AND DEATH OF THE ENGLISH POOR.[^f37]

On Thursday, an inquiry was held at the Folley House Tavern, Cubitt-town, Isle of Dogs, by Mr. Humphreys, respecting the death from alleged starvation of Catherine Spencer, aged thirty-four years, and her male child, who expired on Thursday week. Upon the jury going to view the bodies of the deceased, they found them lying upon the floor in a top back room, which was miserably furnished. The bed upon which the deceased woman and child had died was composed of rags, and there were no bed-clothes upon it. A small box placed upon a broken chair had served as a table. Upon it lay a tract, entitled, “The Goodness of God.” The only article of food in the room was a piece of salt, of which the deceased woman had eaten part before she died. The whole place presented a wretched appearance. The windows were broken, and an old iron tray had been fastened up against it. The house, which was No. 1, Steward’s-terrace, Cubitt-town, was a six-roomed one. In every room in that house a distinct family lived. Two families lived in the two kitchens. All the people in the house were in receipt of parish relief, and they were all connected with the iron shipbuilding works, and they had lost their all shortly after the works were closed, during the commercial crisis of 1866.

Great interest was felt in the proceedings, and several of the local authorities were present during the inquiry.

Mary Boney, a miserable-looking woman, who stated that she lived at 122, High-street, Shadwell, said that she was the wife of a shipwright out of employment. The deceased was the wife of a labourer. Witness saw her three weeks before Christmas. She then complained of the state in which she was, and she said that she did not think that she could not give her any assistance.

Hannah Robinson, 1, Steward’s-terrace, said that she was the wife of a man out of work. She paid 1s. 6d. a week rent for her room. The deceased paid a shilling a week for hers. She was very poor. She lived with her husband. He went mad two days after her death. She died on Thursday, and he became insane on Saturday.

Mr. Dowse said that the man had to be taken to the workhouse, where he was kept in confinement. He was not taken to the asylum, for it was crowded with mad people, and there was no room for him in it.

The witness said that the husband had been a long time out of work. He had relief from the parish. The woman never had any money to get anything with. During the whole of the Tuesday before her death she had no food to eat. Witness took her a cup of tea in the evening, and she drank it. A month ago the Rev. Mr. Carpenter gave her a ticket for meat. She had pledged all the clothes they had to buy food. A little time ago she had some of her furniture seized by the brokers for rent. She pawned her last blanket for 2s. as there was nothing in the house to eat. All the families in the house were badly off for food, and the deceased never wanted for food more than they did. The six families in the house paid the landlord 5s. 9d a week for rent. Witness did not think that the deceased’s death had been caused by want of food.

Maria Holt, a married woman, living in the back kitchen of the house, said deceased had often wanted bread all day, “like” witness “and all the others in the house.” She had never had what she really wanted—food; but witness was in the same state.

Mr. F. F. Delany, relieving officer, said that the deceased husband applied for relief on the 5th instant. He came before the board of guardians on the 6th; they ordered him the stone-yard, one pound of meat, two ounces of tea, and a pound of sugar.

Coroner: Did he come to the stone-yard? Witness: No.

Coroner: How much is a man allowed to earn in the stone-yard. Witness: Sevenpence, but never more than eight pence.

Coroner: So that, if a man has ten children, and he can earn 1s. 6d. in the stone yard during the day, he is not allowed to do so? Witness: No; but then he gets a loaf of bread every week for each child.

Coroner: How long had he been out of work? Witness: On and off, for two years and a half. I have heard that he earned 14s. one week. Some men told me that he did so at the beginning of this year. He only got the relief for three weeks.

Dr. J. Sarjent said that he attended the deceased in consequence of a parish order being sent to him. She died on Thursday. The child died shortly after its birth.

Dr. G. B. Phillips, 2, Spital-square, divisional surgeon of police, said that he only been able to find three ounces of fluid in the stomach. The intestines were empty, and collapsed from want of food and privation. They were thin and transparent from long want of food. The woman had suffered great privations. She had got into a weak, low, nervous condition from long want of food. Her death had been accelerated by want of food.

The Coroner said it was a case for grave consideration, whether a man with a family ought not to be allowed to earn more than 8d, a day in the stone yard.

A juror said that 8d. for a whole day’s work was ridiculous. A man ought to be allowed to earn what he could, particularly when he had a family to support. Why, any of the jurors there would eat more than 8d. worth at a meal. He had known cases in which men with families, who had been ordered to the stoneyard at 8d. a day, knowing that they could not keep their families upon it, had said, “I will not go there. It is no use. The parish must bury me.”

Another created some surprise by stating that it was no use returning a verdict of death from starvation. It would only cause the distress in the island to be talked about in the newspapers. What use were people when they were dead? He thought that they might be buried in an egg box, or perhaps it would be still better to bury them without a coffin at all.

The speaker, who was a well-known employer of labour on the island, was not applauded when he had ceased to make his remarks.

The jury returned a verdict, “That the deceased woman died from exhaustion, privation, and want of food.”

* * *

#### WHO IS HE?[^f38]

We should very much like to know the name of the “employer of labour” who so feelingly observed at the Isle of Dogs inquest that he thought poor people might as well be buried in an egg-chest as a coffin! If we only knew his name, we would give it a prominent place in our columns, so that all the world might know who uttered such brutal, dastardly, and disgraceful words.

#### LIFE AND DEATH AT THE EAST-END.[^f39]

Yesterday an inquiry was held at the Folley-house Tavern, Cubitt-town, Isle of Dogs, by Mr. Humphreys, respecting the death from alleged starvation of Catherine Spence, aged 34 years, and her male child, who expired on Thursday week. Upon the jury going to view the bodies of the deceased, they found them lying upon the floor in a top back room, which was miserably furnished. The bed upon which the deceased woman and child had died was composed of rags, and there were no bed-clothes upon it. A small box placed upon a broken chair had served as a table. Upon it lay a tract, entitled, “The Goodness of God.” The only article of food in the room was a piece of salt, of which the deceased woman had eaten part before she died. The whole place presented a wretched appearance. The windows were broken, and an old iron tray had been fastened up against one of them to keep the rain out. Another window had a board up against it. The house, which was No. 1, Steward’s-terrace, Cubitt-town, was a six roomed one. In every room in that house a distinct family lived. Two families lived in the two kitchens. All the people in the house were in receipt of parish relief, and they were all connected with the iron shipbuilding works, and they had lost their all shortly after the works were closed, during the commercial crisis of 1866.

Great interest was felt in the proceedings, and several of the local authorities were present during the inquiry.

Mary Boney, a miserable-looking woman, who stated that she lived at 122, High-street, Shadwell, said that she was the wife of a shipwright out of employment. The deceased was the wife of a labourer. Witness saw her three weeks before Christmas. She then complained of the state in which she was, and she said that she did not think could not give her any assistance.

Hannah Rollinson, I, Steward’s-terrace, said that she was the wife of a man out of work. She paid 1s. 6d. a week rent for her room. The deceased paid a shilling a week for hers. She was very poor. She lived with her husband. He went mad two days after her death. She died on Thursday, and he became insane on Saturday.

Mr. Dowse said that the man had to be taken to the workhouse where he was kept in confinement. He was not taken to the asylum, for it was crowded with mad people, and there was no room for him in it.

The witness said that the husband had been a long time out of work. He had relief from the parish. The woman never had any money to get anything with. During the whole of the Tuesday before her death she had no food to eat. Witness took her a cup of tea in the evening, and she drank it. A month ago the Rev. Mr. Carpenter gave her a ticket for meat. She had pledged all the clothes they had to buy food. A little time ago she had some of her furniture seized by the brokers for rent. She pawned her last blanket for 2s., as there was nothing in the house to eat. All the families in the house were badly off for food, and the deceased never wanted for food more than they did. The six families in the house paid the landlord 5s. 9d. a week for rent. Witness did not think that the deceased’s death had been caused by want of food.

Maria Holt, a married woman, living in the back kitchen of the house, said deceased had often wanted bread all day, “like” witness “and all the others in the house.” She had never had what she really wanted—food; but witness was in the same state.

Mr. J. J. Delany, relieving officer, said that the deceased’s husband applied for relief on the 5th instant. He came before the board of guardians on the 6th; they ordered him the stone-yard, one pound of meat, 2ozs. of tea, and a pound of sugar.

Coroner—Did he come to the stone-yard?

Witness—No.

Coroner—How much is a man allowed to earn in the stone-yard?

Witness—Sevenpence, but never more than eight pence.

Coroner—So that. If a man has ten children and he can earn 1s. 6d. in the stone-yard during the day, he is not allowed to do so?

Witness—No; but then he gets a loaf of bread every week for each child.

Coroner—How long had he been out of work?

Witness—On and off, for two years and a half. I have heard that he earned 14s. one week. Some men told me that he did so at the beginning of this year. He only got the relief for three weeks.

Dr. J. Sarjant said that he attended the deceased in consequence of a parish order being sent to him. She died on Thursday. The child died shortly after its birth.

Dr. G. B. Phillips, 2, Spital-square, divisional surgeon of police, said that he had only been able to find three ounces of fluid in the stomach. The intestines were empty, and collapsed from want of food and privation. They were thin and transparent from long want of food. The woman had suffered great privations. She had got into a weak, low, nervous condition from long want of food. Her death had been accelerated by want of food.

The Coroner said it was a case for grave consideration whether a man with a family ought not to be allowed to earn more than 8d. a day in the stone yard.

A juror said that 8d. for a whole day’s work was ridiculous. A man ought to be allowed to earn what he could, particularly when he had a family to support. Why any of the jurors there would eat more than 8d. worth at a meal. He had known cases in which men with families who had been ordered to the stoneyard at 8d. a day, knowing that they could not keep their families upon it, had said—“I will not go there. It is no use. The parish must bury me.”

Another created some surprise by stating that it was no use returning a verdict of death from starvation. It would only cause the distress in the island to be talked about in the newspapers. What use were people when they were dead? He thought that they might be buried in an egg box, or perhaps it would be still better to bury them without a coffin at all.

The speaker, who was a well-known employer of labour on the island, was not applauded when he had ceased to make his remarks.

The jury returned a verdict that the deceased woman died from exhaustion, privation, and want of food.

#### PAUPER NURSING IN ST. PANCRAS WORKHOUSE.[^f40]

Yesterday Dr. Lankester held the adjourned inquiries at the College Arms, Crowndale-road, St. Pancras, on the bodies of Geo. Joseph Airey and John Fowler. Several serious charges had been made through letters sent to the coroner by an inmate respecting the treatment of the two deceased men, and it was thought that a thorough inquiry into the charges was necessary. Upon the opening of the court yesterday the coroner read a letter from the inmate who had written the complaints referred to, stating that all the witness who were to give evidence to the court had been called before the workhouse officials and examined as to what they were going to say before the coroner; that a wardsman who was to give evidence, and who had been suspended, had been reinstated, and put on extra diet, which was not usual.

Preliminary evidence in both cases was taken at the first sitting of the court. Yesterday the first cases proceeded with was that of Airey.

David Brown, an inmate of the workhouse, aged 74, said—I knew the deceased man, Airey. He was brought to the bed-ward, No. 253, on the 14th of last month. I am wardsman. All the men in my ward are able to take care of themselves. I was told by another wardsman that deceased was not right in his mind, and I must look after him, or he would not be able to find his bed a second time. I put him in a bed next the door, and gave him an extra blanket. The night of the 14th he made a great noise, and I got out of bed to him. I asked him if there was anything the matter with him. He said no. I got into bed again, and he commenced making the same noise as before. I did not get up to him then, as he had said there was nothing the matter with him. On Friday morning he saw Mr. Hill, the doctor, and afterwards went to bed. He did not get up on Saturday on Sunday, but he said there was nothing the matter with him. On Monday morning I found him dead in bed. I might have ordered him to get out of bed, but I do not remember. I am obliged to order a good many who lie late to get up, so that I may put the bed in order. The doctor did not see deceased from the Friday. I have been examined by the master and some of the guardians as to the evidence I have to give. A man named Edmunds did not say that deceased had been shamefully treated, and he should like to be called as a witness.

Mr. Longden and Mr. Watkins, guardians of St. Pancras, appeared to watch the case, and asked the witness several questions.

Mr. Longden said the inquiry made by the guardians referred to was for the purpose of ascertaining what answer there was to the complaint that had been made.

Witness, continuing—I have had a pint of beer a day since this happened instead of half a pint, but that was because I said I would resign unless I had the extra allowance.

Mr. Longden confirmed this statement.

Mr. Joseph Hill, resident medical officer of St. Pancras Workhouse, said—The deceased when admitted did not complain of being ill. Nine days afterwards he complained that he had had an attack of paralysis in the legs during the night. As he could walk very well then I told him he was mistaken, but from my examination I found he had had an attack of syncope, and I prescribed for him accordingly. The next time I heard of him he was dead. I made a post-mortem examination, and found that death resulted from fatty degeneration of the heart. The wardsman ought to have told me afterwards of the deceased lying in bed two days, and he is to blame for not doing so.

Brown, the wardsman—I told the doctor’s man both on the Saturday and Sunday.

Mr. Hill—My “man,” as he is called, is a pauper who arranges my books and the medicine bottles, &c.

By Mr. Longden—There are about 1,200 able-bodied persons in the house who might come to me, but it is quite impossible for me to inquire personally after each person who has complained to me. It is their duty to come to me, or if they cannot do so the wardsman should come.

George Mummery, an inmate of the workhouse, said—Deceased complained very much on Sunday night of being very ill. He fell out of bed, and I put him in again. His hands were very cold, and he said he could not live long. About one o’clock he screamed enough to unnerve any man, and wanted to go to the infirmary, but Brown refused to go to the doctor. Deceased was convulsed. From four o’clock in the morning he breathed very hard, and at 8 o’clock he was dead. On Sunday morning I told Brown the man was very much worse, and he said, “D—your eyes, what do you know about it?” Brown never got up from his bed to the deceased. I have never had any quarrel with Brown. It was no use of me complaining to anyone but Brown, because they would not have interfered if he did not. It was no use speaking to Brown, because he knew all about it as much as I did.

David Kirkland, the pauper attendant on the doctor, said—I saw deceased for the first time last Friday week, when he came to the doctor. I saw him on Sunday and asked him what was the matter. He said “Nothing.” I don’t recollect Brown saying anything to me about moving Airey from the ward.

The Coroner said the case seemed perfectly clear to him. There was no doubt that deceased was most grossly neglected on the Sunday night referred to by Mummery. The only nurse in the ward was an old pauper, who would, of course, look more to his own ease than anybody else. Pauper nurses, as they were not allowed to receive any pay, were not incited to do their duty by fear of dismissal. The man Brown even discharged himself, and was induced to again undertake the duties for half a pint of beer a day. On Sunday night, when deceased was in convulsions, it was clearly a case in which the doctor ought to have been sent for. In wards which were full of old men there were sure very frequently to be some requiring attendance, and under such circumstances there ought to be paid nurses. Pauper nurses ought not to be depended upon.

Mr. Longden—We don’t defend the system; it is forced upon us.

Brown—There are 76 men in the ward, and at least 50 between my bed and the one where the man was laid.

The jury, after deliberation, returned a verdict of “Death from Natural Causes,” but added, “We consider that a pauper 74 years of age is not fit to discharge the duties of wardsman, especially during the night, in a ward in which so many aged people sleep, and we suggest that a better system of attendance in the wards should be adopted.”

The case of the deceased John Fowler was then proceeded with, the jury finding that there was no proof that blame attached to any of the workhouse officials.

THE fearful flood of distress and misery which has during the last two or three years overwhelmed the poorer districts of East London appears to have reached its maximum a few weeks since, and the overburdened ratepayers, it is hoped, now possess good reasons for believing that the general stagnation of trade and enterprise, which has so long deprived thousands of artisans and labourers of their customary means of employment, is about to give way to an improved state of things. Of course, few persons are sanguine enough to believe that the present year will behold the great industrial establishments of East London restored to their former state of activity and prosperity; but it is something to be able to believe that the worst period of the crisis is over. Already in some of the shipbuilding concerns on the Thames employment has been found for additional numbers of workmen, and although there are yet several yards remaining empty and desolate, and years may elapse before the Thames shipbuilding industry can hope to reach the magnitude attained previous to the conclusion of the great American conflict, there exist numerous indications that it is not likely to be driven wholly away from the metropolis to the Tyne or the Clyde, as frequently predicted by those disposed to take a gloomy view of industrial prospects in East London. The improved state of the eastern metropolitan districts is unmistakably shown by the latest returns published by the Poor-law Board. According to these, the number of paupers in the East London district—comprising Shore-ditch, Bethnal-green, Whitechapel, Stepney, St. George-in-the-East, Mile-end Old-town, and Poplar—during the fifth week of January last was 34,580, being a decrease of 6,817, as compared with the corresponding week in 1868, when the number was 41,937. The decrease is largest in the two hitherto most distressed parishes—Poplar and Stepney; the number of paupers in the former having sunk from 9,626 in 1868, to 7,467 in 1869; and in the latter, during the corresponding periods, from 6,396, to 4,666. The single exception to the general decrease is in St. George-in-the-East, the residence of a considerable number of men, chiefly Germans employed in sugar refining, a trade at present in a most depressed condition. In Bethnal-green the decrease has been large, being no less than 1,344. It has occurred chiefly amongst the migratory population.[^f41]

|  | 1868. | 1869. | Decrease. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shoreditch | 6,058 | 5,459 | 599 |
| Bethnal-green | 5,861 | 4,517 | 1,344 |
| Whitechacel | 5,076 | 4,692 | 384 |
| St. George-in-the-East | 4,607 | 4,624 | Inc. 17 |
| Stepney | 6,396 | 4,666 | 1,730 |
| Mile-end Old Town | 3,773 | 3,155 | 618 |
| Poplar | 9,626 | 7,467 | 2,159 |
|  | 41,397 | 34,580 | 6,817 |

Two causes have assisted materially in promoting this decrease of pauperism, viz., the gradually improving condition of trade, assisted by the exceptionally mild weather prevalent during the last few weeks, and the greater amount of discrimination exercised in the administration of parochial relief, combined with the partial check given to the system of wholesale and indiscriminate charity so long prevalent in East London. It is the general opinion of those most qualified to speak on the subject, that the amount of charitable contributions flowing into the eastern metropolitan parishes has this winter been, on the whole, far less than has been known for several years past. For once the numerous tribe of cadgers and vagrants who, during winter time, migrate eastwards, have found themselves to a great extent disappointed of their customary harvest. Hence the extensive removes to other metropolitan districts such as St. Pancras where the number of paupers has risen from 10,026 in 1868 to 10,133 in 1869. A similar increase is observable in Kensington, Fulham, Paddington, and Marylebone. This rise in the rate of West-end pauperism is also partly attributable to the distress existing amongst the building operatives, in consequence of the great depression from which their trade is at present suffering. An attempt is now being made to stimulate the emigration movement in East London which has hitherto made little progress. The unemployed, as a rule, know little respecting the colonies, or how to proceed thither; and where it is otherwise, the want of means for procuring the necessary outfit furnishes a formidable obstacle. With the revival of local industrial energy and enterprise the feeling in favour of emigration will, in all probability, subside almost as rapidly as it arose, the habitual disinclination of the working classes to leave the mother-country being far more general than is commonly supposed. Yet the destitute labourers and their families possess few inducements to remain in London. Probably at no former period were the homes of the unemployed metropolitan poor more miserable and cheerless than they are at present. The recent case of alleged starvation in the Isle of Dogsafforded a glimpse of what may be seen in some of these abodes; it also revealed something of the effects of the great vice of the laboring classes, a vice which does more than almost anything else to render them poor and helpless, and against the results of which the parochial authorities strive in vain to make headway. The intensity of the passion for beer and gin is fearful. The mania for drink follows a certain class of the poor to the very doors of the workhouse. The men employed in the stone yards will often be found spending their scanty earnings in beer and tobacco. Sometimes the loaves received by them are bartered for pints of ale, although at home the wives and children may be starving. In the same way many of the females receiving parochial relief will adjourn to neighbouring public-houses and expend a portion of the money assistance received by them in the purchase of glasses of gin, although aware that their vicious expenditure must entail on them the misery of a state of semi-starvation until the weekly day of relief again comes round. It is amongst this class that the cases of destitution and starvation with which the public have of late years become so familiar are most frequent. Nothing can exceed the state of wretchedness and suffering in which they usually live and which, in nine cases out of ten, is the result, rather than the cause, of their insatiable craving for beer or gin. It is a well-known fact that in many parts of East London the takings of the publicans have not become in any way diminished throughout the whole period of the prevailing distress.

#### PAUPER NURSING IN A WORKHOUSE.[^f42]

On Monday, Dr. Lankester held adjourned inquiries at the College Arms, Crowndale-road, St. Pancras, on the bodies of George Joseph Airey and John Fowler. Several serious charges had been made through letters sent to the coroner by an inmate of St. Pancras workhouse, respecting the treatment of the two deceased men, and it was thought that a thorough inquiry into the charges was necessary. Upon the opening of the court, the Coroner read a letter from the inmate who had written the complaints referred to, stating that all the witnesses who were to give evidence to the court had been called before the workhouse officials and examined as to what they were going to say before the coroner; that a wardsman who was to give evidence, and who had been suspended, had been reinstated, and put on extra diet, which was not usual.

David Brown, an inmate of [the workhouse,] aged seventy-four, said: I knew the [deceased man,] Airey. He was brought to the bed-wa[rd, No. 253, on the 14th] of last month. I am wardsman[. All the men in my] ward are able to take care of the[mselves. I was told] by another wardsman that deceas[ed was not right in] his mind, and I must look after [him, or he would not] be able to find his bed a second [time. I put him in a] bed next the door, and gave him [an extra blanket.] The night of the 14th he made a g[reat noise, and I got] out of bed to him. I asked him if [there was anything] the matter with him. He said no. [I got into bed a]gain, and he commenced making the [same noise as before]. I did not get up to him then, as [he had said there] was nothing the matter with him. O[n Friday morning] he saw Mr. Hill, the doctor, and afte[rwards went to] bed. He did not get up on Saturday [or Sunday, but he] said there was nothing the matter w[ith him. On Mo]nday morning I found him dead in bed. [I might have ord]ered him to get out of bed, but I do [not remember.] I am obliged to order a good many w[ho lie late to get u]p, so that I may put the bed in orde[r. The doctor did] not see deceased from the Friday[. I have been exam]ined by the master and some of the [guardians as to the] evidence I have to give. A man [named Edmunds did] not say that deceased had been s[hamefully treated, and] he should like to be called as a w[itness. I have had a pi]nt of beer a day since this hap[pened, instead of half a pint,] but that was because I said [I would resign unless I had] the extra allowance.

Mr. Joseph Hill, resident [medical officer of St. Pancras] workhouse, said: The [deceased, when admitted, did not] complain of being ill. [Nine days afterwards he com]plained that he had ha[d an attack of paralysis in the] legs during the night. As [he could walk very well then,] I told him he was mistaken; but, from my exam[inations,] I found he had an attack of syncope, and I p[rescribed] for him accordingly. The next time I heard [of him he] was dead. I made a post-mortem exami[nation, and] found that death resulted from fatty degeneration [of the] heart. The wardsman ought to have told me afterwards of the deceased lying in bed two days, and he is to blame for not doing so.

Brown, the wardsman: I told the doctor’s man both on the Saturday and Sunday.

Mr. Hill: My “man,” as he is called, is a pauper, who arranges my books and the medicine bottles, &c.

By Mr. Longden: There are about 1,200 able-bodied persons in the house who might come to me, but it is quite impossible for me to inquire personally after each person who has complained to me. It is their duty to come to me, or if they cannot do so the wardsman should come.

George Mummery, an inmate of the workhouse, said: Deceased complained very much on Sunday night of being very ill. He fell out of bed, and I put him in again. His hands were very cold, and he said he could not live long. About one o’clock he screamed enough to unnerve any man, and wanted to go to the infirmary, but Brown refused to go to the doctor. Deceased was convulsed. From four o’clock in the morning he breathed very hard, and at eight o’clock he was dead. On Sunday morning I told Brown the man was very much worse, and he said, “D—— your eyes, what do you know about it?” Brown never got up from his bed to the deceased. I have never had any quarrel with Brown. It was no use of me complaining to anyone but Brown, because they would not have interfered if he did not. It was no use speaking to Brown, because he knew all about it as much as I did.

David Kirkland, the pauper attendant on the doctor, said: I saw the deceased for the first time last Friday week, when he came to the doctor. I saw him on Sunday and asked him what was the matter. He said “Nothing.” I don’t recollect Brown saying anything to [me about mov]ing Airey from the ward.

[The Coroner sa]id the case seemed perfectly clear to [him. There was no dou]bt the deceased was most grossly [neglected on the Sund]ay night referred to by Mummery. [The only nurse in the] ward was an old pauper, who [would, of course, loo]k more to his own ease than any[body else’s. Paup]er nurses, as they were not allowed to [receive any pay,] were not incited to do their duty by [fear of dismissal.] The man Brown even discharged [himself, and was induced] to again undertake the duties [for half a pint of beer a day.] On Sunday night, when deceased was in [convulsions,] it was clearly a case in which the doctor ought to have been sent for. In wards which were full of old men there were sure very frequently to be some requiring attendance, and under such circumstances there ought to be paid nurses. Pauper nurses ought not to be depended upon.

Mr. Longden: We don’t defend the system; it is forced upon us.

Brown: There are seventy-six men in the ward and at least fifty between my bed and the one where the man was laid.

The jury, after deliberation, returned a verdict of “Death from natural causes,” but added, “We consider that a pauper seventy-five years of age is not fit to discharge the duties of wardsman, [especially] during the night, in a ward [in which so many aged] people sleep, and we [suggest that a better system] of attendance in the wa[rds should be adopted.”]

[The case of the d]eceased John Fowler was then [proceeded with, the ju]ry finding that there was no proof [that blame attached to any of the work]house officials.

A subject, which for a long time past we have been endeavouring to impress upon the public mind, is at length becoming so patent as to receive attention of some kind or another in all quarters. These columns have repeatedly borne witness to the fact that the distress of the working classes has gone beyond the power of the Poor Law. We have asked for something more than the Poor Law and for something better. We have pointed out that the problem was not likely to solve itself, and that it was a perilous thing to leave this state of affairs to be dealt with solely by boards of guardians and relieving officers. Where the distress is real the repressive system is worse than futile—it is a redhot iron to an ulcer. The common cry has been that we should trust to the Poor Law. To a great extent the public have so trusted; but at length a failure of the law is too palpable to be denied. Indiscriminate charity has been condemned, and very properly so. But the Poor Law is by no means remarkable for its discrimination, and by its treatment of the poor tends to destroy that very element of character which it is most important should be preserved—self-respect. The extent to which the Poor Law is—we might almost say—idolised by many who have considerable influence in society, is only equaled by the degree in which the same law is loathed by those who are cast upon its mercies. We have treated pauperism as a disease—a plague—a leprosy, and we have made it such. The last modicum of sympathy and kindliness has been weeded out, until rather than eat such bitter bread, some of the more impetuous of the poor resort to suicide. The general effect is either to irritate or to paralyse. It is not possible for such a state of things to last. No doubt if charity were to stay its action, the crisis would come all the sooner. But in what shape would it come? In multiplied deaths by starvation, in fever, in pestilence, in open riot and civil commotion. The old pauperism which the new Poor Law was to put down was a thing comparatively easy to get rid of, because much of it was artificial. But the pauperism of the present day is born of distress and aggravated by law. It is real and terrible. “In the districts aided by the association the distress is chronic. There is in addition this winter a large amount of sickness and fever, caused mainly from want of nourishing food, for which aid is earnestly solicited.” So say the Committee of the Metropolitan Visiting and Relief Association. “The weather has not hitherto been severe, but the scarcity of employment in several trades makes the position of the poor extremely precarious, and much assistance is needed.” Thus modestly does the Society for the Relief of Distress put the case. It is not merely East London distress that we have to speak of. It is also north, south, and west—and even central. With a winter of almost unexampled mildness—a January of buds and birds’-nests, flowers, and butterflies, London has more than 144,000 paupers, or only about 3000 less than a year ago. A severe winter would, in all probability, have thrown upon the poor rates of the metropolis no less than 200,000 persons. This marvelous spring-like winter has granted a respite which cannot be too diligently improved.[^f43]

While we are deploring the distress of London we must remember that the question is more than metropolitan. The distress is widespread, and the peril of London affects the whole nation. Of all the daughters of the horseleech, there is none like the poor-rate collector. And what does he give us for our money? More paupers and more buildings to put them in. The Poor Law may be a good thing for a self-induced poverty. As a rod for the back of fools it may do very well, but as a staff for the help of the poor it is lamentably out of place. It is almost impossible to be blind to the startling facts which now present themselves. Swarms of beggars begin to infest our streets despite all the terrors of the law. Ratepayers are rising up in rebellion against poor rates, and boards of guardians are setting Whitehall at defiance. Never was the outlay so large; and never were the results more unsatisfactory. It was bad in a former age to give relief instead of wages, but thousands now complain that they neither get wages nor relief. Unfortunately the labour market does not exhibit much prospect that matters will improve. The closing of the dockyards at Deptford and Woolwich, the stagnation which is beginning to affect the building trades of the metropolis, the large reductions which are likely to take place in many of the Government establishments, and the short-time in the cotton-mills of the manufacturing districts, are all so many causes tending directly or indirectly to depress the industrial classes. If we are to go on in this way until next winter, a catastrophe may then become imminent, which will reconcile the public to remedies now scarcely to be thought of. But what are the propositions which we are now called upon to consider? In the first place, what is the temper of the Government? They have been asked to assist the distressed artisans of Woolwich, either by increased work or by grants in aid of emigration. In answer to a highly respectable deputation from the locality the Secretary of State for War replied “emphatically that he could not hold out any prospect of increased work, nor could he promise any assistance from the Government, who rather contemplated further reductions.” With this response to their appeal, the deputation left “evidently much chagrined with the result of their interview.”

But is the Government to look on with calm indifference at the wreck and ruin which is taking place? Some are proposing “public works.” This was better than the stone yard; but it is a desperate remedy. This is the Elberfeld system. That was infinitely better than the wretched, harumscarum method which we now pursue. But what is the essence of the success which has attended this Prussian plan? It seeks to raise the poor, while it relieves them. It ensures that relief shall be given to those who really need it, and replaces the lamentable “test” system of our English law by a personal and constant supervision. Instead of a relieving officer doing battle with hundreds of cases there is a “father”, or “cherisher” of the poor, with only four families, or, perhaps, four individuals, to look after. Thus the merits of every case are thoroughly known, without any need for that torturing process by which the reality of English destitution is put to the test. In Elberfeld the Poor-law Board endeavor to preserve the family tie—not to rend it asunder as a condition of relief, and hence, as a rule, the plan of out-door relief is the one that is acted upon. The results were given in our columns a year ago, and there is every reason to believe that the marvelous reduction in pauperism then referred to has been maintained. The poor are relieved, and they are not pauperised. There is one more resource, and that is—emigration. Mr. EDWARD JENKINS, of the Reform Club, would have emigrants go to the United States in preference to Canada, and in justification of this advice offers certain statements which are perfectly astounding as coming from a gentleman who apparently ought to know something of what he is writing about. As for the proposal of a national grant to promote emigration, we believe that nothing less than this will meet the exigencies of the case, though some other measures may be needed to make the remedy complete. Who are the parties to emigrate, is a critical part of the question. If emigration is to be successful and popular it must be voluntary and not compulsory. If we mean to send actual paupers to Canada or elsewhere, they must go of their own free will, or the scheme will assuredly break down. But why not send those who are distressed, though not on the poor rates, and who are anxious to escape the hourly peril of pauperism? Of these there are thousands in London alone, and thousands more, we doubt not, might be recruited in the provinces. If these stop where they are until next winter, many of them will then be paupers in the full sense of the term; and it seems scarcely desirable that we should keep them until they become paupers before we help them to emigrate.

---

[^f20]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 957, 13 December 1868, p. 4.
[^f21]: *The Daily News*, No. 7057, 14 December 1868, p. 5.
[^f22]: *The Daily News*, No. 7067, 25 December 1868, p. 6.
[^f23]: *The Daily News*, No. 7067, 25 December 1868, p. 6.
[^f24]: *The Daily News*, No. 7066, 24 December 1868, pp. 4-5.
[^f25]: Newspaper not identified (MEGAdigital).
[^f26]: *The Daily News*, No. 6968, 12 September 1868, p. 6.
[^f27]: *The Daily News*, No. 7074, 1 January 1869, p. 2.
[^f28]: *The Daily News*, No. 7074, 2 January 1869, p. 6.
[^f29]: *The Daily News*, No. 7074, 2 January 1869, p. 3.
[^f30]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 960, 3 January 1869, p. 2.
[^f31]: *The Daily News*, No. 7074, 2 January 1869, p. 5.
[^f32]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 960, 3 January 1869, p. 4.
[^f33]: Newspaper not identified; the same text appeared in many papers; original report in *Birmingham Daily Post*, 13 January 1869, p. 3 (MEGAdigital).
[^f34]: *The Standard*, 22 January 1869, p. 5.
[^f35]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 962, 17 January 1869, p. 8.
[^f36]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 962, 17 January 1869, p. 3.
[^f37]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 964, 31 January 1869, p. 5.
[^f38]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 964, 31 January 1869, p. 5.
[^f39]: *The Daily News*, No. 7097, 29 January 1869, p. 6.
[^f40]: *The Daily News*, No. 7106, 9 February 1869, p. 2.
[^f41]: *The Daily News*, No. 7109, 12 February 1869, p. 4.
[^f42]: *Reynolds’s Newspaper*, No. 966, 14 February 1869, p. 3.
[^f43]: *The Standard*, 19 January 1869, p. 4.
[^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.