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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 52423 ***</div>

<div class="figcenter"><a name="i_frontispiece.jpg" id="i_frontispiece.jpg"></a>
  <img src="images/i_frontispiece.jpg"
        alt="The White Slaves of England" />
</div>


<p class="ac x-smaller">
FIFTH THOUSAND.</p>

<h1>
THE WHITE SLAVES<br />
<br />
<span class="xx-smaller">OF</span><br />
<br />
ENGLAND.</h1>

<p class="ac p4">
COMPILED FROM OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS.<br />
<br />
<span class="xx-smaller">WITH TWELVE SPIRITED ILLUSTRATIONS.</span></p>

<p class="ac">BY JOHN C. COBDEN.</p>

<p class="ac p6"><span class="smaller">AUBURN AND BUFFALO:</span><br />
MILLER ORTON &amp; MULLIGAN.<br />
<span class="smaller">1854.</span><br />
</p>

<hr class="chap" />


<p class="ac">
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and
fifty-three, by<br />

<span class="sc">Derby and Miller</span>,<br />
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern District of New-York.<br />
</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>




<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE.</h2>
</div>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">The</span> following pages exhibit a system of wrong and outrage
equally abhorrent to justice, civilization and humanity. The
frightful abuses which are here set forth, are, from their enormity,
difficult of belief; yet they are supported by testimony
the most impartial, clear and irrefutable. These abuses are
time-honored, and have the sanction of a nation which prides itself
upon the <i>freedom of its Constitution</i>; and which holds up
its government to the nations of the earth as a model of <i>regulated
liberty</i>. Vain, audacious, <i>false</i> assumption! Let the refutation
be found in the details which this volume furnishes, of
the want, misery and starvation—the slavish toil—the menial
degradation of nineteen-twentieths of her people. Let her
<i>miners</i>, her <i>operatives</i>, <i>the tenants of her workhouses</i>, her
<i>naval service</i>, and the millions upon millions in the <i>Emerald
Isle</i> and in farther India attest its fallacy.</p>

<p class="i1">These are the legitimate results of the laws and institutions
of Great Britain; and they reach and affect, in a greater or less
degree, all her dependencies. Her <i>church and state</i>, and her
<i>laws of entail and primogeniture</i>, are the principal sources of
the evils under which her people groan; and until these are
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
changed there is no just ground of hope for an improvement
in their condition. The tendency of things is, indeed, to make
matters still worse. The poor are every year becoming poorer,
and more dependent upon those who feast upon their sufferings;
while the wealth and power of the realm are annually
concentrating in fewer hands, and becoming more and more instruments
of oppression. The picture is already sufficiently
revolting. "Nine hundred and ninety-nine children of the
same common Father, suffer from destitution, that the thousandth
may revel in superfluities. A thousand cottages shrink
into meanness and want, to swell the dimensions of a single palace.
The tables of a thousand families of the industrious poor waste
away into drought and barrenness, that one board may be laden
with surfeits."</p>

<p class="i1">From these monstrous evils there seems to be little chance
of escape, except by flight; and happy is it for the victims of
oppression, that an asylum is open to them, in which they can
fully enjoy the rights and privileges, from which, for ages, they
have been debarred. Let them come. The feudal chains
which so long have bound them can here be shaken off. Here
they can freely indulge the pure impulses of the mind and the
soul, untrammeled by political or religious tyranny. Here
they can enjoy the beneficent influences of humane institutions
and laws, and find a vast and ample field in which to develop
and properly employ all their faculties.</p>

<p class="i1">The United States appear before the eyes of the down-trodden
whites of Europe as a land of promise. Thousands of ignorant,
degraded wretches, who have fled from their homes to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
escape exhausting systems of slavery, annually land upon our
shores, and in their hearts thank God that he has created such
a refuge. This is the answer—the overwhelming answer—to
the decriers of our country and its institutions. These emigrants
are more keenly alive to the superiority of our institutions
than most persons who have been bred under them, and
to their care we might confidently intrust our defence.</p>

<p class="i1">We design to prove in this work that the oligarchy which
owns Great Britain at the present day is the best friend of human
slavery, and that its system is most barbarous and destructive.
Those feudal institutions which reduced to slavery the
strong-minded race of whites, are perpetuated in Great Britain,
to the detriment of freedom wherever the British sway extends.
Institutions which nearly every other civilized country has abolished,
and which are at least a century behind the age, still curse
the British islands and their dependencies. This system of
slavery, with all its destructive effects, will be found fully illustrated
in this volume.</p>

<p class="i1">Our plan has been to quote English authorities wherever possible.
Out of their own mouths shall they be condemned.
We have been much indebted to the publications of distinguished
democrats of England, who have keenly felt the evils
under which their country groans, and striven, with a hearty
will, to remove them. They have the sympathies of civilized
mankind with their cause. May their efforts soon be crowned
with success, for the British masses and oppressed nations far
away in the East will shout loud and long when the aristocracy
is brought to the dust!</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>


<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p>

<p>" • • • • • <span class="sc">AS WE HAVE BEEN GREAT IN CRIME, LET US BE
EARLY IN REPENTANCE. THERE WILL BE A DAY OF RETRIBUTION, WHEREIN
WE SHALL HAVE TO GIVE ACCOUNT OF ALL THE TALENTS, FACULTIES,
AND OPPORTUNITIES WHICH HAVE BEEN INTRUSTED TO US. LET IT NOT
THEN APPEAR THAT OUR SUPERIOR POWER HAS BEEN EMPLOYED TO OPPRESS
OUR FELLOW CREATURES, AND OUR SUPERIOR LIGHT TO DARKEN THE CREATION
OF OUR GOD.</span>"—<i>Wilberforce.</i></p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>

<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2>
</div>

<table id="TOC" summary="CONTENTS">
  <tr>
    <td class="chap-no"><a href="#CHAPTER_I" style="text-decoration: none;">
	  CHAPTER I.</a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">General Slavery proceeding from the existence of the British Aristocracy</td>
    <td class="c2"><span style="width:10%;"><i>Page </i></span>13</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="chap-no"><a href="#CHAPTER_II" style="text-decoration: none;">
	  CHAPTER II.</a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">Slavery in the British Mines</td>
    <td class="c2">28</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="chap-no"><a href="#CHAPTER_III" style="text-decoration: none;">
	  CHAPTER III.</a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">Slavery in the British Factories</td>
    <td class="c2">104</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="chap-no"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV" style="text-decoration: none;">
	  CHAPTER IV.</a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">Slavery in the British Workshops</td>
    <td class="c2">168</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="chap-no"><a href="#CHAPTER_V" style="text-decoration: none;">
	  CHAPTER V.</a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">The Workhouse System of Britain</td>
    <td class="c2">206</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="chap-no"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI" style="text-decoration: none;">
	  CHAPTER VI.</a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">Impressment, or Kidnapping White Men for Slaves in the Naval Service</td>
    <td class="c2">257</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="chap-no"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII" style="text-decoration: none;">
	  CHAPTER VII.</a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">Irish Slavery</td>
    <td class="c2">284</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="chap-no"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII" style="text-decoration: none;">
	  CHAPTER VIII.</a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">The Menial Slaves of Great Britain</td>
    <td class="c2">370</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="chap-no"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX" style="text-decoration: none;">
	  CHAPTER IX.</a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">Mental and Moral Condition of the White Slaves in Great Britain</td>
    <td class="c2">379</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="chap-no"><a href="#CHAPTER_X" style="text-decoration: none;">
	  CHAPTER X.</a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">Coolie Slavery in the British Colonies</td>
    <td class="c2">433</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="chap-no"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI" style="text-decoration: none;">
	  CHAPTER XI.</a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">Slavery in British India</td>
    <td class="c2">441</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="chap-no"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII" style="text-decoration: none;">
	  CHAPTER XII.</a></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">The Crime and the Duty of the English Government</td>
    <td class="c2">489</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>


<p class="ac">THE<br /><br />
<span class="larger">WHITE SLAVES OF ENGLAND.</span></p>



<hr class="chap" />
<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
</div>

<p class="ac">GENERAL SLAVERY PROCEEDING FROM THE EXISTENCE OF
THE BRITISH ARISTOCRACY.</p>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">What</span> is slavery? A system under which the time
and toil of one person are compulsorily the property of
another. The power of life and death, and the privilege
of using the lash in the master, are not essential, but
casual attendants of slavery, which comprehends all involuntary
servitude without adequate recompense or the
means of escape. He who can obtain no property in the
soil, and is not represented in legislation, is a slave;
for he is completely at the mercy of the lord of the soil
and the holder of the reins of government. Sometimes
slavery is founded upon the inferiority of one race to
another; and then it appears in its most agreeable
garb, for the system may be necessary to tame and
civilize a race of savages. But the subjection of the
majority of a nation to an involuntary, hopeless, exhausting,
and demoralizing servitude, for the benefit of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>
an idle and luxurious few of the same nation, is slavery
in its most appalling form. Such a system of slavery,
we assert, exists in Great Britain.</p>

<p class="i1">In the United Kingdom, the land is divided into
immense estates, constantly retained in a few hands;
and the tendency of the existing laws of entail and
primogeniture is to reduce even the number of these
proprietors. According to McCulloch, there are
77,007,048 acres of land in the United Kingdom, including
the small islands adjacent. Of this quantity,
28,227,435 acres are uncultivated; while, according to
Mr. Porter, another English writer, about 11,300,000
acres, now lying waste, are fit for cultivation. The
number of proprietors of all this land is about 50,000.
Perhaps, this is a rather high estimate for the present
period. Now the people of the United Kingdom number
at least 28,000,000. What a tremendous majority,
then, own not a foot of soil! But this is not the worst.
Such is the state of the laws, that the majority never
can acquire an interest in the land. Said the London
<i>Times</i>, in 1844, "<i>Once a peasant in England, and the
man must remain a peasant for ever</i>;" and, says Mr.
Kay, of Trinity College, Cambridge—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Unless the English peasant will consent to tear himself from
his relations, friends, and early associations, and either transplant
himself into a town or into a distant colony, he has no chance of
improving his condition in the world."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Admit this—admit that the peasant must remain
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
through life at the mercy of his lord, and of legislation
in which his interests are not represented—and tell us
if he is a freeman?</p>

<p class="i1">To begin with England, to show the progress and
effects of the land monopoly:—The Rev. Henry Worsley
states that in the year 1770, there were in England
250,000 freehold estates, in the hands of 250,000 different
families; and that, in 1815, the whole of the lands of
England were concentrated in the hands of only 32,000
proprietors! So that, as the population increases, the
number of proprietors diminishes. A distinguished
lawyer, who was engaged in the management of estates
in Westmoreland and Cumberland counties in 1849,
says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The greater proprietors in this part of the country are buying
up all the land, and including it in their settlements. Whenever
one of the small estates is put up for sale, the great proprietors
outbid the peasants and purchase it at all costs. The consequence
is, that for some time past, the number of the small estates has been
rapidly diminishing in all parts of the country. In a short time
none of them will remain, but all be merged in the great estates.
* * * The consequence is, that the peasant's position, instead
of being what it once was—one of hope—is gradually becoming
one of despair. Unless a peasant emigrates, there is now no
chance for him. It is impossible for him to rise above the peasant
class."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The direct results of this system are obvious. Unable
to buy land, the tillers of the soil live merely by the
sufferance of the proprietors. If one of the great landholders
takes the notion that grazing will be more
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
profitable than farming, he may sweep away the homes
of his labourers, turning the poor wretches upon the
country as wandering paupers, or driving them into the
cities to overstock the workshops and reduce the wages
of the poor workman. And what is the condition of
the peasants who are allowed to remain and labour
upon the vast estates? Let Englishmen speak for
Englishmen.</p>

<p class="i1">Devon, Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire are generally
regarded as presenting the agricultural labourer in his
most deplorable circumstances, while Lincolnshire exhibits
the other extreme. We have good authority for
the condition of the peasantry in all these counties.
Mr. John Fox, medical officer of the Cerne Union, in
Dorsetshire, says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Most of the cottages are of the worst description; some mere
mud-hovels, and situated in low and damp places, with cesspools
or accumulations of filth close to the doors. The mud floors of
many are much below the level of the road, and, in wet seasons,
are little better than so much clay. In many of the cottages, the
beds stood on the ground floor, which was damp three parts of
the year; scarcely one had a fireplace in the bedroom; and one
had a single small pane of glass stuck in the mud wall as its only
window. Persons living in such cottages are generally very poor,
very dirty, and usually in rags, living almost wholly on bread
and potatoes, scarcely ever tasting any animal food, and, consequently,
highly susceptible of disease, and very unable to contend
with it."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Very often, according to other equally good authority,
there is not more than one room for the whole family,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
and the demoralization of that family is the natural
consequence. The <i>Morning Chronicle</i> of November,
1849, said of the cottages at Southleigh, in Devon—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"One house, which our correspondent visited, was almost a
ruin. It had continued in that state for ten years. The floor
was of mud, dipping near the fireplace into a deep hollow, which
was constantly filled with water. There were five in the family—a
young man of twenty-one, a girl of eighteen, and another girl
of about thirteen, with the father and mother, all sleeping together
up-stairs. And what a sleeping-room! 'In places it
seemed falling in. To ventilation it was an utter stranger. The
crazy floor shook and creaked under me as I paced it.' Yet the
rent was 1<i>s.</i> a week—the same sum for which apartments that
may be called luxurious in comparison may be had in the model
lodging-houses. And here sat a girl weaving that beautiful
Honiton lace which our peeresses wear on court-days. Cottage
after cottage at Southleigh presented the same characteristics.
Clay floors, low ceilings letting in the rain, no ventilation; two
rooms, one above and one below; gutters running through the
lower room to let off the water; unglazed window-frames, now
boarded up, and now uncovered to the elements, the boarding
going for firewood; the inmates disabled by rheumatism, ague,
and typhus; broad, stagnant, open ditches close to the doors;
heaps of abominations piled round the dwellings; such are the
main features of Southleigh; and it is in these worse than pig-styes
that one of the most beautiful fabrics that luxury demands
or art supplies is fashioned. The parish houses are still worse.
'One of these, on the borders of Devonshire and Cornwall, and
not far from Launceston, consisted of two houses, containing
between them four rooms. In each room lived a family night
and day, the space being about twelve feet square. In one were
a man and his wife and eight children; the father, mother, and
two children lay in one bed, the remaining six were huddled
'head and foot' (three at the top and three at the foot) in the
other bed. The eldest girl was between fifteen and sixteen, the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
eldest boy between fourteen and fifteen.' Is it not horrible to
think of men and women being brought up in this foul and brutish
manner in civilized and Christian England! The lowest of
savages are not worse cared for than these children of a luxurious
and refined country."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Yet other authorities describe cases much worse than
this which so stirs the heart of the editor of the <i>Morning
Chronicle</i>. The frightful immorality consequent
upon such a mode of living will be illustrated fully in
another portion of this work.</p>

<p class="i1">In Lincolnshire, the cottages of the peasantry are in a
better condition than in any other part of England; but
in consequence of the lowness of wages and the comparative
enormity of rents, the tillers of the soil are in
not much better circumstances than their rural brethren
in other counties. Upon an average, a hard-working
peasant can earn five shillings a week; two shillings of
which go for rent. If he can barely live when employed,
what is to become of him when thrown out of employment?
Thus the English peasant is driven to the most
constant and yet hopeless labour, with whips more
terrible than those used by the master of the negro slave.</p>

<p class="i1">In Wales, the condition of the peasant, thanks to the
general system of lord and serf, is neither milder nor
more hopeful than in England. Mr. Symonds, a commissioner
who was sent by government to examine the
state of education in some of the Welsh counties, says
of the peasantry of Brecknockshire, Cardiganshire, and
Radnorshire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The people of my district are almost universally poor. In
some parts of it, wages are probably lower than in any part of
Great Britain. The evidence of the witnesses, fully confirmed by
other statements, exhibits much poverty, but little amended in
other parts of the counties on which I report. <i>The farmers themselves
are very much impoverished, and live no better than English
cottagers in prosperous agricultural counties.</i></p>

<p class="i1">"The cottages in which the people dwell are miserable in the
extreme in nearly every part of the country in Cardiganshire,
and every part of Brecknockshire and Radnorshire, except the
east. I have myself visited many of the dwellings of the poor,
and my assistants have done so likewise. <i>I believe the Welsh
cottages to be very little, if at all, superior to the Irish huts in the
country districts.</i></p>

<p class="i1">"Brick chimneys are very unusual in these cottages; those
which exist are usually in the shape of large cones, the top being
of basket-work. <i>In very few cottages is there more than one room</i>,
which serves the purposes of living and sleeping. A large dresser
and shelves usually form the partition between the two; and
where there are separate beds for the family, a curtain or low
board is (if it exists) the only division with no regular partition.
And this state of things very generally prevails, even where there
is some little attention paid to cleanliness; but the cottages and
beds are frequently filthy. The people are always very dirty. In
all the counties, the cottages are generally destitute of necessary
outbuildings, including even those belonging to the farmers; and
both in Cardiganshire and Radnorshire, except near the border
of England, the pigs and poultry have free run of the joint dwelling
and sleeping rooms."</p></div>

<p class="i1">In Scotland, the estates of the nobility are even
larger than in England. Small farms are difficult to
find. McCulloch states that there are not more than
8000 proprietors of land in the whole of Scotland; and,
as in England, this number is decreasing. In some
districts, the cottages of the peasantry are as wretched
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
as any in England or Wales. For some years past, the
great landholders, such as the Duke of Buccleuch and
the Duchess of Sutherland, have been illustrating the
glorious beneficence of British institutions by removing
the poor peasantry from the homes of their fathers, for
the purpose of turning the vacated districts into deer-parks,
sheep-walks, and large farms. Many a Highland
family has vented a curse upon the head of the remorseless
Duchess of Sutherland. Most slaveholders
in other countries feed, shelter, and protect their slaves,
in compensation for work; but the Duchess and her
barbarous class take work, shelter, food, and protection
from their serfs all at one fell swoop, turning them upon
the world to beg or starve. Scotland has reason—strong
reason—to bewail the existence of the British
aristocracy.</p>

<p class="i1">Next let us invoke the testimony of Ireland—the
beautiful and the wretched—Ireland, whose people have
been the object of pity to the nations for centuries—whose
miseries have been the burden of song and the
theme of eloquence till they have penetrated all hearts
save those of the oppressors—whose very life-blood has
been trampled out by the aristocracy. Let us hear her
testimony in regard to the British slave system.</p>

<p class="i1">Ireland is splendidly situated, in a commercial point
of view, commanding the direct route between Northern
Europe and America, with some of the finest harbours
in the world. Its soil is rich and fruitful. Its rivers
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>
are large, numerous, and well adapted for internal
commerce. The people are active, physically and
intellectually, and, everywhere beyond Ireland, are
distinguished for their energy, perseverance, and
success. Yet, in consequence of its organized oppression,
called government, Ireland is the home of miseries
which have scarcely a parallel upon the face of the
earth. The great landlords spend most of their time
in England or upon the continent, and leave their lands
to the management of agents, who have sub-agents for
parts of the estates, and these latter often have still
inferior agents. Many of the great landlords care
nothing for their estates beyond the receipt of the rents,
and leave their agents to enrich themselves at the
expense of the tenantry. Everywhere in Ireland, a
traveller, as he passes along the roads, will see on the
roadsides and in the fields, places which look like
mounds of earth and sods, with a higher heap of sods
upon the top, out of which smoke is curling upward;
and with two holes in the sides of the heap next the
road, one of which is used as the door, and the other
as the window of the hovel. These are the homes of
the peasantry! Entering a hovel, you will find it to
contain but one room, formed by the four mud walls;
and in these places, upon the mud floor, the families of
the peasant live. Men, women, boys, and girls live
and sleep together, and herd with the wallowing pig.
Gaunt, ragged figures crawl out of these hovels and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
plant the ground around them with potatoes, which
constitute the only food of the inmates throughout the
year, or swarm the roads and thoroughfares as wretched
beggars. The deplorable condition of these peasants
was graphically described by no less a person than Sir
Robert Peel, in his great speech on Ireland, in 1849;
and the evidence quoted by him was unimpeachable.
But not only are the majority of the Irish condemned
to exist in such hovels as we have sketched above—their
tenure of these disgusting cabins is insecure. If they
do not pay the rent for them at the proper time, they
are liable to be turned adrift even in the middle of the
night. No notice is necessary. The tenants are subject
to the tender mercies of a bailiff, without any
remedy or appeal, except to the court of Heaven. Kay
states that in 1849, more than 50,000 families were
evicted and turned as beggars upon the country. An
Englishman who travelled through Ireland in the fall
of 1849, says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"In passing through some half dozen counties, Cork, (especially
in the western portions of it,) Limerick, Clare, Galway, and
Mayo, you see thousands of ruined cottages and dwellings of the
labourers, the peasants, and the small holders of Ireland. You
see from the roadside twenty houses at once with not a roof upon
them. I came to a village not far from Castlebar, where the
system of eviction had been carried out only a few days before.
Five women came about us as the car stopped, and on making
inquiry, they told us their sorrowful story. They were not badly
clad; they were cleanly in appearance; they were intelligent;
they used no violent language, but in the most moderate terms
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
told us that on the Monday week previously those five houses had
been levelled. They told us how many children there were in
their families: I recollect one had eight, another had six; that
the husbands of three of them were in this country for the harvest;
that they had written to their husbands to tell them of the
desolation of their homes. And, I asked them, 'What did the
husbands say in reply?' They said 'they had not been able to
eat any breakfast!' It is but a simple observation, but it marks
the sickness and the sorrow which came over the hearts of those
men, who here were toiling for their three or four pounds, denying
themselves almost rest at night that they might make a good
reaping at the harvest, and go back that they might enjoy it in
the home which they had left. All this is but a faint outline of
what has taken place in that unhappy country. Thousands of
individuals have died within the last two or three years in consequence
of the evictions which have taken place."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The great loss of life in the famine of 1847 showed
that the peasantry had a miserable dependence upon
the chances of a good potato crop for the means of
keeping life in their bodies. Crowds of poor wretches,
after wandering about for a time like the ghosts of
human beings, starved to death by the roadside, victims
of the murderous policy of the landed aristocracy.
Since that period of horror, the great proprietors,
envious of the lurid fame achieved by the Duchess of
Sutherland in Scotland, have been evicting their tenants
on the most extensive scale, and establishing large farms
and pasturages, which they deem more profitable than
former arrangements. In despair at home, the wretched
Irish are casting their eyes to distant lands for a refuge
from slavery and starvation. But hundreds of thousands
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
groan in their hereditary serfdom, without the
means of reaching other and happier countries. The
dearest ties of family are sundered by the force of want.
The necessity of seeking a subsistence drives the father
to a distant land, while the child is compelled to remain
in Ireland a pauper. The husband can pay his own
passage to America, perchance, but the wife must stay
in the land of misery. Ask Ireland if a slave can
breathe in Great Britain! The long lamentation of
ages, uniting with the heart-broken utterances of her
present wretched bondsmen, might touch even the
British aristocracy in its reply.</p>

<p class="i1">So much for the general condition of the peasantry
in the United Kingdom. The miserable consequences of
the system of lord and serf do not end here. No! There
are London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Dublin,
and many other cities and towns, with their crowds of
slaves either in the factories and workshops, or in the
streets as paupers and criminals. There are said to be
upward of four millions of paupers in the United
Kingdom! Can such an amount of wretchedness be
found in any country upon the face of the globe? To
what causes are we to attribute this amount of pauperism,
save to the monopolies and oppressions of the
aristocracy? Think of there being in the United
Kingdom over eleven million acres of good land uncultivated,
and four millions of paupers! According to
Kay, more than two millions of people were kept from
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
starving in England and Wales, in 1848, by relief doled
out to them from public and private sources. So scant
are the earnings of those who labour day and night in
the cities and towns, that they may become paupers if
thrown out of work for a single week. Many from
town and country are driven by the fear of starvation
to labour in the mines, the horrors of which species of
slavery shall be duly illustrated farther on in this
work.</p>

<p class="i1">Truly did Southey write—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"To talk of English happiness, is like talking of Spartan freedom;
the <i>helots</i> are overlooked. In no country can such riches
be acquired by commerce, but it is the one who grows rich by
the labour of the hundred. The hundred human beings like
himself, as wonderfully fashioned by nature, gifted with the like
capacities, and equally made for immortality, are sacrificed <i>body
and soul</i>. Horrible as it must needs appear, the assertion is true
to the very letter. They are deprived in childhood of all instruction
and all enjoyment—of the sports in which childhood instinctively
indulges—of fresh air by day and of natural sleep by night.
Their health, physical and moral, is alike destroyed; they die of
diseases induced by unremitting task-work, by confinement in
the impure atmosphere of crowded rooms, by the particles of
metallic or vegetable dust which they are continually inhaling;
or they live to grow up without decency, without comfort, and
without hope—without morals, without religion, and without
shame; and bring forth <i>slaves</i> like themselves to tread in the
same path of misery."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Again, the same distinguished Englishman says, in
number twenty-six of Espriella's Letters—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The English boast of their liberty, but there is <i>no liberty in
England for the poor</i>. They are no longer sold with the soil, it
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
is true; but they cannot quit the soil if there be any probability
or suspicion that age or infirmity may disable them. If, in such
a case, they endeavour to remove to some situation where they
hope more easily to maintain themselves, where work is more
plentiful or provisions cheaper, the overseers are alarmed, the
intruder is apprehended, as if he were a criminal, and sent back
to his own parish. Wherever a pauper dies, that parish must bear
the cost of his funeral. Instances, therefore, have not been
wanting of wretches, in the last stage of disease, having been
hurried away in an open cart, upon straw, and dying upon the
road. Nay, even women, in the very pains of labour, have been
driven out, and have perished by the wayside, because the birthplace
of the child would be its parish!"</p></div>

<p class="i1">The sufferings of the rural labourers—the peasantry
of Great Britain and Ireland—are to be attributed to
the fact that they have no property in the land, and
cannot acquire any. The law of primogeniture, on
which the existence of the British aristocracy depends,
has, as we have already shown, placed the land and
those who labour on it—the soil and the serfs—at the
disposal of a few landed proprietors. The labourers are
not attached to the soil, and bought and sold with it,
as in Russia. The English aristocrat is too cunning to
adopt such a regulation, because it would involve the
necessity of supporting his slaves. They are <i>called</i>
freemen, in order to enable their masters to detach them
from the soil, and drive them forth to starve, when it
suits their convenience, without incurring any legal
penalty for their cruelty, such as the slaveholders of
other countries would suffer. The Russian, the Spanish,
the North American slaveholder must support his
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
slaves in sickness and helpless old age, or suffer the
penalties of the law for his neglect. The British slaveholder
alone may drive his slaves forth to starve in the
highway by hundreds and thousands; and no law of
Great Britain affords the means of punishing him for
his murderous cruelty. His Irish slaves may be saved
from starvation by American bounty, but he cannot be
punished until he shall meet his Judge at the day of
final account.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>




<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
</div>

<p class="ac">SLAVERY IN THE BRITISH MINES.</p>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">In</span> proceeding to speak more particularly of the
various forms of British slavery, we will begin with
labour in the mines—the horrors of which became
known to the world through reports made to Parliament
in the summer of 1840. Pressed by the fear of general
execration, Parliament appointed a commission of inquiry,
which, after a thorough examination of all the
mines in the United Kingdom, made a voluminous report.
So shocking were the accounts of labour in the
mines given by this commission, that the delicate nerves
of several perfumed lords were grievously pained, and
they denounced the commissioners as being guilty of
exaggeration. Nevertheless, the evidence adduced by
the officers was unimpeachable, and their statements
were generally received as plain truth.</p>

<div class="figcenter"><a name="i_028.jpg" id="i_028.jpg"></a>
  <img src="images/i_028.jpg"
        alt="" />
  <div class="caption">COAL GETTER AT WORK.</div>
</div>

<p class="i1">The mining industry of the kingdom is divided into
two distinct branches—that of the coal and iron mines,
and that of the mines of tin, copper, lead, and zinc.
The "coal measures," as the geological formations
comprising the strata of coal are designated, are variously
dispersed in the middle, northern, and western
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>
portions of South Britain, and in a broad belt of country
which traverses the centre of Scotland, from the
shores of Ayrshire to those of the Firth of Forth.
There are, also, some coal-tracts in Ireland, but they
are of comparatively small importance. In all these
districts, the coal is found in beds, interstratified for
the most part with various qualities of gritstone and
shale, in which, in some of the districts, occur layers
of ironstone, generally thin, but sometimes forming
large masses, as in the Forest of Dean. When the
surface of the coal country is mountainous and intersected
by deep ravines, as in South Wales, the mineral
deposites are approached by holes driven into the sides
of the hills; but the common access to them is by vertical
shafts, or well-holes, from the bottoms of which
horizontal roadways are extended in long and confined
passages through the coal strata, to bring all that is
hewn to the "pit's eye," or bottom of the shaft, for
winding up. It is requisite to have more than one
shaft in the same workings; but where the coal lies so
deep that the sinking of a distinct shaft requires an
enormous outlay of capital, only one large shaft is
sunk; and this is divided by wooden partitions, or
brattices, into several distinct channels. There must
always be one shaft or channel, called the "downcast
pit," for the air to descend; and another, called the
"upcast pit," for the return draught to ascend. The
apparatus for lowering and drawing up is generally in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>
the upcast shaft. This is either a steam-engine, a
horse-gin, or a hand-crank. The thickness of the
seams that are wrought varies from the eighteen-inch
seams of the Lancashire and Yorkshire hills, to the ten-yard
coal of South Staffordshire. But two, three, and
four feet are the more common thicknesses of the beds
that are wrought. When there is a good roof, or hard
rock immediately over the coal, with a tolerably solid
floor beneath it, thin coal-seams can be worked with
advantage, because the outlay of capital for propping
is then very limited; but the very hardness of the contiguous
strata would require an outlay almost as great
to make the roadways of a proper height for human
beings of any age to work in.</p>

<p class="i1">By the evidence collected under the commission, it is
proved that there are coal-mines at present at work in
which some passages are so small, that even the youngest
children cannot move along them without crawling on
their hands and feet, in which constrained position they
drag the loaded carriages after them; and yet, as it is
impossible by any outlay compatible with a profitable
return, to render such coal-mines fit for human beings
to work in, they never will be placed in such a condition,
and, consequently, they never can be worked
without this child slavery! When the roads are six
feet high and upward, there is not only ample space
for carrying on the general operations of the mine, but
the coals can be drawn direct from the workings to the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
foot of the shaft by the largest horses; and when the
main roads are four feet and a half high, the coals may
be conveyed to the foot of the shaft by ponies or asses.
But when the main ways are under four feet, the coals
can only be conveyed by children. Yet, in many mines,
the main gates are only from twenty-four to thirty
inches high. In this case, even the youngest children
must work in a bent position of the body. When the
inclination of the strata causes all the workings out of
the main ways to be on inclined plains, the young
labourers are not only almost worked to death, but exposed
to severe accidents in descending the plains with
their loads, out of one level into another. In many of
the mines, there is such a want of drainage and ventilation,
that fatal diseases are contracted by the miners.</p>

<p class="i1">According to the report of the Parliamentary commission,
about one-third of the persons employed in the
coal-mines were under eighteen years of age, and much
more than one-third of this number were under thirteen
years of age. When the proprietor employs the whole
of the hands, not only will his general overseer be a
respectable person, but his underlookers will be taken
from the more honest, intelligent, and industrious of
the labouring colliers. Elsewhere, the rulers in pits
are such as the rudest class is likely to produce. The
great body of the children and young persons are,
however, of the families of the adult work-people employed
in the pits, or belong to the poor population of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
the neighbourhood. But, in some districts, there are
numerous defenceless creatures who pass the whole of
their youth in the most abject slavery, into which they
are thrown chiefly by parish authorities, under the
name of apprenticeship. Said the Parliamentary commissioners
in their report—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"There is one mode of engaging the labour of children and
young persons in coal-mines, peculiar to a few districts, which
deserves particular notice, viz. that by apprenticeship. The
district in which the practice of employing apprentices is most in
use, is South Staffordshire; it was formerly common in Shropshire,
but is now discontinued; it is still common in Yorkshire,
Lancashire, and the West of Scotland; in all the other districts, it
appears to be unknown. In Staffordshire, the sub-commissioner
states that the number of children and young persons working in
the mines as apprentices is exceedingly numerous; that these
apprentices are paupers or orphans, and are wholly in the power
of the butties;<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>
that such is the demand for this class of children
by the butties, that there are scarcely any boys in the union
workhouses of Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley, and Stourbridge;
that these boys are sent on trial to the butties between the ages
of eight and nine, and at nine are bound as apprentices for twelve
years, that is, to the age of twenty-one years complete; that, notwithstanding
this long apprenticeship, there is nothing whatever
in the coal-mines to learn beyond a little dexterity, readily acquired
by short practice; and that even in the mines of Cornwall,
where much skill and judgment is required, there are no apprentices,
while, in the coal-mines of South Staffordshire, the orphan
whom necessity has driven into a workhouse, is made to labour
in the mines until the age of twenty-one, solely for the benefit of
another."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Thomas Moorhouse, a collier boy, who was brought
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>
to the notice of the Parliamentary commissioners,
said—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"I don't know how old I am; father is dead; I am a chance
child; mother is dead also; I don't know how long she has been
dead; 'tis better na three years; I began to hurry<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> when I was
nine years old for William Greenwood; I was apprenticed to him
till I should be twenty-one; my mother apprenticed me; I lived
with Greenwood; I don't know how long it was, but it was a
goodish while; he was bound to find me in victuals and drink
and clothes; I never had enough; he gave me some old clothes
to wear, which he bought at the rag-shop; the overseers gave him
a sovereign to buy clothes with, but he never laid it out; the
overseers bound me out with mother's consent from the township
of Southowram; I ran away from him because he lost my indentures,
for he served me very bad; he stuck a pick into me twice."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Here the boy was made to strip, and the commissioner,
Mr. Symonds, found a large cicatrix likely to
have been occasioned by such an instrument, which
must have passed through the glutei muscles, and have
stopped only short of the hip-joint. There were twenty
other wounds, occasioned by hurrying in low workings,
upon and around the spinous processes of the vertebræ,
from the sacrum upward. The boy continued—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"He used to hit me with the belt, and mawl or sledge, and
fling coals at me. He served me so bad that I left him, and went
about to see if I could get a job. I used to sleep in the cabins
upon the pit's bank, and in the old pits that had done working.
I laid upon the shale all night. I used to get what I could to
eat. I ate for a long time the candles that I found in the pits
that the colliers left over night. I had nothing else to eat. I
looked about for work, and begged of the people a bit. I got to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>
Bradford after a while, and had a job there for a month while a
collier's lad was poorly. When he came back, I was obliged to
leave."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Another case was related by Mr. Kennedy, one of
the commissioners. A boy, named Edward Kershaw,
had been apprenticed by the overseers of Castleton to
a collier of the name of Robert Brierly, residing at
Balsgate, who worked in a pit in the vicinity of Rooley
Moor. The boy was examined, and from twenty-four
to twenty-six wounds were found upon his body. His
posteriors and loins were beaten to a jelly; his head,
which was almost cleared of hair on the scalp, had the
marks of many old wounds upon it which had healed
up. One of the bones in one arm was broken below
the elbow, and, from appearances, seemed to have been
so for some time. The boy, on being brought before
the magistrates, was unable either to sit or stand, and
was placed on the floor of the office, laid on his side on
a small cradle-bed. It appears from the evidence, that
the boy's arm had been broken by a blow with an iron
rail, and the fracture had never been set, and that he
had been kept at work for several weeks with his arm
in the condition above described. It further appeared
in evidence, and was admitted by Brierly, that he had
been in the habit of beating the boy with a flat piece
of wood, in which a nail was driven and projected about
half an inch. The blows had been inflicted with such
violence that they penetrated the skin, and caused the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
wounds above mentioned. The body of the boy presented
all the marks of emaciation. This brutal master
had kept the boy at work as a wagoner until he was no
longer of any use, and then sent him home in a cart to
his mother, who was a poor widow, residing in Church
lane, Rochdale. And yet it is said that a slave cannot
breathe the air of England!</p>

<p class="i1">The want of instruction, and the seclusion from the
rest of the world, which is common to the colliers, give
them a sad pre-eminence over every other class of
labourers, in ignorance and callousness; and when they
are made masters, what can be expected? In all cases
of apprenticeship, the children are bound till they
attain the age of twenty-one years. If the master dies
before the apprentice attains the age of twenty-one
years, the apprentice is equally bound as the servant
of his deceased master's heirs, executors, administrators,
and assigns. In fact, the apprentice is part of the
deceased master's goods and chattels!</p>

<p class="i1">But, to speak more particularly of the labour of the
children:—The employment of the adult collier is almost
exclusively in the "getting" of the coal from its
natural resting-place, of which there are various methods,
according to the nature of the seams and the
habits of the several districts. That of the children
and young persons consists principally either in tending
the air-doors where the coal-carriages must pass through
openings, the immediately subsequent stoppage of which
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
is necessary to preserve the ventilation in its proper
channels, or in the conveyance of the coal from the
bays or recesses in which it is hewn, along the subterranean
roadways, to the bottom of the pit-shaft; a
distance varying from absolute contiguity even to miles,
in the great coal-fields of the North of England, where
the depth requires that the same expensive shaft shall
serve for the excavation of a large tract of coal. The
earliest employment of children in the pits is generally
to open and shut the doors, upon the proper custody of
which the ventilation and safety of the whole mine
depends. These little workmen are called "trappers."
Of the manner in which they pass their earlier days,
Dr. Mitchell, a distinguished Englishman, has given a
very interesting sketch, which deserves to be quoted
here entire:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The little trapper, of eight years of age, lies quiet in bed. It
is now between two and three in the morning, and his mother
shakes him and desires him to rise, and tells him that his father
has an hour ago gone off to the pit. He turns on his side, rubs
his eyes, and gets up, and comes to the blazing fire and puts on
his clothes. His coffee, such as it is, stands by the side of the
fire, and bread is laid down for him. The fortnight is now well
advanced, the money all spent, and butter, bacon, and other
luxurious accompaniments of bread, are not to be had at breakfast
till next pay-day supply the means. He then fills his tin
bottle with coffee and takes a lump of bread, sets out for the pit,
into which he goes down in the cage, and walking along the
horse-way for upward of a mile, he reaches the barrow-way, over
which the young men and boys push the trams with the tubs on
rails to the flats, where the barrow-way and horse-way meet, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
where the tubs are transferred to rolleys or carriages drawn by
horses.</p>

<div class="figcenter"><a name="i_036.jpg" id="i_036.jpg"></a>
  <img src="images/i_036.jpg"
        alt="" />
  <div class="caption">THRUSTERS AND TRAPPER.</div>
</div>

<p class="i1">"He knows his place of work. It is inside one of the doors
called trap-doors, which is in the barrow-way, for the purpose of
forcing the stream of air which passes in its long, many-miled
course from the down-shaft to the up-shaft of the pit; but which
door must be opened whenever men or boys, with or without carriages,
may wish to pass through. He seats himself in a little
hole, about the size of a common fireplace, and with the string in
his hand; and all his work is to pull that string when he has to
open the door, and when man or boy has passed through, then
to allow the door to shut of itself. Here it is his duty to sit, and
be attentive, and pull his string promptly as any one approaches.
He may not stir above a dozen steps with safety from his charge,
lest he should be found neglecting his duty, and suffer for the
same.</p>

<p class="i1">"He sits solitary by himself, and has no one to talk to him;
for in the pit the whole of the people, men and boys, are as busy
as if they were in a sea-fight. He, however, sees now and then
the putters urging forward their trams through his gate, and
derives some consolation from the glimmer of the little candle of
about 40 to the pound, which is fixed on their trams. For he
himself has no light. His hours, except at such times, are passed
in total darkness. For the first week of his service in the pit
his father had allowed him candles to light one after another,
but the expense of three halfpence a day was so extravagant
expenditure out of tenpence, the boy's daily wages, that his
father, of course, withdrew the allowance the second week, all
except one or two candles in the morning, and the week after the
allowance was altogether taken away; and now, except a neighbour
kinder than his father now and then drop him a candle as
he passes, the boy has no light of his own.</p>

<p class="i1">"Thus hour after hour passes away; but what are hours to
him, seated in darkness, in the bowels of the earth? He knows
nothing of the ascending or descending sun. Hunger, however,
though silent and unseen, acts upon him, and he betakes to his
bottle of coffee and slice of bread; and, if desirous, he may have
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
the luxury of softening it in a portion of water in the pit, which
is brought down for man and beast.</p>

<p class="i1">"In this state of sepulchral existence, an insidious enemy gains
upon him. His eyes are shut, and his ears fail to announce the
approach of a tram. A deputy overman comes along, and a
smart cut of his yardwand at once punishes the culprit and recalls
him to his duty; and happy was it for him that he fell into
the hands of the deputy overman, rather than one of the putters;
for his fist would have inflicted a severer pain. The deputy
overman moreover consoles him by telling him that it was for his
good that he punished him; and reminds him of boys, well known
to both, who, when asleep, had fallen down, and some had been
severely wounded, and others killed. The little trapper believes
that he is to blame, and makes no complaint, for he dreads being
discharged; and he knows that his discharge would be attended
with the loss of wages, and bring upon him the indignation of
his father, more terrible to endure than the momentary vengeance
of the deputy and the putters all taken together.</p>

<p class="i1">"Such is the day-work of the little trapper in the barrow-way.</p>

<p class="i1">"At last, the joyful sound of 'Loose, loose,' reaches his ears.
The news of its being four o'clock, and of the order, 'Loose, loose,'
having been shouted down the shaft, is by systematic arrangement
sent for many miles in all directions round the farthest
extremities of the pit. The trapper waits until the last putter
passes with his tram, and then he follows and pursues his journey
to the foot of the shaft, and takes an opportunity of getting into
the cage and going up when he can. By five o'clock he may
probably get home. Here he finds a warm dinner, baked potatoes,
and broiled bacon lying above them. He eats heartily at the
warm fire, and sits a little after. He dare not go out to play
with other boys, for the more he plays the more he is sure to
sleep the next day in the pit. He, therefore, remains at home,
until, feeling drowsy, he then repeats the prayer taught by our
blessed Lord, takes off his clothes, is thoroughly washed in hot
water by his mother, and is laid in his bed."</p></div>

<div class="figcenter"><a name="i_038.jpg" id="i_038.jpg"></a>
  <img src="images/i_038.jpg"
        alt="" />
  <div class="caption">HURRIER AND THRUSTER.</div>
</div>

<p class="i1">The evidence of the Parliamentary commissioners
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
proves that Dr. Mitchell has given the life of the young
trapper a somewhat softened colouring. Mr. Scriven
states that the children employed in this way become
almost idiotic from the long, dark, solitary confinement.
Many of them never see the light of day during the
winter season, except on Sundays.</p>

<p class="i1">The loaded corves drawn by the hurriers weigh from
two to five hundred-weight. These carriages are mounted
upon four cast-iron wheels of five inches in diameter,
there being, in general, no rails from the headings to the
main gates. The children have to drag these carriages
through passages in some cases not more than from
sixteen to twenty inches in height. Of course, to accomplish
this, the young children must crawl on their
hands and feet. To render their labour the more easy,
the sub-commissioner states that they buckle round
their naked person a broad leather strap, to which is
attached in front a ring and about four feet of chain,
terminating in a hook. As soon as they enter the main
gates, they detach the harness from the corve, change
their position by getting behind it, and become "thrusters."
The carriage is then placed upon the rail, a
candle is stuck fast by a piece of wet clay, and away
they run with amazing swiftness to the shaft, pushing
the loads with their heads and hands. The younger
children thrust in pairs.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"After trapping," says the report of the commissioners, "the
next labour in the ascending scale to which the children are put, is
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
'thrutching,' or thrusting, which consists in being helper to a
'drawer,' or 'wagoner,' who is master, or 'butty,' over the
'thrutcher,' In some pits, the thrutcher has his head protected
by a thick cap, and he will keep on his trousers and clogs; but
in others, he works nearly naked. The size of the loads which
he has to thrutch varies with the thickness of the seam; and with
the size, varies his butty's method of proceeding, which is either
as a drawer or a wagoner. The drawers are those who use the
belt and chain. Their labour consists in loading, with the coals
hewn down by the 'getter,' an oblong tub without wheels, and
dragging this tub on its sledge bottom by means of a girdle of
rough leather passing round the body, and a chain of iron attached
to that girdle in front, and hooked to the sledge. The drawer
has, with the aid of his thrutcher, to sledge the tub in this manner
from the place of getting to the mainway, generally down,
though sometimes up, a brow or incline of the same steepness as
the inclination of the strata; in descending which he goes to the
front of his tub, where his light is fixed, and, turning his face to
it, regulates its motion down the hill, as, proceeding back foremost,
he pulls it along by his belt. When he gets to the mainway,
which will be at various distances not exceeding forty or
fifty yards from his loading-place, he has to leave this tub upon a
low truck running on small iron wheels, and then to go and fetch
a second, which will complete its load, and with these two to
join with his thrutcher in pushing it along the iron railway to
the pit bottom to have the tubs successively hooked on to the
drawing-rope. Returning with his tubs empty, he leaves the
mainway, first with one, and then with the other tub, to get
them loaded, dragging them up the 'brow' by his belt and chain,
the latter of which he now passes between his legs, so as to pull,
face foremost, on all fours. In the thin seams, this labour has
to be performed in bays, leading from the place of getting to the
mainways, of scarcely more than twenty inches in height, and in
mainways of only two feet six inches, and three feet high, for the
seam itself will only be eighteen inches thick.</p>

<p class="i1">"Wagoning is a form of drawing which comes into use with
the more extensive employment of railways in the thicker seams
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>.
The tubs here used are large, and all mounted on wheels. From
the place of getting, the loads are pushed by the wagoners with
hands and heads to the bottom of the pit along the levels; and
where they have to descend from one level into another, this is
generally done by a cut at right angles directly with the dip,
down the 'brow' which it makes. Here there is a winch or
pinion for jigging the wagons down the incline, with a jigger at
the top and a hooker-on at the bottom of the plane, where it is
such as to require these. The jiggers and the hookers-on are
children of twelve or thirteen. Sometimes the descent from one
line of level into another is by a diagonal cutting at a small
angle from the levels, called a slant, down which the wagoners
can, and do, in some instances, take their wagons without jigging,
by their own manual labour; and a very rough process it is,
owing to the impetus which so great a weight acquires, notwithstanding
the scotching of the wheels."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Mr. Kennedy thus describes the position of the children,
in the combined drawing and thrutching:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The child in front is harnessed by his belt or chain to the
wagon; the two boys behind are assisting in pushing it forward.
Their heads, it will be observed, are brought down to a level with
the wagon, and the body almost in the horizontal position. This
is done partly to avoid striking the roof, and partly to gain the
advantage of the muscular action, which is greatest in that position.
It will be observed, the boy in front goes on his hands and
feet: in that manner, the whole weight of his body is, in fact,
supported by the chain attached to the wagon and his feet, and,
consequently, his power of drawing is greater than it would be
if he crawled on his knees. These boys, by constantly pushing
against the wagons, occasionally rub off the hair from the crowns
of their heads so much as to make them almost bald."</p></div>

<p class="i1">In Derbyshire, some of the pits are altogether worked
by boys. The seams are so thin, that several have
only a two-feet headway to all the workings. The boy
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>
who gets the coal, lies on his side while at work. The
coal is then loaded in a barrow, or tub, and drawn
along the bank to the pit mouth by boys from eight to
twelve years of age, on all fours, with a dog-belt and
chain, the passages being very often an inch or two
thick in black mud, and neither ironed nor wooded.
In Mr. Barnes's pit, these boys have to drag the barrows
with one hundred-weight of coal or slack, sixty times a
day, sixty yards, and the empty barrows back, without
once straightening their backs, unless they choose to
stand under the shaft and run the risk of having their
heads broken by coal falling.</p>

<p class="i1">In some of the mines, the space of the workings is
so small that the adult colliers are compelled to carry
on their operations in a stooping posture; and, in others,
they are obliged to work lying their whole length along
the uneven floor, and supporting their heads upon a
board or short crutch. In these low, dark, heated,
and dismal chambers, they work perfectly naked. In
many of the thin-seam mines, the labour of "getting"
coal, so severe for adults, was found by the commissioners
to be put upon children from nine to twelve
years of age.</p>

<p class="i1">If the employment of boys in such a way be, as a
miner said to the commissioners, "barbarity, barbarity,"
what are we to think of the slavery of female children
in the same abyss of darkness? How shall we express
our feelings upon learning that females, in the years
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
of opening womanhood, are engaged in the same occupations
as their male companions, in circumstances
repugnant to the crudest sense of decency? Yet we
have unimpeachable evidence that, at the time of the
investigations of the commissioners, females were thus
employed; and there is reason to believe that this is
still the case.</p>

<div class="figcenter"><a name="i_042.jpg" id="i_042.jpg"></a>
  <img src="images/i_042.jpg"
        alt="" />
  <div class="caption">COAL GETTER.</div>
</div>

<p class="i1">The commissioners found females employed like the
males in the labours of the mines in districts of Yorkshire
and Lancashire, in the East of Scotland, and in
Wales. In great numbers of the pits visited, the men
were working in a state of entire nakedness, and were
assisted by females of all ages, from girls of six years
old to women of twenty-one—these females being
themselves quite naked down to the waist. Mr.
Thomas Pearce says that in the West Riding of Yorkshire—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The girls hurry with a belt and chain, as well as thrust.
There are as many girls as boys employed about here. One of
the most disgusting sights I have ever seen, was that of young
females, dressed like boys in trousers, crawling on all fours, with
belts around their waists and chains passing between their legs,
at day-pits at Thurshelf Bank, and in many small pits near
Holmfirth and New Mills. It exists also in several other places."</p></div>

<p class="i1">In the neighbourhood of Halifax, it is stated that
there is no distinction whatever between the boys and
girls in their coming up the shaft and going down; in
their mode of hurrying or thrusting; in the weight of
corves; in the distance they are hurried; in wages or
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>
dress; that the girls associate and labour with men who
are in a state of nakedness, and that they have themselves
no other garment than a ragged shift, or, in the
absence of that, a pair of broken trousers, to cover their
persons.</p>

<p class="i1">Here are specimens of the evidence taken by the
commissioners:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Susan Pitchforth, aged eleven, Elland: 'I have worked in
this pit going two years. I have one sister going of fourteen,
and she works with me in the pit. I am a thruster.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'This child,' said the sub-commissioner, 'stood shivering
before me from cold. The rags that hung about her waist were
once called a shift, which was as black as the coal she thrust,
and saturated with water—the drippings of the roof and shaft.
During my examination of her, the banksman, whom I had left
in the pit, came to the public-house and wanted to take her away,
because, as he expressed himself, it was not decent that she
should be exposed to us.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Patience Kershaw, aged seventeen: 'I hurry in the clothes
I have now got on, (trousers and ragged jacket;) the bald place
upon my head is made by thrusting the corves; the getters I
work for are naked except their caps; they pull off their clothes;
all the men are naked.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Mary Barrett, aged fourteen: 'I work always without stockings,
or shoes, or trousers; I wear nothing but my shift; I have
to go up to the headings with the men; they are all naked there;
I am got well used to that, and don't care much about it; I was
afraid at first, and did not like it.'"</p>

<p class="i1">In the Lancashire coal-fields lying to the north and west of
Manchester, females are regularly employed in underground
labour; and the brutal policy of the men, and the abasement of
the women, is well described by some of the witnesses examined
by Mr. Kennedy.</p>

<p class="i1">"Peter Gaskill, collier, at Mr. Lancaster's, near Worsley:
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
'Prefers women to boys as drawers; they are better to manage,
and keep the time better; they will fight and shriek and do every
thing but let anybody pass them; and they never get to be coal-getters—that
is another good thing.'</p>

<div class="figcenter"><a name="i_045.jpg" id="i_045.jpg"></a>
  <img src="images/i_045.jpg"
        alt="" />
  <div class="caption">GIRL WITH COAL CART IN THIN SEAM.</div>
</div>

<p class="i1">"Betty Harris, aged thirty-seven, drawer in a coal-pit, Little
Bolton: 'I have a belt round my waist and a chain passing between
my legs, and I go on my hands and feet. The road is very
steep, and we have to hold by a rope, and when there is no rope,
by any thing we can catch hold of. There are six women and
about six boys and girls in the pit I work in; it is very hard
work for a woman. The pit is very wet where I work, and the
water comes over our clog-tops always, and I have seen it up to
my thighs; it rains in at the roof terribly; my clothes are wet
through almost all day long. I never was ill in my life but
when I was lying-in. My cousin looks after my children in the
daytime. I am very tired when I get home at night; I fall asleep
sometimes before I get washed. I am not so strong as I was,
and cannot stand my work so well as I used to do. I have drawn
till I have had the skin off me. The belt and chain is worse when
we are in the family-way. My feller (husband) has beaten me
many a time for not being ready. I were not used to it at first,
and he had little patience; I have known many a man beat his
drawer.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Mary Glover, aged thirty-eight, at Messrs. Foster's, Ringley
Bridge: 'I went into a coal-pit when I was seven years old, and
began by being a drawer. I never worked much in the pit when
I was in the family-way, but since I have gave up having children,
I have begun again a bit. I wear a shift and a pair of
trousers when at work. I always will have a good pair of trousers.
I have had many a twopence given me by the boatmen on
the canal to show my breeches. I never saw women work naked,
but I have seen men work without breeches in the neighbourhood
of Bolton. I remember seeing a man who worked stark naked.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">In the East of Scotland, the business of the females
is to remove the coals from the hewer who has picked
them from the wall-face, and placing them either on
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>
their backs, which they invariably do when working in
edge-seams, or in <i>little carts</i> when on levels, to carry
them to the main road, where they are conveyed to the
pit bottom, where, being emptied into the ascending
basket of the shaft, they are wound by machinery to
the pit's mouth, where they lie heaped for further distribution.
Mr. Franks, an Englishman, says of this
barbarous toil—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Now when the nature of this horrible labour is taken into
consideration; its extreme severity; its regular duration of from
twelve to fourteen hours daily; the damp, heated, and unwholesome
atmosphere of a coal-mine, and the tender age and sex of
the workers, a picture is presented of deadly physical oppression
and systematic slavery, of which I conscientiously believe no one
unacquainted with such facts would credit the existence in the
British dominions."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The loads of coal carried on the backs of females
vary in weight from three-quarters of a hundred-weight
to three hundred-weight. In working edge-seams, or
highly inclined beds, the load must be borne to the
surface, or to the pit-bottom, up winding stairs, or a
succession of steep ladders. The disgrace of this peculiar
form of oppression is said to be confined to
Scotland, "where, until nearly the close of the last
century, the colliers remained in a state of legal bondage,
and formed a degraded caste, apart from all humanizing
influences and sympathy." From all accounts,
they are not much improved in condition at the present
time.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">A sub-commissioner thus describes a female child's
labour in a Scottish mine, and gives some of the evidence
he obtained:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"She has first to descend a nine-ladder pit to the first rest,
even to which a shaft is sunk, to draw up the baskets or tubs of
coals filled by the bearers; she then takes her creel (a basket
formed to the back, not unlike a cockle-shell, flattened toward
the back of the neck, so as to allow lumps of coal to rest on the
back of the neck and shoulders,) and pursues her journey to the
wall-face, or, as it is called here, the room of work. She then
lays down her basket, into which the coal is rolled, and it is frequently
more than one man can do to lift the burden on her back.
The tugs or straps are placed over the forehead, and the body
bent in a semicircular form, in order to stiffen the arch. Large
lumps of coal are then placed on the neck, and she then commences
her journey with her burden to the bottom, first hanging
her lamp to the cloth crossing her head. In this girl's case, she
has first to travel about fourteen fathoms (eighty-four feet) from
wall-face to the first ladder, which is eighteen feet high; leaving
the first ladder, she proceeds along the main road, probably three
feet six inches to four feet six inches high, to the second ladder,
eighteen feet high; so on to the third and fourth ladders, till she
reaches the pit-bottom, where she casts her load, varying from
one hundred-weight to one hundred-weight and a half, in the tub.
This one journey is designated a rake; the height ascended, and
the distance along the roads added together, exceed the height of
St. Paul's Cathedral; and it not unfrequently happens that the
tugs break, and the load falls upon those females who are following.
However incredible it may be, yet I have taken the evidence
of fathers who have ruptured themselves from straining to
lift coal on their children's backs.</p>

<p class="i1">"Janet Cumming, eleven years old, bears coals: 'I gang with
the women at five, and come up with the women at five at night;
work <i>all night</i> on Fridays, and come away at twelve in the day.
I carry the large bits of coal from the wall-face to the pit-bottom,
and the small pieces called chows in a creel. The weight is
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
usually a hundred-weight, does not know how many pounds
there are in a hundred-weight, but it is some weight to carry; it
takes three journeys to fill a tub of four hundred-weight. The
distance varies, as the work is not always on the same wall;
sometimes one hundred and fifty fathoms, whiles two hundred
and fifty fathoms. The roof is very low; I have to bend my back
and legs, and the water comes frequently up to the calves of my
legs. Has no liking for the work; father makes me like it.
Never got hurt, but often obliged to scramble out of the pit when
bad air was in.'</p>

<p class="i1">"William Hunter, mining oversman, Arniston Colliery: 'I
have been twenty years in the works of Robert Dundas, Esq.,
and had much experience in the manner of drawing coal, as well
as the habits and practices of the collier people. Until the last
eight months, women and lasses were wrought below in these
works, when Mr. Alexander Maxton, our manager, issued an
order to exclude them from going below, having some months
prior given intimation of the same. Women always did the
lifting or heavy part of the work, and neither they nor the children
were treated like human beings, nor are they where they
are employed. Females submit to work in places where no man
or even lad could be got to labour in; they work in bad roads,
up to their knees in water, in a posture nearly double; they are
below till the last hour of pregnancy; they have swelled haunches
and ankles, and are prematurely brought to the grave, or, what
is worse, lingering existence. Many of the daughters of the
miners are now at respectable service. I have two who are in
families at Leith, and who are much delighted with the change.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Robert Bald, Esq., the eminent coal-viewer, states that, 'In
surveying the workings of an extensive colliery under ground, a
married woman came forward, groaning under an excessive
weight of coals, trembling in every nerve, and almost unable to
keep her knees from sinking under her. On coming up, she
said, in a plaintive and melancholy voice, "Oh, sir, this is sore,
sore, sore work. I wish to God that the first woman who tried
to bear coals had broke her back, and none would have tried it
again."</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">The boxes or carriages employed in putting are of
two kinds—the hutchie and the slype; the hutchie being
an oblong, square-sided box with four wheels, which
usually runs on a rail; and the slype a wood-framed
box, curved and shod with iron at the bottom, holding
from two and a quarter to five hundred-weight of coal,
adapted to the seams through which it is dragged. The
lad or lass is harnessed over the shoulders and back
with a strong leathern girth, which, behind, is furnished
with an iron-hook, which is attached to a chain fastened
to the coal-cart or slype. The dresses of these girls
are made of coarse hempen stuff, fitting close to the
figures; the coverings to their heads are made of the
same material. Little or no flannel is used, and their
clothing, being of an absorbent nature, frequently gets
completely saturated shortly after descending the pit.
We quote more of the evidence obtained by the commissioners.
It scarcely needs any comment:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Margaret Hipps, seventeen years old, putter, Stoney Rigg
Colliery, Stirlingshire: 'My employment, after reaching the
wall-face, is to fill my bagie, or slype, with two and a half to
three hundred-weight of coal. I then hook it on to my chain and
drag it through the seam, which is twenty-six to twenty-eight inches
high, till I get to the main road—a good distance, probably two
hundred to four hundred yards. The pavement I drag over is
wet, and I am obliged at all times to crawl on hands and feet with
my bagie hung to the chain and ropes. It is sad sweating and
sore fatiguing work, and frequently maims the women.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Sub-commissioner: 'It is almost incredible that human beings
can submit to such employment, crawling on hands and knees,
harnessed like horses, over soft, slushy floors, more difficult than
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>
dragging the same weights through our lowest common sewers,
and more difficult in consequence of the inclination, which is frequently
one in three to one in six.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Agnes Moffatt, seventeen years old, coal-bearer: 'Began
working at ten years of age; father took sister and I down; he
gets our wages. I fill five baskets; the weight is more than
twenty-two hundred-weight; it takes me twenty journeys. The
work is o'er sair for females. It is no uncommon for women to
lose their burden, and drop off the ladder down the dyke below;
Margaret McNeil did a few weeks since, and injured both legs.
When the tugs which pass over the forehead break, which they
frequently do, it is very dangerous to be under with a load.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Margaret Jacques, seventeen years of age, coal-bearer: 'I
have been seven years at coal-bearing; it is horrible sore work;
it was not my choice, but we do our parents' will. I make thirty
rakes a day, with two hundred-weight of coal on my creel. It is
a guid distance I journey, and very dangerous on parts of the
road. The distance fast increases as the coals are cut down.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Helen Reid, sixteen years old, coal-bearer: 'I have wrought
five years in the mines in this part; my employment is carrying
coal. Am frequently worked from four in the morning until six
at night. I work night-work week about, (alternate weeks.) I
then go down at two in the day, and come up at four and six in
the morning. I can carry near two hundred-weight <i>on</i> my back.
I do not like the work. Two years since the pit closed upon
thirteen of us, and we were two days without food or light; nearly
one day we were up to our chins in water. At last we got to an
old shaft, to which we picked our way, and were heard by
people watching above. Two months ago, I was filling the tubs
at the pit bottom, when the gig clicked too early, and the hook
caught me by my pit-clothes—the people did not hear my shrieks—my
hand had fast grappled the chain, and the great height of
the shaft caused me to lose my courage, and I swooned. The
banksman could scarcely remove my hand—the deadly grasp
saved my life.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Margaret Drysdale, fifteen years old, coal-putter: 'I don't
like the work, but mother is dead, and father brought me down;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
I had no choice. The lasses will tell you that they all like the
work fine, as they think you are going to take them out of the
pits. My employment is to draw the carts. I have harness, or
draw-ropes on, like the horses, and pull the carts. Large carts
hold seven hundred-weight and a half, the smaller five hundred-weight
and a half. The roads are wet, and I have to draw the
work about one hundred fathoms.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Katherine Logan, sixteen years old, coal-putter: 'Began to
work at coal-carrying more than five years since; works in harness
now; draw backward with face to tubs; the ropes and
chains go under my pit-clothes; it is o'er sair work, especially
where we crawl.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Janet Duncan, seventeen years old, coal-putter: 'Works at
putting, and was a coal-bearer at Hen-Muir Pit and New Pencaitland.
The carts I push contain three hundred-weight of coal,
being a load and a half; it is very severe work, especially when
we have to stay before the tubs, on the braes, to prevent them
coming down too fast; they frequently run too quick, and knock
us down; when they run over fast, we fly off the roads and let them
go, or we should be crushed. Mary Peacock was severely crushed
a fortnight since; is gradually recovering. I have wrought above
in harvest time; it is the only other work that ever I tried my
hand at, and having harvested for three seasons, am able to say
that the hardest daylight work is infinitely superior to the best
of coal-work.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Jane Wood, wife of James Wood, formerly a coal-drawer and
bearer: 'Worked below more than thirty years. I have two
daughters below, who really hate the employment, and often
prayed to leave, but we canna do well without them just now.
The severe work causes women much trouble; they frequently
have premature births. Jenny McDonald, a neighbour, was laid
idle six months; and William King's wife lately died from miscarriage,
and a vast of women suffer from similar causes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Margaret Boxter, fifty years old, coal-hewer: 'I hew the
coal; have done so since my husband failed in his breath; he has
been off work twelve years. I have a son, daughter, and niece
working with me below, and we have sore work to get maintenance.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
I go down early to hew the coal for my girls to draw;
my son hews also. The work is not fit for women, and men
could prevent it were they to labour more regular; indeed, men
about this place don't wish wives to work in mines, but the
masters seem to encourage it—at any rate, the masters never
interfere to prevent it.'"</p>

<p class="i1">"The different kinds of work to which females are put in South
Wales, are described in the following evidence:—</p>

<p class="i1">"Henrietta Frankland, eleven years old, drammer: 'When
well, I draw the drams, (carts,) which contain four to five hundred-weight
of coal, from the heads to the main road; I make
forty-eight to fifty journeys; sister, who is two years older, works
also at dramming; the work is very hard, and the long hours
before the pay-day fatigue us much. The mine is wet where we
work, as the water passes through the roof, and the workings are
only thirty to thirty-three inches high.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Mary Reed, twelve years old, air-door keeper: 'Been five
years in the Plymouth mine. Never leaves till the last dram
(cart) is drawn past by the horse. Works from six till four or
five at night. Has run home very hungry; runs along the level
or hangs on a cart as it passes. Does not like the work in the
dark; would not mind the daylight work.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Hannah Bowen, sixteen years old, windlass-woman: 'Been
down two years; it is good hard work; work from seven in the
morning till three or four in the afternoon at hauling the windlass.
Can draw up four hundred loads of one hundred-weight
and a half to four hundred-weight each.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Ann Thomas, sixteen years old, windlass-woman: 'Finds
the work very hard; two women always work the windlass
below ground. We wind up eight hundred loads. Men do not
like the winding, <i>it is too hard work for them</i>.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">The commissioners ascertained that when the work-people
were in full employment, the regular hours for
children and young persons were rarely less than
eleven; more often they were twelve; in some districts,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>
they are thirteen; and, in one district, they are generally
fourteen and upward. In Derbyshire, south of
Chesterfield, from thirteen to sixteen hours are considered
a day's work. Of the exhausting effects of such
labour for so long a time, we shall scarcely need any
particular evidence. But one boy, named John Bostock,
told the commissioners that he had often been
made to work until he was so tired as to lie down on
his road home until twelve o'clock, when his mother
had come and led him home; and that he had sometimes
been so tired that he could not eat his dinner,
but had been beaten and made to work until night.
Many other cases are recorded:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"John Rawson, collier, aged forty: 'I work at Mr. Sorby's
pit, Handsworth. I think the children are worked overmuch
sometimes.'—<i>Report</i>, No. 81, p. 243, 1. 25.</p>

<p class="i1">"Peter Waring, collier, Billingby: 'I never should like my
children to go in. They are not beaten; it is the work that hurts
them; it is mere slavery, and nothing but it.'—Ibid. No. 125,
p. 256, 1. 6.</p>

<p class="i1">"John Hargreave, collier, Thorpe's Colliery: 'Hurrying is
heavy work for children. They ought not to work till they are
twelve years old, and then put two together for heavy corves.'—Ibid.
No. 130, p. 256, 1. 44.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Timothy Marshall, collier, aged thirty-five, Darton: 'I
think the hurrying is what hurts girls, and it is too hard work
for their strength; I think that children cannot be educated after
they once get to work in pits; they are both tired and even disinclined
to learn when they have done work.'—Ibid. No. 141, p.
262, 1. 39.</p>

<p class="i1">"A collier at Mr. Travis's pit: 'The children get but little
schooling; six or seven out of nine or ten know nothing. They
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
never go to night-schools, except some odd ones. When the
children get home, they cannot go to school, for they have to be
up so early in the morning—soon after four—and they cannot do
without rest.'—Ibid. No. 94, p. 246, 1. 33.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. George Armitage, aged thirty-six, formerly collier at
Silkstone, now teacher at Hayland School: 'Little can be learnt
merely on Sundays, and they are too tired as well as indisposed
to go to night-schools. I am decidedly of opinion that when
trade is good, the work of hurriers is generally continuous; but
when there are two together, perhaps the little one will have a
rest while the big one is filling or riddling.'—Ibid., No. 138, p.
261, 1. 24.</p>

<p class="i1">"William Firth, between six and seven years old, Deal Wood
Pit, Flockton: 'I hurry with my sister. I don't like to be in pit.
I was crying to go out this morning. It tires me a good deal.'—Ibid.
No. 218, p. 282, 1. 11.</p>

<p class="i1">"John Wright, hurrier in Thorpe's colliery: 'I shall be nine
years old next Whitsuntide. It tires me much. It tires my
arms. I have been two years in the pit, and have been hurrying
all the time. It tries the small of my arms.'—Ibid. No. 129, p.
256, 1. 31.</p>

<p class="i1">"Daniel Dunchfield: 'I am going in ten; I am more tired in
the forenoon than at night; it makes my back ache; I work all
day the same as the other boys; I rest me when I go home at
night; I never go to play at night; I get my supper and go to bed.'—Ibid.
No. 63, p. 238, 1. 32.</p>

<p class="i1">"George Glossop, aged twelve: 'I help to fill and hurry, and am
always tired at night when I've done.'—Ibid. No. 50, p. 236, 1. 21.</p>

<p class="i1">"Martin Stanley: 'I tram by myself, and find it very hard
work. It tires me in my legs and shoulders every day.'—Ibid.
No. 69, p. 240, 1. 27.</p>

<p class="i1">"Charles Hoyle: 'I was thirteen last January. I work in the
thin coal-pit. I find it very hard work. We work at night one
week, and in the day the other. It tires me very much sometimes.
It tires us most in the legs, especially when we have to
go on our hands and feet. I fill as well as hurry.'—Ibid. No. 78,
p. 242, 1. 41.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Jonathan Clayton, thirteen and a half years old, Soap Work
Colliery, Sheffield: 'Hurrying is very hard work; when I got
home at night, I was knocked up.'—Ibid. No. 6, p. 227, 1. 48.</p>

<p class="i1">"Andrew Roger, aged seventeen years: 'I work for my father,
who is an undertaker. I get, and have been getting two years.
I find it very hard work indeed; it tires me very much; I can
hardly get washed of a night till nine o'clock, I am so tired.'—Ibid.
No. 60, p. 237, 1. 49.</p>

<p class="i1">["'This witness,' says the sub-commissioner, 'when examined
in the evening after his work was over, ached so much that he
could not stand upright.']—Ibid. s. 109; App. pt. i. p. 181.</p>

<p class="i1">"Joseph Reynard, aged nineteen, Mr. Stancliffe's pit, Mirfield:
'I began hurrying when I was nine; I get now; I cannot hurry,
because one leg is shorter than the other. I have had my hip
bad since I was fifteen. I am very tired at nights. I worked in
a wet place to-day. I have worked in places as wet as I have
been in to-day.'</p>

<p class="i1">["'I examined Joseph Reynard; he has several large abscesses
in his thigh, from hip-joint disease. The thigh-bone is dislocated
from the same cause; the leg is about three inches shorter; two
or three of the abscesses are now discharging. No appearance of
puberty from all the examinations I made. I should not think
him more than eleven or twelve years of age, except from his
teeth. I think him quite unfit to follow any occupation, much
less the one he now occupies.</p>

<p class="ar">
Signed,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;     "'<span class="sc">U. Bradbury</span>, Surgeon.']
</p>

<p class="i1">"'This case,' says the sub-commissioner, 'is one reflecting the
deepest discredit on his employers.'—<i>Symons, Evidence</i>, No. 272;
App. pt. i. p. 298, 1. 29.</p>

<p class="i1">"Elizabeth Eggley, sixteen years old: 'I find my work very
much too hard for me. I hurry alone. It tires me in my arms
and back most. I am sure it is very hard work, and tires
us very much; it is too hard work for girls to do. We sometimes
go to sleep before we get to bed.'—Ibid. No. 114, p. 252,
1. 44.</p>

<p class="i1">"Ann Wilson, aged ten and a half years, Messrs. Smith's
colliery: 'Sometimes the work tires us when we have a good bit
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
to do; it tires we in my back. I hurry by myself. I push with
my head.'—Ibid. No. 229, p. 224, 1. 12.</p>

<p class="i1">"Elizabeth Day, hurrier, Messrs. Hopwood's pit, Barnsley:
'It is very hard work for us all. It is harder work than we
ought to do, a deal. I have been lamed in my back, and strained
in my back.'—Ibid. No. 80, p. 244, 1. 33.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mary Shaw: 'I am nineteen years old. I hurry in the pit
you were in to-day. I have ever been much tired with my work.'—Ibid.
No. 123, p. 249, 1. 38.</p>

<p class="i1">"Ann Eggley, hurrier in Messrs. Thorpe's colliery: 'The
work is far too hard for me; the sweat runs off me all over sometimes.
I am very tired at night. Sometimes when we get home
at night, we have not power to wash us, and then we go to bed.
Sometimes we fall asleep in the chair. Father said last night it
was both a shame and a disgrace for girls to work as we do, but
there was nought else for us to do. The girls are always tired.'—Ibid.
No. 113, p. 252, 1. 17.</p>

<p class="i1">"Elizabeth Coats: 'I hurry with my brother. It tires me a
great deal, and tires my back and arms.'—Ibid. No. 115, p. 252,
1. 59.</p>

<p class="i1">"Elizabeth Ibbitson, at Mr. Harrison's pit, Gomersel: 'I don't
like being at pit; I push the corf with my head, and it hurts me,
and is sore.'—Ibid. No. 266, p. 292, 1. 17.</p>

<p class="i1">"Margaret Gomley, Lindley Moor, aged nine: 'Am very tired.'—<i>Scriven,
Evidence</i>, No. 9; App. pt. ii. p. 103, 1. 34.</p>

<p class="i1">"James Mitchell, aged twelve, Messrs. Holt and Hebblewaite's:
'I am very tired when I get home; it is enough to tire a horse;
and stooping so much makes it bad.'—Ibid. No. 2, p. 101, 1. 32.</p>

<p class="i1">"William Whittaker, aged sixteen, Mr. Rawson's colliery: 'I
am always very tired when I go home.'—Ibid. No. 13, p. 104, 1. 55.</p>

<p class="i1">"George Wilkinson, aged thirteen, Low Moor: 'Are you tired
now? Nay. Were you tired then? Yea. What makes the
difference? I can hurry a deal better now.'—<i>W. R. Wood, Esq.,
Evidence</i>, No. 18, App. pt. ii. p. <i>h</i> 11, 1. 30.</p>

<p class="i1">"John Stevenson, aged fourteen, Low Moor: 'Has worked in
a coal-pit eight years; went in at six years old; used to rue to
go in; does not rue now; it was very hard when he went in, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>
"I were nobbud a right little one." Was not strong enough
when he first went; had better have been a little bigger; used
to be very tired; did not when he first went. I waur ill tired.'—Ibid.
No. 15, p. <i>h</i> 10, 1. 39.</p>

<p class="i1">"Jabez Scott, aged fifteen, Bowling Iron Works: 'Work is
very hard; sleeps well sometimes; sometimes is very ill tired and
cannot sleep so well.'—Ibid. No. 38, p. <i>h</i> 10, 1. 29.</p>

<p class="i1">"William Sharpe, Esq., F. R. S., surgeon, Bradford, states:
'That he has for twenty years professionally attended at the Low
Moor Iron Works; that there are occasionally cases of deformity,
and also bad cases of scrofula, apparently induced by the boys
being too early sent into the pits, by their working beyond their
strength, by their constant stooping, and by occasionally working
in water.'"—Ibid. No. 60, p. <i>h</i> 27, 1. 45.</p></div>

<p class="i1">The statements of the children, as will be seen, are
confirmed by the evidence of the adult work-people, in
which we also find some further developments:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"William Fletcher, aged thirty-three, collier, West Hallam:
'Considers the collier's life a very hard one both for man and
boy, the latter full as hard as the former.'—<i>Report</i>, No. 37, p.
279, 1. 17.</p>

<p class="i1">"John Beasley, collier, aged forty-nine, Shipley: 'He has
known instances where the children have been so overcome with
the work, as to cause them to go off in a decline; he has seen
those who could not get home without their father's assistance,
and have fallen asleep before they could be got to bed; has known
children of six years old sent to the pit, but thinks there are
none at Shipley under seven or eight; it is his opinion a boy is
too weak to stand the hours, even to drive between, until he is
eight or nine years old; the boys go down at six in the morning,
and has known them kept down until nine or ten, until they are
almost ready to exhaust; the children and young persons work
the same hours as the men; the children are obliged to work in
the night if the wagon-road is out of repair, or the water coming
on them; it happens sometimes two or three times in the week;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
they then go down at six <span class="sc">P.M.</span> to six
<span class="sc">A.M.</span>, and have from ten
minutes to half an hour allowed for supper, according to the
work they have to do; they mostly ask the children who
have been at work the previous day to go down with them,
but seldom have to oblige them; when he was a boy, he has
worked for thirty-six hours running many a time, and many
more besides himself have done so.'—Ibid. No. 40, p. 274, 1. 23.</p>

<p class="i1">"William Wardle, aged forty, Eastwood: 'There is no doubt
colliers are much harder worked than labourers; indeed, it is the
hardest work under heaven.'—Ibid. No. 84, p. 287, 1. 51.</p>

<p class="i1">"Samuel Richards, aged forty, Awsworth: 'There are Sunday-schools
when they will go; but when boys have been beaten,
knocked about, and covered with sludge all the week, they want
to be in bed to rest all day on Sunday.'—Ibid. No. 166, p. 307,
1. 58.</p>

<p class="i1">"William Sellers, operative, aged twenty-two, Butterley Company:
'When he first worked in the pit, he has been so tired
that he slept as he walked.'—Ibid. No. 222, p. 319, 1. 35.</p>

<p class="i1">"William Knighton, aged twenty-four, Denby: 'He remembers
"mony" a time he has dropped asleep with the meat in his
mouth through fatigue; it is those butties—they are the very
devil; they impose upon them in one way, then in another.'—Ibid.
No. 314, p. 334, 1. 42.</p>

<p class="i1">"—— ——, engine-man, Babbington: 'Has, when working
whole days, often seen the children lie down on the pit-bank and
go to sleep, they were so tired.'—Ibid. No. 137, p. 300, 1. 10.</p>

<p class="i1">"John Attenborough, schoolmaster, Greasley: 'Has observed
that the collier children are more tired and dull than the others,
but equally anxious to learn.'—Ibid. No. 153, p. 304, 1. 122.</p>

<p class="i1">"Ann Birkin: 'Is mother to Thomas and Jacob, who work in
Messrs. Fenton's pits; they have been so tired after a whole day's
work, that she has at times had to wash them and lift them into
bed.'—Ibid. No. 81, p. 285, 1. 59.</p>

<p class="i1">"Hannah Neale, Butterley Park: 'They come home so tired
that they become stiff, and can hardly get to bed; Constantine,
the one ten years old, formerly worked in the same pit as his
brothers, but about a half a year since his toe was cut off by the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
bind falling; notwithstanding this, the loader made him work
until the end of the day, although in the greatest pain. He was
out of work more than four months owing to this accident.'—Ibid.
No. 237, p. 320, 1. 51.</p>

<p class="i1">"Ellen Wagstaff, Watnall: 'Has five children, three at Trough
lane and two at Willow lane, Greasley; one at Trough lane is
eighteen, one fourteen, one thirteen years of age; and those at
Willow lane are sixteen and nineteen; they are variously employed;
the youngest was not seven years old when he first went
to the pits. The whole have worked since they were seven or
seven and a half; they have worked from six to eight; from six
to two for half days, no meal-time in half days; she has known
them when at full work so tired when they first worked,
that you could not hear them speak, and they fell asleep before
they could eat their suppers; it has grieved her to the heart to
see them.'—Ibid. No. 104, p. 292, 1. 18.</p>

<p class="i1">"Ann Wilson, Underwood: 'Is stepmother to Matthew Wilson
and mother to Richard Clarke. Has heard what they have said,
and believes it to be true; has known them when they work
whole days they have come home so tired and dirty, that they
could scarcely be prevented lying down on the ashes by the fireside,
and could not take their clothes off; has had to do it for
them, and take them to the brook and wash them, and has sat up
most of the night to get their clothes dry. The next morning
they have gone to work like bears to the stake.'—Ibid. No. 112,
p. 294, 1. 5.</p>

<p class="i1">"Hannah Brixton, Babbington: 'The butties slave them past
any thing. Has frequently had them drop asleep as soon as they
have got in the house, and complain of their legs and arms aching
very bad.'—Ibid. No. 149, p. 302, 1. 44.</p>

<p class="i1">"Michael Wilkins: 'Never has a mind for his victuals; never
feels himself hungry.'</p>

<p class="i1">"John Charlton: 'Thinks the stythe makes him bad so that
he cannot eat his bait, and often brings it all home with him
again, or eats very little of it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Michael Richardson: 'He never has much appetite; and the
dust often blacks his victuals. Is always dry and thirsty.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"William Beaney: 'Has thrown up his victuals often when he
came home; thinks the bad air made him do this.'</p>

<p class="i1">"John Thompson: 'Often throws up his food.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Thomas Newton: 'Threw up his victuals last night when he
came home. Never does so down in the pit, but often does when
he comes home.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Moses Clerk: 'Throws up his victuals nearly every day at
home and down in the pit.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Thomas Martin: 'Many times feels sick, and feels headache,
and throws up his food. Was well before he went down in the
pit.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Thomas Fawcett: 'Many a night falls sick; and he many
times throws up his meat when he is in bed. Sometimes feels
bad and sick in the morning.'</p>

<p class="i1">"George Alder: 'Has been unwell of late with the hard work.
Has felt very sick and weak all this last week.' (Looks very pale
and unwell.)</p>

<p class="i1">"John Charlton: 'Often obliged to give over. Has been off
five days in the last month. Each of these days was down in the
pit and obliged to come up again.'</p>

<p class="i1">"John Laverick and others: 'Many times they fell sick down
in the pit. Sometimes they have the heart-burn; sometimes they
force up their meat again. Some boys are off a week from being
sick; occasionally they feel pains.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Six trappers: 'Sometimes they feel sick upon going to work
in the morning. Sometimes bring up their breakfasts from their
stomachs again. Different boys at different times do this.'</p>

<p class="i1">"George Short: 'It is bad air where he is, and makes him
bad; makes small spots come out upon him, (small pimples,)
which he thinks is from the air, and he takes physic to stop
them. His head works very often, and he feels sickish sometimes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Nichol Hudderson: 'The pit makes him sick. Has been
very bad in his health ever since he went down in the pit. Was
very healthy before. The heat makes him sick. The sulphur
rising up the shaft as he goes down makes his head work.
Often so sick that he cannot eat when he gets up, at least he
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
cannot eat very much. About a half a year since, a boy named
John Huggins was very sick down in the pit, and wanted to come
up, but the keeper would not let him ride, (come up,) and he
died of fever one week afterward.'</p>

<p class="i1">["The father of this lad and his brother fully corroborate this
statement, and the father says the doctor told him that if he (the
boy) had not been kept in the pit, he might have been, perhaps,
saved. This boy never had any thing the matter with him before
he went down into the pit."—<i>Leifchild, Evidences</i>, Nos. 156, 169,
270, 83, 110, 142, 143, 374, 194, 364, 135, 100, 101; App. pt. i.
p. 582 <i>et seq.</i> See also the statement of witnesses, Nos. 315,
327, 351, 359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 365, 377, 381, 382, 384, 403,
434, 454, 455, 457, 464, 465, 466.]</p></div>

<p class="i1">Similar statements are made by all classes of witnesses
in some other districts. Thus, in Shropshire:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"A surgeon who did not wish his name to be published: 'They
are subject to hypertrophy of the heart, no doubt laying the
foundation of such disease at the early age of from eight to thirteen
years.'—<i>Mitchell, Evidence</i>, No. 45; App. pt. i. p. 81, 1. 16.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Michael Thomas Sadler, surgeon, Barnsley: 'I have
found diseases of the heart in adult colliers, which it struck me
arose from violent exertion. I know of no trade about here
where the work is harder.'—<i>Symons, Evidence</i>, No. 139; App.
pt. i. p. 261, 1. 36.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Pearson, surgeon to the dispensary, Wigan: 'They are
very subject to diseases of the heart.'—<i>Kennedy, Report</i>, 1. 304;
App. pt. ii. p. 189.</p>

<p class="i1">"Dr. William Thompson, Edinburgh: 'Workers in coal-mines
are exceedingly liable to suffer from irregular action, and ultimately
organic diseases of the heart.'—<i>Franks, Evidence</i>, App.
pt. i. p. 409.</p>

<p class="i1">"Scott Alison, M. D., East Lothian: 'I found diseases of the
heart very common among colliers at all ages, from boyhood up
to old age. The most common of them were inflammation of
that organ, and of its covering, the pericardium, simple enlargement
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
or hypertrophy, contraction of the auriculo-ventricular
communications, and of the commencement of the aorta. These
symptoms were well marked, attended for the most part with
increase of the heart's action, the force of its contraction being
sensibly augmented, and, in many cases, especially those of hypertrophy,
much and preternaturally extended over the chest.'—Ibid.
p. 417.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Thomas Batten, surgeon, Coleford: 'A boy about thirteen
years of age, in the Parkend Pits, died of <i>hæmorrhagia
purpurea</i>, (a suffusion of blood under the cuticle,) brought on by
too much exertion of the muscles and whole frame.'—<i>Waring,
Evidence</i>, No. 36; App. pt. ii. p. 24, 1. 21.</p></div>

<p class="i1">To this list of diseases arising from great muscular
exertion, must be added rupture:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Dr. Farell, Sheffield: 'Many of them are ruptured; nor is
this by any means uncommon among lads—arising, in all probability,
from over-exertion.'—<i>Symons, Evidence</i>, No. 47, App. pt.
i. p. 286, 1. 2.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Pearson, surgeon to the dispensary, Wigan: 'Colliers
are often ruptured, and they often come to me for advice.'—<i>Kennedy,
Report</i>, 1. 304; App. pt. ii. p. 189.</p>

<p class="i1">"Andrew Grey: 'Severe ruptures occasioned by lifting coal.
Many are ruptured on both sides. I am, and suffer severely, and
a vast number of men here are also.'—<i>Franks, Evidence</i>, No.
147; App. pt. i. p. 463, 1. 61.</p></div>

<p class="i1">But employment in the coal-mines produces another
series of diseases incomparably more painful and
fatal, partly referable to excessive muscular exertion,
and partly to the state of the place of work—that is,
to the foul air from imperfect ventilation, and the wetness
from inefficient drainage. Of the diseases of the
lungs produced by employment in the mines, asthma
is the most frequent.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Mr. William Hartell Baylis: 'The working of the mines brings
on asthma.'—<i>Mitchell, Evidence</i>, No. 7; App. pt. i. p. 65, 1. 31.</p>

<p class="i1">"A surgeon who does not wish his name to be published:
'Most colliers, at the age of thirty, become asthmatic. There
are few attain that age without having the respiratory apparatus
disordered.'—Ibid. No. 45, p. 81, 1. 15.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. George Marcy, clerk of the Wellington Union: 'Many
applications are made from miners for relief on account of sickness,
and chiefly from asthmatic complaints, when arrived at an
advanced age. At forty, perhaps, the generality suffer much
from asthma. Those who have applied have been first to the
medical officer, who has confirmed what they said.'—Ibid. No. 46,
p. 81, 1. 44.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I met with very few colliers above forty years of age, who,
if they had not a confirmed asthmatic disease, were not suffering
from difficult breathing.'—<i>Fellows, Report</i>, s. 57; App. pt. ii. p.
256.</p>

<p class="i1">"Phœbe Gilbert, Watnall, Messrs. Barber and Walker: 'She
thinks they are much subject to asthma. Her first husband, who
died aged 57, was unable to work for seven years on that account.'—<i>Fellows,
Evidence</i>, No. 105; App. pt. ii. p. 256.</p>

<p class="i1">"William Wardle, collier, forty years of age, Eastwood: 'There
are some who are asthmatical, and many go double.'—Ibid. No.
84, p. 287, 1. 40.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Henry Hemmingway, surgeon, Dewsbury: 'When children
are working where carbonic acid gas prevails, they are rendered
more liable to affections of the brain and lungs. This acid prevents
the blood from its proper decarbonization as it passes from
the heart to the lungs. It does not get properly quit of the
carbon.'—<i>Symons, Evidence</i>, No. 221; App. pt. i. p. 282, 1. 38.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Uriah Bradbury, surgeon, Mirfield: 'They suffer from
asthma.'—Ibid. No. 199, p. 278, 1. 58.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. J. B. Greenwood, surgeon, Cleckheaton: 'The cases
which have come before me professionally have been chiefly
affections of the chest and asthma, owing to the damp underfoot,
and also to the dust which arises from the working of the coal.'—Ibid.
No. 200, p. 279, 1. 8.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">"J. Ibetson, collier, aged fifty-three, Birkenshaw: 'I have suffered
from asthma, and am regularly knocked up. A collier
cannot stand the work regularly. He must stop now and then,
or he will be mashed up before any time.'—Ibid. No. 267, p. 292,
1. 42.</p>

<p class="i1">"Joseph Barker, collier, aged forty-three, Windybank Pit: 'I
have a wife and two children; one of them is twenty-two years
old; he is mashed up, (that is, he is asthmatical,) he has been as
good a worker as ever worked in a skin.'—<i>Scriven, Evidence</i>, No.
14; App. pt. ii. p. 104, 1. 60.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. George Canney, surgeon, Bishop Aukland: 'Do the
children suffer from early employment in the pits?' Yes, seven
and eight is a very early age, and the constitution must suffer in
consequence. It is injurious to be kept in one position so long,
and in the dark. They go to bed when they come home, and
enjoy very little air. I think there is more than the usual
proportion of pulmonary complaints.'—<i>Mitchell, Evidence</i>, No. 97;
App. pt. i. p. 154, 1. 2.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Headlam, physician, Newcastle: 'Diseases of respiration
are more common among pit-men than among others, distinctly
referable to the air in which they work. The air contains
a great proportion of carbonic gas, and carburetted hydrogen.
These diseases of the respiratory organs arise from the breathing
of these gases, principally of the carbonic acid gas.—<i>Leifchild,
Evidence</i>, No. 499; App. pt. i. p. 67, 1. 11.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Heath, of Newcastle, surgeon: 'More than usually liable
to asthma; mostly between thirty and forty years of age.
A person always working in the broken would be more liable to
asthma. Asthma is of very slow growth, and it is difficult to
say when it begins. Custom and habit will not diminish the evil
effects, but will diminish the sensibility to these evils.'—Ibid.
No. 497, p. 665, 1. 10-14.</p>

<p class="i1">"Matthew Blackburn, driver, fifteen years of age, Heaton Colliery:
'Has felt shortness of breath. Helps up sometimes, but
is bound to drive. Cannot help up sometimes for shortness of
breath. His legs often work, (ache;) his shoulders work sometimes.
Working in a wet place.'—Ibid. No. 27, p. 573, 1. 34.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Dr. S. Scott Alison, East Lothian: 'Between the twentieth
and thirtieth year the colliers decline in bodily vigour, and
become more and more spare; the difficulty of breathing progresses,
and they find themselves very desirous of some remission
from their labour. This period is fruitful in acute diseases, such
as fever, inflammation of the lungs, pleura, and many other ailments,
the product of over-exertion, exposure to cold and wet,
violence, insufficient clothing, intemperance, and foul air. For
the first few years chronic bronchitis is usually found alone, and
unaccompanied by disease of the body or lungs. The patient
suffers more or less difficulty of breathing, which is affected by
changes of the weather, and by variations in the weight of the
atmosphere. He coughs frequently, and the expectoration is
composed, for the most part, of white frothy and yellowish
mucous fluid, occasionally containing blackish particles of carbon,
the result of the combustion of the lamp, and also of minute
coal-dust. At first, and indeed for several years, the patient, for
the most part, does not suffer much in his general health, eating
heartily, and retaining his muscular strength in consequence.
The disease is rarely, if ever, entirely cured; and if the collier
be not carried off by some other lesion in the mean time, this
disease ultimately deprives him of life by a slow and lingering
process. The difficulty of breathing becomes more or less permanent,
the expectoration becomes very abundant, effusions of
water take place in the chest, the feet swell, and the urine is
secreted in small quantity; the general health gradually breaks
up, and the patient, after reaching premature old age, slips into
the grave at a comparatively early period, with perfect willingness
on his part, and no surprise on that of his family and
friends.'—<i>Franks, Evidence</i>, App. pt. i. p. 412, 415, Appendix A.</p>

<p class="i1">"John Duncan, aged fifty-nine, hewer, Pencaitland: 'Mining
has caused my breath to be affected, and I am, like many other
colliers, obliged to hang upon my children for existence. The
want of proper ventilation in the pits is the chief cause. No part
requires more looking to than East Lothian; the men die off like
rotten sheep.'—Ibid. No. 150, p. 464, 1. 28.</p>

<p class="i1">"George Hogg, thirty-two years of age, coal-hewer, Pencaitland:
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>
'Unable to labour much now, as am fashed with bad
breath; the air below is very bad; until lately no ventilation
existed.'—Ibid. No. 153, p. 406, 1. 46. See also Witnesses, Nos.
4, 36, 53, 131, 152, 155, 175, 275, 277, &amp;c.: 'The confined air and
dust in which they work is apt to render them asthmatic, as well
as to unfit them for labour at an earlier period of life than is the
case in other employments.'—<i>Tancred, Report</i>, s. 99, App. pt. i.
p. 345.</p>

<p class="i1">"Dr. Adams, Glasgow: 'Amongst colliers, bronchitis or asthma
is very prevalent among the older hands.'—<i>Tancred, Evidence</i>,
No. 9; App. pt. i. p. 361, 1. 44.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Peter Williams, surgeon, Holiwell, North Wales: 'The
chief diseases to which they are liable are those of the bronchiæ.
Miners and colliers, by the age of forty, generally become affected
by chronic bronchitis, and commonly before the age of sixty fall
martyrs to the disease. The workmen are, for the most part,
very healthy and hardy, until the symptoms of affections of the
bronchial tubes show themselves.'—<i>H. H. Jones, Evidence</i>, No.
95; App. pt. ii. p. 407, 1. 8.</p>

<p class="i1">"Jeremiah Bradley, underground agent, Plaskynaston: 'The
men are apt to get a tightness of breath, and become unfit for the
pits, even before sixty.'—Ibid. No. 30, p. 383, 1. 8.</p>

<p class="i1">"Amongst colliers in South Wales the diseases most prevalent
are the chronic diseases of the respiratory organs, especially
asthma and bronchitis.'—<i>Franks, Report</i>, s. 64; App. pt. ii.
p. 484.</p>

<p class="i1">"David Davis, contractor, Gilvachvargoed colliery, Glamorganshire:
'I am of opinion that miners are sooner disabled and off
work than other mechanics, for they suffer from shortness of
breath long before they are off work. Shortness of breath may
be said to commence from forty to fifty years of age.'—<i>Franks,
Evidence</i>, No. 178; App. pt. ii. p. 533, 1. 32.</p>

<p class="i1">"Richard Andrews, overseer, Llancyach, Glamorganshire:
'The miners about here are very subject to asthmatic complaints.'—Ibid.
No. 152; p. 529, 1. 7.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Frederick Evans, clerk and accountant for the Dowlais
Collieries, Monmouthshire: 'Asthma is a prevalent disease
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
among colliers.'—<i>R. W. Jones, Evidence</i>, No. 121; App. pt. ii.
p. 646, 1. 48.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. David Mushet, Forest of Dean: 'The men generally become
asthmatic from fifty to fifty-five years of age.'—<i>Waring, Evidence</i>,
No. 37; App. pt. ii. p. 25, 1. 3.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Asthmatic and other bronchial affections are common among
the older colliers and miners.'—<i>Waring, Report</i>, s. 72; App.
pt. ii. p. 6.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. W. Brice, clerk, Coal Barton and Vobster Collieries,
North Somersetshire: 'The work requires the full vigour of a
man, and they are apt, at this place, to get asthmatical from the gas
and foul air.'—<i>Stewart, Evidence</i>, No. 7; App. pt. ii. p. 50, 1. 49.</p>

<p class="i1">"James Beacham, coal-breaker, Writhlington, near Radstock:
'Many of the miners suffer from "tight breath."'—Ibid. No. 32;
p. 56, 1. 31."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Of that disease which is peculiar to colliers, called
"black spittle," much evidence is given by many medical
witnesses and others:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Mr. Cooper, surgeon, of Bilston, gives the following account
of this malady when it appears in its mildest form: 'Frequently
it occurs that colliers appear at the offices of medical men, complaining
of symptoms of general debility, which appear to arise
from inhalation of certain gases in the mines, (probably an excess
of carbonic.) These patients present a pallid appearance, are
affected with headache, (without febrile symptoms,) and constriction
of the chest; to which may be added dark bronchial expectoration
and deficient appetite. Gentle aperients, mild stomachics,
and rest from labour above ground, restore them in a
week or so, and they are perhaps visited at intervals with a
relapse, if the state of the atmosphere or the ill ventilation of the
mine favour the development of deleterious gas.'—<i>Mitchell, Evidence</i>,
No. 3; App. pt. i. p. 62, 1. 48."</p></div>

<p class="i1">In other districts this disease assumes a much more
formidable character:—</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Dr. Thompson, of Edinburgh, states that, 'The workmen in
coal mines occasionally die of an affection of the lungs, accompanied
with the expectoration of a large quantity of matter of a
deep black colour, this kind of expectoration continuing long
after they have, from choice or illness, abandoned their subterranean
employment; and the lungs of such persons are found, on
examination after death, to be most deeply impregnated with
black matter. This black deposition may occur to a very considerable
extent in the lungs of workers in coal-mines, without
being accompanied with any black expectoration, or any other
phenomena of active disease, and may come to light only after
death has been occasioned by causes of a different nature, as by
external injuries.'—<i>Franks</i>, Appendix A, No. 1; App. pt. i. p.
409.</p>

<p class="i1">"Dr. S. Scott Alison: 'Spurious melanosis, or "black spit" of
colliers, is a disease of pretty frequent occurrence among the
older colliers, and among those men who have been employed in
cutting and blasting stone dykes in the collieries. The symptoms
are emaciation of the whole body, constant shortness and quickness
of breath, occasional stitches in the sides, quick pulse,
usually upward of one hundred in the minute, hacking cough
day and night, attended by a copious expectoration, for the most
part perfectly black, and very much the same as thick blacking
in colour and consistence, but occasionally yellowish and mucous,
or white and frothy; respiration is cavernous in some parts, and
dull in others; a wheezing noise is heard in the bronchial passages,
from the presence of an inordinate quantity of fluid; the
muscles of respiration become very prominent, the neck is shortened,
the chest being drawn up, the nostrils are dilated, and the
countenance is of an anxious aspect. The strength gradually
wasting, the collier, who has hitherto continued at his employment,
finds that he is unable to work six days in the week, and
goes under ground perhaps only two or three days in that time;
in the course of time, he finds an occasional half-day's employment
as much as he can manage, and when only a few weeks' or
months' journey from the grave, ultimately takes a final leave of
his labour. This disease is never cured, and if the unhappy
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
victim of an unwholesome occupation is not hurried off by some
more acute disease, or by violence, it invariably ends in the
death of the sufferer. Several colliers have died of this disease
under my care.'—Ibid. Appendix A, No. 2; App. pt. i. p. 415,
416.</p>

<p class="i1">"Dr. Makellar, Pencaitland, East Lothian: 'The most serious
and fatal disease which I have been called to treat, connected
with colliers, is a carbonaceous infiltration into the substance of
the lungs. It is a disease which has long been overlooked, on
account of the unwillingness which formerly existed among that
class of people to allow examination of the body after death; but
of late such a prejudice has in a great measure been removed.
From the nature of Pencaitland coal-works, the seams of coal
being thin when compared with other coal-pits, mining operations
are carried on with difficulty, and, in such a situation, there is
a deficiency in the supply of atmospheric gas, thereby causing
difficulty in breathing, and, consequently, the inhalation of the
carbon which the lungs in exhalation throw off, and also any
carbonaceous substance floating in this impure atmosphere. I
consider the pulmonary diseases of coal-miners to be excited
chiefly by two causes, viz. first, by running stone-mines with
the use of gunpowder; and, secondly, coal-mining in an atmosphere
charged with lamp-smoke and the carbon exhaled from
the lungs. All who are engaged at coal-pits here, are either employed
as coal or stone miners; and the peculiar disease to which
both parties are liable varies considerably according to the employment.'—Ibid.
Appendix A, No. 3, p. 422. See also witnesses
Nos. 7, 44, 112, 144, 146. For a full account of this disease, see
reports of Drs. Alison, Makellar, and Reid, in the Appendix to
the sub-commissioner's report for the East of Scotland."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Dr. Makellar gives the following remarkable evidence
as to the efficacy of ventilation in obviating the production
of this disease:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The only effectual remedy for this disease is a free admission
of pure air, and to be so applied as to remove the confined smoke,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
both as to stone-mining and coal-mining, and also the introduction
of some other mode of lighting such pits than by oil. I know
many coal-pits where there is no <i>black-spit</i>, nor was it ever known,
and, on examination, I find that there is and ever has been in them
a free circulation of air. For example, the Penstone coal-works,
which join Pencaitland, has ever been free of this disease; but
many of the Penstone colliers, on coming to work at Pencaitland
pit, have been seized with, and died of, this disease. Penstone
has always good air, while it is quite the contrary at Pencaitland.'—Ibid.
Appendix A, No. 3; App. pt. i. p. 422."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Other diseases, produced by employment in coal-mines,
less fatal, but scarcely less painful, are rheumatism
and inflammation of the joints.</p>

<p class="i1">Mr. William Hartell Baylis states that working in
the cold and wet often brings on rheumatism. "More suffer
from this than from any other complaint."<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Asthma
and rheumatism, which are so prevalent in other districts,
are very rare in Warwickshire and Leicestershire.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a>
But, in Derbyshire, "rheumatism is very
general. I believe you will scarcely meet a collier,
and ask him what he thinks of the weather, but he will
in reply say, 'Why, his back or shoulders have or have
not pained him as much as usual.'"<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>

<p class="i1">George Tweddell, surgeon, Houghton-le-Spring, South
Durham, says, in answer to the question—Are miners
much subject to rheumatism?—"Not particularly so.
Our mines are dry; but there is one mine which is wet,
where the men often complain of rheumatism."<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">Similar evidence is given by the medical and other
witnesses in all other districts. Wherever the mines
are not properly drained, and are, therefore, wet and
cold, the work-people are invariably afflicted with rheumatism,
and with painful diseases of the glands.</p>

<p class="i1">The sub-commissioner for the Forest of Dean gives
the following account of a painful disease of the joints
common in that district:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'The men employed in cutting down the coal are subject to
inflammation of the <i>bursæ</i>, both in the knees and elbows, from
the constant pressure and friction on these joints in their working
postures. When the seams are several feet thick, they begin by
kneeling and cutting away the exterior portion of the base. They
proceed undermining till they are obliged to lie down on their
sides, in order to work beneath the mass as far as the arm can
urge the pick, for the purpose of bringing down a good head of
coal. In this last posture the elbow forms a pivot, resting on the
ground, on which the arm of the workman oscillates as he plies
his sharp pick. It is easy to comprehend how this action, combined
with the pressure, should affect the delicate cellular membrane
of this joint, and bring on the disease indicated. The thin
seams of coal are necessarily altogether worked in a horizontal
posture.'—<i>Waring, Report</i>, s. 63-66; App. pt. ii. p. 5, 6.</p>

<p class="i1">"Twenty boys at the Walker Colliery: 'The twenty witnesses,
when examined collectively, say, that the way is so very dirty,
and the pit so warm, that the lads often get tired very soon.'—<i>Leifchild,
Evidence</i>, No. 291; App. pt. i. p. 627, 1. 661.</p>

<p class="i1">"Nineteen boys examined together, of various ages, of whom
the spokesman was William Holt, seventeen years old, putter:
'The bad air when they were whiles working in the broken,
makes them sick. Has felt weak like in his legs at those times.
Was weary like. Has gone on working, but very slowly. Many
a one has had to come home before having a fair start, from
bad air and hard work. Hours are too long. Would sooner
work less hours and get less money.'—Ibid. No. 300; p. 629, 1. 1.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Twenty-three witnesses assembled state: 'That their work is
too hard for them, and they feel sore tired; that some of them
constantly throw up their meat from their stomachs; that their
heads often work, (ache;) the back sometimes; and the legs feel
weak.'—Ibid. No. 354; p. 639, 1. 18.</p>

<p class="i1">"John Wilkinson, aged thirteen, Piercy Main Colliery: 'Was
in for a double shift about five weeks ago, and fell asleep about
one o'clock <span class="sc">P.M.</span>, as he was going to lift the limmers off to join
the rolleys together, and got himself lamed by the horse turning
about and jamming one of his fingers. Split his finger. Was
off a week from this accident. Sometimes feels sick down in the
pit; felt so once or twice last fortnight. Whiles his head works,
(aches,) and he has pains in his legs, as if they were weak.
Feels pains in his knees. Thinks the work is hard for foals,
more so than for others.'—Ibid. No. 60; p. 579, 1. 22.</p>

<p class="i1">"John Middlemas: 'Sometimes, but very rarely, they work
double shift; that is, they go down at four o'clock <span class="sc">A.M.</span> and do not
come up until four o'clock <span class="sc">P.M.</span> in the day after that, thus stopping
down thirty-six hours, without coming up, sometimes; and sometimes
they come up for half an hour, and then go down again.
Another worked for twenty-four hours last week, and never came
up at all. Another has stopped down thirty-six hours, without
coming up at all, twice during the last year. When working this
double shift they go to bed directly they come home.'—Ibid. No.
98; p. 588, 1. 42.</p>

<p class="i1">"Michael Turner, helper-up, aged fourteen and a half, Gosforth
Colliery: 'Mostly he puts up hill the full corves. Many
times the skin is rubbed off his back and off his feet. His head
works (aches) very often, almost every week. His legs work so
sometimes that he can hardly trail them. Is at hard work now,
shoving rolleys and hoisting the crane; the former is the hardest
work. His back works very often, so that he has sometimes
to sit down for half a minute or so.'—Ibid. No. 145; p. 598,
1. 58.</p>

<p class="i1">"George Short, aged nearly sixteen: 'Hoists a crane. His
head works very often, and he feels sickish sometimes, and
drowsy sometimes, especially if he sits down. Has always been
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
drowsy since he went there. Twice he has worked three shifts
following, of twelve hours each shift; never came up at all during
the thirty-six hours; was sleepy, but had no time to sleep. Has
many times worked double shift of nineteen hours, and he does
this now nearly every pay Friday night. A vast of boys work in
this shift, ten or eleven, or sometimes more. The boys are very
tired and sleepy.'—Ibid. No. 191; p. 606, 1. 41.</p>

<p class="i1">"John Maffin, sixteen years old, putter, Gosforth Colliery:
'Was strong before he went down pits, but is not so now, from
being overhard wrought, and among bad air.'—Ibid. No. 141;
p. 598, 1. 2.</p>

<p class="i1">"Robert Hall, seventeen years old, half marrow, Felling Colliery:
'The work of putting makes his arms weak, and his legs
work all the day; makes his back work. Is putting to the dip
now in a heavy place. Each one takes his turn to use the
"soams," (the drawing-straps;) one pulls with them, and the
other shoves behind. Both are equally hard. If it is a very
heavy place there are helpers-up, but not so many as they want.
Has known one sore strained by putting.'</p>

<p class="i1">"John Peel, aged thirteen: 'Is now off from this. Is healthy
in general, but is now and then off from this work.'—Ibid. No.
325; p. 634, 1. 11.</p>

<p class="i1">"Michael Richardson, fifteen years old, putter, St. Lawrence
Main Colliery: 'About three quarters of a year since he wrought
double shift every other night; or, rather, he worked three times
in eleven days for thirty-six hours at a time, without coming up
the pit. About six months ago he worked three shifts following,
of twelve hours each shift, and never stopped work more than a
few minutes now and then, or came up the pit till he was done.
There was now and then some night-work to do, and the overman
asked him to stop, and he could not say no, or else he (the overman)
would have frowned on him, and stopped him, perhaps, of
some helpers-up. Thinks the hours for lads ought to be shortened,
and does not know whether it would not be better even if
their wages were less.'—Ibid. No. 270; p. 623, 1. 32.</p>

<p class="i1">"James Glass, eighteen years old, putter, Walbottle: 'Puts a
tram by himself. Has no helper-up, and no assistance. Mostly
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
puts a full tram up. Is putting from a distance now. Mostly
the trams are put up by one person. Was off work the week
before last three days, by being sick. Was then putting in the
night shift, and had to go home and give over. Could not work.
His head works nearly every day. He is always hitting his head
against stone roofs. His arms work very often. Has to stoop
a good deal. The weight of his body lies upon his arms when he
is putting. The skin is rubbed off his back very often.'—Ibid.
No. 244; p. 619, 1. 27.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. James Anderson, a Home Missionary, residing in Easington
Lane, Hetton-le-Hole, in reply to queries proposed, handed in
the following written evidence: 'The boys go too soon to work:
I have seen boys at work not six years of age, and though their
work is not hard, still they have long hours, so that when they
come home they are quite spent. I have often seen them lying
on the floor, fast asleep. Then they often fall asleep in the pit,
and have been killed. Not long ago a boy fell asleep, lay down
on the way, and the wagons killed him. Another boy was killed;
it was supposed he had fallen asleep when driving his wagon,
and fallen off, and was killed.'—Ibid. No. 446; p. 655, 1. 62."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The children employed in the mines and collieries
are distinguished by a remarkable muscular development,
which, however, is unhealthy, as it is premature,
obtained at the expense of other parts of the body, and
of but short duration. The muscles of the arms and
the back become very large and full.</p>

<p class="i1">With the great muscular development, there is commonly
a proportionate diminution of stature. All
classes of witnesses state that colliers, as a body—children,
young persons, and adults—are stunted in growth.
There are only two exceptions to this in Great Britain,
namely, Warwickshire and Leicestershire. It is to be
inferred from the statements of the sub-commissioner
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
for Ireland, that that country forms a third exception
for the United Kingdom. Of the uniformity of the
statements as to the small stature and the stunted
growth of the colliers in all other districts, the following
may be regarded as examples:—</p>

<p class="i1">In Shropshire, the miners, as a body, are of small
stature; this is abundantly obvious even to a casual
observer, and there are many instances of men never
exceeding the size of boys.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Andrew Blake, M. D.,
states of the colliers in Derbyshire, that he has observed
that many of them are not so tall as their neighbours
in other employments; this, in a degree, he considers is
owing to their being worked so young.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> In the West
Riding of Yorkshire, also, there is in stature an "appreciable
difference in colliers' children, manifest at all
ages after they have been three years constantly in the
pits; there is little malformation, but, as Mr. Eliss, a
surgeon constantly attending them, admits, they are
somewhat stunted in growth and expanded in width."<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Mr. Henry Hemmingway, surgeon, Dewsbury: 'I am quite
sure that the rule is that the children in coal-pits are of a lower
stature than others.'—<i>Symons, Evidence</i>, No. 221; App. pt. i. p.
282, 1. 47.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Thomas Rayner, surgeon, Bristall: 'I account for the
stunted growth from the stooping position, which makes them
grow laterally, and prevents the cartilaginous substances from
expanding.'—Ibid. No. 268, p. 292, 1. 52.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Henry Moorhouse, surgeon, Huddersfield: 'I may state, from
my own personal examination of many of them, that they are
much less in stature, in proportion to their ages, than those working
in mills.'—Ibid. No. 273, p. 293, 1. 49.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Jos. Ellison, Bristall: 'The employment of children decidedly
stunts their growth.'—Ibid. No. 249, p. 288, 1. 8."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Mr. Symons, in Appendix to p. 212 of his Report,
has given in detail the names, ages, and measurement,
both in stature and in girth of breast, of a great number
of farm and of colliery children of both ages respectively.
By taking the first ten collier boys, and
the first ten farm boys, of ages between twelve and
fourteen, we find that the former measured in the aggregate
forty-four feet six inches in height, and two
hundred and seventy-four and a half inches around the
breast; while the farm boys measured forty-seven feet
in height, and two hundred and seventy-two inches
round the breast. By taking the ten first collier girls
and farm girls, respectively between the ages of fourteen
and seventeen, we find that the ten collier girls
measured forty-six feet four inches in height, and two
hundred and ninety-three and a half inches round the
breast; while the ten farm girls measured fifty feet
five inches in height, and two hundred and ninety-seven
inches round the breast; so that in the girls there is a
difference in the height of those employed on farms,
compared with those employed in collieries, of eight
and a half per cent. in favour of the former; while
between the colliery and farm boys of a somewhat
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
younger age, and before any long period had been spent
in the collieries, the difference appears to be five and a
half per cent. in favour of the farm children.</p>

<p class="i1">In like manner, of sixty children employed as hurriers
in the neighbourhood of Halifax, at the average
ages of ten years and nine months, Mr. Scriven states
that the average measurement in height was three feet
eleven inches and three-tenths, and, in circumference,
three feet two inches; while of fifty-one children of the
same age employed on farms, the measurement in height
was four feet three inches, the circumference being the
same in both, namely, two feet three inches. In like
manner, of fifty young persons of the average of fourteen
years and eleven months, the measurement in
height was four feet five inches, and in circumference
two feet three inches; while of forty-nine young
persons employed on farms, of the average of fifteen
years and six months, the measurement in height was
four feet ten inches and eight-elevenths, and, in circumference,
two feet three inches, being a difference of
nearly six inches in height in favour of the agricultural
labourers.</p>

<p class="i1">In the district of Bradford and Leeds, there is "in
stature an appreciable difference, from about the age
at which children begin to work, between children employed
in mines and children of the same age and
station in the neighbourhood not so employed; and this
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
shortness of stature is generally, though to a less degree,
visible in the adult."<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p>

<p class="i1">In Lancashire, the sub-commissioner reports that—"It
appeared to him that the average of the colliers
are considerably shorter in stature than the agricultural
labourers."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> The evidence collected by the other
gentlemen in this district is to the same effect. Mr.
Pearson, surgeon to the dispensary, Wigan, states,
with regard to the physical condition of the children and
young persons employed in coal-mining, as compared
with that of children in other employments, that they
are smaller and have a stunted appearance, which he
attributes to their being employed too early in life.
<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>
And Mr. Richard Ashton, relieving-officer of the Blackburn
district, describes the colliers as "a low race, and
their appearance is rather decrepit."<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> Though some
remarkable exceptions have been seen in the counties
of Warwick and Leicester, the colliers, as a race of
men, in some districts, and in Durham among the rest,
are not of large stature.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> George Canney, medical
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
practitioner, Bishop Aukland, states, "that they are
less in weight and bulk than the generality of men."
<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>

<p class="i1">Of the collier boys of Durham and Northumberland,
the sub-commissioner reports that an inspection of
more than a thousand of these boys convinced him that
"as a class, (with many individual exceptions,) their
stature must be considered as diminutive."<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> Mr.
Nicholas Wood, viewer of Killingworth, &amp;c., states
"that there is a very general diminution of stature
among pit-men."<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> Mr. Heath, of Newcastle, surgeon
to Killingworth, Gosforth, and Coxlodge collieries,
"thinks the confinement of children for twelve hours
in a pit is not consistent with ordinary health; the
stature is rather diminished, and there is an absence of
colour; they are shortened in stature."<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> And J.
Brown, M. D., Sunderland, states "that they are
generally stunted in stature, thin and swarthy."<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p>

<p class="i1">Of the collier population in Cumberland, it is stated
that "they are in appearance quite as stunted in
growth, and present much the same physical phenomena
as those of Yorkshire, comparing, of course, those following
similar branches of the work."<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> Thomas<span class="pagenum">
<a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
Mitchell, surgeon, Whitehaven, says, "their stature
is partly decreased."<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p>

<p class="i1">Of the deteriorated physical condition of the collier
population in the East of Scotland, as shown, among
other indications, by diminished stature, Dr. S. Scott
Alison states that "many of the infants in a collier
community are thin, skinny, and wasted, and indicate,
by their contracted features and sickly, dirty-white or
faint-yellowish aspect, their early participation in a deteriorated
physical condition. From the age of infancy
up to the seventh or eighth year, much sickliness and
general imperfection of physical development is observable.
The physical condition of the boys and girls
engaged in the collieries is much inferior to that of
children of the same age engaged in farming operations,
in most other trades, or who remain at home unemployed.
The children are, upon the whole, prejudicially
affected to a material extent in their growth and development.
Many of them are short for their years."<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p>

<p class="i1">In South Wales, "the testimony of medical gentlemen,
and of managers and overseers of various works,
in which large numbers of children as well as adults
are employed, proves that the physical health and
strength of children and young persons is deteriorated
by their employment at the early ages and in the works
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
before enumerated."<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> Mr. Jonathan Isaacs, agent of
the Top Hill colliery:—"I have noticed that the children
of miners, who are sent to work, do not grow as
they ought to do; they get pale in their looks, are
weak in their limbs, and any one can distinguish a collier's
child from the children of other working people."<a name="FNanchor_24_24"
id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a>
Mr. P. Kirkhouse, oversman to the Cyfarthfa collieries
and ironstone mines, on this point observes—"The
infantine ages at which children are employed
cranks (stunts) their growth, and injures their constitution."<a name="FNanchor_25_25"
id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a>
John Russell, surgeon to the Dowlais Iron
Works:—"In stature, I believe a difference to exist in
the male youth from twelve to sixteen, employed in the
mines and collieries, compared with those engaged in
other works, the former being somewhat stunted; and
this difference (under some form or other) seems still
perceptible in the adult miners and colliers."<a name="FNanchor_26_26"
id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>

<p class="i1">A crippled gait, often connected with positive deformity,
is one of the frequent results of slaving in the
mines.</p>

<p class="i1">In Derbyshire, the children who have worked in the
collieries from a very early age are stated to be bow-legged.<a name="FNanchor_27_27"
id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">In the West Riding of Yorkshire, "after they are
turned forty-five or fifty, they walk home from their
work almost like cripples; stiffly stalking along, often
leaning on sticks, bearing the visible evidences in their
frame and gait of overstrained muscles and over-taxed
strength. Where the lowness of the gates induces a
very bent posture, I have observed an inward curvature
of the spine; and chicken-breasted children are very
common among those who work in low, thin coal-mines."<a name="FNanchor_28_28"
id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a>
Mr. Uriah Bradbury, surgeon, Mirfield:—"Their
knees never stand straight, like other people's."<a name="FNanchor_29_29"
id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a>
Mr. Henry Hemmingway, surgeon, Dewsbury:—"May
be distinguished among crowds of
people, by the bending of the spinal column."<a name="FNanchor_30_30"
id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> Mr.
William Sharp, surgeon, Bradford:—"There are
occasionally cases of deformity."<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>

<p class="i1">In Lancashire district, John Bagley, about thirty-nine
years of age, collier, Mrs. Lancaster's, Patricroft,
states, that "the women drawing in the pits are generally
crooked. Can tell any woman who has been in
the pits. They are rarely, if ever, so straight as other
women who stop above ground."<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> Mr. William Gaulter,
surgeon, of Over Darwen, says—"Has practised as a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
surgeon twenty-four years in this neighbourhood.
Those who work in collieries at an early age, when
they arrive at maturity are not generally so robust as
those who work elsewhere. They are frequently
crooked, (not distorted,) bow-legged, and stooping."<a name="FNanchor_33_33"
id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a>
Betty Duxberry, whose children work in the pits, asserts
that "colliers are all crooked and short-legged,
not like other men who work above ground; but they
were always colliers, and always will be. This young
boy turns his feet out and his knees together; drawing
puts them out of shape."<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a></p>

<p class="i1">Evidence collected in Durham and Northumberland,
shows that the underground labour produces similar
effects in that district.</p>

<p class="i1">Mr. Nicholas Wood, viewer of Killingworth, Hetton,
and other collieries:—"The children are perhaps a
little ill-formed, and the majority of them pale, and not
robust. Men working in low seams are bent double
and bow-legged very often."<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> J. Brown, M. D. and
J. P., Sunderland:—"They labour more frequently
than other classes of the community under deformity
of the lower limbs, especially that variety of it described
as being 'in-kneed.' This I should ascribe to
yielding of the ligaments, owing to long standing in the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
mines in a constrained and awkward position."<a name="FNanchor_36_36"
id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> Mr.
Thomas Greenshaw, surgeon, Walker colliery:—"Their
persons are apt to be somewhat curved and cramped.
As they advance in life, their knees and back frequently
exhibit a curved appearance, from constant
bending at their work."<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> Mr. W. Morrison, surgeon
of Pelaw House, Chester le street, Countess of Durham's
collieries:—"The 'outward man' distinguishes a
pit-man from any other operative. His stature is
diminished, his figure disproportionate and misshapen;
his legs being much bowed; his chest protruding, (the
thoracic region being unequally developed.) His countenance
is not less striking than his figure—his cheeks
being generally hollow, his brow over-hanging, his cheek-bones
high, his forehead low and retreating. Nor is
his appearance healthful—his habit is tainted with
scrofula. I have seen agricultural labourers, blacksmiths,
carpenters, and even those among the wan and
distressed-looking weavers of Nottinghamshire, to
whom the term 'jolly' might not be inaptly applied;
but I never saw a 'jolly-looking' pit-man. As the germ
of this physical degeneration may be formed in the
youthful days of the pit-man, it is desirable to look for
its cause."<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">Ruptures, rheumatism, diseases of the heart and of
other organs, the results of over-exertion in unhealthy
places, are common among the persons employed in the
mines, as many intelligent persons testified before the
commissioners.</p>

<p class="i1">An employment often pursued under circumstances
which bring with them so many and such formidable
diseases, must prematurely exhaust the strength of ordinary
constitutions; and the evidence collected in
almost all the districts proves that too often the collier
is a disabled man, with the marks of old age upon him,
while other men have scarcely passed beyond their
prime.</p>

<p class="i1">The evidence shows that in South Staffordshire and
Shropshire, many colliers are incapable of following
their occupation after they are forty years of age;
others continue their work up to fifty, which is stated
by several witnesses to be about the general average.
Mr. Marcy, clerk to the Wellington Union, Salop,
states, that "at about forty the greater part of the
colliers may be considered as disabled, and regular old
men—as much as some are at eighty."<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p>

<p class="i1">Even in Warwickshire and Leicestershire, in which
their physical condition is better than in any other districts,
Mr. Michael Parker, ground bailiff of the Smithson
collieries, states that "some of the men are
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
knocked up at forty-five and fifty, and that fifty may
be the average; which early exhaustion of the physical
strength he attributes to the severe labour and bad
air."<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a>
Mr. Dalby, surgeon of the Union of Ashby-de-la-Zouch,
says—"The work in the pit is very laborious,
and some are unable for it as early as fifty,
others at forty-five, and some at sixty; I should say
the greater part at forty-five."<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> And Mr. Davenport,
clerk of the Union of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, gives a higher
average, and says that "a collier may wear from
sixty-five to seventy, while an agricultural labourer
may wear from seventy to seventy-five."<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p>

<p class="i1">Of Derbyshire the sub-commissioner reports—"I
have not perceived that look of premature old age so
general amongst colliers, <i>until they are forty years of
age</i>, excepting in the loaders, who evidently appear so
at <i>twenty-eight or thirty</i>, and this I think must arise
from the hardness of their labour, in having such great
weights to lift, and breathing a worse atmosphere than
any other in the pit."<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> Phoebe Gilbert states—"The
loaders are, as the saying is, 'old men before they
are young ones.'"<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> Dr. Blake says—"He has also
noticed that when a collier has worked from a child,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
and becomes forty, he looks much older than those of
the same age above ground."<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a></p>

<p class="i1">In Yorkshire "the collier of fifty is usually an aged
man; he looks overstrained and stiffened by labour."<a name="FNanchor_46_46"
id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a>
"But whilst both the child and the adult miner appear
to enjoy excellent health, and to be remarkably free
from disease, it nevertheless appears that their labour,
at least that of the adult miner, is, in its general result,
and in the extent to which it is pursued, of a character
more severe than the constitution is properly able to
bear. It is rare that a collier is able to follow his
calling beyond the age of from forty to fifty, and then,
unless he be fortunate enough to obtain some easier
occupation, he sinks into a state of helpless dependence.
Better habits with regard to temperance might
diminish, but would not remove, this evil; and the
existence of this fact, in despite of the general healthiness
of the collier population, gives rise to the question
whether, apart from all considerations of mental
and moral improvement, a fatal mistake is not committed
in employing children of tender years to the
extent that their strength will bear, instead of giving
opportunity, by short hours of labour, for the fuller
and more perfect physical development which would
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
better fit them to go through the severe labour of their
after-life."<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a></p>

<p class="i1">In the coal-fields of North Durham and Northumberland,
Dr. Elliott states "that premature old age in
appearance is common; men of thirty-five or forty
years may often be taken for ten years older than they
really are."<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> Mr. Thomas Greenhow, surgeon, Walker
Colliery, North Durham, says "they have an aged
aspect somewhat early in life."<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> Of the effect of employment
in the coal-mines of the East of Scotland, in
producing an early and irreparable deterioration of the
physical condition, the sub-commissioner thus reports:
"In a state of society such as has been described, the
condition of the children may be easily imagined, and
its baneful influence on the health cannot well be
exaggerated; and I am informed by very competent
authorities, that six months labour in the mines is sufficient
to effect a very visible change in the physical
condition of the children; and indeed it is scarcely
possible to conceive of circumstances more calculated to
sow the seeds of future disease, and, to borrow the language
of the Instructions, to prevent the organs from
being fully developed, to enfeeble and disorder their
functions, and to subject the whole system to injury
which cannot be repaired at any subsequent stage of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
life."<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> In the West of Scotland, Dr. Thompson, Ayr,
says—"A collier at fifty generally has the appearance
of a man ten years older than he is."<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p>

<p class="i1">The sub-committee for North Wales reports—"They
fail in health and strength early in life. At thirty a
miner begins to look wan and emaciated, and so does a
collier at forty; while the farming labourer continues
robust and hearty."<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> John Jones, relieving officer for
the Holywell district, states—"Though the children
and young persons employed in these works are healthy,
still it is observable that they soon get to look old, and
they often become asthmatic before they are forty."<a name="FNanchor_53_53"
id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a></p>

<p class="i1">In the Forest of Dean, Mr. Thomas Marsh, surgeon,
states that "colliers usually become old men at fifty
to fifty-five years of age."<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> In North Somersetshire,
William Brice, clerk and manager, says "there are
very few at work who are above fifty years of age."<a name="FNanchor_55_55"
id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p>

<p class="i1">Early death is the natural consequence of the premature
decrepitude thus described to those whom ever-imminent
casualities have not brought to the grave during
the years of their vigour. The medical evidence
shows that even in South Staffordshire and Shropshire,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>
comparatively few miners attain their fifty-first year.
In Warwickshire and Leicestershire it is not uncommon
for the men to follow their occupation ten years longer;
but all classes of witnesses in the other districts uniformly
state that it is rare to see an old collier.</p>

<p class="i1">In Derbyshire, William Wardle "does not think
colliers live as long as those above ground; very few
live to be sixty."<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></p>

<p class="i1">In Yorkshire, "colliers have harder work than any
other class of workmen, and the length of time they
work, as well as the intense exertion they undergo,
added to the frequent unhealthiness of the atmosphere,
decidedly tend to shorten their lives."<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> Mr. Henry
Hemmingway, surgeon, Dewsbury, states—"I only
knew one old collier."<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> Mr. Thomas Rayner, surgeon,
Bristall, says—"I have had twenty-seven years' practice,
and I know of no old colliers—their extreme term
of life is from fifty-six to sixty years of age."<a name="FNanchor_59_59"
id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> In
Lancashire, states Mr. Kennedy, "it appeared to me
that the number of aged men was much smaller than in
other occupations."<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a
href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p>

<p class="i1">After stating that the colliers of South Durham are
a strong and healthy race, Dr. Mitchell adds—"The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
work, however, is laborious and exhausting; and the
colliers, though healthy, are not long-lived."<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> John
Wetherell Hays, clerk of the Union, Durham, states,
"that the colliers are not long-lived; that they live
well, and live fast."<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a> And George Canney, medical
practitioner, Bishop Auckland, says "they are generally
short-lived."<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p>

<p class="i1">The sub-commissioner for the East of Scotland reports,
that after a careful consideration of all the
sources of information which could assist him in the
object of his inquiry, he arrives at the following conclusion:—"That
the labour in the coal-mines in the Lothian
and River Forth districts of Scotland is most
severe, and that its severity is in many cases increased by
the want of proper attention to the economy of mining
operations; whence those operations, as at present carried
on, are extremely unwholesome, and productive of diseases
which have a manifest tendency to shorten life."<a name="FNanchor_64_64"
id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a>
Mr. Walter Jarvie, manager to Mr. Cadell, of Banton,
states that "in the small village of Banton there are
nearly forty widows; and as the children work always
on parents' behalf, it prevents them having recourse to
the kirk-session for relief."<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> Elsper Thompson says,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
"Most of the men begin to complain at thirty to thirty-five
years of age, and drop off before they get the
length of forty."<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a> Henry Naysmith, sixty-five years
of age, collier, who says he has wrought upward of
fifty years, adds that "he has been off work nearly ten
years, and is much afflicted with shortness of breath: it
is the bane of the colliers, and few men live to my
age."<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a></p>

<p class="i1">In North Wales, it is said that "few colliers come to
the age of sixty, and but still fewer miners. This I
believe to be the fact, though I met with many, both
miners and colliers, who had attained the age of sixty;
yet they were few compared with the number <i>employed</i>
in these branches of industry."<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> Mr. John Jones,
relieving-officer for the Holywell district, "thinks they
are not as long-lived as agriculturists."<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a> James Jones,
overman, Cyfarthfa Works, states "that the colliers
are generally very healthy and strong up to the age of
forty or fifty; they then often have a difficulty of
breathing, and they die at younger ages than agricultural
labourers or handicraftsmen."<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> Mr. John Hughes,
assistant underground agent, says "they do not appear
to live long after fifty or sixty years old."<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">In South Wales, the sub-commissioner reports that he
"has not been able to ascertain, for want of sufficient
data, the average duration of a collier's life in the
counties either of Glamorgan or Monmouth, but it is
admitted that such average duration is less than that
of a common labourer. In the county of Pembroke,
however, Mr. James Bowen, surgeon, Narbeth, in that
county, informs me—"The average life of a collier is
about forty; they rarely attain forty-five years of age;
and in the entire population of Begelly and East Williamson,
being 1163, forming, strictly speaking, a
mining population, there are not six colliers of sixty
years of age."</p>

<p class="i1">The Rev. Richard Buckby, rector of Begelly, in
answer to one of the queries in the Educational Paper
of the Central Board, writes—"The foul air of the
mines seriously affects the lungs of the children and
young persons employed therein, and shortens the term
of life. In a population of one thousand, there are
not six colliers sixty years of age."</p>

<p class="i1">There are certain minor evils connected with employment
in the worst class of coal-mines, which, though not
perhaps very serious, are nevertheless sources of much
suffering, such as irritation of the head, feet, back, and
skin, together with occasional strains. "The upper
parts of their head are always denuded of hair; their
scalps are also thickened and inflamed, sometimes
taking on the appearance <i>tinea capitis</i>, from the pressure
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
and friction which they undergo in the act of
pushing the corves forward, although they are mostly
defended by a padded cap."<a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> "It is no uncommon
thing to see the hurriers bald, owing to pushing the
corves up steep board gates, with their heads."<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a></p>

<p class="i1">Mr. Alexander Muir, surgeon: "Are there any peculiar
diseases to which colliers are subject? No, excepting
that the hurriers are occasionally affected by a
formation of matter upon the forehead, in consequence
of pushing the wagons with their head. To what extent
is such formation of matter injurious to the
general health? It produces considerable local irritation.
When the matter is allowed to escape, it heals
as perfectly as before. Do you conceive this use of
the head to be a necessary or unnecessary part of their
occupation? I should think it not necessary. Does it
arise from any deficiency of strength, the head being
used to supply the place of the arms? I should think
it does."<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> David Swallow, collier, East Moor: "The
hair is very often worn off bald, and the part is swollen
so that sometimes it is like a bulb filled with spongy
matter; so very bad after they have done their day's
work that they cannot bear it touching."<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> William
Holt: "Some thrutched with their heads, because
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>
they cannot thrutch enough with their hands alone.
Thrutching with their heads makes a gathering in the
head, and makes them very ill."<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a></p>

<p class="i1">In running continually over uneven ground, without
shoes or stockings, particles of dirt, coal, and stone get
between the toes, and are prolific sources of irritation
and lameness, of which they often complain; the skin
covering the balls of the toes and heels becomes thickened
and horny, occasioning a good deal of pain and
pustular gathering."<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> James Mitchell: "I have hurt
my feet often; sometimes the coals cut them, and they
run matter, and the corves run over them when I stand
agate; I an't not always aware of their coming."<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a>
Selina Ambler: "I many times hurt my feet and legs
with the coals and scale in gate; sometimes we run
corve over them; my feet have many a time been
blooded."<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> Mrs. Carr: "Has known many foals laid
off with sore backs, especially last year and the year
before, when the putting was said to be very heavy in
the Flatworth pit. Some foals had to lay off a day or
two, to get their backs healed, before they could go to
work again."<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> William Jakes: "His back is often
skinned; is now sore and all red, from holding on or
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
back against the corf."<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> George Faction: "In some
places he bends quite double, and rubs his back so as to
bring the skin off, and whiles to make it bleed, and
whiles he is off work from these things."<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> Mr. James
Probert, surgeon: "Chronic pain in the back is a
very common complaint among colliers, arising from
overstrained tendonous muscles, and it is the source of
much discomfort to the colliers."<a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> Mr. William Dodd,
surgeon: "As to the 'boils,' when a fresh man comes
to the colliery he generally becomes affected by these
'boils,' most probably from the heat in the first instance,
and subsequently they are aggravated by the salt
water."<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> James Johnson: "Sometimes when among
the salt water, the heat, etc., brings out boils about the
size of a hen's egg upon him, about his legs and thighs,
and under his arms sometimes. A vast of boys, men,
and all, have these boils at times. These boils perhaps
last a fortnight before they get ripe, and then they
burst. A great white thing follows, and is called a
'tanner'."<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> Dr. Adams, Glasgow: "An eruption on
the skin is very prevalent among colliers."<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> William
Mackenzie: "Had about twenty boils on his back at
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
one time, about two years since. These lasted about
three months. He was kept off work about a week.
If he touched them against any thing they were like
death to him. But few of the boys have so many at a
time; many of the boys get two or three at a time.
The boys take physic to bring them all out; then they
get rid of them for some time. If the salt water falls
on any part of them that is scotched, it burns into the
flesh like; it is like red rust. It almost blinds the
boys if it gets into their eyes."<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a></p>

<p class="i1">Accidents of a fatal nature are of frightful frequency
in the mines. In one year there were three
hundred and forty-nine deaths by violence in the coal-mines
of England alone. Of the persons thus killed,
fifty-eight were under thirteen years of age; sixty-two
under eighteen, and the remainder over eighteen.
One of the most frequent causes of accidents is the
want of superintendence to see the security of the machinery
for letting down and bringing up the work-people,
and the restriction of the number of persons
who ascend or descend at the same time. The commissioners
observed at Elland two hurriers, named Ann
Ambler and William Dyson, cross-lapped upon a clutch-iron,
drawn up by a woman. As soon as they arrived
at the top the handle was made fast by a bolt. The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
woman then grasped a hand of both at the same time,
and by main force brought them to land.</p>

<p class="i1">From all the evidence adduced, the commissioners
came to the following conclusions:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"In regard to coal-mines—</p>

<p class="i1">"That instances occur in which children are taken into these
mines to work as early as four years of age, sometimes at five,
and between five and six; not unfrequently between six and
seven, and often from seven to eight; while from eight to nine is
the ordinary age at which employment in these mines commences.</p>

<p class="i1">"That a very large proportion of the persons employed in carrying
on the work of these mines is under thirteen years of age;
and a still larger proportion between thirteen and eighteen.</p>

<p class="i1">"That in several districts female children begin to work in
these mines at the same early ages as the males.</p>

<p class="i1">"That the great body of the children and young persons employed
in these mines are of the families of the adult work-people
engaged in the pits, or belong to the poorest population in
the neighbourhood, and are hired and paid in some districts by
the work-people, but in others by the proprietors or contractors.</p>

<p class="i1">"That there are in some districts, also, a small number of
parish apprentices, who are bound to serve their masters until
twenty-one years of age, in an employment in which there is
nothing deserving the name of skill to be acquired, under circumstances
of frequent ill-treatment, and under the oppressive condition
that they shall receive only food and clothing, while their
free companions may be obtaining a man's wages.</p>

<p class="i1">"That, in many instances, much that skill and capital can effect
to render the place of work unoppressive and healthy and safe,
is done, often with complete success, as far as regards the healthfulness
and comfort of the mines; but that to render them perfectly
safe does not appear to be practicable by any means yet
known; while, in great numbers of instances, their condition in
regard both to ventilation and drainage is lamentably defective.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"That the nature of the employment which is assigned to the
youngest children—generally that of 'trapping'—requires that
they should be in the pit as soon as the work of the day commences,
and, according to the present system, that they should
not leave the pit before the work of the day is at an end.</p>

<p class="i1">"That although this employment scarcely deserves the name
of labour, yet, as the children engaged in it are commonly excluded
from light, and are always without companions, it would,
were it not for the passing and repassing of the coal-carriages,
amount to solitary confinement of the worst sort.</p>

<p class="i1">"That in those districts where the seams of coal are so thick
that horses go direct to the workings, or in which the side passages
from the workings to the horseways are not of any great
length, the lights in the main way render the situation of the
children comparatively less cheerless, dull, and stupefying; but
that in some districts they are in solitude and darkness during
the whole time they are in the pit; and, according to their own
account, many of them never see the light of day for weeks
together during the greater part of the winter season, except on
those days in the week when work is not going on, and on the
Sundays.</p>

<p class="i1">"That, at different ages from six years old and upward, the
hard work of pushing and dragging the carriages of coal from
the workings to the main ways, or to the foot of the shaft, begins;
a labour which all classes of witnesses concur in stating requires
the unremitting exertion of all the physical power which the
young workers possess.</p>

<p class="i1">"That, in the districts in which females are taken down into the
coal-mines, both sexes are employed together in precisely the same
kind of labour, and work for the same number of hours; that the
girls and boys, and the young men and young women, and even
married women and women with child, commonly work almost
naked, and the men, in many mines, quite naked; and that all
classes of witnesses bear testimony to the demoralizing influence
of the employment of females under ground.</p>

<p class="i1">"That, in the East of Scotland, a much larger proportion of
children and young persons are employed in these mines than in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
any other districts, many of whom are girls; and that the chief
part of their labour consists in carrying the coal on their backs
up steep ladders.</p>

<p class="i1">"That, when the work-people are in full employment, the regular
hours of work for children and young persons are rarely
less than eleven, more often they are twelve; in some districts
they are thirteen, and in one district they are generally fourteen
and upward.</p>

<p class="i1">"That, in the great majority of these mines, night-work is a part
of the ordinary system of labour, more or less regularly carried
on according to the demand for coals, and one which the whole
body of evidence shows to act most injuriously both on the physical
and moral condition of the work-people, and more especially
on that of the children and young persons.</p>

<p class="i1">"That the labour performed daily for this number of hours,
though it cannot strictly be said to be continuous, because, from
the nature of the employment, intervals of a few minutes necessarily
occur during which the muscles are not in active exertion,
is, nevertheless, generally uninterrupted by any regular time set
apart for rest or refreshment; what food is taken in the pit being
eaten as best it may while the labour continues.</p>

<p class="i1">"That in all well-regulated mines, in which in general the
hours of work are the shortest, and in some few of which from
half an hour to an hour is regularly set apart for meals, little or
no fatigue is complained of after an ordinary day's work, when
the children are ten years old and upward; but in other instances
great complaint is made of the feeling of fatigue, and the
work-people are never without this feeling, often in an extremely
painful degree.</p>

<p class="i1">"That in many cases the children and young persons have
little cause of complaint in regard to the treatment they receive
from the persons of authority in the mine, or from the colliers;
but that in general the younger children are roughly used by
their older companions, while in many mines the conduct of the
adult colliers to the children and adult persons who assist them
is harsh and cruel; the persons in authority in these mines, who
must be cognizant of this ill-usage, never interfering to prevent
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
it, and some of them distinctly stating that they do not conceive
that they have any right to do so.</p>

<p class="i1">"That, with some exceptions, little interest is taken by the
coal-owners in the children or young persons employed in their
works after the daily labour is over; at least, little is done to
afford them the means of enjoying innocent amusement and
healthful recreation.</p>

<p class="i1">"That in all the coal fields accidents of a fearful nature are
extremely frequent; and that the returns made to our own queries,
as well as the registry tables, prove that, of the work-people who
perish by such accidents, the proportion of children and young persons
sometimes equals and rarely falls much below that of adults.</p>

<p class="i1">"That one of the most frequent causes of accidents in these
mines is the want of superintendence by overlookers or otherwise,
to see to the security of the machinery for letting down and bringing
up the work-people, the restriction of the number of persons
that ascend and descend at a time, the state of the mine as to the
quantity of noxious gas in it, the efficiency of the ventilation, the
exactness with which the air-door keepers perform their duty, the
places into which it is safe or unsafe to go with a naked lighted
candle, the security of the proppings to uphold the roof, &amp;c.</p>

<p class="i1">"That another frequent cause of fatal accidents is the almost
universal practice of intrusting the closing of the air-doors to very
young children.</p>

<p class="i1">"That there are many mines in which the most ordinary precautions
to guard against accidents are neglected, and in which
no money appears to be expended with a view to secure the safety,
much less the comfort, of the work-people.</p>

<p class="i1">"There are, moreover, two practices, peculiar to a few districts,
which deserve the highest reprobation, namely,—first, the practice,
not unknown in some of the smaller mines in Yorkshire, and
common in Lancashire, in employing ropes that are unsafe for
letting down and drawing up the work-people; and second, the
practice occasionally met with in Yorkshire, and common in Derbyshire
and Lancashire, of employing boys at the steam-engines
for letting down and drawing up the work-people."—<i>First Report,
Conclusions</i>, p. 255-257.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">Well, what did the British Government do when the
heart-rending report of the commissioners was received?
It felt the necessity of a show of legislative interference.
Lord Ashley introduced a bill into the House of Commons,
having for its object the amelioration of the condition
of the mining women and children. Much discussion
occurred. The bill passed the House of Commons,
and was taken to the House of Lords, the high court of
British oppression. Some lords advocated the measure,
whereupon Lord Londonderry and some others spoke
of them as "bitten with a humanity mania." Modifications
were made in the bill to suit the pockets of the
luxurious proprietors, and then it was grumblingly
adopted. What did the bill provide? That no child
under <i>ten</i> years of age, and no woman or girl, of any
age, should be allowed to work in a mine. Now, children
may be ten years of age, and above that, and yet
they are still tender little creatures. The majority of
the sufferers who came to the notice of the commissioners
were above ten years of age! In that point,
at least, the bill was worse than a nullity—it was a base
deceit, pouring balm, but not upon the wound!</p>

<p class="i1">The same bill provided that no females should be
allowed to work in the mines. But then the females
were driven to the mines by the dread of starvation.
Soon after the passage of the bill, petitions from the
mining districts were sent to Parliament, praying that
females might be allowed to work in the mines. The
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>
petitioners had no means of getting bread. If they
had, they would never have been in the mines at all.
The horrors of labour in the mines were consequences
of the general slavery. Well, there were many proprietors
of mines in Parliament, and their influence
was sufficient to nullify the law in practice. There is
good authority for believing that the disgusting slavery
of the British mines has been ameliorated only to a very
limited extent.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>




<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
</div>

<p class="ac">SLAVERY IN THE BRITISH FACTORIES.</p>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">Great Britain</span> has long gloried in the variety and
importance of her manufactures. Burke spoke of Birmingham
as the toyshop of Europe; and, at this day,
the looms of Manchester and the other factory towns
of England furnish the dry-goods of a large portion of
the world. Viewed at a distance, this wonder-working
industry excites astonishment and admiration; but a
closer inspection will show us such corrupt and gloomy
features in this vast manufacturing system as will turn
a portion of admiration into shrinking disgust. Giving
the meed of praise to the perfection of machinery and
the excellence of the fabrics, what shall we say of the
human operatives? For glory purchased at the price
of blood and souls is a vanity indeed. Let us see!</p>

<p class="i1">The number of persons employed in the cotton, wool,
silk, and flax manufactures of Great Britain is estimated
at about two millions. Mr. Baines states that about
one and a half million are employed in the cotton manufactures
alone. The whole number employed in the
production of all sorts of iron, hardware, and cutlery
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
articles is estimated at 350,000. In the manufacture
of jewelry, earthen and glass ware, paper, woollen stuffs,
distilled and fermented liquors, and in the common
trades of tailoring, shoemaking, carpentering, &amp;c., the
numbers employed are very great, though not accurately
known. We think the facts will bear us out in
stating that this vast body of operatives suffer more of
the real miseries of slavery than any similar class upon
the face of the earth.</p>

<p class="i1">In the first place, admitting that wages are as high
in Great Britain as in any continental country, the
enormous expenses of the church and aristocracy produce
a taxation which eats up so large a portion of
these wages, that there is not enough left to enable the
workman to live decently and comfortably. But the
wages are, in general, brought very low by excessive
competition; and, in consequence, the operative must
stretch his hours of toil far beyond all healthy limits to
earn enough to pay taxes and support himself. It is
the struggle of drowning men, and what wonder if many
sink beneath the gloomy waves?</p>

<p class="i1">When C. Edwards Lester, an author of reputation, was
in England, he visited Manchester, and, making inquiries
of an operative, obtained the following reply:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"I have a wife and nine children, and a pretty hard time we
have too, we are so many; and most of the children are so small,
they can do little for the support of the family. I generally get
from two shillings to a crown a day for carrying luggage; and
some of my children are in the mills; and the rest are too young
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
to work yet. My wife is never well, and it comes pretty hard on
her to do the work of the whole family. We often talk these
things over, and feel pretty sad. We live in a poor house; we
can't clothe our children comfortably; not one of them ever went
to school: they could go to the Sunday-school, but we can't make
them look decent enough to go to such a place. As for meat, we
never taste it; potatoes and coarse bread are our principal food.
We can't save any thing for a day of want; almost every thing
we get for our work seems to go for taxes. We are taxed for
something almost every week in the year. We have no time to
ourselves when we are free from work. It seems that our life is
all toil; I sometimes almost give up. Life isn't worth much to a
poor man in England; and sometimes Mary and I, when we talk
about it, pretty much conclude that we all should be better off if
we were dead. I have gone home at night a great many times,
and told my wife when she said supper was ready, that I had
taken a bite at a chophouse on the way, and was not hungry—she
and the children could eat my share. Yes, I have said this a
great many times when I felt pretty hungry myself. I sometimes
wonder that God suffers so many poor people to come into the
world."</p></div>

<p class="i1">And this is, comparatively, a mild case. Instances
of hard-working families living in dark, damp cellars,
and having the coarsest food, are common in Manchester,
Birmingham, and other manufacturing towns.</p>

<p class="i1">Mrs. Gaskell, in her thrilling novel, "Mary Barton,
a Tale of Manchester Life," depicts without exaggeration
the sufferings of the operatives and their families
when work is a little slack, or when, by accident, they
are thrown out of employment for a short period. A
large factory, belonging to a Mr. Carson, had been
destroyed by fire, and about the same time, as trade
was had, some mills shortened hours, turned off hands,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
and finally stopped work altogether. Almost inconceivable
misery followed among the unemployed workmen.
In the best of times they fared hardly; now they
were forced to live in damp and filthy cellars, and many
perished, either from starvation or from fevers bred in
their horrible residences. One cold evening John Barton
received a hurried visit from a fellow-operative, named
George Wilson.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'You've not got a bit o' money by you, Barton?' asked he.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Not I; who has now, I'd like to know? Whatten you want
it for?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'I donnot want it for mysel, tho' we've none to spare. But don
ye know Ben Davenport as worked at Carson's? He's down wi'
the fever, and ne'er a stick o' fire, nor a cowd potato in the house.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'I han got no money, I tell ye,' said Barton. Wilson looked
disappointed. Barton tried not to be interested, but he could not
help it in spite of his gruffness. He rose, and went to the cupboard,
(his wife's pride long ago.) There lay the remains of his
dinner, hastily put there ready for supper. Bread, and a slice of
cold, fat, boiled bacon. He wrapped them in his handkerchief,
put them in the crown of his hat, and said—'Come, let's be going.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Going—art thou going to work this time o' day?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'No, stupid, to be sure not. Going to see the fellow thou spoke
on.' So they put on their hats and set out. On the way Wilson
said Davenport was a good fellow, though too much of the Methodee;
that his children were too young to work, but not too
young to be cold and hungry; that they had sunk lower and
lower, and pawned thing after thing, and that now they lived in
in a cellar in Berry-street, off Store-street. Barton growled inarticulate
words of no benevolent import to a large class of mankind,
and so they went along till they arrived in Berry-street. It was
unpaved; and down the middle a gutter forced its way, every
now and then forming pools in the holes with which the street
abounded. Never was the Old Edinburgh cry of 'Gardez l'eau,'
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>
more necessary than in this street. As they passed, women from
their doors tossed household slops of <i>every</i> description into the
gutter; they ran into the next pool, which overflowed and stagnated.
Heaps of ashes were the stepping-stones, on which the
passer-by, who cared in the least for cleanliness, took care not to
put his foot. Our friends were not dainty, but even they picked
their way till they got to some steps leading down into a small
area, where a person standing would have his head about one foot
below the level of the street, and might, at the same time, without
the least motion of his body, touch the window of the cellar and
the damp, muddy wall right opposite. You went down one step
even from the foul area into the cellar, in which a family of human
beings lived. It was very dark inside. The window panes were
many of them broken and stuffed with rags, which was reason
enough for the dusky light that pervaded the place even at mid-day.
After the account I have given of the state of the street, no
one can be surprised that, on going into the cellar inhabited by
Davenport, the smell was so fetid as almost to knock the two
men down. Quickly recovering themselves, as those inured to
such things do, they began to penetrate the thick darkness of the
place, and to see three or four little children rolling on the damp,
nay, wet, brick floor, through which the stagnant, filthy moisture
of the street oozed up; the fireplace was empty and black; the
wife sat on her husband's lair, and cried in the dank loneliness.</p>

<p class="i1">"'See, missis, I'm back again. Hold your noise, children, and
don't mither (trouble) your mammy for bread, here's a chap as
has got some for you.'</p>

<p class="i1">"In that dim light, which was darkness to strangers, they
clustered round Barton, and tore from him the food he had
brought with him. It was a large hunch of bread, but it had
vanished in an instant.</p>

<p class="i1">"'We maun do summut for 'em,' said he to Wilson. 'Yo stop
here, and I'll be back in half an hour.'</p>

<p class="i1">"So he strode, and ran, and hurried home. He emptied into the
ever-useful pocket-handkerchief the little meal remaining in the
mug. Mary would have her tea at Miss Simmonds'; her food for
the day was safe. Then he went up-stairs for his better coat, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
his one, gay, red and yellow silk pocket-handkerchief—his jewels,
his plate, his valuables these were. He went to the pawn-shop;
he pawned them for five shillings; he stopped not, nor stayed, till
he was once more in London Road, within five minutes' walk of
Berry-street—then he loitered in his gait, in order to discover the
shops he wanted. He bought meat, and a loaf of bread, candles,
chips, and from a little retail yard he purchased a couple of hundredweights
of coals. Some money yet remained—all destined
for them, but he did not yet know how best to spend it. Food,
light, and warmth, he had instantly seen, were necessary; for
luxuries he would wait. Wilson's eyes filled with tears when he
saw Barton enter with his purchases. He understood it all, and
longed to be once more in work, that he might help in some of
these material ways, without feeling that he was using his son's
money. But though 'silver and gold he had none,' he gave heart-service
and love-works of far more value. Nor was John Barton
behind in these. 'The fever' was (as it usually is in Manchester)
of a low, putrid, typhoid kind; brought on by miserable living,
filthy neighbourhood, and great depression of mind and body. It
is virulent, malignant, and highly infectious. But the poor are
fatalists with regard to infection; and well for them it is so, for
in their crowded dwellings no invalid can be isolated. Wilson
asked Barton if he thought he should catch it, and was laughed
at for his idea.</p>

<p class="i1">"The two men, rough, tender nurses as they were, lighted the
fire, which smoked and puffed into the room as if it did not know
the way up the damp, unused chimney. The very smoke seemed
purifying and healthy in the thick clammy air. The children
clamoured again for bread; but this time Barton took a piece first
to the poor, helpless, hopeless woman, who still sat by the side
of her husband, listening to his anxious, miserable mutterings.
She took the bread, when it was put into her hand, and broke a
bit, but could not eat. She was past hunger. She fell down on
the floor with a heavy, unresisting bang. The men looked puzzled.
'She's wellnigh clemmed, (<i>starved</i>,)' said Barton. 'Folk do say
one musn't give clemmed people much to eat; but, bless us, she'll
eat naught.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">'I'll tell you what I'll do,' said Wilson, I'll take these two big
lads, as does naught but fight, home to my missis's for to-night,
and I will get a jug o' tea. Them women always does best with
tea and such slop.'</p>

<p class="i1">"So Barton was now left alone with a little child, crying, when
it had done eating, for mammy, with a fainting, dead-like woman,
and with the sick man, whose mutterings were rising up to screams
and shrieks of agonized anxiety. He carried the woman to the
fire, and chafed her hands. He looked around for something to
raise her head. There was literally nothing but some loose bricks:
however, those he got, and taking off his coat, he covered them
with it as well as he could. He pulled her feet to the fire, which
now began to emit some faint heat. He looked round for water,
but the poor woman had been too weak to drag herself out to the
distant pump, and water there was none. He snatched the child,
and ran up the area steps to the room above, and borrowed their
only saucepan with some water in it. Then he began, with the
useful skill of a working man, to make some gruel; and, when it
was hastily made, he seized a battered iron table-spoon, kept
when many other little things had been sold in a lot, in order to
feed baby, and with it he forced one or two drops between her
clenched teeth. The mouth opened mechanically to receive more,
and gradually she revived. She sat up and looked round; and,
recollecting all, fell down again in weak and passive despair.
Her little child crawled to her, and wiped with its fingers the
thick-coming tears which she now had strength to weep. It was
now high time to attend to the man. He lay on straw, so damp
and mouldy no dog would have chosen it in preference to flags;
over it was a piece of sacking, coming next to his worn skeleton
of a body; above him was mustered every article of clothing that
could be spared by mother or children this bitter weather; and,
in addition to his own, these might have given as much warmth
as one blanket, could they have been kept on him; but as he restlessly
tossed to and fro, they fell off, and left him shivering in spite
of the burning heat of his skin. Every now and then he started
up in his naked madness, looking like the prophet of wo in the
fearful plague-picture; but he soon fell again in exhaustion, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>
Barton found he must be closely watched, lest in these falls he
should injure himself against the hard brick floor. He was thankful
when Wilson reappeared, carrying in both hands a jug of
steaming tea, intended for the poor wife; but when the delirious
husband saw drink, he snatched at it with animal instinct, with
a selfishness he had never shown in health.</p>

<p class="i1">"Then the two men consulted together. It seemed decided without
a word being spoken on the subject, that both should spend
the night with the forlorn couple; that was settled. But could
no doctor be had? In all probability, no. The next day an infirmary
order might be begged; but meanwhile the only medical
advice they could have must be from a druggist's. So Barton,
being the moneyed man, set out to find a shop in London Road.</p>

<p class="i1">"He reached a druggist's shop, and entered. The druggist,
whose smooth manners seemed to have been salved over with his
own spermaceti, listened attentively to Barton's description of
Davenport's illness, concluded it was typhus fever, very prevalent
in that neighbourhood, and proceeded to make up a bottle of medicine—sweet
spirits of nitre, or some such innocent potion—very
good for slight colds, but utterly powerless to stop for an instant
the raging fever of the poor man it was intended to relieve. He
recommended the same course they had previously determined to
adopt, applying the next morning for an infirmary order; and
Barton left the shop with comfortable faith in the physic given
him; for men of his class, if they believe in physic at all, believe
that every description is equally efficacious.</p>

<p class="i1">"Meanwhile Wilson had done what he could at Davenport's
home. He had soothed and covered the man many a time; he
had fed and hushed the little child, and spoken tenderly to the
woman, who lay still in her weakness and her weariness. He
had opened a door, but only for an instant; it led into a back
cellar, with a grating instead of a window, down which dropped
the moisture from pig-styes, and worse abominations. It was not
paved; the floor was one mass of bad-smelling mud. It had never
been used, for there was not an article of furniture in it; nor
could a human being, much less a pig, have lived there many
days. Yet the 'back apartment' made a difference in the rent.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
The Davenports paid threepence more for having two rooms.
When he turned round again, he saw the woman suckling the
child from her dry, withered breast.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Surely the lad is weaned!' exclaimed he, in surprise. 'Why,
how old is he?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Going on two year,' she faintly answered. 'But, oh! it keeps
him quiet when I've naught else to gi' him, and he'll get a bit of
sleep lying there, if he's getten naught beside. We han done our
best to gi' the childer food, howe'er we pinched ourselves.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Han ye had no money fra th' town?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'No; my master is Buckinghamshire born, and he's feared
the town would send him back to his parish, if he went to the
board; so we've just borne on in hope o' better times. But I
think they'll never come in my day;' and the poor woman began
her weak, high-pitched cry again.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Here, sup this drop o' gruel, and then try and get a bit o'
sleep. John and I'll watch by your master to-night.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'God's blessing be on you!'</p>

<p class="i1">"She finished the gruel, and fell into a dead sleep. Wilson
covered her with his coat as well as he could, and tried to move
lightly for fear of disturbing her; but there need have been no
such dread, for her sleep was profound and heavy with exhaustion.
Once only she roused to pull the coat round her little child.</p>

<p class="i1">"And now, all Wilson's care, and Barton's to boot, was wanted
to restrain the wild, mad agony of the fevered man. He started
up, he yelled, he seemed infuriated by overwhelming anxiety.
He cursed and swore, which surprised Wilson, who knew his piety
in health, and who did not know the unbridled tongue of delirium.
At length he seemed exhausted, and fell asleep; and Barton and
Wilson drew near the fire, and talked together in whispers. They
sat on the floor, for chairs there were none; the sole table was an
old tub turned upside down. They put out the candle and conversed
by the flickering fire-light.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Han yo known this chap long?' asked Barton.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Better nor three year. He's worked wi' Carsons that long,
and were always a steady, civil-spoken fellow, though, as I said
afore, somewhat of a Methodee. I wish I'd gotten a letter he sent
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
to his missis, a week or two agone, when he were on tramp for
work. It did my heart good to read it; for yo see, I were a bit
grumbling mysel; it seemed hard to be sponging on Jem, and
taking a' his flesh-meat money to buy bread for me and them as
I ought to be keeping. But, yo know, though I can earn naught,
I mun eat summut. Well, as I telled ye, I were grumbling,
when she,' indicating the sleeping woman by a nod, 'brought me
Ben's letter, for she could na read hersel. It were as good as
Bible-words; ne'er a word o' repining; a' about God being our
father, and that we mun bear patiently whate'er he sends.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Don ye think he's th' masters' father, too? I'd be loth to
have 'em for brothers.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Eh, John! donna talk so; sure there's many and many a
master as good nor better than us.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'If you think so, tell me this. How comes it they're rich, and
we're poor? I'd like to know that. Han they done as they'd be
done by for us?'</p>

<p class="i1">"But Wilson was no arguer—no speechifier, as he would have
called it. So Barton, seeing he was likely to have his own way,
went on—</p>

<p class="i1">"'You'll say, at least many a one does, they'n getten capital,
an' we'n getten none. I say, our labour's our capital, and we
ought to draw interest on that. They get interest on their
capital somehow a' this time, while ourn is lying idle, else how
could they all live as they do? Besides, there's many on 'em as
had naught to begin wi'; there's Carsons, and Duncombes, and
Mengies, and many another as comed into Manchester with
clothes to their backs, and that were all, and now they're worth
their tens of thousands, a' gotten out of our labour; why the very
land as fetched but sixty pound twenty years agone is now worth
six hundred, and that, too, is owing to our labour; but look at yo,
and see me, and poor Davenport yonder. Whatten better are we?
They'n screwed us down to th' lowest peg, in order to make their
great big fortunes, and build their great big houses, and we—why,
we're just clemming, many and many of us. Can you say there's
naught wrong in this?'"</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">These poor fellows, according to the story, took care
of Davenport till he died in that loathsome cellar, and
then had him decently buried. They knew not how
soon his fate would overtake them, and they would then
want friends. In the mean time, while disease and
starvation were doing their work among the poor operatives,
their masters were lolling on sofas, and, in the
recreations of an evening, spending enough to relieve a
hundred families. Perhaps, also, the masters' wives
were concocting petitions on the subject of negro-slavery—that
kind of philanthropy costing very little
money or self-sacrifice.</p>

<p class="i1">It may be said that the story of "Mary Barton" is a
fiction; but it must not be forgotten that it is the work
of an English writer, and that its scenes are professedly
drawn from the existing realities of life in Manchester,
where the author resided. In the same work, we find
an account of an historical affair, which is important in
this connection, as showing how the wail of the oppressed
is treated by the British aristocracy:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"For three years past, trade had been getting worse and worse,
and the price of provisions higher and higher. This disparity
between the amount of the earnings of the working classes, and
the price of their food, occasioned, in more cases than could well
be imagined, disease and death. Whole families went through a
gradual starvation. They only wanted a Dante to record their
sufferings. And yet even his words would fall short of the awful
truth; they could only present an outline of the tremendous facts
of the destitution that surrounded thousands upon thousands in
the terrible years 1839, 1840, and 1841. Even philanthropists,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
who had studied the subject, were forced to own themselves perplexed
in the endeavour to ascertain the real causes of the
misery; the whole matter was of so complicated a nature, that
it became next to impossible to understand it thoroughly. It
need excite no surprise, then, to learn that a bad feeling between
working men and the upper classes became very strong in this
season of privation. The indigence and sufferings of the operatives
induced a suspicion in the minds of many of them, that
their legislators, their managers, their employers, and even their
ministers of religion, were, in general, their oppressors and
enemies; and were in league for their prostration and enthralment.
The most deplorable and enduring evil that arose out of
the period of commercial depression to which I refer, was this
feeling of alienation between the different classes of society. It
is so impossible to describe, or even faintly to picture, the state
of distress which prevailed in the town at that time, that I will
not attempt it; and yet I think again that surely, in a Christian
land, it was not known even so feebly as words could tell it, or
the more happy and fortunate would have thronged with their
sympathy and their aid. In many instances the sufferers wept
first, and then they cursed. Their vindictive feelings exhibited
themselves in rabid politics. And when I hear, as I have heard,
of the sufferings and privations of the poor, of provision-shops
where ha'porths of tea, sugar, butter, and even flour, were sold
to accommodate the indigent—of parents sitting in their clothes
by the fireside during the whole night, for seven weeks together,
in order that their only bed and bedding might be reserved for
the use of their large family—of others sleeping upon the cold
hearth-stone for weeks in succession, without adequate means of
providing themselves with food or fuel (and this in the depth of
winter)—of others being compelled to fast for days together, uncheered
by any hope of better fortune, living, moreover, or rather
starving, in a crowded garret or damp cellar, and gradually sinking
under the pressure of want and despair into a premature
grave; and when this has been confirmed by the evidence of
their care-worn looks, their excited feelings, and their desolate
homes—can I wonder that many of them, in such times of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
misery and destitution, spoke and acted with ferocious precipitation!</p>

<p class="i1">"An idea was now springing up among the operatives, that
originated with the Chartists, but which came at last to be cherished
as a darling child by many and many a one. They could
not believe that government knew of their misery; they rather
chose to think it possible that men could voluntarily assume the
office of legislators for a nation, ignorant of its real state; as who
should make domestic rules for the pretty behaviour of children,
without caring to know that these children had been kept for
days without food. Besides, the starving multitudes had heard
that the very existence of their distress had been denied in Parliament;
and though they felt this strange and inexplicable, yet
the idea that their misery had still to be revealed in all its
depths, and that then some remedy would be found, soothed their
aching hearts, and kept down their rising fury.</p>

<p class="i1">"So a petition was framed, and signed by thousands in the
bright spring days of 1839, imploring Parliament to hear witnesses
who could testify to the unparalleled destitution of the
manufacturing districts. Nottingham, Sheffield, Glasgow, Manchester,
and many other towns, were busy appointing delegates
to convey this petition, who might speak, not merely of what
they had seen and had heard, but from what they had borne and
suffered. Life-worn, gaunt, anxious, hunger-stamped men were
those delegates."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The delegates went in a body to London, and applied
at the Parliament House for permission to present
their petition upon the subject nearest their hearts—the
question of life and death. They were haughtily
denied a hearing. The assemblage of the "best gentlemen
in Europe," were, perhaps, discussing the best
means of beautifying their parks and extending their
estates. What had these rose-pink legislators to do
with the miseries of the base-born rabble—the soil-serfs
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>
of their chivalric Norman ancestors? The delegates
returned in despair to their homes, to meet their
starving relatives and friends, and tell them there was
not a ray of hope. In France such a rejection of a
humble petition from breadless working-men would
have been followed by a revolution. In Great Britain
the labourers seem to have the inborn submission of
hereditary slaves. Though they feel the iron heel of
the aristocracy upon their necks, and see their families
starving around them, they delay, and still delay,
taking that highway to freedom—manly and united
rebellion.</p>

<p class="i1">The workmen employed in the factories are subjected
to the cruel treatment of overlookers, who have
the power of masters, and use it as tyrants. If an
operative does not obey an order, he is not merely
reproved, but kicked and beaten as a slave. He dare
not resent, for if he did he would be turned forth to
starve. Such being the system under which he works,
the operative has the look and air of a degraded Helot.
Most of them are unhealthy, destitute of spirit, and
enfeebled by toil and privation. The hand-loom
weavers, who are numerous in some districts, are the
most miserable of the labourers, being hardly able to
earn scant food and filthy shelter.</p>

<p class="i1">The hundreds of thousands of tender age employed in
all the various branches of manufacture are in all
cases the children of the poor. When the father goes
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
to the workhouse he has no longer any control over his
children. They are at the mercy of the parish, and
may be separated, apprenticed to all sorts of masters,
and treated, to all intents and purposes, as slaves.
The invention of labour-saving machinery has brought
the services of children into great demand in the manufacturing
towns. They may be <i>bought</i> at the workhouse
at a cheap rate, and then they must trust to God
alone for their future welfare. There is scarcely an
instance in which the law ever interferes for their protection.
The masters and overlookers are allowed to
beat their younger operatives with impunity.</p>

<p class="i1">The following evidence contains instances of a treatment
totally barbarous, and such are very frequent,
according to the report of the commissioners:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"When she was a child, too little to put on her ain claithes,
the overlooker used to beat her till she screamed again. Gets
many a good beating and swearing. They are all very ill-used.
The overseer carries a strap. Has been licked four or five
times. The boys are often severely strapped; the girls sometimes
get a clout. The mothers often complain of this. Has
seen the boys have black and blue marks after strapping. Three
weeks ago the overseer struck him in the eye with his clenched
fist, so as to force him to be absent two days. Another overseer
used to beat him with his fist, striking him so that his arm was
black and blue. Has often seen the workers beat cruelly. Has
seen the girls strapped; but the boys were beat so that they fell
to the floor in the course of the beating with a rope with four
tails, called a cat. Has seen the boys black and blue, crying for
mercy.</p>

<p class="i1">"The other night a little girl came home cruelly beaten;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
wished to go before a magistrate, but was advised not. That
man is always strapping the children. The boys are badly used.
They are whipped with a strap till they cry out and shed tears;
has seen the managers kick and strike them. Has suffered much
from the slubbers' ill treatment. It is the practice of the slubbers
to go out and amuse themselves for an hour or so, and then
make up their work in the same time, which is a great fatigue to
the piecers, keeping them 'on the run' for an hour and a half
together, besides kicking and beating them for doing it badly,
when they were so much tired. The slubbers are all brutes to
the children; they get intoxicated, and then kick them about;
they are all alike. Never complained to the master; did once to
his mother, and she gave him a halfpenny not to mind it, to go
back to work like a good boy. Sometimes he used to be surly,
and would not go, and then she always had that tale about the
halfpenny; sometimes he got the halfpenny, and sometimes not.</p>

<p class="i1">"He has seen the other children beaten. The little girls standing
at the drawing-head. They would run home and fetch their
mothers sometimes.</p>

<p class="i1">"Hears the spinners swear very bad at their piecers, and sees
'em lick 'em sometimes; some licks 'em with a strap, some licks
'em with hand; some straps is as long as your arm, some is very
thick, and some thin; don't know where they get the straps.
There is an overlooker in the room; he very seldom comes in;
they won't allow 'em if they knows of it. (Child volunteered
the last observation. Asked how she knew that the overlookers
would not allow the spinners to lick the little hands; answers,
'Because I've heard 'em say so.') Girls cry when struck
with straps; only one girl struck yesterday; they very seldom
strike 'em.</p>

<p class="i1">"There is an overlooker in the room, who is a man. The
doffer always scolds her when she is idle, not the overlooker; the
doffer is a girl. Sometimes sees her hit the little hands; always
hits them with her hands. Sometimes the overlooker hits the
little hands; always with her hand when she does. Her mother
is a throstle-spinner, in her room. The overseer scolds the little
hands; says he'll bag 'em; sometimes swears at 'em. Sometimes
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
overseer beats a 'little hand;' when he does it, it is always
with his open hand; it is not so very hard; sometimes on the
face, sometimes on the back. He never beats her. Some on 'em
cries when they are beat, some doesn't. He beats very seldom;
didn't beat any yesterday, nor last week, nor week before;
doesn't know how long it is ago since she has seen him strike a
girl. If our little helper gets careless we may have occasion to
correct her a bit. Some uses 'em very bad; beats 'em; but only
with the hand; and pulls their ears. Some cry, but not often.
Ours is a good overlooker, but has heard overlookers curse very
bad. The women weavers themselves curse. Has never cursed
herself. Can say so honestly from her heart.</p>

<p class="i1">"Drawers are entirely under the control of the weavers, said a
master; they must obey their employer; if they do not they are
sometimes beat and sometimes discharged. <i>I chastise them occasionally
with alight whip</i>; do not allow it by my workmen; sometimes
they are punished with a fool's-cap, sometimes with a <i>cane</i>,
but not severely."</p>

<p class="i1">"William M. Beath, of Mr. Owen's New Lanark Mills, deposed:
'Thinks things improved under Mr. Owen's management.
Recollects seeing children beaten very severe at times. He himself
has been beaten very sore, so bad that his head was not in
its useful state for several days. Recollects, in particular, one
boy—James Barry—who was very unfond of working in the mill,
who was always beaten to his work by his father, with his hands
and feet; the boy was then beaten with a strap by the overseers,
for being too late, and not being willing to come. Has seen him
so beaten by Robert Shirley, William Watson, and Robert Sim.
The boy, James Barry, never came properly to manhood. It was
always conjectured that he had too many beatings. He was the
cruellest beat boy ever I saw there. There was a boy, whose
name he does not recollect, and while he (W. M. B.) was working as
a weaver at Lanark, having left the mill, and his death was attributed
by many to a kick in the groin from Peter Gall, an overseer.
Does not recollect whether the ill usage of the children
above alluded to took place in Mr. Owen's time, or before he
came; but there was certainly a great improvement, in many respects,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
under his management, particularly in cleanliness, shorter
hours, and the establishment of schools. Has been three years
employed in his present situation. Has two children of his own
in the mill. Does not believe (and he has every opportunity of
knowing) that the children of this mill have been tampered with
by anybody, with a view to their testimony before the commissioners,
and that they are not afraid to tell the truth. He
himself would, on account of his children, like a little shorter
hours and a little less wages; they would then have a better
opportunity of attending a night-school.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Henry Dunn, aged twenty-seven, a spinner: 'Has been five
years on this work. Went at eight years of age to Mr. Dunn's
mill at Duntochar; that was a country situation, and much
healthier than factories situated in town. They worked then
from six to eight; twelve hours and a half for work, and one
hour and a half for meals. Liked that mill as well as any he
ever was in. Great attention was paid to the cleanliness and
comfort of the people. The wages were lower there at that time
than they were at Glasgow. After leaving Duntochar, he came
into town to see Mr. Humphrey's, (now Messrs. Robert Thompson,)
which was at that time one continued scene of oppression.
A system of cruelty prevailed there at that time, which was confined
almost entirely to that work. The wheels were very small,
and young men and women of the ages of seventeen and eighteen
were the spinners. There was a tenter to every flat, and he was
considered as a sort of whipper-in, to force the children to extra
exertion. Has seen wounds inflicted upon children by tenters,
by Alexander Drysdale, among others, with a belt or stick, or
the first thing that came uppermost. Saw a kick given by the
above-mentioned Alexander Drysdale, which broke two ribs of a
little boy. Helped to carry the boy down to a surgeon. The
boy had been guilty of some very trifling offence, such as calling
names to the next boy. But the whole was the same; all the
tenters were alike. Never saw any ill-treatment of the children
at this mill. Mr. Stevenson is a very fine man. The machinery
in the spinning department is quite well boxed in—it could not be
better; but the cards might be more protected with great advantage.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
It is very hot in winter, but he can't tell how hot. There
is no thermometer.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Ellen Ferrier, aged thirteen; carries bobbins: 'Has been
three years in this mill. Was one year before in another mill in
this town; doesn't like neither of them very well, because she
was always very tired from working from half-past five o'clock
in the morning until half-past seven, with only two intervals of
half an hour each. She sometimes falls asleep now. She
worked formerly in the lower flat. When Charles Kennedy was
the overseer he licked us very bad, beat our heads with his hand,
and kicked us very bad when the ends were down. He was aye
licking them, and my gademother (stepmother) has two or three
times complained to Mr. Shanks, (senior,) and Mr. S. always told
him about it, but he never minded. Does not know what he left
the mill for. A good many folks went away from this mill just
for Kennedy. Can read; cannot write.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Mary Scott, aged fourteen: 'Has been here two years. Was
here with Charles Kennedy. When he has seen us just speaking
to one another, he struck us with his hands and with his feet. He
beat us when he saw any of the ends down. Has seen him strike
Ellen Ferrier (the last witness) very often, just with his hands;
and has seen him strike Betty Sutherland; can't tell how often,
but it was terrible often.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Euphemia Anderson, aged twenty: 'Has been three years at
this mill; has been in different mills since she was seven years
old. About six years ago she was taken ill with pains in the
legs, and remained ill for three years. I wasn't able to stand.
Thinks it was the standing so long that made her ill. She is now
again quite in good health, except that she is sair-footed sometimes.
They have seats to sit down upon. When the work is
bad, we cannot get time to sit down. When the flax is good we
have a good deal of time. Has never seen children beat by
Charles Kennedy, but has heard talk of it; has often heard them
complain of him, never of anybody else. Can read; cannot
write. Never went to a school; never had muckle time. She
would give up some of her wages to have shorter hours. Her
usual dinner is broth and potatoes.'"</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">The next evidence is particularly valuable, as it
came from a person who had left the factory work;
and having an independent business, he may be presumed
to have spoken without fear or favour:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"William Campbell, aged thirty-seven: 'Is a grocer, carrying
on business in Belfast. Was bred up a cotton-spinner. Went
first as a piecer to his father, who was a spinner at Mr. Hussy's
mill, Graham Square, Glasgow, and afterward to several mills in
this place, among which was Mr. John McCrackan's, where he
was, altogether, piecer and spinner between four and five years,
(1811-1818.) There was a regulation at that time there, that
every hand should be fined if five minutes too late at any working
hour in the morning and after meals—the younger 5<i>d.</i>, which
amounted to the whole wages of some of the lesser ones; the
older hands were fined as high as 10<i>d.</i> The treatment of the
children at that time was very cruel. Has seen Robert Martin,
the manager, continually beating the children—with his hands
generally, sometimes with his clenched fist. Has often seen his
sister Jane, then about fourteen, struck by him; and he used to
pinch her ears till the blood came, and pull her hair. The faults
were usually very trifling. If on coming in he should find any
girl combing her hair, that was an offence for which he would
beat her severely, and he would do so if he heard them talking
to one another. He never complained of the ill-usage of his
sister, because he believed if he did, his father and two sisters,
who were both employed in the mill, would have been immediately
dismissed. A complaint was made by the father of a little
girl, against Martin, for beating a child. Mr. Ferrer, the police
magistrate, admonished him. He was a hot-headed, fiery man,
and when he saw the least fault, or what he conceived to be a
fault, he just struck them at once. Does not recollect any child
getting a lasting injury from any beating here. The treatment
of the children at the mill was the only thing which could be
called cruelty which he had witnessed. One great hardship to
people employed in the factories is the want of good water,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>
which exists in most of them. At only one of the mills which he
worked at was there water such as could be drunk brought into
the flats, and that was Mr. Holdsworth's mill, Anderson, Glasgow.
From what he recollects of his own and his sister's feelings,
he considers the hours which were then and are still commonly
occupied in actual labour—viz. twelve hours and a half
per day—longer than the health of children can sustain, and also
longer than will admit of any time being reserved in the evening
for their instruction.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">These instances of steady, systematic cruelty, in the
treatment of children, go far beyond any thing recorded
of slave-drivers in other countries. If an American
overseer was to whip a slave to death, an awful groan
would express the horror of English lords and ladies.
But in the factories of Great Britain we have helpless
children not only kicked and beaten, but liable at any
moment to receive a mortal wound from the billy-roller
of an exasperated slubber. Here is more evidence,
which we cannot think will flag in interest:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"John Gibb, eleven years old, solemnly sworn, deposes, 'that
he has been about three years a piecer in one of the spinning-rooms;
that the heat and confinement makes his feet sair, and
makes him sick and have headaches, and he often has a stitch in
his side; that he is now much paler than he used to be; that he
receives 4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a week, which he gives to his mother; that he is
very desirous of short hours, that he might go to school more than
he can do at present; that the spinners often lick him, when he
is in fault, with taws of leather.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Alexander Wylie, twenty-six years old, solemnly sworn, deposes,
'that he is a spinner in one of the spinning departments;
that most of the spinners keep taws to preserve their authority,
but he does not; that he has seen them pretty severely whipped,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
when they were in fault; that he has seen piecers beat by the
overseers, even with their clenched fists; that he has seen both
boys and girls so treated; that he has seen John Ewan beating
his little piecers severely, even within these few weeks; that
when he had a boy as a piecer, he beat him even more severely
than the girls; that he never saw a thermometer in his flat, till
to-day, when, in consequence of a bet, the heat was tried, and it
was found to be 72°, but that they are spinning coarser cotton in
his flat than in some of the other flats, where greater heat is
requisite.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Bell Sinclair, thirteen years old, solemnly sworn, deposes,
'that she has been about four years in the same flat with John
Gibb, a preceding witness; that all the spinners in the apartment
keep a leather strap, or taws, with which to punish the
piecers, both boys and girls—the young ones chiefly when they
are negligent; that she has been often punished by Francis Gibb
and by Robert Clarke, both with taws and with their hands, and
with his open cuff; that he has licked her on the side of the head
and on her back with his hands, and with the strap on her back
and arms; that she was never much the worse of the beating,
although she has sometimes cried and shed tears when Gibb or
Clarke was hitting her sair.' Deposes that she cannot write.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mary Ann Collins, ten years old, solemnly sworn, deposes,
'that she has been a year in one of the spinning-rooms in which
John Ewan is a spinner; that yesterday he gave her a licking
with the taws; that all the spinners keep taws except Alexander
Wylie; that he beat her once before till she grat; that she has
sometimes a pain in her breast, and was absent yesterday on that
account.' Deposes that she cannot write.</p>

<p class="i1">"Daniel McGinty, twenty-two years old, solemnly sworn,
deposes, 'that he has been nearly two years a spinner here;
that he notices the piecers frequently complain of bad health;
that he was a petitioner for short hours, so that the people might
have more time for their education as well as for health; that he
had a strap to punish the children when they were in fault, but
he has not had one for some time, and the straps are not so common
now as they were formerly; that he and the other spinners
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
prefer giving the piecers a lick on the side of the head with their
hands, than to use a strap at all; that he has seen instances of
piecers being knocked down again and again, by a blow from the
hand, in other mills, but not since he came to this one; that he
has been knocked down himself in Barrowfield mill, by Lauchlin
McWharry, the spinner to whom he was a piecer.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Isabella Stewart, twenty-two years old, solemnly sworn, deposes,
'that she has been four years at this mill, and several
years at other mills; that she is very hoarse, and subject to
cough, and her feet and ankles swell in the evening; that she is
very anxious for short hours—thirteen hours are real lang hours—but
she has nothing else to find fault with; that Alexander
Simpson straps the young workers, and even gives her, or any of
the workers, if they are too late, a lick with the strap across the
shoulders; that he has done this within a week or two; that he
sometimes gives such a strap as to hurt her, but it is only when
he is in a passion.' Deposes that 'she cannot write. In the
long hours they canna get time to write nor to do nae thing.'</p>

<p class="i1">"James Patterson, aged sixty years, solemnly sworn, deposes,
'that he is an overseer in Messrs. James and William Brown's
flax-spinning mill, at Dundee, and has been in their employment
for about seven years; that he was previously at the spinning
mill at Glamis for twelve years, and there lost his right hand
and arm, caught by the belt of the wheels, in the preparing
floor; that he is in the reeling flat, with the women, who are
tired and sleepy; one of them—Margaret Porter—at present in
bed, merely from standing so long for a fortnight past; that it
would be God's blessing for every one to have shorter hours;
that he has been about forty years in spinning-mills, and has
seen the young people so lashed with a leather belt that they
could hardly stand: that at Trollick, a mill now given up, he has
seen them lashed, skin naked, by the manager, James Brown;
that at Moniferth he has seen them taken out of bed, when they
did not get up in time, and lashed with horsewhips to their work,
carrying their clothes, while yet naked, to the work, in their arms
with them.'</p>

<p class="i1">"William Roe, (examined at his own request:) 'I am constable
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
of Radford. I was in the army. I went to work with Mr.
Wilson in 1825. I had been with Strutts, at Belper, before
that. The reason I left was this: I was told the overlooker was
leathering one of my boys. I had two sons there. The overlooker
was Crooks. I found him strapping the boy, and I struck
him. I did not stop to ask whether the boy had done any thing.
I had heard of his beating him before. Smith came up, and said
I should work there no more till I had seen Mr. Wilson. My
answer was, that neither I nor mine should ever work more for
such a mill as that was. It was but the day before I took the
boy to Smith, to show him that he had no time to take his victuals
till he came out at twelve. There was no satisfaction, but
he laughed at it. That was the reason I took the means into my
own hands. Crooks threatened to fetch a warrant for me, but
did not. I told him the master durst not let him. The boy had
been doing nothing, only could not keep up his work enough to
please them. I left the mill, and took away my sons. One was
ten, the other was between eight and nine. They went there
with me. The youngest was not much past eight when he went.
I heard no more of it. I put all my reasons down in a letter to
Mr. Wilson, but I heard no more of it. Smith was sent away
afterward, but I don't know why. I have heard it was for different
ill-usages. Crooks is there now. Hogg was the overlooker
in my room. I have often seen him beat a particular boy who
was feeding cards. One day he pulled his ear till he pulled it
out of the socket, and it bled very much. I mean he tore the
bottom of the ear from the head. I went to him and said, if that
boy was mine I'd give him a better threshing than ever he had
in his life. It was reported to Mr. S. Wilson, and he told me I
had better mind my own business, and not meddle with the overlookers.
I never heard that the parents complained. Mr. S. Wilson
is dead now. Mr. W. Wilson said to me afterward, I had
made myself very forward in meddling with the overlookers' business.
I was to have come into the warehouse at Nottingham, but
in consequence of my speaking my mind I lost the situation. I
never had any complaint about my work while I was there, nor
at Mr. Strutt's. I left Mr. Strutt's in hopes to better myself. I
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
came as a machine smith. I went back to Mr. Strutt's, at Milford,
after I left Wilson, for two years. The men never had more
than twenty-five minutes for their dinner, and no extra pay for
stopping there. I dressed the top cards, and ground them. I
never heard that Mr. Wilson proposed to stop the breakfast hour,
and that the hands wished to go on. I don't think such a thing
could be. Whilst I worked there we always went in at half-past
five, and worked till nigh half-past seven. We were never paid
a farthing overtime. At Strutt's, if ever we worked an hour
overtime, we were paid an hour and a half. I have seen Smith
take the girls by the hair with one hand, and slap them in
the face with the other; big and little, it made no difference.
He worked there many years before he was turned away. He
works in the mill again now, but not as an overlooker. I
never knew of any complaint to the magistrate against Smith.
I had 12<i>s.</i> when I was there for standing wages. It was about
nine in the morning my boy was beat. I think it was in the
middle of the day the boy's ear was pulled. The work was
very severe there while it lasted. A boy generally had four
breakers and finisher-cards to mind. Such a boy might mind
six when he had come on to eleven or twelve; I mean finishers.
A boy can mind from three to four breakers. Any way they had
not time to get their victuals. I don't know what the present
state of the mill is as to beating. Men will not complain to the
magistrates while work is so scarce, and they are liable to be
turned out; and if they go to the parish, why there it is, 'Why,
you had work, why did you not stay at it?'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">Robert Blincoe, a small manufacturer, once an apprentice
to a cotton mill, and one who had seen and
suffered much in factories, was sworn and examined by
Dr. Hawkins, on the 18th of May, 1833. In the evidence,
which follows, it will be noted that most of the
sufferers mentioned were parish children, without protectors
of any kind:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Do you know where you were born?' 'No; I only know
that I came out of St. Pancras parish, London.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you know the name of your parents?' 'No. I used to
be called, when young, Robert Saint; but when I received my
indentures I was called Robert Blincoe; and I have gone by that
name ever since.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What age are you?' 'Near upon forty, according to my
indentures."</p>

<p class="i1">"'Have you no other means of knowing your age but what
you find in your indentures?' 'No, I go by that.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you work at a cotton mill?' 'Not now. I was bound
apprentice to a cotton mill for fourteen years, from St. Pancras
parish; then I got my indentures. I worked five or six years
after, at different mills, but now I have got work of my own. I
rent power from a mill in Stockport, and have a room to myself.
My business is a sheet wadding manufacturer.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Why did you leave off working at the cotton mills?' 'I
got tired of it, the system is so bad; and I had saved a few
pounds. I got deformed there; my knees began to bend in when
I was fifteen; you see how they are, (showing them.) There are
many, many far worse than me at Manchester.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Can you take exercise with ease?' 'A very little makes
me sweat in walking. I have not the strength of those who are
straight.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Have you ever been in a hospital, or under doctors, for your
knees or legs?' 'Never in a hospital, or under doctors for that,
but from illness from over-work I have been. When I was near
Nottingham there were about eighty of us together, boys and
girls, all 'prenticed out from St. Pancras parish, London, to cotton
mills; many of us used to be ill, but the doctors said it was
only for want of kitchen physic, and want of more rest.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Had you any accidents from machinery?' 'No, nothing to
signify much; I have not myself, but I saw, on the 6th of March
last, a man killed by machinery at Stockport; he was smashed,
and he died in four or five hours; I saw him while the accident
took place; he was joking with me just before; it was in my own
room. I employ a poor sore cripple under me, who could not
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
easily get work anywhere else. A young man came good-naturedly
from another room to help my cripple, and he was accidentally
drawn up by the strap, and was killed. I have known
many such accidents take place in the course of my life.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Recollect a few.' 'I cannot recollect the exact number, but
I have known several: one was at Lytton Mill, at Derbyshire;
another was the master of a factory at Staley Bridge, of the
name of Bailey. Many more I have known to receive injuries,
such as the loss of a limb. There is plenty about Stockport that
is going about now with one arm; they cannot work in the
mills, but they go about with jackasses and such like. One girl,
Mary Richards, was made a cripple, and remains so now, when I
was in Lowdham mill, near Nottingham. She was lapped up by
a shaft underneath the drawing-frame. That is now an old-fashioned
machinery.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Have you any children?' 'Three.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you send them to factories?' 'No. I would rather
have them transported. In the first place, they are standing
upon one leg, lifting up one knee a greater part of the day, keeping
the ends up from the spindle. I consider that that employment
makes many cripples; then there is the heat and dust;
then there are so many different forms of cruelty used upon
them; then they are so liable to have their fingers catched, and
to suffer other accidents from the machinery; then the hours is
so long that I have seen them tumble down asleep among the
straps and machinery, and so get cruelly hurt; then I would not
have a child of mine there, because there is not good morals;
there is such a lot of them together that they learn mischief.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What do you do with your children?' 'My eldest of thirteen
has been to school, and can teach me. She now stays at
home, and helps her mother in the shop. She is as tall as me,
and is very heavy. Very different from what she would have
been if she had worked in a factory. My two youngest go to
school, and are both healthy. I send them every day two miles
to school. I know from experience the ills of confinement.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What are the forms of cruelty that you spoke of just now as
being practised upon children in factories?' 'I have seen the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
time when two hand-vices, of a pound weight each, more or less,
have been screwed to my ears at Lytton mill, in Derbyshire.
Here are the scars still remaining behind my ears. Then three
or four of us have been hung at once to a cross-beam above the
machinery, hanging by our hands, without shirts or stockings.
Mind, we were apprentices, without father or mother, to take care
of us; I don't say they often do that now. Then, we used to
stand up, in a skip, without our shirts, and be beat with straps
or sticks; the skip was to prevent us from running away from
the strap.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you think such things are done now in Manchester?'
'No, not just the same things; but I think the children are still
beaten by overlookers; not so much, however, in Manchester,
where justice is always at hand, as in country places. Then they
used to tie on a twenty-eight pounds weight, (one or two at once,)
according to our size, to hang down on our backs, with no shirts
on. I have had them myself. Then they used to tie one leg up
to the faller, while the hands were tied behind. I have a book
written about these things, describing my own life and sufferings.
I will send it to you.'<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a></p>

<p class="i1">"'Do the masters know of these things, or were they done only
by the overlookers?' 'The masters have often seen them, and
have been assistants in them.'</p></div>

<p class="i1">The work is so protracted that the children are exhausted,
and many become crippled from standing too
long in unhealthy positions:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"John Wright, steward in the silk factory of Messrs. Brinsley
and Shatwell, examined by Mr. Tufnell.</p>

<p class="i1">"'What are the effects of the present system of labour?' 'From
my earliest recollections, I have found the effects to be awfully
detrimental to the well-being of the operative; I have observed,
frequently, children carried to factories, unable to walk, and that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>
entirely owing to excessive labour and confinement. The degradation
of the work-people baffles all description; frequently have
two of my sisters been obliged to be assisted to the factory and
home again, until by and by they could go no longer, being totally
crippled in their legs. And in the next place, I remember
some ten or twelve years ago working in one of the largest firms
in Macclesfield, (Messrs. Baker and Pearson,) with about twenty-five
men, where they were scarce one-half fit for his majesty's
service. Those that are straight in their limbs are stunted in
their growth, much inferior to their fathers in point of strength.
3dly. Through excessive labour and confinement there is often a
total loss of appetite; a kind of languor steals over the whole
frame, enters to the very core, saps the foundation of the best constitution,
and lays our strength prostrate in the dust. In the
fourth place, by protracted labour there is an alarming increase
of cripples in various parts of this town, which has come under
my own observation and knowledge.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">Young sufferers gave the following evidence to the
commissioners:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Many a time has been so fatigued that she could hardly take
off her clothes at night, or put them on in the morning; her mother
would be raging at her, because when she sat down she could
not get up again through the house.' 'Looks on the long hours
as a great bondage.' 'Thinks they are not much better than the
Israelites in Egypt, and their life is no pleasure to them.' 'When
a child, was so tired that she could seldom eat her supper, and
never awoke of herself.'—'Are the hours to be shortened?' earnestly
demanded one of these girls of the commissioner who was
examining her, 'for they are too long.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">The truth of the account given by the children of
the fatigue they experience by the ordinary labour of
the factory is confirmed by the testimony of their
parents. In general, the representation made by parents
is like the following:
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Her children come home so tired and worn out they can
hardly eat their supper.' 'Has often seen his daughter come
home in the evening so fatigued that she would go to bed supper-less,'
'Has seen the young workers absolutely oppressed, and
unable to sit down or rise up; this has happened to his own
children.'</p></div>

<p class="i1">These statements are confirmed by the evidence of
the adult operatives. The depositions of the witnesses
of this class are to the effect, that "the younger workers
are greatly fatigued;" that "children are often very
severe (unwilling) in the mornings;" that "children are
quite tired out;" that "the long hours exhaust the
workers, especially the young ones, to such a degree
that they can hardly walk home;" that "the young
workers are absolutely oppressed, and so tired as to be
unable to sit down or rise up;" that "younger workers
are so tired they often cannot raise their hands to their
head;" that "all the children are very keen for short
hours, thinking them now such bondage that they might
as well be in a prison;" that "the children, when engaged
in their regular work, are often exhausted beyond what
can be expressed;" that "the sufferings of the children
absolutely require that the hours should be shortened."</p>

<p class="i1">The depositions of the overlookers are to the same
effect, namely, that "though the children may not complain,
yet that they seem tired and sleepy, and happy
to get out of doors to play themselves. That, "the
work over-tires the workers in general." "Often sees
the children very tired and stiff-like." "Is entirely of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
opinion, after real experience, that the hours of labour
are far too long for the children, for their health and
education; has from twenty-two to twenty-four boys
under his charge, from nine to about fourteen years old,
and they are generally much tired at night, always
anxious, asking if it be near the mill-stopping." "Never
knew a single worker among the children that did not
complain of the long hours, which prevent them from
getting education, and from getting health in the open
air."</p>

<p class="i1">The managers in like manner state, that "the labour
exhausts the children;" that "the workers are tired in
the evening;" that "children inquire anxiously for the
hour of stopping." And admissions to the same effect,
on the part of managers and proprietors, will be found
in every part of the Scotch depositions.</p>

<p class="i1">In the north-eastern district the evidence is equally
complete that the fatigue of the young workers is great.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'I have known the children,' says one witness, 'to hide themselves
in the store among the wool, so that they should not go
home when the work was over, when we have worked till ten or
eleven. I have seen six or eight fetched out of the store and beat
home; beat out of the mill however; I do not know why they
should hide themselves, unless it was that they were too tired to
go home.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Many a one I have had to rouse in the last hour, when the
work is very slack, from fatigue.' 'The children were very much
jaded, especially when we worked late at night.' 'The children
bore the long hours very ill indeed.' 'Exhausted in body and
depressed in mind by the length of the hours and the height of
the temperature.' 'I found, when I was an overlooker, that, after
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
the children from eight to twelve years had worked eight, nine,
or ten hours, they were nearly ready to faint; some were asleep;
some were only kept to work by being spoken to, or by a little
chastisement, to make them jump up. I was sometimes obliged
to chastise them when they were almost fainting, and it hurt my
feelings; then they would spring up and work pretty well for
another hour; but the last two or three hours were my hardest
work, for they then got so exhausted,' 'I have never seen fathers
carrying their children backward nor forward to the factories;
but I have seen children, apparently under nine, and from nine
to twelve years of age, going to the factories at five in the morning
almost asleep in the streets.'"</p>

<p class="i1">"Ellen Cook, card-filler: 'I was fifteen last winter. I worked
on then sometimes day and night;—may be twice a week; I used
to earn 4<i>s.</i> a week; I used to go home to dinner; I was a feeder
then; I am a feeder still. We used to come at half-past eight at
night, and work all night till the rest of the girls came in the
morning; they would come at seven, I think. Sometimes we
worked on till half-past eight the next night, after we had been
working all the night before. We worked on meal-hours, except
at dinner. I have done that sometimes three nights a week, and
sometimes four nights. It was just as the overlooker chose. John
Singleton; he is overlooker now. Sometimes the slubbers would
work on all night too; not always. The pieceners would have to
stay all night then too. It was not often though that the slubbers
worked all night. We worked by ourselves. It was when one of the
boilers was spoiled; that was the reason we had to work all night.
The engine would not carry all the machines. I was paid for the
over-hours when we worked day and night; not for meal-hours.
We worked meal-hours, but were not paid for them. George Lee
is the slubber in this room. He has worked all night; not often,
I think; not above twice all the time we worked so; sometimes
he would not work at all. The pieceners would work too when
he did. They used to go to sleep, poor things! when they had
over-hours in the night. I think they were ready enough to sleep
sometimes, when they only worked in the daytime. I never was a
piecener; sometimes I go to help them when there are a good
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>
many cardings. We have to get there by half-past five, in the
morning, now. The engine begins then. We don't go home to
breakfast. Sometimes we have a quarter of an hour; sometimes
twenty minutes; sometimes none. Them in the top-room have a
full half hour. We can't take half an hour if we like it; we should
get jawed; we should have such a noise, we should not hear the
last of it. The pieceners in this room (there were four) have the
same time as we do. In some of the rooms they forfeit them if
they are five minutes too late; they don't in this room. The
slubber often beats the pieceners. He has a strap, and wets it,
and gives them a strap over the hands, poor things! They cry
out ever so loud sometimes; I don't know how old they are.'"</p>

<p class="i1">"James Simpson, aged twenty-four, solemnly sworn, deposes:
'That he has been about fifteen years in spinning mills; that he
has been nearly a year as an overseer in Mr. Kinmond's mill here,
and was dismissed on the 2d of May, for supporting, at a meeting
of the operatives, the Ten Hours Bill; that he was one of the persons
to receive subscriptions, in money, to forward the business,
and was dismissed, not on a regular pay-day, but on a Thursday
evening, by James Malcolm, manager, who told him that he was
dismissed for being a robber to his master in supporting the Ten
Hours Bill; that by the regulations of the mill he was entitled to
a week's notice, and that a week's wages were due to him at the
time, but neither sum has been paid; that he was two or three times
desired by the overseer to strike the boys if he saw them at any
time sitting, and has accordingly struck them with a strap, but never
so severely as to hurt them; that he is not yet employed.' And
the preceding deposition having been read over to him, he was
cautioned to be perfectly sure that it was true in all particulars,
as it would be communicated to the overseer named by him, and
might still be altered if, in any particular, he wished the change
of a word; but he repeated his assertion, on oath, that it was.</p>

<p class="i1">"Ann Kennedy, sixteen years old, solemnly sworn, deposes:
'That she has been nearly a year a piecer to James McNish, a
preceding witness; that she has had swelled feet for about a year,
but she thinks them rather better; that she has a great deal of
pain, both in her feet and legs, so that she was afraid she would
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>
not be able to go on with the work; that she thought it was owing
to the heat and the long standing on her feet; that it is a very
warm room she is in; that she sometimes looks at the thermometer
and sees it at 82°, or 84, or 86°; that all the people in the
room are very pale, and a good deal of them complaining.' Deposes,
that she cannot write.</p>

<p class="i1">"Joseph Hurtley, aged forty-four: 'Is an overlooker of the
flax-dressing department. Has been there since the commencement.
Thinks, from what he observes, that the hours are too
long for children. Is led to think so from seeing the children
much exhausted toward the conclusion of the work. When he
came here first, and the children were all new to the work, he
found that by six o'clock they began to be drowsy and sleepy.
He took different devices to keep them awake, such as giving
them snuff, &amp;c.; but this drowsiness partly wore off in time, from
habit, but he still observes the same with all the boys, (they are
all boys in his department,) and it continues with them for some
time. Does not know whether the children go to school in the
evening, but he thinks, from their appearance, that they would
be able to receive very little benefit from tuition.</p>

<p class="i1">"'The occupation of draw-boys and girls to harness hand-loom
weavers, in their own shops, is by far the lowest and least sought
after of any connected with the manufacture of cotton. They are
poor, neglected, ragged, dirty children. They seldom are taught
any thing, and they work as long as the weaver, that is, as long
as they can see, standing on the same spot, always barefooted, on
an earthen, cold, damp floor, in a close, damp cellar, for thirteen
or fourteen hours a day.</p>

<p class="i1">"'The power-loom dressers have all been hand-loom weavers,
but now prevent any more of their former companions from being
employed in their present business.</p>

<p class="i1">"'They earn 2<i>s.</i> per week, and eat porridge, if their parents
can afford it; if not, potatoes and salt. They are, almost always,
between nine and thirteen years of age, and look healthy, though
some have been two or three years at the business; while the
weaver, for whom they draw, is looking pale, squalid, and underfed.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'There are some hundreds of children thus employed in the
immediate neighbourhood of Glasgow.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">In Leicester, Mr. Drinkwater, of the Factory Commission,
found that great cruelty was practised upon
the children employed in some of the factories, by the
workmen called "slubbers," for whom the young creatures
act as piecers. Thomas Hough, a trimmer and
dyer, who had worked at Robinson's factory, deposed—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'The children were beaten at the factory; I complained, and
they were turned away. If I could have found the man at the
time there would have something happened, I am sure. I knew
the man; it was the slubber with whom they worked. His name
was Smith. Robinson had the factory then. I had my second
son in to Mr. Robinson, and stripped him, and showed him how
cruelly he had been beaten. There were nineteen bruises on his
back and posteriors. It was not with the billy-roller. It was
with the strap. He has often been struck with the billy-roller
at other times, over the head. Robinson rebuked the man, and
said he should not beat them any more. The children were beat
several times after that; and on account of my making frequent
complaints they turned the children away. They worked with
Smith till they left. Smith was of a nasty disposition, rather.
I would say of the slubbers generally, that they are a morose, ill-tempered
set. Their pay depends on the children's work. The
slubbers are often off drinking, and then they must work harder
to get the cardings up. I have seen that often. That is in the
lamb's-wool trade. Mr. Gamble is one of the most humane men
that ever lived, by all that I hear, and he will not allow the slubbers
to touch the children, on any pretence; if they will not
work, he turns them away. There gets what they call flies on
the cardings, that is, when the cardings are not properly pieced;
and it is a general rule to strike the children when that happens
too often. They allow so many ratched cardings, as they call
them, in a certain time; and if there are more, they call the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
children round to the billy-gate and strap them. I have seen the
straps which some of them use; they are as big as the strap on
my son's lathe yonder, about an inch broad, (looking at it.) Oh,
it is bigger than this, (it measured 7-8ths.) It is about an inch.
I have seen the children lie down on the floor, and the slubber
strike on them as they lay. It depends entirely on the temper of
the man; sometimes they will only swear at them, sometimes
they will beat them. They will be severe with them at one time,
and very familiar at another, and run on with all sorts of debauched
language, and take indecent liberties with the feeders
and other big girls, before the children. That is the reason why
they call the factories hell-holes. There are some a good deal different.
The overlookers do not take much notice generally. They
pick out bullies, generally, for overlookers. It is very necessary
to have men of a determined temper to keep the hands in order.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I have known my children get strapped two or three times
between a meal. At all times of the day. Sometimes they
would escape for a day or two together, just as it might happen.
Then they get strapped for being too late. They make the children
sum up, that is, pick up the waste, and clean up the billies
during the meal-time, so that the children don't get their time.
The cruelty complained of in the factories is chiefly from the
slubbers. There is nobody so closely connected with the children
as the slubbers. There is no other part of the machinery
with which I am acquainted where the pay of the man depends
on the work of the children so much.'"</p>

<p class="i1">"Joseph Badder, a slubber, deposed: 'Slubbing and spinning
is very heavy. Those machines are thrown aside now. The
spinners did not like them, nor the masters neither. They did
not turn off such stuff as they expected. I always found it more
difficult to keep my piecers awake the last hours of a winter's
evening. I have told the master, and I have been told by him
that I did not half hide them. This was when they were working
from six to eight. I have known the children hide themselves
in the store among the wool, so that they should not go home
when the work was over, when we have worked till ten or eleven.
I have seen six or eight fetched out of the store and beat home;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>
beat out of the mill. However, I do not know why they should
hide themselves, unless it was they were too tired to go home.
My piecers had two hours for meals. Other parts of the work I
have known them work children, from seven to twelve in age,
from six in the morning till ten or eleven at night, and give no
time for meals; eat their victuals as they worked; the engines
running all the time. The engine never stopped at meal-times;
it was just as the spinner chose whether the children worked on
or not. They made more work if they went on. I never would
allow any one to touch my piecers. The foreman would come at
times, and has strapped them, and I told him I would serve him
the same if he touched them. I have seen the man who worked
the other billy beat his piecers. I have seen children knocked
down by the billy-rollers. It is a weapon that a man will easily
take up in a passion. I do not know any instance of a man being
prosecuted for it. The parents are unwilling, for fear the children
should lose their work. I know Thorpe has been up before the
magistrate half a dozen times or more, on the complaint of the
parents. He has been before the bench, at the Exchange, as we
call it, and I have seen him when he came back, when the magistrates
have reprimanded Thorpe, and told the parents they had
better take the children away. After that he has been sometimes
half drunk, perhaps, and in a passion, and would strap them for
the least thing, more than he did before. I remember once that
he was fined; it was about two years and a half ago; it was for
beating a little girl; he was fined 10<i>s.</i> I have seen him strap
the women when they took the part of the children. The master
complained he was not strict enough. I know from Thorpe that
the master always paid his expenses when he was before the
magistrate. I believe they generally do in all the factories. I
have frequently had complaints against myself by the parents of
the children, for beating them. I used to beat them. I am sure
no man can do without it who works long hours; I am sure he
cannot. I told them I was very sorry after I had done it, but I
was forced to do it. The master expected me to do my work, and
I could not do mine unless they did theirs. One lad used to say
to me frequently, (he was a jocular kind of lad,) that he liked a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>
good beating at times, it helped him to do his work. I used to
joke with them to keep up their spirits. <i>I have seen them fall
asleep, and they have been performing their work with their hands
while they were asleep, after the billy had stopped, when their work
was done. I have stopped and looked at them for two minutes,
going through the motions of piecening, fast asleep, when there was
really no work to do, and they were really doing nothing.</i> I believe,
when we have been working long hours, that they have never
been washed, but on a Saturday night, for weeks together.</p>

<p class="i1">"Thomas Clarke, (examined at request of Joseph Badder:)
'I am aged eleven, I work at Cooper's factory; the rope-walk. I
spin there. I earn 4<i>s.</i> a week there. I have been there about
one year and a half. I was in Ross's factory before that. I was
piecener there. I piecened for Joseph Badder one while, then for
George Castle. I piecened for Badder when he left. Badder told
me I was wanted here. We have not been talking about it. I
remember that Jesse came to the machine, and Badder would not
let him go nigh, and so they got a scuffling about it. I was very
nigh nine years of age when I first went to piecen. I got 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>
a week, at first. I think I was a good hand at it. When I had
been there half a year I got 3<i>s.</i> Badder used to strap me some
odd times. Some odd times he'd catch me over the head, but it
was mostly on the back. He made me sing out. He has taken
the billy-roller to me sometimes; about four times, I think. He
used to take us over the shoulders with that; he would have done
us an injury if he had struck us over the head. I never saw any
one struck over the head with a billy-roller. He would strap us
about twelve times at once. He used to strap us sometimes over
the head. He used to strap us for letting his cards run through.
I believe it was my fault. If we had had cardings to go on with
we would have kept it from running through. It was nobody's
fault that there were no cardings, only the slubber's fault that
worked so hard. I have had, maybe, six stacks of cardings put
up while he was out. When he came in, he would work harder
to work down the stacks. Sometimes he would stop the card.
He used to strap us most when he was working hardest. He did
not strap us more at night than he did in the daytime. He would
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
sometimes stay half a day. When he was away, as soon as we
had six stacks of cardings up, the rule was to stop, and then we'd
pick up the waste about the room, and take a play sometimes, but
very seldom. Mr. Ross paid me. Badder never paid me when
he was out. I never got any money from Badder. I used sometimes
to fall asleep. The boy next to me used often to fall asleep:
John Breedon; he got many a stroke. That was when we were
working for Castle; that would be about six o'clock. He was
about the size of me; he was older than I was. They always
strapped us if we fell asleep. Badder was a better master than
Castle. Castle used to get a rope, about as thick as my thumb,
and double it, and put knots in it, and lick us with that. That
was a good bit worse than the strap. I was to no regular master
afterward; I used to do bits about the room. I ran away
because Thorpe used to come and strap me. He did not know
what he was strapping me for; it was just as he was in his
humours. I never saw such a man; he would strap any one
as did not please him. I only worked for him a week or two.
I didn't like it, and I ran away. He would strap me if even there
was a bit of waste lying about the room. I have had marks on
my back from Castle's strapping me.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">In Nottingham, also, there is much cruelty shown in
the treatment of the children, as will appear from the
following evidence taken by Mr. Power:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Williamson, the father: 'My two sons, one ten, the other
thirteen, work at Milnes's factory, at Lenton. They go at half-past
five in the morning; don't stop at breakfast or tea-time.
They stop at dinner half an hour. Come home at a quarter before
ten. They used to work till ten, sometimes eleven, sometimes
twelve. They earn between them 6<i>s.</i> 2<i>d.</i> per week. One of them,
the eldest, worked at Wilson's for 2 years at 2<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> a week. He
left because the overlooker beat him and loosened a tooth for him.
I complained, and they turned him away for it. They have been
gone to work sixteen hours now; they will be very tired when
they come home at half-past nine. I have a deal of trouble to get
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
'em up in the morning. I have been obliged to beat 'em with a
strap in their shirts, and to pinch 'em, in order to get them well
awake. It made me cry to be obliged to do it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did you make them cry?' 'Yes, sometimes. They will be
home soon, very tired, and you will see them.' I preferred walking
toward the factory to meet them. I saw the youngest only,
and asked him a few questions. He said, 'I'm sure I shan't stop
to talk to you; I want to go home and get to bed; I must be up
at half-past five again to-morrow morning.'</p>

<p class="i1">"G— — and A— —, examined. The boy: 'I am
going fourteen: my sister is eleven. I have worked in Milnes's
factory two years. She goes there also. We are both in the
clearing-room. I think we work too long hours; I've been badly
with it. We go at half-past five, give over at half-past nine. I'm
now just come home. We sometimes stay till twelve. We are
obliged to work over-hours. I have 4<i>s.</i> a week; that is, for staying
from six till seven. They pay for over-hours besides. I asked
to come away one night, lately, at eight o'clock, being ill; I was
told if I went I must not come again. I am not well now. I
can seldom eat any breakfast; my appetite is very bad. I have
had a bad cold for a week.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Father: 'I believe him to be ill from being over-worked. My
little girl came home the other day, cruelly beaten. I took her to
Mr. Milnes; did not see him, but showed Mrs. Milnes the marks.
I thought of taking it before a magistrate, but was advised to let
it drop. They might have turned both my children away. That
man's name is Blagg; he is always strapping the children. I
shan't let the boy go to them much longer; I shall try to apprentice
him; it's killing him by inches; he falls asleep over his
food at night. I saw an account of such things in the newspaper,
and thought how true it was of my own children.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Mother: 'I have worked in the same mills myself. The same
man was there then. I have seen him behave shocking to the
children. He would take 'em by the hair of the head and drag
'em about the room. He has been there twelve years. There's
a many young ones in that hot room. There's six of them badly
now, with bad eyes and sick-headache. This boy of ours has
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>
always been delicate from a child. His appetite is very bad now;
he does not eat his breakfast sometimes for two or three days
together. The little girl bears it well; she is healthy. I should
prefer their coming home at seven, without additional wages.
The practice of working over-hours has been constantly pursued
at Milnes's factory.'</p>

<p class="i1">"John Fortesque, at his own house, nine
<span class="sc">P.M.</span> 'I am an overlooker
in this factory. We have about one hundred hands. Forty
quite children; most of the remainder are young women. Our
regular day is from six to seven. It should be an hour for dinner,
but it is only half an hour. I don't know how it comes so. We
have had some bad men in authority who made themselves big;
it is partly the master. No time is allowed for tea or breakfast;
there used to be a quarter of an hour for each; it's altered now.
We call it twelve hours a day. Over-time is paid for extra. When
we are busy we work over-hours. Our present time is till half-past
nine. It has been so all winter, and since to this time. We
have some very young ones; as young as eight. I don't like to
take them younger; they're not able to do our work. We have
three doubling-rooms, a clearing-room, and a gassing-room. We
have about forty in the clearing-room. We occasionally find it
necessary to make a difference as to the time of keeping some of
the children. We have done so several times. Master has said:
Pick out the youngest, and let them go, and get some of the
young women to take their places. I am not the overlooker to the
clearing-room. Blagg is overlooker there; there has been many
complaints against him. He's forced to be roughish in order to
keep his place. If he did not keep the work going on properly
there would be some one to take his place who would. There
are some children so obstinate and bad they must be punished.
A strap is used. Beating is necessary, on account of their being
idle. We find it out often in this way: we give them the same
number of bobbins each; when the number they ought to finish
falls off, then they're corrected. They would try the patience of
any man. It is not from being tired, I think. It happens as
often in the middle of the day as at other times. I don't like the
beating myself; I would rather there were little deductions in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
their earnings for these offences. I am sure the children would
not like to have any of their earnings stopped; I am sure they
would mind it. From what I have heard parents say about their
children when at work, I am sure they (the parents) would
prefer this mode of correction; and, I think, it would have an effect
on the children. At the factory of Messrs. Mills and Elliot they
go on working all the night as well as day. I believe them to
have done so for the last year and a half; they have left it off
about a week. (<i>A respectable female here entered with a petition
against negro-slavery; after she was gone, Mr. Fortesque continued.</i>)
I think home slavery as bad as it can be abroad; worst of anywhere
in the factories. The hours we work are much too long
for young people. Twelve hours' work is enough for young or
old, confined in a close place. The work is light, but it's standing
so long that tires them. I have been here about two years;
I have seen bad effects produced on people's health by it, but not
to any great degree. It must be much worse at Mills and Elliot's;
working night as well as day, the rooms are never clear of people's
breaths. We set our windows open when we turn the hands out.
The gas, too, which they use at night, makes it worse.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">The italicised parenthesis is, <i>bonâ fide</i>, a part of the
Report, as may be proved by consulting the parliamentary
document. The <i>respectable female</i> was probably
the original of Dickens's Mrs. Jellaby.</p>

<p class="i1">Read these references to a case of barbarity in a
factory at Wigan:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="indent1_5"><i>Extract from a speech made by Mr. Grant, a Manchester spinner,
at a meeting held at Chorlton-upon-Medlock; reported in the
Manchester Courier of 20th April, 1833.</i></p></div>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Much was said of the black slaves and their chains. No
doubt they were entitled to freedom, but were there no slaves
except those of sable hue? Has slavery no sort of existence
among children of the factories? Yes, and chains were sometimes
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>
introduced, though those chains might not be forged of
iron. He would name an instance of this kind of slavery, which
took place at Wigan. A child, not ten years of age, having been
late at the factory one morning, had, as a punishment, a rope
put round its neck, to which a weight of twenty pounds was
attached; and, thus burdened like a galley-slave, it was compelled
to labour for a length of time in the midst of an impure
atmosphere and a heated room. [Loud cries of, Shame!] The
truth of this has been denied by Mr. Richard Potter, the member
for Wigan; but he (the speaker) reiterated its correctness. He
has seen the child; and its mother's eyes were filled with tears
while she told him this shocking tale of infant suffering."</p></div>

<div class="bq">

<p class="indent1_5"><i>Extract from a speech made by Mr. Oastler, on the occasion of a
meeting at the City of London Tavern; reported in the Times,
of the 25th of February, 1833.</i></p></div>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"In a mill at Wigan, the children, for any slight neglect, were
loaded with weights of twenty pounds, passed over their shoulders
and hanging behind their backs. Then there was a murderous
instrument called a billy-roller, about eight feet long and
one inch and a half in diameter, with which many children had
been knocked down, and in some instances murdered by it."</p></div>

<div class="bq">

<p class="indent1_5"><i>Extract from a speech made by Mr. Oastler, at a meeting held in
the theatre at Bolton, and reported in the Bolton Chronicle, of the
30th of March, 1833.</i></p></div>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"In one factory they have a door which covers a quantity of
cold water, in which they plunge the sleepy victim to awake it.
In Wigan they tie a great weight to their backs. I knew the
Russians made the Poles carry iron weights in their exile to Siberia,
but it was reserved for Christian England thus to use an
infant."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Rowland Detroiser deposed before the Central Board
of Commissioners, concerning the treatment of children
in the cotton factories:
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'The children employed in a cotton-factory labour, are not all
under the control or employed by the proprietor. A very considerable
number is employed and paid by the spinners and
stretchers, when there are stretchers. These are what are called
piecers and scavengers; the youngest children being employed in
the latter capacity, and as they grow up, for a time in the scavengers
and piecers. In coarse mills, that is, mills in which low
numbers of yarn are spun, the wages of the scavengers is commonly
from 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, according to size and ability. The
men do not practise the system of fining, generally speaking, and
especially toward these children. The sum which they earn is
so small it would be considered by many a shame to make it less.
They do not, however, scruple to give them a good bobbying, as
it is called; that is, beating them with a rope thickened at one
end, or, in some few brutal instances, with the combined weapons
of fist and foot.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'But this severity, you say, is practised toward the children
who are employed by the men, and not employed by the masters?'
'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And the men inflict the punishment?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Not the overlookers?' 'Not in these instances.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'But how do you reconcile your statement with the fact that
the men have been the principal complainers of the cruelties practised
toward the children, and also the parties who are most
active in endeavouring to obtain for the children legislative protection?'
'My statement is only fact. I do not profess to reconcile
the apparent inconsistency. The men are in some measure
forced by circumstances into the practice of that severity of
which I have spoken.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Will you explain these circumstances?' 'The great object in
a cotton mill is to turn as much work off as possible, in order to
compensate by quantity for the smallness of the profit. To that
end every thing is made subservient. There are two classes of
superintendents in those establishments. The first class are
what are called managers, from their great power and authority.
Their especial business is to watch over the whole concern, and
constantly to attend to the quantity and quality of the yarn, &amp;c.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>
turned off. To these individuals the second class, called overlookers,
are immediately responsible for whatever is amiss. The
business of overlookers is to attend to particular rooms and classes
of hands, for the individual conduct of which they are held responsible.
These individuals, in some mills, are paid in proportion
to the quantity of work turned off; in all, they are made responsible
for that quantity, as well as for the quality; and as the
speed of each particular machine is known, nothing is more easy
than to calculate the quantity which it ought to produce. This
quantity is the maximum; the minimum allowed is the least possible
deficiency, certain contingencies being taken into account.
In those mills in which the overlookers are paid in proportion to
the quantity of work turned off, interest secures the closest
attention to the conduct of every individual under them; and in
other mills, fear of losing their places operates to produce the
same effect. It is one continual system of driving; and, in order
to turn off as great a quantity of work as is possible, the manager
drives the overlookers, and the overlookers drive the men.
Every spinner knows that he must turn off the average quantity
of work which his wheels are capable of producing, or lose his
place if deficiencies are often repeated; and consequently, the
piecers and scavengers are drilled, in their turns, to the severest
attention. On their constant attention, as well as his own, depends
the quantity of work done. So that it is not an exaggeration
to say, that their powers of labour are subjected to the
severity of an undeviating exaction. A working man is estimated
in these establishments in proportion to his physical capacity
rather than his moral character, and therefore it is not
difficult to infer what must be the consequences. It begets a system
of debasing tyranny in almost every department, the most
demoralizing in its effects. Kind words are godsends in many
cotton factories, and oaths and blows the usual order of the day.
The carder must produce the required quantity of drawing and
roving; the spinner, the required quantity of yarn; a system of
overbearing tyranny is adopted toward everybody under them;
they are cursed into the required degree of attention, and blows
are resorted to with the children when oaths fail, and sometimes
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
even before an oath has been tried. In short, the men must do
work enough, or lose their places. It is a question between
losing their places and the exercise of severity of discipline in
all cases; between starvation and positive cruelty, in many.
There are exceptions, but my conviction is that they are comparatively
few indeed. To me the whole system has always
appeared one of tyranny."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Mr. Abraham Whitehead, clothier, of Scholes, near
Holmfirth, examined by Parliamentary Committee:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'What has been the treatment which you have observed that
these children have received at the mills, to keep them attentive
for so many hours, at so early ages?' 'They are generally
cruelly treated; so cruelly treated that they dare not, hardly for
their lives, be too late at their work in the morning. When I
have been at the mills in the winter season, when the children
are at work in the evening, the very first thing they inquire is,
"What o'clock is it?" If we should answer, "Seven," they say,
"Only seven! it is a great while to ten, but we must not give up
till ten o'clock, or past." They look so anxious to know what
o'clock it is that I am convinced the children are fatigued, and
think that, even at seven, they have worked too long. My heart
has been ready to bleed for them when I have seen them so
fatigued, for they appear in such a state of apathy and insensibility
as really not to know whether they are doing their work
or not. They usually throw a bunch of ten or twelve cordings
across the hand, and take one off at a time; but I have seen the
bunch entirely finished, and they have attempted to take off another,
when they have not had a cording at all; they have been
so fatigued as not to know whether they were at work or not.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do they frequently fall into errors and mistakes in piecing
when thus fatigued?' 'Yes; the errors they make when thus
fatigued are, that instead of placing the cording in this way,
(describing it,) they are apt to place them obliquely, and that
causes a flying, which makes bad yarn; and when the billy-spinner
sees that, he takes his strap, or the billy-roller, and says,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
"Damn thee, close it; little devil, close it;" and they strike the
child with the strap or billy roller.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You have noticed this in the after part of the day more particularly?'
'It is a very difficult thing to go into a mill in the
latter part of the day, particularly in winter, and not to hear
some of the children crying for being beaten for this very fault.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How are they beaten?' 'That depends on the humanity of
the slubber or billy-spinner. Some have been beaten so violently
that they have lost their lives in consequence of being so beaten;
and even a young girl has had the end of a billy-roller jammed
through her cheek.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What is the billy-roller?' 'A heavy rod of from two to
three yards long, and of two inches in diameter, and with an
iron pivot at each end. It runs on the top of the cording, over
the feeding-cloth. I have seen them take the billy-roller and rap
them on the head, making their heads crack so that you might
have heard the blow at a distance of six or eight yards, in spite
of the din and rolling of the machinery. Many have been
knocked down by the instrument. I knew a boy very well, of
the name of Senior, with whom I went to school; he was struck
with a billy-roller on the elbow; it occasioned a swelling; he was
not able to work more than three or four weeks after the blow;
and he died in consequence. There was a woman in Holmfirth
who was beaten very much: I am not quite certain whether on
the head; and she lost her life in consequence of being beaten
with a billy-roller. That which was produced (showing one) is
not the largest size; there are some a foot longer than that; it
is the most common instrument with which these poor little
pieceners are beaten, more commonly than with either stick or
strap.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How is it detached from the machinery?' 'Supposing this
to be the billy-frame, (describing it,) at each end there is a socket
open; the cording runs underneath here, just in this way, and
when the billy-spinner is angry, and sees the little piecener has
done wrong, he takes off this and says, "Damn thee, close it."'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You have seen the poor children in this situation?' 'I have
seen them frequently struck with the billy-roller; I have seen
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
one so struck as to occasion its death; but I once saw a piecener
struck in the face by a billy-spinner with his hand, until its nose
bled very much; and when I said, "Oh dear, I would not suffer
a child of mine to be treated thus," the man has said "How the
devil do you know but what he deserved it? What have you to
do with it?"'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">But the most complete evidence in regard to the
slavery in the factories was that given to the Parliamentary
Committee, by a man named Peter Smart,
whose experience and observation as a slave and a
slave-driver in the factories of Scotland, enabled him
to substantiate all the charges made against the system.
His history possesses the deepest interest, and
should be attentively perused:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Where do you reside?' 'At Dundee.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What age are you?' 'Twenty-seven.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What is your business?' 'An overseer of a flax-mill.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Have you worked in a mill from your youth?' 'Yes, since
I was five years of age.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Had you a father and mother in the country at that time?'
'My mother stopped in Perth, about eleven miles from the mill,
and my father was in the army.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were you hired for any length of time when you went?'
'Yes, my mother got 15<i>s.</i> for six years, I having my meat and
clothes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'At whose mill?' 'Mr. Andrew Smith's, at Gateside.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Is that in Fifeshire?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What were your hours of labour, do you recollect, in that
mill?' 'In the summer season we were very scarce of water.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'But when you had sufficient water, how long did you work?'
'We began at four o'clock in the morning, and worked till ten or
eleven at night; as long as we could stand upon our feet.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'You hardly could keep up for that length of time?' 'No,
we often fell asleep.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How were you kept to your work for that length of time;
were you chastised?' 'Yes, very often, and very severely.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How long was this ago?' 'It is between twenty-one and
twenty-two years since I first went.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were you kept in the premises constantly?' 'Constantly.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Locked up?' 'Yes, locked up.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Night and day?' 'Night and day; I never went home
while I was at the mill.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Was it possible to keep up your activity for such a length
of time as that?' 'No, it was impossible to do it; we often fell
asleep.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were not accidents then frequently occurring at that mill
from over-fatigue?' 'Yes, I got my hands injured there by the
machinery.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Have you lost any of your fingers?' 'Yes, I have lost one,
and the other hand is very much injured.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'At what time of the night was that when your hands became
thus injured?' 'Twilight, between seven and eight o'clock.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you attribute that accident to over-fatigue and drowsiness?'
'Yes, and to a want of knowledge of the machinery. I
was only five years old when I went to the mills, and I did not
know the use of the different parts of the machinery.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did you ever know any other accident happen in that mill?'
'Yes, there was a girl that fell off her stool when she was
piecing; she fell down and was killed on the spot.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Was that considered by the hands in the mill to have been
occasioned by drowsiness and excessive fatigue?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How old were you at the time this took place?' 'I don't
know, for I have been so long in the mills that I have got no
education, and I have forgot the like of those things.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Have you any recollection of what the opinions of the people
in the mill were at that time as to the cause of the accident?'
'I heard the rest of them talking about it, and they said that it
was so. We had long stools that we sat upon then, old-fashioned;
we have no such things as those now.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Is that the only accident that you have known to happen in
that mill?' 'There was a boy, shortly before I got my fingers
hurt, that had his fingers hurt in the same way that I had.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Was there any other killed?' 'There was one killed, but I
could not say how it was; but she was killed in the machinery.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Has any accident happened in that mill during the last
twelve years?' 'I could not say; it is twelve years since I
left it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Is that mill going on still?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Speaking of the hours that you had to labour there, will you
state to this committee the effect it had upon you?' 'It had a very
great effect upon me; I was bad in my health.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were you frequently much beaten, in order to keep you up
to your labour?' 'Yes; very often beat till I was bloody at the
mouth and at the nose, by the overseer and master too.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How did they beat you?' 'With their hands and with a
leather thong.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were the children, generally speaking, treated as you
have stated you were?' 'Yes; generally; there are generally
fifteen boys in one, and a number of girls in the other; they were
kept separately.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You say you were locked up night and day?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do the children ever attempt to run away?' 'Very often.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were they pursued and brought back again?' 'Yes, the
overseer pursued them, and brought them back.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did you ever attempt to run away?' 'Yes, I ran away twice.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And you were brought back?' 'Yes; and I was sent up to
the master's loft, and thrashed with a whip for running away.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were you bound to this man?' 'Yes, for six years.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'By whom were you bound?' 'My mother got 15<i>s.</i> for the
six years.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you know whether the children were, in point of fact,
compelled to stop during the whole time for which they were engaged?'
'Yes, they were.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'By law?' 'I cannot say by law; but they were compelled
by the master; I never saw any law used there but the law of
their own hands.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Does that practice of binding continue in Scotland now?'
'Not in the place I am in.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How long since it has ceased?' 'For the last two years
there has been no engagement in Dundee.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Are they generally engagements from week to week, or from
month to month?' 'From month to month.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you know whether a practice has prevailed of sending
poor children, who are orphans, from workhouses and hospitals to
that work?' 'There were fifteen, at the time I was there, came
from Edinburgh Poorhouse.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you know what the Poorhouse in Edinburgh is?' 'It is
just a house for putting poor orphans in.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you know the name of that establishment?' 'No.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you happen to know that these fifteen came to the mill
from an establishment for the reception of poor orphans?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How many had you at the mill?' 'Fifteen.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'At what ages?' 'From 12 to 15.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were they treated in a similar manner to yourself?' 'Yes,
we were all treated alike; there was one treatment for all, from
the oldest to the youngest.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did not some of you attempt, not merely to get out of the mill,
but out of the country?' 'Yes; I have known some go down to
the boat at Dundee, in order to escape by that means, and the
overseer has caught them there, and brought them back again.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Is there not a ferry there?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'When persons disembark there, they may embark on the
ferry?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did your parents live in Dundee at this time?' 'No.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Had you any friends at Dundee?' 'No.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'The fact is, that you had nobody that could protect you?' 'No,
I had no protection; the first three years I was at the mill I never
saw my mother at all; and when I got this accident with my
hand she never knew of it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Where did she reside at that time?' 'At Perth.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You say that your master himself was in the habit of treating
you in the way you have mentioned?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Describe what the treatment was?' 'The treatment was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
very bad; perhaps a box on the ear, or very frequently a kick
with his foot.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were you punished for falling asleep in that mill?' 'Yes,
I have got my licks for it, and been punished very severely for it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Where did you go to then?' 'I went to a mill in Argyleshire.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How many years were you in this mill of Mr. Andrew Smith's,
of Gateside?' 'Eleven years.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What age were you, when you went to this mill in Argyleshire?'
'About 16.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You stated that you were bound to stay with Mr. Smith for
six years; how came you then to continue with him the remaining
five years?' 'At the end of those six years I got 3<i>l.</i> a year from
my master, and found my own clothes out of that.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were you then contented with your situation?' 'No, I cannot
say that I was; but I did not know any thing of any other
business.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You had not been instructed in any other business, and
you did not know where you could apply for a maintenance?'
'No.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'To whose mill did you then remove?' 'To Messrs. Duff,
Taylor &amp; Co., at Ruthven, Forfarshire.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What were your hours of labour there?' 'Fourteen hours.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Exclusive of the time for meals and refreshment?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Was that a flax mill?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did you work for that number of hours both winter and
summer?' 'Yes, both winter and summer.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How old were you at this time?' 'Sixteen.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Are you aware whether any increase was made in the number
of hours of work, in the year 1819, by an agreement between
the masters and the workmen?' 'No, I cannot say as to that.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You think there could not be much increase of your previous
labour, whatever agreement might have been made upon the subject?'
'No, there could have been no increase made to that; it
was too long for that.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were the hands chastised up to their labour in that mill?'
'Yes.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'That was the practice there also?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you mean to state that you were treated with great cruelty
at the age of 16, and that you still remain in the mill?' 'I was
not beaten so severely as I was in Fifeshire.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You were not so beaten as to induce you to leave that mill?'
'If I had left it, I did not know where to go.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did you try to get into any other occupation?' 'Yes, I went
apprentice to a flax-dresser at that time.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What was the reason that you did not keep at it?' 'My
hand was so disabled, that it was found I was not able to follow
that business.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You found you could not get your bread at that business?'
'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Consequently, you were obliged to go back to the mills?'
'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Was it the custom, when you were 16 years of age, for the
overseer to beat you?' 'Yes, the boys were often beaten very
severely in the mill.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'At this time you were hired for wages; how much had you?'
'Half-a-crown a week.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And your maintenance?' 'No, I maintained myself.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Is not that much lower than the wages now given to people
of sixteen years of age?' 'I have a boy about sixteen that has
4<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a week, but he is in a high situation; he is oiler of the
machinery.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Besides, you have been injured in your hand by the accident
to which you have alluded, and that probably might have interfered
with the amount of your wages?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What duty had you in the mill at this time, for the performance
of which you received 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a week, when you were at Duff,
Taylor &amp; Co.'s?' 'I was a card-feeder.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did your hand prevent you working at that time as well as
other boys of the same age, in feeding the cards?' 'Yes, on the
old system; I was not able to feed with a stick at that time; it is
done away with now.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How long did you stay there?' 'About fifteen months.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How many hours did you work there?' 'Fourteen.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Do you mean that you worked fourteen hours actual labour?'
'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Was it a water-mill?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were you ever short of water?' 'We had plenty of water.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How long did you stop for dinner?' 'Half an hour.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What time had you for breakfast, or for refreshment in the
afternoon?' 'We had no time for that.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did you eat your breakfast and dinner in the mill then?'
'No, we went to the victualling house.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Was that some building attached to the mill?' 'Yes, at a
a small distance from the mill.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Was it provided for the purpose of the mill?' 'Yes, we got
our bread and water there.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did you sleep in a bothy at Duff &amp; Taylor's?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were you locked up in a bothy?' 'No.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What is a bothy?' 'It is a house with beds all round.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Is it not the practice for farm-servants, and others, who are
unmarried, to sleep in such places?' 'I could not say as to that;
I am not acquainted with the farm system.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'To what mill did you next go?' 'To Mr. Webster's, at Battus
Den, within eleven miles of Dundee.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'In what situation did you act there?' 'I acted as an overseer.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'At 17 years of age?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did you inflict the same punishment that you yourself had
experienced?' 'I went as an overseer; not as a slave, but as a
slave-driver.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What were the hours of labour in that mill?' 'My master
told me that I had to produce a certain quantity of yarn; the
hours were at that time fourteen; I said that I was not able to
produce the quantity of yarn that was required; I told him if he
took the timepiece out of the mill I would produce that quantity,
and after that time I found no difficulty in producing the quantity.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How long have you worked per day in order to produce
the quantity your master required?' 'I have wrought nineteen
hours.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Was this a water-mill?' 'Yes, water and steam both.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'To what time have you worked?' 'I have seen the mill
going till it was past 12 o'clock on the Saturday night.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'So that the mill was still working on the Sabbath morning.'
'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were the workmen paid by the piece, or by the day?' 'No,
all had stated wages.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did not that almost compel you to use great severity to the
hands then under you?' 'Yes; I was compelled often to beat
them, in order to get them to attend to their work, from their
being overwrought.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were not the children exceedingly fatigued at that time?'
'Yes, exceedingly fatigued.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were the children bound in the same way in that mill?'
'No; they were bound from one year's end to another, for twelve
months.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did you keep the hands locked up in the same way in that
mill?' 'Yes, we locked up the mill; but we did not lock the
bothy.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did you find that the children were unable to pursue their
labour properly to that extent?' 'Yes; they have been brought
to that condition, that I have gone and fetched up the doctor to
them, to see what was the matter with them, and to know
whether they were able to rise, or not able to rise; they were
not at all able to rise; we have had great difficulty in getting
them up.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'When that was the case, how long have they been in bed,
generally speaking?' 'Perhaps not above four or five hours in
their beds. Sometimes we were very ill-plagued by men coming
about the females' bothy.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Were your hands principally girls?' 'Girls and boys all
together; we had only a very few boys.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did the boys sleep in the girls' bothy?' 'Yes, all together.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you mean to say that there was only one bothy for the
girls and for the boys who worked there?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What age were those girls and boys?' 'We had them from
8 to 20 years of age; and the boys were from 10 to 14, or thereabouts.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'You spoke of men who came about the bothy; did the girls
expect them?' 'Yes; of course they had their sweethearts.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did they go into the bothy?' 'Yes; and once I got a sore
beating from one of them, for ordering him out of the bothy.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How long were you in that mill?' 'Three years and nine
months.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And where did you go to next?' 'To Messrs. Anderson &amp;
Company, at Moneyfieth, about six miles from Dundee.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What were your hours of labour there?' 'Fifteen hours.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Exclusive of the hour for refreshment?' 'Yes; we seldom
stopped for refreshment there.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You worked without any intermission at all, frequently?'
'Yes; we made a turn-about.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Explain what you mean by a turn-about?' 'We let them
out by turns in the days.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How long did you let one go out?' 'Just as short a time as
they could have to take their victuals in.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What were the ages of the children principally employed in
that place?' 'From about 12 to 20; they were all girls that I
had there, except one boy, and I think he was 8 years of age.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Was this a flax-mill?' 'Yes, all flax.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did you find that the children there were exceedingly distressed
with their work?' 'Yes; for the mill being in the country,
we were very scarce of workers, and the master often came out
and compelled them by flattery to go and work half the night
after their day's labour, and then they had only the other half to
sleep.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You mean that the master induced them by offering them
extra wages to go to work half the night?' 'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Was that very prejudicial to the girls so employed?' 'Yes;
I have seen some girls that were working half the night, that have
fainted and fallen down at their work, and have had to be carried
out.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Did you use severity in that mill?' 'No, I was not very
severe there.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You find, perhaps, that the girls do not require that severity
that the boys do?' 'Yes.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'How large was that mill?' 'There were only eighteen of us
altogether.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'From what you have seen, should you say that the treatment
of the children and the hours of labour are worse in the small or
in the large mills?' 'I could not answer that question.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Have you ever been in any large mill?' 'Yes, I am in one
just now, Mr. Baxter's.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Is the treatment of the children better in that large mill than
in the smaller mills in which you have been usually?' 'There is
little difference; the treatment is all one.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'To whose mill did you next go?' 'To Messrs. Baxter &amp;
Brothers, at Dundee.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'State the hours of labour which you worked when you were
there, when trade was brisk?' 'Thirteen hours and twenty
minutes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What time was allowed for meals?' 'Fifty minutes each day.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Have you found that the system is getting any better now?'
'No, the system is getting no better with us.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Is there as much beating as there was?' 'There is not so
much in the licking way.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'But it is not entirely abolished, the system of chastisement?'
'No, it is far from that.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you think that, where young children are employed, that
system ought, or can be, entirely dispensed with, of giving some
chastisement to the children of that age?' 'They would not require
chastisement if they had shorter daily work.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you mean to state that they are only chastised because
through weariness they are unable to attend to their work, and
that they are not chastised for other faults and carelessness as
well?' 'There may be other causes besides, but weariness is the
principal fault.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Does not that over-labour induce that weariness and incapacity
to do the work, which brings upon them chastisement at
other parts of the day as well as in the evening?' 'Yes; young
girls, if their work go wrong, if they see me going round, and
my countenance with the least frown upon it, they will begin
crying when I go by.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Then they live in a state of perpetual alarm and suffering?'
'Yes.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you think that those children are healthy?' 'No, they
are far from that; I have two girls that have been under me these
two years; the one is 13 years, the other 15, and they are both
orphans and sisters, and both one size, and they very seldom are
working together, because the one or the other is generally ill;
and they are working for 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a week.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Have you the same system of locking up now?' 'Yes, locking
up all day.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Are they locked up at night?' 'No; after they have left
their work we have nothing more to do with them.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What time do they leave their work in the evening now?'
'About 20 minutes past 7.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What time do they go to it in the morning?' 'Five minutes
before 5.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you conceive that that is at all consistent with the health
of those children?' 'It is certainly very greatly against their
health.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Is not the flax-spinning business in itself very unwholesome?'
'Very unwholesome.'</p></div>

<p class="i1">So much for the slavery of the factories—a slavery
which destroys human beings, body and soul. The fate
of the helpless children condemned to such protracted,
exhausting toil, under such demoralizing influences,
with the lash constantly impending over them, and no
alternative but starvation, is enough to excite the tears
of all humane persons. That such a system should be
tolerated in a land where a Christian church is a part
of the government, is indeed remarkable—proving how
greatly men are disinclined to practise what they
profess.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">We cannot close this chapter upon the British factories
without making a quotation from a work which,
we fear, has been too little read in the United Kingdom—a
fiction merely in construction, a truthful narrative
in fact. We allude to "The Life and Adventures of
Michael Armstrong, the Factory Boy," by Frances
Trollope. Copious editions of this heart-rending story
should be immediately issued by the British publishers.
This passage, describing the visit of Michael Armstrong
to the cotton factory, in company with Sir
Matthew Dowling and Dr. Crockley, is drawn to the
life:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The party entered the building, whence—as all know who
have done the like—every sight, every sound, every scent that
kind nature has fitted to the organs of her children, so as to render
the mere unfettered use of them a delight, are banished for
ever and for ever. The ceaseless whirring of a million hissing
wheels seizes on the tortured ear; and while threatening to destroy
the delicate sense, seems bent on proving first, with a sort
of mocking mercy, of how much suffering it can be the cause.
The scents that reek around, from oil, tainted water, and human
filth, with that last worst nausea arising from the hot refuse of
atmospheric air, left by some hundred pairs of labouring lungs,
render the act of breathing a process of difficulty, disgust, and
pain. All this is terrible. But what the eye brings home to the
heart of those who look round upon the horrid earthly hell, is
enough to make it all forgotten; for who can think of villanous
smells, or heed the suffering of the ear-racking sounds, while
they look upon hundreds of helpless children, divested of every
trace of health, of joyousness, and even of youth! Assuredly
there is no exaggeration in this; for except only in their diminutive
size, these suffering infants have no trace of it. Lean and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
distorted limbs, sallow and sunken cheeks, dim hollow eyes,
that speak unrest and most unnatural carefulness, give to each
tiny, trembling, unelastic form, a look of hideous premature old
age.</p>

<p class="i1">"But in the room they entered, the dirty, ragged, miserable
crew were all in active performance of their various tasks; the
overlookers, strap in hand, on the alert; the whirling spindles
urging the little slaves who waited on them to movements as unceasing
as their own; and the whole monstrous chamber redolent
of all the various impurities that 'by the perfection of our manufacturing
system' are converted into 'gales of Araby' for the
rich, after passing, in the shape of certain poison, through the
lungs of the poor. So Sir Matthew proudly looked about him
and approved; and though it was athwart that species of haughty
frown in which such dignity as his is apt to clothe itself, Dr.
Crockley failed not to perceive that his friend and patron was in
good humour, and likely to be pleased by any light and lively
jestings in which he might indulge. Perceiving, therefore, that
little Michael passed on with downcast eyes, unrecognised by
any, he wrote upon a slip of paper, for he knew his voice could
not be heard—'Make the boy take that bare-legged scavenger
wench round the neck, and give her a kiss while she is next lying
down, and let us see them sprawling together.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Sir Matthew read the scroll, and grinned applause.</p>

<p class="i1">"The miserable creature to whom the facetious doctor pointed,
was a little girl about seven years old, whose office as 'scavenger'
was to collect incessantly, from the machinery and from the floor,
the flying fragments of cotton that might impede the work. In
the performance of this duty, the child was obliged, from time to
time, to stretch itself with sudden quickness on the ground, while
the hissing machinery passed over her; and when this is skilfully
done, and the head, body, and outstretched limbs carefully glued
to the floor, the steady-moving but threatening mass may pass and
repass over the dizzy head and trembling body without touching
it. But accidents frequently occur; and many are the flaxen
locks rudely torn from infant heads, in the process.</p>

<p class="i1">"It was a sort of vague hope that something comical of this kind
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
might occur, which induced Dr. Crockley to propose this frolic to
his friend, and probably the same idea suggested itself to Sir
Matthew likewise.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I say, Master Michael!' vociferated the knight, in a scream
which successfully struggled with the din, 'show your old acquaintance
that pride has not got the upper hand of you in your
fine clothes. Take scavenger No. 3, there, round the neck; now—now—now,
as she lies sprawling, and let us see you give her a
hearty kiss.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The stern and steady machinery moved onward, passing over
the body of the little girl, who owed her safety to the miserable
leanness of her shrunken frame; but Michael moved not.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Are you deaf, you little vermin?' roared Sir Matthew. 'Now
she's down again. Do what I bid you, or, by the living God, you
shall smart for it!'</p>

<p class="i1">"Still Michael did not stir, neither did he speak; or if he did,
his young voice was wholly inaudible, and the anger of Sir Matthew
was demonstrated by a clenched fist and threatening brow.
'Where the devil is Parsons?' he demanded, in accents that poor
Michael both heard and understood. 'Fine as he is, the strap
will do him good.'</p>

<p class="i1">"In saying this, the great man turned to reconnoitre the space
he had traversed, and by which his confidential servant must
approach, and found that he was already within a good yard
of him.</p>

<p class="i1">"'That's good—I want you, Parsons. Do you see this little
rebel here, that I have dressed and treated like one of my own
children? What d'ye think of his refusing to kiss Miss No. 3,
scavenger, when I bid him?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'The devil he does?' said the manager, grinning: 'we must
see if we can't mend that. Mind your hits, Master Piecer, and
salute the young lady when the mules go back, like a gentleman.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Sir Matthew perceived that his favourite agent feared to enforce
his first brutal command, and was forced, therefore, to content
himself with seeing the oiled and grimy face of the filthy little
girl in contact with that of the now clean and delicate-looking
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>
Michael. But he felt he had been foiled, and cast a glance upon
his <i>protégé</i>, which seemed to promise that he would not forget
it."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Nor is the delineation, in the following verses, by
Francis M. Blake, less truthful and touching:—</p>

<p class="ac">THE FACTORY CHILD.</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse">Early one winter's morning,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">The weather wet and wild,</div>
      <div class="verse">Some hours before the dawning,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">A father call'd his child;</div>
      <div class="verse">Her daily morsel bringing,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">The darksome room he paced,</div>
      <div class="verse">And cried, "The bell is ringing—</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">My hapless darling, haste."</div>
    </div>
	<div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse">"Father, I'm up, but weary,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">I scarce can reach the door,</div>
      <div class="verse">And long the way and dreary—</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">Oh, carry me once more!</div>
      <div class="verse">To help us we've no mother,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">To live how hard we try—</div>
      <div class="verse">They kill'd my little brother—</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">Like him I'll work and die!"</div>
    </div>
	<div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse">His feeble arms they bore her,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">The storm was loud and wild—</div>
      <div class="verse">God of the poor man, hear him!</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">He prays, "Oh, save my child!"</div>
      <div class="verse">Her wasted form seem'd nothing—</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">The load was in his heart;</div>
      <div class="verse">The sufferer he kept soothing,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">Till at the mill they part.</div>
    </div>
    <div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse">The overlooker met her,
	    <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">As to the frame she crept,</div>
      <div class="verse">And with the thong he beat her,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">And cursed her as she wept.</div>
      <div class="verse">Alas! what hours of horror</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">Made up her latest day!</div>
      <div class="verse">In toil, and pain, and sorrow,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">They slowly pass'd away.</div>
    </div>
	<div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse">It seem'd, as she grew weaker,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">The threads the oftener broke,</div>
      <div class="verse">The rapid wheels ran quicker,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">And heavier fell the stroke.</div>
      <div class="verse">The sun had long descended,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">But night brought no repose:</div>
      <div class="verse"><i>Her</i> day began and ended</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">As her task-masters chose.</div>
    </div>
	<div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse">Then to her little neighbour</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">Her only cent she paid,</div>
      <div class="verse">To take her last hour's labour,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">While by her frame she laid.</div>
      <div class="verse">At last, the engine ceasing,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">The captives homeward flee,</div>
      <div class="verse">One thought her strength increasing—</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">Her parent soon to see.</div>
    </div>
	<div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse">She left, but oft she tarried,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">She fell, and rose no more,</div>
      <div class="verse">But by her comrades carried,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">She reach'd her father's door.</div>
      <div class="verse">All night with tortured feeling,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">He watch'd his speechless child;</div>
      <div class="verse">While close beside her kneeling,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">She knew him not, nor smiled.</div>
    </div>
    <div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse">Again the loud bell's ringing,
	    <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">Her last perceptions tried,</div>
      <div class="verse">When, from her straw bed springing,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">"'Tis time!" she shriek'd, and—died.</div>
      <div class="verse">That night a chariot pass'd her,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">While on the ground she lay,</div>
      <div class="verse">The daughters of her master</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">An evening visit pay;</div>
      <div class="verse">Their tender hearts were sighing,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">As negro wrongs were told,</div>
      <div class="verse">While the white slave was dying,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">Who gain'd their father's gold!</div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>



<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
</div>

<p class="ac">SLAVERY IN THE BRITISH WORKSHOPS.</p>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">When</span> Captain Hugh Clapperton, the celebrated
English traveller, visited Bello, the sultan of the
Felatahs, at Sackatoo, he made the monarch some presents,
in the name of his majesty the king of England.
These were—two new blunderbusses, a pair of double-barrelled
pistols, a pocket compass, an embroidered
jacket, a scarlet bornonse, a pair of scarlet breeches,
thirty-four yards of silk, two turban shawls, four
pounds of cloves, four pounds of cinnamon, three cases
of gunpowder with shot and balls, three razors, three
clasp-knives, three looking-glasses, six snuff-boxes, a
spy-glass, and a large tea-tray. The sultan said—"Every
thing is wonderful, but you are the greatest
curiosity of all!" and then added, "What can I give
that is most acceptable to the king of England?"
Clapperton replied—"The most acceptable service you
can render to the king of England is to co-operate with
his majesty in putting a stop to the slave-trade on the
coast, as the king of England sends large ships to
cruise there, for the sole purpose of seizing all vessels
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>
engaged in this trade, whose crews are thrown into
prison, and of liberating the unfortunate slaves, on
whom lands and houses are conferred, at one of our
settlements in Africa." "What!" exclaimed the sultan,
"have you no slaves in England?" "No: whenever
a slave sets his foot in England, he is from that
moment free," replied Clapperton. "What do you
then do for servants?" inquired the sultan. "We hire
them for a stated period, and give them regular wages;
nor is any person in England allowed to strike another;
and the very soldiers are fed, clothed, and paid by the
government," replied the English captain. "God is
great!" exclaimed the sultan. "You are a beautiful
people." Clapperton had succeeded in putting a beautiful
illusion upon the sultan's imagination, as some
English writers have endeavoured to do among the
civilized nations of the earth. If the sultan had been
taken to England, to see the freedom of the "servants"
in the workshops, perhaps he would have exclaimed—"God
is great! Slaves are plenty."</p>

<p class="i1">The condition of the apprentices in the British
workshops is at least as bad as that of the children in
the factories. According to the second report of the
commissioners appointed by Parliament, the degrading
system of involuntary apprenticeship—in many cases
without the consent of parents—and merely according
to the regulations of the brutal guardians of the workhouses,
is general. The commissioners say
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"That in some trades, those especially requiring skilled workmen,
these apprentices are bound by legal indentures, usually at
the age of fourteen, and for a term of seven years, the age being
rarely younger, and the period of servitude very seldom longer;
but by far the greater number are bound <i>without any prescribed
legal forms</i>, and in almost all these cases they are required to
serve their masters, <i>at whatever age they may commence their apprenticeship,
until they attain the age of twenty-one</i>, in some instances
in employments in which there is nothing deserving the
name of skill to be acquired, and in other instances in employments
in which they are taught to make only one particular part
of the article manufactured: <i>so that at the end of their servitude
they are altogether unable to make any one article of their trade in
a complete state</i>. That a large proportion of these apprentices
consist of orphans, or are the children of widows, or belong to
the very poorest families, and frequently are apprenticed by
boards of guardians.</p>

<p class="i1">"That in these districts it is common for parents to borrow
money of the employers, and to stipulate, by express agreement,
to repay it from their children's wages; a practice which prevails
likewise in Birmingham and Warrington: in most other places
no evidence was discovered of its existence."—<i>Second Report of
the Commissioners</i>, p. 195, 196.</p></div>

<p class="i1">Here we have a fearful text on which to comment.
In these few sentences we see the disclosure of a system
which, if followed out and abused, must produce a
state of slavery of the very worst and most oppressive
character. To show that it <i>is</i> thus abused, here are
some extracts from the Reports on the Wolverhampton
district, to which the Central Board of Commissioners
direct special attention:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The peculiar trade of the Wolverhampton district, with the
exception of a very few large proprietors, is in the hands of a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
great number of small masters, who are personally known only to
some of the foremen of the factors to whom they take their work,
and scarcely one of whom is sufficiently important to have his name
over his door or his workshop in front of a street. In the town of
Wolverhampton alone there are of these small masters, for example,
two hundred and sixty locksmiths, sixty or seventy key-makers,
from twenty to thirty screwmakers, and a like number of latch,
bolt, snuffer, tobacco-box, and spectacle frame and case makers.
Each of these small masters, if they have not children of their
own, generally employ from one to three apprentices."—<i>Horne,
Report</i>; App. pt. ii. p. 2. s. 13 et seq.</p></div>

<p class="i1">The workshops of the small masters are usually of
the dirtiest, most dilapidated, and confined description,
and situated in the most filthy and undrained localities,
at the back of their wretched abodes.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"There are two modes of obtaining apprentices in this district,
namely, the legal one of application to magistrates or boards of
guardians for sanction of indentures; and, secondly, the illegal
mode of taking the children to be bound by an attorney, without
any such reference to the proper authorities. There are many
more bound by this illegal mode than by the former.</p>

<p class="i1">"In all cases, the children, of whatever age, are bound till they
attain the age of twenty-one years. If the child be only seven
years of age, the period of servitude remains the same, however
simple the process or nature of the trade to be learnt. During
the first year or two, if the apprentice be very young, he is
merely used to run errands, do dirty household work, nurse infants,
&amp;c.</p>

<p class="i1">"If the master die before the apprentice attain the age of
twenty-one years, the apprentice is equally bound as the servant
of his deceased master's heirs, executors, administrators, and
assigns—in fact, the apprentice is part of the deceased master's
goods and chattels. Whoever, therefore, may carry on the trade,
he is the servant of such person or persons until his manumission
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
is obtained by reaching his one-and-twentieth year. The apprentice
has no regular pocket-money allowed him by the master.
Sometimes a few halfpence are given to him. An apprentice of
eighteen or nineteen years of age often has 2<i>d.</i> or 3<i>d.</i> a week
given him, but never as a rightful claim."—<i>Second Report of
Commissioners.</i></p>

<p class="i1">"Among other witnesses, the superintendent registrar states
that in those trades particularly in which the work is by the
piece, the growth of the children is injured; that in these cases
more especially their strength is over-taxed for profit. One of the
constables of the town says that 'there are examples without
number in the place, of deformed men and boys; their backs or
their legs, and often both, grow wrong; the backs grow out and
the legs grow in at the knees—hump-backed and knock-kneed.
There is most commonly only one leg turned in—a K leg; it is
occasioned by standing all day for years filing at a vice; the hind
leg grows in—the leg that is hindermost. Thinks that among the
adults of the working classes of Willenhall, whose work is all
forging and filing, one-third of the number are afflicted with
hernia,' &amp;c."—<i>Horne, Evidence</i>, p. 28, No. 128.</p></div>

<p class="i1">As the profits of many of the masters are small, it
may be supposed that the apprentices do not get the
best of food, shelter, and clothing. We have the evidence
of Henry Nicholls Payne, superintendent registrar
of Wolverhampton, Henry Hill, Esq., magistrate,
and Paul Law, of Wolverhampton, that it is common
for masters to buy offal meat, and the meat of animals
that have died from all manner of causes, for the food
of apprentices. The clothing of these poor creatures
is but thin tatters for all seasons. The apprentices
constantly complain that they do not get enough to
eat.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"They are frequently fed," says the sub-commissioner, "especially
during the winter season, on red herrings, potatoes,
bread with lard upon it, and have not always sufficient even of
this.</p>

<p class="i1">"Their living is poor; they have not enough to eat. Did not
know what it was to have butcher's meat above once a week;
often a red herring was divided between two for dinner. The
boys are often clemmed, (almost starved;) have often been to
his house to ask for a bit of pudding—are frequent complaints.
In some trades, particularly in the casting-shops of founderies,
in the shops in which general forge or smith's work is done, and
in the shops of the small locksmiths, screwmakers, &amp;c., there are
no regular meal-hours, but the children swallow their food as they
can, during their work, often while noxious fumes or dust are flying
about, and perhaps with noxious compositions in their unwashed
hands."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The apprentices employed in nail-making are described
as so many poorly fed and poorly clad slaves.
Almost the whole population of Upper Sedgley and
Upper Gormal, and nearly one-half of the population
of Coseley, are employed in nail-making. The nails are
made at forges by the hammer, and these forges, which
are the workshops, are usually at the backs of the
wretched hovels in which the work-people reside.
"The best kind of forges," says Mr. Horne, "are little
brick shops, of about fifteen feet long and twelve feet
wide, in which seven or eight individuals constantly
work together, with no ventilation except the door, and
two slits, or loopholes, in the wall; but the great
majority of these work-places are very much smaller,
(about ten feet long by nine wide,) filthily dirty; and on
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
looking in upon one of them when the fire is not
lighted, presents the appearance of a dilapidated coal-hole,
or little black den." In these places children
are first put to labour from the ages of seven to eight,
where they continue to work daily, from six o'clock in
the morning till seven or eight at night; and on weigh-days—the
days the nails are taken to the factors—from
three or four in the morning till nine at night. They
gradually advance in the number of nails they are required
to make per day, till they arrive at the <i>stint</i> of
one thousand. A girl or boy of from ten to twelve
years of age continually accomplishes this arduous
task from day to day, and week to week. Their food
at the same time is, in general, insufficient, their clothing
miserable, and the wretchedness of their dwellings
almost unparalleled.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Throughout the long descent of the main roadway, or rather
sludgeway, of Lower Gormal," says Mr. Horne, "and throughout
the very long winding and straggling roadway of Coseley, I never
saw one abode of a working family which had the least appearance
of comfort or wholesomeness, while the immense majority
were of the most wretched and sty-like description. The effect
of these unfavourable circumstances is greatly to injure the
health of the children, and to stop their growth; and it is remarkable
that the boys are more injured than the girls, because
the girls are not put to work as early as the boys by two years or
more. They appear to bear the heat of the forges better, and
they sometimes even become strong by their work."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The children employed in nail-making, in Scotland,
evince the nature of their toil by their emaciated looks
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
and stunted growth. They are clothed in apparel in
which many paupers would not dress; and they are
starved into quickness at their work, as their meals
depend on the quantity of work accomplished.</p>

<p class="i1">In the manufacture of earthenware there are many
young slaves employed. The mould-runners are an
especially pitiable class of workmen; they receive on a
mould the ware as it is formed by the workmen, and
carry it to the stove-room, where both mould and ware
are arranged on shelves to dry. The same children
liberate the mould when sufficiently dry, and carry it
back to receive a fresh supply of ware, to be in like
manner deposited on the shelves. They are also generally
required by the workmen to "wedge their clay;"
that is, to lift up large lumps of clay, which are to be
thrown down forcibly on a hard surface to free the clay
from air and to render it more compact. Excepting
when thus engaged, they are constantly "on the run"
from morning till night, always carrying a considerable
weight. These children are generally pale, thin, weak,
and unhealthy.</p>

<p class="i1">In the manufacture of glass the toil and suffering of
the apprentices, as recorded in the evidence before the
commissioners, are extreme. One witness said—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"From his experience he thinks the community has no idea of
what a boy at a bottle-work goes through; 'it would never be
allowed, if it were known;' he knows himself; he has been carried
home from fair fatigue; and on two several occasions, when
laid in bed, could not rest, and had to be taken out and laid on
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
the floor. These boys begin work on Sabbath evenings at ten
o'clock, and are not at home again till between one and three on
Monday afternoon. The drawing the bottles out of the arches is
a work which no child should be allowed, on any consideration,
to do; he himself has been obliged several times to have planks
put in to walk on, which have caught fire under the feet; and a
woollen cap over the ears and always mits on the hands; and a
boy cannot generally stop in them above five minutes. There is
no man that works in a bottle-work, but will corroborate the
statement that such work checks the growth of the body; the irregularity
and the unnatural times of work cause the boys and men
to feel in a sort of stupor or dulness from heavy sweats and irregular
hours. The boys work harder than any man in the works;
all will allow that. From their experience of the bad effect on
the health, witness and five others left the work, and none but
one ever went to a bottle-work after."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The young females apprenticed to dressmakers suffer
greatly from over-work and bad treatment, as has long
been known. John Dalrymple, Esq., Assistant Surgeon,
Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, narrates the following
case:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"A delicate and beautiful young woman, an orphan, applied
at the hospital for very defective vision, and her symptoms were
precisely as just described. Upon inquiry it was ascertained that
she had been apprenticed to a milliner, and was in her last year
of indentureship. Her working hours were eighteen in the day,
occasionally even more; her meals were snatched with scarcely
an interval of a few minutes from work, and her general health
was evidently assuming a tendency to consumption. An appeal
was made, by my directions, to her mistress for relaxation; but
the reply was that, in the last year of her apprenticeship, her
labours had become valuable, and that her mistress was entitled to
them as a recompense for teaching. Subsequently a threat of appeal
to the Lord Mayor, and a belief that a continuation of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
occupation would soon render the apprentice incapable of labour,
induced the mistress to cancel the indentures, and the victim was
saved."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Frederick Tyrrell, Esq., Surgeon to the London Ophthalmic
Hospital, and to St. Thomas's Hospital, mentions
a case equally distressing:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"A fair and delicate girl, about seventeen years of age, was
brought to witness in consequence of total loss of vision. She
had experienced the train of symptoms which have been detailed,
to the fullest extent. On examination, both eyes were found disorganized,
and recovery therefore was hopeless. She had been
an apprentice as a dress-maker at the west end of the town; and
some time before her vision became affected, her general health
had been materially deranged from too close confinement and
excessive work. The immediate cause of the disease in the eyes
was excessive and continued application to making mourning.
She stated that she had been compelled to remain without changing
her dress for nine days and nights consecutively; that during
this period she had been permitted only occasionally to rest on a
mattrass placed on the floor, for an hour or two at a time; and
that her meals were placed at her side, cut up, so that as little
time as possible should be spent in their consumption. Witness
regrets that he did not, in this and a few other cases nearly as
flagrant and distressing, induce the sufferers to appeal to a jury
for compensation."</p></div>

<p class="i1">It may be asserted, without fear of successful contradiction,
that, in proportion to the numbers employed,
there are no occupations in which so much disease is
produced as in dress-making. The report of a sub-commissioner
states that it is a "serious aggravation
of this evil, that the unkindness of the employer very
frequently causes these young persons, when they become
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
unwell, to conceal their illness, from the fear of
being sent out of the house; and in this manner the
disease often becomes increased in severity, or is even
rendered incurable. Some of the principals are so
cruel, as to object to the young women obtaining medical
assistance."</p>

<div class="figcenter"><a name="i_179.jpg" id="i_179.jpg"></a>
  <img src="images/i_179.jpg"
        alt="" />
  <div class="caption">SLAVES OF THE NEEDLE.</div>
</div>

<p class="i1">The London Times, in an exceedingly able article
upon "Seamstress Slavery," thus describes the terrible
system:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Granting that the negro gangs who are worked on the cotton
grounds of the Southern States of North America, or in the sugar
plantations of Brazil, are slaves, in what way should we speak
of persons who are circumstanced in the manner we are about to
relate? Let us consider them as inhabitants of a distant region—say
of New Orleans—no matter about the colour of their skins,
and then ask ourselves what should be our opinion of a nation in
which such things are tolerated. They are of a sex and age the
least qualified to struggle with the hardships of their lot—young
women, for the most part, between sixteen and thirty years of
age. As we would not deal in exaggerations, we would promise
that we take them at their busy season, just as writers upon
American slavery are careful to select the season of cotton-picking
and sugar-crushing as illustrations of their theories. The
young female slaves, then, of whom we speak, are worked in
gangs, in ill-ventilated rooms, or rooms that are not ventilated at
all; for it is found by experience that if air be admitted it brings
with it "blacks" of another kind, which damage the work upon
which the seamstresses are employed. Their occupation is to
sew from morning till night and night till morning—stitch, stitch,
stitch—without pause, without speech, without a smile, without a
sigh. In the gray of the morning they must be at work, say at
six o'clock, having a quarter of an hour allowed them for breaking
their fast. The food served out to them is scanty and miserable
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>
enough, but still, in all probability, more than their fevered
system can digest. We do not, however, wish to make out a case
of starvation; the suffering is of another kind, equally dreadful
of endurance. From six o'clock till eleven it is stitch, stitch. At
eleven a small piece of dry bread is served to each seamstress,
but still she must stitch on. At one o'clock, twenty minutes are
allowed for dinner—a slice of meat and a potato, with a glass of
toast-and-water to each workwoman. Then again to work—stitch,
stitch, until five o'clock, when fifteen minutes are again allowed
for tea. The needles are then set in motion once more—stitch,
stitch, until nine o'clock, when fifteen minutes are allowed for
supper—a piece of dry bread and cheese and a glass of beer.
From nine o'clock at night until one, two, and three o'clock in
the morning, stitch, stitch; the only break in this long period
being a minute or two—just time enough to swallow a cup of
strong tea, which is supplied lest the young people should 'feel
sleepy.' At three o'clock <span class="sc">A.M.</span>, to bed; at six o'clock
<span class="sc">A.M.</span>,
out of it again to resume the duties of the following day. There
must be a good deal of monotony in the occupation.</p>

<p class="i1">"But when we have said that for certain months in the year
these unfortunate young persons are worked in the manner we
describe, we have not said all. Even during the few hours allotted
to sleep—should we not rather say to a feverish cessation
from toil—their miseries continue. They are cooped up in sleeping-pens,
ten in a room which would perhaps be sufficient for the
accommodation of two persons. The alternation is from the
treadmill—and what a treadmill!—to the Black Hole of Calcutta.
Not a word of remonstrance is allowed, or is possible.
The seamstresses may leave the mill, no doubt, but what awaits
them on the other side of the door?—starvation, if they be honest;
if not, in all probability, prostitution and its consequence. They
would scarcely escape from slavery that way. Surely this is a
terrible state of things, and one which claims the anxious consideration
of the ladies of England who have pronounced themselves
so loudly against the horrors of negro slavery in the United
States. Had this system of oppression against persons of their
own sex been really exercised in New Orleans, it would have
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
elicited from them many expressions of sympathy for the sufferers,
and of abhorrence for the cruel task-masters who could so
cruelly over-work wretched creatures so unfitted for the toil.
It is idle to use any further mystification in the matter. The
scenes of misery we have described exist at our own doors, and
in the most fashionable quarters of luxurious London. It is in
the dress-making and millinery establishments of the 'West-end'
that the system is steadily pursued. The continuous labour is bestowed
upon the gay garments in which the 'ladies of England'
love to adorn themselves. It is to satisfy their whims and caprices
that their wretched sisters undergo these days and nights
of suffering and toil. It is but right that we should confess the
fault does not lie so much at the door of the customers as with
the principals of these establishments. The milliners and dressmakers
of the metropolis will not employ hands enough to do the
work. They increase their profits from the blood and life of the
wretched creatures in their employ. Certainly the prices charged
for articles of dress at any of the great West-end establishments
are sufficiently high—as most English heads of families know to
their cost—to enable the proprietors to retain a competent staff
of work-people, and at the same time to secure a very handsome
profit to themselves. Wherein, then, lies the remedy? Will the
case of these poor seamstresses be bettered if the ladies of England
abstain partially, or in great measure, from giving their usual
orders to their usual houses? In that case it may be said some
of the seamstresses will be dismissed to starvation, and the remainder
will be over-worked as before. We freely confess we do
not see our way through the difficulty; for we hold the most improbable
event in our social arrangements to be the fact, that a
lady of fashion will employ a second-rate instead of a first-rate
house for the purchase of her annual finery. The leading milliners
and dressmakers of London have hold of English society
at both ends. They hold the ladies by their vanity and their
love of fine clothes, and the seamstresses by what appears to be
their interest and by their love of life. Now, love of fine
clothes and love of life are two very strong motive springs of
human action."</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">In confirmation of this thrilling representation of the
seamstress slavery in London, the following letter subsequently
appeared in the Times:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p>"<i>To the Editor of the Times</i>:</p>

<p class="i1">"Sir,—May I beg of you to insert this letter in your valuable
paper at your earliest convenience, relative to the letters of the
'First Hand?' I can state, without the slightest hesitation, that
they are perfectly true. My poor sister was apprenticed to one
of those fashionable West-end houses, and my father paid the
large sum of £40 only to procure for his daughter a lingering
death. I was allowed to visit her during her illness; I found her
in a very small room, which two large beds would fill. In this
room there were six children's bedsteads, and these were each to
contain three grown-up young women. In consequence of my
sister being so ill, she was allowed, on payment of 5<i>s.</i> per week,
a bed to herself—one so small it might be called a cradle. The
doctor who attended her when dying, can authenticate this letter.</p>

<p class="i1">"Apologizing for encroaching on your valuable time, I remain
your obedient servant,</p>

<p class="ar"><span class="sc">A Poor Clerk</span>."</p>

<p class="i1">Many witnesses attest the ferocious bodily chastisement
inflicted upon male apprentices in workshops:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"In Sedgley they are sometimes struck with a red-hot iron,
and burned and bruised simultaneously; sometimes they have
'a flash of lightning' sent at them. When a bar of iron is drawn
white-hot from the forge it emits fiery particles, which the man
commonly flings in a shower upon the ground by a swing of his
arm, before placing the bar upon the anvil. This shower is sometimes
directed at the boy. It may come over his hands and face,
his naked arms, or on his breast. If his shirt be open in front,
which is usually the case, the red-hot particles are lodged therein,
and he has to shake them out as fast as he can."—<i>Horne, Report</i>,
p. 76, § 757. See also witnesses, p. 56, 1. 24; p. 59, 1. 54.</p>

<p class="i1">"In Darlaston, however, the children appear to be very little
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
beaten, and in Bilston there were only a few instances of cruel
treatment: 'the boys are kicked and cuffed abundantly, but not
with any vicious or cruel intention, and only with an idea that
this is getting the work done.'"—Ibid. p. 62, 65, §§ 660, 688.</p>

<p class="i1">"In Wednesbury the treatment is better than in any other
town in the district. The boys are not generally subject to any
severe corporal chastisement, though a few cases of ill-treatment
occasionally occur. 'A few months ago an adult workman broke
a boy's arm by a blow with a piece of iron; the boy went to school
till his arm got well; his father and mother thought it a good
opportunity to give him some schooling.'"—Ibid. <i>Evidence</i>, No.
331.</p>

<p class="i1">"But the class of children in this district the most abused and
oppressed are the apprentices, and particularly those who are
bound to the small masters among the locksmiths, key and bolt
makers, screwmakers, &amp;c. Even among these small masters,
there are respectable and humane men, who do not suffer any
degree of poverty to render them brutal; but many of these men
treat their apprentices not so much with neglect and harshness,
as with ferocious violence, the result of unbridled passions, excited
often by ardent spirits, acting on bodies exhausted by over-work,
and on minds which have never received the slightest moral
or religious culture, and which, therefore, never exercise the
smallest moral or religious restraint."—Ibid.</p></div>

<p class="i1">Evidence from all classes,—masters, journeymen, residents,
magistrates, clergymen, constables, and, above
all, from the mouths of the poor oppressed sufferers
themselves, is adduced to a heart-breaking extent. The
public has been excited to pity by Dickens's picture of
Smike—in Willenhall, there are many Smikes.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"—— ——, aged sixteen: 'His master stints him from six in
the morning till ten and sometimes eleven at night, as much as
ever he can do; and if he don't do it, his master gives him no
supper, and gives him a good hiding, sometimes with a big strap,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
sometimes with a big stick. His master has cut his head open five
times—once with a key and twice with a lock; knocked the corner
of a lock into his head twice—once with an iron bolt, and
once with an iron shut—a thing that runs into the staple. His
master's name is —— ——, of Little London. There is another
apprentice besides him, who is treated just as bad.'"—Ibid. p.
32, 1. 4.</p>

<p class="i1">"—— ——, aged fifteen: 'Works at knob-locks with —— ——.
Is a fellow-apprentice with —— ——. Lives in the house of his
master. Is beaten by his master, who hits him sometimes with
his fists, and sometimes with the file-haft, and sometimes with a
stick—it's no matter what when he's a bit cross; sometimes hits
him with the locks; has cut his head open four or five times; so
he has his fellow apprentice's head. Once when he cut his head
open with a key, thinks half a pint of blood run off him.'"—Ibid.
p. 32, 1. 19.</p>

<p class="i1">"—— ——, aged fourteen: 'Has been an in-door apprentice
three years. Has no wages; nobody gets any wages for him.
Has to serve till he is twenty-one. His master behaves very bad.
His mistress behaves worse, like a devil; she beats him; knocks
his head against the wall. His master goes out a-drinking, and
when he comes back, if any thing's gone wrong that he (the boy)
knows nothing about, he is beat all the same.'"—Ibid. p. 32, 1. 36.</p>

<p class="i1">"—— ——, aged sixteen: 'His master sometimes hits him
with his fist, sometimes kicks him; gave him the black eye he
has got; beat him in bed while he was asleep, at five in the
morning, because he was not up to work. He came up-stairs
and set about him—set about him with his fist. Has been over
to the public office, Brummagem, to complain; took a note with
him, which was written for him; his brother gave it to the public
office there, but they would not attend to it; they said they
could do no good, and gave the note back. He had been beaten
at that time with a whip-handle—it made wales all down his arms
and back and all; everybody he showed it to said it was scandalous.
Wishes he could be released from his master, who's never
easy but when he's a-beating of me. Never has enough to eat at
no time; ax him for more, he won't gie it me.'"—Ibid. p. 30, 1. 5.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"—— ——, aged seventeen: 'Has no father or mother to take
his part. His master once cut his head open with a flat file-haft,
and used to pull his ears nearly off; they bled so he was obliged to
go into the house to wipe them with a cloth,'"—Ibid. p. 37, 1. 7.</p>

<p class="i1">"—— ——, aged fifteen: 'The neighbours who live agen the
shop will say how his master beats him; beats him with a strap,
and sometimes a nut-stick; sometimes the wales remain upon
him for a week; his master once cut his eyelid open, cut a hole
in it, and it bled all over his files that he was working with,'"—Ibid.
p. 37, 1. 47.</p>

<p class="i1">"—— ——, aged 18: 'His master once ran at him with a
hammer, and drove the iron-head of the hammer into his side—he
felt it for weeks; his master often knocks him down on the
shop-floor; he can't tell what it's all for, no more than you can;
don't know what it can be for unless it's this, his master thinks
he don't do enough work for him. When he is beaten, his master
does not lay it on very heavy, as some masters do, only beats him
for five minutes at a time; should think that was enough,
though.'"—<i>Horne, Evidence</i>, p. 37, 1. 57.</p></div>

<p class="i1">All this exists in a Christian land! Surely telescopic
philanthropists must be numerous in Great Britain.
Wonderful to relate, there are many persons instrumental
in sustaining this barbarous system, who profess
a holy horror of slavery, and who seldom rise up
or lie down without offering prayers on behalf of the
African bondsmen, thousands of miles away. Verily,
there are many people in this motley world so organized
that they can scent corruption "afar off," but gain no
knowledge of the foulness under their very noses.</p>

<p class="i1">Henry Mayhew, in his "London Labour and the
London Poor," gives some very interesting information
in regard to the workshops in the great metropolis of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
the British Empire. "In the generality of trades, the
calculation is that one-third of the hands are fully employed,
one-third partially, and one-third unemployed
throughout the year." The wages of those who are
regularly employed being scant, what must be the condition
of those whose employment is but casual and precarious?
Mayhew says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The hours of labour in mechanical callings are usually twelve,
two of them devoted to meals, or seventy-two hours (less by the
permitted intervals) in a week. In the course of my inquiries for
the <i>Chronicle</i>, I met with slop cabinet-makers, tailors, and milliners,
who worked sixteen hours and more daily, their toil being only
interrupted by the necessity of going out, if small masters, to
purchase materials, and offer the goods for sale; or, if journeymen
in the slop trade, to obtain more work and carry what was
completed to the master's shop. They worked on Sundays also;
one tailor told me that the coat he worked at on the previous
Sunday was for the Rev. Mr. ——, who 'little thought it,' and
these slop-workers rarely give above a few minutes to a meal.
Thus they toil forty hours beyond the hours usual in an honourable
trade, (112 hours instead of 72,) in the course of a week, or
between three and four days of the regular hours of work of the
six working days. In other words, two such men will in less
than a week accomplish work which should occupy three men a
full week; or 1000 men will execute labour fairly calculated to
employ 1500 at the least. A paucity of employment is thus
caused among the general body, by this system of over-labour
decreasing the share of work accruing to the several operatives,
and so adding to surplus hands.</p>

<p class="i1">"Of over-work, as regards excessive labour, both in the general
and fancy cabinet trade, I heard the following accounts, which
different operatives concurred in giving; while some represented
the labour as of longer duration by at least an hour, and some
by two hours a day, than I have stated.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The labour of the men who depend entirely on 'the slaughter-houses'
for the purchase of their articles is usually seven
days a week the year through. That is, seven days—for Sunday-work
is all but universal—each of thirteen hours, or ninety-one
hours in all; while the established hours of labour in the
'honourable trade' are six days of the week, each of ten hours,
or sixty hours in all. Thus fifty per cent. is added to the extent
of the production of low-priced cabinet work, merely from 'over-hours';
but in some cases I heard of fifteen hours for seven days
in the week, or 105 hours in all.</p>

<p class="i1">"Concerning the hours of labour in this trade, I had the following
minute particulars from a garret-master who was a chair-maker:—</p>

<p class="i1">"'I work from six every morning to nine at night; some work
till ten. My breakfast at eight stops me for ten minutes. I can
breakfast in less time, but it's a rest. My dinner takes me say
twenty minutes at the outside; and my tea eight minutes. All
the rest of the time I'm slaving at my bench. How many
minutes' rest is that, sir? Thirty-eight; well, say three-quarters
of an hour, and that allows a few sucks at a pipe when I rest;
but I can smoke and work too. I have only one room to work
and eat in, or I should lose more time. Altogether, I labour
fourteen and a quarter hours every day, and I must work on Sundays—at
least forty Sundays in the year. One may as well work
as sit fretting. But on Sundays I only work till it's dusk, or till
five or six in summer. When it's dusk I take a walk. I'm not
well dressed enough for a Sunday walk when it's light, and I
can't wear my apron on that day very well to hide patches. But
there's eight hours that I reckon I take up every week, one with
another, in dancing about to the slaughterers. I'm satisfied that
I work very nearly 100 hours a week the year through; deducting
the time taken up by the slaughterers, and buying stuff—say
eight hours a week—it gives more than ninety hours a week for
my work, and there's hundreds labour as hard as I do, just for a
crust.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The East-end turners generally, I was informed, when inquiring
into the state of that trade, labour at the lathe from six
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
o'clock in the morning till eleven and twelve at night, being
eighteen hours' work per day, or one hundred and eight hours per
week. They allow themselves two hours for their meals. It
takes them, upon an average, two hours more every day fetching
and carrying their work home. Some of the East-end men work
on Sundays, and not a few either,' said my informant. 'Sometimes
I have worked hard,' said one man, 'from six one morning
till four the next, and scarcely had any time to take my meals in
the bargain. I have been almost suffocated with the dust flying
down my throat after working so many hours upon such heavy
work too, and sweating so much. It makes a man drink where
he would not.'</p>

<p class="i1">"This system of over-work exists in the 'slop' part of almost
every business; indeed, it is the principal means by which the
cheap trade is maintained. Let me cite from my letters in the
<i>Chronicle</i> some more of my experience on this subject. As
regards the London mantuamakers, I said:—'The workwomen
for good shops that give fair, or tolerably fair wages, and expect
good work, can make six average-sized mantles in a week, <i>working
from ten to twelve hours a day</i>; but the slop-workers by toiling
from thirteen to sixteen hours a day, will make <i>nine</i> such sized
mantles in a week. In a season of twelve weeks, 1000 workers
for the slop-houses and warehouses would at this rate make
108,000 mantles, or 36,000 more than workers for the fair trade.
Or, to put it in another light, these slop-women, by being compelled,
in order to live, to work such over-hours as inflict lasting
injury on the health, supplant, by their over-work and over-hours,
the labour of 500 hands, working the regular hours."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Mr. Mayhew states it as a plain, unerring law, that
"over-work makes under-pay, and under-pay makes
over-work." True; but under-pay in the first place
gave rise to prolonged hours of toil; and in spite of all
laws that may be enacted, as long as a miserable pittance
is paid to labourers, and that, too, devoured by
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
taxes, supporting an aristocracy in luxury, so long will
the workman be compelled to slave for a subsistence.</p>

<p class="i1">The "strapping" system, which demands an undue
quantity of work from a journeyman in the course of a
day, is extensively maintained in London. Mr. Mayhew
met with a miserable victim of this system of
slavery, who appeared almost exhausted with excessive
toil. The poor fellow said—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'I work in what is called a strapping-shop, and have worked
at nothing else for these many years past in London. I call
"strapping" doing as much work as a human being or a horse
possibly can in a day, and that without any hanging upon the
collar, but with the foreman's eyes constantly fixed upon you,
from six o'clock in the morning to six o'clock at night. The shop
in which I work is for all the world like a prison; the silent system
is as strictly carried out there as in a model jail. If a man
was to ask any common question of his neighbour, except it was
connected with his trade, he would be discharged there and then.
If a journeyman makes the least mistake he is packed off just the
same. A man working at such places is almost always in fear;
for the most trifling things he's thrown out of work in an instant.
And then the quantity of work that one is forced to get through
is positively awful; if he can't do a plenty of it he don't stop
long where I am. No one would think it was possible to get so
much out of blood and bones. No slaves work like we do. At
some of the strapping shops the foreman keeps continually walking
about with his eyes on all the men at once. At others the
foreman is perched high up, so that he can have the whole of the
men under his eye together. I suppose since I knew the trade
that a <i>man does four times the work that he did formerly</i>. I know
a man that's done four pairs of sashes in a day, and one is considered
to be a good day's labour. What's worse than all, the
men are every one striving one against the other. Each is trying
to get through the work quicker than his neighbours. Four
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
or five men are set the same job, so that they may be all pitted
against one another, and then away they go, every one striving
his hardest for fear that the others should get finished first.
They are all tearing along, from the first thing in the morning to
the last at night, as hard as they can go, and when the time
comes to knock off they are ready to drop. It was hours after I
got home last night before I could get a wink of sleep; the soles
of my feet were on fire, and my arms ached to that degree that I
could hardly lift my hand to my head. Often, too, when we get
up of a morning, we are more tired than when we went to bed,
for we can't sleep many a night; but we musn't let our employers
know it, or else they'd be certain we couldn't do enough
for them, and we'd get the sack. So, tired as we may be, we are
obliged to look lively, somehow or other, at the shop of a morning.
If we're not beside our bench the very moment the bell's
done ringing, our time's docked—they won't give us a single
minute out of the hour. If I was working for a fair master, I
should do nearly one-third, and sometimes a half, less work than
I am now forced to get through; and, even to manage that much,
I shouldn't be idle a second of my time. It's quite a mystery to
me how they <i>do</i> contrive to get so much work out of the men.
But they are very clever people. They know how to have the
most out of a man, better than any one in the world. They are
all picked men in the shop—regular "strappers," and no mistake.
The most of them are five foot ten, and fine broad-shouldered,
strong-backed fellows too—if they weren't they wouldn't
have them. Bless you, they make no words with the men, they
sack them if they're not strong enough to do all they want; and
they can pretty soon tell, the very first shaving a man strikes in
the shop, what a chap is made of. Some men are done up at
such work—quite old men and gray, with spectacles on, by the
time they are forty. I have seen fine strong men, of thirty-six,
come in there, and be bent double in two or three years. They
are most all countrymen at the strapping shops. If they see a
great strapping fellow, who they think has got some stuff about
him that will come out, they will give him a job directly. We
are used for all the world like cab or omnibus-horses. Directly
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
they've had all the work out of us, we are turned off, and I am
sure, after my day's work is over, my feelings must be very much
the same as one of the London cab-horses. As for Sunday, it is
<i>literally</i> a day of rest with us, for the greater part of us lay a-bed
all day, and even that will hardly take the aches and pains out
of our bones and muscles. When I'm done and flung by, of
course I must starve.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">It may be said that, exhausting as this labour certainly
is, it is not slavery; for the workman has a will of his
own, and need not work if he does not choose to do it.
Besides, he is not held by law; he may leave the shop;
he may seek some other land. These circumstances
make his case very different from the negro slave of
America. True, but the difference is in favour of the
negro slave. The London workman has only the alternative—such
labour as has been described, the workhouse,
or starvation. The negro slave seldom has such
grinding toil, is provided for whether he performs it or
not, and can look forward to an old age of comfort and
repose. The London workman may leave his shop, but
he will be either consigned to the prison of a workhouse
or starved. He might leave the country, if he could
obtain the necessary funds.</p>

<p class="i1">Family work, or the conjoint labour of a workman's
wife and children, is one of the results of the wretchedly
rewarded slavery in the various trades. Mr Mayhew
gives the following statement of a "fancy cabinet"
worker upon this subject:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The most on us has got large families; we put the children
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
to work as soon as we can. My little girl began about six, but
about eight or nine is the usual age. 'Oh, poor little things,' said
the wife, 'they are obliged to begin the very minute they can use
their fingers at all.' The most of the cabinet-makers of the East
end have from five to six in family, and they are generally all at
work for them. The small masters mostly marry when they are
turned of twenty. You see our trade's coming to such a pass,
that unless a man has children to help him he can't live at all.
I've worked more than a month together, and the longest night's
rest I've had has been an hour and a quarter; ay, and I've been
up three nights a week besides. I've had my children lying ill,
and been obliged to wait on them into the bargain. You see we
couldn't live if it wasn't for the labour of our children, though it
makes 'em—poor little things!—old people long afore they are
growed up.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Why, I stood at this bench,' said the wife, 'with my child,
only ten years of age, from four o'clock on Friday morning till
ten minutes past seven in the evening, without a bit to eat or
drink. I never sat down a minute from the time I began till I
finished my work, and then I went out to sell what I had done.
I walked all the way from here [Shoreditch] down to the Lowther
Arcade to get rid of the articles.' Here she burst out into a
violent flood of tears, saying, 'Oh, sir, it is hard to be obliged to
labour from morning till night as we do, all of us, little ones and
all, and yet not be able to live by it either.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And you see the worst of it is, this here children's labour is of
such value now in our trade, that there's more brought into the
business every year, so that it's really for all the world <i>like breeding
slaves</i>. Without my children I don't know how we should be
able to get along.' 'There's that little thing,' said the man, pointing
to the girl ten years of age, before alluded to, as she sat at
the edge of the bed, 'why she works regularly every day from
six in the morning till ten at night. She never goes to school;
we can't spare her. There's schools enough about here for a
penny a week, but we could not afford to keep her without working.
If I'd ten more children I should be obliged to employ them
all the same way, and there's hundreds and thousands of children
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
now slaving at this business. There's the M——'s; they have a
family of eight, and the youngest to the oldest of all works at the
bench; and the oldest a'n't fourteen. I'm sure, of the two thousand
five hundred small masters in the cabinet line, you may
safely say that two thousand of them, at the very least, have from
five to six in family, and that's upward of twelve thousand children
that's been put to the trade since prices have come down.
Twenty years ago I don't think there was a child at work in our
business; and I am sure there is not a small master now whose
whole family doesn't assist him. But what I want to know is,
what's to become of the twelve thousand children when they're
growed up and come regular into the trade? Here are all my
ones growing up without being taught any thing but a business
that I know they must starve at.'</p>

<p class="i1">"In answer to my inquiry as to what dependence he had in
case of sickness, 'Oh, bless you,' he said, 'there's nothing but the
parish for us. I <i>did</i> belong to a benefit society about four years
ago, but I couldn't keep up my payments any longer. I was in
the society above five-and-twenty years, and then was obliged to
leave it after all. I don't know of one as belongs to any friendly
society, and I don't think there is a man as can afford it in our
trade now. They must all go to the workhouse when they're sick
or old.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">The "trading operatives," or those labourers who employ
subordinate and cheaper work-people, are much
decried in England; but they, also, are the creations
of the general system. A workman frequently ascertains
that he can make more money with less labour, by
employing women or children at home, than if he did
all of his own work; and very often men are driven to
this resource to save themselves from being worked to
death. The condition of those persons who work for
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
the "trading operatives," or "middlemen," is as miserable
as imagination may conceive.</p>

<p class="i1">In Charles Kingsley's popular novel, "Alton Locke,"
we find a vivid and truthful picture of the London tailor's
workshop, and the slavery of the workmen, which may
be quoted here in illustration:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"I stumbled after Mr. Jones up a dark, narrow iron staircase,
till we emerged through a trap-door into a garret at the top of
the house. I recoiled with disgust at the scene before me; and
here I was to work—perhaps through life! A low lean-to room,
stifling me with the combined odours of human breath and perspiration,
stale beer, the sweet sickly smell of gin, and the sour
and hardly less disgusting one of new cloth. On the floor, thick
with dust and dirt, scraps of stuff and ends of thread, sat some
dozen haggard, untidy, shoeless men, with a mingled look of care
and recklessness that made me shudder. The windows were
tight closed to keep out the cold winter air; and the condensed
breath ran in streams down the panes, checkering the dreary outlook
of chimney-tops and smoke. The conductor handed me over
to one of the men.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Here Crossthwaite, take this younker and make a tailor of
him. Keep him next you, and prick him up with your needle if
he shirks.'</p>

<p class="i1">"He disappeared down the trap-door, and mechanically, as if
in a dream, I sat down by the man and listened to his instructions,
kindly enough bestowed. But I did not remain in peace
two minutes. A burst of chatter rose as the foreman vanished,
and a tall, bloated, sharp-nosed young man next me bawled in
my ear—</p>

<p class="i1">"'I say, young 'un, fork out the tin and pay your footing at
Conscrumption Hospital!'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What do you mean?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'An't he just green?—Down with the stumpy—a tizzy for a
pot of half-and-half.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'I never drink beer.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Then never do,' whispered the man at my side; 'as sure as
hell's hell, it's your only chance.'</p>

<p class="i1">"There was a fierce, deep earnestness in the tone, which made
me look up at the speaker, but the other instantly chimed in.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Oh, yer don't, don't yer, my young Father Mathy! then
yer'll soon learn it here if yer want to keep your victuals down.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And I have promised to take my wages home to my mother.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Oh criminy! hark to that, my coves! here's a chap as is
going to take the blunt home to his mammy.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Ta'nt much of it the old un'll see,' said another. 'Ven yer
pockets it at the Cock and Bottle, my kiddy, yer won't find much
of it left o' Sunday mornings.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Don't his mother know he's out?' asked another; 'and won't
she know it—</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Ven he's sitting in his glory</span>
	    </div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Half-price at the Vic-tory.</span></div>
  </div>
</div>

<p>Oh no, ve never mentions her—her name is never heard. Certainly
not, by no means. Why should it?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well, if yer won't stand a pot,' quoth the tall man, 'I will,
that's all, and blow temperance. 'A short life and a merry one,'
says the tailor—</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">The ministers talk a great deal
	    about port,</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-2"><span style="font-size:larger;">And they makes Cape wine
	    very dear,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">But blow their hi's if ever they
	    tries</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-2"><span style="font-size:larger;">To deprive a poor cove of
	    his beer.</span></div>
  </div>
</div>

<p>Here, Sam, run to the Cock and Bottle for a pot of half-and-half
to my score.'</p>

<p class="i1">"A thin, pale lad jumped up and vanished, while my tormentor
turned to me:</p>

<p class="i1">"I say, young 'un, do you know why we're nearer heaven here
than our neighbours?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'I shouldn't have thought so,' answered I with a <i>naïveté</i> which
raised a laugh, and dashed the tall man for a moment.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yer don't? then I'll tell yer. Acause we're atop of the
house in the first place, and next place yer'll die here six months
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>
sooner nor if yer worked in the room below. A'n't that logic and
science, Orator?' appealing to Crossthwaite.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Why?' asked I.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Acause you get all the other floors' stinks up here, as well
as your own. Concentrated essence of man's flesh, is this here
as you're a-breathing. Cellar work-room we calls Rheumatic
Ward, because of the damp. Ground-floor's, Fever Ward—them
as don't get typhus gets dysentery, and them as don't get dysentery
gets typhus—your nose 'd tell yer why if you opened the
back windy. First floor's Ashmy Ward—don't you hear 'um
now through the cracks in the boards, a-puffing away like a nest
of young locomotives? And this here more august and upper-crust
cockloft is the Conscrumptive Hospital. First you begins
to cough, then you proceed to expectorate—spittoons, as you see,
perwided free gracious for nothing—fined a kivarten if you
spits on the floor—</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Then your cheeks they grow red, and
	    your nose it grows thin,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">And your bones they sticks out, till
	    they comes through your skin:</span></div>
  </div>
</div>

<p>and then, when you've sufficiently covered the poor dear shivering
bare backs of the hairystocracy,</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Die, die, die,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Away you fly,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Your soul is in the sky!</span></div>
</div></div>

<p>as the hinspired Shakspeare wittily remarks.'</p>

<p class="i1">"And the ribald lay down on his back, stretched himself out,
and pretended to die in a fit of coughing, which last was alas!
no counterfeit, while poor I, shocked and bewildered, let my tears
fall fast upon my knees.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Fine him a pot!' roared one, 'for talking about kicking the
bucket. He's a nice young man to keep a cove's spirits up, and
talk about "a short life and a merry one." Here comes the heavy.
Hand it here to take the taste of that fellow's talk out of my
mouth.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well, my young 'un,' recommenced my tormentor, 'and
how do you like your company?'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Leave the boy alone,' growled Crossthwaite: 'don't you see
he's crying?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Is that any thing good to eat? Give me some on it, if it is—it'll
save me washing my face.' And he took hold of my hair
and pulled my head back.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I'll tell you what, Jemmy Downes,' said Crossthwaite, in a
voice that made him draw back, 'if you don't drop that, I'll give
you such a taste of my tongue as shall turn you blue.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You'd better try it on, then. Do—only just now—if you
please.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Be quiet, you fool!' said another. 'You're a pretty fellow
to chaff the orator. He'll slang you up the chimney afore you
can get your shoes on.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Fine him a kivarten for quarrelling,' cried another; and the
bully subsided into a minute's silence, after a <i>sotto voce</i>—'Blow
temperance, and blow all Chartists, say I!' and then delivered
himself of his feelings in a doggrel song:</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Some folks leads coves a dance,
	    </span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">With their pledge of temperance,
	    </span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-7"><span style="font-size:larger;">And their plans for donkey
	    sociation;</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">And their pocket-fulls they crams
	    </span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">By their patriotic flams,</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-7"><span style="font-size:larger;">And then swears 'tis for the
	    good of the nation.</span></div>
    </div>
    <div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">But I don't care two inions</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">For political opinions,</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-7"><span style="font-size:larger;">While I can stand my heavy and
	    my quartern;</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">For to drown dull care within,
	    </span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">In baccy, beer, and gin,</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-7"><span style="font-size:larger;">Is the prime of a
	    working-tailor's fortin!</span></div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

<p class="i1">"'There's common sense for you now; hand the pot here.'</p>

<p class="i1">"I recollect nothing more of that day, except that I bent myself
to my work with assiduity enough to earn praises from Crossthwaite.
It was to be done, and I did it. The only virtue I ever
possessed (if virtue it be) is the power of absorbing my whole
heart and mind in the pursuit of the moment, however dull or
trivial, if there be good reason why it should be pursued at all.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"I owe, too, an apology to my readers for introducing all this
ribaldry. God knows it is as little to my taste as it can be to theirs,
but the thing exists; and those who live, if not by, yet still beside
such a state of things, ought to know what the men are like,
to whose labour, ay, life-blood, they owe their luxuries. They
are 'their brothers' keepers,' let them deny it as they will."</p></div>

<p class="i1">As a relief from misery, the wretched workmen generally
resort to intoxicating liquors, which, however,
ultimately render them a hundredfold more miserable.
In "Alton Locke," this is illustrated with an almost
fearful power, in the life and death of the tailor Downes.
After saving the wretched man from throwing himself
into the river, Alton Locke accompanies him to a disgusting
dwelling, in Bermondsey. The story continues:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"He stopped at the end of a miserable blind alley, where a
dirty gas-lamp just served to make darkness visible, and show the
patched windows and rickety doorways of the crazy houses,
whose upper stories were lost in a brooding cloud of fog; and the
pools of stagnant water at our feet: and the huge heap of cinders
which filled up the waste end of the alley—a dreary black, formless
mound, on which two or three spectral dogs prowled up and
down after the offal, appearing and vanishing like dark imps in
and out of the black misty chaos beyond.</p>

<p class="i1">"The neighbourhood was undergoing, as it seemed, 'improvements,'
of that peculiar metropolitan species which consists in
pulling down the dwellings of the poor, and building up rich
men's houses instead; and great buildings, within high temporary
palings, had already eaten up half the little houses; as the
great fish and the great estates, and the great shopkeepers, eat
up the little ones of their species—by the law of competition,
lately discovered to be the true creator and preserver of the universe.
There they loomed up, the tall bullies, against the dreary
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
sky, looking down with their grim, proud, stony visages, on the
misery which they were driving out of one corner, only to accumulate
and intensify it in another.</p>

<p class="i1">"The house at which we stopped was the last in the row; all
its companions had been pulled down; and there it stood, leaning
out with one naked ugly side into the gap, and stretching out
long props, like feeble arms and crutches, to resist the work of
demolition.</p>

<p class="i1">"A group of slatternly people were in the entry, talking loudly,
and as Downes pushed by them, a woman seized him by the arm.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Oh! you unnatural villain!—To go away after your drink,
and leave all them poor dead corpses locked up, without even
letting a body go in to stretch them out!'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And breeding the fever, too, to poison the whole house!'
growled one.</p>

<p class="i1">"'The relieving-officer's been here, my cove,' said another; 'and
he's gone for a peeler and a search-warrant to break open the
door, I can tell you!'</p>

<p class="i1">"But Downes pushed past unheeding, unlocked a door at the
end of the passage, thrust me in, locked it again, and then rushed
across the room in chase of two or three rats, who vanished into
cracks and holes.</p>

<p class="i1">"And what a room! A low lean-to with wooden walls, without
a single article of furniture; and through the broad chinks of the
floor shone up as it were ugly glaring eyes, staring at us. They
were the reflections of the rushlight in the sewer below. The
stench was frightful—the air heavy with pestilence. The first
breath I drew made my heart sink, and my stomach turn. But
I forgot every thing in the object which lay before me, as Downes
tore a half-finished coat off three corpses laid side by side on the
bare floor.</p>

<p class="i1">"There was his little Irish wife;—dead—and naked—the
wasted white limbs gleamed in the lurid light; the unclosed eyes
stared, as if reproachfully, at the husband whose drunkenness
had brought her there to kill her with the pestilence; and on
each side of her a little, shrivelled, impish, child-corpse—the
wretched man had laid their arms round the dead mother's neck—and
there they slept, their hungering and wailing over at last
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>
for ever: the rats had been busy already with them—but what
matter to them now?</p>

<p class="i1">"'Look!' he cried; 'I watched 'em dying! Day after day I
saw the devils come up through the cracks, like little maggots
and beetles, and all manner of ugly things, creeping down their
throats; and I asked 'em, and they said they were the fever
devils.'</p>

<p class="i1">"It was too true; the poisonous exhalations had killed them.
The wretched man's delirium tremens had given that horrible
substantiality to the poisonous fever gases.</p>

<p class="i1">"Suddenly Downes turned on me almost menacingly. 'Money!
money! I want some gin!'</p>

<p class="i1">"I was thoroughly terrified—and there was no shame in feeling
fear, locked up with a madman far my superior in size and
strength, in so ghastly a place. But the shame, and the folly
too, would have been in giving way to my fear; and with a boldness
half assumed, half the real fruit of excitement and indignation
at the horrors I beheld, I answered—</p>

<p class="i1">"'If I had money, I would give you none. What do you want
with gin? Look at the fruits of your accursed tippling. If you
had taken my advice, my poor fellow,' I went on, gaining courage
as I spoke, 'and become a water-drinker, like me'——</p>

<p class="i1">"'Curse you and your water-drinking! If you had had no
water to drink or wash with for two years but that—that,' pointing
to the foul ditch below—'If you had emptied the slops in
there with one hand, and filled your kettle with the other'——</p>

<p class="i1">"'Do you actually mean that that sewer is your only drinking
water?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Where else can we get any? Everybody drinks it; and you
shall too—you shall!' he cried, with a fearful oath, 'and then see
if you don't run off to the gin-shop, to take the taste of it out of
your mouth. Drink! and who can help drinking, with his
stomach turned with such hell-broth as that—or such a hell's
blast as this air is here, ready to vomit from morning till night
with the smells? I'll show you. You shall drink a bucket-full
of it, as sure as you live, you shall.'</p>

<p class="i1">"And he ran out of the back door, upon a little balcony, which
hung over the ditch.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"I tried the door, but the key was gone, and the handle too.
I beat furiously on it, and called for help. Two gruff authoritative
voices were heard in the passage.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Let us in; I'm the policeman!'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Let me out, or mischief will happen!'</p>

<p class="i1">"The policeman made a vigorous thrust at the crazy door; and
just as it burst open, and the light of his lantern streamed into
the horrible den, a heavy splash was heard outside.</p>

<p class="i1">"'He has fallen into the ditch!'</p>

<p class="i1">"'He'll be drowned, then, as sure as he's a born man,' shouted
one of the crowd behind.</p>

<p class="i1">"We rushed out on the balcony. The light of the policeman's
lantern glared over the ghastly scene—along the double row of
miserable house-backs, which lined the sides of the open tidal
ditch—over strange rambling jetties, and balconies, and sleeping
sheds, which hung on rotting piles over the black waters, with
phosphorescent scraps of rotten fish gleaming and twinkling out
of the dark hollows, like devilish gravelights—over bubbles of
poisonous gas, and bloated carcases of dogs, and lumps of offal,
floating on the stagnant olive-green hell-broth—over the slow sullen
rows of oily ripple which were dying away into the darkness
far beyond, sending up, as they stirred, hot breaths of miasma—the
only sign that a spark of humanity, after years of foul life,
had quenched itself at last in that foul death. I almost fancied
that I could see the haggard face staring up at me through the
slimy water; but no—it was as opaque as stone."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Downes had been a "sweater," and before his death
was a "sweater's slave."</p>

<p class="i1">When the comparatively respectable workshop in
which Alton Locke laboured was broken up, and the
workmen were told by the heartless employer that he
intended to give out work, for those who could labour
at home, these toil-worn men held a meeting, at which
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
a man named John Crossthwaite, thus spoke for his
oppressed and degraded class:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"We were all bound to expect this. Every working tailor must
come to this at last, on the present system; and we are only
lucky in having been spared so long. You all know where this
will end—in the same misery as fifteen thousand out of twenty
thousand of our class are enduring now. We shall become the
slaves, often the bodily prisoners, of Jews, middlemen, and sweaters,
who draw their livelihood out of our starvation. We shall
have to face, as the rest have, ever-decreasing prices of labour,
ever-increasing profits made out of that labour by the contractors
who will employ us—arbitrary fines, inflicted at the caprice of
hirelings—the competition of women, and children, and starving
Irish—our hours of work will increase one-third, our actual pay
decrease to less than one-half; and in all this we shall have no
hope, no chance of improvement in wages, but ever more penury,
slavery, misery, as we are pressed on by those who are sucked by
fifties—almost by hundreds—yearly, out of the honourable trade
in which we were brought up, into the infernal system of contract
work, which is devouring our trade and many others, body
and soul. Our wives will be forced to sit up night and day to
help us—our children must labour from the cradle, without chance
of going to school, hardly of breathing the fresh air of heaven—our
boys as they grow up must turn beggars or paupers—our
daughters, as thousands do, must eke out their miserable earnings
by prostitution. And, after all, a whole family will not gain
what one of us had been doing, as yet, single-handed. You know
there will be no hope for us. There is no use appealing to government
or Parliament. I don't want to talk politics here. I
shall keep them for another place. But you can recollect as well
as I can, when a deputation of us went up to a member of Parliament—one
that was reputed a philosopher, and a political economist,
and a liberal—and set before him the ever-increasing penury
and misery of our trade and of those connected with it; you recollect
his answer—that, however glad he would be to help us, it
was impossible—he could not alter the laws of nature—that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
wages were regulated by the amount of competition among the
men themselves, and that it was no business of government, or
any one else, to interfere in contracts between the employer and
employed, that those things regulated themselves by the laws of
political economy, which it was madness and suicide to oppose.
He may have been a wise man. I only know that he was a rich
one. Every one speaks well of the bridge which carries him over.
Every one fancies the laws which fill his pockets to be God's laws.
But I say this: If neither government nor members of Parliament
can help us, we must help ourselves. Help yourselves, and Heaven
will help you. Combination among ourselves is the only
chance. One thing we can do—sit still.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And starve!' said some one."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Crossthwaite is represented as having preferred to
endure want rather than work under the sweating system.
But there are few men who possess such spirit
and determination. Men with families are compelled,
by considering those who are dependent upon them, to
work for whatever prices the masters choose to pay.
They are free labourers—if they do not choose to work—they
are perfectly free—to starve!</p>

<p class="i1">The government took the initiative in the sweating
system. It set the example by giving the army and
navy clothes to contractors, and taking the lowest
tenders. The police clothes, the postmen's clothes, the
convict's clothes, are all contracted for by sweaters and
sub-sweaters, till government work is the very last,
lowest resource to which a poor, starved-out wretch
betakes himself, to keep body and soul together. Thus
is profit made from the pauperism of men, the slavery of
children, and the prostitution of women, in Great Britain.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">Some years ago the following announcement appeared
in the Village Gazette:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Peter Moreau and his wife are dead, aged twenty-five years.
Too much work has killed them and many besides. We say—Work
like a negro, like a galley-slave: we ought to say—Work
like a freeman."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Work like negro slaves, indeed! There is no such
work in America, even among the slaves; all day long,
from Monday morning till Saturday night, week after
week, and year after year, till the machine is worn out.
American slaves and convicts in New South Wales are
fat and happy, compared with the labourers of England.
It frequently happens that Englishmen commit crimes
for the purpose of becoming galley-slaves in New South
Wales. They do not keep their purpose secret; they
declare it loudly with tears and passionate exclamations
to the magistrate who commits them for trial, to the
jury who try them, and to the judge who passes sentence
on them. This is published in the newspapers,
but so often that it excites no particular comment.</p>

<p class="i1">The parish apprentices are the worst-treated slaves
in the world. They are at the mercy of their masters
and mistresses during their term of apprenticeship,
without protectors, and without appeal against the most
cruel tyranny. In the reign of George III., one Elizabeth
Brownrigg was hanged for beating and starving to
death her parish apprentices. In 1831, another woman,
Esther Hibner by name, was hanged in London for
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
beating and starving to death a parish apprentice. Two
instances of punishment, for thousands of cases of impunity!</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The evidence in the case of Esther Hibner proved that a number
of girls, pauper apprentices, were employed in a workshop;
that their victuals consisted of garbage, commonly called hog's-wash,
and that of this they never had enough to stay the pains
of hunger; that they were kept half-naked, half-clothed in dirty
rags; that they slept in a heap on the floor, amid filth and stench;
that they suffered dreadfully from cold; that they were forced to
work so many hours together that they used to fall asleep while
at work; that for falling asleep, for not working as hard as their
mistress wished, they were beaten with sticks, with fists, dragged
by the hair, dashed on to the ground, trampled upon, and otherwise
tortured; that they were found, all of them more or less,
covered with chilblains, scurvy, bruises, and wounds; that one
of them died of ill-treatment; and—mark this—that the discovery
of that murder was made in consequence of the number of coffins
which had issued from Esther Hibner's premises, and raised the
curiosity of her neighbours. For this murder Mrs. Hibner was
hanged; but what did she get for all the other murders which,
referring to the number of coffins, we have a right to believe that
she committed? She got for each £10. That is to say, whenever
she had worked, starved, beaten, dashed and trampled a girl
to death, she got another girl to treat in the same way, with £10
for her trouble. She carried on a trade in the murder of parish
apprentices; and if she had conducted it with moderation, if the
profit and custom of murder had not made her grasping and careless,
the constitution, which protects the poor as well as the rich,
would never have interfered with her. The law did not permit
her to do what she liked with her apprentices, as Americans do
with their slaves; oh no. Those free-born English children were
merely bound as apprentices, with their own consent, under the
eye of the magistrate, in order that they might learn a trade and
become valuable subjects. But did the magistrate ever visit Mrs.
Hibner's factory to see how she treated the free-born English
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
girls? never. Did the parish officers? no. Was there any legal
provision for the discovery of the woman's trade in murder?
none."</p>

<p class="i1">"You still read on the gates of London poorhouses, 'strong,
healthy boys and girls,' &amp;c.; and boys or girls you may obtain
by applying within, as many as you please, free-born, with the
usual fee. Having been paid for taking them, and having gone
through the ceremonies of asking their consent and signing bonds
before a magistrate, you may make them into sausages, for any
thing the constitution will do to prevent you. If it should be
proved that you kill even one of them, you will be hanged; but
you may half-starve them, beat them, torture them, any thing
short of killing them, with perfect security; and using a little
circumspection, you may kill them too, without much danger.
Suppose they die, who cares? Their parents? they are orphans,
or have been abandoned by their parents. The parish officers?
very likely, indeed, that these, when the poorhouse is crammed
with orphan and destitute children, should make inquiries troublesome
to themselves; inquiries which, being troublesome to you,
might deprive them of your custom in future. The magistrate?
he asked the child whether it consented to be your apprentice;
the child said 'Yes, your worship;' and there his worship's duty
ends. The neighbours? of course, if you raise their curiosity like
Esther Hibner, but not otherwise. In order to be quite safe, I
tell you you must be a little circumspect. But let us suppose
that you are timid, and would drive a good trade without the
shadow of risk. In that case, half-starve your apprentices, cuff
them, kick them, torment them till they run away from you.
They will not go back to the poorhouse, because there they would
be flogged for having run away from you: besides, the poorhouse
is any thing but a pleasant place. The boys will turn beggars
or thieves, and the girls prostitutes; you will have pocketed £10
for each of them, and may get more boys and girls on the same
terms, to treat in the same way. This trade is as safe as it is
profitable."<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a></p></div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span></p>




<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
</div>

<p class="ac">THE WORKHOUSE SYSTEM OF BRITAIN.</p>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">The</span> English writers generally point to the poor-laws
of their country as a proud evidence of the merciful and
benevolent character of the government. Look at those
laws! so much have we done in the cause of humanity.
See how much money we expend every year for the relief
of the poor! Our workhouses are maintained at an
enormous expense. Very well; but it takes somewhat
from the character of the doctor, to ascertain that he
gave the wound he makes a show of healing. What are
the sources of the immense pauperism of Britain? The
enormous monopoly of the soil, and the vast expense of
civil and ecclesiastical aristocracy. The first takes work
from one portion of the people, and the latter takes the
profits of work from the other portion. The "glorious
institutions" of Britain crowd the workhouses; and we
are now going to show the horrible system under which
paupers are held in these establishments.</p>

<p class="i1">The labouring classes are constantly exposed to the
chance of going to the workhouse. Their wages are so
low, or so preyed upon by taxes, that they have no
opportunity of providing for a "rainy day." A few
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>
weeks' sickness, a few weeks' absence of work, and,
starvation staring them in the face, they are forced to
apply to the parish authorities for relief. Once within
the gate of the workhouse, many never entertain the
idea of coming out until they are carried forth in their
coffins.</p>

<p class="i1">Each parish has a workhouse, which is under the
control of several guardians, who, again, are under the
orders of a Board of Commissioners sitting at London.
Many—perhaps a majority—of the guardians of the
parishes are persons without those humane feelings
which should belong to such officials, and numerous
petty brutalities are added to those which are inherent
in the British workhouse system.</p>

<p class="i1">Robert Southey says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"When the poor are incapable of contributing any longer to
their own support, they are removed to what is called the workhouse.
I cannot express to you the feelings of hopelessness and
dread with which all the decent poor look on to this wretched
termination of a life of labour. To this place all vagrants are
sent for punishment; unmarried women with child go here to be
delivered; and poor orphans and base-born children are brought
up here until they are of age to be apprenticed off; the other inmates
are of those unhappy people who are utterly helpless, parish
idiots and madmen, the blind and the palsied, and the old who
are fairly worn out. It is not in the nature of things that the
superintendents of such institutions as these should be gentle-hearted,
when the superintendence is undertaken merely for the
sake of the salary. To this society of wretchedness the labouring
poor of England look as their last resting-place on this side of the
grave; and, rather than enter abodes so miserable, they endure
the severest privations as long as it is possible to exist. A feeling
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
of honest pride makes them shrink from a place where guilt
and poverty are confounded; and it is heart-breaking for those
who have reared a family of their own to be subjected, in their
old age, to the harsh and unfeeling authority of persons younger
than themselves, neither better born nor better bred."</p></div>

<p class="i1">This is no less true, than admirable as a specimen of
prose. It was true when Southey penned it, and it is
true now. Let us look at some of the provisions of the
poor-laws of England, which form the much-lauded system
of charity.</p>

<p class="i1">One of these provisions refuses relief to those who
will not accept that relief except in the character of
inmates of the workhouse, and thus compels the poor
applicants to either perish of want or tear asunder all
the ties of home. To force the wretched father from
the abode of his family, is a piece of cruelty at which
every humane breast must revolt. What wonder that
many perish for want of food, rather than leave all that
is dear to them on earth? If they must die, they prefer
to depart surrounded by affectionate relatives, rather
than by callous "guardians of the poor," who calculate
the trouble and the expense of the burial before the
breath leaves the body. The framers of the poor-laws
forgot—perchance—that, "Be it ever so humble, there's
no place like home."</p>

<p class="i1">Another provision of the poor-laws denies the consolations
of religion to those whose conscientious scruples
will not allow them to worship according to the forms
of the established church. This is totally at variance
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
with the spirit of true Christianity, and a most barbarous
privation. One would think that British legislators
doubted the supreme efficacy of the Christian faith in
saving souls from destruction. Why should not the
balm be applied, regardless of the formal ceremonies,
if it possesses any healing virtues? But the glory of
the English Church is its iron observance of forms;
and, rather than relax one jot, it would permit the souls
of millions to be swept away into the gloom of eternal
night.</p>

<p class="i1">Then, there is the separation regulation, dragging
after it a long train of horrors and heart-rending sufferings—violating
the law of holy writ—"Whom God
hath joined together, let no man put asunder"—and
trampling upon the best feelings of human nature.</p>

<p class="i1">A thrilling illustration of the operation of this law is
narrated by Mr. James Grant.<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> We quote:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Two persons, man and wife, of very advanced years, were at
last, through the infirmities consequent on old age, rendered incapable
of providing for themselves. Their friends were like
themselves, poor; but, so long as they could, they afforded them
all the assistance in their power. The infirmities of the aged
couple became greater and greater; so, as a necessary consequence,
did their wants. The guardians of the poor—their parish
being under the operation of the new measure—refused to afford
them the slightest relief. What was to be done? They had no
alternative but starvation and the workhouse. To have gone to
the workhouse, even had they been permitted to live together,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>
could have been painful enough to their feelings; but to go there
to be separated from each other, was a thought at which their
hearts sickened. They had been married for nearly half a century;
and during all that time had lived in the greatest harmony
together. I am speaking the language of unexaggerated truth
when I say, that their affection for each other increased, instead
of suffering diminution, as they advanced in years. A purer or
stronger attachment than theirs has never, perhaps, existed in a
world in which there is so much of mutability as in ours. Many
were the joys and many were the sorrows which they had equally
shared with each other. Their joys were increased, because participated
in by both: their sorrows were lessened, because of the
consolations they assiduously administered to each other when
the dispensations of Providence assumed a lowering aspect. The
reverses they had experienced, in the course of their long and
eventful union, had only served to attach them the more strongly
to each other, just as the tempestuous blast only serves to cause
the oak to strike its roots more deeply in the earth. With minds
originally constituted alike, and that constitution being based on
a virtuous foundation, it was, indeed, to be expected that the lapse
of years would only tend to strengthen their attachment. Nothing,
in a word, could have exceeded the ardour of their sympathy with
each other. The only happiness which this world could afford
them was derived from the circumstance of being in each other's
company; and the one looked forward to the possibility of being
left alone, when the other was snatched away by death, with feelings
of the deepest pain and apprehension. Their wish was, in
subordination to the will of the Supreme Being, that as they had
been so long united in life, so in death they might not be divided.
Their wish was in one sense realized, though not in the sense they
had desired. The pressure of want, aggravated by the increasing
infirmities of the female, imposed on her the necessity of repairing
to the workhouse. The husband would most willingly have followed,
had they been permitted to live together when there, in
the hope that they should, even in that miserable place, be able
to assuage each other's griefs, as they had so often done before.
That was a permission, however, which was not to be granted to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
them. The husband therefore determined that he would live on a
morsel of bread and a draught of cold water, where he was, rather
than submit to the degradation of a workhouse, in which he would
be separated from her who had been the partner of his joys and
griefs for upward of half a century. The hour of parting came;
and a sad and sorrowful hour it was to the aged couple. Who
shall describe their feelings on the occasion? Who can even
enter into those feelings? No one. They could only be conceived
by themselves. The process of separation was as full of
anguish to their mental nature as is the severance of a limb from
the body to the physical constitution. And that separation was
aggravated by the circumstance, that both felt a presentiment, so
strong as to have all the force of a thorough conviction, that their
separation was to be final as regarded this world. What, then,
must have been the agonies of the parting hour in the case of a
couple whose mental powers were still unimpaired, and who had
lived in the most perfect harmony for the protracted period of
fifty years? They were, I repeat, not only such as admit of no
description, but no one, who has not been similarly circumstanced,
can even form an idea of them. The downcast look, the tender
glances they emitted to each other, the swimming eye, the moist
cheek, the deep-drawn sigh, the choked utterance, the affectionate
embrace—all told, in the language of resistless eloquence, of the
anguish caused by their separation. The scene was affecting in
the extreme, even to the mere spectator. It was one which must
have softened the hardest heart, as it drew tears from every eye
which witnessed it; what, then, must the actual realization of it
in all its power have been to the parties themselves? The separation
did take place; the poor woman was wrenched from the
almost death-like grasp of her husband. She was transferred to
the workhouse; and he was left alone in the miserable hovel in
which they had so long remained together. And what followed?
What followed! That may be soon told: it is a short history.
The former pined away, and died in three weeks after the
separation; and the husband only survived three weeks more.
Their parting was thus but for a short time, though final as
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>
regarded this world. Ere six weeks had elapsed they again met
together—</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Met on that happy, happy
	    shore,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Where friends do meet to part
	    no more."</span></div>
  </div>
</div>
</div>

<p class="i1">Here was an outrage, shocking to every heart of ordinary
sensibility, committed by authority of the British
government, in due execution of its "charitable enactments."
In searching for a parallel, we can only find it
among those savage tribes who kill their aged and infirm
brethren to save trouble and expense. Yet such actions
are sanctioned by the government of a civilized nation,
in the middle of the nineteenth century; and that, too,
when the government is parading its philanthropy in
the face of the world, and, pharisaically, thanking God
that it is not as other nations are, authorizing sin and
wrong.</p>

<p class="i1">It was said by the advocates of this regulation of
separation, that paupers themselves have no objection
to be separated from each other; because, generally
speaking, they have become old and unable to assist
each other, before they throw themselves permanently
on the parish—in other words, that the poor have not
the same affection for relatives and friends that the
wealthy have. Well, that argument was characteristic
of a land where the fineness of a man's feelings are
assumed to be exactly in proportion to the position of
his ancestry and the length of his purse—perfectly in
keeping, as an artist would say. A pauper husband
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>
and wife, after living together, perhaps for thirty years,
become old and desire to be separated, according to the
representations of the British aristocrat. His iron logic
allows no hearts to the poor. To breathe is human—to
feel is aristocratic.</p>

<p class="i1">Equally to be condemned is the regulation which
prohibits the visits to the workhouse of the friends of
the inmates. The only shadow of a reason for this is
an alleged inconvenience attending the admission of
those persons who are not inmates; and for such a reason
the wife is prevented from seeing her husband, the
children from seeing their father, and the poor heart-broken
inmate from seeing a friend—perhaps the only
one he has in the world. We might suppose that the
authors of this regulation had discovered that adversity
multiplies friends, instead of driving them away from
its gloom. Paupers must be blessed beyond the rest
of mankind in that respect. Instances are recorded
in which dying paupers have been refused the consolation
of a last visit from their children, under the operation
of this outrageous law. Mr. James Grant mentions
a case that came to his notice:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"An instance occurred a few months since in a workhouse in
the suburbs of the metropolis, in which intelligence was accidentally
conveyed to a daughter that her father was on his death-bed;
she hurried that moment to the workhouse, but was refused
admission. With tears in her eyes, and a heart that was ready
to break, she pleaded the urgency of the case. The functionary
was deaf to her entreaties; as soon might she have addressed
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>
them to the brick wall before her. His answer was, 'It is contrary
to the regulations of the place; come again at a certain
hour,' She applied to the medical gentleman who attended the
workhouse, and through his exertions obtained admission. She
flew to the ward in which her father was confined: he lay cold,
motionless, and unconscious before her—his spirit was gone; he
had breathed his last five minutes before. Well may we exclaim,
when we hear of such things, 'Do we live in a Christian country?
Is this a civilized land?'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">Certainly, Mr. Grant, it is a land of freedom and philanthropy
unknown upon the rest of the earth's surface.</p>

<p class="i1">From a survey of the poor-laws it appears that
poverty is considered criminal in Great Britain. The
workhouses, which are declared to have been established
for the relief of the poor, are worse than prisons for
solitary confinement; for the visits of friends and the
consolations of religion, except under particular forms,
are denied to the unhappy inmates, while they are permitted
to the criminal in his dungeon.</p>

<p class="i1">What an English pauper is may be learned from the
following description of the "bold peasantry," which
we extract from one of the countless pamphlets on
pauperism written by Englishmen.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"What is that defective being, with calfless legs and stooping
shoulders, weak in body and mind, inert, pusillanimous and
stupid, whose premature wrinkles and furtive glance tell of
misery and degradation? That is an English peasant or pauper;
for the words are synonymous. His sire was a pauper, and his
mother's milk wanted nourishment. From infancy his food has
been bad, as well as insufficient; and he now feels the pains of
unsatisfied hunger nearly whenever he is awake. But half-clothed,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
and never supplied with more warmth than suffices to
cook his scanty meals, cold and wet come to him, and stay by
him, with the weather. He is married, of course; for to this he
would have been driven by the poor-laws, even if he had been,
as he never was, sufficiently comfortable and prudent to dread
the burden of a family. But, though instinct and the overseer
have given him a wife, he has not tasted the highest joys of husband
and father. His partner and his little ones being, like himself,
often hungry, seldom warm, sometimes sick without aid, and
always sorrowful without hope, are greedy, selfish, and vexing;
so, to use his own expression, he 'hates the sight of them,' and
resorts to his hovel only because a hedge affords less shelter from
the wind and rain. Compelled by parish law to support his
family, which means to join them in consuming an allowance
from the parish, he frequently conspires with his wife to get that
allowance increased, or prevent its being diminished. This
brings begging, trickery, and quarrelling; and ends in settled
craft. Though he has the inclination he wants the courage to
become, like more energetic men of his class, a poacher or smuggler
on a large scale; but he pilfers occasionally, and teaches
his children to lie and steal. His subdued and slavish manner
toward his great neighbours shows that they treat him with suspicion
and harshness. Consequently he at once dreads and hates
them; but he will never harm them by violent means. Too degraded
to be desperate, he is only thoroughly depraved. His
miserable career will be short; rheumatism and asthma are conducting
him to the workhouse, where he will breathe his last
without one pleasant recollection, and so make room for another
wretch, who may live and die in the same way. This is a sample
of one class of English peasants. Another class is composed
of men who, though paupers to the extent of being in part supported
by the parish, were not bred and born in extreme destitution,
and who, therefore, in so far as the moral depends on the
physical man, are qualified to become wise, virtuous, and happy.
They have large muscles, an upright mien, and a quick perception.
With strength, energy, and skill, they would earn a comfortable
subsistence as labourers, if the modern fashion of paying
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
wages out of the poor-box did not interfere with the due course
of things, and reduce all the labourers of a parish, the old and
the young, the weak and the strong, the idle and the industrious,
to that lowest rate of wages, or rather of weekly payment to
each, which, in each case, is barely sufficient for the support of
life. If there were no poor-laws, or if the poor-laws were such
that labour was paid in proportion to the work performed, and
not according to a scale founded on the power of gastric juice
under various circumstances, these superior men would be employed
in preference to the inferior beings described above,
would earn twice as much as the others could earn, and would
have every motive for industry, providence, and general good
conduct. As it is, their superior capacity as labourers is of no
advantage to them. They have no motive for being industrious
or prudent. What they obtain between labour and the rate is
but just enough to support them miserably. They are tempted
to marry for the sake of an extra allowance from the parish: and
they would be sunk to the lowest point of degradation but for the
energy of their minds, which they owe to their physical strength.
Courage and tenderness are said to be allied: men of this class
usually make good husbands and affectionate parents. Impelled
by want of food, clothes, and warmth, for themselves and their
families, they become poachers wherever game abounds, and
smugglers when opportunity serves. By poaching or smuggling,
or both, many of them are enabled to fill the bellies of their children,
to put decent clothes on the backs of their wives, and to
keep the cottage whole, with a good fire in it, from year's end to
year's end. The villains! why are they not taken up? They
are taken up sometimes, and are hunted always, by those who
administer rural law. In this way they learn to consider two
sets of laws—those for the protection of game, and those for the
protection of home manufactures—as specially made for their
injury. Be just to our unpaid magistrates! who perform their
duty, even to the shedding of man's blood, in defence of pheasants
and restrictions on trade. Thus the bolder sort of husbandry
labourers, by engaging in murderous conflicts with gamekeepers
and preventive men, become accustomed to deeds of violence,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
and, by living in jails, qualified for the most desperate courses.
They also imbibe feelings of dislike, or rather of bitter hatred,
toward the rural magistracy, whom they regard as oppressors
and natural enemies; closely resembling, in this respect, the
defective class of peasants from whom they differ in so many particulars.
Between these two descriptions of peasantry there is
another, which partakes of the characteristics of both classes, but
in a slighter degree, except as regards their fear and hatred of
the rural aristocracy. In the districts where paupers and game
abound, it would be difficult to find many labourers not coming
under one of these descriptions. By courtesy, the entire body is
called the bold peasantry of England. But is nothing done by
the 'nobility, clergy, and gentry,' to conciliate the affection of the
pauper mass, by whose toil all their own wealth is produced?
Charity! The charity of the poor-laws, which paupers have been
taught to consider a right, which operates as a curse to the able-bodied
and well-disposed, while it but just enables the infirm of
all ages to linger on in pain and sorrow. Soup! Dogs'-meat,
the paupers call it. They are very ungrateful; but there is a
way of relieving a man's necessities which will make him hate
you; and it is in this way, generally, that soup is given to the
poor. Books, good little books, which teach patience and submission
to the powers that be! With which such paupers as obtain
them usually boil their kettles, when not deterred by fear of the
reverend donor. Of this gift the design is so plain and offensive,
that its effect is contrary to what was intended, just as children
from whom obedience is very strictly exacted are commonly
rebels at heart. What else? is nothing else done by the rural
rich to win the love of the rural poor? Speaking generally,
since all rules have exceptions, the privileged classes of our rural
districts take infinite pains to be abhorred by their poorest neighbours.
They enclose commons. They stop footpaths. They
wall in their parks. They set spring-guns and man-traps. They
spend on the keep of high-bred dogs what would support half as
many children, and yet persecute a labouring man for owning
one friend in his cur. They make rates of wages, elaborately
calculating the minimum of food that will keep together the soul
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>
and body of a clodhopper. They breed game in profusion for
their own amusement, and having thus tempted the poor man to
knock down a hare for his pot, they send him to the treadmill,
or the antipodes, for that inexpiable offence. They build jails,
and fill them. They make new crimes and new punishments for
the poor. They interfere with the marriages of the poor, compelling
some, and forbidding others, to come together. They shut
up paupers in workhouses, separating husband and wife, in
pounds by day and wards by night. They harness poor men to
carts. They superintend alehouses, decry skittles, deprecate
beer-shops, meddle with fairs, and otherwise curtail the already
narrow amusements of the poor. Even in church, where some
of them solemnly preach that all are equal, they sit on cushions,
in pews boarded, matted, and sheltered by curtains from the wind
and the vulgar gaze, while the lower order must put up with a
bare bench on a stone floor, which is good enough for them.
Everywhere they are ostentatious in the display of wealth and
enjoyment; while, in their intercourse with the poor, they are
suspicious, quick at taking offence, vindictive when displeased,
haughty, overbearing, tyrannical, and wolfish; as it seems in
the nature of man to be toward such of his fellows as, like sheep,
are without the power to resist."</p></div>

<p class="i1">In London, a species of slavery pertains to the workhouse
system which has justly excited much indignation.
This is the employment of paupers as scavengers in the
streets, without due compensation, and compelling them
to wear badges, as if they were convicted criminals.
Mr. Mayhew has some judicious remarks upon this subject:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"If pauperism be a disgrace, then it is unjust to turn a man
into the public thoroughfare, wearing the badge of beggary, to be
pointed at and scorned for his poverty, especially when we are
growing so particularly studious of our criminals that we make
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
them wear masks to prevent even their faces being seen.<a name="FNanchor_91_91"
id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> Nor
is it consistent with the principles of an enlightened national
morality that we should force a body of honest men to labour
upon the highways, branded with a degrading garb, like convicts.
Neither is it <i>wise</i> to do so, for the shame of poverty soon becomes
deadened by the repeated exposure to public scorn; and thus the
occasional recipient of parish relief is ultimately converted into
the hardened and habitual pauper. "Once a pauper always a
pauper," I was assured was the parish rule; and here lies the
<i>rationale</i> of the fact. Not long ago this system of employing <i>badged</i>
paupers to labour on the public thoroughfares was carried to a
much more offensive extent than it is even at present. At one
time the pauper labourers of a certain parish had the attention of
every passer-by attracted to them while at their work, for on the
back of each man's garb—a sort of smock frock—was marked,
with sufficient prominence, '<span class="sc">Clerkenwell. Stop it!</span>' This public
intimation that the labourers were not only paupers, but regarded
as thieves, and expected to purloin the parish dress they wore,
attracted public attention, and was severely commented upon at a
meeting. The '<span class="sc">Stop it!</span>' therefore was cancelled, and the frocks
are now <i>merely</i> lettered '<span class="sc">Clerkenwell</span>.' Before the alteration
the men very generally wore the garment inside out."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The pauper scavengers employed by the metropolitan
parishes are divided into three classes: 1. The
in-door paupers, who receive no wages whatever, their
lodging, food, and clothing being considered to be sufficient
remuneration for their labour; 2. The out-door
paupers, who are paid partly in money and partly in
kind, and employed in some cases three days, and in
others six days in the week; 3. The unemployed labourers
of the district, who are set to scavenging work
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
by the parish and paid a regular money-wage—the employment
being constant, and the rate of remuneration
varying from 1<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> to 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a day for each of the six
days, or from 7<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to 15<i>s.</i> a week.</p>

<p class="i1">The first class of pauper-scavengers, or those who receive
nothing for their labour beyond their lodging, food,
and clothing, are treated as slaves. The labour is compulsory,
without inducements for exertion, and conducted
upon the same system which the authorities of the parish
would use for working cattle. One of these scavengers
gave the following account of this degrading labour to
Mr. Mayhew:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Street-sweeping,' he said, 'degrades a man, and if a man's
poor he hasn't no call to be degraded. Why can't they set the
thieves and pickpockets to sweep? they could be watched easy
enough; there's always idle fellers as reckons theirselves real
gents, as can be got for watching and sitch easy jobs, for they
gets as much for them as three men's paid for hard work in a
week. I never was in a prison, but I've heerd that people there
is better fed and better cared for than in workusses. What's the
meaning of that, sir, I'd like to know. You can't tell me, but I
can tell you. The workus is made as ugly as it can be, that poor
people may be got to leave it, and chance dying in the street
rather.' [Here the man indulged in a gabbled detail of a series
of pauper grievances which I had a difficulty in diverting or interrupting.
On my asking if the other paupers had the same opinion
as to the street-sweeping as he had, he replied:—] 'To be sure
they has; all them that has sense to have a 'pinion at all has;
there's not two sides to it anyhow. No, I don't want to be kept
and do nothink. I want <i>proper</i> work. And by the rights of it I
might as well be kept with nothink to do as —— or ——' [parish
officials]. 'Have they nothing to do?' I asked. 'Nothink, but
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
to make mischief and get what ought to go to the poor. It's salaries
and such like as swallers the rates, and that's what every
poor family knows as knows any think. Did I ever like my work
better? Certainly not. Do I take any pains with it? Well,
where would be the good? I can sweep well enough, when I please,
but if I could do more than the best man as ever Mr. Drake paid
a pound a week to, it wouldn't be a bit better for me—not a bit,
sir, I assure you. We all takes it easy whenever we can, but the
work <i>must</i> be done. The only good about it is that you get outside
the house. It's a change that way certainly. But we work
like horses and is treated like asses.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">The second mode of pauper scavenging, viz. that
performed by out-door paupers, and paid for partly in
money and partly in kind, is strongly condemned, as
having mischievous and degrading tendencies. The
men thus employed are certainly not independent labourers,
though the means of their subsistence are partly
the fruits of their toil. Their exceedingly scant payment
keeps them hard at work for a very unreasonable
period. Should they refuse to obey the parish regulations
in regard to the work, the pangs of hunger are
sure to reach them and compel them to submit. Death
is the only door of escape. From a married man employed
by the parish in this work, Mr. Mayhew obtained
the following interesting narrative, which is a sad revelation
of pauper slavery:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'I was brought up as a type-founder; my father, who was one,
learnt me his trade; but he died when I was quite a young man,
or I might have been better perfected in it. I was comfortably
off enough then, and got married. Very soon after that I was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
taken ill with an abscess in my neck, you can see the mark of it
still,' [He showed me the mark.] 'For six months I wasn't able
to do a thing, and I was a part of the time, I don't recollect how
long, in St. Bartholomew's Hospital. I was weak and ill when I
came out, and hardly fit for work; I couldn't hear of any work I
could get, for there was a great bother in the trade between master
and men. Before I went into the hospital, there was money
to pay to doctors; and when I came out I could earn nothing, so
every thing went; yes, sir, every thing. My wife made a little
matter with charing for families she'd lived in, but things are in
a bad way if a poor woman has to keep her husband. She was
taken ill at last, and then there was nothing but the parish for us.
I suffered a great deal before it come to that. It was awful. No
one can know what it is but them that suffers it. But I didn't
know what in the world to do. We lived then in St. Luke's, and
were passed to our own parish, and were three months in the
workhouse. The living was good enough, better than it is now,
I've heard, but I was miserable.' ['And I was <i>very</i> miserable,'
interposed the wife, 'for I had been brought up comfortable; my
father was a respectable tradesman in St. George's-in-the-East, and
I had been in good situations.'] 'We made ourselves,' said the
husband, 'as useful as we could, but we were parted of course.
At the three months' end, I had 10<i>s.</i> given to me to come out with,
and was told I might start costermongering on it. But to a man
not up to the trade, 10<i>s.</i> won't go very far to keep up costering.
I didn't feel master enough of my own trade by this time to try
for work at it, and work wasn't at all regular. There were good
hands earning only 12<i>s.</i> a week. The 10<i>s.</i> soon went, and I had
again to apply for relief, and got an order for the stone-yard to go
and break stones. Ten bushels was to be broken for 15<i>d.</i> It was
dreadful hard work at first. My hands got all blistered and
bloody, and I've gone home and cried with pain and wretchedness.
At first it was on to three days before I could break the ten
bushels. I felt shivered to bits all over my arms and shoulders,
and my head was splitting. I then got to do it in two days, and
then in one, and it grew easier. But all this time I had only
what was reckoned three days' work in a week. That is, you see,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
sir, I had only three times ten bushels of stones given to break in
a week, and earned only 3<i>s.</i> 9<i>d.</i> Yes, I lived on it, and paid 1<i>s.</i>
6<i>d.</i> a week rent, for the neighbours took care of a few sticks for us,
and the parish or a broker wouldn't have found them worth carriage.
My wife was then in the country with a sister. I lived
upon bread and dripping, went without fire or candle (or had one
only very seldom) though it wasn't warm weather. I can safely
say that for eight weeks I never tasted one bite of meat, and hardly
a bite of butter. When I couldn't sleep of a night, but that wasn't
often, it was terrible, very. I washed what bits of things I had
then, myself, and had sometimes to get a ha'porth of soap as a
favour, as the chandler said she 'didn't make less than a penn'orth.'
If I ate too much dripping, it made me feel sick. I hardly know
how much bread and dripping I ate in a week. I spent what
money I had in it and bread, and sometimes went without. I was
very weak, you may be sure, sir; and if I'd had the influenza or
any thing that way, I should have gone off like a shot, for I seemed
to have no constitution left. But my wife came back again and
got work at charing, and made about 4<i>s.</i> a week at it; but we
were still very badly off. Then I got to work on the roads every
day, and had 1<i>s.</i> and a quartern loaf a day, which was a rise. I
had only one child then, but men with larger families got two
quartern loaves a day. Single men got 9<i>d.</i> a day. It was far
easier work than stone-breaking too. The hours were from eight
to five in winter, and from seven to six in summer. But there's
always changes going on, and we were put on 1<i>s.</i> 1½<i>d.</i> a day and
a quartern loaf, and only three days a week. All the same as to
time of course. The bread wasn't good; it was only cheap. I
suppose there was twenty of us working most of the times as I
was. The gangsman, as you call him, but that's more for the
regular hands, was a servant of the parish, and a great tyrant.
Yes, indeed, when we had a talk among ourselves, there was
nothing but grumbling heard of. Some of the tales I've heard
were shocking; worse than what I've gone through. Everybody
was grumbling, except perhaps two men that had been twenty
years in the streets, and were like born paupers. They didn't
feel it, for there's a great difference in men. They knew no better.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>
But anybody might have been frightened to hear some of the
men talk and curse. We've stopped work to abuse the parish
officers as might be passing. We've mobbed the overseers; and a
number of us, I was one, were taken before the magistrate for it:
but we told him how badly we were off, and he discharged us, and
gave us orders into the workhouse, and told 'em to see if nothing
could be done for us. We were there till next morning, and then
sent away without any thing being said.'"</p>

<p class="i1">"'It's a sad life, sir, is a parish worker's. I wish to God I could
get out of it. But when a man has children he can't stop and
say, "I can't do this," and "I won't do that." Last week, now,
in costering, I lost 6<i>s.</i> [he meant that his expenses, of every kind,
exceeded his receipts by 6<i>s.</i>,] and though I can distil nectar, or
any thing that way, [this was said somewhat laughingly,] it's only
when the weather's hot and fine that any good at all can be done
with it. I think, too, that there's not the money among working-men
that there once was. Any thing regular in the way of pay
must always be looked at by a man with a family.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Of course the streets must be properly swept, and if I can
sweep them as well as Mr. Dodd's men, for I know one of them
very well, why should I have only 1<i>s.</i> 4½<i>d.</i> a week and three
loaves, and he have 16<i>s.</i>, I think it is. I don't drink, my wife
knows I don't, [the wife assented,] and it seems as if in a parish a
man must be kept down when he is down, and then blamed for it.
I may not understand all about it, but it looks queer."'</p></div>

<p class="i1">The third system of parish work, where the labourer
is employed regularly, and paid a certain sum out of the
parochial fund, is superior to either of the other modes;
but still, the labourers are very scantily paid, subjected
to a great deal of tyranny by brutal officers, and miserably
provided. They endure the severest toil for a
wretched pittance, without being able to choose their
masters or their employment. No slaves could be more
completely at the mercy of their masters.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">The common practice of apprenticing children born
and reared in workhouses, to masters who may feed,
clothe, and beat them as they please, is touchingly illustrated
in Dickens's famous story of Oliver Twist. After
Oliver had been subjected for some time to the tender
mercies of guardians and overseers in the workhouse, it
was advertised that any person wanting an apprentice
could obtain him, and five pounds as a premium. He narrowly
escaped being apprenticed to a sweep, and finally
fell into the hands of Mr. Sowerberry, an undertaker.
In the house of that dismal personage, he was fed upon
cold bits, badly clothed, knocked about unmercifully,
and worked with great severity. Such is the common
fate of parish apprentices; and we do not think a more
truthful conception of the <i>beauties</i> of the system could
be conveyed than by quoting from the experience of
Dickens's workhouse boy:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Oliver had not been within the walls of the workhouse a quarter
of an hour, and had scarcely completed the demolition of a
second slice of bread, when Mr. Bumble, who had handed him
over to the care of an old woman, returned, and, telling him it was
a board night, informed him that the board had said he was to
appear before it forthwith.</p>

<p class="i1">"Not having a very clearly defined notion what a live board
was, Oliver was rather astounded by this intelligence, and was not
quite certain whether he ought to laugh or cry. He had no time
to think about the matter, however; for Mr. Bumble gave him a
tap on the head with his cane to wake him up, and another on his
back to make him lively, and, bidding him follow, conducted him
into a large whitewashed room, where eight or ten fat gentlemen
were sitting round a table, at the top of which, seated in an armchair
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>
rather higher than the rest, was a particularly fat gentleman
with a very round, red face.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Bow to the board,' said Bumble. Oliver brushed away two
or three tears that were lingering in his eyes, and seeing no board
but the table, fortunately bowed to that.</p>

<p class="i1">"'What's your name, boy?' said the gentleman in the high chair.</p>

<p class="i1">"Oliver was frightened at the sight of so many gentlemen, which
made him tremble: and the beadle gave him another tap behind,
which made him cry; and these two causes made him answer in a
very low and hesitating voice; whereupon a gentleman in a white
waistcoat said he was a fool, which was a capital way of raising
his spirit, and putting him quite at his ease.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Boy,' said the gentleman in the high chair: 'listen to me.
You know you're an orphan, I suppose?'"</p>

<p class="i1">"'What's that, sir?" inquired poor Oliver.</p>

<p class="i1">"'The boy <i>is</i> a fool—I thought he was,' said the gentleman in
the white waistcoat in a very decided tone. If one member of a
class be blessed with an intuitive perception of others of the same
race, the gentleman in the white waistcoat was unquestionably
well qualified to pronounce an opinion on the matter.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Hush!' said the gentleman who had spoken first. 'You
know you've got no father or mother, and that you are brought up
by the parish, don't you?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver, weeping bitterly.</p>

<p class="i1">"'What are you crying for?' inquired the gentleman in the
white waistcoat; and to be sure it was very extraordinary. What
<i>could</i> he be crying for?</p>

<p class="i1">"'I hope you say your prayers every night,' said another gentleman
in a gruff voice, 'and pray for the people who feed you,
and take care of you, like a Christian.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, sir,' stammered the boy. The gentleman who spoke
last was unconsciously right. It would have been <i>very</i> like a
Christian, and a marvellously good Christian, too, if Oliver had
prayed for the people who fed and took care of <i>him</i>. But he
hadn't, because nobody had taught him.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well you have come here to be educated, and taught a useful
trade,' said the red-faced gentleman in the high chair.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'So you'll begin to pick oakum to-morrow morning at six
o'clock,' added the surly one in the white waistcoat.</p>

<p class="i1">"For the combination of both these blessings in the one simple
process of picking oakum, Oliver bowed low by the direction of
the beadle, and was then hurried away to a large ward, where, on
a rough hard bed, he sobbed himself to sleep. What a noble
illustration of the tender laws of this favoured country! they let
the paupers go to sleep!</p>

<p class="i1">"Poor Oliver! he little thought, as he lay sleeping in happy
unconsciousness of all around him, that the board had that very
day arrived at a decision which would exercise the most material
influence over all his future fortunes. But they had. And this
was it:—</p>

<p class="i1">"The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical
men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse,
they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never
have discovered,—the poor people liked it! It was a regular
place of public entertainment for the poorer classes,—a tavern
where there was nothing to pay,—a public breakfast, dinner, tea,
and supper, all the year round,—a brick and mortar elysium,
where it was all play and no work. 'Oho!' said the board, looking
very knowing; 'we are the fellows to set this to rights; we'll stop
it all in no time.' So they established the rule, that all poor people
should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody,
not they,) of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or
by a quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted with
the water-works to lay on an unlimited supply of water, and with
a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oat-meal:
and issued three meals of thin gruel a-day, with an onion twice a
week, and half a roll on Sundays. They made a great many other
wise and humane regulations having reference to the ladies, which
it is not necessary to repeat; kindly undertook to divorce poor
married people, in consequence of the great expense of a suit in
Doctors' Commons; and, instead of compelling a man to support
his family, as they had theretofore done, took his family away
from him, and made him a bachelor! There is no telling how
many applicants for relief under these last two heads would not
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
have started up in all classes of society, if it had not been coupled
with the workhouse. But they were long-headed men, and they
had provided for this difficulty. The relief was inseparable from
the workhouse and the gruel; and that frightened people.</p>

<p class="i1">"For the first three months after Oliver Twist was removed, the
system was in full operation. It was rather expensive at first, in
consequence of the increase in the undertaker's bill, and the necessity
of taking in the clothes of all the paupers, which fluttered
loosely on their wasted, shrunken forms, after a week or two's
gruel. But the number of workhouse inmates got thin, as well as
the paupers; and the board were in ecstasies. The room in which
the boys were fed was a large stone hall, with a copper at one end,
out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and
assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at meal-times; of
which composition each boy had one porringer, and no more,—except
on festive occasions, and then he had two ounces and a
quarter of bread besides. The bowls never wanted washing—the
boys polished them with their spoons, till they shone again; and
when they had performed this operation, (which never took very
long, the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls,) they would
sit staring at the copper with such eager eyes, as if they could devour
the very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves
meanwhile in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with
the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have
been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent appetites: Oliver
Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation
for three months; at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger,
that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn't been used
to that sort of thing, (for his father had kept a small cook's shop,)
hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin
of gruel <i>per diem</i>, he was afraid he should some night eat the boy
who slept next him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender
age. He had a wild, hungry eye, and they implicitly believed him.
A council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the master
after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to
Oliver Twist.</p>

<p class="i1">The evening arrived: the boys took their places; the master, in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper
assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served
out, and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel
disappeared, and the boys whispered to each other and winked at
Oliver, while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was,
he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose
from the table, and, advancing, basin and spoon in hand, to the
master, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity—</p>

<p class="i1">"'Please, sir, I want some more.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The master was a fat, healthy man, but he turned very pale.
He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some
seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants
were paralyzed with wonder, and the boys with fear.</p>

<p class="i1">"'What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle,
pinioned him in his arms, and shrieked aloud for the beadle.</p>

<p class="i1">"The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble
rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the
gentleman in the high chair, said—</p>

<p class="i1">"'Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir;—Oliver Twist has
asked for more.' There was a general start. Horror was depicted
on every countenance.</p>

<p class="i1">"'For <i>more</i>!' said Mr. Limbkins. 'Compose yourself, Bumble,
and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for
more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'He did, sir,' replied Bumble.</p>

<p class="i1">"'That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white
waistcoat; 'I know that boy will be hung.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion. An
animated discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant
confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside
of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who
would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish; in other
words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or
woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or
calling.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'I never was more convinced of any thing in my life,' said
the gentleman in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate
and read the bill next morning,—'I never was more convinced
of any thing in my life, than I am that that boy will come to be
hung.'</p>

<p class="i1">"For a week after the commission of the impious and profane
offence of asking for more, Oliver remained a close prisoner in
the dark and solitary room to which he had been consigned by
the wisdom and mercy of the board. It appears, at first sight,
not unreasonable to suppose, that, if he had entertained a becoming
feeling of respect for the prediction of the gentleman in
the white waistcoat, he would have established that sage individual's
prophetic character, once and for ever, by tying one end
of his pocket-handkerchief to a hook in the wall, and attaching
himself to the other. To the performance of this feat, however,
there was one obstacle, namely, that pocket-handkerchiefs being
decided articles of luxury, had been, for all future times and
ages, removed from the noses of paupers by the express order of
the board in council assembled, solemnly given and pronounced
under their hands and seals. There was a still greater obstacle
in Oliver's youth and childishness. He only cried bitterly all
day; and when the long, dismal night came on, he spread his
little hands before his eyes to shut out the darkness, and crouching
in the corner, tried to sleep, ever and anon waking with a
start and tremble, and drawing himself closer and closer to the
wall, as if to feel even its cold hard surface were a protection in
the gloom and loneliness which surrounded him.</p>

<p class="i1">"Let it not be supposed by the enemies of 'the system,' that,
during the period of his solitary incarceration, Oliver was denied
the benefit of exercise, the pleasure of society, or the advantages
of religious consolation. As for exercise, it was nice cold weather,
and he was allowed to perform his ablutions every morning
under the pump, in a stone yard, in the presence of Mr. Bumble,
who prevented his catching cold, and caused a tingling sensation
to pervade his frame, by repeated applications of the cane; as for
society, he was carried every other day into the hall where the
boys dined, and there sociably flogged, as a public warning and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
example; and, so far from being denied the advantages of religious
consolation, he was kicked into the same apartment every
evening at prayer-time, and there permitted to listen to, and console
his mind with, a general supplication of the boys, containing
a special clause therein inserted by the authority of the board, in
which they entreated to be made good, virtuous, contented, and
obedient, and to be guarded from the sins and vices of Oliver
Twist, whom the supplication distinctly set forth to be under the
exclusive patronage and protection of the powers of wickedness,
and an article direct from the manufactory of the devil himself.</p>

<p class="i1">"It chanced one morning, while Oliver's affairs were in this
auspicious and comfortable state, that Mr. Gamfield, chimney-sweeper,
was wending his way adown the High-street, deeply
cogitating in his mind his ways and means of paying certain
arrears of rent, for which his landlord had become rather pressing.
Mr. Gamfield's most sanguine calculation of funds could
not raise them within full five pounds of the desired amount;
and, in a species of arithmetical desperation, he was alternately
cudgelling his brains and his donkey, when, passing the workhouse,
his eyes encountered the bill on the gate.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Woo!' said Mr. Gamfield to the donkey.</p>

<p class="i1">"The donkey was in a state of profound abstraction—wondering,
probably, whether he was destined to be regaled with a cabbage-stalk
or two, when he had disposed of the two sacks of soot
with which the little cart was laden; so, without noticing the
word of command, he jogged onward.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Gamfield growled a fierce imprecation on the donkey
generally, but more particularly on his eyes; and running after
him, bestowed a blow on his head which would inevitably have
beaten in any skull but a donkey's; then, catching hold of the
bridle, he gave his jaw a sharp wrench, by way of gentle reminder
that he was not his own master; and, having by these
means turned him round, he gave him another blow on the head,
just to stun him until he came back again; and, having done so,
walked to the gate to read the bill.</p>

<p class="i1">"The gentleman with the white waistcoat was standing at the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
gate with his hands behind him, after having delivered himself
of some profound sentiments in the board-room. Having witnessed
the little dispute between Mr. Gamfield and the donkey, he
smiled joyously when that person came up to read the bill, for he
saw at once that Mr. Gamfield was just exactly the sort of master
Oliver Twist wanted. Mr. Gamfield smiled, too, as he perused the
document, for five pounds was just the sum he had been wishing
for; and, as to the boy with which it was encumbered, Mr. Gamfield,
knowing what the dietary of the workhouse was, well knew
he would be a nice small pattern, just the very thing for register
stoves. So he spelt the bill through again, from beginning to
end; and then, touching his fur cap in token of humility, accosted
the gentleman in the white waistcoat.</p>

<p class="i1">"'This here boy, sir, wot the parish wants to 'prentis,' said Mr.
Gamfield.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, my man,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat,
with a condescending smile, 'what of him?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'If the parish vould like him to learn a light, pleasant trade,
in a good 'spectable chimbley-sweepin bisness,' said Mr. Gamfield,
'I wants a 'prentis, and I'm ready to take him.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Walk in,' said the gentleman with the white waistcoat.
And Mr. Gamfield having lingered behind, to give the donkey
another blow on the head, and another wrench of the jaw, as a
caution not to run away in his absence, followed the gentleman
in the white waistcoat into the room where Oliver had first seen
him.</p>

<p class="i1">"'It's a nasty trade,' said Mr. Limbkins, when Gamfield had
again stated his case.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Young boys have been smothered in chimeys, before now,'
said another gentleman.</p>

<p class="i1">"'That's acause they damped the straw afore they lit it in the
chimbley to make'em come down again,' said Gamfield; 'that's
all smoke, and no blaze: vereas smoke a'n't o' no use at all in
makin' a boy come down; it only sinds him to sleep, and that's
wot he likes. Boys is wery obstinit, and wery lazy, gen'lm'n,
and there's nothink like a good hot blaze to make em come down
vith a run; it's humane, too, gen'lm'n, acause, even if they've
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
stuck in the chimbley, roastin' their feet makes 'em struggle to
hextricate theirselves.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The gentleman in the white waistcoat appeared very much
amused with this explanation; but his mirth was speedily checked
by a look from Mr. Limbkins. The board then proceeded to converse
among themselves for a few minutes, but in so low a tone
that the words, 'saving of expenditure,' 'look well in the accounts,'
'have a printed report published,' were alone audible;
and they only chanced to be heard on account of their being very
frequently repeated with great emphasis.</p>

<p class="i1">"At length the whispering ceased, and the members of the
board having resumed their seats and their solemnity, Mr. Limbkins
said,</p>

<p class="i1">"'We have considered your proposition, and we don't approve
of it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Not at all,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Decidedly not,' added the other members.</p>

<p class="i1">"As Mr. Gamfield did happen to labour under the slight imputation
of having bruised three or four boys to death already, it
occurred to him that the board had perhaps, in some unaccountable
freak, taken it into their heads that this extraneous circumstance
ought to influence their proceedings. It was very unlike
their general mode of doing business, if they had; but still, as
he had no particular wish to revive the rumour, he twisted his
cap in his hands, and walked slowly from the table.</p>

<p class="i1">"'So you won't let me have him, gen'lmen,' said Mr. Gamfield,
pausing near the door.</p>

<p class="i1">"'No,' replied Mr. Limbkins; 'at least, as it's a nasty business,
we think you ought to take something less than the premium
we offered.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Gamfield's countenance brightened, as with a quick step
he returned to the table, and said,</p>

<p class="i1">"'What'll you give, gen'lmen? Come, don't be too hard on a
poor man. What'll you give?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'I should say three pound ten was plenty,' said Mr. Limbkins.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Ten shillings too much,' said the gentleman in the white
waistcoat.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Come,' said Gamfield, 'say four pound, gen'lmen. Say
four pound, and you've got rid of him for good and all. There!'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Three pound ten,' repeated Mr. Limbkins, firmly.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Come, I'll split the difference, gen'lmen,' urged Gamfield.
'Three pound fifteen.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Not a farthing more,' was the firm reply of Mr. Limbkins.</p>

<p class="i1">"'You're desp'rate hard upon me, gen'lmen,' said Gamfield,
wavering.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Pooh! pooh! nonsense!' said the gentleman in the white
waistcoat. 'He'd be cheap with nothing at all as a premium.
Take him, you silly fellow! He's just the boy for you. He
wants the stick now and then; it'll do him good; and his board
needn't come very expensive, for he hasn't been overfed since he
was born. Ha! ha! ha!'</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Gamfield gave an arch look at the faces round the table,
and, observing a smile on all of them, gradually broke into a
smile himself. The bargain was made, and Mr. Bumble was at
once instructed that Oliver Twist and his indentures were to be
conveyed before the magistrate for signature and approval, that
very afternoon.</p>

<p class="i1">"In pursuance of this determination, little Oliver, to his excessive
astonishment, was released from bondage, and ordered to put
himself into a clean shirt. He had hardly achieved this very unusual
gymnastic performance, when Mr. Bumble brought him
with his own hands, a basin of gruel, and the holiday allowance
of two ounces and a quarter of bread; at sight of which Oliver
began to cry very piteously, thinking, not unnaturally, that the
board must have determined to kill him for some useful purpose,
or they never would have begun to fatten him up in this way.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Don't make your eyes red, Oliver, but eat your food, and be
thankful,' said Mr. Bumble, in a tone of impressive pomposity.</p>

<p class="i1">'You're a-going to be made a 'prentice of, Oliver.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'A 'prentice, sir!' said the child, trembling.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, Oliver,' said Mr. Bumble. 'The kind and blessed gentlemen
which is so many parents to you, Oliver, when you have
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>
none of your own, are a-going to 'prentice you, and to set you up
in life, and make a man of you, although the expense to the
parish is three pound ten!—three pound ten, Oliver!—seventy
shillin's!—one hundred and forty sixpences!—and all for a
naughty orphan which nobody can love.'</p>

<p class="i1">"As Mr. Bumble paused to take breath after delivering this
address, in an awful voice, the tears rolled down the poor child's
face, and he sobbed bitterly.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Come,' said Mr. Bumble, somewhat less pompously; for it
was gratifying to his feelings to observe the effect his eloquence
had produced. 'Come, Oliver, wipe your eyes with the cuffs of
your jacket, and don't cry into your gruel; that's a very foolish
action, Oliver.' It certainly was, for there was quite enough
water in it already.</p>

<p class="i1">"On their way to the magistrate's, Mr. Bumble instructed
Oliver that all he would have to do would be to look very happy,
and say, when the gentleman asked him if he wanted to be apprenticed,
that he should like it very much indeed; both of
which injunctions Oliver promised to obey, the more readily as
Mr. Bumble threw in a gentle hint, that if he failed in either particular,
there was no telling what would be done to him. When
they arrived at the office he was shut up in a little room by himself,
and admonished by Mr. Bumble to stay there until he came
back to fetch him.</p>

<p class="i1">"There the boy remained with a palpitating heart for half an
hour, at the expiration of which time Mr. Bumble thrust in his
head, unadorned with the cocked hat, and said aloud,</p>

<p class="i1">"'Now, Oliver, my dear, come to the gentleman.' As Mr.
Bumble said this, he put on a grim and threatening look, and
added in a low voice, 'Mind what I told you, you young rascal.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Oliver stared innocently in Mr. Bumble's face at this somewhat
contradictory style of address; but that gentleman prevented
his offering any remark thereupon, by leading him at once
into an adjoining room, the door of which was open. It was a
large room with a great window; and behind a desk sat two old
gentlemen with powdered heads, one of whom was reading the
newspaper, while the other was perusing, with the aid of a pair
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
of tortoise-shell spectacles, a small piece of parchment which lay
before him. Mr. Limbkins was standing in front of the desk, on
one side; and Mr. Gamfield, with a partially washed face, on the
other; while two or three bluff-looking men in top-boots were
lounging about.</p>

<p class="i1">"The old gentleman with the spectacles gradually dozed off,
over the little bit of parchment; and there was a short pause
after Oliver had been stationed by Mr. Bumble in front of the
desk.</p>

<p class="i1">"'This is the boy, your worship,' said Mr. Bumble.</p>

<p class="i1">"The old gentleman who was reading the newspaper raised
his head for a moment, and pulled the other old gentleman by
the sleeve, whereupon the last-mentioned old gentleman woke up.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Oh, is this the boy?' said the old gentleman.</p>

<p class="i1">"'This is him, sir,' replied Mr. Bumble. 'Bow to the magistrate,
my dear.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Oliver roused himself, and made his best obeisance. He had
been wondering, with his eyes fixed on the magistrate's powder,
whether all boards were born with that white stuff on their
heads, and were boards from thenceforth, on that account.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well,' said the old gentleman, 'I suppose he's fond of chimney-sweeping?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'He dotes on it, your worship,' replied Bumble, giving Oliver
a sly pinch, to intimate that he had better not say he didn't.</p>

<p class="i1">"'And he <i>will</i> be a sweep, will he?' inquired the old gentleman.</p>

<p class="i1">"'If we was to bind him to any other trade to-morrow, he'd
run away simultaneously, your worship,' replied Bumble.</p>

<p class="i1">"'And this man that's to be his master,—you, sir,—you'll
treat him well, and feed him, and do all that sort of thing,—will
you?' said the old gentleman.</p>

<p class="i1">"'When I says I will, I means I will,' replied Mr. Gamfield,
doggedly.</p>

<p class="i1">"'You're a rough speaker, my friend, but you look an honest,
open-hearted man,' said the old gentleman, turning his spectacles
in the direction of the candidate for Oliver's premium, whose
villanous countenance was a regular stamped receipt for cruelty.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>
But the magistrate was half blind, and half childish, so he
couldn't reasonably be expected to discern what other people did.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I hope I am, sir,' said Mr. Gamfield with an ugly leer.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I have no doubt you are, my friend,' replied the old gentleman,
fixing his spectacles more firmly on his nose, and looking
about him for the inkstand.</p>

<p class="i1">"It was the critical moment of Oliver's fate. If the inkstand
had been where the old gentleman thought it was, he would have
dipped his pen into it and signed the indentures, and Oliver
would have been straightway hurried off. But, as it chanced to
be immediately under his nose, it followed as a matter of course,
that he looked all over his desk for it, without finding it; and
happening in the course of his search to look straight before him,
his gaze encountered the pale and terrified face of Oliver Twist,
who, despite of all the admonitory looks and pinches of Bumble,
was regarding the very repulsive countenance of his future master
with a mingled expression of horror and fear, too palpable to
be mistaken even by a half-blind magistrate.</p>

<p class="i1">"The old gentleman stopped, laid down his pen, and looked
from Oliver to Mr. Limbkins, who attempted to take snuff with a
cheerful and unconcerned aspect.</p>

<p class="i1">"'My boy,' said the old gentleman, leaning over the desk.
Oliver started at the sound,—he might be excused for doing so,
for the words were kindly said, and strange sounds frighten one.
He trembled violently, and burst into tears.</p>

<p class="i1">"'My boy,' said the old gentleman, 'you look pale and
alarmed. What is the matter?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Stand a little away from him, beadle,' said the other magistrate,
laying aside the paper and leaning forward with an expression
of some interest. 'Now, boy, tell us what's the matter;
don't be afraid.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Oliver fell on his knees, and, clasping his hands together,
prayed that they would order him back to the dark room—that
they would starve him—beat him—kill him if they pleased, rather
than send him away with that dreadful man.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well!' said Mr. Bumble, raising his hands and eyes with
most impressive solemnity—'Well! of <i>all</i> the artful and designing
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
orphans that ever I see, Oliver, you are one of the most bare-facedest.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Hold your tongue, beadle,' said the second old gentleman,
when Mr. Bumble had given vent to this compound adjective.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I beg your worship's pardon,' said Mr. Bumble, incredulous
of his having heard aright—'did your worship speak to me?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes—hold your tongue.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Bumble was stupefied with astonishment. A beadle
ordered to hold his tongue! A moral revolution.</p>

<p class="i1">"The old gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles looked at
his companion; he nodded significantly.</p>

<p class="i1">"'We refuse to sanction these indentures,' said the old gentleman,
tossing aside the piece of parchment as he spoke.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I hope,' stammered Mr. Limbkins—'I hope the magistrates
will not form the opinion that the authorities have been guilty
of any improper conduct, on the unsupported testimony of a mere
child.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'The magistrates are not called upon to pronounce any opinion
on the matter,' said the second old gentleman, sharply. 'Take
the boy back to the workhouse and treat him kindly; he seems
to want it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"That same evening the gentleman in the white waistcoat most
positively and decidedly affirmed, not only that Oliver would be
hung, but that he would be drawn and quartered into the bargain.
Mr. Bumble shook his head with gloomy mystery, and said
he wished he might come to good: to which Mr. Gamfield replied
that he wished he might come to him, which, although he agreed
with the beadle in most matters, would seem to be a wish of a
totally opposite description.</p>

<p class="i1">"The next morning the public were once more informed that
Oliver Twist was again to let, and that five pounds would be paid
to anybody who would take possession of him.</p>

<p class="i1">"In great families, when an advantageous place cannot be obtained,
either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy,
for the young man who is growing up, it is a very general custom
to send him to sea. The board, in imitation of so wise and salutary
an example, took counsel together on the expediency of shipping
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
off Oliver Twist in some small trading-vessel bound to a good
unhealthy port, which suggested itself as the very best thing that
could possibly be done with him; the probability being that the
skipper would either flog him to death in a playful mood, some
day after dinner, or knock his brains out with an iron bar, both
pastimes being, as is pretty generally known, very favourite and
common recreations among gentlemen of that class. The more
the case presented itself to the board in this point of view, the
more manifold the advantages of the step appeared; so they came
to the conclusion that the only way of providing for Oliver effectually,
was to send him to sea without delay.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Bumble had been despatched to make various preliminary
inquiries, with the view of finding out some captain or other
who wanted a cabin-boy without any friends; and was returning
to the workhouse to communicate the result of his mission, when
he encountered just at the gate no less a person than Mr. Sowerberry,
the parochial undertaker.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Sowerberry was a tall, gaunt, large-jointed man, attired
in a suit of threadbare black, with darned cotton stockings of the
same colour, and shoes to answer. His features were not naturally
intended to wear a smiling aspect, but he was in general
rather given to professional jocosity; his step was elastic, and his
face betokened inward pleasantry as he advanced to Mr. Bumble
and shook him cordially by the hand.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I have taken the measure of the two women that died last
night, Mr. Bumble,' said the undertaker.</p>

<p class="i1">"'You'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' said the beadle,
as he thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuff-box
of the undertaker, which was an ingenious little model of a patent
coffin. 'I say you'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' repeated
Mr. Bumble, tapping the undertaker on the shoulder in a
friendly manner with his cane.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Think so?' said the undertaker in a tone which half admitted
and half disputed the probability of the event. 'The prices allowed
by the board are very small, Mr. Bumble.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'So are the coffins,' replied the beadle, with precisely as near
an approach to a laugh as a great official ought to indulge in.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Mr. Sowerberry was much tickled at this, as of course he
ought to be, and laughed a long time without cessation. 'Well,
well, Mr. Bumble,' he said at length, 'there's no denying that,
since the new system of feeding has come in, the coffins are something
narrower and more shallow than they used to be; but we
must have some profit, Mr. Bumble. Well-seasoned timber is an
expensive article, sir; and all the iron handles come by canal
from Birmingham.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well, well,' said Mr. Bumble, 'every trade has its drawbacks,
and a fair profit is of course allowable.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Of course, of course,' replied the undertaker; 'and if I don't
get a profit upon this or that particular article, why I make it up
in the long run, you see—he! he! he!'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Just so,' said Mr. Bumble.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Though I must say,'—continued the undertaker, resuming
the current of observations which the beadle had interrupted,—'though
I must say, Mr. Bumble, that I have to contend against
one very great disadvantage, which is, that all the stout people
go off the quickest—I mean that the people who have been better
off, and have paid rates for many years, are the first to sink when
they come into the house; and let me tell you, Mr. Bumble, that
three or four inches over one's calculation makes a great hole in
one's profits, especially when one has a family to provide for, sir.'</p>

<p class="i1">"As Mr. Sowerberry said this, with the becoming indignation
of an ill-used man, and as Mr. Bumble felt that it rather tended
to convey a reflection on the honour of the parish, the latter gentleman
thought it advisable to change the subject; and Oliver
Twist being uppermost in his mind, he made him his theme.</p>

<p class="i1">"'By-the-by,' said Mr. Bumble, 'you don't know anybody who
wants a boy, do you—a parochial 'prentis, who is at present a
dead-weight—a millstone, as I may say—round the parochial
throat? Liberal terms, Mr. Sowerberry—liberal terms;' and, as
Mr. Bumble spoke, he raised his cane to the bill above him and
gave three distinct raps upon the words 'five pounds,' which were
printed therein in Roman capitals of gigantic size.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Gadso!' said the undertaker, taking Mr. Bumble by the
gilt-edged lappel of his official coat; 'that's just the very thing I
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>
wanted to speak to you about. You know—dear me, what a very
elegant button this is, Mr. Bumble; I never noticed it before.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, I think it is rather pretty,' said the beadle, glancing
proudly downward at the large brass buttons which embellished
his coat. 'The die is the same as the parochial seal—the Good
Samaritan healing the sick and bruised man. The board presented
it to me on New-year's morning, Mr. Sowerberry. I put
it on, I remember, for the first time to attend the inquest on that
reduced tradesman who died in a doorway at midnight.'</p>

<p class="i1">"' I recollect,' said the undertaker. 'The jury brought in—Died
from exposure to the cold, and want of the common necessaries
of life—didn't they?'</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Bumble nodded.</p>

<p class="i1">"'And they made it a special verdict, I think,' said the undertaker,
'by adding some words to the effect, that if the relieving
officer had'——</p>

<p class="i1">'Tush—foolery!' interposed the beadle, angrily. 'If the
board attended to all the nonsense that ignorant jurymen talk,
they'd have enough to do.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Very true,' said the undertaker; 'they would indeed.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Juries,' said Mr. Bumble, grasping his cane tightly, as was
his wont when working into a passion—'juries is ineddicated,
vulgar, grovelling wretches.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'So they are,' said the undertaker.</p>

<p class="i1">"'They haven't no more philosophy or political economy about
'em than that,' said the beadle, snapping his fingers contemptuously.</p>

<p class="i1">"'No more they have,' acquiesced the undertaker.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I despise 'em,' said the beadle, growing very red in the face.</p>

<p class="i1">"'So do I,' rejoined the undertaker.</p>

<p class="i1">"'And I only wish we'd a jury of the independent sort in the
house for a week or two,' said the beadle; 'the rules and regulations
of the board would soon bring their spirit down for them.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Let'em alone for that,' replied the undertaker. So saying,
he smiled approvingly to calm the rising wrath of the indignant
parish officer.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Bumble lifted off his cocked-hat, took a handkerchief
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
from the inside of the crown, wiped from his forehead the perspiration
which his rage had engendered, fixed the cocked hat on
again, and, turning to the undertaker, said in a calmer voice,
'Well, what about the boy?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Oh!' replied the undertaker; 'why, you know, Mr. Bumble,
I pay a good deal toward the poor's rates.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Hem!' said Mr. Bumble. 'Well?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well,' replied the undertaker, 'I was thinking that if I pay
so much toward 'em, I've a right to get as much out of 'em as I
can, Mr. Bumble; and so—and so—I think I'll take the boy
myself.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Bumble grasped the undertaker by the arm and led him
into the building. Mr. Sowerberry was closeted with the board
for five minutes, and then it was arranged that Oliver should go
to him that evening 'upon liking'—a phrase which means, in the
case of a parish apprentice, that if the master find, upon a short
trial, that he can get enough work out of a boy without putting
too much food in him, he shall have him for a term of years to
do what he likes with.</p>

<p class="i1">"When little Oliver was taken before 'the gentlemen' that
evening, and informed that he was to go that night as general
house-lad to a coffin-maker's, and that if he complained of his
situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent
to sea, there to be drowned or knocked on the head, as the case
might be, he evinced so little emotion, that they by common consent
pronounced him a hardened young rascal, and ordered Mr.
Bumble to remove him forthwith."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Some years ago an investigation into the treatment
of the poor in St. Pancras workhouse was made. It
originated in the suicide of a girl, who, having left her
place, drowned herself rather than return to the workhouse
to be confined in the "shed"—a place of confinement
for refractory and ill-disposed paupers. The unanimous
verdict of the coroner's jury was to this effect,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
and had appended to it an opinion that the discipline
of the shed was unnecessarily severe. This verdict led
to an investigation.</p>

<p class="i1">Mr. Howarth, senior churchwarden, a guardian, and
a barrister, explained that the shed was used for separating
able-bodied, idle, and dissolute paupers from the
aged and respectable inmates of the house. The shed
was not, he declared, a place of confinement any more
than the workhouse itself. The place in question consists
of two rooms, a day-room and a dormitory, on the
basement of the main building, two feet below the level
of the soil, each about thirty-five feet long by fifteen
wide and seven high. The bedroom contains ten beds,
occupied sometimes by sixteen, sometimes by twenty or
twenty-four paupers. According to the hospital calculation
of a cube of nine feet to an occupant, the dormitory
should accommodate six persons. The damp from
an adjoining cesspool oozes through the walls. This
pleasant apartment communicates with a yard forty feet
long, and from fifteen to twenty broad, with a flagged
pavement and high walls. This yard is kept always
locked. But it is not a place of confinement. Oh no!
it is a place of separation.</p>

<p class="i1">Let us see the evidence of James Hill, who waits on
the occupants of the shed:—"They are locked up night
and day. They frequently escape over the walls. They
are put in for misconduct."</p>

<p class="i1">Mr. Lee, the master of the workhouse, declares that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
if the persons in the shed make application to come out,
they are frequently released. He is "not aware if he
has any legal right to refuse them, but does sometimes
exercise that authority." One of the women is there
for throwing her clothes over the wall; another for
getting "overtaken in liquor" while out of the house,
and losing her pail and brush. A third inmate is a girl
of weak intellect, who went out for a day, was made
drunk and insensible by a male pauper, and suffered
dreadful maltreatment.</p>

<p class="i1">All the pauper witnesses represent the shed as a place
of punishment. The six ounces of meat given three
times a week by the dietary, is reduced to four ounces
for the shed paupers. Still all this, in Mr. Howarth's
eyes, neither constitutes the shed a place of confinement
nor of punishment. It is a place of separation. So is
a prison. It is a prison in a prison; a lower depth in
the lowest deep of workhouse wretchedness and restraint.</p>

<p class="i1">Are we to be told that this is "classification," (as
the report of the directors impudently calls it,) by which
the young and old, imbecile and drunken, sickly and
turbulent, are shut up together day and night picking
oakum; looking out through the heavy day on the bare
walls of their wretched yard—at night breathing their
own fœtid exhalations and the miasma of a cesspool,
twenty-four of them sometimes in a space only fit to
accommodate six with due regard to health and decency?
And all this at the arbitrary will of master or matron,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
unchecked by the board! One poor creature had been
there for three years. She had not come out because
"she was in such bad health, and had nowhere to go."
Yet she was shut up, because she was considered able
bodied and fit for work, when her appearance belied it,
and spoke her broken spirit and shattered constitution.</p>

<p class="i1">Mr. W. Lee, guardian, seemed blessed with an unusual
amount of ignorance as to his legal powers and responsibilities.
He kept no account of persons confined in
the black-hole, for forty-eight hours sometimes, and
without directions from the board. He thought the
matron had power to put paupers in the strong room.
On one point he was certain: he "had no doubt that
persons have been confined without his orders." He
"had no doubt that he had received instructions from
the board about the refractory ward, but he does not
know where to find them." "If any paupers committed
to the ward feel aggrieved, they can apply to be released,
and he had no doubt he would release them." He made
no weekly report of punishments. He reigned supreme,
monarch of all he surveyed, wielding the terrors of shed
and black-hole unquestioned and unchecked.</p>

<p class="i1">In Miss Stone, the matron, he had a worthy coadjutrix.
The lady felt herself very much "degraded" by
the coroner's jury. They asked her some most inconvenient
questions, to which she gave awkwardly ready
answers. She confined to the shed a girl who returned
from place, though she admitted the work of the place
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
was too much for her. She confessed she might have
punished Jones (the suicide) by putting her in the black-hole;
but it was a mere trifle—"only a few hours" in
an underground cell, "perhaps from morning till night,
for refusing to do some domestic service." Jones was
helpless; her mistress brought her back to the workhouse.
Jones cried, and begged to be taken back to
service, offering to work for nothing. Her recollections
of the workhouse do not seem to have been pleasant.
Hard work, unpaid; suicide; any thing rather than the
shed.</p>

<p class="i1">A precious testimony to the St. Pancras system of
"classification!" These paupers in the shed are clearly
a refractory set. "They complain of being shut up
so long." "They say they would like more bread and
more meat." Audacious as Oliver Twist! They even
complain of the damp and bad smell. Ungrateful, dainty
wretches! On the whole, as Mr. Howarth says, it is
evidently "unjust to suppose that the system of separation
adopted in the house is regarded as a mode of punishment."
The directors issued a solemn summons to
the members of the parochial medical board. District
surgeons and consulting surgeons assembled, inspected
the shed, and pronounced it a very pleasant place if the
roof were higher, and if the ventilation were better, and
if the damp were removed, and if fewer slept in a bed,
and six instead of twenty-four in the room. They then
examined the dietary, and pronounced it sufficient if
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>
the allowances were of full weight, if the meat were of
the best quality, if there were plenty of milk in the
porridge, and if the broth were better. Great virtue
in an "if!" Unhappily, in the present case, the allowances
were not full weight; the meat not of the best
quality; there is not milk enough in the porridge; and
the broth might be very much better, and yet not good.</p>

<p class="i1">Mr. Cooper, the parish surgeon, was a special object
of antipathy to the worthy and humane Howarth; he
was one of those ridiculously particular men, unfit to
deal with paupers. He actually objected to the pauper
women performing their ablutions in the urinals, and
felt aggrieved when the master told him to "mind his
shop," and Howarth stood by without rebuking the
autocrat! Mr. Cooper, too, admits that the dietary
would be sufficient with all the above-mentioned "ifs."
But he finds that the milk porridge contains one quart
of milk to six of oat-meal; that the meat is half fat, and
often uneatable from imperfect cooking; and that the
frequent stoppages of diet are destructive of the health
of the younger inmates. His remonstrances, however,
have been received in a style that has read him a lesson,
and he ceases to remonstrate accordingly, and the guardians
have it as they would—a silent surgeon and an
omnipotent master.</p>

<p class="i1">The saddest part of the farce, however, was that of
the last day's proceedings. The quality and quantity
of the diet had been discussed; the directors felt bound
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>
to examine into both; so they proceeded to the house.
Of course the master knew nothing of the intended visit.
Who can suspect the possibility of such a thing after
the previous display of Howarth's impartiality and determination
to do justice? So to the house they went.
They took the excellent Lee quite by surprise, and enjoyed
parish pot-luck. Dr. Birmingham's description
makes one's mouth water:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"He came to the house on Saturday, in order to examine the
food; he found that, on that day, the inmates had what was called
ox-cheek soup; he tasted it, and he was so well satisfied with it
that he took all that was given to him. He then went into the
kitchen, and saw the master cutting up meat for the sick and
infirm. He tasted the mutton, and found it as succulent and as
good as that which he purchased for his own consumption."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The picture of this patriarchal and benevolent master
"cutting up meat for the sick and infirm," is perfectly
beautiful. Howarth, too, did his duty, and was equally
lucky.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Mr. Howarth stated that he had visited the house yesterday,
and had examined the food, with the quality of which he was
perfectly satisfied. He tasted the soup, and was so well pleased
with it that he obtained an allowance. (A laugh.)"</p></div>

<p class="i1">But not satisfied with this, that Rhadamanthus of a
Birmingham proposed a crucial test.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"He begged to move that the master of the workhouse be desired
to bring before the board the ordinary rations allowed the
paupers for breakfast, dinner, and supper; and that any gentleman
present be allowed to call and examine any of the paupers
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
as to whether the food they usually received was of the same
quality, and in the same quantity."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The rations were produced; "and, lo! the porridge
smoked upon the board." Thus it was, in tempting and
succulent array—the pauper bill of fare:—</p>

<table class="narrow" id="BILL_OF_FARE" summary="Pauper Bill of Fare">
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-1"></td>
    <td class="c1-1"></td>
    <td class="c1-1">Soup.</td>
    <td class="c1-1"></td>
    <td class="c1-1"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-1">Cheese.</td>
    <td class="c1-1"></td>
    <td class="c1-1">Pease porridge.</td>
    <td class="c1-1"></td>
    <td class="c1-1">Potatoes.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-1"></td>
    <td class="c1-1">Meat.</td>
    <td class="c1-1"></td>
    <td class="c1-1">Beer.</td>
    <td class="c1-1"></td>
  </tr>
 </table>

<p class="i1">Nothing can be more tempting; who would not be a
pauper of St. Pancras? Six paupers are called in, and
one and all testify that the rations of meat, potatoes,
soup, and porridge are better in quality and greater in
quantity than the workhouse allowance. There is a
slight pause. Birmingham looks blank at Howarth, and
Howarth gazes uneasily on Birmingham; but it is only
for a minute: ready wits jump:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"<i>Dr. Birmingham.</i> This is the allowance for Sunday.</p>

<p class="i1">"<i>Mr. Marley.</i> I understand there is no difference between the
allowance on Sunday and on any other day.</p>

<p class="i1">"<i>Mr. Howarth.</i> They have better meat on Sundays."</p></div>

<p class="i1">What follows this glaring exposure? Impeachment
of the master, on this clear proof of malversation in the
house and dishonesty before the board? So expects
Mr. Halton, and very naturally suggests that Mr. Lee
be called on for an explanation. Mr. Lee is not called
on, and no explanation takes place. The room is cleared,
and, after an hour and a half's discussion, a report is
unanimously agreed to. Our readers may anticipate its
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>
tenour. It finds that there is no place deserving to be
called the shed; that the rooms so called are very admirable
places of "separation" for refractory paupers;
that the diet is excellent; that every thing is as it ought
to be. It recommends that reports of punishments be
more regularly made to the board, that classification of
old and young be improved, and that some little change
be made in the ventilation of the refractory wards!</p>

<p class="i1">And so concludes this sad farce of the St. Pancras
investigation. One more disgraceful to the guardians
cannot be found even in the pregnant annals of workhouse
mismanagement.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a></p>

<p class="i1">"Farming out" paupers, especially children, is one
of the most prolific sources of misery among the
English poor who are compelled to appeal to the
parish authorities. This practice consists of entering
into contracts with individuals to supply the paupers
with food, clothing, and lodging. The man who offers
to perform the work for the smallest sum commonly
gets the contract, and then the poor wretches who look
to him for the necessaries of life must submit to all
kinds of treatment, and be stinted in every thing.
During the last visit of that scourge, the cholera, to
England, a large number of farmed pauper children
were crowded, by one Mr. Drouet, a contractor, into a
close and filthy building, where they nearly all perished.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
An investigation was subsequently held, but influential
persons screened the authors of this tragedy from
justice. During the investigation, it was clearly shown
that the children confided to the care of Mr. Drouet
were kept in a state of filth and semi-starvation.</p>

<p class="i1">So much for the boasted charity of the dominant
class in Great Britain! By its enormous drain upon
the public purse, and its vast monopoly of that soil
which was given for the use of all, it creates millions
of paupers—wretches without homes, without resources,
and almost without hope; and then, to prevent themselves
from being hurled from their high and luxurious
places, and from being devoured as by ravenous wolves,
they take the miserable paupers in hand, separate
families, shut them up, as in the worst of prisons, and
give them something to keep life in their bodies.
Then the lords and ladies ask the world to admire their
charitable efforts. What they call charity is the offspring
of fear!</p>

<p class="i1">A member of the humbler classes in England no
sooner begins to exist, than the probability of his becoming
a pauper is contemplated by the laws. A writer
in Chambers's Journal says, in regard to this point—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Chargeability is the English slave system. The poor man
cannot go where he lists in search of employment—he may become
chargeable. He cannot take a good place which may be
offered to him, for he cannot get a residence, lest he become
chargeable. Houses are pulled down over the ears of honest
working-men, and decent poor people are driven from Dan to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
Beersheba, lest they become chargeable. There is something infinitely
distressing in the whole basis of this idea—that an English
peasant must needs be regarded from his first breath, and all
through life, as a possible pauper. But the positive hardships
arising from the idea are what we have at present to deal with.</p>

<p class="i1">"These are delineated in a happy collection of facts lately
brought forward by Mr. Chadwick at a meeting of the Farmers'
Club in London. It appears that the company assembled, who,
from their circumstances, were all qualified to judge of the truth
of the facts and the soundness of the conclusions, gave a general
assent to what was said by the learned poor-law secretary. Unfortunately,
we can only give a few passages from this very remarkable
speech.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Chadwick first referred to the operation of the existing
law upon <i>unsettled</i> labouring men. 'The lower districts of Reading
were severely visited with fever during the last year, which
called attention to the sanitary condition of the labouring population.
I was requested to visit it. While making inquiries
upon the subject, I learned that some of the worst-conditioned
places were occupied by agricultural labourers. Many of them,
it appeared, walked four, six, seven, and even eight miles, in wet
and snow, to and from their places of work, after twelve hours'
work on the farm. Why, however, were agricultural labourers
in these fever-nests of a town? I was informed, in answer, that
they were driven in there by the pulling down of cottages, to
avoid parochial settlements and contributions to their maintenance
in the event of destitution. Among a group, taken as an
example there, in a wretched place consisting of three rooms, ten
feet long, lived Stephen Turner, a wife, and three children. He
walked to and from his place of work about seven miles daily,
expending two hours and a half in walking before he got to his
productive work on the farm. His wages are 10<i>s.</i> a week, out
of which he pays 2<i>s.</i> for his wretched tenement. If he were resident
on the farm, the two and a half hours of daily labour spent
in walking might be expended in productive work; his labour
would be worth, according to his own account, and I believe to a
farmer's acknowledgment, 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> per week more. For a rent of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>
£5 5<i>s.</i>, such as he now pays, he would be entitled to a good cottage
with a garden; and his wife and children being near, would
be available for the farm labour. So far as I could learn there
are between one hundred and two hundred agricultural labourers
living in the borough of Reading, and the numbers are increasing.
The last week brought to my notice a fact illustrative of
the present unjust state of things, so far as regards the labourer.
A man belonging to Maple-Durham lived in Reading; walked
about four miles a day to his work, the same back, frequently
getting wet; took fever, and continued ill some time, assisted by
the Reading Union in his illness; recovered, and could have returned
to his former employment of 10<i>s.</i> per week, but found he
was incapable of walking the distance; the consequence was, he
took work that only enabled him to earn 5<i>s.</i> per week; he is now
again unable to work. Even in Lincolnshire, where the agriculture
is of a high order, and the wages of the labourer consequently
not of the lowest, similar displacements have been made,
to the prejudice of the farmer as well as the labourer, and, as will
be seen, of the owner himself. Near Gainsborough, Lincoln, and
Louth, the labourers walk even longer distances than near Reading.
I am informed of instances where they walk as far as six
miles; that is, twelve miles daily, or seventy-two miles weekly,
to and from their places of work. Let us consider the bare
economy, the mere waste of labour, and what a state of agricultural
management is indicated by the fact that such a waste can
have taken place. Fifteen miles a day is the regular march of
infantry soldiers, with two rest-days—one on Monday, and one
on Thursday; twenty-four miles is a forced march. The man
who expends eight miles per diem, or forty-eight miles per week,
expends to the value of at least two days' hard labour per week,
or one hundred in the year, uselessly, that might be expended
usefully and remuneratively in production. How different is it
in manufactories, and in some of the mines, or at least in the
best-managed and most successful of them! In some mines as
much as £2000 and £3000 is paid for new machinery to benefit
the labourers, and save them the labour of ascending and descending
by ladders. In many manufactories they have hoists to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
raise them and their loads from lower to upper rooms, to save
them the labour of toiling up stairs, to economize their strength
for piece-work to mutual advantage. It is not in county and
borough towns only that this unwholesome over-crowding is going
on. I am informed that from the like cause the evil of over-crowding
is going on in the ill-conditioned villages of open parishes.
It is admitted, and made manifest in extensive evidence given before
a committee of the house of lords by practical farmers, that
when an agricultural labourer applies for work, the first question
put to him is, not what has been his experience, what can he do,
but to what parish does he belong. If he do not belong to the
parish of the occupier, the reply is usually an expression of regret
that he can only employ the labourer of his own parish. To
the extent to which the farmer is directly liable to the payment
of rates, by the displacement of a settled parish labourer, he is
liable to a penalty for the employment of any other labourer who
is not of the parish. To the same extent is he liable to a penalty
if he do not employ a parish labourer who is worthless, though
a superior labourer may be got by going farther a-field, to whom
he would give better wages. This labourer who would go farther
is thus driven back upon his parish; that is to say, imposed, and
at the same time made dependent, upon the two or three or several
farmers, by whom the parish is occupied. He then says, 'If
this or that farmer will not employ me, one of them must; if
none of them will, the parish must keep me, and the parish pay
is as good as any.' Labour well or ill, he will commonly get
little more, and it is a matter of indifference to him: it is found
to be, in all its essential conditions, labour without hope—slave
labour; and he is rendered unworthy of his hire. On the other
hand, in what condition does the law place the employer? It
imposes upon him the whole mass of labourers of a narrow district,
of whatsoever sort, without reference to his wants or his
capital. He says, 'I do not want the men at this time, or these
men are not suitable to me; they will not do the work I want;
but if I must have them, or pay for keeping them in idleness if I
do not employ them, why, then, I can only give them such wages
as their labour is worth to me, and that is little.' Hence wages
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>
are inevitably reduced. What must be the effect upon the manufacturer
if he were placed in the same position as tenant farmers
are in the smaller parishes in the southern counties, if he were
restricted to the employment only of the labourers in the parish?—if,
before he engaged a smith, a carpenter, or a mason, he were
compelled to inquire, 'To what parish do you belong?' Why,
that the 24<i>s.</i> a week labour would fall to 12<i>s.</i> or 10<i>s.</i>, or the price
of agricultural labour. Agriculturists from northern districts,
who work their farms with 12<i>s.</i> and 15<i>s.</i> a week free labour, have
declined the temptation of low rents, to take farms in parishes
where the wages are 7<i>s.</i> or 8<i>s.</i> a week. While inspecting a farm
in one of these pauperized districts, an able agriculturist could not
help noticing the slow, drawling motions of one of the labourers
there, and said, 'My man, you do not sweat at that work,' 'Why,
no, master,' was the reply; 'seven shillings a week isn't sweating
wages,' The evidence I have cited indicates the circumstances
which prevent the adoption of piece-work, and which,
moreover, restrict the introduction of machinery into agricultural
operations, which, strange though it may appear to many, is
greatly to the injury of the working classes; for wherever agricultural
labour is free, and machinery has been introduced, there
more and higher-paid labour is required, and labourers are
enabled to go on and earn good wages by work with machines
long after their strength has failed them for working by hand.
In free districts, and with high cultivation by free and skilled
labour, I can adduce instances of skilled agricultural labourers
paid as highly as artisans. I could adduce an instance, bordering
upon Essex, where the owner, working it with common parish
labour at 1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, a day, could not make it pay; and an able
farmer now works it with free labour, at 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, 3<i>s.</i>, and
3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, and even more, per day, for task-work, and, there is
reason to believe, makes it pay well. A farmer, who died
not long ago immensely wealthy, was wont to say that 'he
could not live upon poor 2<i>s.</i> a day labour; he could not make his
money upon less than half-crowners.' The freedom of labour,
not only in the northern counties, but in some places near the
slave-labour districts of the southern counties, is already attended
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
with higher wages—at the rate of 12<i>s.</i>, 14<i>s.</i>, and 15<i>s.</i> weekly.
In such counties as Berks and Bedford, the freedom of the labour
market, when it came into full operation, could not raise wages
less than 2<i>s.</i> a week; and 2<i>s.</i> a week would, in those counties,
represent a sum of productive expenditure and increased produce
equal to the whole amount of unproductive expenditure on the
poor-rates.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">By this arrangement of parochial settlement, the
English agricultural labourer has a compulsory residence,
like that of the American slave upon the plantation
where he is born. This, therefore, is one of the
most striking manifestations of the peasant being a
serf. A free and beautiful system is that of the
English Unions!</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>


<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
</div>

<p class="ac">IMPRESSMENT, OR KIDNAPPING WHITE MEN FOR SLAVES
IN THE NAVAL SERVICE.</p>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">One</span> of the most repulsive features of the general
system of slavery in Great Britain, is called impressment.
It is the forcible removal of seamen from their
ordinary employment, and compelling them to serve,
against their will, in the ships of war. Long ago,
some of the maritime nations condemned men to the
galleys for crime. But Great Britain dooms peaceable
and unoffending men to her vessels of war, severs all
the ties of home and kindred, and outrages every principle
of justice, in this practice of impressment. The
husband is torn from his wife, the father from his children,
the brother from the sister, by the press-gangs—the
slave-hunters of Britain.</p>

<div class="figcenter"><a name="i_257.jpg" id="i_257.jpg"></a>
  <img src="images/i_257.jpg"
        alt="" />
  <div class="caption">KIDNAPPING OF WILLIE MORRISON.</div>
</div>

<p class="i1">This practice is not expressly sanctioned by any act
of Parliament, but it is so, indirectly, by the numerous
statutes that have been passed granting exemptions
from it. According to Lord Mansfield, it is "a power
founded upon immemorial usage," and is understood to
make a part of the common law. All <i>seafaring</i> men
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
are liable to impressment, unless specially protected by
custom or statute. Seamen executing particular services
for government, not unfrequently get protections
from the Admiralty, Navy Board, &amp;c. Some are exempted
by local custom; and <i>ferrymen</i> are everywhere
privileged from impressment. The statutory exemptions
are as follows:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">I. <i>Every ship in the coal-trade</i> has the following persons protected,
viz. two able seamen (such as the master shall nominate)
for every ship of one hundred tons, and one for every fifty tons
for every ship of one hundred tons and upward; and every officer
who presumes to impress any of the above, shall forfeit, to the
master or owner of such vessel, £10 for every man so impressed;
and such officers shall be incapable of holding any place, office,
or employment in any of his majesty's ships of war.—6 and 7
Will. 3, c. 18, § 19.<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a></p>

<p class="i1">II. <i>No parish apprentice</i> shall be compelled or permitted to enter
into his majesty's sea-service, until he arrives at the age of
eighteen years.—2 and 3 Anne, c. 6, § 4.</p>

<p class="i1">III. Persons voluntarily binding themselves apprentices to sea-service,
shall not be impressed for three years from the date of
their indentures. [This is a protection for the master—not for
the parish apprentice.] But no persons above eighteen years of
age shall have any exemption or protection from his majesty's
service, if they have been at sea before they became apprentices.—2
and 3 Anne, c. 6, § 15; 4 Anne, c. 19, § 17; and 13 Geo. 2,
c. 17, § 2.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">IV. <i>Apprentices.</i>—The act 4 Geo. 4, c. 25, enacts some new
regulations with respect to the number of apprentices that ships
must have on board, according to their tonnage, and grants protection
to such apprentices till they have attained the age of
twenty-one years.</p>

<p class="i1">V. <i>Persons employed in the fisheries.</i>—The act 50 Geo. 3, c. 108,
grants the following exemptions from impressment, viz.:</p>

<p class="i1">1. <i>Masters of fishing vessels or boats</i>, who, either themselves or
their owners, have, or within six months before applying for a
protection shall have had, one apprentice or more, under sixteen
years of age, bound for five years, and employed in the business
of fishing.</p>

<p class="i1">2. All such apprentices, not exceeding <i>eight</i> to every master or
owner of any fishing vessel of fifty tons or upward; not exceeding
<i>seven</i> to every vessel or boat of thirty-five tons, and under
fifty; not exceeding <i>six</i> to every vessel of thirty tons, or under
thirty-five; and not exceeding <i>four</i> to every boat under thirty
tons burden, during the time of their apprenticeship, and till the
age of twenty years; they continuing, for the time, in the business
of fishing only.</p>

<p class="i1">3. <i>One mariner</i>, besides the master and apprentices, to every
fishing vessel of one hundred tons or upward, employed on the
sea-coast, during his continuance in such service.</p>

<p class="i1">4. <i>Any landsman</i>, above the age of eighteen, entering and employed
on board such vessel for two years from his first going to
sea and to the end of the voyage then engaged in, if he so long
continue in such service. [The ignorance of a landsman seems
to be the only reason for this exemption.]</p>

<p class="i1">An affidavit sworn before a justice of the peace, containing the
tonnage of such fishing vessel or boat, the port or place to which
she belongs, the name and description of the master, the age of
every apprentice, the term for which he is bound and the date of
his indenture, and the name, age, and description of every such
mariner and landsman respectively, and the time of such landsman's
first going to sea, is to be transmitted to the Admiralty;
who, upon finding the facts correctly stated, grant a separate protection
to every individual. In case, however, "<i>of an actual invasion
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
of these kingdoms, or imminent danger thereof</i>," such protected
persons may be impressed; but except upon such an emergency,
any officer or officers impressing such protected person,
shall respectively forfeit £20 to the party impressed, if not an
apprentice, or to his master if he be an apprentice.—§§ 2, 3, 4
[The phrase, "imminent danger of invasion," is susceptible of
a wide interpretation for the purposes of tyranny.]</p>

<p class="i1">VI. <i>General exemptions.</i>—All persons fifty-five years of age and
upward, and under eighteen years. Every person being a
foreigner, who shall serve in any merchant ship, or other trading
vessels or privateers, belonging to a subject of the crown of
Great Britain; and all persons, of what age soever, who shall use
the sea, shall be protected for two years, to be computed from the
time of their first using it.—13 Geo. 2, c. 17. [The impressment
of American seamen, before the war of 1812, shows how easily
these exemptions may be disregarded.]</p>

<p class="i1">VII. <i>Harpooners</i>, line-managers, or boat-steerers, engaged in
the Southern whale fishery, are also protected.—26 Geo. 3,
c. 50.</p>

<p class="i1">VIII. <i>Mariners employed in the herring fisheries</i> are exempted
while actually employed.—48 Geo. 3, c. 110.</p>

<p class="i1">"The practice of impressment," says McCulloch, "so subversive
of every principle of justice, is vindicated on the alleged
ground of its being absolutely necessary to the manning of the
fleet. But this position, notwithstanding the confidence with
which it has been taken up, is not quite so tenable as has been
supposed. The difficulties experienced in procuring sailors for
the fleet at the breaking out of a war are not natural, but artificial,
and might be got rid of by a very simple arrangement. During
peace, not more than a fourth or fifth part of the seamen are retained
in his majesty's service that are commonly required during
war; and, if peace continue for a few years, the total number of
sailors in the king's and the merchant service is limited to that
which is merely adequate to supply the reduced demand of the
former and the ordinary demand of the latter. When, therefore,
war is declared, and 30,000 or 40,000 additional seamen are wanted
for the fleet, they cannot be obtained, unless by withdrawing them
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
from the merchant service, which has not more than its complement
of hands. But to do this by offering the seamen higher
wages would be next to impossible, and would, supposing it were
practicable, impose such a sacrifice upon the public as could
hardly be borne. And hence, it is said, the necessity of impressment,
a practice which every one admits can be justified on no
other ground than that of its being absolutely essential to the
public safety. It is plain, however, that a necessity of this kind
may be easily obviated. All, in fact, that is necessary for this
purpose, is merely to keep such a number of sailors in his majesty's
service during peace, as may suffice, with the ordinary
proportion of landsmen and boys, to man the fleet at the breaking
out of a war. Were this done, there would not be the shadow of
a pretence for resorting to impressment; and the practice, with
the cruelty and injustice inseparable from it, might be entirely
abolished.</p>

<p class="i1">"But it is said that, though desirable in many respects, the
<i>expense</i> of such a plan will always prevent its being adopted. It
admits, however, of demonstration, that instead of being dearer,
this plan would be actually cheaper than that which is now followed.
Not more than 1,000,000<i>l.</i> or 1,200,000<i>l.</i> a year would be
required to be added to the navy estimates, and that would not be
a real, but merely a nominal advance. The violence and injustice
to which the practice of impressment exposes sailors operates at
all times to raise their wages, by creating a disinclination on the
part of many young men to enter the sea-service; and this disinclination
is vastly increased during war, when wages usually rise
to four or five times their previous amount, imposing a burden on
the commerce of the country, exclusive of other equally mischievous
consequences, many times greater than the tax that would be
required to keep up the peace establishment of the navy to its
proper level. It is really, therefore, a vulgar error to suppose
that impressment has the recommendation of cheapness in its
favour; and, though it had, no reasonable man will contend that
that is the only, or even the principal, circumstance to be attended
to. In point of fact, however, it is as costly as it is oppressive
and unjust."</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">These remarks are creditable to the good sense and
humanity of McCulloch; but are too much devoted to
the <i>expediency</i> of outrage. To speak more clearly, the
discussion is conducted in too cool-blooded a style. We
defy any man of ordinary sensibility to read the accounts
of scenes attending many cases of impressment,
without feeling the deepest pity for the enslaved seaman
and his bereaved relatives and friends, and burning
with indignation at the heartless tyranny displayed by
the government. After a long and laborious voyage in
a merchant vessel, the sun-burned seamen arrives in
sight of home. His wife and children, who have long
bewailed his absence and feared for his fate, stand,
with joyous countenances, upon the shore, eager to
embrace the returned wanderer. Perhaps a government
vessel, on the search for seaman, then sends its
barbarous press-gang aboard the merchantman, and
forces the husband and father once more from the presence
of the beloved ones. Or, he is permitted to land.
He visits his home, and is just comfortably settled, resolved
to pass the rest of his days with his family, when
the gang tears him from their arms—and years—long,
dragging years will pass away before he will be allowed
to return. Then, the wife may be dead, the children at
the mercy of the parish. This is English freedom! A
gang of manacled negroes shocks humanity, and calls
down the vengeance of heaven upon the head of the
slave-driver; but a press-gang may perform its heart-rending
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
work in perfect consistency with the free and
glorious institutions of Britain.</p>

<p class="i1">By far the most thrilling narrative of the scenes
attending impressments, with which we are acquainted,
is to be found in the romance of "Katie Stewart," published
in Blackwood's Magazine, without the author's
name. We quote:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The next day was the Sabbath, and Willie Morison, with his
old mother leaning on his arm, reverently deposited his silver half-crown
in the plate at the door of West Anster Church, an offering
of thankfulness, for the parish poor. There had been various
returns during the previous week; a brig from the Levant, and
another from Riga—where, with its cargo of hemp, it had been
frozen in all the winter—had brought home each their proportion
of welcome family fathers, and young sailor men, like Willie Morison
himself, to glad the eyes of friends and kindred. One of
these was the son of that venerable elder in the lateran, who rose
to read the little notes which the thanksgivers had handed to him
at the door; and Katie Stewart's eyes filled as the old man's slow
voice, somewhat moved by reading his son's name just before,
intimated to the waiting congregation before him, and to the
minister in the pulpit behind, also waiting to include all these in
his concluding prayer, that William Morison gave thanks for his
safe return.</p>

<p class="i1">"And then there came friendly greetings as the congregation
streamed out through the churchyard, and the soft, hopeful sunshine
of spring threw down a bright flickering network of light
and shade through the soft foliage on the causewayed street;—peaceful
people going to secure and quiet homes—families joyfully
encircling the fathers or brothers for whose return they had
just rendered thanks out of full hearts, and peace upon all and
over all, as broad as the skies and as calm.</p>

<p class="i1">"But as the stream of people pours again in the afternoon from
the two neighbour churches, what is this gradual excitement which
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
manifests itself among them? Hark! there is the boom of a gun
plunging into all the echoes; and crowds of mothers and sisters
cling about these young sailors, and almost struggle with them,
to hurry them home. Who is that hastening to the pier, with his
staff clenched in his hand, and his white 'haffit locks' streaming
behind him? It is the reverend elder who to-day returned thanks
for his restored son. The sight of him—the sound of that second-gun
pealing from the Firth puts the climax on the excitement of
the people, and now, in a continuous stream from the peaceful
churchyard gates, they flow toward the pier and the sea.</p>

<p class="i1">"Eagerly running along by the edge of the rocks, at a pace
which, on another Sabbath, she would have thought a desecration
of the day, clinging to Willie Morison's arm, and with an anxious
heart, feeling her presence a kind of protection to him, Katie
Stewart hastens to the Billy Ness. The gray pier of Anster is
lined with anxious faces, and here and there a levelled telescope
under the care of some old shipmaster attracts round it a still
deeper, still more eager knot of spectators. The tide is out, and
venturous lads are stealing along the sharp low ranges of rock,
slipping now and then with incautious steps into the little clear
pools of sea-water which surround them; for their eyes are not on
their own uncertain footing, but fixed, like the rest, on that visible
danger up the Firth, in which all feel themselves concerned.</p>

<p class="i1">"Already there are spectators, and another telescope on the
Billy Ness, and the whole range of 'the braes' between Anstruther
and Pittenweem is dotted with anxious lookers-on; and the
far away pier of Pittenweem, too, is dark with its little crowd.</p>

<p class="i1">"What is the cause! Not far from the shore, just where that
headland, which hides you from the deep indentation of Largo
Bay, juts out upon the Firth, lies a little vessel, looking like a
diminutive Arabian horse, or one of the aristocratic young slight
lads who are its officers, with high blood, training, and courage in
every tight line of its cordage and taper stretch of its masts.
Before it, arrested in its way, lies a helpless merchant brig, softly
swaying on the bright mid-waters of the Firth, with the cutter's
boat rapidly approaching its side.</p>

<p class="i1">"Another moment and it is boarded; a very short interval of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>
silence, and again the officer—you can distinguish him with that
telescope, by his cocked hat, and the flash which the scabbard of
his sword throws on the water as he descends the vessel's side—has
re-entered the cutter's boat. Heavily the boat moves through
the water now, crowded with pressed men—poor writhing hearts,
whose hopes of home-coming and peace have been blighted in a
moment; captured, some of them, in sight of their homes, and
under the anxious, straining eyes of wives and children, happily
too far off to discern their full calamity.</p>

<p class="i1">"A low moan comes from the lips of that poor woman, who,
wringing her hands and rocking herself to and fro, with the unconscious
movement of extreme pain, looks pitifully in Willie
Morison's face, as he fixes the telescope on the scene. She is
reading the changes of its expression, as if her sentence was
there; but he says nothing, though the very motion of his hand,
as he steadies the glass, attracts, like something of occult significance,
the agonized gaze which dwells upon him.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Captain, captain!' she cried at last, softly pulling his coat,
and with unconscious art using the new title: 'Captain, is't the
Traveller? Can ye make her out? She has a white figure-head
at her bows, and twa white lines round her side. Captain, captain!
tell me for pity's sake!'</p>

<p class="i1">"Another long keen look was bent on the brig, as slowly and
disconsolately she resumed her onward way.</p>

<p class="i1">"'No, Peggie,' said the young sailor, looking round to meet her
eye, and to comfort his companion, who stood trembling by his
side: 'No, Peggie—make yourself easy; it's no the Traveller.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The poor woman seated herself on the grass, and, supporting
her head on her hands, wiped from her pale cheek tears of relief
and thankfulness.</p>

<p class="i1">"'God be thanked! and oh! God pity thae puir creatures, and
their wives, and their little anes. I think I have the hardest
heart in a' the world, that can be glad when there's such misery
in sight.'</p>

<p class="i1">"But dry your tears, poor Peggie Rodger—brace up your
trembling heart again for another fiery trial; for here comes
another white sail peacefully gliding up the Firth, with a flag
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>
fluttering from the stern, and a white figure-head dashing aside
the spray, which seems to embrace it joyfully, the sailors think,
as out of the stormy seas it nears the welcome home. With a
light step the captain walks the little quarter-deck—with light
hearts the seamen lounge amidship, looking forth on the green
hills of Fife. Dark grows the young sailor's face, as he watches
the unsuspicious victim glide triumphantly up through the blue
water into the undreaded snare; and a glance round, a slight
contraction of those lines in his face which Katie Stewart, eagerly
watching him, has never seen so strongly marked before, tells the
poor wife on the grass enough to make her rise hysterically strong,
and with her whole might gaze at the advancing ship; for, alas!
one can doubt its identity no longer. The white lines on its side—the
white figure-head among the joyous spray—and the Traveller
dashes on, out of its icy prison in the northern harbour—out of
its stormy ocean voyage—homeward bound!</p>

<p class="i1">"Homeward bound! There is one yonder turning longing looks
to Anster's quiet harbour as the ship sails past; carefully putting
up in the coloured foreign baskets those little wooden toys which
amused his leisure during the long dark winter among the ice,
and thinking with involuntary smiles how his little ones will leap
for joy as he divides the store. Put them up, good seaman, gentle
father!—the little ones will be men and women before you look
on them again.</p>

<p class="i1">"For already the echoes are startled, and the women here on
shore shiver and wring their hands as the cutter's gun rings out
its mandate to the passenger; and looking up the Firth you see
nothing but a floating globe of white smoke, slowly breaking into
long streamers, and almost entirely concealing the fine outline of
the little ship of war. The challenged brig at first is doubtful—the
alarmed captain does not understand the summons; but again
another flash, another report, another cloud of white smoke, and
the Traveller is brought to.</p>

<p class="i1">"There are no tears on Peggie Rodger's haggard cheeks, but a
convulsive shudder passes over her now and then, as, with intense
strained eyes, she watches the cutter's boat as it crosses the Firth
toward the arrested brig.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'God! an' it were sunk like lead!' said a passionate voice
beside her, trembling with the desperate restraint of impotent
strength.</p>

<p class="i1">"'God help us!—God help us!—curse na them,' said the poor
woman with an hysteric sob. 'Oh, captain, captain! gie <i>me</i> the
glass; if they pit him in the boat <i>I'll</i> ken Davie—if naebody else
would, I can—gie me the glass.'</p>

<p class="i1">"He gave her the glass, and himself gladly turned away,
trembling with the same suppressed rage and indignation which
had dictated the other spectator's curse.</p>

<p class="i1">"'If ane could but warn them wi' a word,' groaned Willie Morison,
grinding his teeth—'if ane could but lift a finger! but to see
them gang into the snare like innocents in the broad day—Katie,
it's enough to pit a man mad!'</p>

<p class="i1">"But Katie's pitiful compassionate eyes were fixed on Peggie
Rodger—on her white hollow cheeks, and on the convulsive steadiness
with which she held the telescope in her hand.</p>

<p class="i1">"'It's a fair wind into the Firth—there's another brig due.
Katie, I canna stand and see this mair!'</p>

<p class="i1">"He drew her hand through his arm, and unconsciously grasping
it with a force which at another time would have made her
cry with pain, led her a little way back toward the town. But
the fascination of the scene was too great for him, painful as it
was, and far away on the horizon glimmered another sail.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Willie!' exclaimed Katie Stewart, 'gar some of the Sillardyke
men gang out wi' a boat—gar them row down by the coast,
and then strike out in the Firth, and warn the men.'</p>

<p class="i1">"He grasped her hand again, not so violently. 'Bless you,
lassie! and wha should do your bidding but myself? but take
care of yourself, Katie Stewart. What care I for a' the brigs in
the world if any thing ails you? Gang hame, or'——</p>

<p class="i1">"'I'll no stir a fit till you're safe back again. I'll never speak
to you mair if ye say anither word. Be canny—be canny—but
haste ye away.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Another moment, and Katie Stewart stands alone by Peggie
Rodger's side, watching the eager face which seems to grow old
and emaciated with this terrible vigil, as if these moments were
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>
years; while the ground flies under the hounding feet of Willie
Morison, and he answers the questions which are addressed to
him, as to his errand, only while he himself continues at full
speed to push eastward to Cellardyke.</p>

<p class="i1">"And the indistinct words which he calls back to his comrades,
as he 'devours the way,' are enough to send racing after him an
eager train of coadjutors; and with his bonnet off, and his hands,
which tremble as with palsy, clasped convulsively together, the
white-haired elder leans upon the wall of the pier, and bids God
bless them, God speed them, with a broken voice, whose utterance
comes in gasps and sobs; for he has yet another son upon the sea.</p>

<p class="i1">"Meanwhile the cutter's boat has returned from the Traveller
with its second load; and a kind bystander relieves the aching
arms of poor Peggie Rodger of the telescope, in which now she
has no further interest.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Gude kens, Gude kens,' said the poor woman slowly, as Katie
strove to comfort her. 'I didna see him in the boat; but ane
could see nothing but the wet oars flashing out of the water, and
blinding folks e'en. What am I to do? Miss Katie, what am I
to think? They maun have left some men in the ship to work
her. Oh! God grant they have ta'en the young men, and no heads
of families wi' bairns to toil for. But Davie's a buirdly man, just
like ane to take an officer's ee. Oh, the Lord help us! for I'm
just distraught, and kenna what to do.'</p>

<p class="i1">"A faint cheer, instantly suppressed, rises from the point of
the pier and the shelving coast beyond; and yonder now it glides
along the shore, with wet oars gleaming out of the dazzling sunny
water, the boat of the forlorn hope. A small, picked, chosen company
bend to the oars, and Willie Morison is at the helm, warily
guiding the little vessel over the rocks, as they shelter themselves
in the shadow of the coast. On the horizon the coming sail flutters
nearer, nearer—and up the Firth yonder there is a stir in the
cutter as she prepares to leave her anchor and strike into the mid-waters
of the broad highway which she molests.</p>

<p class="i1">"The sun is sinking lower in the grand western skies, and beginning
to cast long, cool, dewy shadows of every headland and
little promontory over the whole rocky coast; but still the Firth is
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
burning with his slanting fervid rays, and Inchkeith far away
lies like a cloud upon the sea, and the May, near at hand, lifts its
white front to the sun—a Sabbath night as calm and full of rest
as ever natural Sabbath was—and the reverend elder yonder on
the pier uncovers his white head once more, and groans within
himself, amid his passionate prayers for these perilled men upon
the sea, over the desecrated Sabbath-day.</p>

<p class="i1">"Nearer and nearer wears the sail, fluttering like the snowy
breast of some sea-bird in prophetic terror; and now far off the red
fishing-boat strikes boldly forth into the Firth with a signal-flag
at its prow.</p>

<p class="i1">"In the cutter they perceive it now; and see how the anchor
swings up her shapely side, and the snowy sail curls over the
yards, as with a bound she darts forth from her lurking-place,
and flashing in the sunshine, like an eager hound leaps forth after
her prey.</p>

<p class="i1">"The boat—the boat! With every gleam of its oars the hearts
throb that watch it on its way; with every bound it makes there
are prayers—prayers of the anguish which will take no discouragement—pressing
in at the gates of heaven; and the ebbing tide
bears it out, and the wind droops its wings, and falls becalmed
upon the coast, as if repenting it of the evil service it did to those
two hapless vessels which have fallen into the snare. Bravely on
as the sun grows lower—bravely out as the fluttering stranger
sail draws nearer and more near—and but one other strain will
bring them within hail.</p>

<p class="i1">"But as all eyes follow these adventurers, another flash from
the cutter's side glares over the shining water; and as the smoke
rolls over the pursuing vessel, and the loud report again disturbs
all the hills, Katie's heart grows sick, and she scarcely dares look
to the east. But the ball has ploughed the water harmlessly, and
yonder is the boat of rescue—yonder is the ship within hail; and
some one stands up in the prow of the forlorn hope, and shouts
and waves his hand.</p>

<p class="i1">"It is enough. 'There she goes—there she tacks!' cries exulting
the man with the telescope, 'and in half an hour she'll be
safe in St. Andrew's Bay.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"But she sails slowly back—and slowly sails the impatient
cutter, with little wind to swell her sails, and that little in her
face; while the fisherboat, again falling close inshore with a
relay of fresh men at the oars, has the advantage of them both.</p>

<p class="i1">"And now there is a hot pursuit—the cutter's boat in full chase
after the forlorn hope; but as the sun disappears, and the long
shadows lengthen and creep along the creeks and bays of the
rocky coast so well known to the pursued, so ill to the pursuer,
the event of the race is soon decided; and clambering up the first
accessible landing-place they can gain, and leaving their boat on
the rocks behind them, the forlorn hope joyously make their way
home.</p>

<p class="i1">"'And it's a' Katie's notion and no a morsel of mine,' says the
proud Willie Morison. But alas for your stout heart, Willie!—alas
for the tremulous, startled bird which beats against the innocent
breast of little Katie Stewart, for no one knows what heavy
shadows shall vail the ending of this Sabbath-day.</p>

<hr class="sect" />

<p class="i1">"The mild spring night has darkened, but it is still early, and
the moon is not yet up. The worship is over in John Stewart's
decent house, and all is still within, though the miller and his
wife still sit by the 'gathered' fire, and talk in half whispers about
the events of the day, and the prospects of 'the bairns.' It is
scarcely nine yet, but it is the reverent usage of the family to
shut out the world earlier than usual on the Sabbath; and Katie,
in consideration of her fatigue, has been dismissed to her little
chamber in the roof. She has gone away not unwillingly, for,
just before, the miller had closed the door on the slow, reluctant,
departing steps of Willie Morison, and Katie is fain to be alone.</p>

<p class="i1">"Very small is this chamber in the roof of the Milton, which
Janet and Katie used to share. She has set down her candle on
the little table before that small glass in the dark carved frame,
and herself stands by the window, which she has opened, looking
out. The rush of the burn fills the soft air with sound, into which
sometimes penetrates a far-off voice, which proclaims the little
town still awake and stirring: but save the light from Robert
Moulter's uncurtained window—revealing a dark gleaming link
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
of the burn, before the cot-house door—and the reddened sky
yonder, reflecting that fierce torch on the May, there is nothing
visible but the dark line of fields, and a few faint stars in the
clouded sky.</p>

<p class="i1">"But the houses in Anster are not yet closed or silent. In the
street which leads past the town-house and church of West Anster
to the shore, you can see a ruddy light streaming out from the
window upon the causeway, the dark churchyard wall, and over-hanging
trees. At the fire stands a comely young woman, lifting
'a kettle of potatoes' from the crook. The 'kettle' is a capacious
pot on three feet, formed not like the ordinary 'kail-pat,' but like
a little tub of iron; and now, as it is set down before the ruddy
fire, you see it is full of laughing potatoes, disclosing themselves,
snow-white and mealy, through the cracks in their clear dark
coats. The mother of the household sits by the fireside, with a
volume of sermons in her hand; but she is paying but little attention
to the book, for the kitchen is full of young sailors, eagerly
discussing the events of the day, and through the hospitable open
door others are entering and departing with friendly salutations.
Another such animated company fills the house of the widow Morison,
'aest the town,' for still the afternoon's excitement has not
subsided.</p>

<p class="i1">"But up this dark leaf-shadowed street, in which we stand,
there comes a muffled tramp as of stealthy footsteps. They hear
nothing of it in that bright warm kitchen—fear nothing, as they
gather round the fire, and sometimes rise so loud in their conversation
that the house-mother lifts her hand, and shakes her head,
with an admonitory, 'Whist bairns; mind, it's the Sabbath-day.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Behind backs, leaning against the sparkling panes of the window,
young Robert Davidson speaks aside to Lizzie Tosh, the
daughter of the house. They were 'cried' to-day in West Anster
kirk, and soon will have a blithe bridal—'If naething comes in
the way,' says Lizzie, with her downcast face; and the manly
young sailor answers—'Nae fear.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Nae fear!' But without, the stealthy steps come nearer;
and if you draw far enough away from the open door to lose the
merry voices, and have your eyes no longer dazzled with the light,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>
you will see dim figures creeping through the darkness, and feel
that the air is heavy with the breath of men. But few people
care to use that dark road between the manse and the churchyard
at night, so no one challenges the advancing party, or gives the
alarm.</p>

<p class="i1">"Lizzie Tosh has stolen to the door; it is to see if the moon is
up, and if Robert will have light on his homeward walk to Pittenweem;
but immediately she rushes in again, with a face as pale
as it had before been blooming, and alarms the assembly. 'A
band of the cutter's men;—an officer, with a sword at his side.
Rin, lads, rin, afore they reach the door.'</p>

<p class="i1">"But there is a keen, eager face, with a cocked hat surmounting
it, already looking in at the window. The assembled sailors
make a wild plunge at the door; and, while a few escape under
cover of the darkness, the cutter's men have secured, after a desperate
resistance, three or four of the foremost. Poor fellows!
You see them stand without, young Robert Davidson in the front,
his broad, bronzed forehead bleeding from a cut he has received
in the scuffle, and one of his captors, still more visibly wounded,
looking on him with evil, revengeful eyes: his own eye, poor lad,
is flaming with fierce indignation and rage, and his broad breast
heaves almost convulsively. But now he catches a glimpse of the
weeping Lizzie, and fiery tears, which scorch his eyelids, blind
him for a moment, and his heart swells as if it would burst. But
it does not burst, poor desperate heart! until the appointed bullet
shall come, a year or two hence, to make its pulses quiet for
ever.</p>

<p class="i1">"A few of the gang entered the house. It is only 'a but and a
ben;' and Lizzie stands with her back against the door of the
inner apartment, while her streaming eyes now and then cast a
sick, yearning glance toward the prisoners at the door—for her
brother stands there as well as her betrothed.</p>

<p class="i1">"'What for would you seek in there?' asked the mother, lifting
up her trembling hands. 'What would ye despoil my chaumer
for, after ye've made my hearthstane desolate. If ye've a
license to steal men, ye've nane to steal gear. Ye've dune your
warst: gang out o' my house ye thieves, ye locusts, ye'——</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'We'll see about that, old lady,' said the leader:—'put the
girl away from that door. Tom, bring the lantern.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The little humble room was neatly arranged. It was their
best, and they had not spared upon it what ornament they could
attain. Shells far travelled, precious for the giver's sake, and
many other heterogeneous trifles, such as sailors pick up in foreign
parts, were arranged upon the little mantel-piece and grate.
There was no nook or corner in it which could possibly be used
for a hiding-place; but the experienced eye of the foremost man
saw the homely counterpane disordered on the bed; and there
indeed the mother had hid her youngest, dearest son. She had
scarcely a minute's time to drag him in, to prevail upon him to
let her conceal him under her feather-bed, and all its comfortable
coverings. But the mother's pains were unavailing, and now
she stood by, and looked on with a suppressed scream, while that
heavy blow struck down her boy as he struggled—her youngest,
fair-haired, hopeful boy.</p>

<p class="i1">"Calm thoughts are in your heart, Katie Stewart—dreams of
sailing over silver seas under that moon which begins to rise,
slowly climbing through the clouds yonder, on the south side of
the Firth. In fancy, already, you watch the soft Mediterranean
waves rippling past the side of the Flower of Fife, and see the
strange beautiful countries of which your bridegroom has told
you shining under the brilliant southern sun. And then the
home-coming—the curious toys you will gather yonder for the
sisters and the mother; the pride you will have in telling them
how Willie has cared for your voyage—how wisely he rules the
one Flower of Fife, how tenderly he guards the other.</p>

<p class="i1">"Your heart is touched, Katie Stewart, touched with the calm
and pathos of great joy; and tears lie under your eyelashes, like
the dew on flowers. Clasp your white hands on the sill of the
window—heed not that your knees are unbended—and say your
child's prayers with lips which move but utter nothing audible,
and with your head bowed on the moonbeam, which steals into
your window like a bird. True, you have said these child's
prayers many a night, as in some sort a charm, to guard you as
you slept; but now there comes upon your spirit an awe of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
great Father yonder, a dim and wonderful apprehension of the
mysterious Son in whose name you make those prayers. Is it
true, then, that he thinks of all our loves and sorrows, this One,
whose visible form realizes to us the dim, grand, glorious heaven—knows
us by name—remembers us with the God's love in his
wonderful human heart;—<i>us</i>, scattered by myriads over his earth,
like the motes in the sunbeam? And the tears steal over your
cheeks, as you end the child's prayer with the name that is above
all names.</p>

<p class="i1">"Now, will you rest? But the moon has mastered all her hilly
way of clouds, and from the full sky looks down on you, Katie,
with eyes of pensive blessedness like your own. Tarry a little—linger
to watch that one bright spot on the Firth, where you could
almost count the silvered waves as they lie beneath the light.</p>

<p class="i1">"But a rude sound breaks upon the stillness—a sound of flying
feet echoing over the quiet road; and now they become visible—one
figure in advance, and a band of pursuers behind—the same
brave heart which spent its strength to-day to warn the unconscious
ship—the same strong form which Katie has seen in her
dreams on the quarter-deck of the Flower of Fife;—but he will
never reach that quarter-deck, Katie Stewart, for his strength
flags, and they gain upon him.</p>

<p class="i1">"Gain upon him, step by step, unpitying bloodhounds!—see
him lift up his hands to you, at your window, and have no ruth
for his young hope, or yours;—and now their hands are on his
shoulder, and he is in their power.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Katie!' cries the hoarse voice of Willie Morison, breaking
the strange fascination in which she stood, 'come down and speak
to me ae word, if ye wouldna break my heart. Man—if ye are a
man—let me bide a minute; let me say a word to her. I'll maybe
never see her in this world again.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The miller stood at the open door—the mother within was
wiping the tears from her cheeks. 'Oh Katie, bairn, that ye had
been sleeping!' But Katie rushed past them, and crossed the
burn.</p>

<p class="i1">"What can they say?—only convulsively grasp each other's
hands—wofully look into each other's faces, ghastly in the moonlight;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
till Willie—Willie, who could have carried her like a child,
in his strength of manhood—bowed down his head into those
little hands of hers which are lost in his own vehement grasp,
and hides with them his passionate tears.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Willie, I'll never forget ye,' says aloud the instinctive impulse
of little Katie's heart, forgetting for the moment that there
is any grief in the world but to see his. 'Night and day I'll
mind ye, think of ye. If ye were twenty years away, I would be
blither to wait for ye, than to be a queen. Willie, if ye must go,
go with a stout heart—for I'll never forget ye, if it should be
twenty years!'</p>

<p class="i1">"Twenty years! Only eighteen have you been in the world
yet, brave little Katie Stewart; and you know not the years, how
they drag their drooping skirts over the hills when hearts long
for their ending, or how it is only day by day, hour by hour, that
they wear out at length, and fade into the past.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Now, my man, let's have no more of this,' said the leader of
the gang. 'I'm not here to wait your leisure; come on.'</p>

<p class="i1">"And now they are away—truly away—and the darkness settles
down where this moment Katie saw her bridegroom's head bowing
over the hands which still are wet with his tears. Twenty
years! Her own words ring into her heart like a knell, a prophecy
of evil—if he should be twenty years away!"</p></div>

<p class="i1">There is no exaggeration in the above narrative.
Similar scenes have occurred on many occasions, and
others of equally affecting character might be gathered
from British sailors themselves. In the story of "Katie
Stewart," ten years elapse before Willie Morison is
permitted to return to his betrothed. In many cases
the pressed seamen never catch a glimpse of home or
friends again. Sometimes decoys and stratagems are
used to press the seamen into the service of the government.
Such extensive powers are intrusted to the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>
officers of men-of-war, that they may be guilty of
the grossest violations of right and justice with impunity,
and even those "protections" which the government
extends to certain persons, are frequently of no
effect whatever. In the novel of "Jacob Faithful,"
Captain Marryatt has given a fine illustration of the
practice of some officers. The impressment of Jacob
and Thomas the waterman, is told with Marryatt's
usual spirit. Here it is:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'I say, you watermen, have you a mind for a good fare?' cried
a dark-looking, not over clean, square built, short young man
standing on the top of the flight of steps.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Where to, sir?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Gravesend, my jokers, if you a'n't afraid of salt water.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'That's a long way, sir!' replied Tom, 'and for salt water we
must have salt to our porridge.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'So you shall, my lads, and a glass of grog into the bargain.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, but the bargain a'n't made yet, sir. Jacob, will you go?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, but not under a guinea.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Not under two guineas,' replied Tom, aside.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Are you in a great hurry, sir?' continued he, addressing the
young man.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, in a devil of a hurry; I shall lose my ship. What will
you take me for?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Two guineas, sir.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Very well. Just come up to the public-house here, and put
in my traps.'</p>

<p class="i1">"We had brought down his luggage, put it into the wherry and
started down the river with the tide. Our fare was very communicative,
and we found out that he was master's mate of the Immortalité,
forty-gun frigate, lying off Gravesend, which was to
drop down the next morning, and wait for sailing orders at the
Downs. We carried the tide with us, and in the afternoon were
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
close to the frigate, whose blue ensign waved proudly over the
taffrail. There was a considerable sea arising from the wind
meeting the tide, and before we arrived close to her, we had
shipped a great deal of water; and when we were alongside, the
wherry, with the chest in her bows, pitched so heavily, that we were
afraid of being swamped. Just as a rope had been made fast to
the chest, and they were weighing it out of the wherry, the ship's
launch with water came alongside, and whether from accident or
wilfully I know not, although I suspect the latter, the midshipman
who steered her, shot her against the wherry, which was
crushed in, and immediately filled, leaving Tom and me in the
water, and in danger of being jammed to death between the
launch and the side of the frigate. The seamen in the boat,
however, forced her off with their oars, and hauled us in, while
our wherry sank with her gunnel even with the water's edge, and
floated away astern.</p>

<p class="i1">"As soon as we had shaken ourselves a little, we went up the side
and asked one of the officers to send a boat to pick up our wherry.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Speak to the first lieutenant—there he is,' was the reply.</p>

<p class="i1">"I went up to the person pointed out to me: 'If you please
sir'——</p>

<p class="i1">"'What the devil do you want?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'A boat, sir, to'——</p>

<p class="i1">"'A boat! the devil you do!'</p>

<p class="i1">"'To pick up our wherry, sir,' interrupted Tom.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Pick it up yourself,' said the first lieutenant, passing us and
hailing the men aloft. 'Maintop there, hook on your stay. Be
smart. Lower away the yards. Marines and afterguard, clear
launch. Boatswain's-mate.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Here, sir.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Pipe marines and afterguard to clear launch.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Ay, ay, sir.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'But we shall lose our boat, Jacob,' said Tom, to me. 'They
stove it in, and they ought to pick it up.' Tom then went up to
the master's-mate, whom we had brought on board, and explained
our difficulty.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Upon my soul, I dar'n't say a word. I'm in a scrape for
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
breaking my leave. Why the devil didn't you take care of your
wherry, and haul ahead when you saw the launch coming.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How could we when the chest was hoisting out?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Very true. Well, I'm very sorry for you, but I must look
after my chest.' So saying, he disappeared down the gangway
ladder.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I'll try it again, any how,' said Tom, going up to the first
lieutenant. 'Hard case to lose our boat and our bread, sir,' said
Tom, touching his hat.</p>

<p class="i1">"The first lieutenant, now that the marines and afterguard
were at a regular stamp and go, had, unfortunately, more leisure
to attend to us. He looked at us earnestly, and walked aft to
see if the wherry was yet in sight. At that moment up came the
master's-mate who had not yet reported himself to the first lieutenant.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Tom,' said I, 'there's a wherry close to; let us get into it,
and go after our boat ourselves.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Wait one moment to see if they will help us—and get our
money, at all events,' replied Tom; and we walked aft.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Come on board, sir,' said the master's mate, touching his
hat with humility.</p>

<p class="i1">"'You've broke your leave, sir,' replied the first lieutenant,
'and now I've to send a boat to pick up the wherry through your
carelessness.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'If you please, they are two very fine young men,' observed
the mate. 'Make capital foretop-men. Boat's not worth sending
for, sir.'</p>

<p class="i1">"This hint, given by the mate to the first lieutenant, to regain
his favour, was not lost. 'Who are you, my lads?' said the first
lieutenant to us.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Watermen, sir.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Watermen, hey! was that your own boat?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'No, sir,' replied I, 'it belonged to the man that I serve with.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Oh! not your own boat? Are you an apprentice then?'</p>

<p class="i1">"Yes, sir, both apprentices.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Show me your indentures.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'We don't carry them about with us.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Then how am I to know that you are apprentices?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'We can prove it, sir, if you wish it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'I do wish it; at all events, the captain will wish it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Will you please to send for the boat, sir? she's almost out
of sight.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'No, my lads, I can't find king's boats for such service.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Then, we had better go ourselves, Tom,' said I, and we went
forward to call the waterman who was lying on his oars close to
the frigate.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Stop—stop—not so fast. Where are you going, my lads?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'To pick up our boat, sir.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Without my leave, hey!'</p>

<p class="i1">"'We don't belong to the frigate, sir.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'No; but I think it very likely that you will, for you have
no protections.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'We can send for them and have them down by to-morrow
morning.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well, you may do so, if you please, my lads; you cannot
expect me to believe every thing that is told me. Now, for instance,
how long have you to serve, my lad?' said he, addressing
Tom.</p>

<p class="i1">"'My time is up to-morrow, sir.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Up to-morrow. Why, then, I shall detain you until to-morrow,
and then I shall press you.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'If you detain me now, sir, I am pressed to-day.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Oh no! you are only detained until you prove your apprenticeship,
that's all.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Nay, sir, I certainly am pressed during my apprenticeship.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Not at all, and I'll prove it to you. You don't belong to the
ship until you are victualled on her books. Now, I shan't <i>victual</i>
you to-day, and therefore, you won't be <i>pressed</i>.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'I shall be pressed with hunger, at all events,' replied Tom,
who never could lose a joke.</p>

<p class="i1">"'No, you shan't; for I'll send you both a good dinner out of
the gun-room, so you won't be pressed at all,' replied the lieutenant,
laughing at Tom's reply.</p>

<p class="i1">"You will allow me to go, sir, at all events,' replied I; 'for I
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
knew that the only chance of getting Tom and myself clear was
by hastening to Mr. Drummond for assistance.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Pooh! nonsense; you must both row in the same boat as
you have done. The fact is, my lads, I've taken a great fancy to
you both, and I can't make up my mind to part with you.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'It's hard to lose our bread, this way,' replied I.</p>

<p class="i1">"'We will find you bread, and hard enough you will find it,'
replied the lieutenant, laughing; 'it's like a flint.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'So we ask for bread, and you give us a stone,' said Tom;
'that's 'gainst Scripture.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Very true, my lad; but the fact is, all the scriptures in the
world won't man the frigate. Men we must have, and get them
how we can, and where we can, and when we can. Necessity has
no law; at least it obliges us to break through all laws. After all,
there's no great hardship in serving the king for a year or two, and
filling your pockets with prize-money. Suppose you volunteer?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Will you allow us to go on shore for half an hour to think
about it?' replied I.</p>

<p class="i1">"'No; I'm afraid of the crimps dissuading you. But, I'll give
you till to-morrow morning, and then I shall be sure of one, at
all events.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Thanky, for me,' replied Tom.</p>

<p class="i1">"'You're very welcome,' replied the first lieutenant, as, laughing
at us, he went down the companion ladder to his dinner.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well, Jacob, we are in for it,' said Tom, as soon as we were
alone. 'Depend upon it, there's no mistake this time.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'I'm afraid not,' replied I, 'unless we can get a letter to your
father, or Mr. Drummond, who, I am sure, would help us. But
that dirty fellow, who gave the first lieutenant the hint, said the
frigate sailed to-morrow morning; there he is, let us speak to
him.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'When does the frigate sail?' said Tom to the master's-mate,
who was walking the deck.</p>

<p class="i1">"'My good fellow, it's not the custom on board of a man-of-war
for men to ask officers to answer such impertinent questions.
It's quite sufficient for you to know that when the frigate sails,
you will have the honour of sailing in her.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Well, sir,' replied I, nettled at his answer, 'at all events,
you will have the goodness to pay us our fare. We have lost our
wherry, and our liberty, perhaps, through you; we may as well
have our two guineas.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Two guineas! It's two guineas you want, heh?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, sir, that was the fare agreed upon.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Why, you must observe, my men,' said the master's-mate,
hooking a thumb into each arm-hole of his waistcoat, 'there must
be a little explanation as to that affair. I promised you two
guineas as watermen; but now that you belong to a man-of-war,
you are no longer watermen. I always pay my debts honourably
when I can find the lawful creditors; but where are the watermen?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Here we are, sir.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'No, my lads, you are men-of-war's men now, and that quite
alters the case."</p>

<p class="i1">"'But we are not so yet, sir: even if it did alter the case, we
are not pressed yet.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well, then, you will be to-morrow, perhaps; at all events
we shall see. If you are allowed to go on shore again, I owe
you two guineas as watermen; and if you are detained as men-of-war's
men, why then you will only have done your duty in pulling
down one of your officers. You see, my lads, I say nothing
but what's fair.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well, sir, but when you hired us, we were watermen,' replied
Tom.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Very true, so you were; but recollect the two guineas were
not due until you had completed your task, which was not until
you came on board. When you came on board you were pressed
and became men-of-war's men. You should have asked for your
fare before the first lieutenant got hold of you. Don't you perceive
the justice of my remarks?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Can't say I do, sir; but I perceive that there is very little
chance of our being paid,' said Tom.</p>

<p class="i1">"'You are a lad of discrimination,' replied the master's-mate;
'and now I advise you to drop the subject, or you may induce
me to pay you man-of-war fashion.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'How's that, sir?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Over the face and eyes, as the cat paid the monkey,' replied
the master's-mate, walking leisurely away.</p>

<p class="i1">"No go, Tom,' said I, smiling at the absurdity of the arguments.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I'm afraid it's <i>no go</i>, in every way, Jacob. However, I don't
care much about it. I have had a little hankering after seeing
the world, and perhaps now's as well as any other time; but I'm
sorry for you, Jacob.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'It's all my own fault,' replied I; and I fell into one of those
reveries so often indulged in of late as to the folly of my conduct
in asserting my independence, which had now ended in my losing
my liberty. But we were cold from the ducking we had received,
and moreover very hungry. The first lieutenant did not forget
his promise: he sent us up a good dinner, and a glass of grog
each, which we discussed under the half-deck between two of the
guns. We had some money in our pockets, and we purchased
some sheets of paper from the bumboat people, who were on the
main-deck supplying the seamen; and I wrote to Mr. Drummond
and Mr. Turnbull, as well as to Mary and old Tom, requesting
the two latter to forward our clothes to Deal, in case of our being
detained. Tom also wrote to comfort his mother, and the greatest
comfort he could give was, as he said, to promise to keep
sober. Having intrusted these letters to the bumboat women,
who promised faithfully to put them into the post-office, we had
then nothing else to do but to look out for some place to sleep.
Our clothes had dried on us, and we were walking under the half-deck,
but not a soul spoke to, or even took the least notice of us.
In a newly manned ship, just ready to sail, there is a universal
feeling of selfishness prevailing among the ship's company. Some,
if not most, had, like us, been pressed, and their thoughts were
occupied with their situation, and the change in their prospects.
Others were busy making their little arrangements with their
wives or relations; while the mass of the seamen, not yet organized
by discipline, or known to each other, were in a state of dis-union
and individuality, which naturally induced every man to
look after himself, without caring for his neighbour. We therefore
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>
could not expect, nor did we receive any sympathy; we were
in a scene of bustle and noise, yet alone. A spare topsail, which
had been stowed for the present between two of the guns, was
the best accommodation which offered itself. We took possession
of it, and, tired with exertion of mind and body, were soon fast
asleep."</p></div>

<p class="i1">In the mean time, doubtless, there was weeping and
wailing at the homes of the pressed seamen. Parents,
tottering on the verge of the grave, and deprived of
their natural support—wives and children at the fireside
uncheered by the presence of the head of the
family—could only weep for the absent ones, and pray
that their government might one day cease to be tyrannical.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>




<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
</div>

<p class="ac">IRISH SLAVERY.</p>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">For</span> centuries the Irish nation has groaned under
the yoke of England. The chain has worn to the
bone. The nation has felt its strength depart. Many
of its noblest and fairest children have pined away in
dungeons or starved by the roadside. The tillers of
the soil, sweating from sunrise to sunset for a bare
subsistence, have been turned from their miserable
cabins—hovels, yet homes—and those who have been
allowed to remain have had their substance devoured
by a government seemingly never satisfied with the
extent of its taxation. They have suffered unmitigated
persecution for daring to have a religion of their own.
Seldom has a conquered people suffered more from the
cruelties and exactions of the conquerors. While
Clarkson and Wilberforce were giving their untiring
labours to the cause of emancipating negro slaves
thousands of miles away, they overlooked a hideous
system of slavery at their very doors—the slavery of a
people capable of enjoying the highest degree of civil
and religious freedom. Says William Howitt—</p>

<div class="figcenter"><a name="i_284.jpg" id="i_284.jpg"></a>
  <img src="images/i_284.jpg"
        alt="" />
  <div class="caption">IRISH TENANT ABOUT TO EMIGRATE.</div>
</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The great grievance of Ireland—the Monster Grievance—is
just England itself. The curse of Ireland is bad government,
and nothing more. And who is the cause of this? Nobody but
England. Who made Ireland a conquered country? England.
Who introduced all the elements of wrangling, discontent, and
injustice? England. Who set two hostile churches, and two
hostile races, Celts and Saxons, together by the ears in that country?
England, of course. Her massacres, her military plantations,
her violent seizure of ancient estates, her favouritism, her
monstrous laws and modes of government, were the modern
emptying of Pandora's box—the shaking out of a bag-full of
Kilkenny cats on the soil of that devoted country. The consequences
are exactly those that we have before us. Wretched
Saxon landlords, who have left one-fourth of the country uncultivated,
and squeezed the population to death by extortion on the
rest. A great useless church maintained on the property of the
ejected Catholics—who do as men are sure to do, kick at robbery,
and feel it daily making their gall doubly bitter. And then we
shake our heads and sagely talk about race. If the race be bad,
why have we not taken pains to improve it? Why, for scores of
years, did we forbid them even to be educated? Why do we
complain of their being idle and improvident, and helpless, when
we have done every thing we could to make them so? Are our
ministers and Parliaments any better? Are they not just as idle,
and improvident, and helpless, as it regards Ireland? Has not
this evil been growing these three hundred years? Have any
remedies been applied but those of Elizabeth, and the Stuarts
and Straffords, the Cromwells, and Dutch William's? Arms and
extermination? We have built barracks instead of schools; we
have sown gunpowder instead of corn—and now we wonder at
the people and the crops. The wisest and best of men have for
ages been crying out for reform and improvement in Ireland,
and all that we have done has been to augment the army and the
police."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The condition of the Irish peasantry has long been
most miserable. Untiring toil for the lords of the soil
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
gives the labourers only such a living as an American
slave would despise. Hovels fit for pig-styes—rags
for clothing—potatoes for food—are the fruits of the
labour of these poor wretches. A vast majority of
them are attached to the Roman Catholic Church, yet
they are compelled to pay a heavy tax for the support
of the Established Church. This, and other exactions,
eat up their little substance, and prevent them from
acquiring any considerable property. Their poor
homes are merely held by the sufferance of grasping
agents for landlords, and they are compelled to submit
to any terms he may prescribe or become wandering
beggars, which alternative is more terrible to many of
them than the whip would be.</p>

<p class="i1">O'Connell, the indomitable advocate of his oppressed
countrymen, used the following language in his repeal
declaration of July 27, 1841:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"It ought to sink deep into the minds of the English aristocracy,
that no people on the face of the earth pay to another such a
tribute for permission to live, as Ireland pays to England in
absentee rents and surplus revenues. There is no such instance;
there is nothing like it in ancient or modern history. There is
not, and there never was, such an exhausting process applied to
any country as is thus applied to Ireland. It is a solecism in
political economy, inflicted upon Ireland alone, of all the nations
that are or ever were."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Surely it is slavery to pay such a price for a miserable
existence. We cannot so abuse terms as to call a
people situated as the Irish are, free. They are compelled
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>
to labour constantly without receiving an approach
to adequate compensation, and they have no
means of escape except by sundering the ties of home,
kindred, and country.</p>

<p class="i1">The various repulsive features of the Irish system
can be illustrated much more fully than our limits will
permit. But we will proceed to a certain extent, as it
is in Ireland that the results of British tyranny have
been most frightfully manifested.</p>

<p class="i1">The population of Ireland is chiefly agricultural, yet
there are no agricultural labourers in the sense in
which that term is employed in Great Britain. A
peasant living entirely by hire, without land, is wholly
unknown.</p>

<p class="i1">The persons who till the ground may be divided into
three classes, which are sometimes distinguished by the
names of small farmers, cottiers, and casual labourers;
or, as the last are sometimes called, "con-acre" men.</p>

<p class="i1">The class of small farmers includes those who hold
from five to twelve Irish acres. The cottiers are those
who hold about two acres, in return for which they
labour for the farmer of twenty acres or more, or for
the gentry.</p>

<p class="i1">Con-acre is ground hired, not by the year, but for a
single crop, usually of potatoes. The tenant of con-acre
receives the land in time to plant potatoes, and
surrenders it so soon as the crop has been secured.
The farmer from whom he receives it usually ploughs
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
and manures the land, and sometimes carts the crop.
Con-acre is taken by tradesmen, small farmers, and
cottiers, but chiefly by labourers, who are, in addition,
always ready to work for hire when there is employment
for them. It is usually let in roods, and other
small quantities, rarely exceeding half an acre. These
three classes, not very distinct from each other, form
the mass of the Irish population.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"According to the census of 1831," says Mr. Bicheno, "the
population of Ireland was 7,767,401; the 'occupiers employing
labourers' were 95,339; the 'labourers employed in agriculture,'
(who do not exist in Ireland as a class corresponding to
that in England,) and the 'occupiers not employing labourers,'
amounted together to 1,131,715. The two last descriptions pretty
accurately include the cottier tenants and cottier labourers; and,
as these are nearly all heads of families, it may be inferred from
hence how large a portion of the soil of Ireland is cultivated by a
peasant tenantry; and when to these a further addition is made
of a great number of little farmers, a tolerably accurate opinion
may be formed of the insignificant weight and influence that any
middle class in the rural districts can have, as compared with the
peasants. Though many may occupy a greater extent of land
than the 'cottiers,' and, if held immediately from the proprietor,
generally at a more moderate rent, and may possess some trifling
stock, almost all the inferior tenantry of Ireland belong to one
class. The cottier and the little farmer have the same feelings,
the same interests to watch over, and the same sympathies.
Their diet and their clothing are not very dissimilar, though
they may vary in quantity; and the one cannot be ordinarily
distinguished from the other by any external appearance. Neither
does the dress of the children of the little farmers mark any distinction
of rank, as it does in England; while their wives are
singularly deficient in the comforts of apparel."—<i>Report of
Commissioners of Poor Inquiry.</i></p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">The whole population, small farmers, cottiers, and
labourers, are equally devoid of capital. The small
farmer holds his ten or twelve acres of land at a nominal
rent—a rent determined not by what the land will
yield, but by the intensity of the competition to obtain
it. He takes from his farm a wretched subsistence,
and gives over the remainder to his landlord. This
remainder rarely equals the nominal rent, the growing
arrears of which are allowed to accumulate against
him.</p>

<p class="i1">The cottier labours constantly for his landlord, (or
master, as he would have been termed of old,) and
receives, for his wages as a serf, land which will afford
him but a miserable subsistence. Badly off as these
two classes are, their condition is still somewhat better
than that of the casual labourer, who hires con-acre,
and works for wages at seasons when employment can
be had, to get in the first place the means of paying
the rent for his con-acre.</p>

<p class="i1">Mr. Bicheno says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"It appears from the evidence that the average crops of con-acre
produce about as much or a little more, (at the usual price
of potatoes in the autumn,) than the amount of the rent, seed,
and tenant's labour, say 5<i>s.</i> or 10<i>s.</i> Beyond this the labourer
does not seem to derive any other direct profit from taking con-acre;
but he has the following inducements. In some cases he
contracts to work out a part, or the whole, of his con-acre rent;
and, even when this indulgence is not conceded to him by previous
agreement, he always hopes, and endeavours to prevail on
the farmer to be allowed this privilege, which, in general want
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
of employment, is almost always so much clear gain to him. By
taking con-acre he also considers that he is <i>securing</i> food to the
extent of the crop for himself and family at the low autumn
price; whereas, if he had to go to market for it, he would be subject
to the loss of time, and sometimes expense of carriage, to
the fluctuations of the market, and to an advance of price in
spring and summer."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Of the intensity of the competition for land, the following
extracts from the evidence may give an idea:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"<i>Galway</i>, F. 35.—'If I now let it be known that I had a farm
of five acres to let, I should have fifty bidders in twenty-four
hours, and all of them would be ready to promise any rent that
might be asked.'—<i>Mr. Birmingham.</i> The landlord takes on
account whatever portion of the rent the tenant may be able to
offer; the remainder he does not remit, but allows to remain over.
A remission of a portion of the rent in either plentiful or scarce
seasons is never made as a matter of course; when it does take
place, it is looked upon as a favour.</p>

<p class="i1">'The labourer is, from the absence of any other means of
subsisting himself and family, thrown upon the hire of land, and
the land he must hire at any rate; the payment of the promised
rent is an after consideration. He always offers such a rent as
leaves him nothing of the produce for his own use but potatoes,
his corn being entirely for his landlord's claim.'—<i>Rev. Mr.
Hughes</i>, P. P., and <i>Parker</i>.</p>

<p class="i1">"<i>Leitrim</i>, F. 36 and 37.—'So great is the competition for small
holdings, that, if a farm of five acres were vacant, I really believe
that nine out of every ten men in the neighbourhood would bid
for it if they thought they had the least chance of getting it:
they would be prepared to outbid each other, <i>ad infinitum</i>, in
order to get possession of the land. <i>The rent which the people
themselves would deem moderate, would not in any case admit of
their making use of any other food than potatoes</i>; there are even
many instances in this barony where the occupier cannot feed
himself and family off the land he holds. In his anxiety to grow
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
as much oats (his only marketable produce) as will meet the
various claims upon him, he devotes so small a space to the cultivation
of potatoes, that he is obliged to take a portion of con-acre,
and to pay for it by wages earned at a time when he would
have been better employed on his own account.'—<i>Rev. T. Maguire</i>,
P. P."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The land is subdivided into such small portions, that
the labourer has not sufficient to grow more than a
very scanty provision for himself and family. The
better individuals of the class manage to secrete some
of its produce from the landlord, to do which it is of
course necessary that they should not employ it on
their land: but if land is offered to be let, persons will
be found so eager for it as to make compliments to
some one of the family of the landlord or of his agent.</p>

<p class="i1">The exactions of agents and sub-agents are the most
frequent causes of suffering among the peasantry.
These agents are a class peculiar to Ireland. They
take a large extent of ground, which they let out in
small portions to the real cultivator. They grant
leases sometimes, but the tenant is still in their power,
and they exact personal services, presents, bribes;
and draw from the land as much as they can, without
the least regard for its permanent welfare. That portion
of the poor peasant's substance which escapes the
tithes and tax of government is seized by the remorseless
agents, and thus the wretched labourer can get
but a miserable subsistence by the severest toil.</p>

<p class="i1">In general the tenant takes land, promising to pay a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>
"nominal rent," in other words, a rent he never can
pay. This rent falls into arrear, and the landlord
allows the arrear to accumulate against him, in the
hope that if he should chance to have an extraordinary
crop, or if he should obtain it from any unexpected
source, the landlord may claim it for his arrears.</p>

<p class="i1">The report of Poor-Law Commissioners states that
"Agricultural wages vary from 6<i>d.</i> to 1<i>s.</i> a day;
that the average of the country in general is about
8½<i>d.</i>; and that the earnings of the labourers, on an
average of the whole class, are from 2<i>s.</i> to 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a
week, or thereabout."</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Thus circumstanced, it is impossible for the able-bodied, in
general, to provide against sickness or the temporary absence of
employment, or against old age or the destitution of their widows
and children in the contingent event of their own premature
decease.</p>

<p class="i1">"A great portion of them are insufficiently provided at any
time with the commonest necessaries of life. Their habitations
are wretched hovels; several of a family sleep together upon
straw or upon the bare ground, sometimes with a blanket, sometimes
not even so much to cover them; their food commonly consists
of dry potatoes, and with these they are at times so scantily
supplied as to be obliged to stint themselves to one spare meal in
the day. There are even instances of persons being driven by
hunger to seek sustenance in wild herbs. They sometimes get a
herring, or a little milk, but they never get meat, except at
Christmas, Easter, and Shrovetide."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The peasant finds himself obliged to live upon the
cheapest food, <i>potatoes</i>, and potatoes of the worst quality,
because they yield most, and are consequently the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>
cheapest. These potatoes are "little better than turnips."
"Lumpers" is the name given to them. They
are two degrees removed from those which come ordinarily
to our tables, and which are termed "apples."
Mr. Bicheno says, describing the three sorts of potatoes—apples,
cups, and lumpers—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The first named are of the best quality, but produce the least
in quantity; the cups are not so good in quality as the apples,
but produce more; and the lumpers are the worst of the three in
quality, but yield the heaviest crop. For these reasons the
apples are generally sent to Dublin and other large towns for
sale. The cups are grown for the consumption of smaller towns,
and are eaten by the larger farmers, and the few of the small occupiers
and labourers who are in better circumstances than the
generality of their class; and the lumpers are grown by large
farmers for stall-feeding cattle, and by most of the small occupiers
and all the labourers (except a few in constant employment,
and having but small families) for their own food. Though
most of the small occupiers and labourers grow apples and cups,
they do not use them themselves, with the few exceptions mentioned,
except as holiday fare, and as a little indulgence on
particular occasions. They can only afford to consume the
lumpers, or coarsest quality, themselves, on account of the much
larger produce and consequent cheapness of that sort. The
apples yield 10 to 15 per cent. less than the cups, and the cups
10 to 15 per cent. less than the lumpers, making a difference of
20 to 30 per cent. between the produce of the best and the worst
qualities. To illustrate the practice and feeling of the country
in this respect, the following occurrence was related by one of
the witnesses:—'A landlord, in passing the door of one of his
tenants, a small occupier, who was in arrears with his rent, saw
one of his daughters washing potatoes at the door, and perceiving
that they were of the apple kind, asked her if they were
intended for their dinner. Upon being answered that they were,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
he entered the house, and asked the tenant what he meant
by eating <i>apple</i> potatoes when they were fetching so good a
price in Dublin, and while he did not pay him (the landlord) his
rent?'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">Lumpers, dry, that is, without milk or any other
addition to them, are the ordinary food of the people.
The pig which is seen in most Irish cabins, and the cow
and fowls kept by the small farmers, go to market to
pay the rent; even the eggs are sold. Small farmers,
as well as labourers, rarely have even milk to their
potatoes.</p>

<p class="i1">The following graphic description of an Irish peasant's
home, we quote from the Pictorial Times, of
February 7, 1846. Some districts in Ireland are
crowded with such hovels:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"<i>Cabin of J. Donoghue.</i>—The hovel to which the eye is now
directed scarcely exceeds Donoghue's length. He will have almost
as much space when laid in his grave. He can stand up in
no part of his cabin except the centre; and yet he is not an aged
man, who has outlived all his connections, and with a frame just
ready to mingle with its native dust. Nor is he a bachelor, absolutely
impenetrable to female charms, or looking out for some
damsel to whom he may be united, 'for better or for worse.'
Donoghue, the miserable inmate of that hovel, on the contrary,
has a wife and three children; and these, together with a dog, a
pig, and sundry fowls, find in that cabin their common abode.
Human beings and brutes are there huddled together; and the
motive to the occupancy of the former is just the same as that
which operates to the keeping of the latter—what they produce.
Did not the pig and the fowls make money, Donoghue would have
none; did not Donoghue pay his rent, the cabin would quickly
have another tenant. Indeed, his rent is only paid, and he and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>
his family saved from being turned adrift into the wide world, by
his pig and his fowls.</p>

<p class="i1">"But the cabin should be examined more particularly. It has
a hole for a door, it has another for a window, it has a third
through which the smoke may find vent, and nothing more. No
resemblance to the door of an English cottage, however humble,
nor the casement it is never without, nor even the rudest chimney
from which the blue smoke arises, suggesting to the observer
many ideas of comfort for its inmates, can possibly be traced.
The walls, too, are jet black; and that which ought to be a floor
is mud, thick mud, full of holes. The bed of the family is sod.
The very cradle is a sort of swing suspended from the roof, and
it is set in motion by the elbow of the wretched mother of the
wretched child it contains, if she is not disposed to make use of
her hands.</p>

<p class="i1">"The question may fairly be proposed—What comfort can a
man have in such circumstances? Can he find some relief from
his misery, as many have found and still find it, by conversing
with his wife? No. To suppose this, is to imagine him standing
in a higher class of beings than the one of which he has always
formed a part. Like himself, too, his wife is oppressed; the
growth of her faculties is stunted; and, it may be, she is hungry,
faint, and sick. Can he talk with his children? No. What can
he, who knows nothing, tell them? What hope can he stimulate
who has nothing to promise? Can he ask in a neighbour? No.
He has no hospitality to offer him, and the cabin is crowded with
his own family. Can he accost a stranger who may travel in the
direction of his hovel, to make himself personally acquainted
with his condition and that of others? No. He speaks a language
foreign to an Englishman or a Scotchman, and which those
who hate the 'Saxon,' whatever compliments they may pay him
for their own purposes, use all the means they possess to maintain.
Can he even look at his pig with the expectation that he
will one day eat the pork or the bacon it will yield? No; not
he. He knows that not a bone of the loin or a rasher will be his.
That pig will go, like all the pigs he has had, to pay his rent.
Only one comfort remains, which he has in common with his pig
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>
and his dog, the warmth of his peat fire. Poor Donoghue! thou
belongest to a race often celebrated as 'the finest peasantry in the
world,' but it would be difficult to find a savage in his native
forest who is not better off than thou!"</p></div>

<p class="i1">There is one other comfort besides the peat fire,
which Donoghue may have, and that is an occasional
gill of whisky—a temporary comfort, an ultimate
destruction—a new fetter to bind him down in his
almost brutal condition. In Ireland, as in England,
intoxication is the Lethe in which the heart-sick
labourers strive to forget their sorrows. Intemperance
prevails most where poverty is most generally felt.</p>

<p class="i1">The Pictorial Times thus sketches a cabin of the
better class, belonging to a man named Pat Brennan:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"We will enter it, and look round with English eyes. We will
do so, too, in connection with the remembrance of an humble
dwelling in England. There we find at least a table, but here
there is none. There we find some chairs, but here there are
none. There we find a cupboard, but here there is none. There
we find some crockery and earthenware, but here there is none.
There we find a clock, but here there is none. There we find a
bed, bedstead, and coverings, but here there are none. There is
a brick, or stone, or boarded floor, but here there is none. What
a descent would an English agricultural labourer have to make if
he changed situations with poor Pat Brennan, who is better off
than most of the tenants of Derrynane Beg, and it may be in the
best condition of them all! Brennan's cabin has one room, in
which he and his family live, of course with the fowls and pigs.
One end is partitioned off in the manner of a loft, the loft being
the potato store. The space underneath, where the fire is kindled,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
has side spaces for seats. In some instances, the turf-bed is on
one side and the seats on the other. The other contents of the
dwelling are—a milk-pail, a pot, a wooden bowl or two, a platter,
and a broken ladder. A gaudy picture of the Virgin Mary may
sometimes be seen in such cabins."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The eviction of the wretched peasantry has caused
an immense amount of misery, and crowds of the
evicted ones have perished from starvation. The tillers
of the soil are mere tenants at will, and may ejected
from their homes without a moment's notice. A whim
of the landlord, the failure of the potato crop, or of
the ordinary resources of the labourers, by which they
are rendered unable to pay their rent for a short time,
usually results in an edict of levelling and extermination.
A recent correspondent of the London Illustrated
News, thus describes the desolation of an Irish
village:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The village of Killard forms part of the Union of Kilrush,
and possesses an area of 17,022 acres. It had a population, in
1841, of 6850 souls, and was valued to the poor-rate at £4254.
It is chiefly the property, I understand, of Mr. John McMahon
Blackall, whose healthy residence is admirably situated on the
brow of a hill, protected by another ridge from the storms of the
Atlantic. His roof-tree yet stands there, but the people have disappeared.
The village was mostly inhabited by fishermen, who
united with their occupation on the waters the cultivation of
potatoes. When the latter failed, it might have been expected
that the former should have been pursued with more vigour than
ever; but boats and lines were sold for present subsistence, and
to the failure of the potatoes was added the abandonment of the
fisheries. The rent dwindled to nothing, and then came the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>
leveller and the exterminator. What has become of the 6850
souls, I know not; but not ten houses remain of the whole village
to inform the wayfarer where, according to the population returns,
they were to be found in 1841. They were here, but are gone for
ever; and all that remains of their abodes are a few mouldering
walls, and piles of offensive thatch turning into manure. Killard
is an epitome of half Ireland. If the abodes of the people had
not been so slight, that they have mingled, like Babylon, with
their original clay, Ireland would for ages be renowned for its
ruins; but, as it is, the houses are swept away like the people,
and not a monument remains of a multitude, which, in ancient
Asia or in the wilds of America, would numerically constitute a
great nation."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The same correspondent mentions a number of other
instances of the landlord's devastation, and states that
large tracts of fertile land over which he passed were
lying waste, while the peasantry were starving by the
roadside, or faring miserably in the workhouses. At
Carihaken, in the county of Galway, the levellers had
been at work, and had tumbled down eighteen houses.
The correspondent says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"In one of them dwelt John Killian, who stood by me while I
made a sketch of the remains of his dwelling. He told me that
he and his fathers before him had owned this now ruined cabin
for ages, and that he had paid £4 a year for four acres of ground.
He owed no rent; before it was due, the landlord's drivers cut
down his crops, carried them off, gave him no account of the proceeds,
and then tumbled his house. The hut made against the
end wall of a former habitation was not likely to remain, as a
decree had gone forth entirely to clear the place. The old man
also told me that his son having cut down, on the spot that was
once his own garden, a few sticks to make him a shelter, was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>
taken up, prosecuted, and sentenced to two months' confinement,
for destroying trees and making waste of the property.</p>

<p class="i1">"I must supply you with another sketch of a similar subject,
on the road between Maam and Clifden, in Joyce's County, once
famous for the Patagonian stature of the inhabitants, who are
now starved down to ordinary dimensions. High up on the
mountain, but on the roadside, stands the scalpeen of Keillines.
It is near General Thompson's property. Conceive five human
beings living in such a hole: the father was out, at work; the
mother was getting fuel on the hills, and the children left in the
hut could only say they were hungry. Their appearance confirmed
their words—want was deeply engraved in their faces, and
their lank bodies were almost unprotected by clothing.</p>

<p class="i1">"From Clifden to Ouchterade, twenty-one miles, is a dreary
drive over a moor, unrelieved except by a glimpse of Mr. Martin's
house at Ballynahinch, and of the residence of Dean Mahon.
Destitute as this tract is of inhabitants, about Ouchterade some
thirty houses have been recently demolished. A gentleman who
witnessed the scene told me nothing could exceed the heartlessness
of the levellers, if it were not the patient submission of the
sufferers. They wept, indeed; and the children screamed with
agony at seeing their homes destroyed and their parents in tears;
but the latter allowed themselves unresistingly to be deprived of
what is to most people the dearest thing on earth next to their
lives—their only home.</p>

<p class="i1">"The public records, my own eyes, a piercing wail of wo
throughout the land—all testify to the vast extent of the evictions
at the present time. Sixteen thousand and odd persons
unhoused in the Union of Kilrush before the month of June in
the present year; seventy-one thousand one hundred and thirty
holdings done away in Ireland, and nearly as many houses destroyed,
in 1848; two hundred and fifty-four thousand holdings
of more than one acre and less than five acres, put an end to
between 1841 and 1848: six-tenths, in fact, of the lowest class of
tenantry driven from their now roofless or annihilated cabins and
houses, makes up the general description of that desolation of
which Tullig and Mooven are examples. The ruin is great and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>
complete. The blow that effected it was irresistible. It came in
the guise of charity and benevolence; it assumed the character
of the last and best friend of the peasantry, and it has struck
them to the heart. They are prostrate and helpless. The once
frolicksome people—even the saucy beggars—have disappeared,
and given place to wan and haggard objects, who are so resigned
to their doom that they no longer expect relief. One beholds only
shrunken frames, scarcely covered with flesh—crawling skeletons,
who appear to have risen from their graves, and are ready to
return frightened to that abode. They have little other covering
than that nature has bestowed on the human body—a poor protection
against inclement weather; and, now that the only hand
from which they expected help is turned against them, even hope
is departed, and they are filled with despair. Than the present
Earl of Carlisle there is not a more humane nor a kinder-hearted
nobleman in the kingdom; he is of high honour and unsullied
reputation; yet the poor-law he was mainly the means of establishing
for Ireland, with the best intentions, has been one of
the chief causes of the people being at this time turned out
of their homes, and forced to burrow in holes, and share, till
they are discovered, the ditches and the bogs with otters and
snipes.</p>

<p class="i1">"The instant the poor-law was passed, and property was made
responsible for poverty, the whole of the land-owners, who had
before been careless about the people, and often allowed them to
plant themselves on untenanted spots, or divide their tenancies—delighted
to get the promise of a little additional rent—immediately
became deeply interested in preventing that, and in keeping
down the number of the people. Before they had rates to
pay, they cared nothing for them; but the law and their self-interest
made them care, and made them extirpators. Nothing
less than some general desire like that of cupidity falling in with
an enactment, and justified by a theory—nothing less than a
passion which works silently in all, and safely under the sanction
of a law—could have effected such wide-spread destruction.
Even humanity was enlisted by the poor-law on the side of extirpation.
As long as there was no legal provision for the poor, a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>
landlord had some repugnance to drive them from every shelter;
but the instant the law took them under its protection, and forced
the land-owner to pay a rate to provide for them, repugnance
ceased: they had a legal home, however inefficient, to go to; and
eviction began. Even the growth of toleration seems to have
worked to the same end. Till the Catholics were emancipated,
they were all—rich and poor, priests and peasants—united by a
common bond; and Protestant landlords beginning evictions on
a great scale would have roused against them the whole Catholic
nation. It would have been taken up as a religious question, as
well as a question of the poor, prior to 1829. Subsequent to that
time—with a Whig administration, with all offices open to Catholics—no
religious feelings could mingle with the matter: eviction
became a pure question of interest; and while the priests look
now, perhaps, as much to the government as to their flocks for
support, Catholic landlords are not behind Protestant landlords
in clearing their estates."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The person from whom we make the above quotation
visited Ireland after the famine consequent upon the
failure of the potato crop had done its worst—in the
latter part of 1849. But famine seems to prevail, to a
certain extent, at all times, in that unhappy land—and
thus it is clear that the accidental failure of a crop has
less to do with the misery of the people than radical
misgovernment.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"To the Irish, such desolation is nothing new. They have long
been accustomed to this kind of skinning. Their history, ever since
it was written, teems with accounts of land forcibly taken from one
set of owners and given to another; of clearings and plantings
exactly similar in principle to that which is now going on; of
driving men from Leinster to Munster, from Munster to Connaught,
and from Connaught into the sea. Without going back
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
to ancient proscriptions and confiscations—all the land having
been, between the reign of Henry II. and William III. confiscated,
it is affirmed, three times over—we must mention that the
clearing so conspicuous in 1848 has now been going on for several
years. The total number of holdings in 1841, of above one
acre, and not exceeding five acres each, was 310,375; and, in
1847, they had been diminished to 125,926. In that single class
of holdings, therefore, 184,449, between 1841 and 1847 inclusive,
had been done away with, and 24,147 were extinguished in 1848.
Within that period, the number of farms of five acres and upward,
particularly of farms of thirty acres and upward, was increased
210,229, the latter class having increased by 108,474.
Little or no fresh land was broken up; and they, therefore, could
only have been formed by amassing in these larger farms numerous
small holdings. Before the year 1847, therefore, before
1846, when the potato rot worked so much mischief, even before
1845, the process of clearing the land, of putting down homesteads
and consolidating farms, had been carried to a great extent;
before any provision had been made by a poor-law for the
evicted families, before the turned-out labourers and little farmers
had even the workhouse for a refuge, multitudes had been continually
driven from their homes to a great extent, as in 1848.
The very process, therefore, on which government now relies for
the present relief and the future improvement of Ireland, was begun
and was carried to a great extent several years before the extremity
of distress fell upon it in 1846. We are far from saying
that the potato rot was caused by the clearing system; but, by
disheartening the people, by depriving them of security, by contributing
to their recklessness, by paralyzing their exertions, by
promoting outrages, that system undoubtedly aggravated all the
evils of that extraordinary visitation."—<i>Illustrated News</i>, October
13, 1849.</p></div>

<p class="i1">The correspondent of the News saw from one
hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty funerals
of victims to the want of food, the whole number
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>
attended by not more than fifty persons. So hardened
were the men regularly employed in the removal of the
dead from the workhouse, that they would drive to the
churchyard sitting upon the coffins, and smoking with
apparent enjoyment. These men had evidently "supped
full of horrors." A funeral was no solemnity to them.
They had seen the wretched peasants in the madness of
starvation, and death had come as a soothing angel.
Why should the quieted sufferers be lamented?</p>

<div class="figcenter"><a name="i_303.jpg" id="i_303.jpg"></a>
  <img src="images/i_303.jpg"
        alt="" />
  <div class="caption">MULLIN'S HUT AT SCULL.</div>
</div>

<p class="i1">A specimen of the in-door horrors of Scull may be
seen in the sketch of a hut of a poor man named Mullins,
who lay dying in a corner, upon a heap of straw
supplied by the Relief Committee, while his three
wretched children crouched over a few embers of turf,
as if to raise the last remaining spark of life. This
poor man, it appears, had buried his wife about five
days before, and was, in all probability, on the eve of
joining her, when he was found out by the efforts of
the vicar, who, for a few short days, saved him from
that which no kindness could ultimately avert. The
dimensions of Mullins's hut did not exceed ten feet
square, and the dirt and filth was ankle-deep upon the
floor.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Commander Caffin, the captain of the steam-sloop <i>Scourge</i>,
on the south coast of Ireland, has written a letter to a friend,
dated February 15, 1847, in which he gives a most distressing
and graphic account of the scenes he witnessed in the course of
his duty in discharging a cargo of meal at Scull. After stating
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
that three-fourths of the inhabitants carry a tale of wo in their
countenances, and are reduced to mere skeletons, he mentions the
result of what he saw while going through the parish with the
rector, Dr. Traill. He says—</p>

<p class="i1">"'Famine exists to a fearful degree, with all its horrors. Fever
has sprung up, consequent upon the wretchedness; and swellings
of limbs and body, and diarrhœa, upon the want of nourishment,
are everywhere to be found. Dr. Traill's parish is twenty-one
miles in extent, containing about eighteen thousand souls, with
not more than half a dozen gentlemen in the whole of it. He
drove me about five or six miles; but we commenced our visits
before leaving the village, and in no house that I entered was
there not to be found the dead or dying. In particularizing two or
three, they may be taken as the features of the whole. There was
no picking or choosing, but we took them just as they came.</p>

<p class="i1">"'The first which I shall mention was a cabin, rather above
the ordinary ones in appearance and comfort; in it were three
young women, and one young man, and three children, all
crouched over a fire—pictures of misery. Dr. Traill asked after
the father, upon which one of the girls opened a door leading into
another cabin, and there were the father and mother in bed; the
father the most wretched picture of starvation possible to conceive,
a skeleton with life, his power of speech gone; the mother
but a little better—her cries for mercy and food were heart-rending.
It was sheer destitution that had brought them to this.
They had been well to do in the world, with their cow, and few
sheep, and potato-ground. Their crops failed, and their cattle
were stolen; although, anticipating this, they had taken their
cow and sheep into the cabin with them every night, but they
were stolen in the daytime. The son had worked on the road,
and earned his 8<i>d.</i> a day, but this would not keep the family, and
he, from work and insufficiency of food, is laid up, and will soon
be as bad as his father. They had nothing to eat in the house,
and I could see no hope for any one of them.</p>

<p class="i1">"'In another cabin we went into, a mother and her daughter
were there—the daughter emaciated, and lying against the wall—the
mother naked upon some straw on the ground, with a rug
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>
over her—a most distressing object of misery. She writhed
about, and bared her limbs, in order to show her state of exhaustion.
She had wasted away until nothing but the skin
covered the bones—she cannot have survived to this time.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Another that I entered had, indeed, the appearance of
wretchedness without, but its inside was misery! Dr. Traill, on
putting his head inside the hole which answered for a door, said,
'Well, Philis, how is your mother to-day?—he having been with
her the day before—and was replied to, 'Oh, sir, is it you?
Mother is dead!' and there, fearful reality, was the daughter, a
skeleton herself, crouched and crying over the lifeless body of her
mother, which was on the floor, cramped up as she had died, with
her rags and her cloak about her, by the side of a few embers of
peat. In the next cabin were three young children belonging to
the daughter, whose husband had run away from her, all pictures
of death. The poor creature said she did not know what to do
with the corpse—she had no means of getting it removed, and
she was too exhausted to remove it herself: this cabin was about
three miles from the rectory. In another cabin, the door of
which was stopped with dung, was a poor woman whom we had
taken by surprise, as she roused up evidently much astonished.
She burst into tears upon seeing the doctor, and said she had not
been enabled to sleep since the corpse of the woman had lain in
her bed. This was a poor creature who was passing this miserable
cabin, and asked the old woman to allow her to rest herself
for a few moments, when she had laid down, but never rose up
again; she died in an hour or so, from sheer exhaustion. The
body had remained in this hovel of six feet square with the poor
old woman for four days, and she could not get anybody to
remove it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The letter proceeds:—</p>

<p class="i1">"'I could in this manner take you through the thirty or more
cottages we visited; but they, without exception, were all alike—the
dead and the dying in each; and I could tell you more of the
truth of the heart-rending scene were I to mention the lamentations
and bitter cryings of each of these poor creatures on the
threshold of death. Never in my life have I seen such wholesale
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>
misery, nor could I have thought it so complete.'"—<i>Illustrated
News</i>, February 20, 1847. [At this period, famine prevailed
throughout Ireland.]</p></div>

<p class="i1">At the village of Mienils, a man named Leahey
perished during the great famine, with many circumstances
of horror. When too weak, from want of
food, to help himself, he was stretched in his filthy
hovel, when his famished dogs attacked and so mangled
him that he expired in intense agony. Can the history
of any other country present such terrible instances
of misery and starvation? The annals of Ireland have
been dark, indeed; and those who have wilfully cast
that gloom upon them, must emancipate Africans, and
evangelize the rest of mankind, for a century, at least,
to lay the ghosts of the murdered Irish.</p>

<p class="i1">An Irish funeral of later days, with its attendant
circumstances of poverty and gloom, is truly calculated
to stir the sensitive heart of a poet. The obsequies
display the meagre results of attempts to bury
the dead with decency. The mourners are few, but
their grief is sincere; and they weep for the lost as
they would be wept for when Death, who is ever walking
by their side, lays his cold hand on them. During
the great famine, some poor wretches perished while
preparing funerals for their friends. In the following
verses, published in Howitt's Journal, of the 1st of April,
1847, we have a fine delineation of an Irish funeral,
such as only a poet could give:—</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p>


<p class="ac larger">AN IRISH FUNERAL.</p>

<p class="ac">BY THE AUTHOR OF "ORION."</p>

<hr class="small" />

<div class="bq">

<p class="ac">"Funerals performed."—<i>London</i> Trades.</p>

<p class="i1">"On Wednesday, the remains of a poor woman, who died of
hunger, were carried to their last resting-place by three women,
and a blind man the son-in-law of the deceased. The distance
between the wretched hut of the deceased and the grave-yard was
nearly three miles."—<i>Tuam Herald.</i></p></div>

<hr class="small" />

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
    <div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Heavily plod</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Highroad and sod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">With the cold corpse clod</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Whose soul is with God!</span></div>
    </div>
    <div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">An old door's the hearse
	    </span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">Of the skeleton corpse,
	    </span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">And three women bear it,
	  </span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">With a blind man to
	    share it:</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Over flint, over bog,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">They stagger and jog:—</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-8"><span style="font-size:larger;">Weary, and hungry, and hopeless,
	    and cold,</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-8"><span style="font-size:larger;">They slowly bear onward the
	    bones to the mould.</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Heavily plod</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Highroad and sod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">With the cold corpse clod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Whose soul is with God!</span></div>
    </div>
    <div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">Barefoot ye go,</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">Through the frost, through
	    the snow;</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">Unsteady and slow,</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">Your hearts mad with
	    woe;</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-8"><span style="font-size:larger;">Bewailing and blessing the
	    poor rigid clod—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]
		</a></span></span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-8"><span style="font-size:larger;">The dear dead-and-cold one,
	    whose soul is with God.</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Heavily plod</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Highroad and sod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">This ruin and rod</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Are from man—and not God!</span></div>
    </div>
    <div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">Now out spake her sister,—
	    </span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">"Can we be quite sure</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">Of the mercy of Heaven,
	    </span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Or that Death is Life's cure?</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-8"><span style="font-size:larger;">A cure for the misery, famine,
	    and pains,</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-8"><span style="font-size:larger;">Which our cold rulers view as
	    the end of their gains?"</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Heavily plod</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Highroad and sod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">With the cold corpse clod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Whose soul is with God!</span></div>
    </div>
    <div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">"In a land where's plenty,"
	    </span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">The old mother said,—</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">"But not for poor creatures
	    </span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Who pawn rags and bed—</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-8"><span style="font-size:larger;">There's plenty for rich ones,
	    and those far away,</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-8"><span style="font-size:larger;">Who drain off our life-blood,
	    so thoughtless and gay!"</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Heavily plod</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Highroad and sod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">With the cold corpse clod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Whose soul is with God!</span></div>
    </div>
    <div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">Then wailed the third
	    woman—</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">"The darling was worth</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">The rarest of jewels
	    </span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">That shine upon earth.</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-8"><span style="font-size:larger;">When hunger was gnawing
	    her—wasted and wild—</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-8"><span style="font-size:larger;">She shared her last morsel
	    with my little child."</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Heavily plod
	    <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Highroad and sod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">With the cold corpse clod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Whose soul is with God!</span></div>
    </div>
    <div class="stanza">
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">"O Christ!" pray'd the blind
	    man,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">"We are not so poor,</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-4"><span style="font-size:larger;">Though we bend 'neath the dear
	    weight</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">That crushes this door;</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-8"><span style="font-size:larger;">For we know that the grave is
	    the first step to Heaven,</span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-8"><span style="font-size:larger;">And a birthright we have in the
	    riches there given."</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Heavily plod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Highroad and sod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">With the cold corpse clod,</span></div>
      <div class="verse"><span style="font-size:larger;">Whose soul is with God!</span></div>
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

<p class="i1">What wonder if the evicted peasants of Ireland,
made desperate by the tyranny of the landlords, sometimes
make "a law unto themselves," and slay their
oppressors! Rebellion proves manhood under such
circumstances. Instances of landlords being murdered
by evicted tenants are numerous. In the following
sketch we have a vivid illustration of this phase
of Irish life:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The moorland was wide, level, and black; black as night, if
you could suppose night condensed on the surface of the earth, and
that you could tread on solid darkness in the midst of day. The
day itself was fast dropping into night, although it was dreary and
gloomy at the best; for it was a November day. The moor, for
miles around, was treeless and houseless; devoid of vegetation,
except heather, which clad with its gloomy frieze coat the shivering
landscape. At a distance you could discern, through the misty
atmosphere, the outline of mountains apparently as bare and stony
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
as this wilderness, which they bounded. There were no fields, no
hedgerows, no marks of the hand of man, except the nakedness
itself, which was the work of man in past ages; when, period after
period, he had tramped over the scene with fire and sword, and
left all that could not fly before him, either ashes to be scattered
by the savage winds, or stems of trees, and carcasses of men trodden
into the swampy earth. As the Roman historians said of
other destroyers, 'They created solitude, and called it peace.'
That all this was the work of man, and not of Nature, any one
spot of this huge and howling wilderness could testify, if you would
only turn up its sable surface. In its bosom lay thousands of ancient
oaks and pines, black as ebony; which told, by their gigantic
bulk, that forests must have once existed on this spot, as rich as
the scene was now bleak. Nobler things than trees lay buried
there; but were, for the most part, resolved into the substance of
the inky earth. The dwellings of men had left few or no traces,
for they had been consumed in flames; and the hearts that had
loved, and suffered, and perished beneath the hand of violence and
insult, were no longer human hearts, but slime. If a man were
carried blindfold to that place, and asked when his eyes were unbandaged
where he was, he would say—'Ireland!'</p>

<p class="i1">"He would want no clue to the identity of the place, but the
scene before him. There is no heath like an Irish heath. There
is no desolation like an Irish desolation. Where Nature herself
has spread the expanse of a solitude, it is a cheerful solitude. The
air flows over it lovingly: the flowers nod and dance in gladness;
the soil breathes up a spirit of wild fragrance, which communicates
a buoyant sensation to the heart. You feel that you tread on
ground where the peace of God, and not the 'peace' of man created
in the merciless hurricane of war, has sojourned: where the sun
shone on creatures sporting on ground or on tree, as the Divine
Goodness of the Universe meant them to sport: where the hunter
disturbed alone the enjoyment of the lower animals by his own
boisterous joy: where the traveller sang as he went over it, because
he felt a spring of inexpressible music in his heart: where the
weary wayfarer sat beneath a bush, and blessed God, though his
limbs ached with travel, and his goal was far off. In God's deserts
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>
dwells gladness; in man's deserts, death. A melancholy smites
you as you enter them. There is a darkness from the past that
envelopes your heart, and the moans and sighs of ten-times perpetrated
misery seem still to live in the very winds.</p>

<p class="i1">"One shallow and widely spread stream struggled through the
moor; sometimes between masses of gray stone. Sedges and the
white-headed cotton-rush whistled on its margin, and on island-like
expanses that here and there rose above the surface of its middle
course.</p>

<p class="i1">"I have said that there was no sign of life; but on one of those
gray stones stood a heron watching for prey. He had remained
straight, rigid, and motionless for hours. Probably his appetite
was appeased by his day's success among the trout of that dark
red-brown stream, which was coloured by the peat from which it
oozed. When he did move, he sprang up at once, stretched his
broad wings, and silent as the scene around him, made a circuit
in the air; rising higher as he went, with slow and solemn flight.
He had been startled by a sound. There was life in the desert now.
Two horsemen came galloping along a highway not far distant, and
the heron, continuing his grave gyrations, surveyed them as he
went. Had they been travellers over a plain of India, an Austrian
waste, or the pampas of South America, they could not have been
grimmer of aspect, or more thoroughly children of the wild. They
were Irish from head to foot.</p>

<p class="i1">"They were mounted on two spare but by no means clumsy
horses. The creatures had marks of blood and breed that had
been introduced by the English to the country. They could claim,
if they knew it, lineage of Arabia. The one was a pure bay, the
other and lesser, was black; but both were lean as death, haggard
as famine. They were wet with the speed with which they had
been hurried along. The soil of the damp moorland, or of the field
in which, during the day, they had probably been drawing the
peasant's cart, still smeared their bodies, and their manes flew as
wildly and untrimmed as the sedge or the cotton-rush on the wastes
through which they careered. Their riders, wielding each a heavy
stick instead of a riding-whip, which they applied ever and anon to
the shoulders or flanks of their smoking animals, were mounted on
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>
their bare backs, and guided them by halter instead of bridle. They
were a couple of the short frieze-coated, knee-breeches and gray-stocking
fellows who are as plentiful on Irish soil as potatoes.
From beneath their narrow-brimmed, old, weather-beaten hats,
streamed hair as unkemped as their horses' manes. The Celtic
physiognomy was distinctly marked—the small and somewhat upturned
nose; the black tint of skin; the eye now looking gray, now
black; the freckled cheek, and sandy hair. Beard and whiskers
covered half the face, and the short square-shouldered bodies were
bent forward with eager impatience, as they thumped and kicked
along their horses, muttering curses as they went.</p>

<p class="i1">"The heron, sailing on broad and seemingly slow vans, still kept
them in view. Anon, they reached a part of the moorland where
traces of human labour were visible. Black piles of peat stood on
the solitary ground, ready, after a summer's cutting and drying.
Presently patches of cultivation presented themselves; plots of
ground raised on beds, each a few feet wide, with intervening
trenches to carry off the boggy water, where potatoes had grown, and
small fields where grew more stalks of ragwort than grass, inclosed
by banks cast up and tipped here and there with a brier or a stone.
It was the husbandry of misery and indigence. The ground had
already been freshly manured by sea-weeds, but the village—where
was it? Blotches of burnt ground, scorched heaps of rubbish,
and fragments of blackened walls, alone were visible. Garden-plots
were trodden down, and their few bushes rent up, or hung
with tatters of rags. The two horsemen, as they hurried by with
gloomy visages, uttered no more than a single word: 'Eviction!'</p>

<p class="i1">"Further on, the ground heaved itself into a chaotic confusion.
Stony heaps swelled up here and there, naked, black, and barren:
the huge bones of the earth protruded themselves through her skin.
Shattered rocks arose, sprinkled with bushes, and smoke curled
up from what looked like mere heaps of rubbish, but which were
in reality human habitations. Long dry grass hissed and rustled
in the wind on their roofs, (which were sunk by-places, as if falling
in;) and pits of reeking filth seemed placed exactly to prevent access
to some of the low doors; while to others, a few stepping-stones
made that access only possible. Here the two riders stopped, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
hurriedly tying their steeds to an elder-bush, disappeared in one
of the cabins.</p>

<p class="i1">"The heron slowly sailed on to the place of its regular roost.
Let us follow it.</p>

<p class="i1">"Far different was this scene to those the bird had left. Lofty
trees darkened the steep slopes of a fine river. Rich meadows lay
at the feet of woods and stretched down to the stream. Herds of
cattle lay on them, chewing their cuds after the plentiful grazing
of the day. The white walls of a noble house peeped, in the dusk
of night, through the fertile timber which stood in proud guardianship
of the mansion; and broad winding walks gave evidence of a
place where nature and art had combined to form a paradise.
There were ample pleasure-grounds. Alas! the grounds around
the cabins over which the heron had so lately flown, might be truly
styled pain-grounds.</p>

<p class="i1">"Within that home was assembled a happy family. There was
the father, a fine-looking man of forty. Proud you would have
deemed him, as he sate for a moment abstracted in his cushioned
chair; but a moment afterward, as a troop of children came
bursting into the room, his manner was instantly changed into one
so pleasant, so playful, and so overflowing with enjoyment, that
you saw him only as an amiable, glad, domestic man. The mother,
a handsome woman, was seated already at the tea-table; and,
in another minute, sounds of merry voices and childish laughter
were mingled with the jocose tones of the father, and the playful
accents of the mother; addressed, now to one, now to another of
the youthful group.</p>

<p class="i1">"In due time the merriment was hushed, and the household
assembled for evening prayer. A numerous train of servants assumed
their accustomed places. The father read. He had paused
once or twice, and glanced with a stern and surprised expression
toward the group of domestics, for he heard sounds that astonished
him from one corner of the room near the door. He went on—Remember
the children of Edom, O Lord, in the day of judgment,
how they said, Down with it, down with it, even to the ground.
O daughter of Babylon, wasted with misery, yea, happy shall he be
who rewardeth thee, as thou hast served us!"</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"There was a burst of smothered sobs from the same corner,
and the master's eye flashed with a strange fire as he again darted
a glance toward the offender. The lady looked equally surprised,
in the same direction; then turned a meaning look on her husband—a
warm flush was succeeded by a paleness in her countenance,
and she cast down her eyes. The children wondered, but were
still. Once more the father's sonorous voice continued—'Give us
this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
them that trespass against us.' Again the stifled sound was
repeated. The brow of the master darkened again—the mother
looked agitated; the children's wonder increased; the master closed
the book, and the servants, with a constrained silence, retired from
the room.</p>

<p class="i1">"'What <i>can</i> be the matter with old Dennis?' exclaimed the lady,
the moment that the door had closed on the household.—'Oh! what
<i>is</i> amiss with poor old Dennis!' exclaimed the children.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Some stupid folly or other,' said the father, morosely.
'Come! away to bed, children. You can learn Dennis's troubles
another time.' The children would have lingered, but again the
words, 'Away with you!' in a tone which never needed repetition,
were decisive: they kissed their parents and withdrew. In a few
seconds the father rang the bell. 'Send Dennis Croggan here.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The old man appeared. He was a little thin man, of not less
than seventy years of age, with white hair and a dark spare countenance.
He was one of those nondescript servants in a large
Irish house, whose duties are curiously miscellaneous. He had,
however, shown sufficient zeal and fidelity through a long life, to
secure a warm nook in the servants' hall for the remainder of his
days.</p>

<p class="i1">"Dennis entered with an humble and timid air, as conscious
that he had deeply offended; and had to dread at least a severe
rebuke. He bowed profoundly to both the master and mistress.</p>

<p class="i1">"'What is the meaning of your interruptions during the prayers,
Dennis?' demanded the master abruptly. 'Has any thing
happened to you?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'No, sir.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Any thing amiss in your son's family?'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'No, your honour.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The interrogator paused; a storm of passion seemed slowly
gathering within him. Presently he asked in a loud tone, 'What
does this mean? Was there no place to vent your nonsense in,
but in this room, and at prayers?'</p>

<p class="i1">"Dennis was silent. He cast an imploring look at the master,
then at the mistress.</p>

<p class="i1">"'What is the matter, good Dennis?' asked the lady, in a kind
tone. 'Compose yourself, and tell us. Something strange must
have happened to you.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Dennis trembled violently; but he advanced a couple of paces,
seized the back of a chair as if to support him, and, after a vain
gasp or two, declared, as intelligibly as fear would permit, that the
prayer had overcome him.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Nonsense, man!' exclaimed the master, with fury in the same
face, which was so lately beaming with joy on the children. 'Nonsense!
Speak out without more ado, or you shall rue it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Dennis looked to the mistress as if he would have implored
her intercession; but as she gave no sign of it, he was compelled
to speak; but in a brogue that would have been unintelligible to
English ears. We therefore translate it:</p>

<p class="i1">"'I could not help thinking of the poor people at Rathbeg, when
the soldiers and police cried, "Down with them! down with them,
even to the ground!" and then the poor bit cabins came down all
in fire and smoke, amid the howls and cries of the poor creatures.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Oh! it was a fearful sight, your honour—it was, indeed—to see
the poor women hugging their babies, and the houses where they
were born burning in the wind. It was dreadful to see the old
bedridden man lie on the wet ground among the few bits of furniture,
and groan to his gracious God above. Oh, your honour! you
never saw such a sight, or—you—sure a—it would never have
been done!'</p>

<p class="i1">"Dennis seemed to let the last words out as if they were jerked
from him by a sudden shock.</p>

<p class="i1">"The master, whose face had changed during this speech to a
livid hue of passion, his eyes blazing with rage, was in the act
of rushing on old Dennis, when he was held back by his wife,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>
who exclaimed, 'Oswald! be calm; let us hear what Dennis has
to say. Go on, Dennis, go on.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The master stood still, breathing hard to overcome his rage.
Old Dennis, as if seeing only his own thoughts, went on: 'O,
bless your honour, if you had seen that poor frantic woman when
the back of the cabin fell and buried her infant, where she thought
she had laid it safe for a moment while she flew to part her husband
and a soldier who had struck the other children with the
flat of his sword, and bade them to troop off. Oh, your honour,
but it was a killing sight. It was that came over me in the
prayer, and I feared that we might be praying perdition on us
all, when we prayed about our trespasses. If the poor creatures
of Rathbeg should meet us, your honour, at Heaven's gate (I was
thinking) and say—These are the heathens that would not let us
have a poor hearth-stone in poor ould Ireland.—And that was all,
your honour, that made me misbehave so; I was just thinking
of that, and I could not help it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Begone, you old fool!' exclaimed the master; and Dennis
disappeared with a bow and an alertness that would have done
credit to his earlier years.</p>

<p class="i1">"There was a moment's silence after his exit. The lady turned
to her husband, and clasping his arm with her hands and looking
into his darkened countenance with a look of tenderest anxiety,
said:—</p>

<p class="i1">"'Dearest Oswald, let me, as I have so often done, once more
entreat that these dreadful evictions may cease. Surely there
must be some way to avert them and to set your property right,
without such violent measures.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The stern proud man said, 'Then why, in the name of Heaven,
do you not reveal some other remedy? why do you not enlighten
all Ireland? why don't you instruct Government? The
unhappy wretches who have been swept away by force are no
people, no tenants of mine; they squatted themselves down, as a
swarm of locusts fix themselves while a green blade is left; they
obstruct all improvement; they will not till the ground themselves,
nor will they quit it to allow me to provide more industrious
and provident husbandmen to cultivate it. Land that teems
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>
with fertility, and is shut out from hearing and bringing forth
food for man, is accursed. Those who have been evicted not only
rob me, but their more industrious fellows.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'They will murder us,' said the wife, 'some day for these
things. They will—'</p>

<p class="i1">"Her words were cut short suddenly by her husband starting,
and standing in a listening attitude. 'Wait a moment,' he said,
with a peculiar calmness, as if he had just got a fresh thought;
and his lady, who did not comprehend what was the cause, but
hoped that some better influence was touching him, unloosed her
hands from his arm. 'Wait just a moment,' he repeated, and
stepped from the room, opened the front door, and, without his
hat, went out.</p>

<p class="i1">"'He is intending to cool down his anger,' thought his wife;
'he feels a longing for the freshness of the air,' But she had not
caught the sound which had startled his quicker, because more
excited ear; she had been too much engrossed by her own intercession
with him; it was a peculiar whine from the mastiff, which
was chained near the lodge-gate, that had arrested his attention.
He stepped out. The black clouds which overhung the moor had
broken, and the moon's light straggled between them.</p>

<p class="i1">"The tall and haughty man stood erect in the breeze and listened.
Another moment-there was a shot, and he fell headlong
upon the broad steps on which he stood. His wife sprang with a
piercing shriek from the door and fell on his corpse. A crowd
of servants gathered about them, making wild lamentations and
breathing vows of vengeance. The murdered master and the wife
were borne into the house.</p>

<p class="i1">"The heron soared from its lofty perch, and wheeled with terrified
wings through the night air. The servants armed themselves,
and, rushing furiously from the house, traversed the surrounding
masses of trees; fierce dogs were let loose, and dashed
frantically through the thickets: all was, however, too late. The
soaring heron saw gray figures, with blackened faces, stealing
away—often on their hands and knees—down the hollows of the
moorlands toward the village, where the two Irish horsemen had,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>
in the first dusk of that evening, tied their lean steeds to the old
elder bush.</p>

<p class="i1">"Near the mansion no lurking assassin was to be found. Meanwhile
two servants, pistol in hand, on a couple of their master's
horses, scoured hill and dale. The heron, sailing solemnly on
the wind above, saw them halt in a little town. They thundered
with the butt-ends of their pistols on a door in the principal street;
over it there was a coffin-shaped board, displaying a painted crown
and the big-lettered words, '<span class="sc">Police Station</span>.' The mounted servants
shouted with might and main. A night-capped head issued
from a chamber casement with—'What is the matter?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Out with you, police! out with all your strength, and lose
not a moment. Mr. FitzGibbon, of Sporeen, is shot at his own
door.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The casement was hastily clapped to, and the two horsemen
galloped forward up the long, broad street, now flooded with the
moon's light. Heads full of terror were thrust from upper windows
to inquire the cause of that rapid galloping, but ever too
late. The two men held their course up a steep hill outside of
the town, where stood a vast building overlooking the whole place;
it was the barracks. Here the alarm was also given.</p>

<p class="i1">"In less than an hour a mounted troop of police in olive-green
costume, with pistols at holster, sword by side, and carbine on the
arm, were trotting briskly out of town, accompanied by the two
messengers, whom they plied with eager questions. These answered,
and sundry imprecations vented, the whole party increased
their speed, and went on, mile after mile, by hedgerow and open
moorland, talking as they went.</p>

<p class="i1">"Before they reached the house of Sporeen, and near the village
where the two Irish horsemen had stopped the evening before,
they halted and formed themselves into more orderly array. A
narrow gully was before them on the road, hemmed in on each
side by rocky steeps, here and there overhung with bushes. The
commandant bade them be on their guard, for there might be
danger there. He was right; for the moment they began to trot
through the pass, the flash and rattle of firearms from the thickets
above saluted them, followed by a wild yell. In a second,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>
several of their number lay dead or dying in the road. The fire
was returned promptly by the police, but it was at random; for,
although another discharge and another howl announced that the
enemy were still there, no one could be seen. The head of the
police commanded his troops to make a dash through the pass;
for there was no scaling the heights from this side, the assailants
having warily posted themselves there, because at the foot of the
eminence were stretched on either hand impassable bogs. The
troop dashed forward, firing their pistols as they went, but were
met by such deadly discharges of firearms as threw them into
confusion, killed and wounded several of their horses, and made
them hastily retreat.</p>

<p class="i1">"There was nothing for it but to await the arrival of the cavalry;
and it was not long before the clatter of horses' hoofs and
the ringing of sabres were heard on the road. On coming up,
the troop of cavalry, firing to the right and left on the hillsides,
dashed forward, and, in the same instant, cleared the gully in
safety, the police having kept their side of the pass. In fact, not
a single shot was returned, the arrival of this strong force having
warned the insurgents to decamp. The cavalry, in full charge,
ascended the hills to their summits. Not a foe was to be seen,
except one or two dying men, who were discovered by their groans.</p>

<p class="i1">"The moon had been for a time quenched in a dense mass of
clouds, which now were blown aside by a keen and cutting wind.
The heron, soaring over the desert, could now see gray-coated
men flying in different directions to the shelter of the neighbouring
hills. The next day he was startled from his dreamy reveries
near the moorland stream, by the shouts and galloping of mingled
police and soldiers, as they gave chase to a couple of haggard,
bare-headed, and panting peasants. These were soon captured,
and at once recognised as belonging to the evicted inhabitants of
the recently deserted village.</p>

<p class="i1">"Since then years have rolled on. The heron, who had been
startled from his quiet haunts by these things, was still dwelling
on the lofty tree with his kindred, by the hall of Sporeen. He
had reared family after family in that airy lodgment, as spring
after spring came round; but no family, after that fatal time,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>
had ever tenanted the mansion. The widow and children had
fled from it so soon as Mr. FitzGibbon had been laid in the grave.
The nettle and dock flourished over the scorched ruins of the village
of Rathbeg; dank moss and wild grass tangled the proud
drives and walks of Sporeen. All the woodland rides and pleasure-grounds
lay obstructed with briers; and young trees in time
grew luxuriantly where once the roller in its rounds could not
crush a weed; the nimble frolics of the squirrel were now the
only merry things where formerly the feet of lovely children had
sprung with elastic joy.</p>

<p class="i1">"The curse of Ireland was on the place. Landlord and tenant,
gentleman and peasant, each with the roots and the shoots of
many virtues in their hearts, thrown into a false position by the
mutual injuries of ages, had wreaked on each other the miseries
sown broadcast by their ancestors. Beneath this foul spell men
who would, in any other circumstances, have been the happiest
and the noblest of mankind, became tyrants; and peasants, who
would have glowed with grateful affection toward them, exulted
in being their assassins. As the traveller rode past the decaying
hall, the gloomy woods, and waste black moorlands of Sporeen,
he read the riddle of Ireland's fate, and asked himself when an
Œdipus would arise to solve it."</p></div>

<p class="i1">A large number of the peasantry of Connemara, a
rocky and romantic region, are among the most recent
evictions.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"These hardy mountaineers, whose lives, and the lives of their
fathers and great-grandfathers have been spent in reclaiming the
barren hills where their hard lot has been cast, were the victims
of a series of oppressions unparalleled in the annals of Irish misrule.
They were thickly planted over the rocky surface of Connemara
for political purposes. In the days of the 40<i>s.</i> freeholder,
they were driven to the hustings like a flock of sheep, to register
not alone one vote, but in many instances three or four votes each;
and it was no uncommon thing to see those unfortunate serfs
evicted from their holdings when an election had terminated—
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>
not that they refused to vote according to the wish of their landlords,
but because they did not go far enough in the sin of perjury
and the diabolical crime of impersonation. When they
ceased to possess any political importance, they were cast away
like broken tools. It was no uncommon thing, in the wilds of
Connemara, to see the peasantry, after an election, coming before
the Catholic Archbishop, when holding a visitation of his diocese,
to proclaim openly the crime of impersonation which their landlords
compelled them to commit, and implore forgiveness for
such. Of this fact we have in the town of Galway more than one
living witness; so that, while every thing was done, with few exceptions,
to demoralize the peasantry of Connemara, and plant in
their souls the germs of that slavery which is so destructive to
the growth of industry, enterprise, or manly exertion—no compassion
for their wants was ever evinced—no allowance for their
poverty and inability to meet the rack-renting demands of their
landlords was ever made."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Perhaps, it requires no Œdipus to tell what will be
the future of the Irish nation, if the present system of
slavery is maintained by their English conquerors. If
they do not cease to exist as a people, they will continue
to quaff the dark waters of sorrow, and to pay a
price, terrible to think of, for the mere privilege of
existence.</p>

<p class="i1">During the famine of 1847, the heartlessness of many
Irish landlords was manifested by their utter indifference
to the multitudes starving around their well-supplied
mansions. At that period, the Rev. A. King, of Cork,
wrote to the Southern Reporter as follows:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The town and the surrounding country for many miles are
possessed by twenty-six proprietors, whose respective yearly incomes
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>
vary from one hundred pounds, or less, to several thousands.
They had all been respectfully informed of the miserable
condition of the people, and solicited to give relief. Seventeen of
the number had not the politeness to answer the letters of the
committee, four had written to say they would not contribute, and
the remaining five had given a miserable fraction of what they
ought to have contributed. My first donation from a small
portion of a small relief fund, received from English strangers,
exceeded the aggregate contributions of six-and-twenty landed
proprietors, on whose properties human beings were perishing
from famine, filth, and disease, amid circumstances of wretchedness
appalling to humanity and disgraceful to civilized men! I
believe it my sacred duty to gibbet this atrocity in the press, and
to call on benevolent persons to loathe it as a monster crime.
Twenty-one owners of property, on which scores, nay hundreds,
of their fellow-creatures are dying of hunger, give nothing to save
their lives! Are they not virtually guilty of wholesale murder?
I ask not what human law may decide upon their acts, but in the
name of Christianity I arraign them as guilty of treason against
the rights of humanity and the laws of God!"</p></div>

<p class="i1">It is to escape the responsibility mentioned by Mr.
King, as well as to avoid the payment of poor-rates, that
the landlords resort to the desolating process of eviction.
To show the destructive nature of the tyrannical
system that has so long prevailed in Ireland, we will
take an abstract of the census of 1841 and 1851.</p>

<table id="CENSUS" summary="Census of 1841 and 1851">
  <tr>
    <th></th>
    <th></th>
    <th style="text-align:center;">1841</th>
    <th></th>
    <th style="text-align:center;">1851</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">Houses:</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:2.5em;">Inhabited</td>
    <td class="c3">1,328,839</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">1,047,935</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:2.5em;">Uninhabited, built</td>
    <td class="c3">52,203</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">65,159</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:2.5em;">"</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:5em;">"<span style="padding-left:2.5em;">building
	  </span></td>
    <td class="c3">3,318</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">2,113</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c3">————</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">————</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:5em;">Total</td>
    <td class="c3">1,384,360</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">1,115,207</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">Families</td>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c3">1,472,287</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">1,207,002</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">Persons:</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:2.5em;">Males</td>
    <td class="c3">4,019,576</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">3,176,727 <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a>
	  </span></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:2.5em;">"</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:2.5em;">Females</td>
    <td class="c3">4,155,548</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">3,339,067</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c3">————</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">————</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:5em;">Total</td>
    <td class="c3">8,175,124</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">6,515,794</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:2.5em;">Population in 1841</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">8,175,124</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:5em;">"<span style="padding-left:2.5em;">1851</span></td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">6,515,794</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">————</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:5em;">Decrease</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">1,659,330</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td colspan="2" class="c1">Or, at the rate of 20 per cent.</td>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:2.5em;">Population in 1821</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">6,801,827</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:5em;">"<span style="padding-left:2.5em;">1831</span></td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">7,767,401</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:5em;">"<span style="padding-left:2.5em;">1841</span></td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">8,175,124</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:5em;">"<span style="padding-left:2.5em;">1851</span></td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
    <td class="c3">6,515,794</td>
    <td class="c3"></td>
  </tr>
</table>

<p>
Or, 286,030 souls fewer than in 1821, thirty years ago.<br />
</p>

<p class="i1">"We shall impress the disastrous importance of the reduction
in the number of the people on our readers, by placing before
them a brief account of the previous progress of the population.
There is good reason to suppose, that, prior to the middle of the
last century, the people continually, though slowly, increased; but
from that time something like authentic but imperfect records give
the following as their numbers at successive periods:—</p>

<table class="narrow" id="POPULATION_INCREASE" summary="Population Increase">
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1754</td>
    <td class="c2">2,372,634</td>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1767</td>
    <td class="c2">2,544,276</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:5em;">Increase per cent.</td>
    <td class="c2">7·2</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1777</td>
    <td class="c2">2,690,556</td>
    <td class="c1"><span style="padding-left:7em;">"</span></td>
    <td class="c2">5·7</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1785</td>
    <td class="c2">2,845,932</td>
    <td class="c1"><span style="padding-left:7em;">"</span></td>
    <td class="c2">5·8</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1805</td>
    <td class="c2">5,359,456</td>
    <td class="c1"><span style="padding-left:7em;">"</span></td>
    <td class="c2">84·0</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1813</td>
    <td class="c2">5,937,858</td>
    <td class="c1"><span style="padding-left:7em;">"</span></td>
    <td class="c2">10·8</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1821</td>
    <td class="c2">6,801,829</td>
    <td class="c1"><span style="padding-left:7em;">"</span></td>
    <td class="c2">14·6</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1831</td>
    <td class="c2">7,767,401</td>
    <td class="c1"><span style="padding-left:7em;">"</span></td>
    <td class="c2">14·9</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1841</td>
    <td class="c2">8,175,124</td>
    <td class="c1"><span style="padding-left:7em;">"</span></td>
    <td class="c2">5·3</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1851</td>
    <td class="c2">6,515,794</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:5em;">Decrease</td>
    <td class="c2">20·0</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<p class="i1">"Though there are some discrepancies in these figures, and probably
the number assigned to 1785 is too small, and that assigned
to 1805 too large, they testify uniformly to a continual increase of
the people for eighty-seven years, from 1754 to 1841. Now, for
the first time in nearly a century, a complete change has set in,
and the population has decreased in the last ten years 20 per cent.
It is 1,659,330 less than in 1841, and less by 286,033 than in 1821.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"But this is not quite all. The census of 1851 was taken 68 days
earlier than the census of 1841; and it is obvious, if the same rate
of decrease continued through those 68 days, as has prevailed on
the average through the ten years, that the whole amount of decrease
would be so much greater. Sixty-eight days is about the
54th part of ten years—say the 50th part; and the 50th part of
the deficiency is 33,000 odd—say 30,000. We must add 30,000,
therefore, to the 1,659,330, making 1,689,330, to get the true
amount of the diminution of the people in ten years.</p>

<p class="i1">"Instead of the population increasing in a healthy manner, implying
an increase in marriages, in families, and in all the affections
connected with them, and implying an increase in general
prosperity, as for nearly a century before, and now amounting,
as we might expect, to 8,600,000, it is 2,000,000 less. This is a
disastrous change in the life of the Irish. At this downward rate,
decreasing 20 per cent. in ten years, five such periods would suffice
to exterminate the whole population more effectually than the Indians
have been exterminated from North America. Fifty years
of this new career would annihilate the whole population of Ireland,
and turn the land into an uninhabited waste. This is a
terrible reverse in the condition of a people, and is the more
remarkable because in the same period the population of Great
Britain has increased 12 per cent., and because there is no other
example of a similar decay in any part of Europe in the same
time, throughout which the population has continued to increase,
though not everywhere equally, nor so fast as in Great Britain.
Indeed, it may be doubted whether the annals of mankind can
supply, in a season of peace—when no earthquakes have toppled
down cities, no volcanoes have buried them beneath their ashes,
and no inroads of the ocean have occurred—such wholesale diminution
of the population and desolation of the country.</p>

<p class="i1">"The inhabited houses in Ireland have decreased from 1,328,839
in 1841 to 1,047,735 in 1851, or 281,104, (21·2 per cent.,) and
consequently more than the population, who are now worse lodged
and more crowded in relation to houses than they were in 1841.
As the uninhabited houses have increased only 12,951, no less
than 268,153 houses must have been destroyed in the ten years.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>
That informs us of the extent of the 'clearances' of which we
have heard so much of late; and the 1,659,300 people less in the
country is an index to the number of human beings who inhabited
the houses destroyed. We must remember, too, that within the
period a number of union workhouses have been built in Ireland,
capable of accommodating 308,885 persons, and that, besides the
actual diminution of the number of the people, there has been a
change in their habits, about 300,000 having become denizens of
workhouses, who, prior to 1841, lived in their own separate huts.
With distress and destruction pauperism has also increased.</p>

<p class="i1">"The decrease has not been equal for the males and females;
the numbers were as follows.—</p>

<table class="narrow" id="POPULATION_DECREASE" summary="Population Decrease">
   <tr>
    <th class="c1"></th>
    <th class="c2" style="text-align:center;">1841</th>
    <th class="c2" style="text-align:center;">1851</th>
    <th class="c2"></th>
  </tr>
 <tr>
    <td class="c1">Males</td>
    <td class="c2">4,019,576</td>
    <td class="c2">3,176,124</td>
    <td class="c2">Decrease 20·9 per cent.</td>
  </tr>
 <tr>
    <td class="c1">Females</td>
    <td class="c2">4,155,548</td>
    <td class="c2">3,336,067</td>
    <td class="c2"><span style="padding-right:1.2em;">"</span><span
	  style="padding-right:1.0em;">29·6</span> <span style="padding-right:2em;">"</span></td>
  </tr>
</table>

<p class="i1">"The females now exceed the males by 162,943, or 2 per cent.
on the whole population. It is not, however, that the mortality
has been greater among the males than the females, but that more
of the former than of the latter have escaped from the desolation.</p>

<p class="i1">"Another important feature of the returns is the increase of
the town population:—Dublin, 22,124, or 9 per cent.; Belfast,
24,352, or 32 per cent.; Galway, 7422, or 43 per cent.; Cork,
5765, or 7 per cent. Altogether, the town population has increased
71,928, or nearly 1 per cent., every town except Londonderry
displaying the same feature; and that increase makes the
decrease of the rural population still more striking. The whole
decrease is of the agricultural classes: Mr. O'Connell's 'finest
pisantry' are the sufferers."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The London Illustrated News, in an article upon the
census, says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The causes of the decay of the people, subordinate to inefficient
employment and to wanting commerce and manufactures,
are obviously great mortality, caused by the destruction of the
potatoes and the consequent want of food, the clearance system,
and emigration. From the retarded increase of the population
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>
between 1831 and 1841—only 5·3 per cent., while in the previous
ten years it had been nearly 15 per cent.—it may be inferred
that the growth of the population was coming to a stand-still
before 1841, and that the late calamities only brought it down to
its means of continued subsistence, according to the distribution
of property and the occupations of the people. The potato rot,
in 1846, was a somewhat severer loss of that root than had before
fallen on the Irish, who have suffered occasionally from famines
ever since their history began; and it fell so heavily on them
then, because they were previously very much and very generally
impoverished. Thousands, and even millions, of them subsisted
almost exclusively on lumpers, the very worst kind of potatoes,
and were reduced in health and strength when they were overtaken
by the dearth of 1846. The general smallness of their
consumption, and total abstinence from the use of tax paying
articles, is made painfully apparent by the decrease of the population
of Ireland having had no sensible influence in reducing the
revenue. They were half starved while alive. Another remarkable
fact which we must notice is, that, while the Irish population
have thus been going to decay, the imports and exports of the
empire have increased in a much more rapid ratio than the
population of Great Britain. For them, therefore, exclusively, is
the trade of the empire carried on, and the Irish who have been
swept away, without lessening the imports and exports, have had
no share in our commerce. It is from these facts apparent, that,
while they have gone to decay, the population of Great Britain
have increased their well-being and their enjoyments much more
than their numbers. We need not remind our readers of the
dreadful sufferings of the Irish in the years 1847, 1848, and 1849;
for the accounts we then published of them were too melancholy
to be forgotten. As an illustration, we may observe that the
Irish Poor-law Commissioners, in their fourth report, dated May
5, 1851, boast that the 'worst evils of the famine, such as the
occurrence of <i>deaths by the wayside</i>, a high rate of mortality in
the workhouses, and the prevalence of dangerous and contagious
diseases in or out of the workhouse, have undergone a very material
abatement.' There have been, then, numerous deaths by
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>
the wayside, alarming contagious diseases, and great mortality
in the workhouses."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The Poor-law Commissioners kept a most mysterious
silence during the worst period of the famine; and, it
was only when the horrors of that time were known to
the whole civilized world that they reported the "abatement
of the evils." Perhaps, they had become so accustomed
to witnessing misery in Ireland that even the
famine years did not startle them into making a
humane appeal to the British government upon behalf
of the sufferers.</p>

<p class="i1">The Illustrated News, in the same article we have
quoted above, says, quite sensibly, but with scarcely a
due appreciation of the causes of Ireland's decay—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The decline of the population has been greatest in Connaught;
now the Commissioners tell us that in 1847 the maximum rate
of mortality in the workhouses of that province was 43.6 per
week in a thousand persons, so that in about 23 weeks at this
rate the whole 1000 would be dead. The maximum rate of
mortality in all the workhouses in that year was 25 per 1000
weekly, or the whole 1000 would die in something more than 39
weeks. That was surely a very frightful mortality. It took place
among that part of the population for which room was found in
the workhouses; and among the population out of the workhouses
perishing by the wayside, the mortality must have been still more
frightful. We are happy to believe, on the assurance of the commissioners,
that matters are now improved, that workhouse accommodation
is to be had—with one exception, Kilrush—for all
who need it; that the expense of keeping the poor is diminished;
that contagious disorders are less frequent, and that the rate of
mortality has much declined. But the statement that such improvements
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>
have taken place, implies the greatness of the past
sufferings. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the decay of
the population has partly arisen from increased mortality on the
one hand, and from decreasing marriages and decreasing births
on the other. Now that the Irish have a poor-law fairly administered,
we may expect that, in future, such terrible scenes as were
witnessed in 1847-49 will not again occur. But the state which
authorized the landlords, by a law, to clear their estates of the
peasantry, as if they were vermin, destroying, as we have seen,
268,153 dwellings, without having previously imposed on those
landlords the obligation of providing for the people, did a great
wrong, and the decay of the people now testifies against it.</p>

<p class="i1">"With reference to emigration—the least objectionable mode of
getting rid of a population—there are no correct returns kept of
the number of Irish who emigrate, because a great part of them
go from Liverpool, and are set down in the returns as emigrants
from England. It is supposed by those best acquainted with the
subject, that more than nine-tenths of the emigrants from Liverpool
are Irish. Taking that proportion, therefore, and adding it
to the emigrants who proceed direct from Ireland, the number
of Irish emigrants from 1842 to the present year was—</p>

<table class="narrow" id="POPULATION_DECREASE-2" summary="Population Decrease">
   <tr>
     <td class="c1">1843</td>
     <td class="c2">39,549</td>
     <td class="c1">│</td>
	 <td class="c1">1847</td>
     <td class="c2">214,970</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
     <td class="c1">1844</td>
     <td class="c2">55,910</td>
     <td class="c1">│</td>
	 <td class="c1">1848</td>
     <td class="c2"></td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
     <td class="c1">1845</td>
     <td class="c2">177,720</td>
     <td class="c1">│</td>
	 <td class="c1">1849</td>
     <td class="c2">208,759</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
     <td class="c1">1846</td>
     <td class="c2">106,767</td>
     <td class="c1">│</td>
	 <td class="c1">1850</td>
     <td class="c2">207,853</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
     <td class="c1"></td>
     <td class="c2">————</td>
     <td class="c1">│</td>
	 <td class="c1"></td>
     <td class="c2">————</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
     <td class="c1"><span style="padding-left:1em;">Total, 4 years,</span></td>
     <td class="c2">278,749</td>
     <td class="c1">│</td>
	 <td class="c1"><span style="padding-left:1em;">Total, 4 years,</span></td>
     <td class="c2">809,302</td>
   </tr>
   <tr>
     <td colspan="2" class="c1" style="padding-left:8em;">Total, 8 years</td>
     <td class="c1"></td>
	 <td colspan="2" class="c1" style="padding-left:2em;">1,088,051.</td>
   </tr>
</table>

<p class="i1">"If we add 70,000 for the two first years of the decennial period
not included in the return, we shall have 1,158,051 as the total
emigration of the ten years. It was probably more than that—it
could not well have been less. To this we must add the number
of Irish who came to England and Scotland, of whom no account
is kept. If we put them down at 30,000 a year, we shall have
for the ten years 300,000; or the total expatriation of the Irish in
the ten years may be assumed at 1,458,000, or say 1,500,000. At
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>
first sight this appears a somewhat soothing explanation of
the decline of the Irish population; but, on being closely examined,
it diminishes the evil very little in one sense, and threatens
to enhance it in another.</p>

<p class="i1">"So far as national strength is concerned, it is of no consequence
whether the population die out or emigrate to another state,
except that, if the other state be a rival or an enemy, it may be
worse for the parent state that the population emigrate than be
annihilated. In truth, the Irish population in the United States,
driven away formerly by persecution, have imbittered the feelings
of the public there against England. Emigration is only
very beneficial, therefore, when it makes room for one at home
for every one removed. Such is the emigration from England to
her colonies or to the United States, with which she has intimate
trade relations; but such is not the case with the emigration
from Ireland, for there we find a frightful void. No one fills the
emigrant's place. He flies from the country because he cannot
live in it; and being comparatively energetic, we may infer that
few others can. In the ordinary course, had the 1,500,000 expatriated
people remained, nearly one-third of them would have
died in the ten years; they would have increased the terrible
mortality, and, without much adding to the present number of
the people, would have added to the long black catalogue of
death.</p>

<p class="i1">"For the emigrants themselves removal is a great evil, a mere
flying from destruction. The Poor-law Commissioners state that
the number of pauper emigrants sent from Ireland in 1850 was
about 1800, or less than one per cent. of the whole emigration;
the bulk of the emigrants were not paupers, but persons of some
means as well as of some energy. They were among the best
of the population, and they carried off capital with them—leaving
the decrepit, the worn-out, and the feeble behind them; the
mature and the vigorous, the seed of future generations, went out
of the land, and took with them the means of future increase.
We doubt, therefore, whether such an emigration as that from
Ireland within the last four years will not be more fatal to its
future prosperity than had the emigrants swelled the mortality at
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>
home. All the circumstances now enumerated tend to establish
the conclusion, that, for the state, and for the people who remain
behind, it is of very little consequence whether a loss of population,
such as that in Ireland, be caused by an excessive mortality
or excessive emigration.</p>

<p class="i1">"To the emigrants themselves, after they have braved the pain
of the separation and the difficulties of the voyage, and after they
are established in a better home, the difference is very great; but
it may happen that, to Ireland as a state, their success abroad
will be rather dangerous than beneficial. On the whole, emigration
does not account for the decrease of people; and if it did
account for it, would not afford us the least consolation."</p></div>

<p class="i1">In the above article, the Kilrush Union is mentioned
as an exception to the general improvement in Ireland,
in respect to workhouse accommodation. Mr. Sidney
Godolphin Osborne, the able and humane correspondent
of the London Times, can enlighten us in regard to
the treatment of the poor of Kilrush in 1851.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"I am sorry to be compelled again to call public attention to
the state of things in the above ill-fated union. I do not dispute
the interest which must attach to the transactions of the Encumbered
Estates Court, the question of the so-called Godless Colleges,
the campaign now commencing against the national
schools, and the storm very naturally arising against the Papal
Aggression Bill, in a country so Catholic as Ireland. But I must
claim some interest upon the part of the British public on the
question of life and death now cruelly working out in the West of
Ireland.</p>

<p class="i1">"The accommodation for paupers in the Kilrush union-houses
was, in the three weeks ending the 8th, 15th, and 22d of this
month, calculated for 4654; in the week ending the 8th of March
there were 5005 inmates, 56 deaths!—in the week ending the 15th
of March, 4980 inmates, 68 deaths!—in the week ending the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span>
22d of March, 4868 inmates, 79 deaths! That is to say, <i>there
were 203 deaths in 21 days</i>. I last week called your attention to
the fact of the over-crowding and the improper feeding of the poor
creatures in these houses, as proved by a report made by the
medical officer on the 1st of February, repeated on the 22d, and,
at the time of my letter, evidently unheeded. Behold the result—79
deaths in a population of under 5000 in one week! I have, I
regret to say, besides these returns, a large mass of returns of
deaths outside the house, evidently the result of starvation; on
some, coroners' juries have admitted it to be so.</p>

<p class="i1">"Eye-witnesses of the highest respectability, as well as my own
paid agent, report to me the state of the town and neighbourhood
of the workhouse on the admission-days in characters quite horrifying:
between 100 and 200 poor, half-starved, almost naked
creatures may be seen by the roadside, under the market-house—in
short, wherever the famished, the houseless, and the cold can
get for a night's shelter. Many have come twelve Irish miles to
seek relief, and then have been refused, though their sunken eyes
and projecting bones write the words 'destitute' and 'starving'
in language even the most callous believers in pauper cunning
could not misunderstand. I will defy contradiction to the fact,
that the business of the admission-days is conducted in a way
which forbids common justice to the applicants; it is a mere
mockery to call the scene of indecent hurry and noisy strife between
guardians, officers, and paupers, which occupies the few
hours weekly given to this work, a hearing of applicants.</p>

<p class="i1">"I have before me some particulars of a visit of inspection paid
to these houses a short time since by a gentleman whose position
and whose motives are above all cavil for respectability and integrity;
I have a mass of evidence, voluntarily given me, from
sources on which I can place implicit confidence, all tending to
one and the same point. The mortality so fast increasing can
only be ascribed to the insufficiency of the out-relief given to the
destitute, and the crowding and improper diet of the in-door paupers.
From the published statement of the half-year ending
September 29, 1850, signed 'C. M. Vandeleur, chairman,' I find
there were 1014 deaths in that said half-year. Average weekly
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>
cost per head—food, 11¼<i>d.</i>; clothing, 2<i>d.</i> I shall look with
anxiety for the return of the half-year just ended; it will be a
curious document, as emanating from a board the chairman of
which has just trumpeted in your columns with regard to this
union, 'that the lands, with little exception, are well occupied,
and a spirit of industry visible among all classes.' It will at
least prove a more than usual occupation of burying-land, and a
spirit of increased energy in the grave-digging class.</p>

<p class="i1">"With regard to the diet of the old and infirm, I can conceive
it possible that since the publication of my last letter there may
be some improvement, though I am not yet aware of it. I am
now prepared to challenge all contradiction to the fact that the
diet has been not only short of what it ought to be by the prescribed
dietary, but, in the case of the bread, it has frequently
been unfit for human food—such as very old or very young people
could only touch under the pressure of famine, and could not,
under any circumstances, sustain health upon.</p>

<p class="i1">"Let the authorities investigate the deaths of the last six
weeks, taking the cause of death from the medical officers, and
how soon after admission each individual died; they will then,
with me, cease to wonder that the poor creatures who come in
starving should so soon sink, when the sanatory condition of the
law's asylum is just that which would tell most severely even on
the most healthy. I admit, sir, that Kilrush market may be well
supplied with cheap food, but the evicted peasantry have no
money, and vendors do not give. I admit that the season for the
growth of nettles, and cornkale, and other weeds, the of late
years normal food of these poor creatures, has not yet set in, and
this I do not deny is all against them. I leave to the British
public the forming any conclusion they like from this admission.</p>

<p class="i1">"What I now contend for is this—that in a particular part of
Great Britain there are certain workhouses, asylums for the destitute,
supervised by salaried inspectors, directly under the cognizance
of the Government, in which the crowding of the sick is
most shameful, the diet equally so. The mortality for the weeks
ending January 25 to March 22—484, upon a population which
in those weeks never exceeded 5200 souls! I believe these to be
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>
facts which cannot be disputed, and I claim on them the immediate
interference of the Government, and the more especially as
the chairman of this union makes a public favourable comparison
between it and the union of Ennistymon, in the same county. I
am myself prepared, on very short notice, to go over at my own
expense with any person of respectability from this country, appointed
by Government, and I have no doubt we shall prove that
I have, if any thing, understated matters; if so, am I wrong, sir,
in saying, that such a state of things, within a twenty hours'
journey from London, is in a sad and shameful contrast to the
expected doings of the 'World's Fair' on English ground? <i>When,
the other day, I looked on the Crystal Palace, and thought of Kilrush
workhouse, as I have seen it and now know it to be, I confess I
felt, as a Christian and the subject of a Christian Government,
utter disgust.</i> Again, sir, I thank you from my heart for your
indulgence to these my cries for justice for Ireland."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Alas! poor country, where each hour teems with a
new grievance; where tyranny is so much a custom
that the very institutions which have charity written
upon their front are turned to dangerous pest-houses,
slaving shops, or tombs; where to toil even to extremity
is to be rewarded with semi-starvation in styes, and,
perhaps, by sudden eviction, and a grave by the wayside;
where to entertain certain religious convictions is
to invite the whips of persecution, and the particular
tyranny of the landlord who adheres to the Church of
England; where to speak the faith of the heart, the
opinions of the mind, is to sacrifice the food doled out
by the serf-holders; where to live is to be considered a
glorious mercy—to hope, something unfit for common
men.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">The struggles and achievements of Con McNale, as
related in "Household Words," give us a tolerably
truthful representation of the milder features of Irish
peasant life. Con had better luck than most of his class,
and knew better how to improve it. Yet the circumstances
of his existence were certainly not those of a
freeman:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"My father," said he, "lived under ould Squire Kilkelly, an'
for awhile tinded his cattle; but the Squire's gone out iv this part
iv the counthry, to Australia or some furrin part, an' the mentioned
house (mansion-house) an' the fine property was sould, so
it was, for little or nothin', for the fightin' was over in furrin
parts; Boney was put down, an' there was no price for corn or
cattle, an' a jontleman from Scotland came an' bought the istate.
We were warned by the new man to go, for he tuk in his own
hand all the in-land about the domain, bein' a grate farmer. He
put nobody in our little place, but pulled it down, an' he guv
father a five-guinea note, but my father was ould an' not able to
face the world agin, an' he went to the town an' tuk a room—a
poor, dirty, choky place it was for him, myself, and sisther to live
in. The neighbours were very kind an' good though. Sister
Bridget got a place wid a farmer hereabouts, an' I tuk the world
on my own showlders. I had nothin' at all but the rags I stud
up in, an' they were bad enuf. Poor Biddy got a shillin' advanced
iv her wages that her masther was to giv her. She guv
it me, for I was bent on goin' toward Belfast to look for work.
All along the road I axed at every place; they could giv it me,
but to no good; except when I axed, they'd giv me a bowl iv
broth, or a piece iv bacon, or an oaten bannock, so that I had my
shillin' to the fore when I got to Belfast.</p>

<p class="i1">"Here the heart was near lavin' me all out intirely. I went
wandtherin' down to the quay among the ships, and what should
there be but a ship goin' to Scotland that very night wid pigs.
In throth it was fun to see the sailors at cross-purposes wid 'em,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>
for they didn't know the natur iv the bastes. I did. I knew how
to coax 'em. I set to an' I deludhered an' coaxed the pigs, an'
by pullin' them by the tail, knowing that if they took a fancy I
wished to pull 'em back out of the ship they'd run might an' main
into her, and so they did. Well, the sailors were mightily divarted,
an' when the pigs was aboord I wint down to the place; an'
the short iv it is that in three days I was in Glasgow town, an'
the captain an' the sailors subscribed up tin shillins an' guv it
into my hand. Well, I bought a raping-hook, an' away I trudged
till I got quite an' clane into the counthry, an' the corn was here
and there fit to cut. At last I goes an' ax a farmer for work. He
thought I was too wake to be paid by the day, but one field havin'
one corner fit to cut, an' the next not ready, 'Paddy,' says he,
'you may begin in that corner, an' I'll pay yees by the work yees
do,' an' he guv me my breakfast an' a pint of beer. Well, I never
quit that masther the whole harvest, an' when the raping was
over I had four goolden guineas to carry home, besides that I was
as sthrong as a lion. Yees would wonder how glad the sailors
was to see me back agin, an' ne'er a farthin' would they take
back iv their money, but tuk me over agin to Belfast, givin' me
the hoighth of good thratemint of all kinds. I did not stay an
hour in Belfast, but tuk to the road to look afther the ould man
an' little Biddy. Well, sorrows the tidins I got. The ould man
had died, an' the grief an' disthress of poor little Biddy had even
touched her head a little. The dacent people where she was, may
the Lord reward 'em, though they found little use in her, kep her,
hoping I would be able to come home an' keep her myself, an' so
I was. I brought her away wid me, an' the sight iv me put new
life in her. I was set upon not being idle, an' I'll tell yees what
I did next.</p>

<p class="i1">"When I was little <i>bouchaleen</i> iv a boy I used to be ahead on
the mountain face, an' 'twas often I sheltered myself behind them
gray rocks that's at the gable iv my house; an' somehow it came
into my head that the new Squire, being a grate man for improvin'
might let me try to brake in a bit iv land there; an' so I goes
off to him, an' one iv the sarvints bein' a sort iv cousin iv mine,
I got to spake to the Squire, an' behould yees he guv me lave at
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>
onst. Well, there's no time like the prisint, an' as I passed out
iv the back yard of the mentioned (mansion) house, I sees the
sawyers cutting some Norway firs that had been blown down by
the storm, an' I tells the sawyers that I had got lave to brake in
a bit iv land in the mountains, an' what would some pieces iv fir
cost. They says they must see what kind of pieces they was that
I wished for; an' no sooner had I set about looking 'em through
than the Squire himself comes ridin' out of the stable-yard, an'
says he at onst, 'McNale,' says he, 'you may have a load iv cuttins
to build your cabin, or two if you need it.' 'The Heavens
be your honour's bed,' says I, an' I wint off to the room where I
an' Biddy lived, not knowin' if I was on my head or my heels.
Next day, before sunrise, I was up here, five miles up the face
of Slieve-dan, with a spade in my fist, an' I looked roun' for the
most shiltered spot I could sit my eyes an. Here I saw, where
the house an' yard are stan'in', a plot iv about an acre to the
south iv that tall ridge of rocks, well sheltered from the blast
from the north an' from the aste, an' it was about sunrise an' a
fine morning in October that I tuk up the first spadeful. There
was a spring then drippin' down the face iv the rocks, an' I saw
at once that it would make the cabin completely damp, an' the
land about mighty sour an' water-<i>slain</i>; so I determined to do
what I saw done in Scotland. I sunk a deep drain right under
the rock to run all along the back iv the cabin, an' workin' that
day all alone by myself, I did a grate dale iv it. At night it was
close upon dark when I started to go home, so I hid my spade in
the heath an' trudged off. The next morning I bargained with a
farmer to bring me up a load iv fir cuttins from the Squire's, an'
by the evenin' they were thrown down within a quarter iv a mile
iv my place, for there was no road to it then, an' I had to carry
'em myself for the remainder of the way. This occupied me till
near nightfall; but I remained that night till I placed two upright
posts of fir, one at each corner iv the front iv the cabin.</p>

<p class="i1">"I was detarmined to get the cabin finished as quickly as possible,
that I might be able to live upon the spot, for much time
was lost in goin' and comin'. The next day I was up betimes,
an' finding a track iv stiff blue clay, I cut a multitude of thick
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span>
square sods iv it, an' having set up two more posts at the remainin'
two corners iv the cabin, I laid four rows iv one gable, rising
it about three feet high. Havin' laid the rows, I sharpind three
or four straight pine branches, an' druv them down through the
sods into the earth, to pin the wall in its place. Next day I had
a whole gable up, each three rows iv sods pinned through to the
three benathe. In about eight days I had put up the four walls,
makin' a door an' two windows; an' now my outlay began, for I
had to pay a thatcher to put on the sthraw an' to assist me in
risin' the rafthers. In another week it was covered in, an' it was
a pride to see it with the new thatch an' a wicker chimbly daubed
with clay, like a pallis undernathe the rock. I now got some
turf that those who had cut 'em had not removed, an' they sould
'em for a thrifle, an' I made a grate fire an' slept on the flure of
my own house that night. Next day I got another load iv fir
brought to make the partitions in the winter, an' in a day or two
after I had got the inside so dhry that I was able to bring poor
Biddy to live there for good and all. The Heavens be praised,
there was not a shower iv rain fell from the time I began the
cabin till I ended it, an' when the rain did fall, not a drop came
through—all was carried off by my dhrain into the little river
before yees.</p>

<p class="i1">"The moment I was settled in the house I comminced dhraining
about an acre iv bog in front, an' the very first winter I sowed
a shillin's worth of cabbidge seed, an' sold in the spring a pound's
worth of little cabbidge plants for the gardins in the town below.
When spring came, noticin' how the early-planted praties did the
best, I planted my cabbidge ground with praties, an' I had a
noble crap, while the ground was next year fit for the corn. In
the mane time, every winther I tuk in more and more ground,
an' in summer I cut my turf for fewel, where the cuttins could
answer in winther for a dhrain; an' findin' how good the turf
were, I got a little powney an' carried 'em to the town to sell,
when I was able to buy lime in exchange an' put it on my bog,
so as to make it produce double. As things went on I got assistance,
an' when I marrid, my wife had two cows that guv me a
grate lift.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"I was always thought to be a handy boy, an' I could do a
turn of mason-work with any man not riglarly bred to it; so I
took one of my loads of lime, an' instead of puttin' it on the land,
I made it into morthar—and indeed the stones being no ways
scarce, I set to an' built a little kiln, like as I had seen down the
counthry. I could then burn my own lime, an' the limestone
were near to my hand, too many iv 'em. While all this was goin'
on, I had riz an' sould a good dale iv oats and praties, an' every
summer I found ready sale for my turf in the town from one jontleman
that I always charged at an even rate, year by year. I
got the help of a stout boy, a cousin iv my own, who was glad iv
a shilter; an' when the childher were ould enough, I got some
young cattle that could graze upon the mountain in places where
no other use could be made iv the land, and set the gossoons to
herd 'em.</p>

<p class="i1">"There was one bit iv ground nigh han' to the cabin that puzzled
me intirely. It was very poor and sandy, an' little better
than a rabbit burrow; an' telling the Squire's Scotch steward iv
it, he bade me thry some flax; an' sure enuf, so I did, an' a fine
crap iv flax I had as you might wish to see; an' the stame-mills
being beginnin' in the counthry at that time, I sould my flax for
a very good price, my wife having dhried it, beetled it, an'
scutched it with her own two hands.</p>

<p class="i1">"I should have said before that the Squire himself came up
here with a lot iv fine ladies and jontlemen to see what I had
done; an' you never in your life seed a man so well plased as he
was, an' a mimber of Parlimint from Scotland was with him, an'
he tould me I was a credit to ould Ireland; an' sure didn't Father
Connor read upon the papers, how he tould the whole story in
the Parlimint house before all the lords an' quality. But faix,
he didn't forgit me; for a month or two after he was here, an' it
coming on the winter, comes word for me an' the powney to go
down to the mentioned (mansion) house, for the steward wanted
me. So away I wint, an' there, shure enuf, was an illigant Scotch
plough, every inch of iron, an' a lot of young Norroway pines—the
same you see shiltering the house an' yard—an' all was a free
prisint for me from the Scotch jontleman that was the mimber
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>
of Parlimint. 'Twas that plough that did the meracles iv work
hereabouts; for I often lint it to any that I knew to be a careful
hand, an' it was the manes iv havin' the farmers all round send
an' buy 'em. At last I was able to build a brave snug house;
and, praised be Providence, I have never had an hour's ill health
nor a moment's grief, but when poor Biddy, the cratur, died from
us. It is thirty years since that morning that I tuk up the first
spadeful from the wild mountain side; an' twelve acres are good
labour land, an' fifteen drained an' good grazin'. I have been
payin' rint twinty years, an' am still, thank God, able to take my
own part iv any day's work—plough, spade, or flail."</p>

<p class="i1">"Have you got a lease?" said I.</p>

<p class="i1">"No, indeed, nor a schrape of a pin; nor I never axed it. Have
I not my <i>tinnant-rite</i>?"</p></div>

<p class="i1">At any moment the labours of poor Con might have
been rendered of no benefit to him. He held the
wretched hovel and the ground he tilled merely by the
permission of the landlord, who could have desolated
all by the common process of eviction; and Con would
then have been driven to new exertions or to the workhouse.
The rugged ballad of "Patrick Fitzpatrick's
Farewell," presents a case more common than that of
Con McNale:—</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
      <div class="verse">"Those three long years I've labour'd hard as any on Erin's isle,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">And still was scarcely able my family to keep;</div>
      <div class="verse">My tender wife and children three, under the lash of misery,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">Unknown to friends and neighbours, I've often seen to weep.</div>
      <div class="verse">Sad grief it seized her tender heart, when forced her only cow to
	    part,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">And canted<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a>
	    <a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a>
		was before her face, the poor-rates for to pay;</div>
      <div class="verse">Cut down in all her youthful bloom, she's gone into her silent tomb;
	    <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span></div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">Forlorn I will mourn her loss when in America."</div>
  </div>
</div>

<p class="i1">In the same ballad we have an expression of the comparative
paradise the Irish expect to find—and do find,
by the way—in that land which excites so much the
pity of the philanthropic aristocracy:—</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
      <div class="verse">"Let Erin's sons and daughters fair now for the promised land
	    prepare,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">America, that beauteous soil, will soon your toil repay;</div>
      <div class="verse"><i>Employment, it is plenty there, on beef and mutton you can
	    fare,</i></div>
      <div class="verse indent-2"><i>From five to six dollars is your wages every day</i>.</div>
      <div class="verse">Now see what money has come o'er these three years from Columbia's
	    shore;</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">But for it numbers now were laid all in their silent clay;</div>
      <div class="verse">California's golden mines, my boys, are open now to crown our joys,</div>
      <div class="verse indent-2">So all our hardships we'll dispute when in America."</div>
  </div>
</div>

<p class="i1">As an illustration of the manner in which eviction is
sometimes effected by heartless landlords in Ireland, and
the treatment which the lowly of Great Britain generally
receive from those who become their masters, we
may quote "Two Scenes in the Life of John Bodger,"
from "Dickens's Household Words." The characters
in this sketch are English; but the incidents are such
as frequently occur in Ireland:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"In the year 1832, on the 24th of December, one of those clear
bright days that sometimes supersede the regular snowy, sleety
Christmas weather, a large ship lay off Plymouth; the Blue Peter
flying from her masthead, quarters of beef hanging from her mizzen-booms,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span>
and strings of cabbages from her stern rails; her decks
crowded with coarsely-clad blue-nosed passengers, and lumbered
with boxes, barrels, hen-coops, spars, and chain-cables. The wind
was rising with a hollow, dreary sound. Boats were hurrying to
and fro, between the vessel and the beach, where stood excited
groups of old people and young children. The hoarse, impatient
voices of officers issuing their commands, were mingled with the
shrill wailing of women on the deck and the shore.</p>

<p class="i1">"It was the emigrant ship 'Cassandra,' bound for Australia
during the period of the 'Bounty' system, when emigration recruiters,
stimulated by patriotism and a handsome percentage,
rushed frantically up and down the country, earnestly entreating
'healthy married couples,' and single souls of either sex, to accept
a free passage to 'a land of plenty.' The English labourers had
not then discovered that Australia was a country where masters
were many and servants scarce. In spite of poverty and poorhouse
fare, few of the John Bull family could be induced to give heed to
flaming placards they could not read, or inspiring harangues
they could not understand. The admirable education which in
1832, at intervals of seven days, was distributed in homœopathic
doses among the agricultural olive-branches of England, did not
include modern geography, even when reading and writing were
imparted. If a stray Sunday-school scholar did acquire a faint
notion of the locality of Canaan, he was never permitted to travel
as far as the British Colonies.</p>

<p class="i1">"To the ploughman out of employ, Canaan, Canada, and Australia
were all '<i>furrin parts</i>;' he did not know the way to them;
but he knew the way to the poorhouse, so took care to keep within
reach of it.</p>

<p class="i1">"Thus it came to pass that the charterers of the good ship 'Cassandra'
were grievously out in their calculations; and failing to
fill with English, were obliged to make up their complement with
Irish; who, having nothing to fall upon, but the charity of the poor
to the poorer, are always ready to go anywhere for a daily meal.</p>

<p class="i1">"The steamers from Cork had transferred their ragged, weeping,
laughing, fighting cargoes; the last stray groups of English had
been collected from the western counties; the Government officers
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>
had cleared and passed the ship. With the afternoon tide two
hundred helpless, ignorant, destitute souls were to bid farewell to
their native land. The delays consequent on miscalculating the
emigrating taste of England had retarded until midwinter, a voyage
which should have been commenced in autumn.</p>

<p class="i1">"In one of the shore-boats, sat a portly man—evidently neither
an emigrant nor a sailor—wrapped in a great coat and comforters;
his broad-brimmed beaver secured from the freezing blast by a
coloured bandanna tied under the chin of a fat, whiskerless face.
This portly personage was Mr. Joseph Lobbit, proprietor of 'The
Shop,' farmer, miller, and chairman of the vestry of the rich
rural parish of Duxmoor.</p>

<p class="i1">"At Duxmoor, the chief estate was in Chancery, the manor-house
in ruins, the lord of it an outlaw, and the other landed proprietors
absentees, or in debt; a curate preached, buried, married,
and baptized, for the health of the rector compelled him to pass
the summer in Switzerland, and the winter in Italy; so Mr. Lobbit
was almost the greatest, as he was certainly the richest, man in
the parish.</p>

<p class="i1">"Except that he did not care for any one but himself, and did
not respect any one who had not plenty of money, he was not a bad
sort of man. He had a jolly hearty way of talking and shaking
hands, and slapping people on the back; and until you began to
count money with him, he seemed a very pleasant, liberal fellow.
He was fond of money, but more fond of importance; and therefore
worked as zealously at parish-business as he did at his own
farm, shop, and mill. He centred the whole powers of the vestry
in one person, and would have been beadle, too, if it had been
possible. He appointed the master and matron of the workhouse,
who were relations of his wife; supplied all the rations and clothing
for 'the house,' and fixed the prices in full vestry (viz. himself,
and the clerk, his cousin,) assembled. He settled all the questions
of out-door relief, and tried hard, more than once, to settle the rate
of wages too.</p>

<p class="i1">"Ill-natured people did say that those who would not work on
Master Lobbit's farm, at <i>his</i> wages, stood a very bad chance if they
wanted any thing from the parish, or came for the doles of blankets,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>
coals, bread, and linsey-woolsey petticoats, which, under the provisions
of the tablets in Duxmoor church, are distributed every
Christmas. Of course, Mr. Lobbit supplied these gifts, as chief
shopkeeper, and dispensed them, as senior and perpetual churchwarden.
Lobbit gave capital dinners; plenty smoked on his
board, and pipes of negro-head with jorums of gin punch followed,
without stint.</p>

<p class="i1">"The two attorneys dined with him—and were glad to come,
for he had always money to lend, on good security, and his gin was
unexceptionable. So did two or three bullfrog farmers, very rich
and very ignorant. The doctor and curate came occasionally;
they were poor, and in his debt at 'The Shop,' therefore bound to
laugh at his jokes—which were not so bad, for he was no fool—so
that, altogether, Mr. Lobbit had reason to believe himself a very
popular man.</p>

<p class="i1">"But there was—where is there not?—a black drop in his overflowing
cup of prosperity.</p>

<p class="i1">"He had a son whom he intended to make a gentleman; whom
he hoped to see married to some lady of good family, installed in
the manor-house of Duxmoor, (if it should be sold cheap, at the
end of the Chancery suit,) and established as the squire of the
parish. Robert Lobbit had no taste for learning, and a strong
taste for drinking, which his father's customers did their best to
encourage. Old Lobbit was decent in his private habits; but, as
he made money wherever he could to advantage, he was always
surrounded by a levee of scamps, of all degrees—some agents and
assistants, some borrowers, and would-be borrowers. Young
Lobbit found it easier to follow the example of his father's companions
than to follow his father's advice. He was as selfish and
greedy as his father, without being so agreeable or hospitable.
In the school-room he was a dunce, in the play-ground a tyrant
and bully; no one liked him; but, as he had plenty of money,
many courted him.</p>

<p class="i1">"As a last resource his father sent him to Oxford; whence, after
a short residence, he was expelled. He arrived home drunk, and
in debt; without having lost one bad habit, or made one respectable
friend. From that period he lived a sot, a village rake, the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>
king of the taproom, and the patron of a crowd of blackguards,
who drank his beer and his health; hated him for his insolence,
and cheated him of his money.</p>

<p class="i1">"Yet Joseph Lobbit loved his son, and tried not to believe the
stories good-natured friends told of him.</p>

<p class="i1">"Another trouble fell upon the prosperous churchwarden. On
the north side of the parish, just outside the boundaries of Duxmoor
Manor, there had been, in the time of the Great Civil Wars,
a large number of small freehold farmers: each with from forty to
five acres of land; the smaller, fathers had divided among their
progeny; the larger had descended to eldest sons by force of primogeniture.
Joseph Lobbit's father had been one of these small
freeholders. A right of pasture on an adjacent common was attached
to these little freeholds; so, what with geese and sheep,
and a cow or so, even the poorest proprietor, with the assistance
of harvest work, managed to make a living, up to the time of the
last war. War prices made land valuable, and the common was
enclosed; though a share went to the little freeholders, and sons
and daughters were hired, at good wages, while the enclosure was
going on, the loss of the pasture for stock, and the fall of prices
at the peace, sealed their fate. John Lobbit, our portly friend's
father, succeeded to his little estate, of twenty acres, by the death
of his elder brother, in the time of best war prices, after he had
passed some years as a shopman in a great seaport. His first use
of it was to sell it, and set up a shop in Duxmoor, to the great
scandal of his farmer neighbours. When John slept with his
fathers, Joseph, having succeeded to the shop and savings, began
to buy land and lend money. Between shop credit to the five-acred
and mortgages to the forty-acred men, with a little luck in
the way of the useful sons of the freeholders being constantly enlisted
for soldiers, impressed for sailors, or convicted for poaching
offences, in the course of years Joseph Lobbit became possessed,
not only of his paternal freehold, but, acre by acre, of all his
neighbours' holdings, to the extent of something like five hundred
acres. The original owners vanished; the stout and young departed,
and were seen no more; the old and decrepit were received
and kindly housed in the workhouse. Of course it could not have
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>
been part of Mr. Lobbit's bargain to find them board and lodging
for the rest of their days at the parish expense. A few are said to
have drunk themselves to death; but this is improbable, for the
cider in that part of the country is extremely sour, so that it is
more likely they died of colic.</p>

<p class="i1">"There was, however, in the very centre of the cluster of freeholds
which the parochial dignitary had so successfully acquired,
a small barren plot of five acres with a right of road through the
rest of the property. The possessor of this was a sturdy fellow,
John Bodger by name, who was neither to be coaxed nor bullied
into parting with his patrimony.</p>

<p class="i1">"John Bodger was an only son, a smart little fellow, a capital
thatcher, a good hand at cobhouse building—in fact a handy man.
Unfortunately, he was as fond of pleasure as his betters. He sang
a comic song till peoples' eyes ran over, and they rolled on their
seats: he handled a singlestick very tidily; and, among the light
weights, was not to be despised as a wrestler. He always knew
where a hare was to be found; and, when the fox-hounds were out,
to hear his view-halloo did your heart good. These tastes were
expensive; so that when he came into his little property, although
he worked with tolerable industry, and earned good wages for that
part of the country, he never had a shilling to the fore, as the Irish
say. If he had been a prudent man, he might have laid by something
very snug, and defied Mr. Lobbit to the end of his days.</p>

<p class="i1">"It would take too long to tell all Joseph Lobbit's ingenious devices—after
plain, plump offers—to buy Bodger's acres had been
refused. John Bodger declined a loan to buy a cart and horse;
he refused to take credit or a new hat, umbrella, and waistcoat,
after losing his money at Bidecot Fair. He went on steadily
slaving at his bit of land, doing all the best thatching and building
jobs in the neighbourhood, spending his money, and enjoying
himself without getting into any scrapes; until Mr. Joseph Lobbit,
completely foiled, began to look on John Bodger as a personal
enemy.</p>

<p class="i1">"Just when John and his neighbours were rejoicing over the defeat
of the last attempt of the jolly parochial, an accident occurred
which upset all John's prudent calculations. He fell in love.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>
He might have married Dorothy Paulson, the blacksmith's daughter—an
only child, with better than two hundred pounds in the
bank, and a good business—a virtuous, good girl, too, except that
she was as thin as a hurdle, with a skin like a nutmeg-grater, and
rather a bad temper. But instead of that, to the surprise of every
one, he went and married Carry Hutchins, the daughter of Widow
Hutchins, one of the little freeholders bought out by Mr. Lobbit,
who died, poor old soul, the day after she was carried into the
workhouse, leaving Carry and her brother Tom destitute—that is
to say, destitute of goods, money, or credit, but not of common
sense, good health, good looks, and power of earning wages.</p>

<p class="i1">"Carry was nearly a head taller than John, with a face like a
ripe pear. He had to buy her wedding gown, and every thing
else. He bought them at Lobbit's shop. Tom Hutchins—he was
fifteen years old—a tall, spry lad, accepted five shillings from his
brother-in-law, hung a small bundle on his bird's-nesting stick,
and set off to walk to Bristol, to be a sailor. He was never heard
of any more at Duxmoor.</p>

<p class="i1">"At first all went well. John left off going to wakes and fairs,
except on business; stuck to his trades; brought his garden into
good order, and worked early and late, when he could spare time,
at his two fields, while his wife helped him famously. If they had
had a few pounds in hand, they would have had 'land and beeves.'</p>

<p class="i1">"But the first year twins came—a boy and girl; and the next
another girl, and then twins again, and so on. Before Mrs. Bodger
was thirty she had nine hearty, healthy children, with a fair
prospect of plenty more; while John was a broken man, soured,
discontented, hopeless. No longer did he stride forth eagerly to
his work, after kissing mother and babies; no longer did he hurry
home to put a finishing-stroke to the potato-patch, or broadcast
his oat crop; no longer did he sit whistling and telling stories of
bygone feats at the fireside, while mending some wooden implement
of his own, or making one for a neighbour. Languid and
moody, he lounged to his task with round shoulders and slouching
gait; spoke seldom—when he did, seldom kindly. His children,
except the youngest, feared him, and his wife scarcely opened her
lips, except to answer.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"A long, hard, severe winter, and a round of typhus fever,
which carried off two children, finished him. John Bodger was
beaten, and obliged to sell his bit of land. He had borrowed
money on it from the lawyer; while laid up with fever he had
silently allowed his wife to run up a bill at 'The Shop.' When
strong enough for work there was no work to be had. Lobbit saw
his opportunity, and took it. John Bodger wanted to buy a cow,
he wanted seed, he wanted to pay the doctor, and to give his boys
clothes to enable them to go to service. He sold his land for what
he thought would do all this and leave a few pounds in hand.
He attended to sign the deed and receive money; when instead of
the balance of twenty-five pounds he had expected, he received
one pound ten shillings, and a long lawyer's bill <i>receipted</i>.</p>

<p class="i1">"He did not say much; for poor countrymen don't know how to
talk to lawyers, but he went toward home like a drunken man;
and, not hearing the clatter of a horse behind him that had run
away, was knocked down, run over, and picked up with his collar-bone
and two ribs broken.</p>

<p class="i1">"The next day he was delirious; in the course of a fortnight he
came to his senses, lying on a workhouse bed. Before he could
rise from the workhouse bed, not a stick or stone had been left to
tell where the cottage of his fathers had stood for more than two
hundred years, and Mr. Joseph Lobbit had obtained, in auctioneering
phrase, a magnificent estate of five hundred acres within a
ring fence.</p>

<p class="i1">"John Bodger stood up at length a ruined, desperate, dangerous
man, pale, and weak, and even humble. He said nothing; the
fever seemed to have tamed every limb—every feature—except
his eyes, which glittered like an adder's when Mr. Lobbit came to
talk to him. Lobbit saw it and trembled in his inmost heart, yet
was ashamed of being afraid of a <i>pauper</i>!</p>

<p class="i1">"About this time Swing fires made their appearance in the
country, and the principal insurance companies refused to insure
farming stock, to the consternation of Mr. Lobbit; for he had
lately begun to suspect that among Mr. Swing's friends he was
not very popular, yet he had some thousand pounds of corn-stacks
in his own yards and those of his customers.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"John Bodger, almost convalescent, was anxious to leave the
poorhouse, while the master, the doctor, and every official, seemed
in a league to keep him there and make him comfortable, although
a short time previously the feeling had been quite different. But
the old rector of Duxmoor having died at the early age of sixty-six,
in spite of his care for his health, had been succeeded by a
man who was not content to leave his duties to deputies; all the
parish affairs underwent a keen criticism, and John and his large
family came under investigation. His story came out. The new
rector pitied and tried to comfort him; but his soothing words
fell on deaf ears. The only answer he could get from John was,
'A hard life while it lasts, sir, and a pauper's grave, a pauper
widow, pauper children; Parson, while this is all you can offer
John Bodger, preaching to him is of no use.'</p>

<p class="i1">"With the wife the clergyman was more successful. Hope and
belief are planted more easily in the hearts of women than of men,
for adversity softens the one and hardens the other. The rector
was not content with exhorting the poor; he applied to the rich
Joseph Lobbit on behalf of John Bodger's family, and as the rector
was not only a truly Christian priest, but a gentleman of good
family and fortune, the parochial ruler was obliged to hear and
to heed.</p>

<p class="i1">"Bland and smooth, almost pathetic, was Joseph Lobbit: he
was 'heartily sorry for the poor man and his large family; should
be happy to offer him and his wife permanent employment on
his Hill farm, as well as two of the boys and one of the girls.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The eldest son and daughter, the first twins, had been for some
time in respectable service. John would have nothing to do with
Mr. Lobbit.</p>

<p class="i1">"While this discussion was pending, the news of a ship at
Plymouth waiting for emigrants, reached Duxmoor.</p>

<p class="i1">"The parson and the great shopkeeper were observed in a long
warm conference in the rectory garden, which ended in their
shaking hands, and the rector proceeding with rapid strides to the
poorhouse.</p>

<p class="i1">"The same day the lately established girls' school was set to
work sowing garments of all sizes, as well as the females of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>
rector's family. A week afterward there was a stir in the village;
a wagon moved slowly away, laden with a father, mother,
and large family, and a couple of pauper orphan girls. Yes, it
was true; John and Carry Bodger were going to 'furrin parts,'
'to be made slaves on.' The women cried, and so did the children
from imitation. The men stared. As the emigrants passed the
Red Lion there was an attempt at a cheer from two tinkers; but
it was a failure; no one joined in. So staring and staring, the
men stood until the wagon crept round the turn of the lane and
over the bridge, out of sight; then bidding the 'wives' go home
and be hanged to 'em, their lords, that had twopence, went in to
spend it at the Red Lion, and those who had not, went in to see
the others drink, and talk over John Bodger's 'bouldness,' and
abuse Muster Lobbit quietly, so that no one in top-boots should
hear them;—for they were poor ignorant people in Duxmoor—they
had no one to teach them, or to care for them, and after the
fever, and a long hard winter, they cared little for their own flesh
and blood, still less for their neighbours. So John Bodger was
forgotten almost before he was out of sight.</p>

<p class="i1">"By the road-wagon which the Bodgers joined when they
reached the highway, it was a three days' journey to Plymouth.</p>

<p class="i1">"But, although they were gone, Mr. Lobbit did not feel quite
satisfied; he felt afraid lest John should return and do him some
secret mischief. He wished to see him on board ship, and fairly
under sail. Besides his negotiation with Emigration Brokers had
opened up ideas of a new way of getting rid, not only of dangerous
fellows like John Bodger, but of all kinds of useless paupers.
These ideas he afterward matured, and although important
changes have taken place in our emigrating system, even in 1851,
a visit to government ships, will present many specimens of parish
inmates converted, by dexterous diplomacy, into independent
labourers.</p>

<p class="i1">"Thus it was, that contrary to all precedent, Mr. Lobbit left
his shopman to settle the difficult case of credit with his Christmas
customers, and with best horse made his way to Plymouth; and
now for the first time in his life floated on salt water.</p>

<p class="i1">"With many grunts and groans he climbed the ship's side; not
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span>
being as great a man at Plymouth as at Duxmoor, no chair was
lowered to receive his portly person. The mere fact of having to
climb up a rope-ladder from a rocking boat on a breezy, freezing
day, was not calculated to give comfort or confident feelings to an
elderly gentleman. With some difficulty, not without broken
shins, amid the sarcastic remarks of groups of wild Irishmen, and
the squeaks of barefooted children—who not knowing his awful
parochial character, tumbled about Mr. Lobbit's legs in a most
impertinently familiar manner—he made his way to the captain's
cabin, and there transacted some mysterious business with the
Emigration Agent over a prime piece of mess beef and a glass of
Madeira. The Madeira warmed Mr. Lobbit. The captain assured
him positively that the ship would sail with the evening tide.
That assurance removed a heavy load from his breast: he felt like
a man who had been performing a good action, and also cheated
himself into believing that he had been spending <i>his own</i> money
in charity; so, at the end of the second bottle, he willingly chimed
in with the broker's proposal to go down below and see how the
emigrants were stowed, and have a last look at his 'lot.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Down the steep ladder they stumbled into the misery of a
'bounty' ship. A long, dark gallery, on each side of which were
ranged the berths; narrow shelves open to every prying eye;
where, for four months, the inmates were to be packed like herrings
in a barrel, without room to move, almost without air to
breathe; the mess table, running far aft the whole distance between
the masts, left little room for passing, and that little was
encumbered with all manner of boxes, packages, and infants,
crawling about like rabbits in a warren.</p>

<p class="i1">"The groups of emigrants were characteristically employed.
The Irish 'coshering,' or gossiping; for, having little or no baggage
to look after, they had little care; but lean and ragged,
monopolized almost all the good-humour of the ship. Acute cockneys,
a race fit for every change, hammering, whistling, screwing
and making all snug in their berths; tidy mothers, turning with
despair from alternate and equally vain attempts to collect their
numerous children out of danger, and to pack the necessaries of
a room into the space of a small cupboard, wept and worked away.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span>
Here, a ruined tradesman, with his family, sat at the table, dinnerless,
having rejected the coarse, tough salt meat in disgust:
there, a half-starved group fed heartily on rations from the same
cask, luxuriated over the allowance of grog, and the idea of such
a good meal daily. Songs, groans, oaths: crying, laughing, complaining,
hammering and fiddling combined to produce a chaos of
strange sounds; while thrifty wives, with spectacle on nose,
mended their husband's breeches, and unthrifty ones scolded.</p>

<p class="i1">"Amid this confusion, under the authoritative guidance of the
second mate, Mr. Lobbit made his way, inwardly calculating how
many poachers, pauper refractories, Whiteboys, and Captain
Rocks, were about to benefit Australia by their talents, until he
reached a party which had taken up its quarters as far as possible
from the Irish, in a gloomy corner near the stern. It consisted
of a sickly, feeble woman, under forty, but worn, wasted, retaining
marks of former beauty in a pair of large, dark, speaking eyes,
and a well-carved profile, who was engaged in nursing two
chubby infants, evidently twins, while two little things, just able
to walk, hung at her skirts; a pale, thin boy, nine or ten years
old, was mending a jacket; an elder brother, as brown as a berry,
fresh from the fields, was playing dolefully on a hemlock flute.
The father, a little, round-shouldered man, was engaged in cutting
wooden buttons from a piece of hard wood with his pocket-knife;
when he caught sight of Mr. Lobbit he hastily pulled off
his coat, threw it into his berth, and, turning his back, worked
away vigorously at the stubborn bit of oak he was carving.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Hallo, John Bodger, so here you are at last,' cried Mr. Lobbit;
'I've broken my shins, almost broken my neck, and spoilt
my coat with tar and pitch, in finding you out. Well, you're
quite at home, I see: twins all well?—both pair of them? How
do you find yourself, Missis?'</p>

<p class="i1">"The pale woman sighed, and cuddled her babies—the little
man said nothing, but sneered, and made the chips fly faster.</p>

<p class="i1">"'You're on your way now to a country where twins are no object;
your passage is paid, and you've only got now to pray for
the good gentlemen that have given you a chance of earning an
honest living.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"No answer.</p>

<p class="i1">"'I see them all here except Mary, the young lady of the
family. Pray, has she taken rue, and determined to stay in
England, after all; I expected as much'——</p>

<p class="i1">"As he spoke, a young girl, in the neat dress of a parlour servant,
came out of the shade.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Oh! you are there, are you, Miss Mary? So you have made
up your mind to leave your place and Old England, to try your
luck in Australia; plenty of husbands there: ha, ha!'</p>

<p class="i1">"The girl blushed, and sat down to sew at some little garments.
Fresh, rosy, neat, she was as great a contrast to her brother, the
brown, ragged ploughboy, as he was to the rest of the family,
with their flabby, bleached complexions.</p>

<p class="i1">"There was a pause. The mate, having done his duty by finding
the parochial dignitary's <i>protegés</i>, had slipped away to more
important business; a chorus of sailors 'yo heave ho-ing' at a
chain cable had ceased, and for a few moments, by common consent,
silence seemed to have taken possession of the long, dark
gallery of the hold.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Lobbit was rather put out by the silence, and no answers;
he did not feel so confident as when crowing on his own dunghill,
in Duxmoor; he had a vague idea that some one might steal behind
him in the dark, knock his hat over his eyes, and pay off old
scores with a hearty kick: but parochial dignity prevailed, and,
clearing his throat with a 'hem,' he began again—</p>

<p class="i1">"'John Bodger, where's your coat?—what are you shivering
there for, in your sleeves?—what have you done with the excellent
coat generously presented to you by the parish—a coat that
cost, as per contract, fourteen shillings and fourpence—you have
not dared to sell it, I hope?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well, Master Lobbit, and if I did, the coat was my own, I
suppose?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What, sir?'</p>

<p class="i1">"The little man quailed; he had tried to pluck up his spirit,
but the blood did not flow fast enough. He went to his berth and
brought out the coat.</p>

<p class="i1">"It was certainly a curious colour, a sort of yellow brown, the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>
cloth shrunk and cockled up, and the metal buttons turned a
dingy black.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Lobbit raved; 'a new coat entirely spoiled, what had he
done to it?' and as he raved he warmed, and felt himself at home
again, deputy acting chairman of the Duxmoor Vestry. But the
little man, instead of being frightened, grew red, lost his humble
mien, stood up, and at length, when his tormentor paused for
breath, looked him full in the face, and cried, 'Hang your coat!—hang
you!—hang all the parochials of Duxmoor! What have
I done with your coat? Why, I've dyed it; I've dipped it in a
tan-yard; I was not going to carry your livery with me. I mean
to have the buttons off before I'm an hour older. Gratitude you
talk of;—thanks you want, you old hypocrite, for sending me
away. I'll tell you what sent me,—it was that poor wench and
her twins, and a letter from the office, saying they would not insure
your ricks, while lucifer matches are so cheap. Ay, you may
stare—you wonder who told me that; but I can tell you more.
Who is it writes so like his father the bank can't tell the difference?'</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Lobbit turned pale.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Be off!' said the little man; 'plague us no more. You have
eaten me up with your usury; you've got my cottage and my bit
of land; you've made paupers of us all, except that dear lass,
and the one lad, and you'd wellnigh made a convict of me. But
never mind. This will be a cold, drear Christmas to us, and a
merry, fat one to you; but, perhaps, the Christmas may come
when Master Joseph Lobbit would be glad to change places with
poor, ruined John Bodger. I am going where I am told that sons
and daughters like mine are better than "silver, yea, than fine
gold." I leave you rich on the poor man's inheritance, and poor
man's flesh and blood. You have a son and daughter that will
revenge me. "Cursed are they that remove landmarks, and devour
the substance of the poor!"'</p>

<p class="i1">"While this, one of the longest speeches that John Bodger was
ever known to make, was being delivered, a little crowd had collected,
who, without exactly understanding the merits of the
case, had no hesitation in taking side with their fellow-passenger,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>
the poor man with the large family. The Irish began to inquire
if the stout gentleman was a tithe-proctor or a driver? Murmurs
of a suspicious character arose, in the midst of which, in a very
hasty, undignified manner, Mr. Lobbit backed out, climbed up to
the deck with extraordinary agility, and, without waiting to make
any complaints to the officers of the ship, slipped down the side
into a boat, and never felt himself safe, until called to his senses
by an attempt on the part of the boatman to exact four times the
regular fare.</p>

<p class="i1">"But a good dinner at the Globe (at parochial expense) and a
report from the agent that the ship had sailed, restored Mr. Lobbit's
equanimity; and by the time that, snugly packed in the
mail, he was rattling along toward home by a moonlight Christmas,
he began to think himself a martyr to a tender heart, and
to console himself by calculating the value of the odd corner of
Bodger's acres, cut up into lots for his labourers' cottages. The
result—fifty per cent.—proved a balm to his wounded feelings.</p>

<p class="i1">"I wish I could say that at the same hour John Bodger was
comforting his wife and little ones; sorry am I to report that he
left them to weep and complain, while he went forward and
smoked his pipe, and sang, and drank grog with a jolly party in
the forecastle—for John's heart was hardened, and he cared little
for God or man.</p>

<p class="i1">"This old, fond love for his wife and children seemed to have
died away. He left them, through the most part of the voyage,
to shift for themselves—sitting forward, sullenly smoking, looking
into vacancy, and wearying the sailors with asking, 'How many
knots to-day, Jack? When do you think we shall see land?' So
that the women passengers took a mortal dislike to him; and it
being gossiped about that when his wife was in the hospital he
never went to see her for two days, they called him a brute. So
'Bodger the Brute' he was called until the end of the voyage.
Then they were all dispersed, and such stories driven out of mind
by new scenes.</p>

<p class="i1">"John was hired to go into the far interior, where it was difficult
to get free servants at all; so his master put up with the
dead-weight encumbrance of the babies, in consideration of the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>
clever wife and string of likely lads. Thus, in a new country,
he began life again in a blue jersey and ragged corduroys, but with
the largest money income he had ever known."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The second scene is a picture of John Bodger's prosperity
in Australia, where eviction and workhouses are
forgotten. If Australia had not been open to John as
a refuge, most probably he would have become a criminal,
or a worthless vagrant. Here is the second
scene:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"In 1842, my friend Mrs. C. made one of her marches through
the bush with an army of emigrants. These consisted of parents
with long families, rough, country-bred single girls, with here
and there a white-handed, useless young lady—the rejected ones
of the Sydney hirers. In these marches she had to depend for
the rations of her ragged regiment on the hospitality of the settlers
on her route, and was never disappointed, although it often
happened that a day's journey was commenced without any distinct
idea of who would furnish the next dinner and breakfast.</p>

<p class="i1">"On one of these foraging excursions—starting at day-dawn
on horseback, followed by her man Friday, an old <i>lag</i>, (prisoner,)
in a light cart, to carry the provender—she went forth to look for
the flour, milk, and mullet, for the breakfast of a party whose
English appetites had been sharpened by travelling at the pace
of the drays all day, and sleeping in the open air all night.</p>

<p class="i1">"The welcome smoke of the expected station was found; the
light cart, with the complements and empty sack despatched;
when musing, at a foot-pace, perhaps on the future fortune of the
half-dozen girls hired out the previous day, Mrs. C. came upon a
small party which had also been encamping on the other side of
the hills.</p>

<p class="i1">"It consisted of two gawky lads, in docked smock frocks,
woolly hats, rosy, sleepy countenances—fresh arrivals, living
monuments of the care bestowed in developing the intelligence
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>
of the agricultural mind in England. They were hard at work
on broiled mutton. A regular, hard-dried bushman had just
driven up a pair of blood mares from their night's feed, and a
white-headed, brisk kind of young old man, the master of the
party, was sitting by the fire, trying to feed an infant with some
sort of mess compounded with sugar. A dray, heavily laden,
with a bullock-team ready harnessed, stood ready to start under
the charge of a bullock-watchman.</p>

<p class="i1">"The case was clear to a colonial eye; the white-headed man
had been down to the port from his bush-farm to sell his stuff,
and was returning with two blood mares purchased, and two emigrant
lads hired; but what was the meaning of the baby? We
see strange things in the bush, but a man-nurse is strange even
there.</p>

<p class="i1">"Although they had never met before, the white-headed man
almost immediately recognised Mrs. C.,—for who did not know
her, or of her, in the bush?—so was more communicative than
he otherwise might have been; so he said—</p>

<p class="i1">"'You see, ma'am, my lady, I have only got on my own place
these three years; having a long family, we found it best to disperse
about where the best wages was to be got. We began saving
the first year, and my daughters have married pretty well,
and my boys got to know the ways of the country. There's three
of them married, thanks to your ladyship; so we thought we
could set up for ourselves. And we've done pretty tidy. So, as
they were all busy at home, I went down for the first time to get
a couple of mares, and see about hiring some lads out of the ships
to help us. You see I have picked up two newish ones; I have
docked their frocks to a useful length, and I think they'll do
after a bit; they can't read, neither of them—no more could I
when I first came—but our teacher (she's one my missis had
from you) will soon fettle them; and I've got a power of things
on the dray; I wish you could be there at unloading; for it being
my first visit, I wanted something for all of them. But about
this babby is a curious job. When I went aboard the ship to
hire my shepherds, I looked out for some of my own country;
and while I was asking, I heard of a poor woman whose husband
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span>
had been drowned in a drunken fit on the voyage, that was lying
very ill, with a young babby, and not likely to live.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Something made me go to see her; she had no friends on
board, she knew no one in the colony. She started, like, at my
voice; one word brought on another, when it came out she was
the wife of the son of my greatest enemy.</p>

<p class="i1">"'She had been his father's servant, and married the son secretly.
When it was found out, he had to leave the country;
thinking that once in Australia, the father would be reconciled,
and the business that put her husband in danger might be
settled. For this son was a wild, wicked man, worse than the
father, but with those looks and ways that take the hearts of poor
lasses. Well, as we talked, and I questioned her—for she did not
seem so ill as they had told me—she began to ask me who I was,
and I did not want to tell; when I hesitated, she guessed, and
cried out, 'What, John Bodger, is it thee!'—and with that she
screamed, and screamed, and went off quite light-headed, and
never came to her senses until she died.</p>

<p class="i1">"'So, as there was no one to care for the poor little babby, and
as we had such a lot at home, what with my own children and my
grandchildren, I thought one more would make no odds, so the
gentleman let me take it, after I'd seen the mother decently
buried.</p>

<p class="i1">"'You see this feeding's a very awkward job, ma'am—and
I've been five days on the road. But I think my missis will be
pleased as much as with the gown I've brought her.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'What,' said Mrs. C., 'are you the John Bodger that came
over in the 'Cassandra,'—the John B.?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, ma'am.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'John, the Brute?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, ma'am. But I'm altered, sure-<i>ly</i>.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well,' continued John, 'the poor woman was old Joseph
Lobbit's daughter-in-law. Her husband had been forging, or
something, and would have been lagged if he'd staid in England.
I don't know but I might have been as bad if I had not got out
of the country when I did. But there's something here in always
getting on; and not such a struggling and striving that softens a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span>
poor man's heart. And I trust what I've done for this poor
babby and its mother may excuse my brutish behaviour. I
could not help thinking when I was burying poor Jenny Lobbit,
(I mind her well, a nice little lass, about ten years old,) I could
not help thinking as she lay in a nice, cloth-covered coffin, and a
beautiful stone cut with her name and age, and a text on her
grave, how different it is even for poor people to be buried here.
Oh, ma'am! a man like me, with a long family, can make ahead
here, and do a bit of good for others worse off. We live while we
live; when we die we are buried with decency. I remember,
when my wife's mother died, the parish officers were so cross, and
the boards of the coffin barely stuck together, and it was terrible
cold weather, too. My Carry used to cry about it uncommonly
all the winter. The swells may say what they like about it, but
I'll be blessed if it be'ent worth all the voyage to die in it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Not many days afterward, Mrs. C. saw John at home, surrounded
by an army of sons and daughters; a patriarch, and
yet not sixty years old; the grandchild of his greatest enemy the
greatest pet of the family.</p>

<p class="i1">"In my mind's eye there are sometimes two pictures. John
Bodger in the workhouse, thinking of murder and fire-raising in
the presence of his prosperous enemy; and John Bodger, in his
happy bush-home, nursing little Nancy Lobbit.</p>

<p class="i1">"At Duxmoor the shop has passed into other hands. The ex-shopkeeper
has bought and rebuilt the manor-house. He is the
squire, now, wealthier than ever he dreamed; on one estate a
mine has been found; a railway has crossed and doubled the
value of another; but his son is dead; his daughter has left him,
and lives, he knows not where, a life of shame. Childless and
friendless, the future is, to him, cheerless and without hope."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Poor-law guardians are characters held in very low
esteem by the Irish serfs, who are not backward in
expressing their contempt. The feeling is a natural one,
as will appear from considering who those guardians
generally are, and how they perform their duties:
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"At the introduction of the poor-law into Ireland, the workhouses
were built by means of loans advanced by the Government
on the security of the rates. Constructed generally in that style
of architecture called 'Elizabethan,' they were the most imposing
in the country in elevation and frequency, and, placed usually in
the wretched suburbs of towns and villages, formed among the
crumbling and moss-grown cottages, a pleasing contrast in the
eye of the tourist. They were calculated to accommodate from
five hundred to two thousand inmates, according to the area and
population of the annexed district; but some of them remained
for years altogether closed, or, if open, nearly unoccupied, owing
to the ingenious shifts of the 'Guardians,' under the advice of the
'Solicitor of the Board,' Their object was to economize the resources
of the Union, to keep the rates down, and in some instances
they evaded the making of any rate for years after the
support of the destitute was made nominally imperative by the
law of the land.</p>

<p class="i1">"As there was a good deal of patronage in a small way placed
at the disposal of the 'Guardians,' great anxiety was manifested
by those eligible to the office. Most justices of the peace were,
indeed, <i>ipso facto</i>, Guardians, but a considerable number had to
be elected by the rate-payers, and an active canvass preceded
every election. A great deal of activity and conviviality, if not
gayety, was the result, and more apparently important affairs were
neglected by many a farmer, shopkeeper, and professional man,
to insure his being elected a 'Guardian,' while the unsuccessful
took pains to prove their indifference, or to vent their ill-humour
in various ways, sometimes causing less innocuous effects than
the following sally:—</p>

<p class="i1">"At a certain court of quarter sessions, during the dog-day heat
of one of these contests, a burly fellow was arraigned before
'their worships' and the jury, charged with some petty theft;
and as he perceived that the proofs were incontestably clear
against him, he fell into a very violent trepidation. An attorney
of the court, not overburdened with business, and fond of occupying
his idle time in playing off practical jokes, perceiving how
the case stood, addressed the prisoner in a whisper over the side
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span>
of the dock, with a very ominous and commiserating shake of his
head:</p>

<p class="i1">"'Ah, you unfortunate man, ye'll be found guilty; and as sure
as ye are, ye'll get worse than hangin' or thransportation. As
sure as ever the barristher takes a pinch of snuff, that's his intention;
ye'll see him put on the black cap immaydiately. Plaid
guilty at once, and I'll tell ye what ye'll say to him afther.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The acute practitioner knew his man; the poor half-witted
culprit fell into the snare; and after a short and serious whispering
between them, which was unobserved in the bustle of the
court-house usual on such occasions, the prisoner cried out, just
as the issue-paper was going up to the jury, 'Me lord, me lord, I
plaid guilty; I beg your wortchip's an' their honours' pardon.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Very well,' said the assistant barrister, whose duty it was
to advise upon the law of each case, and preside at the bench in
judicial costume; 'very well, sir. Crier, call silence.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Several voices immediately called energetically for silence,
impressing the culprit with grave ideas at once of his worship's
great importance, and the serious nature of the coming sentence.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Withdraw the plea of not guilty, and take one of guilty to
the felony,' continued the assistant barrister, taking a pinch of
snuff and turning round to consult his brother magistrates as to
the term of intended incarceration.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Don't lose yer time, ye omodhaun!' said the attorney, with
an angry look at the prisoner.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Will I be allowed to spake one word, yer wortchips?' said
the unfortunate culprit.</p>

<p class="i1">"'What has he to say?' said the assistant barrister with considerable
dignity.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Go on, ye fool ye,' urged the attorney.</p>

<p class="i1">"'My lord, yer wortchips, and gintlemin av the jury,' exclaimed
the culprit, 'sind me out o' the counthry, or into jail, or breakin'
stones, or walkin' on the threadmill, or any thing else in the
coorse o' nature, as yer wortchips playses; but for the love o' the
Virgin Mary, <i>don't make me a Poor-Law Gargin</i>.'"
<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">The most recent legislation of the British government
in regard to Ireland, the enactment of the Poor-law
and the Encumbered Estates Act, has had but one grand
tendency—that of diminishing the number of the population,
which is, indeed, a strange way to improve the
condition of the nation. The country was not too
thickly populated; far from it: great tracts of land
were entirely uninhabited. The exterminating acts
were, therefore, only measures of renewed tyranny. To
enslave a people is a crime of sufficient enormity; but
to drive them from the homes of their ancestors to seek
a refuge in distant and unknown lands, is such an action
as only the most monstrous of governments would dare
to perform.</p>

<p class="i1">We have thus shown that Ireland has long endured,
and still endures, a cruel system of slavery, for which
we may seek in vain for a parallel. It matters not
that the Irish serf may leave his country; while he
remains he is a slave to a master who will not call him
property, chiefly because it would create the necessity
of careful and expensive ownership. If the Irish master
took his labourer for his slave in the American
sense, he would be compelled to provide for him, work
or not work, in sickness and in old age. Thus the
master reaps the benefits, and escapes the penalties of
slave-holding. He takes the fruits of the labourer's
toil without providing for him as the negro slaves of
America are provided for; nay, very often he refuses
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span>
the poor wretch a home at any price. In no other
country does the slaveholder seem so utterly reckless
in regard to human life as in Ireland. After draining
all possible profit from his labourer's service he turns
him forth as a pauper, to get scant food if workhouse
officials choose to give it, and if not, to starve by the
wayside. The last great famine was the direct result
of this accursed system of slavery. It was oppression
of the worst kind that reduced the mass of the people
to depend for their subsistence upon the success or
failure of the potato crop; and the horrors that followed
the failure of the crop were as much the results
of misgovernment as the crimes of the French Revolution
were the consequences of feudal tyranny, too long
endured. Can England ever accomplish sufficient
penance for her savage treatment of Ireland?</p>

<p class="i1">Some English writers admit that the degradation of
the Irish and the wretched condition of the country
can scarcely be overdrawn, but seek for the causes of
this state of things in the character of the people.
But why does the Irishman work, prosper, and achieve
wealth and position under every other government but
that of Ireland? This would not hbe the case if there
was any thing radically wrong in the Irish nature. In
the following extract from an article in the Edinburgh
Review, we have a forcible sketch of the condition
of Ireland, coloured somewhat to suit English
views:—</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"It is obvious that the insecurity of a community in which the
bulk of the population form a conspiracy against the law, must
prevent the importation of capital; must occasion much of what
is accumulated there to be exported; and must diminish the motives
and means of accumulation. Who will send his property to
a place where he cannot rely on its being protected? Who will
voluntarily establish himself in a country which to-morrow may
be in a state of disturbance? A state in which, to use the words
of Chief Justice Bushe, 'houses and barns and granaries are
levelled, crops are laid waste, pasture-lands are ploughed, plantations
are torn up, meadows are thrown open to cattle, cattle are
maimed, tortured, killed; persons are visited by parties of banditti,
who inflict cruel torture, mutilate their limbs, or beat them
almost to death. Men who have in any way become obnoxious
to the insurgents, or opposed their system, or refused to participate
in their outrages, are deliberately assassinated in the open
day; and sometimes the unoffending family are indiscriminately
murdered by burning the habitation.'<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> A state in which even
those best able to protect themselves, the gentry, are forced to
build up all their lower windows with stone and mortar; to admit
light only into one sitting-room, and not into all the windows
of that room; to fortify every other inlet by bullet-proof barricades;
to station sentinels around during all the night and the
greater part of the day, and to keep firearms in all the bedrooms,
and even on the side-table at breakfast and dinner-time.<a name="FNanchor_97_97"
id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a>
Well might Bishop Doyle exclaim, 'I do not blame the absentees;
I would be an absentee myself if I could.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The state of society which has been described may be considered
as a proof of the grossest ignorance; for what can be a
greater proof of ignorance than a systematic opposition to law,
carried on at the constant risk of liberty and of life, and producing
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span>
where it is most successful, in the rural districts, one level
of hopeless poverty, and in the towns, weeks of high wages and
months without employment—a system in which tremendous
risks and frightful sufferings are the means, and general misery
is the result? The ignorance, however, which marks the greater
part of the population in Ireland, is not merely ignorance of the
moral and political tendency of their conduct—an ignorance in
which the lower orders of many more advanced communities participate—but
ignorance of the businesses which are their daily
occupations. It is ignorance, not as citizens and subjects, but as
cultivators and labourers. They are ignorant of the proper rotation
of crops, of the preservation and use of manure—in a word,
of the means by which the land, for which they are ready to
sacrifice their neighbours' lives, and to risk their own, is to be
made productive. Their manufactures, such as they are, are
rude and imperfect, and the Irish labourer, whether peasant or
artisan, who emigrates to Great Britain, never possesses skill
sufficient to raise him above the lowest ranks in his trade.</p>

<p class="i1">"Indolence—the last of the causes to which we have attributed
the existing misery of Ireland—is not so much an independent
source of evil as the result of the combination of all others. The
Irishman does not belong to the races that are by nature averse
from toil. In England, Scotland, or America he can work hard.
He is said, indeed, to require more overlooking than the natives
of any of these countries, and to be less capable, or, to speak
more correctly, to be less willing to surmount difficulties by patient
intellectual exertion; but no danger deters, no disagreeableness
disgusts, no bodily fatigue discourages him.</p>

<p class="i1">"But in his own country he is indolent. All who have compared
the habits of hired artisans or of the agricultural labourers
in Ireland with those of similar classes in England or Scotland,
admit the inferiority of industry of the former. The indolence
of the great mass of the people, the occupiers of land, is obvious
even to the passing traveller. Even in Ulster, the province in
which, as we have already remarked, the peculiarities of the
Irish character are least exhibited, not only are the cabins, and
even the farm-houses, deformed within and without by accumulations
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>
of filth, which the least exertion would remove, but the land
itself is suffered to waste a great portion of its productive power.
We have ourselves seen field after field in which the weeds
covered as much space as the crops. From the time that his
crops are sowed and planted until they are reaped the peasant
and his family are cowering over the fire, or smoking, or lounging
before the door, when an hour or two a day employed in weeding
their potatoes, oats, or flax, would perhaps increase the produce
by one-third.</p>

<p class="i1">"The indolence of the Irish artisan is sufficiently accounted for
by the combinations which, by prohibiting piece-work, requiring
all the workmen to be paid by the day and at the same rate, prohibiting
a good workman from exerting himself, have destroyed
the motives to industry. 'I consider it,' says Mr. Murray, 'a
very hard rule among them, that the worst workman that ever
took a tool in his hand, should be paid the same as the best, but
that is the rule and regulation of the society; and that there was
only a certain quantity of work allowed to be done; so that, if
one workman could turn more work out of his hands, he durst
not go on with it. There is no such thing as piece-work; and if
a bad man is not able to get through his work, a good workman
dare not go further than he does.'<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></p>

<p class="i1">"The indolence of the agricultural labourer arises, perhaps,
principally from his labour being almost always day-work, and
in a great measure a mere payment of debt—a mere mode of
working out his rent. That of the occupier may be attributed to
a combination of causes. In the first place, a man must be master
of himself to a degree not common even among the educated
classes, before he can be trusted to be his own task-master.
Even among the British manufacturers, confessedly the most industrious
labourers in Europe, those who work in their own
houses are comparatively idle and irregular, and yet they work
under the stimulus of certain and immediate gain. The Irish
occupier, working for a distant object, dependent in some
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span>
measure on the seasons, and with no one to control or even to
advise him, puts off till to-morrow what need not necessarily be
done to-day—puts off till next year what need not necessarily be
done this year, and ultimately leaves much totally undone.</p>

<p class="i1">"Again, there is no damper so effectual as liability to taxation
proportioned to the means of payment. It is by this instrument
that the Turkish government has destroyed the industry, the
wealth, and ultimately the population of what were once the
most flourishing portions of Asia—perhaps of the world. It is
thus that the <i>taille</i> ruined the agriculture of the most fertile portions
of France. Now, the Irish occupier has long been subject
to this depressive influence, and from various sources. The competition
for land has raised rents to an amount which can be paid
only under favourable circumstances. Any accident throws the
tenant into an arrear, and the arrear is kept a subsisting charge,
to be enforced if he should appear capable of paying it. If any
of the signs of prosperity are detected in his crop, his cabin, his
clothes, or his food, some old demand may be brought up against
him. Again, in many districts a practice prevails of letting land
to several tenants, each of whom is responsible for the whole rent.
It is not merely the consequence, but the intention, that those who
can afford to pay should pay for those who cannot. Again, it is
from taxation, regulated by apparent property, that all the revenues
of the Irish Catholic Church are drawn. The half-yearly
offerings, the fees on marriages and christenings, and, what
is more important, the contributions to the priests made on
those occasions by the friends of the parties, are all assessed by
public opinion, according to the supposed means of the payer.
An example of the mode in which this works, occurred a few
months ago, within our own knowledge. £300 was wanted by a
loan fund, in a Catholic district in the North of Ireland. In the
night, one of the farmers, a man apparently poor, came to his landlord,
the principal proprietor in the neighbourhood, and offered
to lend the money, if the circumstance could be kept from his
priest. His motive for concealment was asked, and he answered,
that, if the priest knew he had £300 at interest, his dues would
be doubled. Secrecy was promised, and a stocking was brought
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>
from its hiding-place in the roof, filled with notes and coin, which
had been accumulating for years until a secret investment could
be found. Again, for many years past a similar taxation has existed
for political purposes. The Catholic rent, the O'Connell
tribute, and the Repeal rent, like every other tax that is unsanctioned
by law, must be exacted, to a larger or smaller amount,
from every <i>cottier</i>, or farmer, as he is supposed to be better or
worse able to provide for them.</p>

<p class="i1">"Who can wonder that the cultivator, who is exposed to these
influences, should want the industry and economy which give
prosperity to the small farmer in Belgium? What motive has he
for industry and economy? It may be said that he has the same
motive in kind, though not in degree, as the inhabitants of a happier
country; since the new demand to which any increase of his
means would expose him probably would not exhaust the whole
of that increase. The same might be said of the subjects of the
Pasha. There are inequalities of fortune among the cultivators
of Egypt, just as there were inequalities in that part of France
which was under the <i>taille</i>. No taxation ever exhausted the whole
surplus income of all its victims. But when a man cannot calculate
the extent to which the exaction may go—when all he knows
is, that the more he appears to have the more will be demanded—when
he knows that every additional comfort which he is seen to
enjoy, and every additional productive instrument which he is
found to possess, may be a pretext for a fresh extortion, he turns
careless or sulky—he yields to the strong temptation of indolence
and of immediate excitement and enjoyment—he becomes less
industrious, and therefore produces less—he becomes less frugal,
and therefore, if he saves at all, saves a smaller portion of that
smaller product."</p></div>

<p class="i1">For the turbulence of the Irish people, the general
indolence of the labourers and artisans, and the misery
that exists, the writer of the above sketch has causes
worthy of the acuteness of Sir James Graham, or some
other patent political economist of the aristocracy of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>
England. We need not comment. We have only made
the above quotation to show to what a condition Ireland
has been reduced, according to the admissions of an
aristocratic organ of England, leaving the reader acquainted
with the history of English legislation in regard
to the unhappy island to make the most natural
inferences.</p>

<p class="i1">The ecclesiastical system of Ireland has long been
denounced as an injury and an insult. As an insult it
has no parallel in history. Oppression and robbery in
matters connected with religion have been unhappily
frequent; but in all other cases the oppressed and
robbed have been the minority. That one-tenth of the
population of a great country should appropriate to
themselves the endowment originally provided for all
their countrymen; that, without even condescending to
inquire whether there were or were not a congregation
of their own persuasion to profit by them, they should
seize the revenues of every benefice, should divert them
from their previous application, and should hand them
over to an incumbent of their own, to be wasted as a
sinecure if they were not wanted for the performance
of a duty—this is a treatment of which the contumely
stings more sharply even than the injustice, enormous
as that is.<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a></p>

<p class="i1">The tax of a tithe for the support of a church in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>
which they have no faith is a grievance of which Irish
Catholics, who compose nine-tenths of the population
of Ireland, complain with the greatest reason. Of
what benefit to them is a church which they despise?
The grand reason for the existence of an established
church fails under such circumstances. The episcopal
institutions can communicate no religious instruction,
because the creed which they sustain is treated with
contempt. But where is the use of argument in regard
to this point. The Established Church affords many
luxurious places for the scions of the aristocracy, and
there lies the chief purpose of its existence. The oppressive
taxation of Catholics to support a Protestant
church will cease with the aristocracy.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p>




<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
</div>

<p class="ac">THE MENIAL SLAVES OF GREAT BRITAIN.</p>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">The</span> spirit of British institutions is nowhere more
plainly and offensively manifested than in the treatment
which domestic servants receive. The haughty
bearing, the constant display of supreme contempt,
and the frequency of downright cruelty on the part of
the master or mistress, and the complete abasement
and submission of the servant, have been repeatedly
subjects of observation, and show clearly that the days
of "lord and thrall" are vividly remembered in Great
Britain. In Miss Martineau's "Society in America,"
we find some observations to the point. She says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"However fascinating to Americans may be the luxury, conversational
freedom, and high intellectual cultivation of English
society, they cannot fail to be disgusted with the aristocratic insolence
which is the vice of the whole. The puerile and barbaric
spirit of contempt is scarcely known in America; the
English insolence of class to class, of individuals toward each
other, is not even conceived of, except in the one highly disgraceful
instance of the treatment of people of colour. Nothing in
American civilization struck me so forcibly and so pleasurably
as the invariable respect paid to man, as man. Nothing since
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>
my return to England has given me so much pain as the contrast
there. Perhaps no Englishman can become fully aware, without
going to America, of the atmosphere of insolence in which he
dwells; of the taint of contempt which infects all the intercourses
of his world. He cannot imagine how all he can say that is
truest and best about the treatment of people of colour in America,
is neutralized on the spot by its being understood how the
same contempt is spread over the whole of society here, which is
there concentrated upon the blacks."</p></div>

<p class="i1">It has been remarked that those who are most submissive
as serfs are the most arrogant and tyrannical
as lords. In Great Britain, from dukes down to workhouse
officials, the truth of this remark is obvious.
Each class treats its superior with abject deference,
and its inferior with overbearing insolence. The corollary
of our quotation from Miss Martineau is that the
treatment masters give to their negro slaves in America,
in their common intercourse, is what masters give to
their servants in Great Britain. In the free States of
America a master may command his servant, and if
obedience is refused he may deduct from his wages or
give him a discharge, but the laws prevent all violence;
the man is never forgotten in the servant. Another
state of affairs is to be found in Great Britain. The
laws are inadequate in their construction and too costly
in their administration to protect the poor servant.
Should he refuse obedience, or irritate his master in
any way, his punishment is just as likely to be kicks and
blows as a discharge or a reduction of wages. Englishmen
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span>
have frequently complained, while doing business
in the United States, because they were prevented from
striking refractory persons in their employ. In attempting
to act out their tyrannical ideas, such employers
have been severely chastised by their free,
republican servants.</p>

<p class="i1">What the serf of the feudal baron in the twelfth century
was, the servant of modern days is, in the eyes of
the lords and ladies of Great Britain. Between these
aristocrats and their retainers there exists no fellow-feeling;
the ties of our common brotherhood are
snapped asunder, and a wide and startling gap intervenes.
"Implicit obedience to commands, and a submissive,
respectful demeanour on the one hand, are
repaid by orders given in the most imperative tone, to
perform the most degrading offices, and by a contemptuous,
haughty demeanour on the other hand. In
the servant the native dignity of our nature is for the
time broken and crushed. In the master the worst
passion of our nature is exhibited in all its hideous deformity.
The spirit that dictated the expression, 'I
am the porcelain, you are only the common clay,' is not
confined to the original speaker, but, with few exceptions,
is very generally participated in. It is not,
however, solely by the aristocratic class that the servant
is treated with such contumely, the fault is largely
participated in by the middle and working classes.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>
The feelings of the English people are essentially aristocratic."<a name="FNanchor_100_100"
id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a></p>

<p class="i1">Until recently an order was placed at the entrance
to Kensington Gardens, which read as follows:—"<i>No
Dogs or Livery Servants admitted</i>." What more conclusive
evidence of the degraded condition of menial
servants in Great Britain could be obtained. A fellow-man,
of good character—a necessary conclusion from
his being in a situation—is placed on a level with
brutes. The livery seems as much the badge of slavery
in the nineteenth century as the collar of iron was in
the days of baron and villain. It is a bar to the reception
of a servant in any genteel society, and thus constantly
reminds him of his debased condition. He can
have but little hope of improving that condition, when
all intercourse with persons of superior fortune or
attainments is so effectually prevented. A menial he
is, and menials must his children be, unless they should
meet with extraordinary fortune. The following letter
of a footman recently appeared in the "Times" newspaper.
It is manly, and to the point.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Many articles having appeared in your paper under the term
'Flunkeyana,' all depreciatory of poor flunkeys, may I be allowed
to claim a fair and impartial hearing on the other side? I am a
footman, a liveried flunkey, a pampered menial—terms which
one Christian employs to another, simply because he is, by the
Almighty Dispenser of all things, placed, in his wisdom, lower
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>
in life than the other. Not yet having seen any defence of
servants, may I trust to your candour and your generosity to
insert this humble apology for a set of men constrained by circumstances
to earn their living by servitude? The present cry
seems to be to lower their wages. I will state simply a few broad
facts. I am a footman in a family in which I have lived thirteen
years. My master deems my services worth 24 guineas a year.
The question is, is this too much? I will strike the average of
expenditure. I am very economical, it is considered. I find for
washing I pay near £6 a year; shoes, £4 10<i>s.</i>; tea and sugar,
£2 12<i>s.</i>; wearing apparel, say £4 4<i>s.</i>; for books—I am a reader—I
allow myself £1 7<i>s.</i> You will see this amounts to £18 7<i>s.</i>
each year. I include nothing for amusement of any kind, but
say 13<i>s.</i> yearly. I thus account for £19 yearly, leaving £6 for
savings. One or two other things deserve, I think, a slight notice.
What is the character required of a mechanic or labourer?
None. What of a servant? Is he honest, sober, steady, religious,
cleanly, active, industrious, an early riser? Is he married? Wo
be to the poor fellow who does not answer yes to this category of
requests, save the last! The answer is, Your character does not
suit; you will not do for me. Again: does a servant forget himself
for once only, and get tipsy?—he is ruined for life. In a
word, sir, a thorough servant must be sober, steady, honest, and
single; 'he must never marry, must never be absent from his duties,
must attend to his master in sickness or in health, must be
reviled and never reply, must be young, able, good-tempered,
and willing, and think himself overpaid, if at the year's end he
has 5<i>s.</i> to put in his pocket. In old age or sickness he may go
to the workhouse, the only asylum open. In youth he has plenty
of the best, and can get one service when he leaves another, if
his character is good; but when youth deserts him, and age and
sickness creep on, what refuge is there for him? No one will
have him. He is too old for service, that is his answer. In service
he is trusted with valuable articles of every description; and
in what state of life, whether servant or artisan, surely he who is
placed in situations of trust deserves a trifle more of recompense
than is sufficient to pay his way and no more."</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">We have mentioned, in other chapters, some instances
of the cruel treatment of parish children apprenticed
to trades. We have also evidence that those
who are hound out as servants are subjected to the most
brutal tyranny. Occasionally, when the cases become
so outrageous as to be noised abroad, investigations are
held; but these instances are few compared with the
vast number of cases of cruel treatment of which the
public are permitted to hear nothing.</p>

<p class="i1">In the latter part of December, 1850, one Mr. Sloane,
a special pleader, residing in the Middle Temple, was
guilty of the most frightful cruelty to a servant-girl
named Jane Wilbred, formerly an inmate of the West
London Union. The girl, or some of her friends, complained,
and Mr. Sloane was brought before Alderman
Humphrey, at Guildhall. During the examination,
evidence of the most brutal treatment of the poor girl
was given, and such was the nature of the statements
made on oath that the fury of the people was aroused.
Mr. Sloane was committed for trial. When he was
conveyed to the Compter the mob attacked the cab, and
seemed determined to apply Lynch law. But the
wretch was safely deposited in prison, through the exertions
of the police. He was tried, convicted, and
sentenced to imprisonment; but whether he served out
his sentence we are not informed. This was one case
of punishment for a thousand of impunity.</p>

<p class="i1">So great was the indignation of the people at the developments
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span>
made upon the trial of Sloane, that some
measure of alleviation in regard to parish apprentices
and servants was deemed necessary. The Earl of
Carlisle, (late Lord Morpeth), brought in a bill in the
House of Commons, the object of which was to compel
the parish guardians and the binding magistrates to
watch over and protect the helpless servants and apprentices.
The bill was passed by Parliament; but it
is inoperative and ineffectual. Parish guardians are too
glad to get the children off their hands to take any
steps which might retard the desired consummation;
and the children can easily be prevented from making
complaints to magistrates by the threats of masters
and mistresses, and the common fear of consequences.
In this case, as in all legislation concerning the poor,
the Parliament of Great Britain has proceeded upon
the same principle as the physician who applies external
remedies for diseases which have internal causes. Instead
of endeavouring to remove the great causes of
pauperism—the monopolies of the aristocracy—it only
seeks to render the paupers easier in their condition.</p>

<p class="i1">Mr. Mayhew, in his "London Labour and the London
Poor," shows that a large number of the vagrants
of London and other English cities, are young persons
who have been servants, and have run away in consequence
of ill-treatment. Rather than be constantly
treated as slaves, the boys prefer to be vagabonds and
the girls prostitutes. They then enjoy a wild kind of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>
freedom, which, with all its filth and vice, has some
share of pleasure, unknown to those who move at the
beck of a master or mistress, and live in constant dread
of the rod.</p>

<p class="i1">In those countries where society is untainted with
aristocracy, the servant when performing duties is respected
as a human being—with a mind to think and a
heart to feel—one to be reprimanded or discharged
from service for neglect or positive wrong, but never
beaten as a soulless beast. In England, the servant,
to hold a place, must be a most abject, cringing, and
submissive slave. In some countries, the taint of negro
blood keeps a man always in the position of an inferior.
In England, the man of "serf blood," though he be a
Celt or Saxon, is ever treated as a hind by the man of
"noble blood;" and the possession of this same "noble
blood" justifies the most infamous scoundrel in treating
his domestics, not only with contempt, but positive
cruelty. Americans have been charged with having an
undying horror of the negro taint. In England, the
<i>common</i> blood is just as steadily abhorred by the dominant
class. The slavery of servants—their hopeless,
abject, and demoralizing condition—is the result, direct
and unmistakable, of the existence of the aristocracy.
When the serfs are completely freed; when the country
is no longer ruled by a few thousand persons; when a
long line of ancestry and magnificent escutcheons cease
to dignify imbeciles and blackguards; in short, when
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>
England takes a few steps upon that glorious path
which the great American republic has hewn for the
nations of the earth—there will be sure respect for man,
as man; and the servants may have some hope of improving
their condition.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p>




<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
</div>

<p class="ac">MENTAL AND MORAL CONDITION OF THE WHITE SLAVES
IN GREAT BRITAIN.</p>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">The</span> moral degradation and mental darkness of the
labouring classes in Great Britain in the middle of
the Nineteenth century, are appalling to contemplate.
Beneath the wing of a government professedly Christian,
there is sheltered a vast number of people who
must be characterized as heathen—as fit subjects of
missionary labours, such as are freely given to the dark
sons of India and Africa. They know nothing of God
but his prevailing name; and the Bible's light is hid
from them as completely as if its pages were inscribed
with Egyptian hieroglyphics. Their code of morals is
the creature of their sensual inclinations; their intelligence
seemingly the superior instinct of the animal.
Scotland is far beyond other portions of Great Britain
in the moral and mental cultivation of its people; but
there is a large class in that country to which the above
observations may be justly applied.</p>

<p class="i1">According to Kay, more than half the poor in England
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>
and Wales cannot read and write, while the majority
of the remainder know nothing of science, history,
geography, music, or drawing, and very little of
the Scripture history. In the great mercantile and
manufacturing towns, it is true that poor men, if they
defer their marriage, and have no extraordinary encumbrances,
may improve their condition; but scarcely
any facilities are offered for their acquiring the intelligence
necessary for the control of passion. The schools
in the towns are wretchedly arranged and managed.
Many are nothing more than "dame schools," conducted
often in cellars or garrets, by poor women, who
know how to read, but who often know nothing else.
The schools for the peasants are still fewer in number,
and inefficient in character; and hence the result, that
the English peasantry are more ignorant and demoralized,
less capable of helping themselves, and
more pauperized, than those of any other country in
Europe, if we except Russia, Turkey, South Italy, and
some parts of the Austrian Empire. A writer in a
recent number of "Household Words," makes some
remarkable statements in regard to the ignorance of
the English masses:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Wherever we turn, ignorance, not always allied to poverty,
stares us in the face. If we look in the Gazette, at the list of
partnerships dissolved, not a month passes but some unhappy
man, rolling perhaps in wealth, but wallowing in ignorance, is put
to the <i>experimentum crucis</i> of 'his mark,' The number of petty
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span>
jurors—in rural districts especially—who can only sign with a
cross is enormous. It is not unusual to see parish documents of
great local importance defaced with the same humiliating symbol
by persons whose office shows them to be not only 'men of mark,'
but men of substance. We have printed already specimens of
the partial ignorance which passes under the ken of the post-office
authorities, and we may venture to assert, that such specimens
of penmanship and orthography are not to be matched in
any other country in Europe. A housewife in humble life need
only turn to the file of her tradesmen's bills to discover hieroglyphics
which render them so many arithmetical puzzles. In
short, the practical evidences of the low ebb to which the plainest
rudiments of education in this country has fallen, are too common
to bear repetition. We cannot pass through the streets, we
cannot enter a place of public assembly, or ramble in the fields,
without the gloomy shadow of Ignorance sweeping over us. The
rural population is indeed in a worse plight than the other
classes. We quote—with the attestation of our own experience—the
following passage from one of a series of articles which have
recently appeared in a morning newspaper: 'Taking the adult
class of agricultural labourers, it is almost impossible to exaggerate
the ignorance in which they live and move and have their
being. As they work in the fields, the external world has some
hold upon them through the medium of their senses; but to all
the higher exercises of intellect they are perfect strangers. You
cannot address one of them without being at once painfully
struck with the intellectual darkness which enshrouds him.
There is in general neither speculation in his eyes nor intelligence
in his countenance. The whole expression is more that of
an animal than of a man. He is wanting, too, in the erect and
independent bearing of a man. When you accost him, if he is
not insolent—which he seldom is—he is timid and shrinking, his
whole manner showing that he feels himself at a distance from
you greater than should separate any two classes of men. He is
often doubtful when you address, and suspicious when you question
him; he is seemingly oppressed with the interview while it
lasts, and obviously relieved when it is over. These are the traits
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>
which I can affirm them to possess as a class, after having come
in contact with many hundreds of farm labourers. They belong
to a generation for whose intellectual culture little or nothing was
done. As a class, they have no amusements beyond the indulgence
of sense. In nine cases out of ten, recreation is associated
in their minds with nothing higher than sensuality. I have frequently
asked clergymen and others, if they often find the adult
peasant reading for his own or others' amusement? The invariable
answer is, that such a sight is seldom or never witnessed.
In the first place, <i>the great bulk of them cannot read</i>. In the next,
a large proportion of those who can, do so with too much difficulty
to admit of the exercise being an amusement to them.
Again, few of those who can read with comparative ease, have
the taste for doing so. It is but justice to them to say that many
of those who cannot read have bitterly regretted, in my hearing,
their inability to do so. I shall never forget the tone in which an
old woman in Cornwall intimated to me what a comfort it would
now be to her could she only read her Bible in her lonely
hours.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">From statistics given by Kay, it is apparent that the
proportional amount of crime to population, calculated
in two years, 1841 and 1847, was greater in almost all
the agricultural counties of England than it was in the
mining and manufacturing districts. The peasants of
England must be subjected to a singularly demoralizing
system to produce so terrible a result. The extreme
poverty of the agricultural labourers is the great stimulant
to crime of all kinds; but the darkness of ignorance
is also a powerful agent. Poverty renders the peasants
desperate, and they are too ignorant to see the consequences
of crime.</p>

<p class="i1">In a former part of this work, it was mentioned that
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span>
the miserable cottages in which the peasants are compelled
to reside have considerable influence in demoralizing
them. This deserves to be fully illustrated.
The majority of the cottages have but two small rooms;
in one of which husband and wife, young men and
young women, boys and girls, and, very often, a married
son and his wife all sleep together. Kay says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The accounts we receive from all parts of the country show
that these miserable cottages are crowded to an extreme, and that
the crowding is progressively increasing. People of both sexes,
and of all ages, both married and unmarried—parents, brothers,
sisters, and strangers—sleep in the same rooms and often in the
same beds. One gentlemen tells us of six people of different sexes
and ages, two of whom were man and wife, sleeping in the same
bed, three with their heads at the top and three with their heads
at the foot of the bed. Another tells us of adult uncles and nieces
sleeping in the same room close to each other; another, of the
uncles and nieces sleeping in the same bed together; another, of
adult brothers and sisters sleeping in the same room with a
brother and his wife just married; many tell us of adult brothers
and sisters sleeping in the same beds; another tells us of rooms
so filled with beds that there is no space between them, but that
brothers, sisters, and parents crawl over each other half naked in
order to get to their respective resting-places; another, of its being
common for men and women, not being relations, to undress together
in the same room, without any feeling of its being indelicate;
another, of cases where women have been delivered in bedrooms
crowded with men, young women, and children; and others mention
facts of these crowded bedrooms much too horrible to be
alluded to. Nor are these solitary instances, but similar reports
are given by gentlemen writing in <span class="sc">ALL</span> parts of the country."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The young peasants from their earliest years are
accustomed to sleep in the same bedrooms with people
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>
of both sexes; and they lose all sense of the indecency
of such a life, taking wives before they are twenty years
of age to sleep in the same room with their parents.
The policy now pursued by the aristocratic landlords,
of clearing their estates, tends to crowd the cottages
which are allowed to remain, and thus the demoralization
of the peasantry is stimulated. Adultery is the
very mildest form of the vast amount of crime which it
is engendering. Magistrates, clergymen, surgeons, and
parish-officers bear witness that cases of incest are increasing
in all parts of the country. An eminent
writer represents the consequences of the state of the
peasant's cottages in England and Wales in the following
startling, but unexaggerated terms:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"A man and woman intermarry, and take a cottage. In eight
cases out of ten it is a cottage with but two rooms. For a time,
so far as room at least is concerned, this answers their purpose;
but they take it, not because it is at the time sufficiently spacious
for them, but because they could not procure a more roomy dwelling,
even if they desired it. In this they pass with tolerable comfort,
considering their notions of what comfort is, the first period
of married life; but, by-and-by they have children, and the family
increases, until, in the course of a few years, they number, perhaps,
from eight to ten individuals. But in all this time there
has been no increase to their household accommodation. As at
first, so to the very last, there is but the <span class="sc">ONE SLEEPING-ROOM</span>. As
the family increases, additional beds are crammed into this apartment,
until at last it is so filled with them, that there is scarcely
room left to move between them. <i>I have known instances in which
they had to crawl over each other to get to their beds.</i> So long as
the children are very young, the only evil connected with this is
the physical one arising from crowding so many people together
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>
into what is generally a dingy, frequently a damp, and invariably
an ill-ventilated apartment. But years steal on, and the family
continues thus bedded together. Some of its members may yet
be in their infancy, but others of both sexes have crossed the line
of puberty. But there they are, still together in the same room—the
father and mother, the sons and the daughters—young men,
young women, and children. Cousins, too, of both sexes, are
often thrown together into the same room, <i>and not unfrequently into
the same bed</i>. I have also known of cases in which uncles slept
in the same room with their grown-up nieces, and newly-married
couples occupied the same chamber with those long married, and
with others marriageable but unmarried. A case also came to
my notice, already alluded to in connection with another branch
of the subject, in which two sisters, who were married on the
same day, occupied adjoining rooms in the same hut, with nothing
but a thin board partition, which did not reach the ceiling, between
the two rooms, and a door in the partition which only
partly filled up the doorway. For years back, in these same two
rooms, have slept twelve people of both sexes and all ages.
Sometimes, when there is but one room, a praiseworthy effort is
made for the conservation of decency. But the hanging up of a
piece of tattered cloth between the beds, which is generally all
that is done in this respect, and even that but seldom, is but a
poor set-off to the fact, that a family, which, in common decency,
should, as regards sleeping accommodations, be separated at least
into three divisions, occupy, night after night, but one and the
same chamber. This is a frightful position for them to be in
when an infectious or epidemic disease enters their abode. But
this, important though it be, is the least important consideration
connected with their circumstances. That which is most so, is
the effect produced by them upon their habits and morals. In
the illicit intercourse to which such a position frequently gives
rise, <i>it is not always that the tie of blood is respected</i>. Certain it
is, that when the relationship is even but one degree removed
from that of brother and sister, that tie is frequently overlooked.
And when the circumstances do not lead to such horrible consequences,
the mind, particularly of the female, is wholly divested
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>
of that sense of delicacy and shame, which, so long as they are
preserved, are the chief safeguards of her chastity. She therefore
falls an early and an easy prey to the temptations which beset
her beyond the immediate circle of her family. People in the
other spheres of life are but little aware of the extent to which
this precocious demoralization of the female among the lower
orders in the country has proceeded. But how could it be otherwise?
The philanthropist may exert himself in their behalf, the
moralist may inculcate even the worldly advantages of a better
course of life, and the minister of religion may warn them of the
eternal penalties which they are incurring; but there is an instructor
constantly at work, more potent than them all—an instructor
in mischief, of which they must get rid ere they can
make any real progress in their laudable efforts—and that is, <i>the
single bedchamber in the two-roomed cottage</i>."</p></div>

<p class="i1">But such cottages will continue to be the dwellings
of the peasantry until the system of lord and serf is
abolished, until they can obtain ground of their own,
and have no fear of eviction at a moment's notice. It
has often been a matter of wonder that there is less discontent
and murmuring among the miserable peasants
than among the workmen in the manufacturing towns.
The reason lies upon the surface. The workmen in the
factories are generally more intelligent than the agricultural
labourers, and have a keen feeling of their
degradation. It requires a certain degree of elevation
to render a man discontented. The wallowing pig is
satisfied.</p>

<p class="i1">We need not be surprised to find that where so much
misery prevails crime is frightfully frequent. The
"Times" of the 30th of November, 1849, shows the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>
terrible increase of crime in the last few years in Dorsetshire.
The "Times" says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"We yesterday published, in a very short compass, some grave
particulars of the unfortunate county of Dorset. It is not simply
the old story of wages inadequate for life, hovels unfit for habitation,
and misery and sin alternately claiming our pity and our
disgust. This state of things is so normal, and we really believe
so immemorial in that notorious county, that we should rather
deaden than excite the anxiety of the public by a thrice-told tale.
What compels our attention just now is a sudden, rapid, and, we
fear, a forced aggravation of these evils, measured by the infallible
test of crime. Dorsetshire is fast sinking into a slough of wretchedness,
which threatens the peace and morality of the kingdom at
large. The total number of convictions, which</p>

<p class="ml5">"In 1846 was 798, and<br />
"In 1847 was 821, mounted up,<br />
"In 1848, to 950;</p>

<p class="i1">"and up to the special general session, last Tuesday, (Dec. 1849,)
for less than eleven months of the present year, to the astonishing
number of 1193, being at the rate of 1300 for the whole year!
Unless something is done to stop this flood of crime, or the tide
happily turns of itself, the county will have more than <i>doubled</i> its
convictions within four years! Nor is it possible for us to take
refuge in the thought that the increase is in petty offences. In no
respect is it a light thing for a poor creature to be sent to jail,
whatever be the offence. He has broken the laws of his country,
and forfeited his character. His name and his morals are alike
tainted with the jail. He is degraded and corrupted. If his
spirit be not crushed, it is exasperated into perpetual hostility to
wealth and power.</p>

<hr class="sect" />

<p class="i1">"It is, then, no light affair that a rural county, the abode of an
ancient and respectable aristocracy, somewhat removed from the
popular influences of the age, with a population of 175,043 by the
late census, should produce in four years near 4000 convictions,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>
being at the rate of one conviction in that period for every sixty
persons, or every twelve householders."</p></div>

<p class="i1">We might express our doubts of the real respectability
of the ancient aristocracy of Dorsetshire. They
do not injure society in a way of which the laws take
notice; but had they nothing to do with the making
of the 4000 criminals? In 1834, an English writer
estimated that about 120,000 of the people were always
in jail. At the present time the number is still
greater.</p>

<p class="i1">The humane and able author of "Letters on Rural
Districts," published in the "Morning Chronicle" of
London, thus speaks of the frightful immorality among
the agricultural population of Norfolk and Suffolk counties:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"One species of immorality, which is peculiarly prevalent in
Norfolk and Suffolk, is that of bastardy. With the exception of
Hereford and Cumberland, there are no counties in which the percentage
of bastardy is so high as it is in Norfolk—being there
53.1 per cent. above the average of England and Wales; in Suffolk
it is 27 per cent. above, and in Essex 19.1 per cent. below the
average. In the two first-named counties, and even in the latter
one, though not to the same extent, <i>there appears to be a perfect
want of decency among the people</i>. 'The immorality of the young
women,' said the rector of one parish to me, 'is literally horrible,
and I regret to say it is on the increase in a most extraordinary
degree. When I first came to the town, the mother of a bastard
child used to be ashamed to show herself. The case is now
quite altered; no person seems to think any thing at all of it.
When I first came to the town, there was no such thing as a
common prostitute in it; now there is an enormous number of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>
them. When I am called upon to see a woman confined with an
illegitimate child, I endeavour to impress upon her the enormity
of the offence; and there are no cases in which I receive more
insult from those I visit than from such persons. They generally
say they'll get on as well, after all that's said about it; and if they
never do any thing worse than that, they shall get to heaven as
well as other people.' Another clergyman stated to me, that he
never recollected an instance of his having married a woman who
was not either pregnant at the time of her marriage, or had had
one or more children before her marriage. Again, a third clergyman
told me, that he went to baptize the illegitimate child of one
woman, who was thirty-five years of age, and it was absolutely
impossible for him to convince her that what she had done was
wrong. 'There appears,' said he, 'to be among the lower orders
a perfect deadness of all moral feeling upon this subject.' Many
of the cases of this kind, which have come under my knowledge,
evince such horrible depravity, that I dare not attempt to lay them
before the reader. Speaking to the wife of a respectable labourer
on the subject, who had seven children, one of whom was then
confined with an illegitimate child, she excused her daughter's
conduct by saying, 'What was the poor girl to do! The chaps say
that they won't marry 'em first, and then the girls give way. I
did the same myself with my husband.' There was one case in
Cossey, in Norfolk, in which the woman told me, without a blush
crimsoning her cheek, that her daughter and self had each had
a child by a sweep, who lodged with them, and who promised
to marry the daughter. The cottage in which these persons slept
consisted of but one room, and there were two other lodgers who
occupied beds in the same room; in one of which 'a young woman
occasionally slept with the young man she was keeping company
with.' The other lodger was an old woman of seventy-four
years of age. To such an extent is prostitution carried on in
Norwich, that out of the 656 licensed public-houses and beer-shops
in the city, there are not less than 220, which are known to the
police as common brothels. And, although the authorities have
the power of withholding the licenses, nothing is done to put a
stop to the frightful vice."</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">A want of chastity is universal among the female
peasants of Wales, arising chiefly from the herding of
many persons in the small cottages. In the vicinity of
the mines, the average of inhabitants to a house is said
to be nearly twelve. The Rev. John Griffith, vicar of
Aberdare, says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Nothing can be lower, I would say more degrading, than the
character in which the women stand relative to the men. The
men and the women, married as well as single, live in the same
house, <i>and sleep in the same room</i>. The men do not hesitate to
wash themselves naked before the women; on the other hand, the
women do not hesitate to change their under garments before the
men. Promiscuous intercourse is most common, is thought of as
nothing, and the women do not lose caste by it."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The Welsh are peculiarly exempt from the guilt of
great crimes. But petty thefts, lying, cozening, every
species of chicanery and drunkenness are common
among the agricultural population, and are regarded as
matters of course.</p>

<p class="i1">Infanticide is practised to a terrible extent in England
and Wales. In most of the large provincial towns,
"burial clubs" exist. A small sum is paid every year by
the parent, and this entitles him to receive from £3 to £5
from the club on the death of the child. Many persons
enter their children in several clubs; and, as the burial
of the child does not necessarily cost more than £1, or
at the most £1 10<i>s.</i>, the parent realizes a considerable
sum after all the expenses are paid. For the sake of
this money, it has become common to cause the death
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>
of the children, either by starvation, ill-usage, or poison.
No more horrible symptom of moral degradation could
be conceived.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Mr. Chadwick says,<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a>
'officers of these burial societies, relieving
officers, and others, whose administrative duties put them in
communication with the lowest classes in these districts, (the
manufacturing districts,) express their moral conviction of the
operation of such bounties to produce instances of the visible neglect
of children of which they are witnesses. They often say—You
are not treating that child properly, it will not live; <i>is it in
the club</i>? And the answer corresponds with the impression produced
by the sight.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Mr. Gardiner, the clerk of the Manchester union, while
registering the causes of death, deemed the cause assigned by a
labouring man for the death of a child unsatisfactory, and staying
to inquire, found that popular rumour assigned the death to wilful
starvation. The child (according to a statement of the case)
had been entered in at least <i>ten</i> burial clubs; <i>and its parents had
had six other children, who only lived from nine to eighteen months
respectively</i>. They had received from several burial clubs twenty
pounds for <i>one</i> of these children, and they expected at least as
much on account of this child. An inquest was held at Mr. Gardiner's
instance, when several persons, who had known the deceased,
stated that she was a fine fat child shortly after her birth,
but that she soon became quite thin, was badly clothed, and
seemed as if she did not get a sufficiency of food.... The jury,
having expressed it as their opinion that the evidence of the
parents was made up for the occasion and entitled to no credit,
returned the following verdict:—Died through want of nourishment,
but whether occasioned by a deficiency of food, or by disease
of the liver and spine brought on by improper food and drink
or otherwise, does not appear.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Two similar cases came before Mr. Coppock, the clerk and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>
superintendent-registrar of the Stockport union, in both of which
he prosecuted the parties for murder. In one case, where three
children had been poisoned with arsenic, the father was tried with
the mother and convicted at Chester, and sentenced to be transported
for life, but the mother was acquitted. In the other case,
where the judge summed up for a conviction, the accused, the
father, was, to the astonishment of every one, acquitted. In this
case the body was exhumed after interment, and <i>arsenic was
detected in the stomach</i>. In consequence of the suspicion raised
upon the death on which the accusation was made in the first
case, the bodies of two other children were taken up and examined,
when <i>arsenic was found in their stomachs</i>. In all these cases
payments on the deaths of the children were insured from the
burial clubs; the cost of the coffin and burial dues would not be
more than about one pound, and the allowance from the club is
three pounds.</p>

<p class="i1">"'It is remarked on these dreadful cases by the superintendent-registrar,
<i>that the children who were boys, and therefore likely
to be useful to the parents, were not poisoned</i>; the female children
were the victims. It was the clear opinion of the medical officers
that infanticides have been committed in Stockport to obtain the
burial money.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">Such parents must be placed upon a level with the
swine that devour their farrow. We are led to doubt
whether they could sink much lower in the animal
scale; poverty and ignorance seem to have thoroughly
quenched the spark of humanity. The author of "Letters
on Labour, and the Poor in the Rural Districts,"
writing of the burial clubs in the eastern counties, says:</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The suspicion that a great deal of 'foul play' exists with respect
to these clubs is supported, not only by a comparison of the
different rates of mortality, but it is considerably strengthened
by the facts proved upon the trial of Mary May. The Rev. Mr.
Wilkins, the vicar of Wickes, who was mainly instrumental in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>
bringing the case before a court of justice, stated to me that, from
the time of Mary May coming to live in his parish, he was determined
to keep a very strict watch upon her movements, as he had
heard that <i>fourteen of her children had previously died suddenly</i>.</p>

<p class="i1">"A few weeks after her arrival in his parish, she called upon
him to request him to bury one of her children. Upon his asking
her which of the children it was, she told him that it was Eliza,
a fine healthy-looking child of ten years old. Upon his expressing
some surprise that she should have died so suddenly, she said,
'Oh, sir, she went off like a snuff; all my other children did so
too.' A short time elapsed, and she again waited upon the vicar
to request him to bury her brother as soon as he could. His suspicions
were aroused, and he endeavoured to postpone the funeral
for a few days, in order to enable him to make some inquiries.
Not succeeding in obtaining any information which would warrant
further delay in burying the corpse, he most reluctantly
proceeded in the discharge of his duty.</p>

<p class="i1">"About a week after the funeral, Mary May again waited upon
him to request him to sign a certificate to the effect that her brother
was in perfect health a fortnight before he died, that being
the time at which, as it subsequently appeared, she had entered
him as nominee in the Harwich Burial Club. Upon inquiring as
to the reason of her desiring this certificate, she told him that,
unless she got it, she could not get the money for him from the
club. This at once supplied the vicar with what appeared to be
a motive for 'foul play' on the part of the woman. He accordingly
obtained permission to have the body of her brother exhumed;
doses of arsenic were detected, and the woman was arrested.
With the evidence given upon the trial the reader is, no
doubt, perfectly conversant, and it will be unnecessary for me to
detail it. She was convicted. Previously to her execution she
refused to make any confession, but said, 'If I were to tell all
I know, it would give the hangman work for the next twelve
months.' Undue weight ought not to be attached to the declaration
of such a woman as Mary May; but, coupled with the disclosures
that took place upon the trial with respect to some of her
neighbours and accomplices, and with the extraordinary rate
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>
of mortality among the clubs, it certainly does appear that the
general opinion with respect to the mischievous effects of these
societies is not altogether without foundation.</p>

<p class="i1">"Although there are not in Essex, at present, any burial clubs
in which children are admitted under fourteen years of age as
members or nominees, still, as illustrating the evils arising from
these clubs, I may state that many persons who are fully conversant
with the working of such institutions have stated that they
have frequently been shocked by hearing women of the lower
classes, when speaking of a neighbour's child, make use of such
expressions as, 'Oh, depend upon it, the child'll not live; it's in
the burial club.' When speaking to the parents of a child who
may be unwell, it is not unfrequently that they say, 'You should
do so and so,' or, 'You should not do so and so;' '<i>You should
not treat it in that way; is it in the burial club</i>?' Instances of the
most culpable neglect, if not of graver offences, are continually
occurring in districts where clubs exist in which children are
admitted. A collector of one of the most extensive burial societies
gave it as his opinion, founded upon his experience, that it
had become a constant practice to neglect the children for the
sake of the allowance from the clubs; and he supported his
opinion by several cases which had come under his own observation."</p></div>

<p class="i1">A vast number of other facts, of equally shocking
character, have been ascertained. The Rev. J. Clay,
chaplain of the Preston House of Correction, in a
sanitary report, makes some statements of a nature to
startle:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"It appears, on the unimpeachable authority of a burial-club
official, that '<i>hired nurses speculate on the lives of infants committed
to their care, by entering them in burial clubs</i>;' that 'two young
women proposed to enter a child into his club, and to pay the
weekly premium alternately. Upon inquiring as to the relation
subsisting between the two young women and the child, he learned
that the infant was placed at nurse with the mother of one of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>
these young women,' The wife of a clergymen told me that,
visiting a poor district just when a child's death had occurred,
instead of hearing from the neighbours the language of sympathy
for the bereaved parent, she was shocked by such observations
as—'Ah! it's a fine thing for the mother, the child's in two clubs!'</p>

<p class="i1">"As regards one town, I possess some evidence of the amount
of burial-club membership and of infant mortality, which I beg
to lay before you. The reports of this town refer to 1846, when
the population of the town amounted to about 61,000. I do not
name the town, because, as no actual burial-club murders are
known to have been committed in it, and as such clubs are not
more patronized there than in other places, it is, perhaps, not
fair to hold it up to particular animadversion; indeed, as to its
general character, this very town need not fear comparison with
any other. Now this place, with its sixty-one thousand people
of all classes and ages, maintains at least eleven burial clubs, the
members of which amount in the aggregate to nearly fifty-two
thousand; nor are these all. Sick clubs, remember, act as burial
clubs. Of these there are twelve or fourteen in the town, mustering
altogether, probably, two thousand members. Here, then,
we have good data for comparing population with '<i>death lists</i>;'
but it will be necessary, in making the comparison, to deduct
from the population all that part of it which has nothing to do
with these clubs, viz. all infants under two months old, and all
persons of unsound health, (both of these classes being excluded
by the club rules;) all those also of the working classes, whose
sound intelligence and feeling lead them to abhor burial-club
temptations; and all the better classes, to whom five or twenty
pounds offer no consolation for the death of a child. On the
hypothesis that these deductions will amount to one-sixth of the
entire population, it results that the <i>death lists</i> are more numerous
by far than the entire mass—old, young, and infants—which support
them; and, according to the statement of a leading death-list
officer, <i>three-fourths</i> of the names on these catalogues of the doomed
are the names of children. Now, if this be the truth—and I believe
it is—hundreds, if not thousands of children must be entered
each into <i>four</i>, <i>five</i>, or even <i>twelve</i> clubs, their chances of life
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>
diminishing, of course, in proportion to the frequency with which
they are entered. Lest you should imagine that such excessive
addiction to burial clubs is only to be found in one place, I
furnish you with a report for 1846, of a single club, which then
boasted thirty-four thousand one hundred members, <i>the entire
population of the town to which it belongs having been, in 1841, little
more than thirty-six thousand</i>!"</p></div>

<p class="i1">The authorities from whom these statements are
derived are of the highest respectability; they hear
witness to a state of affairs scarcely to be conceived by
people of other civilized countries. Hundreds of thousands
of human beings seem to be driven into an awful
abyss of crime and misery by the iron rule of the aristocracy—an
abyss where mothers forget maternal feelings,
where marriage vows are scoffed, and where the
momentary gratification of brutal passions is alone
esteemed. There, indeed, there is no fear of God, and
heathenism spreads its upas shade to poison and destroy.</p>

<p class="i1">The only amusement which the English poor possess
in many parts of the country, is to visit taverns. In
the towns the "gin-palaces" and the beer-houses are
very numerous; and whenever the poor have leisure,
these places are thronged by drunken men and abandoned
women. In all the rural districts there is a
frightful amount of drunkenness. British legislation
has increased the number of these hot-beds of crime
and pauperism.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"In the beginning of the revolutionary war the duties on malt
were <i>augmented</i>, and in 1825 the duties on spirits were <i>decreased</i>.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span>
It was thus that whisky was substituted for ale as the beverage
of the Scotch, and that gin and brandy began to be generally
drunk by the English poor.</p>

<p class="i1">"The consumption of spirits immediately increased in a tremendous
proportion. From 4,132,263 gallons, the consumption
in 1825, it rose in one year to 8,888,648 gallons; that is, the consumption
was <i>in one year</i> more than <i>doubled</i> by the change; and
from that period, with the exception of the year next following,
viz. 1827, the consumption has been progressively augmenting.</p>

<p class="i1">"Since that time the noted beer-shop act has been passed. By
that act, any one was enabled to obtain a license to enable him
to sell beer, whether the person desirous of doing so was a person
of respectable character or not.</p>

<p class="i1">"But this was the least of the evils which were effected by that
act. A clause, which was still more injurious, was that which
prescribed that the liquor <i>must be drunk upon the premises of the
beer-house</i>, i. e. either in the beer-house or on a bench just outside
the door.</p>

<p class="i1">"This has the effect in many cases, where the poor would
otherwise take the beer home to their own cottages, of forcing the
young men who wish to have a little to drink, to sit down and
take it in the society of the worst people of the neighbourhood,
who always, as a matter of course, spend their leisure in the
tavern. I am convinced that nothing can be more injurious in
its effects upon the poor than this clause. It may be said to
<i>force</i> the honest labourers into the society and companionship of
the most depraved, and so necessarily to demoralize the young
and honest labourer.</p>

<p class="i1">"The following is the number of gallons of <i>native</i> proof spirits
on which duty was paid for home consumption in the United
Kingdom, in the undermentioned years:—</p>

<table class="narrow" id="POPULATION_DECREASE-3" summary="Population Decrease">
  <tr>
    <th>Years</th>
    <th>Gallons.</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1843</td>
    <td class="c1">18,841,890</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1844</td>
    <td class="c1">20,608,525</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1845</td>
    <td class="c1">23,122,588</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1846</td>
    <td class="c1">24,106,697</td>
  </tr>
</table>
</div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"To the above must be added the number of gallons of foreign
and colonial spirits retained for home consumption, as follows:—</p>

<table class="narrow" id="FOREIGN_SPIRITS" summary="Foreign and Colonial Spirits ">
  <tr>
    <th>Years</th>
    <th style="text-align:center;">No. of Gallons of Foreign, &amp;c. Spirits.</th>
    <th style="text-align:center;">No. of Gallons of Home and Foreign Spirits consumed in the
	  United Kingdom.</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1843</td>
    <td class="c3">3,161,957</td>
    <td class="c3">22,026,289</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1844</td>
    <td class="c3">3,242,606</td>
    <td class="c3">22,042,905</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1845</td>
    <td class="c3">3,549,889</td>
    <td class="c3">26,672,477</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1">1846</td>
    <td class="c3">4,252,237</td>
    <td class="c3">28,360,934</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<p class="i1">"From the above statistics it appears that the consumption
of spirits in the United Kingdom is increasing much more rapidly
than the population!</p>

<p class="i1">"The number of licenses granted to retailers of spirits or beer
amounted, in 1845, to 237,345; that is, there was to be found, in
1845, a retailer of beer or spirits in every 115 of the population!
Of the beer licenses, 68,086 were for dwellings rated under £20
per annum, and 35,340 were licenses for premises rated under
£10 per annum! This shows how large a proportion of the beer-shops
are situated in the poorest districts, for the use of the
poorest classes.<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a></p></div>

<p class="i1">There is a section of London, which in 1847 had
2000 inhabitants, one butcher's shop, two bakers'
shops, and seventeen beer-houses. The total cost of
the spirits and beer consumed in the United Kingdom
was, in 1848, estimated at £65,000,000, a sum greater,
by several millions, than the whole revenue of the
government. The inimitable Dickens has given us a
vivid sketch of a London gin-palace and its attendants.
He says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The extensive scale on which these places are established,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>
and the ostentatious manner in which the business of even the
smallest among them is divided into branches, is most amusing.
A handsome plate of ground glass in one door directs you 'To
the Counting-house;' another to the 'Bottle Department;' a third
to the 'Wholesale Department,' a fourth to the 'Wine Promenade;'
and so forth, until we are in daily expectation of meeting
with a 'Brandy Bell,' or a 'Whisky Entrance.' Then ingenuity
is exhausted in devising attractive titles for the different descriptions
of gin; and the dram-drinking portion of the community,
as they gaze upon the gigantic black and white announcements,
which are only to be equalled in size by the figures beneath them,
are left in a state of pleasing hesitation between 'The Cream of
the Valley,' 'The Out and Out,' 'The No Mistake,' 'The Good
for Mixing,' 'The real Knock-me-down,' 'The celebrated Butter
Gin,' 'The regular Flare-up,' and a dozen other equally inviting
and wholesome <i>liqueurs</i>. Although places of this description
are to be met with in every second street, they are invariably
numerous and splendid in precise proportion to the dirt and
poverty of the surrounding neighbourhood. The gin-shops in
and near Drury-lane, Holborn, St. Giles's, Covent-garden, and
Clare-market, are the handsomest in London. There is more of
filth and squalid misery near those great thoroughfares than in
any part of this mighty city.</p>

<p class="i1">"We will endeavour to sketch the bar of a large gin-shop, and
its ordinary customers, for the edification of such of our readers
as may not have had opportunities of observing such scenes; and
on the chance of finding one well suited to our purpose we will
make for Drury-lane, through the narrow streets and dirty courts
which divide it from Oxford street, and that classical spot adjoining
the brewery at the bottom of Tottenham-court-road, best
known to the initiated as the 'Rookery.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The filthy and miserable appearance of this part of London
can hardly be imagined by those (and there are many such) who
have not witnessed it. Wretched houses with broken windows
patched with rags and paper, every room let out to a different
family, and in many instances to two or even three; fruit and
'sweet-stuff' manufacturers in the cellars, barbers and red-herring
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span>
venders in the front parlours, and cobblers in the back; a
bird-fancier in the first floor, three families on the second, starvation
in the attics, Irishmen in the passage; a 'musician' in the
front kitchen, and a charwoman and five hungry children in the
back one—filth everywhere—a gutter before the houses and a
drain behind them—clothes drying and slops emptying from the
windows; girls of fourteen or fifteen with matted hair, walking
about barefooted, and in white great-coats, almost their only
covering; boys of all ages, in coats of all sizes and no coats at
all; men and women, in every variety of scanty and dirty apparel,
lounging, scolding, drinking, smoking, squabbling, fighting,
and swearing.</p>

<p class="i1">"You turn the corner, what a change! All is light and brilliancy.
The hum of many voices issues from that splendid gin-shop
which forms the commencement of the two streets opposite,
and the gay building with the fantastically ornamented parapet,
the illuminated clock, the plate-glass windows surrounded by
stucco rosettes, and its profusion of gas-lights in richly gilt
burners, is perfectly dazzling when contrasted with the darkness
and dirt we have just left. The interior is even gayer than the
exterior. A bar of French polished mahogany, elegantly carved,
extends the whole width of the place; and there are two side-aisles
of great casks, painted green and gold, enclosed within a
light brass rail, and bearing such inscriptions as 'Old Tom, 549;'
'Young Tom, 360;' 'Samson, 1421.' Beyond the bar is a lofty
and spacious saloon, full of the same enticing vessels, with a gallery
running round it, equally well furnished. On the counter,
in addition to the usual spirit apparatus, are two or three little
baskets of cakes and biscuits, which are carefully secured at the
top with wicker-work, to prevent their contents being unlawfully
abstracted. Behind it are two showily-dressed damsels with
large necklaces, dispensing the spirits and 'compounds.' They
are assisted by the ostensible proprietor of the concern, a stout
coarse fellow in a fur cap, put on very much on one side, to give
him a knowing air, and display his sandy whiskers to the best
advantage.</p>

<p class="i1">"It is growing late, and the throng of men, women, and children,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span>
who have been constantly going in and out, dwindles down
to two or three occasional stragglers—cold, wretched-looking
creatures, in the last stage of emaciation and disease. The knot
of Irish labourers at the lower end of the place, who have been
alternately shaking hands with, and threatening the life of, each
other for the last hour, become furious in their disputes, and finding
it impossible to silence one man, who is particularly anxious
to adjust the difference, they resort to the infallible expedient of
knocking him down and jumping on him afterward. The man
in the fur cap and the potboy rush out; a scene of riot and confusion
ensues; half the Irishmen get shut out, and the other half
get shut in; the potboy is knocked among the tubs in no time;
the landlord hits everybody, and everybody hits the landlord;
the barmaids scream; the police come in; and the rest is a confused
mixture of arms, legs, staves, torn coats, shouting, and
struggling. Some of the party are borne off to the station-house,
and the remainder slink home to beat their wives for complaining,
and kick the children for daring to be hungry."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The neglected and frightfully wretched condition of
a great part of the juvenile population in the British
towns has frequently excited the attention of philanthropic
Englishmen. On the 6th of June, 1848, Lord
Ashley made a speech on juvenile destitution in the
House of Commons, in which he drew an awful picture
of misery and degradation. He showed that in the
midst of London there is a large and continually increasing
number of lawless persons, forming a separate
class, having pursuits, interests, manners, and customs
of their own. These are quite independent of the
number of mere pauper children who crowd the streets
of London, and who never attend a school. The lawless
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>
class were estimated by Lord Ashley to number
thirty thousand.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Of 1600 who were examined, 162 confessed that they had
been in prison, not merely once, or even twice, but some of them
several times; 116 had run away from their homes; 170 slept in
the 'lodging houses;' 253 had lived altogether by beggary; 216
had neither shoes nor stockings; 280 had no hat or cap, or covering
for the head; 101 had no linen; 249 had never slept in a
bed; many had no recollection of ever having been in a bed;
68 were the children of convicts.</p>

<p class="i1">"In 1847 it was found that of 4000 examined, 400 confessed
that they had been in prison, 660 lived by beggary, 178 were the
children of convicts, and 800 had lost one or both their parents.
Now, what was the employment of these people? They might
be classed as street-sweepers; vendors of lucifer matches,
oranges, cigars, tapes, and ballads; they held horses, ran
errands, jobbed for 'dealers in marine stores,' that being the
euphonious term for receivers of stolen goods—an influential race
in the metropolis, but for whose agency a very large proportion
of juvenile crime would be extinguished. It might be asked,
how did the large number who never slept in bed pass the night?
In all manner of places: under dry arches of bridges and viaducts,
under porticos, sheds, carts in outhouses, sawpits, or
staircases, or in the open air, and some in lodging-houses. Curious,
indeed, was their mode of life. One boy, during the inclement
period of 1847, passed the greater part of his nights in the
large iron roller in the Regent's Park. He climbed over the
railings, and crept to the roller, where he lay in comparative
security.</p>

<p class="i1">"Lord Ashley says, 'many of them were living in the dry
arches of houses not finished, inaccessible except by an aperture,
only large enough to admit the body of a man. When a lantern
was thrust in, six or eight, ten or twelve people might be found
lying together. Of those whom we found thus lodged, we invited
a great number to come the following day, and there an
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span>
examination was instituted. The number examined was 33.
Their ages varied from 12 to 18, and some were younger. 24 had
no parents, 6 had one, 3 had stepmothers, 20 had no shirts, 9 no
shoes, 12 had been once in prison, 3 twice, 3 four times, 1 eight
times, and 1 (only 14 years old) twelve times. The physical condition
of these children was exceedingly bad; they were a prey to
vermin, they were troubled with itch, they were begrimed with
dirt, not a few were suffering from sickness, and two or three
days afterward several died from disease and the effects of
starvation. I privately examined eight or ten. I was anxious
to obtain from them the truth. I examined them separately,
taking them into a room alone. I said, "I am going to ask you
a variety of questions, to which I trust you will give me true answers,
and I will undertake to answer any question you may
put." They thought that a fair bargain. I put to several of
them the question, "How often have you slept in a bed during
the last three years?" One said, perhaps twelve times, another
three times, another could not remember that he ever had. I
asked them, how they passed the night in winter. They said,
"We lie eight or ten together, to keep ourselves warm." I entered
on the subject of their employments and modes of living.
They fairly confessed they had no means of subsistence but begging
and stealing. The only way of earning a penny in a legitimate
way was by picking up old bones. But they fairly
acknowledged for themselves and others scattered over the town,
with whom they professed themselves acquainted, that they had
not and could not have any other means of subsistence than by
begging and stealing. A large proportion of these young persons
were at a most dangerous age for society. What was the
moral condition of those persons? A large proportion of them
(it was no fault of theirs) did not recognise the distinctive rights
of <i>meum</i> and <i>tuum</i>. Property appeared to them to be only the
aggregate of plunder. They held that every thing which was possessed
was common stock; that he who got most was the cleverest
fellow, and that every one had a right to abstract from that stock
what he could by his own ingenuity. Was it matter of surprise
that they entertained those notions, which were instilled into
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span>
their minds from the time they were able to creep on all fours—that
not only did they disregard all the rights of property, but
gloried in doing so, unless they thought the avowal would bring
them within the grasp of the law. To illustrate their low state
of morality, and to show how utterly shameless they were in
speaking on these subjects, I would, mention what had passed at
a ragged school to which fourteen or fifteen boys, having presented
themselves on a Sunday evening, were admitted as they
came. They sat down, and the lesson proceeded. The clock
struck eight. They all rose with the exception of one little boy.
The master took him by the arm and said, "You must remain;
the lesson is not over." The reply was, "We must go to business."
The master inquired what business? "We must all go
to catch them as they come out of the chapels." It was necessary
for them, according to the remark of this boy, to go at a
certain time in pursuit of their calling. They had no remorse
or shame, in making the avowal, because they believed that there
were no other means of saving themselves from starvation. I
recollect a very graphic remark made by one of those children in
perfect simplicity, but which yet showed the horrors of their position.
The master had been pointing out to him the terrors of
punishment in after-life. The remark of the boy was, "That
may be so, but I don't think it can be any worse than this world
has been to me." Such was the condition of hundreds and
thousands.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">A large number of the depraved children live in
what are called the "lodging-houses." Most Americans
have heard of the "Old Brewery" at the Five
Points in New York city, where more than two hundred
persons of all ages and sexes were crowded
together. Such lodging-houses as this, (which fortunately
has been destroyed,) are common in London and
the provincial towns of Great Britain. Mr. Mayhew,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span>
in his "London Labour and the London Poor," has
given us very full information concerning them. He
obtained much of it from one who had passed some
time among the dens of infamy. He says of these
lodging-houses—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'They have generally a spacious, though often ill-ventilated
kitchen, the dirty, dilapidated walls of which are hung with prints,
while a shelf or two are generally, though barely, furnished with
crockery and kitchen utensils. In some places knives and forks
are not provided, unless a penny is left with the "deputy," or manager,
till they are returned. A brush of any kind is a stranger,
and a looking-glass would be a miracle. The average number of
nightly lodgers is in winter seventy, in the summer (when many
visit the provinces) from forty to forty-five. The general charge
is, if two sleep together, 3<i>d.</i> per night, or 4<i>d.</i> for a single bed. In
either case, it is by no means unusual to find eighteen or twenty
in one small room, the heat and horrid smell from which are insufferable;
and, where there are young children, the staircases
are the lodgment of every kind of filth and abomination. In some
houses there are rooms for families, where, on a rickety machine,
which they dignify by the name of a bedstead, may be found the
man, his wife, and a son or daughter, perhaps eighteen years of age;
while the younger children, aged from seven to fourteen, sleep on
the floor. If they have linen, they take it off to escape vermin,
and rise naked, one by one, or sometimes brother and sister together.
This is no ideal picture; the subject is too capable of
being authenticated to need any meaningless or dishonest assistance
called "allowable exaggeration." The amiable and deservedly
popular minister of a district church, built among lodging-houses,
has stated that he has found twenty-nine human beings in one
apartment; and that having with difficulty knelt down between
two beds to pray with a dying woman, his legs became so jammed
that he could hardly get up again.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Out of some fourscore such habitations,' continues my informant,
'I have only found <i>two</i> which had any sort of garden; and, I am
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>
happy to add, that in neither of these two was there a single case
of cholera. In the others, however, the pestilence raged with terrible
fury.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">There are other lodging-houses still lower in character
than those described above, and where there is a
total absence of cleanliness and decency. A man who
had slept in these places, gave the following account to
Mr. Mayhew:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"He had slept in rooms so crammed with sleepers—he believed
there were thirty where twelve would have been a proper number—that
their breaths in the dead of night and in the unventilated
chamber, rose (I use his own words) 'in one foul, choking steam
of stench.' This was the case most frequently a day or two prior
to Greenwich Fair or Epsom Races, when the congregation of the
wandering classes, who are the supporters of the low lodging-houses,
was the thickest. It was not only that two or even three
persons jammed themselves into a bed not too large for one full-sized
man; but between the beds—and their partition one from
another admitted little more than the passage of a lodger—were
placed shakedowns, or temporary accommodation for nightly
slumber. In the better lodging-houses the shakedowns are small
palliasses or mattrasses; in the worst they are bundles of rags of
any kind; but loose straw is used only in the country for shakedowns.
Our informant saw a traveller, who had arrived late, eye
his shakedown in one of the worst houses with any thing but a
pleased expression of countenance; and a surly deputy, observing
this, told the customer he had his choice, 'which,' the deputy added,
'is not as all men has, or I shouldn't have been waiting here on
you. But you has your choice, I tell you;—sleep there on that
shakedown, or turn out and be——; that's fair.' At some of
the busiest periods, numbers sleep on the kitchen floor, all huddled
together, men and women, (when indecencies are common enough,)
and without bedding or any thing but their scanty clothes to soften
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span>
the hardness of the stone or brick floor. A penny is saved to the
lodger by this means. More than two hundred have been accommodated
in this way in a large house. The Irish, in harvest-time,
very often resort to this mode of passing the night.</p>

<p class="i1">"I heard from several parties, of the surprise, and even fear or
horror, with which a decent mechanic—more especially if he were
accompanied by his wife—regarded one of these foul dens, when
destitution had driven him there for the first time in his life.
Sometimes such a man was seen to leave the place abruptly,
though perhaps he had prepaid his last halfpenny for the refreshment
of a night's repose. Sometimes he was seized with sickness.
I heard also from some educated persons who had 'seen
better days,' of the disgust with themselves and with the world,
which they felt on first entering such places. 'And I have some
reason to believe,' said one man, 'that a person, once well off, who
has sunk into the very depths of poverty, often makes his first appearance
in one of the worst of those places. Perhaps it is because
he keeps away from them as long as he can, and then, in a sort of
desperation fit, goes into the cheapest he can meet with; or if he
knows it's a vile place, he very likely says to himself—as I did—"I
may as well know the worst at once."'</p>

<p class="i1">"Another man, who had moved in good society, said, when
asked about his resorting to a low lodging-house: 'When a man's
lost caste in society, he may as well go the whole hog, bristles and
all, and a low lodging-house is the entire pig.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Notwithstanding many abominations, I am assured that the
lodgers, in even the worst of these habitations, for the most part,
sleep soundly. But they have, in all probability, been out in the
open air the whole of the day, and all of them may go to their
couches, after having walked, perhaps, many miles, exceedingly
fatigued, and some of them half drunk. 'Why, in course, sir,'
said a 'traveller,' whom I spoke to on this subject, 'if you is in a
country town or village, where there's only one lodging-house,
perhaps, and that a bad one—an old hand can always suit hisself
in London—you <i>must</i> get half drunk, or your money for your bed
is wasted. There's so much rest owing to you, after a hard day;
and bugs and bad air'll prevent its being paid, if you don't lay in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span>
some stock of beer, or liquor of some sort, to sleep on. It's a duty
you owes yourself; but, if you haven't the browns, why, then, in
course, you can't pay it.' I have before remarked, and, indeed,
have given instances, of the odd and sometimes original manner
in which an intelligent patterer, for example, will express himself.</p>

<p class="i1">"The information I obtained in the course of this inquiry into
the condition of low lodging-houses, afforded a most ample corroboration
of the truth of a remark I have more than once found
it necessary to make before—that persons of the vagrant class will
sacrifice almost any thing for warmth, not to say heat. Otherwise,
to sleep, or even sit, in some of the apartments of these establishments
would be intolerable.</p>

<p class="i1">"From the frequent state of weariness to which I have alluded,
there is generally less conversation among the frequenters of the
low lodging-houses than might be expected. Some are busy cooking,
some (in the better houses) are reading, many are drowsy and
nodding, and many are smoking. In perhaps a dozen places of
the worst and filthiest class, indeed, smoking is permitted even in
the sleeping-rooms; but it is far less common than it was even
half-a-dozen years back, and becomes still less common yearly.
Notwithstanding so dangerous a practice, fires are and have been
very unfrequent in these places. There is always some one awake,
which is one reason. The lack of conversation, I ought to add,
and the weariness and drowsiness, are less observable in the lodging-houses
patronized by thieves and women of abandoned character,
whose lives are comparatively idle, and whose labour a mere
nothing. In their houses, if their conversation be at all general,
it is often of the most unclean character. At other times it is carried
on in groups, with abundance of whispers, shrugs, and slang,
by the members of the respective schools of thieves or lurkers."</p>

<hr class="sect" />

<p class="i1">"The licentiousness of the frequenters, and more especially the
juvenile frequenters, of the low lodging-houses, must be even more
briefly alluded to. In some of these establishments, men and
women, boys and girls,—but perhaps in no case, or in very rare
cases, unless they are themselves consenting parties, herd together
promiscuously. The information which I have given from a reverend
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span>
informant indicates the nature of the proceedings, when the
sexes are herded indiscriminately, and it is impossible to present
to the reader, in full particularity, the records of the vice
practised.</p>

<p class="i1">"Boys have boastfully carried on loud conversations, and from
distant parts of the room, of their triumphs over the virtue of girls,
and girls have laughed at and encouraged the recital. Three,
four, five, six, and even more boys and girls have been packed,
head and feet, into one small bed; some of them perhaps never
met before. On such occasions any clothing seems often enough
to be regarded as merely an encumbrance. Sometimes there are
loud quarrels and revilings from the jealousy of boys and girls,
and more especially of girls whose 'chaps' have deserted or been
inveigled from them. At others, there is an amicable interchange
of partners, and next day a resumption of their former companionship.
One girl, then fifteen or sixteen, who had been leading
this vicious kind of life for nearly three years, and had been repeatedly
in prison, and twice in hospitals—and who expressed a
strong desire to 'get out of the life' by emigration—said: 'Whatever
that's bad and wicked, that any one can fancy could be done
in such places among boys and girls that's never been taught, or
won't be taught, better, <i>is</i> done, and night after night.' In these
haunts of low iniquity, or rather in the room into which the
children are put, there are seldom persons above twenty. The
young lodgers in such places live by thieving and pocket-picking,
or by prostitution. The charge for a night's lodging is generally
2<i>d.</i>, but smaller children have often been admitted for 1<i>d.</i> If a
boy or girl resort to one of these dens at night without the means
of defraying the charge for accommodation, the 'mot of the ken'
(mistress of the house) will pack them off, telling them plainly
that it will be no use their returning until they have stolen something
worth 2<i>d.</i> If a boy or girl do not return in the evening, and
have not been heard to express their intention of going elsewhere,
the first conclusion arrived at by their mates is that they have
'got into trouble,' (prison.)</p>

<p class="i1">"The indiscriminate admixture of the sexes among adults, in
many of these places, is another evil. Even in some houses considered
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span>
of the better sort, men and women, husbands and wives,
old and young, strangers and acquaintances, sleep in the same
apartment, and if they choose, in the same bed. Any remonstrance
at some act of gross depravity, or impropriety, on the part of a
woman not so utterly hardened as the others, is met with abuse
and derision. One man who described these scenes to me, and
had long witnessed them, said that almost the only women who ever
hid their faces or manifested dislike of the proceedings they could
not but notice, (as far as he saw,) were poor Irishwomen, generally
those who live by begging: 'But for all that,' the man added, 'an
Irishman or Irishwoman of that sort will sleep anywhere, in any
mess, to save a halfpenny, though they may have often a few shillings,
or a good many, hidden about them.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">The recent report of Captain Hays, "on the operation
of the Common Lodging-house Act," presents some
appalling facts:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Up to the end of February, it was ascertained that 3100 persons,
mostly Irishmen, in the very heart of the metropolis, lodged
every night, 84,000 individuals in 3712 rooms. The instances
enumerated are heart sickening. In a small room in Rosemary
lane, near the Tower, fourteen adults were sleeping on the floor
without any partition or regard to decency. In an apartment in
Church lane, St. Giles, not fifteen feet square, were thirty-seven
women and children, all huddled together on the floor. There are
thousands of similar cases. The eastern portion of London, comprising
Whitechapel, Spitalfields, and Mile-end—an unknown land
to all of the decent classes—is filled with a swarming population
of above 300,000 beggars, costermongers, thieves, ragsellers, Jews,
and the like. A single court is a fair example of this whole district.
It contains eight houses of two rooms each. Three hundred
persons—men, women, and children—live there. There is
only one place of convenience; and one hydrant, which is served
half an hour each day. The condition of this court may be imagined;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span>
it is too filthy to describe. Decayed matter, stagnant
water, refuse fish, vegetables, broken baskets, dead cats, dogs, and
rats, are strewed everywhere around. The prices of various kinds
of provision in these neighbourhoods give a forcible notion of the
condition of the population. You can purchase for a halfpenny
fish or meat enough for a dinner.</p>

<p class="i1">"In this neighbourhood is Rag Fair. It is worth a visit. Thousands
of persons are assembled in the streets, which are so thickly
covered with merchandise that it is difficult to step along without
treading on heaps of gowns, shawls, bonnets, shoes, and articles of
men's attire. There is no conceivable article of dress that may
not be purchased here. It is not without danger that one even
visits the place at noonday. You are in the midst of the refuse of
all London,—of a whole race, whose chief employment is to commit
depredations upon property, and whose lives are spent in the
midst of a squalor, filth, deprivation and degradation, which the
whole world cannot probably parallel. One of the London missionaries
says—'Persons who are accustomed to run up heavy
bills at the shops of fashionable tailors and milliners will scarcely
believe the sums for which the poor are able to purchase the same
kind of articles. I have recently clothed a man and woman, both
decently, for the sum of nine shillings. There is as great a variety
of articles in pattern, shape, and size, as could be found in any
draper's shop in London. The mother may go to <i>Rag Fair</i>, with
the whole of her family, both boys and girls—yes, and her husband,
too—and for a very few shillings deck them out from top to
toe. I have no doubt that a man and his wife, and five or six
children, with £1 would purchase for themselves an entire change.
This may appear an exaggeration; but I actually overheard a conversation,
in which two women were trying to bargain for a child's
frock; the sum asked was 1½<i>d.</i>, and the sum offered was 1<i>d.</i>, and
they parted on the difference.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The following is a bill delivered by a dealer to one of the missionaries,
who was requested to supply a suit of clothes for a man
and woman whom he had persuaded to get married several years
after the right time:—</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<table class="narrow" id="BILL_FOR_GROOM" summary="Bill for Groom's Clothes">
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"></td>
    <td class="c2"><i>s.</i></td>
    <td class="c1"><i>d.</i></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A full linen-fronted shirt, very elegant</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1">6</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A pair of warm worsted stockings </td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1">1</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A pair of light-coloured trousers</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1">6</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A black cloth waistcoat</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1">3</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A pair of white cotton braces</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1">1</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A pair of low shoes</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1">1</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A black silk velvet stock</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1">1</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A black beaver, fly-fronted, double-breasted paletot
	  coat, lined with silk, a very superior article</td>
    <td class="c2">1</td>
    <td class="c1">6</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A cloth cap, bound with a figured band</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1">1</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A pair of black cloth gloves</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1">1</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;"></td>
    <td colspan="2" class="c2">——</td>
    <td class="c1"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;"></td>
    <td class="c2">3</td>
    <td class="c1">3</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<p class="i1">"The man had been educated, and could speak no fewer than
five languages; by profession he was, however, nothing but a dusthill
raker.</p>

<p class="i1">"The bill delivered for the bride's costume is as follows:</p>

<table class="narrow" id="BILL_FOR_BRIDES_COSTUME" summary="Bill for Bride's Costume">
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A shift</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:1.5em;">1</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A pair of stays</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:1.5em;">2</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A flannel petticoat</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:1.5em;">4</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A black Orleans ditto</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:1.5em;">4</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A pair of white cotton stockings</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:1.5em;">1</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A very good light-coloured cotton gown</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1">10</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A pair of single-soled slippers, with spring
	  heels</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:1.5em;">2</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A double-dyed bonnet, including a neat cap</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:1.5em;">2</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A pair of white cotton gloves</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:1.5em;">1</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;">A lady's green silk paletot, lined with crimson
	  silk, trimmed with black</td>
    <td class="c2">0</td>
    <td class="c1">10</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;"></td>
    <td colspan="2" class="c2">——</td>
    <td class="c1"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:20%;"></td>
    <td class="c2">3</td>
    <td class="c1" style="padding-left:1.5em;">1</td>
  </tr>
</table>
</div>

<p class="i1">Throughout the country there are low lodging-houses,
which do not differ much in character from those of
London. In all of them the most disgusting immorality
is practised to an extent scarcely conceivable by those
who do not visit such dens of vice and misery.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">The story of the Jew Fagan, and his felonious operations,
in Dickens's Oliver Twist, is a true representation
of a most extensive business in London. There are a
large number of notorious receivers of stolen goods.
Some of them keep a number of boys, who are instructed
in stealing, and beaten severely when unsuccessful.
Mayhew mentions one notorious case in George-yard.
A wooden-legged Welshman, named Hughes, and commonly
called Taff, was the miscreant. Two little boys
were his chief agents in stealing, and when they did not
obtain any thing, he would take the strap off his wooden
leg, and beat them through the nakedness of their rags.
He boarded and lodged about a dozen Chelsea and
Greenwich pensioners. These he followed and watched
closely until they were paid. Then, after they had settled
with him, he would make them drunk and rob
them of the few shillings they had left.</p>

<p class="i1">The brutal treatment of servants, which we have
already touched, drives many of them to the low lodging-houses,
and to the commission of crime. In the following
narrative, which a girl communicated to Mr. Mayhew,
we have an illustration of this assertion, as well as
some awful disclosures in regard to "life among the
lowly:"—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'I am an orphan. When I was ten I was sent to service as a
maid of all-work, in a small tradesman's family. It was a hard
place, and my mistress used me very cruelly, beating me often.
When I had been in place three weeks, my mother died; my
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>
father having died twelve years before. I stood my mistress's ill-treatment
about six months. She beat me with sticks as well as
with her hands. I was black and blue, and at last I ran away.
I got to Mrs. ——, a low lodging-house. I didn't know before
that there was such a place. I heard of it from some girls at the
Glasshouse, (baths and wash-houses,) where I went for shelter. I
went with them to have a halfpenny worth of coffee, and they took
me to the lodging-house. I then had three shillings, and stayed
about a month, and did nothing wrong, living on the three shillings
and what I pawned my clothes for, as I got some pretty good
things away with me. In the lodging-house I saw nothing but
what was bad, and heard nothing but what was bad. I was
laughed at, and was told to swear. They said, 'Look at her for
a d—— modest fool'—sometimes worse than that, until by degrees
I got to be as bad as they were. During this time I used to see
boys and girls from ten to twelve years old sleeping together, but
understood nothing wrong. I had never heard of such places
before I ran away. I can neither read nor write. My mother
was a good woman, and I wish I'd had her to run away to. I
saw things between almost children that I can't describe to you—very
often I saw them, and that shocked me. At the month's
end, when I was beat out, I met with a young man of fifteen—I
myself was going on to twelve years old—and he persuaded me
to take up with him. I stayed with him three months in the
same lodging-house, living with him as his wife, though we were
mere children, and being true to him. At the three months' end
he was taken up for picking pockets, and got six months. I was
sorry, for he was kind to me; though I was made ill through
him; so I broke some windows in St. Paul's churchyard to get
into prison to get cured. I had a month in the Compter, and
came out well. I was scolded very much in the Compter, on
account of the state I was in, being so young. I had 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> given
to me when I came out, and was forced to go into the streets for
a living. I continued walking the streets for three years, sometimes
making a good deal of money, sometimes none, feasting one
day and starving the next. The bigger girls could persuade me
to do any thing they liked with my money. I was never happy
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span>
all the time, but I could get no character, and could not get out
of the life. I lodged all this time at a lodging-house in Kent-street.
They were all thieves and bad girls. I have known
between three and four dozen boys and girls sleep in one room.
The beds were horrid filthy and full of vermin. There was very
wicked carryings on. The boys, if any difference, was the worst.
We lay packed, on a full night, a dozen boys and girls squeedged
into one bed. That was very often the case—some at the foot
and some at the top—boys and girls all mixed. I can't go into
all the particulars, but whatever could take place in words or acts
between boys and girls did take place, and in the midst of the
others. I am sorry to say I took part in these bad ways myself,
but I wasn't so bad as some of the others. There was only a
candle burning all night, but in summer it was light great part
of the night. Some boys and girls slept without any clothes, and
would dance about the room that way. I have seen them, and,
wicked as I was, felt ashamed. I have seen two dozen capering
about the room that way; some mere children, the boys generally
the youngest. *  *  * There were no men or
women present. There were often fights. The deputy never interfered.
This is carried on just the same as ever to this day,
and is the same every night. I have heard young girls shout out
to one another how often they had been obliged to go to the hospital,
or the infirmary, or the workhouse. There was a great deal
of boasting about what the boys and girls had stolen during the
day. I have known boys and girls change their 'partners,' just
for a night. At three years' end I stole a piece of beef from a
butcher. I did it to get into prison. I was sick of the life I was
leading, and didn't know how to get out of it. I had a month for
stealing. When I got out I passed two days and a night in the
streets doing nothing wrong, and then went and threatened to
break Messrs. ——'s windows again. I did that to get into
prison again; for when I lay quiet of a night in prison I thought
things over, and considered what a shocking life I was leading,
and how my health might be ruined completely, and I thought I
would stick to prison rather than go back to such a life. I got
six months for threatening. When I got out I broke a lamp next
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>
morning for the same purpose, and had a fortnight. That was
the last time I was in prison. I have since been leading the same
life as I told you of for the three years, and lodging at the same
houses, and seeing the same goings on. I hate such a life now
more than ever. I am willing to do any work that I can in washing
and cleaning. I can do a little at my needle. I could do
hard work, for I have good health. I used to wash and clean in
prison, and always behaved myself there. At the house where I
am it is 3<i>d.</i> a night; but at Mrs. ——'s it is 1<i>d.</i> and 2<i>d.</i> a night,
and just the same goings on. Many a girl—nearly all of them—goes
out into the streets from this penny and twopenny house, to
get money for their favourite boys by prostitution. If the girl
can not get money she must steal something, or will be beaten by
her 'chap' when she comes home. I have seen them beaten, often
kicked and beaten until they were blind from bloodshot, and their
teeth knocked out with kicks from boots as the girl lays on the
ground. The boys, in their turn, are out thieving all day, and
the lodging-house keeper will buy any stolen provisions of them,
and sell them to the lodgers. I never saw the police in the house.
If a boy comes to the house on a night without money or sawney,
or something to sell to the lodgers, a handkerchief or something
of that kind, he is not admitted, but told very plainly, 'Go thieve
it, then,' Girls are treated just the same. Anybody may call
in the daytime at this house and have a halfpenny worth of coffee
and sit any length of time until evening. I have seen three dozen
sitting there that way, all thieves and bad girls. There are no
chairs, and only one form in front of the fire, on which a dozen
can sit. The others sit on the floor all about the room, as near
the fire as they can. Bad language goes on during the day, as I
told you it did during the night, and indecencies too, but nothing
like so bad as at night. They talk about where there is good
places to go and thieve. The missioners call sometimes, but
they're laughed at often when they're talking, and always before
the door's closed on them. If a decent girl goes there to get a
ha'porth of coffee, seeing the board over the door, she is always
shocked. Many a poor girl has been ruined in this house since I
was, and boys have boasted about it. I never knew boy or girl do
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span>
good, once get used there. Get used there, indeed, and you are
life-ruined. I was an only child, and haven't a friend in the
world. I have heard several girls say how they would like to
get out of the life, and out of the place. From those I know, I
think that cruel parents and mistresses cause many to be driven
there. One lodging-house keeper, Mrs. ——, goes out dressed respectable,
and pawns any stolen property, or sells it at public-houses.'</p>

<p class="i1">"As a corroboration of the girl's statement, a wretched-looking
boy, only thirteen years of age, gave me the following additional
information. He had a few rags hanging about him, and no shirt—indeed,
he was hardly covered enough for purposes of decency,
his skin being exposed through the rents in his jacket and trousers.
He had a stepfather, who treated him very cruelly. The
stepfather and the child's mother went 'across the country,' begging
and stealing. Before the mother died, an elder brother ran
away on account of being beaten.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Sometimes,' I give his own words, 'he (the stepfather)
wouldn't give us a bit to eat, telling us to go and thieve for it.
My brother had been a month gone (he's now a soldier in Gibraltar)
when I ran away to join him. I knew where to find him,
as we met sometimes. We lived by thieving, and I do still—by
pulling flesh, (stealing meat.) I got to lodge at Mrs. ——, and have
been there this eight months. I can read and write a little.' This
boy then confirmed what the young girl had told me of the grossest
acts night by night among the boys and girls, the language, &amp;c.,
and continued:—'I always sleep on the floor for 1<i>d.</i>, and pay
½<i>d.</i> besides for coke. At this lodging-house cats and kittens are
melted down, sometimes twenty a day. A quart pot is a cat, and
pints and half-pints are kittens. A kitten (pint) brings 3<i>d.</i> from
the rag-shops, and a cat 6<i>d.</i> There's convenience to melt them
down at the lodging-house. We can't sell clothes in the house,
except any lodger wants them; and clothes nearly all go to the
Jews in Petticoat-lane. Mrs. —— buys the sawney of us; so
much for the lump, 2<i>d.</i> a pound about; she sells it again for
twice what she gives, and more. Perhaps 30 lbs. of meat every
day is sold to her. I have been in prison six times, and have
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span>
had three dozen; each time I came out harder. If I left Mrs.
——'s house I don't know how I could get my living. Lots of
boys would get away if they could. I never drink. I don't like
it. Very few of us boys drink. I don't like thieving, and often
go about singing; but I can't live by singing, and I don't know
how I could live honestly. If I had money enough to buy a stock
of oranges, I think I could be honest.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">Mr. Mayhew called a meeting of thieves and beggars
at the Bristol Union School-room, Shakspeare Walk,
Shadwell. One hundred and fifty of them—all under
twenty years of age—attended. It may be doubted
whether such a meeting could have been brought about
in any other city. The young thieves and beggars
were very fair samples of their numerous class. Of
professed beggars, there were fifty; and sixty-six acknowledged
themselves habitual thieves. The announcement
that the greater number present were
thieves, pleased them exceedingly, and was received
with three rounds of applause! Fourteen of them had
been in prison over twenty times, and twenty stated
that they had been flogged in prison. Seventy-eight
of them regularly roamed through the country every
year; sixty-five slept regularly in the casual wards of
the Unions; and fifty-two occasionally slept in trampers'
lodging-houses throughout the country.</p>

<p class="i1">The ignorance prevailing among the vast number of
street-sellers in London, is rather comically illustrated
by Mr. Mayhew, in the following instance:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"One boy gave me his notions of men and things. He was a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span>
thick-limbed, red-cheeked fellow; answered very freely, and
sometimes, when I could not help laughing at his replies, laughed
loudly himself, as if he entered into the joke.</p>

<p class="i1">"Yes, he had heer'd of God who made the world. Couldn't
exactly recollec' when he'd heerd on him, but he had, most
sarten-ly. Didn't know when the world was made, or how anybody
could do it. It must have taken a long time. It was afore
his time, 'or yourn either, sir.' Knew there was a book called
the Bible; didn't know what it was about; didn't mind to know;
knew of such a book to a sartinty, because a young 'oman took
one to pop (pawn) for an old 'oman what was on the spree—a
bran new 'un—but the cove wouldn't have it, and the old 'oman
said he might be d——d. Never heer'd tell on the deluge, of the
world having been drownded; it couldn't, for there wasn't water
enough to do it. He weren't a going to fret hisself for such
things as that. Didn't know what happened to people after death,
only that they was buried. Had seen a dead body laid out; was
a little afeared at first; poor Dick looked so different, and when
you touched his face he was so cold! oh, so cold! Had heer'd
on another world; wouldn't mind if he was there hisself, if he
could do better, for things was often queer here. Had heer'd on
it from a tailor—such a clever cove, a stunner—as went to
'Straliar, (Australia,) and heer'd him say he was going into
another world. Had never heer'd of France, but had heer'd of
Frenchmen; there wasn't half a quarter so many on 'em as of
Italians, with their ear-rings like flash gals. Didn't dislike
foreigners, for he never saw none. What was they? Had
heer'd of Ireland. Didn't know where it was, but it couldn't be
very far, or such lots wouldn't come from there to London.
Should say they walked it, ay, every bit of the way, for he'd seen
them come in all covered with dust. Had heer'd of people going
to sea, and had seen the ships in the river, but didn't know
nothing about it, for he was very seldom that way. The sun was
made of fire, or it wouldn't make you feel so warm. The stars
was fire, too, or they wouldn't shine. They didn't make it warm,
they was too small. Didn't know any use they was of. Didn't
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span>
know how far they was off; a jolly lot higher than the gas lights
some on 'em was. Was never in a church; had heer'd they
worshipped God there; didn't know how it was done; had heer'd
singing and praying inside when he'd passed; never was there,
for he hadn't no togs to go in, and wouldn't be let in among such
swells as he had seen coming out. Was a ignorant chap, for
he'd never been to school, but was up to many a move, and didn't
do bad. Mother said he would make his fortin yet.</p>

<p class="i1">"Had heer'd of the Duke of Wellington; he was Old Nosey;
didn't think he ever seed him, but had seen his statty. Hadn't
heer'd of the battle of Waterloo, nor who it was atween; once
lived in Webber-row, Waterloo-road. Thought he had heer'd
speak of Bonaparte; didn't know what he was; thought he'd
heer'd of Shakspeare, but didn't know whether he was alive or
dead, and didn't care. A man with something like that name
kept a dolly and did stunning; but he was sich a hard cove that
if <i>he</i> was dead it wouldn't matter. Had seen the queen, but
didn't recollec' her name just at the minute; oh! yes, Wictoria
and Albert. Had no notion what the queen had to do. Should
think she hadn't such power [he had first to ask me what 'power'
was] as the lord mayor, or as Mr. Norton as was the Lambeth
beak, and perhaps is still. Was never once before a beak, and
didn't want to. Hated the crushers; what business had they to
interfere with him if he was only resting his basket in a street?
Had been once to the Wick, and once to the Bower; liked tumbling
better; he meant to have a little pleasure when the peas
came in."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The vagabond propensities of the street-children are
thus described by Mr. Mayhew:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"As soon as the warm weather commences, boys and girls, but
more especially boys, leave the town in shoals, traversing the
country in every direction; some furnished with trifling articles
(such as I have already enumerated) to sell, and others to begging,
lurking, or thieving. It is not the street-sellers who so
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span>
much resort to the tramp, as those who are devoid of the commonest
notions of honesty; a quality these young vagrants sometimes
respect when in fear of a jail, and the hard work with
which such a place is identified in their minds—and to which,
with the peculiar idiosyncrasy of a roving race, they have an
insuperable objection.</p>

<p class="i1">"I have met with boys and girls, however, to whom a jail had
no terrors, and to whom, when in prison, there was only one
dread, and that a common one among the ignorant, whether with
or without any sense of religion—superstition. 'I lay in prison
of a night, sir,' said a boy who was generally among the briskest
of his class, 'and think I shall see things.' The 'things' represent
the vague fears which many, not naturally stupid, but untaught
or ill-taught persons, entertain in the dark. A girl, a
perfect termagant in the breaking of windows and suchlike
offences, told me something of the same kind. She spoke well
of the treatment she experienced in prison, and seemed to have a
liking for the matron and officials; her conduct there was quiet
and respectful. I believe she was not addicted to drink.</p>

<p class="i1">"Many of the girls, as well as the boys, of course trade as
they 'tramp.' They often sell, both in the country and in town,
little necklaces composed of red berries strung together upon
thick thread, for dolls and children; but although I have asked
several of them, I have never yet found one who collected the
berries and made the necklaces themselves; neither have I met
with a single instance in which the girl vendors knew the name
of the berries thus used, nor indeed even that they <i>were</i> berries.
The invariable reply to my questions upon this point has been
that they 'are called necklaces;' that 'they are just as they sells
'em to us;' that they 'don't know whether they are made or
whether they grow;' and in most cases, that they 'gets them in
London, by Shoreditch;' although in one case a little brown-complexioned
girl, with bright sparkling eyes, said that 'she got
them from the gipsies.' At first I fancied, from this child's appearance,
that she was rather superior in intellect to most of her
class; but I soon found that she was not a whit above the others,
unless, indeed, it were in the possession of the quality of cunning."</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">The regular "tramps," or wandering vagabonds, are
very numerous throughout Great Britain. At certain
periods they issue from all the large towns, and prey
upon the rural districts like swarms of locusts. In no
other country can be found so constant a class of vagrants.
The gipsies form but a small portion of the
"tramps." These vagrants are miserably clothed,
filthy, covered with vermin, and generally very much
diseased—sometimes from debauchery, and sometimes
from want of food and from exposure. Very few of
them are married. The women are nearly all prostitutes.
The manner of life of these wanderers is
curious. They beg during the day in the towns, or
along the roads; and they so arrange their day's
tramp as to arrive, most nights, in the neighbourhood
of the workhouses. They then hide the money they
have collected by begging, and present themselves,
after sunset, at the gates of the workhouse, to beg a
night's lodging. To nearly every workhouse there are
attached vagrant wards, or buildings which are specially
set apart for the reception of tramps such as
those we have described. These wards are commonly
brick buildings, of one story in height. They have
brick floors and guard-room beds, with loose straw and
rugs for the males, and iron bedsteads, with straw, for
the females. They are badly ventilated, and unprovided
with any means for producing warmth. All holes for
ventilation are sure to be stopped up at night, by the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span>
occupants, with rags or straw, so that the stench of
these sleeping-places is disgusting in the extreme.
Guards are appointed for these wards, but such is the
immorality and indecency of the vagrants, that the
most disgusting scenes are common in them. The
wards resound with the vilest songs and the foulest
language; and so numerous are the "tramps" that the
guardians find it impossible to separate the sexes.
This vast evil of vagrancy is constantly increasing,
and is a natural result of the monopolies and oppressions
of the aristocracy. It is stated that on the 25th
of March, 1848, the 626 Unions of England and Wales
relieved 16,086 vagrants. But this scarcely gives an
idea of the magnitude of the evil. Between 40,000
and 50,000 "tramps" infest the roads and streets of
England and Wales every day. The majority of them
are thieves, and nearly all are almost brutally ignorant.</p>

<p class="i1">In London there are large numbers of small dealers,
called costermongers and patterers. Persons belonging
to these classes seldom or never rise above their trade,
and they seem to have a kind of hereditary pride in
their degraded position. Many of the costermongers
and patterers are thieves, and the general character of
these classes is very debased; ignorance and immorality
prevail to a fearful extent. The patterers are more
intelligent than the costermongers, but they are also
more immoral. They help off their wares, which are
chiefly stationery and quack medicines, by long harangues,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span>
while the costermongers merely cry their fish,
greens, &amp;c. about the streets. The number of people
dependent upon costermongering in London is about
thirty thousand. The patterers are not so numerous.</p>

<p class="i1">Concubinage is the rule and marriage the exception
among both costermongers and patterers. Mr. Mayhew
estimates that only one-tenth of the couples living together
and carrying on the costermongering trade are
married. There is no honour attached to the marriage
state and no shame to concubinage. In good times the
women are rigidly faithful to their paramours, but in
the worst pinch of poverty a departure from fidelity is
not considered heinous. About three out of a hundred
costermongers ever attend a church, and the majority
of them have no knowledge of Christianity; they associate
the Church of England and aristocracy, and hate
both. Slang is acquired very rapidly, and some costermongers
will converse in it by the hour. The women
use it sparingly; the girls more than the women; the
men more than the girls; and the boys most of all.
Pronouncing backward is the simple principle upon
which the costermonger slang is founded.</p>

<p class="i1">The patterers, though a vagrant, are an organized
class. Mr. Mayhew says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"There is a telegraphic despatch between them, through the
length and breadth of the land. If two patterers (previously unacquainted)
meet in the provinces, the following, or something
like it, will be their conversation:—Can you 'voker romeny' (can
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span>
you speak cant?) What is your 'monekeer?' (name.) Perhaps
it turns out that one is 'White-headed Bob,' and the other 'Plymouth
Ned,' They have a 'shant of gatter' (pot of beer) at the
nearest 'boozing ken,' (ale-house,) and swear eternal friendship
to each other. The old saying, that 'When the liquor is in the
wit is out,' is remarkably fulfilled on these occasions, for they
betray to the 'flatties' (natives) all their profits and proceedings.</p>

<p class="i1">"It is to be supposed that in country districts, where there are
no streets, the patterer is obliged to call at the houses. As they
are mostly without the hawker's license, and sometimes find wet
linen before it is lost, the rural districts are not fond of their visits;
and there are generally two or three persons in a village reported
to be 'gammy,' that is, unfavourable. If a patterer has been
'crabbed,' that is, offended, at any of the 'cribs,' (houses,) he
mostly chalks a signal on or near the door. I give one or two
instances:—</p>

<p class="i1">"'Bone,' meaning good.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Cooper'd,' spoiled by the imprudence of some other patterer.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Gammy,' likely to have you taken up.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Flummut,' sure of a month in quod.</p>

<p class="i1">"In most lodging-houses there is an old man who is the guide
to every 'walk' in the vicinity, and who can tell every house on
every round that is 'good for a cold 'tater.' In many cases there
is over the kitchen mantel-piece a map of the district, dotted here
and there with memorandums of failure or success.</p>

<p class="i1">"Patterers are fond of carving their names and avocations
about the houses they visit. The old jail at Dartford has been
some years a 'padding-ken.' In one of the rooms appear the
following autographs:—</p>

<p class="i1">"'Jemmy, the Rake, bound to Bristol; bad beds, but no bugs.
Thank God for all things.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Razor George and his moll slept here the day after Christmas;
just out of "stir," (jail,) for "muzzling a peeler."'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Scotch Mary, with "driz," (lace,) bound to Dover and back,
please God.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Sometimes these inscriptions are coarse and obscene; sometimes
very well written and orderly. Nor do they want illustrations.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"At the old factory, Lincoln, is a portrait of the town beadle,
formerly a soldier; it is drawn with different-coloured chalks, and
ends with the following couplet:—</p>

<div class="poetry-container">
  <div class="poetry">
      <div class="verse">'You are a B for false swearing,</div>
      <div class="verse">In hell they'll roast you like a herring.'</div>
  </div>
</div>

<p class="i1">"Concubinage is very common among patterers, especially on
their travels; they have their regular rounds, and call the peregrination
'going on circuit.' For the most part they are early
risers; this gives them a facility for meeting poor girls who have
had a night's shelter in the union workhouses. They offer such
girls some refreshments, swear they are single men, and promise
comforts certainly superior to the immediate position of their
victims. Consent is generally obtained; perhaps a girl of fourteen
or fifteen, previously virtuous, is induced to believe in a promise
of constant protection, but finds herself, the next morning,
ruined and deserted; nor is it unlikely that, within a month or
two, she will see her seducer in the company of a dozen incidental
wives. A gray-headed miscreant, called 'Cutler Tom,' boasts
of five hundred such exploits; and there is too great reason to
believe that the picture of his own drawing is not greatly overcharged."</p></div>

<p class="i1">A reverend gentleman, who had enjoyed the best
opportunities for observing the patterers, gave Mr.
Mayhew the following information:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"I have seen fathers and mothers place their boys and girls in
positions of incipient enormity, and command them to use language
and gestures to each other which would make a harlot
blush, and almost a heathen tremble. I have hitherto viewed the
patterer as a salesman, having something in his hand, on whose
merits, real or pretended, he talks people out of their money. By
slow degrees prosperity rises, but rapid is the advance of evil.
The patterer sometimes gets 'out of stock,' and is obliged, at no
great sacrifice of conscience, to 'patter' in another strain. In
every large town, sham official documents, with crests, seals, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span>
signatures, can be got for half-a-crown. Armed with these, the
patterer becomes a 'lurker,' that is, an impostor; his papers certify
any and every 'ill that flesh is heir to.' Shipwreck is called
a 'shake lurk;' loss by fire is a 'glim.' Sometimes the petitioner
has had a horse which has dropped dead with the mad staggers;
or has a wife ill or dying, and six or seven children at once sickening
of the small-pox. Children are borrowed to support the
appearance; the case is certified by the minister and churchwardens
of a parish which exists only in imagination; and as many
people dislike the trouble of investigation, the patterer gets enough
to raise a stock in trade, and divides the spoil between the swag-shop
and the gin-palace. Sometimes they are detected, and get
a 'drag,' (three months in prison.)</p>

<p class="i1">"They have many narrow escapes; one occurs to me of a somewhat
ludicrous character:—A patterer and lurker (now dead)
known by the name of 'Captain Moody,' unable to get a 'fakement'
written or printed, was standing almost naked in the streets
of a neighbouring town. A gentleman stood still and heard his
piteous tale, but, having been 'done' more than once, he resolved
to examine the affair, and begged the petitioner to conduct him
to his wife and children, who were in a garret on a bed of languishing,
with neither clothes, food, nor fire, but, it appeared,
with faith enough to expect a supply from 'Him who feedeth the
ravens,' and in whose sacred name even a cold 'tater was implored.
The patterer, or half-patterer and half-beggar, took the
gentleman (who promised a sovereign if every thing was square)
through innumerable and intricate windings, till he came to an
outhouse or sort of stable. He saw the key outside the door, and
begged the gentleman to enter and wait till he borrowed a light
of a neighbour to show him up-stairs. The illumination never
arrived, and the poor charitable man found that the miscreant
had locked him into the stable. The patterer went to the padding-ken,
told the story with great glee, and left that locality
within an hour of the occurrence."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and other provincial
cities possess an ignorant and immoral population
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span>
quite equal, in proportion to the entire population
of each city, to that of London. In each may be found
a degraded class, with scarcely any ideas of religion or
morality, living in the most wretched manner, and
practising every species of vice. The cellar-houses, in
which many of them live, have been described in another
chapter. They are the filthy abodes of a people almost
reduced to a brutish condition. In Liverpool parish
there is a <i>cellar-population of 20,000</i>, a large number
of whom are continually engaged in criminal practices.
There are portions of the city of Glasgow which a
stranger could scarcely traverse safely at night, and
where an amount of vice and misery may be witnessed
which is not exceeded in either London or Liverpool.</p>

<p class="i1">In the mining and manufacturing districts of England
there is much ignorance and more vice. In both, there
are schools of a miserable character, but those young
persons who can find time to attend them learn nothing
beyond reading, writing, and the simplest rules of arithmetic.
The mining labour, as carried on in the mines
of England, is extremely demoralizing in its tendency,
as we have shown in another part of this work. The
report of parliamentary commissioners contains some
statements in regard to the darkness of mind and corruption
of heart among young persons employed in the
various trades and manufactures.</p>

<p class="i1">The following facts are quoted from the Second Report
of the "Children's Employment Commission."</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">The moral and religious state of the children and
young persons employed in the trades and manufactures
of Birmingham, is described by the sub-commissioners
as very unfavourable. The social and domestic duties
and affections are but little cultivated and practised;
great numbers never attend any place of public worship;
and of the state of juvenile crime some conception may
be formed by the statement, that of the total number of
known or suspected offenders in this town, during the
twelve last months—namely, 1223—at least one-half
were under fifteen years of age.</p>

<p class="i1">As to illicit sexual intercourse, it seems to prevail
almost universally, and from a very early period of life;
to this common conclusion witnesses of every rank give
testimony.</p>

<p class="i1"><span class="sc">Wolverhampton.</span>—Of the moral condition of the
youthful population in the Wolverhampton district, Mr.
Horne says—"Putting together all I elicited from various
witnesses and conversations with working people,
abroad and at home, and all that fell under my observation,
I am obliged to come to the conclusion, that the
moral virtues of the great majority of the children are
as few in number and as feeble in practice as can well
be conceived in a civilized country, surrounded by religious
and educational institutions, and by individuals
anxious for the improvement of the condition of the
working classes."</p>

<p class="i1">He adds of <span class="sc">Wittenhall</span>—"A lower condition of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span>
morals, in the fullest sense of the term, could not, I
think, be found. I do not mean by this that there are
many more prominent vices among them, but that moral
feelings and sentiments do not exist among them. They
have no morals."</p>

<p class="i1"><span class="sc">Sheffield.</span>—In all the Sheffield trades, employing
large numbers of children, it is stated that there is a
much closer intermixture of the younger children with
the elder youths, and with the men, than is usual in
the cotton, woollen, and flax factories; and that the
conversation to which the children are compelled to
listen, would debase their minds and blunt their moral
feelings even if they had been carefully and virtuously
educated, but that of course this result takes place
more rapidly and completely in the case of those who
have had little or no religious culture, and little but
bad example before their eyes from their cradle upward.</p>

<p class="i1">Habits of drinking are formed at a very early age,
malt liquor being generally introduced into the workshops,
of which the youngest children are encouraged
to partake. "Very many," say the police-officers,
"frequent beer-shops, where they play at dominoes,
bagatelle, &amp;c. for money or drink." Early intemperance
is assigned by the medical men as one cause of the
great mortality of Sheffield. "There are beer-houses,"
says the Rev. Mr. Farish, "attended by youths exclusively,
for the men will not have them in the same houses
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span>
with themselves. In these beer-houses are youths of
both sexes encouraged to meet, and scenes destructive
of every vestige of virtue or morality ensue.</p>

<p class="i1">But it is stated by all classes of witnesses, that "the
most revolting feature of juvenile depravity in this
town is early contamination from the association of the
sexes," that "juvenile prostitution is exceedingly common."
"The evidence," says the sub-commissioner,
"might have been doubled which attests the early
commencement of sexual and promiscuous intercourse
among boys and girls."</p>

<p class="i1"><span class="sc">Sedgley.</span>—At Sedgley and the neighbouring villages,
the number of girls employed in nail-making
considerably exceeds that of the boys. Of these girls
Mr. Horne reports—"Their appearance, manners, habits,
and moral natures (so far as the word <i>moral</i> can
be applied to them) are in accordance with their half-civilized
condition. Constantly associating with ignorant
and depraved adults and young persons of the
opposite sex, they naturally fall into all their ways;
and drink, smoke, swear, throw off all restraint in word
and act, and become as bad as a man. The heat of
the forge and the hardness of the work renders few
clothes needful in winter; and in summer, the six or
seven individuals who are crowded into these little dens
find the heat almost suffocating. The men and boys
are usually naked, except a pair of trousers and an
open shirt, though they very often have no shirt; and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span>
the women and girls have only a thin ragged petticoat,
and an open shirt without sleeves."</p>

<p class="i1">In the mining districts, there is even more ignorance
and depravity than in the places where factories and
workshops abound. The nature of the work, and various
wants, such as no freemen would suffer from—want
of proper schools and proper amusements—induce
this state of things. An American visiting any of these
mining districts, would be astounded at the dulness,
ignorance, and viciousness that prevails among the
labourers—men and women, boys and girls. Many of
them are perfect heathens—never hearing of God except
when his awful name is "taken in vain." Of Christ
and his mission they hear somewhat, but know nothing
positively. Newspapers—those daily and weekly messengers
that keep Americans fully informed of the affairs
of the world—they seldom see. The gin-shop and
the brothel are their common resorts.</p>

<p class="i1">Missionaries are wanted in Great Britain. Alas!
that in the middle of the nineteenth century, there
should be so many hundreds of thousands of people, in
the vicinity of a costly church establishment, without
any knowledge of the Bible!—that a professedly
Christian government should keep so many souls in
ignorance of Christianity!—that a country boasting
of its civilization and enlightenment should contain so
much darkness and depravity!</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span></p>


<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
</div>

<p class="ac">COOLIE SLAVERY IN THE BRITISH COLONIES.</p>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">The</span> British government emancipated the negro
slaves held under its authority in the West Indies,
thereby greatly depreciating the value of the islands,
permitting a half-tamed race to fall back into a state
of moral and mental darkness, and adding twenty millions
to the national debt, to be paid out of the sweat
and blood of her own white serfs. This was termed a
grand act of humanity; those who laboured for it have
been lauded and laurelled without stint, and English
writers have been exceedingly solicitous that the world
should not "burst in ignorance" of the achievement.</p>

<div class="figcenter"><a name="i_433.jpg" id="i_433.jpg"></a>
  <img src="images/i_433.jpg"
        alt="" />
  <div class="caption">COOLIES.</div>
</div>

<p class="i1">Being free, the negroes, with the indolence inherent
in their nature, would not work. Many purses suffered
in consequence, and the purse is a very tender place to
injure many persons. It became necessary to substitute
other labourers for the free negroes, and the
Coolies of India were taken to the Antilles for experiment.
These labourers were generally sober,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span>
steady, and industrious. But how were they treated?
A colonist of Martinique, who visited Trinidad in
June, 1848, thus writes to the French author of a
treatise on free and slave labour:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"If I could fully describe to you the evils and suffering endured
by the Indian immigrants (Coolies) in that horribly governed
colony, I should rend the heart of the Christian world by a recital
of enormities unknown in the worst periods of colonial
slavery.</p>

<p class="i1">"Borrowing the language of the prophet, I can truly say,'The
whole head is sick, and the whole heart is sad; from the sole of
the foot to the top of the head nothing is sound;' wounds, sores,
swollen ulcers, which are neither bandaged, nor soothed, nor
rubbed with oil.</p>

<p class="i1">"My soul has been deeply afflicted by all that I have seen.
How many human beings lost! So far as I can judge, in spite
of their wasting away, all are young, perishing under the weight
of disease. Most of them are dropsical, for want of nourishment.
Groups of children, the most interesting I have ever seen,
scions of a race doomed to misfortune, were remarkable for their
small limbs, wrinkled and reduced to the size of spindles—and
not a rag to cover them! And to think that all this misery, all
this destruction of humanity, all this waste of the stock of a
ruined colony, might have been avoided, but has not been!
Great God! it is painful beyond expression to think that such a
neglect of duty and of humanity on the part of the colonial authorities,
as well of the metropolis as of the colony—a neglect
which calls for a repressive if not a retributive justice—will go
entirely unpunished, as it has hitherto done, notwithstanding the
indefatigable efforts of Colonel Fagan, the superintendent of the
immigrants in this colony, an old Indian officer of large experience,
of whom I have heard nothing but good, and never any
evil thing spoken, in all my travels through the island.</p>

<p class="i1">"I am told that Colonel Fagan prepared a regulation for the government
and protection of the immigrants—which regulation
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span>
would probably realize, beyond all expectation, the object aimed
at; but scarcely had he commenced his operations when orders
arrived from the metropolis to suppress it, and substitute another
which proceeded from the ministry. The Governor, Mr. Harris,
displeased that his own regulation was thus annulled, pronounced
the new order impossible to be executed, and it was withdrawn
without having been properly tried. The minister sent another
order in regard to immigration, prepared in his hotel in Downing
street; but Governor Harris pronounced it to be still more difficult
of execution than the first, and it, too, failed. It is in this
manner that, from beginning to end, the affairs of the Indian
immigrants have been conducted. It was only necessary to treat
them with justice and kindness to render them—thanks to their
active superintendent—the best labourers that could be imported
into the colony. They are now protected neither by regulations
nor ordinances; no attention is paid to the experienced voice of
their superintendent—full of benevolence for them, and always
indefatigably profiting by what can be of advantage to them.
If disease renders a Coolie incapable of work, he is driven from
his habitation. This happens continually; he is not in that case
even paid his wages. What, then, can the unfortunate creature
do? Very different from the Creole or the African; far distant
from his country, without food, without money; disease, the
result of insufficient food and too severe labour, makes it impossible
for him to find employment. He drags himself into the
forests or upon the skirts of the roads, lies there and dies!</p>

<p class="i1">"Some years since, the unfortunate Governor (Wall) of Gorea
was hung for having pitilessly inflicted a fatal corporal punishment
on a negro soldier found guilty of mutiny; and this soldier,
moreover, was under his orders. In the present case, I can prove
a neglect to a great extent murderous. The victims are Indian
Coolies of Trinidad. In less than one year, as is shown by
official documents, <i>two thousand</i> corpses of these unfortunate
creatures have furnished food to the crows of the island; and a
similar system is pursued, not only without punishment, but
without even forming the subject of an official inquest. Strange
and deplorable contradiction! and yet the nation which gives us
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span>
this example boasts of extending the ægis of its protection over
all its subjects, without distinction! It is this nation, also, that
complacently takes to itself the credit of extending justice equally
over all classes, over the lordly peer and the humblest subject,
without fear, favour, or affection!"</p></div>

<p class="i1">In the Mauritius, the Coolies who have been imported
are in a miserable condition. The planters
have profited by enslaving these mild and gentle
Hindoos, and rendering them wretched.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"By aid of continued Coolie immigration," says Mr. Henry C.
Carey,<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a>
"the export of sugar from the Mauritius has been doubled
in the last sixteen years, having risen from seventy to one hundred
and forty millions of pounds. Sugar is therefore very
cheap, and the foreign competition is thereby driven from the
British market. 'Such conquests,' however, says, very truly, the
London Spectator, 'don't always bring profit to the conqueror;
nor does production itself prove prosperity. Competition for the
possession of a field may be carried so far as to reduce prices
below prime cost; and it is clear, from the notorious facts of the
West Indies—from the change of property, from the total unproductiveness
of much property still—that the West India production
of sugar has been carried on not only without replacing
capital, but with a constant sinking of capital.' The 'free'
Coolie and the 'free' negro of Jamaica have been urged to competition
for the sale of sugar, and they seem likely to perish
together; but compensation for this is found in the fact that
'free trade has, in reducing the prices of commodities for home
consumption, enabled the labourer to devote a greater share of
his income toward purchasing clothing and luxuries, and has increased
the home trade to an enormous extent.' What effect this
reduction of 'the prices of commodities for home consumption'
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span>
has had upon the poor Coolies, may be judged from the following
passage:—'I here beheld, for the first time, a class of beings of
whom we have heard much, and for whom I have felt considerable
interest. I refer to the Coolies imported by the British government
to take the places of the <i>faineant</i> negroes, when the apprenticeship
system was abolished. Those I saw were wandering
about the streets, dressed rather tastefully, but always meanly,
and usually carrying over their shoulder a sort of <i>chiffonnier's</i>
sack, in which they threw whatever refuse stuff they found in the
streets or received as charity. Their figures are generally superb,
and their Eastern costume, to which they adhere as far as their
poverty will permit of any clothing, sets off their lithe and graceful
forms to great advantage. Their faces are almost uniformly
of the finest classic mould, and illuminated by pairs of those
dark, swimming, and propitiatory eyes which exhaust the language
of tenderness and passion at a glance. But they are the
most inveterate mendicants on the island. It is said that those
brought from the interior of India are faithful and efficient workmen,
while those from Calcutta and its vicinity are good for
nothing. Those that were prowling about the streets of Spanish
Town and Kingston, I presume were of the latter class, for there
is not a planter on the island, it is said, from whom it would be
more difficult to get any work than from one of them. They subsist
by begging altogether. They are not vicious nor intemperate,
nor troublesome particularly, except as beggars. In that calling
they have a pertinacity before which a Northern mendicant would
grow pale. They will not be denied. They will stand perfectly
still and look through a window from the street for a quarter of
an hour, if not driven away, with their imploring eyes fixed upon
you like a stricken deer, without saying a word or moving a
muscle. They act as if it were no disgrace for them to beg, as if
an indemnification which they are entitled to expect, for the outrage
perpetrated upon them in bringing them from their distant
homes to this strange island, is a daily supply of their few and
cheap necessities, as they call for them. I confess that their
begging did not leave upon my mind the impression produced by
ordinary mendicancy. They do not look as if they ought to
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span>
work. I never saw one smile; and though they showed no positive
suffering, I never saw one look happy. Each face seemed to
be constantly telling the unhappy story of their woes, and, like
fragments of a broken mirror, each reflecting in all its hateful
proportions the national outrage of which they are the victims.'"<a name="FNanchor_104_104"
id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a></p></div>

<p class="i1">English writers have frequently charged the citizens
of the United States with being sordid, and caring
more for pecuniary profit than honourable principle.
No national measure of the great North American
Republic, however, is so deeply tainted with avaricious
motives as the colonial enactments and commercial
schemes of Great Britain. Witness the government
of British India, and the infamous traffic in opium
forced upon the Chinese. In the conveyance of Coolies
to the West Indies, and their treatment while toiling
in those islands, we see the same base spirit displayed.
All considerations of humanity have been sacrificed to
calculations of profit. A people, naturally mild and
intelligent, have been taken from their native land to
distant islands, to take the place of the fierce and barbarous
Africans, to whose civilization slavery seems
almost necessary; and in their new land of bondage
these poor creatures have been deprived of the inducements
to steady exertion, and left to beg or starve.</p>

<p class="i1">After the passage of the act abolishing negro
slavery, an arrangement was sanctioned by the colonial
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span>
government for the introduction of Indian labourers
into the Mauritius, under a species of apprenticeship.
The Coolies were engaged at five rupees, equal
to ten shillings a month, for five years, with also one
pound of rice, a quarter of a pound of dhall, or grain—a
kind of pulse—and one ounce of butter, or ghee,
daily. But for every day they were absent from their
work they were to return two days to their masters,
who retained one rupee per month to pay an advance
made of six months' wages, and to defray the expense
of their passage. If these men came into Port Louis
to complain of their masters, they were lodged in the
Bagne prison till their masters were summoned! Before
the magistrates the masters had a great advantage
over their servants. The latter being foreigners,
but few of them could speak French, and they had no
one to assist them in pleading their cause. They
generally represented themselves as having been deceived
with respect to the kind of labour to be required
of them.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a></p>

<p class="i1">A large number of Indian convicts have been transported
to the Mauritius, and their slavery is deplorable.
Backhouse, who visited the island when these
poor wretches were not so numerous as they now are,
says—"Among the Indian convicts working on the
road, we noticed one wearing chains; several had a
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span>
slight single ring round the ankle. They are lodged in
huts with flat roofs, or in other inferior dwellings near
the road. There are about seven hundred of them in
the island. What renders them peculiarly objects of
sympathy is, that they were sent here for life, and no
hope of any remission of sentence is held out to them
for good conduct. Theirs is a hopeless bondage; and
though it is said by some that they are not hard worked,
yet they are generally, perhaps constantly, breaking
stones and mending the roads, and under a tropical
sun. There are among them persons who were so
young when transported that, in their offences, they
could only be looked on as the dupes of those who were
older, and many of them bear good characters."</p>

<p class="i1">The hopeless slavery of these convicts is a doom
which displays, in a striking light, the characteristics
of British philanthropy. Death would be preferable to
such a punishment, in the estimation of many of the
Hindoos; but the British authorities are determined to
make the punishment pay! After the "eternal blazon"
concerning the act of emancipating negroes, for which
the pauperized labourers of Great Britain had to pay
by their slavery, the colonial government created
another system, attended with the misery and degradation
of a people better fitted for freedom than the
negroes. The civilized world is requested to look on
and admire!</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span></p>




<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
</div>

<p class="ac">SLAVERY IN BRITISH INDIA.</p>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">The</span> extensive, populous, and wealthy peninsula of
Hindostan has suffered greatly from the crushing
effects of the British slave system. From the foundation
of the empire in India by Clive, conquest and
extortion seem to have been the grand objects of the
aristocratic government. There unscrupulous soldiers
have fought, slaughtered, enslaved, and plundered.
There younger sons, with rank, but without fortune,
have filled their purses. There vast and magnificent
tracts of country have been wasted with fire and sword,
in punishment for the refusal of native princes to become
slaves. There the fat of the land has been garnered
up for the luxury of the conquerors, while famine
has destroyed the people by thousands. There, indeed,
has the British aristocracy displayed its most malignant
propensities—rioting in robbery and bloodshed—setting
all religion at defiance, while upholding the
Christian standard—and earning to the full the continued
execration of mankind.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">In a powerful work, called "The Aristocracy of
England: a History for the People, by John Hampden,
Jun.," a book we commend to the people of
England, we have the following passage:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"From the hour that Clive and his coadjutors came into the discovery
of the vast treasures of the native princes, whence he himself
obtained, besides his jaghire of £30,000 per annum, about
£300,000; and he and his fellows altogether, between 1759 and
1763, no less than £5,940,498, exclusive of this said jaghire, the
cupidity of the aristocracy became excited to the highest degree;
and from that period to the present, India has been one scene of
flights of aristocratic locusts, of fighting, plundering, oppression,
and extortion of the natives. We will not go into these things;
they are fully and faithfully written in Mills's 'History of British
India;' in Howitt's 'Colonization and Christianity;' and, above
all, in the letters of the Honourable Frederick Shore, brother of
Lord Teignmouth, a man who passed through all offices—from a
clerk to that of a judge—and saw much of the system and working
of things in many parts of India. He published his letters
originally in the India papers, that any one on the spot might
challenge their truth; and, since his death, they have been
reprinted in England. The scene which that work opens up is
the most extraordinary, and demands the attention of every lover
of his country and his species. It fully accounts for the strange
facts, that India is now drained of its wealth; that its public
works, especially the tanks, which contributed by their waters to
maintain its fertility, are fallen to decay; that one-third of the
country is a jungle inhabited by tigers, who pay no taxes; that
its people are reduced to the utmost wretchedness, and are often,
when a crop fails, swept away by half a million at once by
famine and its pendant, pestilence, as in 1770, and again in
1838-9. To such a degree is this reduction of the wealth and
cultivation of India carried, that while others of our colonies pay
taxes to the amount of a pound or thirty shillings per head, India
pays only four shillings.</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"At the renewal of its charter in 1834, its income was about
<i>twenty millions</i>, its debt about <i>forty millions</i>. Since then its income
has gradually fallen to about <i>seventeen millions</i>, and its
debt we hear now whispered to be about <i>seventy millions</i>. Such
have been the effects of exhausted fields and physical energies on
the one hand, and of wars, especially that of Afghanistan, on the
other. It requires no conjurer, much less a very profound arithmetician,
to perceive that at this rate we need be under no apprehension
of Russia, for a very few years will take India out of our
hands by mere financial force.</p>

<p class="i1">"Our aristocratic government, through the Board of Control,
keep up and exert a vast patronage in India. The patronage of
the president of this board alone, independent of his salary of
£5000 a year, is about <i>twenty-one</i> thousand pounds. But the
whole aristocracy have an interest in keeping up wars in India,
that their sons as officers, especially in these times of European
peace, may find here both employment and promotion. This,
then, the Company has to contend against; and few are they
who are aware of the formidable nature of this power as it is exerted
in this direction, and of the strange and unconstitutional
legislative authority with which they have armed themselves for
this purpose. How few are they who are aware that, while the
East India Company has been blamed as the planners, authors,
and movers of the fatal and atrocious invasion of Caboul, that the
Directors of the Company only first, and to their great amazement,
learned the outbreak of that war from the public Indian
papers. So far from that war being one of their originating, it
was most opposed to their present policy, and disastrous to their
affairs. How then came this monstrous war about, and <i>who</i> then
did originate it? To explain this requires us to lay open a
monstrous stretch of unconstitutional power on the part of our
government—a monstrous stratagem for the maintenance of their
aristocratic views in India, which it is wonderful could have
escaped the notice and reprehension of the public. Let the
reader mark well what follows.</p>

<p class="i1">"In the last charter, granted in 1834, a clause was introduced,
binding a secret committee of the East India Company, consisting
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span>
of three persons only, the chairman, deputy chairman, and senior
director, who are solemnly sworn to this work, to receive private
despatches from the Board of Control, and without communicating
them to a single individual besides themselves, to forward
them to India, where the receivers are bound, <i>without question or
appeal</i>, to enforce their immediate execution. By this inquisitorial
system, this worse than Spanish or Venetian system of secret
decrees, government has reserved to itself a direction of the
affairs of India, freed from all constitutional or representative
check, and reduced the India Company to a mere cat's-paw. By
the sworn secrecy and implicit obedience of this mysterious triumvirate,
the Company is made the unconscious instrument of
measures most hostile to its own views, and most fatal to its best
interests. It may at any hour become the medium of a secret
order which may threaten the very destruction of its empire.
Such was the case with the war of Caboul. The aristocratic
government at home planned and ordered it; and the unconscious
Company was made at once to carry out a scheme so
atrocious, so wicked and unprincipled, as well as destructive to
its plans of civil economy, and to bear also the infamy of it.
Awaking, therefore, to the tremendous nature of the secret powers
thus introduced into their machinery by government, the Company
determined to exercise also a power happily intrusted to
<i>them</i>. Hence the recall of Lord Ellenborough, who, in obedience
to aristocratic views at home, was not only running headlong
over all their plans of pacific policy, but with his armies and elephants
was treading under foot their cotton and sugar plantations.
Hence, on the other hand, the favour and support which this
warlike lord finds with the great martial duke, and the home
government."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The policy of the European conquerors of India was
fully illustrated during the gubernatorial term of Warren
Hastings. Of his extortion the eloquent Macaulay
says—</p>

<div class="bq">
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">"The principle which directed all his dealings with his neighbours
is fully expressed by the old motto of one of the great
predatory families of Teviotdale—'Thou shalt want ere I want,'
He seems to have laid it down, as a fundamental proposition
which could not be disputed, that when he had not as many lacs
of rupees as the public service required, he was to take them from
anybody who had. One thing, indeed, is to be said in excuse for
him. The pressure applied to him by his employers at home was
such as only the highest virtue could have withstood—such as
left him no choice except to commit great wrongs, or to resign
his high post, and with that post all his hopes of fortune and distinction.
It is perfectly true, that the directors never enjoined
or applauded any crime. Far from it. Whoever examines their
letters at that time will find there many just and humane sentiments,
many excellent precepts; in short, an admirable circle of
political ethics. But every exhortation is modified or annulled
by a demand for money. 'Govern leniently, and send more
money; practise strict justice and moderation toward neighbouring
powers, and send more money;' this is, in truth, the sum of
almost all the instructions that Hastings ever received from
home. Now these instructions, being interpreted, mean simply,
'Be the father and the oppressor of the people; be just and unjust,
moderate and rapacious.' The directors dealt with India
as the church, in the good old times, dealt with a heretic. They
delivered the victim over to the executioners, with an earnest
request that all possible tenderness might be shown. We by no
means accuse or suspect those who framed these despatches of
hypocrisy. It is probable that, writing fifteen thousand miles
from the place where their orders were to be carried into effect,
they never perceived the gross inconsistency of which they were
guilty. But the inconsistency was at once manifest to their
lieutenant at Calcutta, who, with an empty treasury, with an unpaid
army, with his own salary often in arrear, with deficient
crops, with government tenants daily running away, was called
upon to remit home another half million without fail. Hastings
saw that it was absolutely necessary for him to disregard either
the moral discourses or the pecuniary requisitions of his employers.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span>
Being forced to disobey them in something, he had to
consider what kind of disobedience they would most readily pardon;
and he correctly judged that the safest course would be to
neglect the sermons and to find the rupees."</p></div>

<p class="i1">How were the rupees found? By selling provinces
that had never belonged to the British dominions; by
the destruction of the brave Rohillas of Rohilcund, in
the support of the cruel tyrant, Surajah Dowlah, sovereign
of Oude, of which terrible act Macaulay says—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Then the horrors of Indian war were let loose on the fair
valleys and cities of Rohilcund; the whole country was in a blaze.
More than a hundred thousand people fled from their homes to
pestilential jungles, preferring famine and fever and the haunts
of tigers to the tyranny of him to whom an English and a Christian
government had, for shameful lucre, sold their substance and
their blood, and the honour of their wives and daughters. Colonel
Champion remonstrated with the Nabob Vizier, and sent strong
representations to Fort William; but the governor had made no
conditions as to the mode in which the war was to be carried on.
He had troubled himself about nothing but his forty lacs; and,
though he might disapprove of Surajah Dowlah's wanton barbarity,
he did not think himself entitled to interfere, except by offering
advice. This delicacy excites the admiration of the reverend biographer.
'Mr. Hastings,' he says, 'could not himself dictate to
the Nabob, nor permit the commander of the Company's troops
to dictate how the war was to be carried on.' No, to be sure.
Mr. Hastings had only to put down by main force the brave struggles
of innocent men fighting for their liberty. Their military
resistance crushed, his duties ended; and he had then only to
fold his arms and look on while their villages were burned, their
children butchered, and their women violated."</p></div>

<p class="i1">By such a course of action, Warren Hastings made
the British empire in India pay. By such means did
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span>
the aristocrats, of whom the governor was the tool,
obtain the money which would enable them to live in
luxury.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The servants of the Company obtained—not for their employers,
but for themselves—a monopoly of almost the whole internal
trade; they forced the natives to buy dear and sell cheap; they
insulted with perfect impunity the tribunals, the police, and the
fiscal authorities of the country; they covered with their protection
a set of native dependants, who ranged through the provinces
spreading desolation and terror wherever they appeared. Every
servant of a British factor was armed with all the power of his
master, and his master was armed with all the power of the Company.
Enormous fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated at
Calcutta, while thirty millions of human beings were reduced to
the last extremity of wretchedness. They had been accustomed
to live under tyranny, but never under tyranny like this; they
found the little finger of the Company thicker than the loins of
Surajah Dowlah. Under their old masters they had at least one
resource; when the evil became insupportable, they rose and
pulled down the government. But the English government was
not to be so shaken off. That government, oppressive as the most
oppressive form of barbarian despotism, was strong with all the
strength of civilization; it resembled the government of evil genii
rather than the government of human tyrants." * * *</p>

<p class="i1">"The foreign lords of Bengal were naturally objects of hatred
to all the neighbouring powers, and to all the haughty race presented
a dauntless front; their armies, everywhere outnumbered,
were everywhere victorious. A succession of commanders, formed
in the school of Clive, still maintained the fame of their country.
'It must be acknowledged,' says the Mussulman historian of those
times, 'that this nation's presence of mind, firmness of temper,
and undaunted bravery are past all question. They join the
most resolute courage to the most cautious prudence; nor have
they their equal in the art of ranging themselves in battle array
and fighting in order. If to so many military qualifications they
knew how to join the arts of government—if they exerted as much
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span>
ingenuity and solicitude in relieving the people of God as they
do in whatever concerns their military affairs, no nation in the
world would be preferable to them or worthier of command; but
the people under their dominion groan everywhere, and are reduced
to poverty and distress. O God! come to the assistance
of thine afflicted servants, and deliver them from the oppressions
they suffer.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">From the earliest times the "village system," with
its almost patriarchal regulations, seems to have prevailed
in Hindostan. Each village had its distinct
organization, and over a certain number of villages, or
a district, was an hereditary chief and an accountant,
both possessing great local influence and authority, and
certain estates.<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> The Hindoos were strongly attached
to their native villages, and could only be forced to
abandon them by the most constant oppressions. Dynasties
might change and revolutions occur, but so long
as each little community remained undisturbed, the
Hindoos were contented. Mohammedan conquerors left
this beautiful system, which had much more of genuine
freedom than the British institutions at the present day,
untouched. The English conquerors were not so merciful,
although they were acquainted with Christianity.
The destruction of local organizations and the centralization
of authority, which is always attended with the
increase of slavery,<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a> have been the aims of English
efforts. The principle that the government is the sole
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span>
proprietor of the land, and therefore entitled to a large
share of the produce, has been established, and slavery,
to escape famine and misery, has become necessary to
the Hindoos.</p>

<p class="i1">Exhaustion was the result of the excessive taxation
laid upon the Hindoos by the East India Company. As
the government became stinted for revenue, Lord Cornwallis
was instructed to make a permanent settlement,
by means of which all the rights of village proprietors
over a large portion of Bengal were sacrificed in favour
of the Zemindars, or head men, who were thus at once
constituted great landed proprietors—masters of a large
number of poor tenants, with power to punish at discretion
those who were not able to pay whatever rent was
demanded.<a name="FNanchor_108_108" id="FNanchor_108_108"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_108_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> From free communities, the villages were
reduced to the condition of British tenants-at-will. The
Zemindaree system was first applied to Bengal. In
Madras another system, called the Ryotwar, was introduced.
This struck a fatal blow at the local organizations,
which were the sources of freedom and happiness
among the Hindoos. Government assumed all the
functions of an immediate landholder, and dealt with
the individual cultivators as its own tenants, getting as
much out of them as possible.</p>

<p class="i1">The Zemindars are an unthrifty, rack-renting class,
and take the uttermost farthing from the under-tenants.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span>
Oppressions and evictions are their constant employments;
and since they have been constituted a landed
aristocracy, they have fully acted out the character in
the genuine British fashion.</p>

<p class="i1">Another tenure, called the Patnee, has been established
of late years, by some of the great Zemindars, with the
aid of government enactments, and it is very common in
Bengal. The great Zemindar, for a consideration, makes
over a portion of his estate in fee to another, subject to
a perpetual rent, payable through the collector, who receives
it on behalf of the zemindar; and if it is not paid,
the interests of the patneedar are sold by the collector.
These, again, have sub-patneedars, and the system has
become very much in vogue in certain districts. The
parties are like the Irish middlemen, and the last screws
the tenant to the uttermost.<a name="FNanchor_109_109" id="FNanchor_109_109"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_109_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a></p>

<p class="i1">During the British government of Bengal, wealth has
been accumulated by a certain superior class, and population,
cultivation, and the receipts from rent of land,
have largely increased; but, as in England, the mass of
the people are poor and degraded. In the rich provinces
of Upper India, where the miserable landed system of
the conquerors has been introduced, the results have
been even more deplorable. Communities, once free,
happy, and possessed of plenty, are now broken up, or
subjected to such excessive taxation that their members
are kept in poverty and slavery.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">Colonel Sleeman, in his "Rambles and Recollections of
an Indian Official," records a conversation which he held
with the head landholder of a village, organized under
the Zemindar system. During the dialogue, some statements
were made which are important for our purpose.</p>

<p class="i1">The colonel congratulated himself that he had given
satisfactory replies to the arguments of the Zemindar,
and accounted naturally for the evils suffered by the
villagers. The reader will, doubtless, form a different
opinion:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"In the early part of November, after a heavy fall of rain, I
was driving alone in my buggy from Garmuktesin on the Ganges,
to Meerut. The roads were very bad, the stage a double one, and
my horse became tired and unable to go on. I got out at a small
village to give him a little rest and food; and sat down under the
shade of one old tree upon the trunk of another that the storm
had blown down, while my groom, the only servant I had with me,
rubbed down and baited my horse. I called for some parched
grain from the same shop which supplied my horse, and got a
draught of good water, drawn from the well by an old woman, in
a brass jug lent to me for the purpose by the shopkeeper.</p>

<p class="i1">"While I sat contentedly and happily stripping my parched
grain from its shell, and eating it grain by grain, the farmer, or
head landholder of the village, a sturdy old Rajpoot, came up and
sat himself, without any ceremony, down by my side, to have a
little conversation. [To one of the dignitaries of the land, in whose
presence the aristocracy are alone considered entitled to chairs,
this easy familiarity seems at first strange and unaccountable; he is
afraid that the man intends to offer him some indignity, or what is
still worse, mistakes him for something less than a dignitary!
The following dialogue took place:—]</p>

<p class="i1">"'You are a Rajpoot, and a Zemindar?' (landholder.)</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes; I am the head landholder of this village.'</p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"'Can you tell me how that village in the distance is elevated
above the ground; is it from the debris of old villages, or from a
rock underneath?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'It is from the debris of old villages. That is the original seat
of all the Rajpoots around; we all trace our descent from the
founders of that village, who built and peopled it many centuries
ago.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And you have gone on subdividing your inheritances here as
elsewhere, no doubt, till you have hardly any of you any thing to
eat?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'True, we have hardly any of us enough to eat; but that is
the fault of the government, that does not leave us enough—that
takes from us as much when the season is bad as when it is
good!'</p>

<p class="i1">"'But your assessment has not been increased, has it?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'No; we have concluded a settlement for twenty years upon
the same footing as formerly.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And if the sky were to shower down upon you pearls and
diamonds, instead of water, the government would never demand
more from you than the rate fixed upon?'</p>

<p class="i1">'No.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Then why should you expect remissions in bad seasons?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'It cannot be disputed that the <i>burkut</i> (blessing from above)
is less under you than it used to be formerly, and that the lands
yield less from our labour.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'True, my old friend, but do you know the reason why?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'No.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Then I will tell you. Forty or fifty years ago, in what you
call the times of the <i>burkut</i>, (blessing from above,) the cavalry of
Seikh, free-booters from the Punjab, used to sweep over this fine
plain, in which stands the said village from which you are all descended;
and to massacre the whole population of some villages;
and a certain portion of that of every other village; and the
lands of those killed used to lie waste for want of cultivators. Is
not this all true?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, quite true.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And the fine groves which had been planted over this plain
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span>
by your ancestors, as they separated from the great parent stock,
and formed independent villages and hamlets for themselves,
were all swept away and destroyed by the same hordes of free-booters,
from whom your poor imbecile emperors, cooped up in
yonder large city of Delhi, were utterly unable to defend you?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Quite true,' said the old man with a sigh. 'I remember
when all this fine plain was as thickly studded with fine groves
of mango-trees as Rohilcund, or any other part of India.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You know that the land requires rest from labour, as well as
men and bullocks; and that if you go on sowing wheat, and other
exhausting crops, it will go on yielding less and less returns, and
at last not be worth the tilling?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Quite well.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Then why do you not give the land rest by leaving it longer
fallow, or by a more frequent alternation of crops relieve it?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Because we have now increased so much, that we should not
get enough to eat were we to leave it to fallow; and unless we
tilled it with exhausting crops we should not get the means of paying
our rents to government.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'The Seikh hordes in former days prevented this; they killed
off a certain portion of your families, and gave the land the <i>rest</i>
which you now refuse it. When you had exhausted one part, you
found another recovered by a long fallow, so that you had better
returns; but now that we neither kill you, nor suffer you to be
killed by others, you have brought all the cultivable lands into
tillage; and under the old system of cropping to exhaustion, it
is not surprising that they yield you less returns.'</p>

<p class="i1">"By this time we had a crowd of people seated around us upon
the ground, as I went on munching my parched grain and talking
to the old patriarch. They all laughed at the old man at the
conclusion of my last speech, and he confessed I was right.</p>

<p class="i1">"'This is all true, sir, but still your government is not considerate;
it goes on taking kingdom after kingdom and adding to
its dominions, without diminishing the burden upon us its old subjects.
Here you have had armies away taking Afghanistan, but
we shall not have one rupee the less to pay.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'True, my friend, nor would you demand a rupee less from
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span>
those honest cultivators around us, if we were to leave you all
your lands untaxed. You complain of the government—they
complain of you. [Here the circle around us laughed at the old
man again.] Nor would you subdivide the lands the less for
having it rent free; on the contrary, it would be every generation
subdivided the more, inasmuch as there would be more of local
ties, and a greater disinclination on the part of the members of
families to separate and seek service abroad.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'True, sir, very true; that is, no doubt, a very great evil.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And you know it is not an evil produced by us, but one
arising out of your own laws of inheritance. You have heard,
no doubt, that with us the eldest son gets the whole of the land,
and the younger sons all go out in search of service, with such
share as they can get of the other property of their father?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Yes, sir; but where shall we get service—you have none to
give us. I would serve to-morrow, if you would take me as a
soldier,' said he, stroking his white whiskers.</p>

<p class="i1">"The crowd laughed heartily, and some wag observed, 'that
perhaps I should think him too old.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well,' said the old man, smiling, 'the gentleman himself is
not very young, and yet I dare say he is a good servant of his
government.'</p>

<p class="i1">"This was paying me off for making the people laugh at his
expense. 'True, my old friend,' said I, 'but I began to serve
when I was young, and have been long learning.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Very well,' said the old man; 'but I should be glad to serve
the rest of my life upon a less salary than you got when you
began to learn.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Well, my friend, you complain of our government; but you
must acknowledge that we do all we can to protect you, though
it is true that we are often acting in the dark.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Often, sir? you are always acting in the dark; you hardly
any of you know any thing of what your revenue and police officers
are doing; there is no justice or redress to be got without
paying for it; and it is not often that those who pay can get it.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'True, my old friend, that is bad all over the world. You
cannot presume to ask any thing even from the Deity himself,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span>
without paying the priest who officiates in his temples; and if
you should, you would none of you hope to get from your deity
what you asked for.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Here the crowd laughed again, and one of them said 'that
there was certainly this to be said for our government, that the
European gentlemen themselves never took bribes, whatever those
under them might do.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'You must not be too sure of that neither. Did not the Lal
Beebee (red lady) get a bribe for soliciting the judge, her husband,
to let go Ameer Sing, who had been confined in jail?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'How did this take place?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'About three years ago Ameer Sing was sentenced to imprisonment,
and his friends spent a great deal of money in bribes to
the native officers of the court, but all in vain. At last they were
recommended to give a handsome present to the red lady. They
did so, and Ameer Sing was released.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'But did they give the present into the lady's own hand?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'No, they gave it to one of her women.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'And how do you know that she ever gave it to her mistress,
or that her mistress ever heard of the transaction?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'She might certainly have been acting without her mistress's
knowledge; but the popular belief is, that Lal Beebee got the
present.'</p>

<p class="i1">"I then told them the story of the affair at Jubbulpore, when
Mrs. Smith's name had been used for a similar purpose, and the
people around us were highly amused; and the old man's opinion
of the transaction evidently underwent a change.<a name="FNanchor_110_110"
id="FNanchor_110_110"></a><a href="#Footnote_110_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a></p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span></p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"We became good friends, and the old man begged me to have
my tents, which he supposed were coming up, pitched among
them, that he might have an opportunity of showing that he was
not a bad subject, though he grumbled against the government.</p>

<p class="i1">"The next day, at Meerut, I got a visit from the chief native
judge, whose son, a talented youth, is in my office. Among other
things, I asked him whether it might not be possible to improve
the character of the police by increasing the salaries of the officers,
and mentioned my conversation with the landholder.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Never, sir,' said the old gentleman; 'the man that now gets
twenty-five rupees a month, is contented with making perhaps
fifty or seventy-five more; and the people subject to his authority
pay him accordingly. Give him a hundred, sir, and he will put
a shawl over his shoulders, and the poor people will be obliged
to pay him at a rate which will make up his income to four hundred.
You will only alter his style of living, and make him a
greater burden to the people; he will always take as long as he
thinks he can with impunity.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'But do you not think that when people see a man adequately
paid by government, they will the more readily complain at any
attempt at unauthorized exactions?'</p>

<p class="i1">"'Not a bit, sir, as long as they see the same difficulties in the
way of prosecuting them to conviction. In the administration
of civil justice (the old gentleman is a civil judge) you may occasionally
see your way, and understand what is doing; but in
revenue and police you have never seen it in India, and never
will, I think. The officers you employ will all add to their incomes
by unauthorized means; and the lower their incomes, the
less their pretensions, and the less the populace have to pay.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">In the "History of the Possessions of the Honourable
East India Company," by R. Montgomery Martin, F. S.
S., the following statements occur:
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span>—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The following estimate has been made of the population of the
allied and independent states:—Hydrabad, 10,000,000; Oude,
6,000,000; Nagpoor, 3,000,000; Mysore, 3,000,000; Sattara,
1,500,000; Gurckwar, 2,000,000; Travancore and Cochin, 1,000,000;
Rajpootana, and various minor principalities, 16,500,000; Sciudias
territories, 4,000,000; the Seiks, 3,000,000; Nepál, 2,000,000;
Cashmere, etc., 1,000,000; Scinde, 1,000,000; total, 51,000,000.
This, of course, is but a rough estimate by Hamilton, (Slavery in
British India.) For the last forty years the East India Company's
government have been gradually, but safely, abolishing slavery
throughout their dominions; they began in 1789 with putting
down the maritime traffic, by prosecuting any person caught in
exporting or importing slaves by sea, long before the British government
abolished that infernal commerce in the Western world,
and they have ever since sedulously sought the final extinction of
that domestic servitude which had long existed throughout the
East, as recognised by the Hindoo and Mohammedan law. In
their despatches of 1798, it was termed '<i>an inhuman commerce
and cruel traffic</i>.' French, Dutch, or Danish subjects captured
within the limit of their dominions in the act of purchasing or
conveying slaves were imprisoned and heavily fined, and every
encouragement was given to their civil and military servants to
aid in protecting the first rights of humanity.</p>

<p class="i1">"Mr. Robertson,<a name="FNanchor_111_111" id="FNanchor_111_111"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_111_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a>
in reference to Cawnpore, observes:—'Domestic
slavery exists; but of an agricultural slave I do not recollect
a single instance. When I speak of <i>domestic</i> slavery, I mean
that <i>status</i> which I must call slavery for want of any more accurate
designation. It does not, however, resemble that which is
understood in Europe to be slavery; it is the mildest species of
servitude. The domestic slaves are certain persons purchased in
times of scarcity; children purchased from their parents; they
grow up in the family, and are almost entirely employed in domestic
offices in the house; not liable to be resold.</p>

<p class="i1">"'There is a certain species of slavery in South Bahar, where
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span>
a man mortgages his labour for a certain sum of money; and this
species of slavery exists also in Arracan and Ava. It is for his
life, or until he shall pay the sum, that he is obliged to labour for
the person who lends him the money; and if he can repay the
sum, he emancipates himself.</p>

<p class="i1">"'Masters have no power of punishment recognised by our
laws. Whatever may be the provision of the Mohammedan or Hindoo
codes to that effect, it is a dead letter, for we would not recognise
it. The master doubtless may sometimes inflict domestic
punishment; but if he does, the slave rarely thinks of complaining
of it. Were he to do so his complaint would be received.'
This, in fact, is the palladium of liberty in England.</p>

<p class="i1">"In Malabar, according to the evidence of Mr. Baber, slavery,
as mentioned by Mr. Robertson, also exists, and perhaps the same
is the case in Guzerat and to the north; but the wonder is, not
that such is the case, but that it is so partial in extent, and fortunately
so bad in character, approximating indeed so much toward
the feudal state as to be almost beyond the reach as well as the
necessity of laws which at present would be practically inoperative.
The fact, that of 100,000,000 British inhabitants, [or allowing
five to a family, 20,000,000 families,] upward of 16,000,000
are landed proprietors, shows to what a confined extent even domestic
slavery exists. A commission has been appointed by the
new charter to inquire into this important but delicate subject.'"</p></div>

<p class="i1">We have quoted this passage from a writer who is a
determined advocate of every thing <i>British</i>, whether it
be good or had, in order to show by his own admission
that chattel slavery, that is the precise form of slavery
of which the British express such a holy horror, exists
in British India under the sanction of British laws.
Nor does it exist to a small extent only, as he would
have us believe. It has always existed there, and must
necessarily be on the increase, from the very cause
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span>
which he points out, viz. famine. No country in the
world, thanks to British oppression, is so frequently
and so extensively visited by famine as India; and as
the natives can escape in many instances from starving
to death by selling themselves, and can save their children
by selling them into slavery, we can readily form
an estimate of the great extent to which this takes
place in cases of famine, where the people are perishing
by thousands and tens of thousands. As to the
statement that the government of the East India Company
have been endeavouring to abolish this species of
slavery, it proves any thing rather than a desire to
benefit the natives of India. Chattel slaves are not
desired by British subjects because the ownership of
them involves the necessity of supporting them in sickness
and old age. The kind of slavery which the
British have imposed on the great mass of their East
Indian subjects is infinitely more oppressive and inhuman
than chattel slavery. Indeed it would not at all
suit the views of the British aristocracy to have chattel
slavery become so fashionable in India as to interfere
with their own cherished system of political slavery,
which is so extensively and successfully practised in
England, Scotland, Ireland, and the West and East
Indies. The money required for the support of chattel
slaves could not be spared by the aristocratic governments
in the colonies. The object is to take the fruits
of the labourer's toil without providing for him at all.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span>
When labourers are part of a master's capital, the
better he provides for them the more they are worth.
When they are not property, the character of their subsistence
is of no importance; but they must yield the
greater part of the results of their toil.</p>

<p class="i1">The "salt laws" of India are outrageously oppressive.
An account of their operation will give the
reader a taste of the character of the legislation to
which the British have subjected conquered Hindoos.
Such an account we find in a recent number of
"Household Words," which Lord Shaftesbury and his
associates in luxury and philanthropy should read more
frequently than we can suppose they do:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Salt, in India, is a government monopoly. It is partially imported,
and partially manufactured in government factories.
These factories are situated in dreary marshes—the workers obtaining
certain equivocal privileges, on condition of following
their occupation in these pestiferous regions, where hundreds of
these wretched people fall, annually, victims to the plague or the
floods.</p>

<p class="i1">"The salt consumed in India must be purchased through the
government, at a duty of upward of two pounds per ton, making
the price to the consumer about eight pence per pound. In England,
salt may be purchased by retail, three pounds, or wholesale,
five pounds for one penny; while in India, upward of thirty
millions of persons, whose average incomes do not amount to
above three shillings per week, are compelled to expend one-fourth
of that pittance in salt for themselves and families.</p>

<p class="i1">"It may naturally be inferred, that, with such a heavy duty
upon this important necessary of life, that underhand measures
are adopted by the poor natives for supplying themselves. We
shall see, however, by the following severe regulations, that the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span>
experiment is too hazardous to be often attempted. Throughout
the whole country there are numerous 'salt chokies,' or police
stations, the superintendents of which are invested with powers
of startling and extraordinary magnitude.</p>

<p class="i1">"When information is lodged with such superintendent that
salt is stored in any place without a '<i>ruwana</i>,' or permit, he proceeds
to collect particulars of the description of the article, the
quantity stated to be stored, and the name of the owner of the
store. If the quantity stated to be stored exceeds seventy
pounds, he proceeds with a body of police to make the seizure.
If the door is not opened to him at once, he is invested with full
power to break it open; and if the police-officers exhibit the least
backwardness in assisting, or show any sympathy with the unfortunate
owner, they are liable to be heavily fined. The owner
of the salt, with all persons found upon the premises, are immediately
apprehended, and are liable to six months' imprisonment
for the first offence, twelve for the second, and eighteen
months for the third; so that if a poor Indian was to see a shower
of salt in his garden, (there <i>are</i> showers of salt sometimes,) and
to attempt to take advantage of it without paying duty, he would
become liable to this heavy punishment. The superintendent of
police is also empowered to detain and search trading vessels,
and if salt be found on board without a permit, the whole of the
crew may be apprehended and tried for the offence. Any person
erecting a distilling apparatus in his own house, merely to distil
enough sea-water for the use of his household, is liable to such a
fine as may ruin him. In this case, direct proof is not required,
but inferred from circumstances at the discretion of the judge.</p>

<p class="i1">"If a person wishes to erect a factory upon his own estate, he
must first give notice to the collector of revenue of all the particulars
relative thereto, failing which, the collector may order
all the works to be destroyed. Having given notice, officers are
immediately quartered upon the premises, who have access to all
parts thereof, for fear the company should be defrauded of the
smallest amount of duty. When duty <i>is</i> paid upon any portion,
the collector, upon giving a receipt, specifies the name and residence
of the person to whom it is to be delivered, to whom it
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span>
<i>must</i> be delivered within a stated period, or become liable to
fresh duty. To wind up, and make assurance doubly sure, the
police may seize and detain any load or package which may pass
the stations, till they are satisfied such load or package does not
contain contraband salt.</p>

<p class="i1">"Such are the salt laws of India; such the monopoly by which
a revenue of three millions sterling is raised; and such the system
which, in these days of progress and improvement, acts as an
incubus upon the energies, the mental resources, and social advancement
of the immense population of India.</p>

<p class="i1">"Political economists of all shades of opinion—men who have
well studied the subject—deliberately assert that nothing would
tend so much toward the improvement of that country, and to a
more complete development of its vast natural resources, than
the abolition of these laws; and we can only hope, without
blaming any one, that at no distant day a more enlightened
policy will pervade the councils of the East India Company, and
that the poor Hindoo will be emancipated from the thraldom of
these odious enactments.</p>

<p class="i1">"But apart from every other consideration, there is one, in
connection with the Indian salt-tax, which touches the domestic
happiness and vital interest of every inhabitant in Great Britain.
It is decided, by incontrovertible medical testimony, that cholera
(whose ravages every individual among us knows something,
alas! too well about) is in a great measure engendered, and its
progress facilitated, by the prohibitory duties on salt in India,
the very cradle of the pestilence. Our precautionary measures
to turn aside the plague from our doors, appear to be somewhat
ridiculous, while the plague itself is suffered to exist, when it
might be destroyed—its existence being tolerated only to administer
to the pecuniary advantage of a certain small class of the
community. Let the medical men of this country look to it.
Let the people of this country generally look to it; for there is
matter for grave and solemn consideration, both nationally and
individually, in the Indian salt-tax."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Yes, the salt-tax is very oppressive; but it <i>pays</i>
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span>
those who authorized its assessment, and that is
sufficient for them. When they discover some means
of obtaining its equivalent—some oppression quite as
cruel but not so obvious—we may expect to hear of
the abolition of the odious salt monopoly.</p>

<p class="i1">Famines (always frightfully destructive in India)
have become more numerous than ever, under the
blighting rule of the British aristocrats. Vast tracts
of country, once the support of busy thousands, have
been depopulated by these dreadful visitations.</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The soil seems to lie under a curse. Instead of yielding
abundance for the wants of its own population and the inhabitants
of other regions, it does not keep in existence its own children.
It becomes the burying-place of millions who die upon its
bosom crying for bread. In proof of this, turn your eyes backward
upon the scenes of the past year. Go with me into the
North-west provinces of the Bengal presidency, and I will show
you the bleaching skeletons of five hundred thousand human
beings, who perished of hunger in the space of a few short
months. Yes, died of hunger, in what has been justly called the
granary of the world. Bear with me, if I speak of the scenes
which were exhibited during the prevalence of this famine. The
air for miles was poisoned by the effluvia emitted from the putrefying
bodies of the dead. The rivers were choked with the
corpses thrown into their channels. Mothers cast their little ones
beneath the rolling waves, because they would not see them draw
their last gasp and feel them stiffen in their arms. The English
in the cities were prevented from taking their customary evening
drives. Jackals and vultures approached, and fastened upon the
bodies of men, women, and children before life was extinct.
Madness, disease, despair stalked abroad, and no human power
present to arrest their progress. It was the carnival of death.
And this occurred in British India—in the reign of Victoria the
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span>
First. Nor was the event extraordinary and unforeseen. Far
from it: 1835-36 witnessed a famine in the Northern provinces;
1833 beheld one to the eastward; 1822-23 saw one in the
Deccan."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The above extract from one of George Thompson's
"Lectures on India," conveys an idea of the horrors
of a famine in that country. What then must be the
guilt of that government that adopts such measures as
tend to increase the frequency and swell the horror of
these scenes! By draining the resources of the people,
and dooming them to the most pinching poverty, the
British conquerors have greatly increased the dangers
of the visitations of famine, and opened to it a wide field
for destruction. The poor Hindoos may be said to live
face to face with starvation. The following account of
the famine of 1833 is given by Colonel Sleeman, in
his "Rambles and Recollections:"—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"During the famine of 1833, as on all similar occasions, grain
of every kind, attracted by high prices, flowed up in large streams
from this favoured province (Malwa) toward Bundelcund; and
the population of Bundelcund, as usual in such times of dearth and
scarcity, flowed off toward Malwa against the stream of supply,
under the assurance that the nearer they got to the source the
greater would be their chance of employment and subsistence.
Every village had its numbers of the dead and the dying; and the
roads were all strewed with them; but they were mostly concentrated
upon the great towns, and civil and military stations, where
subscriptions were open for their support by both the European
and native communities. The funds arising from these subscriptions
lasted till the rain had fairly set in, when all able-bodied
persons could easily find employment in tillage among the agricultural
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span>
communities of the villages around. After the rains have
fairly set in, the <i>sick</i> and <i>helpless</i> only should be kept concentrated
upon large towns and stations, where little or no employment is
to be found; for the oldest and youngest of those who are able to
work can then easily find employment in weeding the cotton, rice,
sugar-cane, and other fields under autumn crops, and in preparing
the land for the reception of the wheat, grain, and other spring
seeds; and get advances from the farmers, agricultural capitalists,
and other members of the village communities, who are all glad to
share their superfluities with the distressed, and to pay liberally
for the little service they are able to give in return.</p>

<p class="i1">"At large places, where the greater numbers are concentrated,
the scene becomes exceedingly distressing, for in spite of the best
dispositions and greatest efforts on the part of government and its
officers, and the European and native communities, thousands
commonly die of starvation. At Saugor, mothers, as they lay in
the streets unable to walk, were seen holding up their infants, and
imploring the passing stranger to take them in slavery, that they
might at least live—hundreds were seen creeping into gardens,
courtyards, and old ruins, concealing themselves under shrubs,
grass, mats, or straw, where they might die quietly, without having
their bodies torn by birds and beasts before the breath had left
them! Respectable families, who left home in search of the
favoured land of Malwa, while yet a little property remained,
finding all exhausted, took opium rather than beg, and husband,
wife, and children died in each other's arms! Still more of such
families lingered on in hope until all had been expended; then
shut their doors, took poison, and died all together, rather than expose
their misery, and submit to the degradation of begging. All
these things I have myself known and seen; and in the midst of
these and a hundred other harrowing scenes which present themselves
on such occasions, the European cannot fail to remark the
patient resignation with which the poor people submit to their fate;
and the absence of almost all those revolting acts which have
characterized the famines of which he has read in other countries—such
as the living feeding on the dead, and mothers devouring their
own children. No such things are witnessed in Indian famines;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span>
here all who suffer attribute the disaster to its real cause, the want
of rain in due season; and indulge in no feelings of hatred against
their rulers, superiors, or more fortunate equals in society, who
happen to live beyond the influence of such calamities. They
gratefully receive the superfluities which the more favoured are
always found ready to share with the afflicted in India; and
though their sufferings often subdue the strongest of all pride—the
pride of caste, they rarely ever drive people to acts of violence.
The stream of emigration, guided as it always is by that of the
agricultural produce flowing in from the more favoured countries,
must necessarily concentrate upon the communities along the line
it takes a greater number of people than they have the means of
relieving, however benevolent their dispositions; and I must say,
that I have never either seen or read of a nobler spirit than seems
to animate all classes of these communities in India on such distressing
occasions."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The same writer has some judicious general remarks
upon the causes of famine in India, which are worthy
of quotation. We have only to add, that whatever
may be found in the climate and character of the
country that expose the people to the frequency of
want, the conquerors have done their best to aggravate
natural evils:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"In India, unfavourable seasons produce much more disastrous
consequences than in Europe. In England, not more than one-fourth
of the population derive their incomes from the cultivation
of the land around them. Three-fourths of the people have incomes,
independent of the annual returns from those lands; and with
these incomes they can purchase agricultural produce from other
lands when the crops upon them fail. The farmers, who form so
large a portion of the fourth class, have stock equal in value to
<i>four times the amount of the annual rent of their lands</i>. They have
also a great variety of crops; and it is very rare that more than
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span>
one or two of them fail, or are considerably affected, the same
season. If they fail in one district or province, the deficiency is
very easily supplied to people who have equivalents to give for
the produce of another. The sea, navigable rivers, fine roads, all
are open and ready at all times for the transport of the super-abundance
of one quarter to supply the deficiencies of another.
In India the reverse of all this is unhappily everywhere to be
found; more than three-fourths of the whole population are engaged
in the cultivation of the land, and depend upon its annual
returns for subsistence. The farmers and cultivators have none
of them stock equal in value to more than <i>half the amount of the
annual rents of their lands</i>. They have a great variety of crops;
but all are exposed to the same accidents, and commonly fail at
the same time. The autumn crops are sown in June and July,
and ripen in October and November; and if seasonable showers
do not fall in July, August, and September, all fail. The spring
crops are sown in October and November, and ripen in March;
and if seasonable showers do not happen to fall during December
or January, all, save what are artificially irrigated, fail. If they
fail in one district or province, the people have few equivalents to
offer for a supply of land produce from any other. Their roads
are scarcely anywhere passable for wheeled carriages at <i>any season</i>,
and nowhere <i>at all seasons</i>—they have nowhere a navigable
canal, and only in one line a navigable river. Their land produce
is conveyed upon the backs of bullocks, that move at the rate of
six or eight miles a day, and add one hundred per cent. to the
cost for every hundred miles they carry it in the best seasons, and
more than two hundred in the worst. What in Europe is felt
merely as a <i>dearth</i>, becomes in India, under all these disadvantages,
a <i>scarcity</i>; and what is there a <i>scarcity</i> becomes here a
famine."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Another illustration of the truth that poverty is the
source of crime and depravity is found in India. Statistics
and the evidence of recent travellers show that
the amount of vice in the different provinces is just in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span>
proportion to the length of time they have been under
British rule. No stronger proof of the iniquity of the
government—of its poisonous tendencies as well as
positive injustice—could be adduced.</p>

<p class="i1">The cultivation and exportation of the pernicious
drug, opium, which destroys hundreds of thousands of
lives annually, have latterly been prominent objects of
the East Indian government. The best tracts of land
in India were chosen for the cultivation of the poppy.
The people were told that they must either raise this
plant, make opium, or give up their land. Furthermore,
those who produced the drug were compelled to
sell it to the Company. In the Bengal Presidency, the
monopoly of the government is complete. It has its
establishment for the manufacture of the drug. There
are two great agencies at Ghazeepore and Patna, for
the Benares and Bahar provinces. Each opium agent
has several deputies in different districts, and a native
establishment. They enter into contracts with the cultivator
for the supply of opium at a rate fixed to suit
the demand. The land-revenue authorities do not interfere,
except to prevent cultivation without permission.
The land cultivated is measured, and all the
produce must be sold to the government. At the head
agency the opium is packed in chests and sealed with
the Company's seal.<a name="FNanchor_112_112" id="FNanchor_112_112"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_112_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a></p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">The imperial government of China, seeing that the
traffic in opium was sowing misery and death among its
subjects, prohibited the introduction of the drug within
the empire in 1839. But the British had a vast amount
of capital at stake, and the profits of the trade were too
great to be relinquished for any considerations of humanity.
War was declared; thousands of Chinese were
slaughtered, and the imperial government forced to
permit the destructive traffic on a more extensive scale
than ever, and to pay $2,000,000 besides for daring to
protest against it!</p>

<p class="i1">The annual revenue now realized from the opium
traffic amounts to £3,500,000. It is estimated that
about 400,000 Chinese perish every year in consequence
of using the destructive drug, while the amount
of individual and social misery proceeding from the
same cause is appalling to every humane heart. Among
the people of India who have been forced into the cultivation
and manufacture of opium, the use of it has
greatly increased under the fostering care of the government.
The Company seems to be aware that a people
enervated by excessive indulgence will make little effort
to throw off the chains of slavery. Keep the Hindoo
drunk with opium and he will not rebel.</p>

<p class="i1">The effects of this drug upon the consumer are thus
described by a distinguished Chinese scholar:—"It
exhausts the animal spirits, impedes the regular performance
of business, wastes the flesh and blood,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span>
dissipates every kind of property, renders the person
ill-favoured, promotes obscenity, discloses secrets, violates
the laws, attacks the vitals, and destroys life."
This statement is confirmed by other natives, and also
by foreign residents; and it is asserted that, as a
general rule, a person does not live more than ten years
after becoming addicted to the use of this drug.</p>

<p class="i1">The recent Burmese war had for one of its objects
the opening of a road to the interior of China, for the
purpose of extending the opium trade. And for such
an object thousands of brave Burmese were slaughtered,
fertile and beautiful regions desolated, and others subjected
to the peculiar slave-system of the East India
Company. The extension of British dominion and the
accumulation of wealth in British hands, instead of the
spread of Christianity and the development of civilization,
mark all the measures of the Company.</p>

<p class="i1">William Howitt, one of the ablest as well as the most
democratic writers of England, thus confirms the statements
made above:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The East India Company exists by monopolies of the land, of
opium, and of salt. By their narrow, greedy, and purblind management
of these resources, they have contrived to reduce that
once affluent country to the uttermost depths of poverty and
pauperism. The people starve and perish in famine every now
and then by half a million at a time. One-third of that superb
peninsula is reduced to waste and jungle. While other colonies
pay from twenty to thirty shillings per head of revenue, India
yields only four shillings per head. The income of the government
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span>
at the last renewal of the charter was <i>twenty millions</i>; it is
now reduced to about <i>seventeen millions</i>; and even to raise this,
they have been obliged to double the tax on salt. The debt was
<i>forty millions</i>; it is now said to be augmented by constant war,
and the payment of the dividends, which, whatever the real proceeds,
are always kept up to the usual height, to <i>seventy millions</i>.
This is a state of things which cannot last. It is a grand march
toward financial inanition. It threatens, if not arrested by the
voice of the British people, the certain and no very distant loss
of India.</p>

<p class="i1">"We have some glimpses of the treatment of the people in the
collection of the land-tax, as it is called, but really the rent. The
government claims not the mere right of governing, but, as conquerors,
the fee-simple of the land. Over the greater part of
India there are no real freeholders. The land is the Company's,
and they collect, not a tax, but a rent. They have their collectors
all over India, who go and say as the crops stand, 'We shall take
so much of this.' It is seldom less than one-half—it is more commonly
sixty, seventy, and eighty per cent! This is killing the
goose to come at the golden egg. It drives the people to despair;
they run away and leave the land to become jungle; they perish
by famine in thousands and tens of thousands.</p>

<p class="i1">"This is why no capitalists dare to settle and grow for us
cotton, or manufacture for us sugar. There is no security—no
fixity of taxation. It is one wholesale system of arbitrary plunder,
such as none but a conquered country in the first violence of
victorious license ever was subjected to. But this system has
here continued more than a generation; the country is reduced
by it to a fatal condition—the only wonder is that we yet retain
it at all.</p>

<p class="i1">"The same system is pursued in the opium monopoly. The finest
lands are taken for the cultivation of the poppy; the government
give the natives what they please for the opium, often about as
many shillings as they get paid for it guineas per pound, and
ship it off to curse China with it. 'In India,' says a writer in
the Chinese Repository, 'the extent of territory occupied with the
poppy, and the amount of population engaged in its cultivation
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span>
and the preparation of opium, are far greater than in any other
part of the world.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Turkey is said to produce only 2000 chests of opium annually;
India produces 40,000 of 134 lbs. each, and yielding a revenue of
about £4,000,000 sterling.</p>

<p class="i1">"But perhaps worse than all is the salt monopoly. It is well
known that the people of India are a vegetable diet people. Boiled
rice is their chief food, and salt is an absolute necessary of life.
With a vegetable diet in that hot climate, without plenty of salt,
putrid diseases and rapid mortality are inevitable. Nature, or
Providence, has therefore given salt in abundance. The sea
throws it up already crystallized in many places; in others it is
prepared by evaporation; but the Company steps in and imposes
<i>two hundred per cent.</i> on this indispensable article, and guards it
by such penalties that the native dare not stoop to gather it when
it lies at his feet. The consequence is that mortality prevails, to
a terrific extent often, among the population. Officers of government
are employed to destroy the salt naturally formed; and
government determines how much salt shall be annually consumed.</p>

<p class="i1">"Now, let the people of England mark one thing. <i>The cholera
originates in the East.</i> It has visited us once, and is on its march
once more toward us. We have heard through the newspapers
of its arrival in Syria, in Turkey, in Russia, at Vienna. In a few
months it will probably be again among us.</p>

<p class="i1">"<i>Has any one yet imagined that this scourge may possibly be the
instrument of Divine retribution for our crimes and cruelties?</i> Has
any one imagined that we have any thing to do with the creation
of this terrible pestilence? Yet there is little, there is scarcely
the least doubt, that this awful instrument of death is occasioned
by this very monopoly of salt—that it is the direct work of the
four-and-twenty men in Leadenhall-street. The cholera is found
to arise in the very centre of India. It commences in the midst
of this swarming population, which subsists on vegetables, and
which is deprived by the British government of the necessary
salt! In that hot climate it acquires a deadly strength—thousands
perish by it as by the stroke of lightning, and it hence
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span>
radiates over the globe, travelling at the speed of a horse in full
gallop. Thus it is that God visits our deeds upon our heads.</p>

<p class="i1">"Such is a brief glance at the mal-administration, the abuse, and
the murderous treatment of India, permitted by great and Christian
England to a knot of mere money-making traders. We commit
the lives and happiness of one hundred and fifty millions of souls—the
well-being, and probably the chance of retention, of one of the
finest countries in the world, and the comfort and prosperity of
every human creature in Great Britain, to the hands of those who
are only, from day to day, grasping at the vitals of this glorious
Eastern region to increase their dividends. This is bad enough,
but this is not all. As if we had given them a charter in the most
effectual manner to damage our dominions and blast all our prospects
of trade, we have allowed these four-and-twenty men of
Leadenhall-street not only to cripple India, but to exasperate
and, as far as possible, close China against us. Two millions of
people in India and three millions of people in China—all waiting
for our manufactures, all capable of sending us the comforts
and necessaries that we need—it would seem that to us, a nation
especially devoted to trade, as if Providence had opened all the gorgeous
and populous East to employ and to enrich us. One would
have thought that every care and anxiety would have been aroused
to put ourselves on the best footing with this swarming region.
It has been the last thing thought of.</p>

<p class="i1">"The men of Leadenhall-street have been permitted, after having
paralyzed India, to send to China not the articles that the Chinese
wanted, but the very thing of all others that its authorities abhorred—that
is, opium.</p>

<p class="i1">"It is well known with what assiduity these traders for years
thrust this deadly drug into the ports of China; or it may be
known from 'Medhurst's China,' from 'Thelwall's Iniquities
of the Opium Trade,' from 'Montgomery Martin's Opium in
China,' and various other works. It is well known what horrors,
crimes, ruin of families, and destruction of individuals the rage
of opium-smoking introduced among the millions of the Celestial
Empire. Every horror, every species of reckless desperation,
social depravity, and sensual crime, spread from the practice and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span>
overran China as a plague. The rulers attempted to stop the evil
by every means in their power. They enacted the severest
punishments for the sale of it. These did not avail. They augmented
the punishment to death. Without a stop to it the whole
framework of society threatened to go to pieces. 'Opium,' says
the Imperial edict itself, 'coming from the distant regions of barbarians,
has pervaded the country with its baneful influence.' The
opium-smoker would steal, sell his property, his children, the
mother of his children, and finally commit murder for it. The
most ghastly spectacles were everywhere seen; instead of healthy
and happy men, the most repulsive scenes. 'I visited one of the
opium-houses,' said an individual quoted by Sir Robert Inglis, in
the House of Commons, in 1843, 'and shall I tell you what I saw
in this antechamber of hell? I thought it impossible to find anything
worse than the results of drinking ardent spirits; but I have
succeeded in finding something far worse. I saw Malays, Chinese,
men and women, old and young, in one mass, in one common
herd, wallowing in their filth, beastly, sensual, devilish, and this
under the eyes of a Christian government.'</p>

<p class="i1">"They were these abominations and horrors that the Emperor
of China determined to arrest. They were these which our East
India Company determined to perpetuate for this base gain.
When the emperor was asked to license the sale of opium, as he
could not effect its exclusion, and thus make a profit of it, what was
his reply? '<i>It is true I cannot prevent the introduction of the flowing
poison. Gain-seeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality,
defeat my wishes, but nothing will induce me to derive a
benefit from the vice and misery of my people.</i>'</p>

<p class="i1">"These were the sentiments of the Chinese monarch; what was
the conduct of the so-called Christian Englishmen? They determined
to go on poisoning and demoralizing China, till they provoked
the government to war, and then massacred the people to
compel the continuance of the sale of opium."</p></div>

<p class="i1">Howitt evidently has as ardent a sympathy for those
who have suffered from the tyranny of British rule as
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span>
Edmund Burke himself. The wholesale degradation of
the Hindoos, which has resulted from the measures
of the East India Company, calls loudly indeed for the
denunciations of indignant humanity. The crime must
have its punishment. The ill-gotten gains of the Company
should be seized to carry out an ameliorating
policy, and all concerned in enforcing the system of
oppression should be taught that justice is not to be
wounded with impunity.</p>

<p class="i1">The burdens imposed upon the Hindoos are precisely
of the character and extent of those that have reduced
Ireland to poverty and her people to slavery. Besides
the enormous rents, which are sufficient of themselves
to dishearten the tillers of the soil, the British authorities
seem to have exhausted invention in devising taxes.
So dear a price to live was never paid by any people
except the Irish. What remains to the cultivator when
the rent of the land and almost forty different taxes
are paid?</p>

<p class="i1">Those Hindoos who wish to employ capital or labour
in any other way than in cultivation of land are deterred
by the formidable array of taxation. The chief taxes
are styled the Veesabuddy, or tax on merchants,
traders, and shopkeepers; the Mohturfa, or tax on
weavers, carpenters, stonecutters, and other mechanical
trades; and the Bazeebab, consisting of smaller taxes
annually rented out to the highest bidder. The proprietor
of the Bazeebab is thus constituted a petty chieftain,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span>
with power to exact fees at marriages and religious
ceremonies; to inquire into and fine the misconduct of
females in families, and other misdemeanours—in fact,
petty tyrants, who can at all times allege engagements
to the government to justify extortion.<a name="FNanchor_113_113" id="FNanchor_113_113"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_113_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a> These proprietors
are the worst kind of slaveholders.</p>

<p class="i1">The mode of settling the Mohturfa on looms is remarkable
for the precision of its exaction. Every
circumstance of the weaver's family is considered; the
number of days which he devotes to his loom, the number
of his children, the assistance which he receives
from them, and the number and quality of the pieces
which he can produce in a year; so that, let him exert
himself as he will, his industry will always be taxed to
the highest degree.<a name="FNanchor_114_114" id="FNanchor_114_114"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_114_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> This method is so detailed that
the servants of the government cannot enter into it, and
the assessment of the tax is therefore left to the heads
of the villages. It is impossible for a weaver to know
what he is to pay to the government for being allowed
to carry on his business till the yearly demand is made.
If he has worked hard, and turned out one or two pieces
of cloth more than he did the year before, his tax is increased.
The more industrious he is the more he is
forced to pay.</p>

<p class="i1">The tax-gatherers are thorough inquisitors. According
to Rikards, upward of seventy different kinds of
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span>
buildings—the houses, shops, or warehouses of different
castes and professions—were ordered to be entered into
the survey accounts; besides the following implements
of professions, which were usually assessed to the public
revenue, viz.: "Oil-mills, iron manufactory, toddy-drawer's
stills, potter's kiln, washerman's stone, goldsmith's
tools, sawyer's saw, toddy-drawer's knives,
fishing-nets, barber's hones, blacksmith's anvils, pack-bullocks,
cocoa-nut safe, small fishing-boats, cotton-beater's
bow, carpenter's tools, large fishing-boats,
looms, salt-storehouses. If a landlord objects to the
assessment on trees, as old and past bearing, they are,
one and all, ordered to be cut down—a measure as ridiculous
as unjust—as it not only inflicts injury upon
the landlord, but takes away the chance of future profit
for the government. Mr. Rikards bears witness, as a
collector of Malabar, that lands and produce were
sometimes inserted in the survey account which absolutely
did not exist, while other lands were assessed to
the revenue at more than their actual produce. From
all this, it is obvious that the Hindoo labourer or artisan
is the slave of the tax-collector, who, moreover, has
no interest in the life of his victim.</p>

<p class="i1">Labour being almost "dirt cheap" in India, whenever
speculating companies of Englishmen wish to carry out
any particular scheme for which labourers are required,
they hire a number of Hindoo Coolies, induce them to
visit any port of the country, and treat them abominably,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span>
knowing that the poor wretches have no protection.
The operations of the Assam Tea Company
illustrate this practice:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"An inconsiderate expenditure of capital placed the Assam Tea
Company in great jeopardy, and at one time it was feared the
scheme would be abandoned. The number of managers and assistants
appointed by the Assam Company to carry on their affairs
and superintend their tea gardens, on large salaries, was quite
unnecessary; one or two experienced European superintendents
to direct the native establishment would have answered every purpose.
A vast number of Coolies (or labourers) were induced to
proceed to Upper Assam to cultivate the gardens; but bad arrangements
having been made to supply them with proper, wholesome
food, many were seized with sickness. On their arrival at
the tea-plantations, in the midst of high and dense tree jungle,
numbers absconded, and others met an untimely end. The rice
served out to the Coolies from the Assam Tea Company's store-rooms,
was so bad as not to be fit to be given to elephants, much
less to human beings. The loss of these labourers, who had been
conveyed to Upper Assam at a great expense, deprived the company
of the means of cultivating so great an extent of country as
would otherwise have been insured; for the scanty population of
Upper Assam offered no means of replacing the deficiency of
hands. Nor was the improvidence of the company in respect to
labourers the only instance of their mismanagement. Although
the company must have known that they had no real use or necessity
for a steamer, a huge vessel was nevertheless purchased, and
frequently sent up and down the Burrampooter river from Calcutta;
carrying little else than a few thousand rupees for the
payment of their establishment in Upper Assam, which might
have been transmitted through native bankers, and have saved
the company a most lavish and unprofitable expenditure of
capital."<a name="FNanchor_115_115" id="FNanchor_115_115"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_115_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a></p></div>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">Ay, and the expense is all that is thought worthy of
consideration. The miserable victims to the measures
of the company might perish like brutes without being
even pitied.</p>

<p class="i1">On the verge of starvation, as so many of the Hindoo
labourers generally are, it does not excite surprise that
they are very ready to listen to the offers of those who
are engaged in the "Cooley slave-trade." In addition
to the astounding facts given by us in the previous chapter,
in regard to this traffic in men, we quote the following
from the London Spectator of October, 1838:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"Under Lord Glenelg's patronage, the Eastern slave-trade prospers
exceedingly. The traffic in Hill Coolies promises to become
one of the most extensive under the British flag. A cargo arrived
in Berbice about the beginning of May, in prime condition: and
the Berbice Advertiser, one of the most respectable of the West
India journals, states, that out of 289, conveyed in the Whitby,
only eight died on the passage, and very few were ill. Only one
circumstance was wanting to make them the happiest of human(?)
beings—only eight women were sent as companions for the 280
men; and the deficiency of females was the more to be regretted
because it was 'probable they would be shunned by the negroes
from jealousy and speaking a different language.'</p>

<p class="i1">"The same newspaper contains a very curious document respecting
the Hill Cooley traffic. It is a circular letter, dated the
8th January, 1838, from Henley, Dowson, and Bethel, of Calcutta,
the agents most extensively engaged in the shipment of labourers
from India to the Mauritius and British Guiana. These gentlemen
thus state their claims to preference over other houses in the
same business:—</p>

<p class="i1">"'We have within the last two years procured and shipped
upward of 5000 free agricultural labourers for our friends at Mauritius;
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span>
and, from the circumstance of nearly 500 of the number
being employed on estates in which we possess a direct interest,
we can assure you that a happier and more contented labouring
population is seldom to be met with in any part of the world,
than the Dhargas or mountain tribes sent from this vast country.'</p>

<p class="i1">"Five thousand within two years to the Mauritius alone! This
is pretty well, considering that the trade is in its infancy. As to
the statement of the happiness and contentment of the labourers,
rather more impartial evidence than the good word of the exporters
of the commodity advertised would be desirable. If
Englishmen could fancy themselves Hill Coolies for an instant—landed
in Berbice, in the proportion of 280 men to 8 of the gentler
sex, 'speaking a different language,' and shunned by the very
negroes—we are inclined to think they would not, even in that
imaginary and momentary view, conceit themselves to be among
the happiest of mankind.</p>

<p class="i1">"We proceed with the Calcutta circular:—</p>

<p class="i1">"'The labourers hitherto procured by us have cost their employers,
<i>landed at the Mauritius</i>, about one hundred rupees (or
10<i>l.</i> sterling) per man; which sum comprises six months' advance
of wages, provisions and water for the voyage, clothing, commission,
passage, insurance, and all incidental charges.'</p>

<p class="i1">"'The expense attending the shipment of Indian labourers to
the West India Colonies would be necessarily augmented—firstly,
by the higher rate of passage-money, and the increased quantity
of provisions and water; and, secondly, from the necessity of
making arrangements, indispensable to the health and comfort
of native passengers, on a voyage of so long a duration, in the
course of which they would be exposed to great vicissitude of
climate.</p>

<p class="i1">"'On making ample allowance for these charges, we do not
apprehend that a labourer, sent direct from this country to Demerara,
and engaged to work on your estates for a period of five
consecutive years, would cost, landed there, above two hundred
and ten rupees, or 21<i>l.</i> sterling.'</p>

<p class="i1">"This sum of 210 rupees includes <i>six months' wages</i>—at what
rate does the reader suppose? Why, five rupees, or ten shillings
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span>
sterling a month—half-a-crown a week—in Demerara! The passage
is 10<i>l.</i>, and the insurance 12<i>s.</i>; for they are insured at so
much a head, like pigs or sheep.</p>

<p class="i1">"It is manifest that after their arrival in Demerara, the Indians
will not, unless on compulsion, work for five years at the rate of
10<i>s.</i> a month, while the negroes receive much higher wages.
They are therefore placed under strict control, and are just as
much slaves as the Redemptioners, whom the virtuous Quakers
inveigled into Pennsylvania a century or more ago. The Indians
bind themselves to work in town or country, wherever their consignee
or master may choose to employ them. One of the articles
of their agreement is this:—</p>

<p class="i1">"'In order that the undersigned natives of India may be fully
aware of the engagement they undertake, it is hereby notified,
that they will be required to do <i>all such work as the object for
which they are engaged necessitates</i>; and that, as labourers attached
to an estate, they will be required to clear forest and extract timber,
carry manure, dig and prepare land for planting, also to take
charge of horses, mules, and cattle of every description; <i>in short,
to do all such work as an estate for the cultivation of sugar-cane and
the manufacture of sugar demands</i>, or any branch of agriculture to
which they may be destined.'</p>

<p class="i1">"In case of disobedience or misconduct—that is, at the caprice
of the master—they may be 'degraded,' and sent back at their
own charge to Calcutta. They are to receive no wages during
illness; and a rupee a month is to be deducted from their wages—thereby
reducing them to 2<i>s.</i> a week—as an indemnity-fund for
the cost of sending them back. What security there is for the
kind treatment of the labourers does not appear: there is nothing
in the contract but a promise to act equitably.</p>

<p class="i1">"Now, in what respect do these men differ in condition from
negro slaves, except very much for the worse? They must be
more helpless than the negroes—if for no other reason, because
of their ignorance of the language their masters use. They will
not, for a long period certainly, be formidable from their numbers.
How easily may even the miserable terms of the contract with
their employers be evaded! Suppose the Indian works steadily
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span>
for four years, it may suit his master to describe him as refractory
and idle during the fifth, and then he will be sent back at
his own cost; and the whole of his earnings may be expended in
paying for his passage to Calcutta, where, after all, he is a long
way from home.</p>

<p class="i1">"It is impossible to contemplate without pain the inevitable
lot of these helpless beings; but the conduct of the government,
which could sanction the infamous commerce of which the Hill
Cooley will be the victims, while professing all the while such a
holy horror of dealing in negroes, should rouse general indignation.</p>

<p class="i1">Is it only a certain shade of black, and a peculiar physical
conformation, which excites the compassion of the Anti-Slavery
people? If it is cruelty, oppression, and fraud which they abhor
and desire to prevent, then let them renew their agitation in
behalf of the kidnapped natives of India, now suffering, probably
more acutely, all that made the lot of the negro a theme for eloquence
and a field for Christian philanthropy."</p></div>

<p class="i1">This is written in the right spirit. The trade described
has increased to an extent which calls for the
interference of some humane power. Should the British
government continue to sanction the traffic, it must stand
responsible for a national crime.</p>

<p class="i1">Oppressive and violent as the British dominion in
India undoubtedly is, the means devised to extend it
are even more worthy of strong condemnation. The
government fixes its eyes upon a certain province, where
the people are enjoying peace and plenty, and determines
to get possession of it. The Romans themselves
were not more fertile in pretences for forcible seizure
of territory than these British plunderers. They quickly
hunt up a pretender to the throne, support his claims
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span>
with a powerful army, make him their complete tool,
dethrone the lawful sovereign, and extend their authority
over the country. The course pursued toward
Afghanistan in 1838 illustrates this outrageous violation
of national rights.</p>

<p class="i1">The following account of the origin and progress of
the Afghanistan war is given by an English writer in the
Penny Magazine:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"In 1747, Ahmeed Shah, an officer of an Afghan troop in the
service of Persia, refounded the Afghan monarchy, which was
maintained until the death of his successor in 1793. Ahmeed
was of the Douranee tribe, and the limits over which his sway
extended is spoken of as the Douranee empire. Four of the sons
of Ahmeed's successor disputed, and in turn possessed, the throne;
and during this civil war several of the principal chiefs threw off
their allegiance, and the Douranee empire ceased to exist, but
was split up into the chiefships of Candahar, Herat, Caboul, and
Peshawur. Herat afterward became a dependency of Persia, and
Shah Shooja ool Moolook, the chief of Peshawur, lost his power
after having enjoyed it for about six years. Dost Mohammed
Kahn, the chief of Caboul, according to the testimony of the late
Sir Alexander Burnes, writing in 1832, governed his territory
with great judgment, improved its internal administration and
resources, and became the most powerful chief in Afghanistan.
Shah Shooja was for many years a fugitive and a pensioner of
the British government. He made one unsuccessful attempt to
regain his territory, but Peshawur eventually became a tributary
to the ruler of the Punjab. Such was the state of Afghanistan
in 1836.</p>

<p class="i1">"In the above year the Anglo-Indian government complained
that Dost Mohammed Khan, chief of Caboul, had engaged in
schemes of aggrandizement which threatened the stability of the
British frontier in India; and Sir Alexander Burnes, who was
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span>
sent with authority to represent to him the light in which his
proceedings were viewed, was compelled to leave Caboul without
having effected any change in his conduct. The siege of Herat,
and the support which both Dost Mohammed and his brother, the
chief of Candahar, gave to the designs of Persia in Afghanistan,
the latter chief especially openly assisting the operations against
Herat, created fresh alarm in the Anglo-Indian government as to
the security of our frontier. Several minor chiefs also avowed
their attachment to the Persians. As our policy, instead of hostility,
required an ally capable of resisting aggression on the
western frontier of India, the Governor-general, from whose official
papers we take these statements, 'was satisfied,' after serious
and mature deliberation, 'that a pressing necessity, as well as
every consideration of policy and justice, warranted us in espousing
the cause of Shah Shooja ool Moolk;' and it was determined
to place him on the throne. According to the Governor-general,
speaking from the best authority, the testimony as to Shah Shooja's
popularity was unanimous. In June, 1838, the late Sir William
Macnaghten formed a tripartite treaty with the ruler of the Punjab
and Shah Shooja; the object of which was to restore the latter
to the throne of his ancestors. This policy it was conceived would
conduce to the general freedom and security of commerce, the
restoration of tranquillity upon the most important frontier of
India, and the erection of a lasting barrier against hostile intrigue
and encroachment; and, while British influence would
thus gain its proper footing among the nations of Central Asia,
the prosperity of the Afghan people would be promoted.</p>

<p class="i1">"Troops were despatched from the Presidencies of Bengal and
Bombay to co-operate with the contingents raised by the Shah
and our other ally, the united force being intended to act together
under the name of the 'Army of the Indus.' After a march of
extraordinary length, through countries which had never before
been traversed by British troops, and defiles which are the most
difficult passes in the world, where no wheeled carriage had ever
been, and where it was necessary for the engineers in many places
to construct roads before the baggage could proceed, the combined
forces from Bengal and Bombay reached Candahar in May,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span>
1839. According to the official accounts, the population were
enthusiastic in welcoming the return of Shah Shooja. The next
step was to advance toward Ghiznee and Caboul. On the 23d
July, the strong and important fortress and citadel of Ghiznee,
regarded throughout Asia as impregnable, was taken in two
hours by blowing up the Caboul gate. The army had only been
forty-eight hours before the place. An 'explosion party' carried
three hundred pounds of gunpowder in twelve sand-bags, with a
hose seventy-two feet long, the train was laid and fired, the party
having just time to reach a tolerable shelter from the effects of
the concussion, though one of the officers was injured by its force.
On the 7th of August the army entered Caboul. Dost Mohammed
had recalled his son Mohammed Akhbar from Jellalabad with
the troops guarding the Khyber Pass, and their united forces
amounted to thirteen thousand men; but these troops refused to
advance, and Dost Mohammed was obliged to take precipitate
fight, accompanied only by a small number of horsemen. Shah
Shooja made a triumphant entry into Caboul, and the troops of
Dost Mohammed tendered their allegiance to him. The official
accounts state that in his progress toward Caboul he was joined
by every person of rank and influence in the country. As the
tribes in the Bolan Pass committed many outrages and murders
on the followers of the army of the Indus, at the instigation of
their chief, the Khan of Khelat, his principal town (Khelat) was
taken on the 13th of November, 1839. The political objects of the
expedition had now apparently been obtained. The hostile chiefs
of Caboul and Candahar were replaced by a friendly monarch.
On the side of Scinde and Herat, British alliance and protection
were courted. All this had been accomplished in a few months,
but at an expense said to exceed three millions sterling."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The <i>expense</i> of national outrage is only of importance
to the sordid and unprincipled men who conceived and
superintended the Afghanistan expedition. In the first
part of the above extract, the writer places the British
government in the position of one who strikes in self-defence.
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span>
It was informed that Dost Mohammed entertained
schemes of invasion dangerous to the British
supremacy—informed by the exiled enemy of the chief
of Caboul. The information was seasonable and exceedingly
useful. Straightway a treaty was formed, by
which the British agreed to place their tool for the
enslavement of the Afghans upon the throne from
which he had been driven. Further on, it is said, that
when Shah Sooja appeared in Afghanistan he was
joined by every person of rank and influence in the
country. Just so; and the followers and supporters
of Dost Mohammed nearly all submitted to the superior
army of the British general. But two years afterward,
the strength of the patriotic party was seen, when
Caboul rose against Shah Sooja, drove him again from
the throne, and defeated and massacred a considerable
British garrison. Shah Sooja was murdered soon afterward.
But the British continued the war against the
Afghans, with the object of reducing them to the same
slavery under which the remainder of Hindostan was
groaning. The violation of national rights, the massacre
of thousands, and the enslavement of millions
were the glorious aims of British policy in the Afghan
expedition. The policy then carried out has been more
fully illustrated since that period. Whenever a territory
was thought desirable by the government, neither
national rights, the principles of justice and humanity,
nor even the common right of property in individuals
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span>
has been respected. Wealth has been an object for
the attainment of which plunder and massacre were not
considered unworthy means.</p>

<p class="i1">Said Mr. John Bright, the radical reformer of Manchester,
in a speech delivered in the House of Commons:—"It
cannot be too universally known that the
cultivators of the soil (in India) are in a very unsatisfactory
condition; that they are, in truth, in a condition
of almost extreme and universal poverty. All
testimony concurred upon that point. He would call
the attention of the House to the statement of a celebrated
native of India, the Rajah Rammohun Roy, who,
about twenty years ago, published a pamphlet in London,
in which he pointed out the ruinous effects of the
Zemindaree system, and the oppressions experienced by
the ryots in the Presidencies of Bombay and Madras.
After describing the state of affairs generally, he added,
'Such was the melancholy condition of the agricultural
labourers, that it always gave him the greatest pain to
allude to it.' Three years afterward, Mr. Shore, who
was a judge in India, published a work which was considered
as a standard work till now, and he stated 'that
the British government was not regarded in a favourable
light by the native population of India—that a
system of taxation and extortion was carried on unparalleled
in the annals of any country.'"</p>

<p class="i1">From all quarters we receive unimpeachable evidence
that the locust system has performed its devouring work
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span>
on the broadest scale in India; and that the Hindoos
are the victims of conquerors, slower, indeed, in their
movements, than Tamerlane or Genghis Khan, but more
destructive and more criminal than either of those great
barbarian invaders.</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span></p>




<div class="chapter">
<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
</div>

<p class="ac">THE CRIME AND THE DUTY OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT.</p>


<p class="i1"><span class="sc">It</span> remains to sum up the charges against the English
oligarchy, and to point out the path which justice, humanity,
and the age require the government to pursue.
In so doing, we shall go no farther than the facts previously
adduced will afford us sure ground, nor speak
more harshly than our duty to our oppressed fellow-men
will demand. We pity the criminal even while we pass
sentence upon her.</p>

<p class="i1">A government originating in, and suited for, a barbarous
age must necessarily be unfit for one enjoying the
meridian of civilization. The arrangement of lord and
serf was appropriate to the period when war was regarded
as the chief employment of mankind, and when more
respect was paid to the kind of blood flowing in a man's
veins than to his greatness or generosity of soul. But,
in the nineteenth century, war is regarded as an evil to
be avoided as long as possible. Peace is the rule, and
conflict the exception. Christianity has taught us, also,
that the good and the great in heart and mind—wherever
born, wherever bred—are the true nobility of our
race. It is the sin of the English government that it
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">[Pg 490]</a></span>
works against the bright influence of the times and
throws the gloomy shadow of feudalism over some of the
fairest regions of the earth. It legislates for the age
of William the Conqueror instead of the reign of
Victoria.</p>

<p class="i1">The few for hereditary luxury and dominion, the
many for hereditary misery and slavery, is the grand
fundamental principle of the English system. For every
gorgeous palace there are a thousand hovels, where even
beasts should not be forced to dwell. For every lord
who spends his days in drinking, gambling, hunting,
horse-racing, and indulging himself in all the luxuries
that money can purchase, a thousand persons, at
least, must toil day and night to obtain the most wretched
subsistence. In no country are the few richer than in
England, and in no country are the masses more fearfully
wretched. The great bulk of the property of
England, both civil and ecclesiastical, is in the grasp of
the aristocracy. All offices of church and state, yielding
any considerable emolument, are monopolized by the
lords and their nominees. The masses earn—the lords
spend. The lords have all the property, but the masses
pay all the taxes, and slave and starve that the taxes
may be paid.</p>

<p class="i1">Without such a system, is it possible that there could
be millions of acres of good land lying waste, and millions
of paupers who dare not cultivate it?—that the
workhouses could be crowded—that men, women, and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">[Pg 491]</a></span>
children could be driven to all kinds of work, and yet
by the most exhausting toil not earn enough to enable
them to live decently and comfortably—that honest and
industrious people could starve by the wayside, or die
of disease engendered in dirty hovels—that vice and
crime could be practised to an appalling extent—that
whole villages could be swept away and the poor labourers
either driven into the crowded cities, or to a
distant land, far from kindred and friends?</p>

<p class="i1">The aristocrats of England are the most extensive
slaveholders in the world. In England, Wales, Scotland,
and Ireland, they have the entire labouring mass
for their slaves—men, women, and children being doomed
to the most grinding toil to enable their masters to live
in luxurious ease. In India and the other colonies they
have treated the natives as the conquered were treated
in the Middle Ages. They have drained their resources,
oppressed them in every way, and disposed of tribes and
nations as if they had been dealing with cattle. Add
the slaves of India to the slaves of the United Kingdom,
and we may count them by tens of millions. These
slaves are not naturally inferior to their masters. They
belong to races fertile in great and good men and
women. Poets, artists, philosophers, historians, statesmen,
and warriors of the first magnitude in genius have
sprung from these down-trodden people. They have
fully proved themselves capable of enjoying the sweets
of freedom. They remain slaves because their masters
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">[Pg 492]</a></span>
find it profitable, and know how to cozen and bully them
into submission.</p>

<p class="i1">The following description of France before the great
revolution of 1789, by M. Thiers, is strikingly applicable
to the condition of Great Britain at the present
day:—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The condition of the country, both political and economical,
was intolerable. There was nothing but privilege—privilege vested
in individuals, in classes, in towns, in provinces, and even in
trades and professions. Every thing contributed to check industry
and the natural genius of man. All the dignities of the state,
civil, ecclesiastical, and military, were exclusively reserved to certain
individuals. No man could take up a profession without
certain titles and the compliance with certain pecuniary conditions.
Even the favours of the crown were converted into family
property, so that the king could scarcely exercise his own judgment,
or give any preference. Almost the only liberty left to the
sovereign was that of making pecuniary gifts, and he had been
reduced to the necessity of disputing with the Duke of Coigny for
the abolition of a useless place. Every thing, then, was made immovable
property in the hands of a few, and everywhere these few
resisted the many who had been despoiled. The burdens of the
state weighed on one class only. The noblesse and the clergy
possessed about two-thirds of the landed property; the other
third, possessed by the people, paid taxes to the king, a long list of
feudal <i>droits</i> to the noblesse, tithes to the clergy, and had, moreover,
to support the devastations committed by noble sportsmen and
their game. The taxes upon consumption pressed upon the great
multitude, and consequently on the people. The collection of
these imposts was managed in an unfair and irritating manner;
the lords of the soil left long arrears with impunity, but the people,
upon any delay in payment, were harshly treated, arrested,
and condemned to pay in their persons, in default of money to
produce. The people, therefore, nourished with their labour and
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">[Pg 493]</a></span>
defended with their blood the higher classes of society, without
being able to procure a comfortable subsistence for themselves.
The townspeople, a body of citizens, industrious, educated, less
miserable than the people, could nevertheless obtain none of the
advantages to which they had a right to aspire, seeing that it was
their industry that nourished and their talents that adorned the
kingdom."</p></div>

<p class="i1">The elements of revolution are all to be found in
Great Britain. A Mirabeau, with dauntless will and
stormy eloquence, could use them with tremendous
effect. Yet the giant of the people does not raise his
voice to plead the cause of the oppressed, and to awaken
that irresistible enthusiasm which would sweep away the
pampered aristocracy.</p>

<p class="i1">The armorial escutcheons of the aristocracy are fearfully
significant of its character. Says John Hampden,
Jun.:<a name="FNanchor_116_116" id="FNanchor_116_116"></a>
<a href="#Footnote_116_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a>—</p>

<div class="bq">

<p class="i1">"The whole emblazonment of aristocracy is one manifesto of
savage barbarism, brute force, and propensity to robbery and plunder.
What are these objects on their shields? Daggers, swords,
lions' heads, dogs' heads, arrow-heads, boars' heads, cannon balls,
clubs, with a medley of stars, moons, and unmeaning figures.
What are the crests of these arms? Lascivious goats, rampant
lions, fiery dragons, and griffins gone crazed: bulls' heads, block-heads,
arms with uplifted daggers, beasts with daggers, and vultures
tearing up helpless birds. What, again, are the supporters
of these shields? What are the emblems of the powers by which
they are maintained and upheld? The demonstration is deeply
significant. They are the most singular assemblage of all that is
fierce, savage, rampageous, villanous, lurking, treacherous, blood-thirsty,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">[Pg 494]</a></span>
cruel, and bestial in bestial natures. They are infuriated
lions, boars, and tigers; they are raging bulls, filthy goats, horrid
hyenas, snarling dogs, drunken bears, and mad rams; they are
foxes, wolves, panthers, every thing that is creeping, sneaking,
thievish, and perfidious. Nay, nature cannot furnish emblems
extensive enough, and so start up to our astonished sight the most
hideous shapes of fiendlike dragons and griffins, black, blasted as
by infernal fires; the most fuliginous of monsters; and if the human
shape is assumed for the guardians and supporters of aristocracy,
they are wild and savage men, armed with clubs and grim
with hair, scowling brute defiance, and seeming ready to knock
down any man at the command of their lords. Ay, the very birds
of prey are called in; and eagles, vultures, cormorants, in most
expressive attitudes, with most ludicrous embellishments of
crowned heads, collared necks, escutcheoned sides, and with
hoisted wings and beaks of open and devouring wrath, proclaim
the same great truth, that aristocracy is of the class of what the
Germans call <i>Raub-thieren</i>, or robber-beasts—in our vernacular,
<i>beasts of prey</i>."</p></div>

<p class="i1">And the character thus published to the world has
been acted out to the full from the days of the bastard
Duke of Normandy and his horde of ruffians to the
time of the "Iron Duke" and his associates in title and
plunder. The hyenas and vultures have never been
satisfied.</p>

<p class="i1">The crime of England lies in maintaining the slavery
of a barbarous age in the middle of the nineteenth century;
in keeping her slaves in physical misery, mental
darkness, moral depravity, and heathenism; in carrying
fire and sword into some of the loveliest regions of
the earth, in order to gratify that thirst for wealth and
dominion ever characteristic of an aristocracy; in
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">[Pg 495]</a></span>
forcing her slaves in India to cultivate poison, and her
weak neighbours of China to buy it; in plundering and
oppressing the people of all her colonies; in concentrating
the wealth of the United Kingdom and the dependencies
in the purses of a few persons, and thus
dooming all others beneath her iron rule to constant,
exhausting, and unrewarded toil! We arraign her before
the tribunal of justice and humanity, as the most
powerful and destructive of tyrannies; as the author
of Ireland's miseries, and a course of action toward
that island compared with which the dismemberment of
Poland was merciful; as the remorseless conqueror of
the Hindoos; as a government so oppressive that her
people are flying by thousands to the shores of America
to escape its inflictions! Though most criminals plead
"not guilty," she cannot have the front to do so! The
general judgment of civilized mankind has long ago
pronounced a verdict of conviction.</p>

<p class="i1">Yet, guilty as is the English oligarchy, certain of its
members have taken to lecturing the world about the
duties of Christians and philanthropists. This, we suppose,
in charity, is done upon the principle given by
Hamlet to his mother—</p>

<p class="ac">"Assume a virtue if you have it not."</p>

<p class="i1">But a loftier authority than Shakspeare tells us to
remove the beam from our own eye before we point to
the mote that is in the eye of a brother. Example,
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">[Pg 496]</a></span>
also, is more powerful than precept. Pious exhortations
from a villain are usually disregarded. A
preacher should never have the blood of slaughtered
victims on his hands.</p>

<p class="i1">We think it not difficult to show that England is the
best friend of slavery, while professing an aversion to
it, and dictating to other governments to strive for its
abolition. At an enormous expense, she maintains
men-of-war upon the coast of Africa, with the object
of suppressing the trade in negro slaves. This expense
her white slaves are taxed to pay; while the men-of-war
have not only not suppressed the slave-trade, but
have doubled its horrors, by compelling the slave-traders
to inflict new tortures upon the negroes they
capture and conceal. In the mean time, the government
is doing all in its power to impoverish and enslave
(for the slavery of a people follows its poverty) the
more intelligent races of the world. England prides
herself upon her efforts to destroy the trade in African
savages and chattel slavery. Her philanthropy is all
black; miserable wretches with pale faces have no
claims upon her assisting hand; and she refuses to
recognise the only kind of slavery by which masters
are necessitated to provide well for their slaves, while
she enforces that system which starves them! England
is the best friend of the most destructive species of
slavery, and has extended it over tens of millions of
human beings.</p>

<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">[Pg 497]</a></span></p>

<p class="i1">Justice, humanity, and the age demand the abolition
of this exhausting, famine-breeding, and murderous
system. It is hostile to every principle of right—to
civilization, and to the loving spirit of Christianity.
Starving millions groan beneath the yoke. From the
crowded factories and workshops—from the pestilential
hovels—from the dark and slave-filled coal-pits—from
the populous workhouses—from the vast army of wandering
beggars in England and Scotland—from the
perishing peasantry of Ireland—from the wretched
Hindoos upon the Ganges and the Indus—from the
betrayed Coolies in the West-India Islands—arises the
cry for relief from the plunderers and the oppressors.
"How long, O Lord, how long!"</p>

<p class="i1">A few thousand persons own the United Kingdom.
They have robbed and reduced to slavery not only
their own countrymen, but millions in other lands.
They continue to rob wherever they find an opportunity.
They spend what their crime has accumulated in all
kinds of vice and dissipation, and rear their children
to the same courses. Money raised for religious purposes
they waste in luxurious living. They trade in
all the offices of church and state. They persecute,
by exclusion, all who do not subscribe to "thirty-nine
articles" which they wish to force upon mankind. In
brief, the oligarchy lies like an incubus upon the empire,
and the people cannot call themselves either free or
happy until the aristocrats be driven from their high
<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">[Pg 498]</a></span>
places. Burst, then, the chains, ye countrymen of
Hampden and Vane! Show to the world that the old
fire is not yet quenched! that the spirits of your martyrs
to liberty are yet among you, and their lessons in
your hearts! Obtain your freedom—peaceably, if you
can—<i>but obtain it</i>, for it expands and ennobles the life
of a nation! In the air of liberty alone can a people
enjoy a healthy existence. A day of real freedom is
worth more than years in a dungeon. What have you
to dread? Do you not know your strength? Be
assured, this aristocracy could not stand an hour, were
you resolved against its existence! It would be swept
away as a feather before a hurricane. Do you fear
that much blood would flow in the struggle? Consider
the hundreds of thousands who are crushed out of existence
every year by this aristocracy, and ask yourselves
if it is not better that the system should be over-thrown,
even at the expense of blood, than that it
should continue its destructive career? Had not men
better make an effort to secure freedom and plenty for
their posterity, than starve quietly by the wayside?
These are the questions you should take home to your
hearts. One grand, determined, glorious effort, and
you are free.</p>

<p class="ml5 smaller">"Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not<br />
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?"</p>

<hr class="chap" />

<div class="footnotes"><h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a>
  The butties are the men who superintend the conveyance of the
  coal from the digger to the pit-shaft.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a>
  To <i>hurry</i> is to draw or push the coal-cars.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a>
  Mitchell, Evidence, No. 7; App. pt. i. p. 65, 1. 31.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Ibid. in loco.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Fellows, Report, s. 58; App.
  pt. ii. p. 256.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Mitchell, Evidence, No. 99;
  App. pt. i. p. 155, 1. 8.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Dr. Mitchell, Report, s. 314;
  App. pt. i. p. 39.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Fellows, Evidence, No. 10;
  App. pt. ii. p. 266, 1. 10.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> Symons, Report, s. 200; App.
  pt. i. p. 193.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Wood, Report, s. 36; App.
  pt. ii. p. H 7. Also Evidence, Nos.
60, 75, 76.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> Kennedy, Report, s. 296; App.
  pt. ii. p. 188.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Ibid. s. 304; p. 188.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> Austin, Evidence, No. 1;
  App. pt. ii. p. 811; i. 12. See also the remarks by Mr. Fletcher on the vicinity of Oldham,
  App. pt. ii. s. 59, p. 832.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> Mitchell, Report, s. 214;
  App. pt. i. p. 143.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Mitchell, Evidence, No. 97;
  App. pt. i. p. 154, 1. 19.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> Leifchild, Report, s. 72;
  App. pt. i. p. 252.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> Leifchild, Evidence, No. 97;
  App. pt. i. p. 587, 1. 39.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> Ibid. No. 497, p. 665, 1. 7.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Ibid. No. 504, p. 672, 1. 22.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> Symons, Report, s. 22; App.
  pt. i. p. 302.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Symons, Evidence, No. 312;
  App. pt. i. p. 305, 1. 59.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> Franks, Report, App. A, No. 2;
  App. pt. i. p. 410, 411.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> Franks, Report, s. 85;
  App. pt. ii. p. 485.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> Franks, Evidence, No. 144;
  App. pt. ii. p. 582, 1. 4.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> Ibid. No. 2, p. 503, 1. 21.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> R. W. Jones, Evidence, No. 102;
  App. pt. ii. p. 64, 1. 28.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Fellows, Report, s. 45; App.
  pt. ii. p. 255.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Symons, Report, s. 110;
  App. pt. i. p. 181.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> Symons, Evidence, No. 199;
  App. pt. i. p. 279, 1. 3.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> Ibid. No. 21; p. 282, 1. 246.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Wood, Evidence, No. 60; App.
  pt. ii. p. h 27, 1. 46.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> Kennedy, Evidence, No. 30;
  App. pt. ii. p. 218, 1. 6.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> Austin, Evidence, No. 7; App.
  pt. ii. p. 812. 1. 160.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> Ibid. No. 17; p. 815, 1. 53.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> Leifchild, Evidence, No. 97;
  App. pt. i. p. 587, 1. 32.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> Leichfield, Evidence, No. 504;
  p. 672, 1. 22.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> Ibid. No. 498; p. 665, 1. 50.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> Ibid. No. 496; p. 662, 1. 62.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> Mitchell, Evidence, No. 46;
  App. pt. i. p. 81, 1. 47.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Mitchell, Evidence, No. 77;
  p. 113, 1. 6.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> Ibid. No. 81; p. 114, 1. 22.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> Ibid. No. 82; p. 114, 1. 61.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> Fellows, Report, s. 49;
  App. pt. ii. p. 256.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> Fellows, Evidence, No. 105;
  p. 292, 1. 48.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Fellows, Evidence, No. 10;
  p. 262, 1. 8.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> Symons, Report, s. 209;
  App. pt. i. p. 193.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> Wood, Report, s. 42;
  App. pt. ii. p. 167.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> Leifchild, Evidence, No. 499;
  App. pt. i. p. 668, 1. 44.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> Ibid. No. 498; p. 665, 1. 52.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Franks, Report, s. 68;
  App. pt. i. p. 396.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> Tancred, Evidence, No. 34;
  App. pt. i. p. 371, 1. 58.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> H. H. Jones, Report, s. 83;
  App. pt. ii. p. 375.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> H. H. Jones, Evidence, No. 96;
  App. pt. ii. p. 407, 1. 51.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> Waring, Evidence, No. 38;
  App. pt. ii. p. 25, 1. 57.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">[55]</span></a> Stewart, Evidence, No. 7;
  App. pt. ii. p. 50, 1. 48.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">[56]</span></a> Fellows, Evidence, No. 84;
  App. pt. ii. p. 287, 1. 38.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">[57]</span></a> Symons, Report, s. 110,
  App. pt. i. p. 181.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">[58]</span></a> Symons, Evidence, No. 221;
  App. pt. i. p. 282, 1. 45.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">[59]</span></a> Ibid. No. 268; p. 292, 1. 51.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">[60]</span></a> Kennedy, Report, s. 299;
  App. pt. ii. p. 188.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">[61]</span></a> Mitchell, Report, s. 212;
  App. pt. i. p. 143.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">[62]</span></a> Mitchell, Evidence, No. 96;
  App. pt. i. p. 153, 1. 57.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">[63]</span></a> Ibid. No. 97; p. 153, 1. 64.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">[64]</span></a> Franks, Report, s. 121;
  App. pt. i. p. 408.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">[65]</span></a> Franks, Evidence, No. 273;
  App. pt. i. p. 487, 1. 25.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">[66]</span></a> Franks, Evidence, No. 73;
  p. 450, 1. 31.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">[67]</span></a> Ibid. No. 83; p. 452, 1. 29.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">[68]</span></a> H. H. Jones, Report, s. 84;
  App. pt. ii. p. 375.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">[69]</span></a> H. H. Jones, Evidence, No. 96;
  App. pt. ii. p. 407, 1. 53.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">[70]</span></a> Ibid. No. 2; p. 378, 1. 35.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">[71]</span></a> Ibid. No. 3; p. 379, 1. 34.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">[72]</span></a> Scriven, Report, s. 83; App.
  pt. ii. p. 72.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">[73]</span></a> Symons, Evidence, s. 96; App.
  pt. i. p. 187.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">[74]</span></a> Wood, Evidence, No. 76; App.
  pt. ii. p. <i>h</i> 32, 1. 18.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">[75]</span></a> Symons, Evidence, No. 197;
  App. pt. i. p. 277, 1. 68.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">[76]</span></a> Austin, Evidence, No. 9;
  App. pt. ii. p. 813, 1. 40.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">[77]</span></a> Scriven, Report, s. 82;
  App. pt. ii. p. 72.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">[78]</span></a> Scriven, Evidence, No. 2;
  App. pt. ii. p. 101, 1. 33.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">[79]</span></a> Ibid. No. 79, p. 124, 1. 28.
  See also Nos. 12, 13, 18, 25.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">[80]</span></a> Leifchild, Evidence, No. 86;
  App. pt. i. p. 583, 1. 27.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">[81]</span></a> Leifchild, Evidence, No. 201;
  p. 610, 1. 52.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">[82]</span></a> Ibid. No. 267, p. 623, 1. 11.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">[83]</span></a> Franks, Evidence, No. 31;
  App. pt. ii. p. 510, 1. 49.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">[84]</span></a> Leifchild, Evidence, No. 385;
  App. pt. i. p. 645, 1. 35.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">[85]</span></a> Ibid. No. 375, p. 644, 1. 48.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">[86]</span></a> Tancred, Evidence, No. 9;
  App. pt. i. p. 361, 1. 45.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">[87]</span></a> Leifchild, Evidence, No. 376;
  App. pt. i. p. 644, 1. 54.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">[88]</span></a> Enclosed for the inspection of
  the Central Board. It is entitled, "A Memoir of Robert Blincoe, &amp;c., Manchester."
  J. Doherty. 1852.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">[89]</span></a> <i>England and America</i>,
  Harpers &amp; Brothers, publishers, 1834.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">[90]</span></a> Every-day Life in London.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">[91]</span></a> This is done at the Model
  Prison, Pentonville.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">[92]</span></a> London Daily News.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">[93]</span></a> In order that these men shall
  be thus protected, it is necessary for the master <span class="sc">TO NAME THEM</span>, before
  they are impressed; this is to be done by going before the mayor or other chief magistrate
  of the place, who is to give the master a certificate, in which is contained the names of
  the particular men whom he thus nominates; and this certificate will be their protection.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">[94]</span></a> Auctioned.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">[95]</span></a> Household Words.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">[96]</span></a> Charge on the Marlborough
  Commission, p. 5. Cited in Lewis's
Irish Disturbances, p. 227.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">[97]</span></a> See the evidence of Mr. Blacker,
  House of Commons' Report on the State of Ireland, 1824, p. 75; that of Mr. Griffiths,
  <i>ibid.</i> 232; and that of Mr. Blacker, House of Lords' Report, 1824, p. 14.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">[98]</span></a> House of Commons' Committee
  on Combinations, 1838. Questions
5872-5876.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">[99]</span></a> Edinburgh Review.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">[100]</span></a> Servants and Servitude,
  in Howitt's Journal.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">[101]</span></a> Sanitary Inquiry Report,
  1843, p.64.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">[102]</span></a> Kay.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">[103]</span></a> The Slave Trade, Domestic
  and Foreign.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">[104]</span></a> Bigelow's Jamaica in 1850.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">[105]</span></a> Backhouse's Visit to the
  Mauritius.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">[106]</span></a> Brigg's Historical
  Fragments.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">[107]</span></a> Carey.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_108_108" id="Footnote_108_108"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_108_108"><span class="label">[108]</span></a> Carey.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_109_109" id="Footnote_109_109"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_109_109"><span class="label">[109]</span></a> Campbell's Modern India.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_110_110" id="Footnote_110_110"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_110_110"><span class="label">[110]</span></a> "Some of Mr. Smith's servants
  entered into a combination to defraud a suitor in his court of a large sum of money, which he
  was to pay to Mrs. Smith as she walked in the garden. A dancing-girl from the town of
  Jubbulpore was made to represent Mrs. Smith, and a suit of Mrs. Smith's clothes were borrowed
  for her from the washer-woman. The butler took the suitor into the garden and introduced him
  to the supposed Mrs. Smith, who received him very graciously, and condescended to accept his
  offer of five thousand rupees in gold mohurs. The plot was afterward discovered, and the old
  butler, washer-woman and all, were sentenced to labour in a rope on the roads."</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_111_111" id="Footnote_111_111"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_111_111"><span class="label">[111]</span></a> Lords' Evidence, 1687.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_112_112" id="Footnote_112_112"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_112_112"><span class="label">[112]</span></a> Campbell's Modern India.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_113_113" id="Footnote_113_113"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_113_113"><span class="label">[113]</span></a> Rikards.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_114_114" id="Footnote_114_114"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_114_114"><span class="label">[114]</span></a> Collector's Report.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_115_115" id="Footnote_115_115"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_115_115"><span class="label">[115]</span></a> Sketch of Assam.</p>
</div>

<div class="footnote">
  <p><a name="Footnote_116_116" id="Footnote_116_116"></a>
  <a href="#FNanchor_116_116"><span class="label">[116]</span></a> The Aristocracy of England.</p>
</div>
</div>

<hr class="chap" />

<p class="ac larger"><i>MILLER, ORTON &amp; MULLIGAN PUBLISH</i></p>

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    <td class="c2">6 00</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>WHAT I SAW IN NEW-YORK</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Or, a Bird's-eye View of City Life, by <span class="sc">J. H. Ross</span>,
	  M. D., frontispiece, muslin, 326 pp., 12mo. </td>
    <td class="c2">1 00</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>FREMONT'S EXPLORING EXPEDITION</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">To the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California, with additional "El Dorado"
	  matter; portrait, muslin, 456 pp., 12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">1 25</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>THE ARCTIC REGIONS</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Being an Account of the Exploring Expeditions of Ross, Franklin, Parry,
      Back, McClure, and others, with the English and American Expeditions in search of Sir John
	  Franklin, illustrated, muslin, 396 pp., 12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">1 25</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>GREAT MEN AND GREAT EVENTS IN HISTORY</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, by <span class="sc">John
	  Frost</span>, LL. D., 800 illustrations, muslin, 832 pp, 8vo.,</td>
    <td class="c2">2 50</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"><span class="sc">The Same</span>—embossed morocco, marble edge,</td>
    <td class="c2">3 00</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>ANTIQUITIES OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">With an Appendix on the Antiquities of the West, by Hon. <span class="sc">E.
	  G. Squier</span>, embellished with nearly 100 engravings, small 8vo.</td>
    <td class="c2">2 00</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>THE PHELPS AND GORHAM PURCHASE</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">To which is added a Supplement, containing the History of Ontario, Wayne,
      Livingston, Yates and Allegany Counties, by <span class="sc">O. Turner</span>, author of
	  "The Holland Purchase," 588 pp., 8vo.,</td>
    <td class="c2">2 00</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>HISTORY OF THE WAR WITH MEXICO</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">From the commencement of hostilities with the United States, to the
      ratification of peace—embracing detailed accounts of the brilliant achievements
      of Generals Taylor, Scott, Worth, Twiggs, Kearney and others, by <span class="sc">John S.
	  Jenkins</span>, 20 illustrations, muslin, 506 pp., large 12mo., </td>
    <td class="c2">1 50</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"><span class="sc">The Same</span>—octavo edition, embossed morocco, marble edge,
	  526 pp.,</td>
    <td class="c2">2 00</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>HISTORY OF THE MORMONS</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Or, Latter Day Saints, with a Memoir of Joe Smith, the "American Mahomet,"
	  12 illustrations, muslin, 399 pp., 12mo.,</td>
    <td class="c2">1 25</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>HISTORY AND CONDITION OF OREGON</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Including a Voyage round the World, by Rev. <span class="sc">G. Hines</span>
	  of the Oregon Mission, muslin, 437 pp., 12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">1 25</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>FROST'S PICTORIAL HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">From the period of the Conquest by Spain, to the formation of a State;
      containing an account of the Gold Mines, Resources, and Adventures among the Miners, etc.;
	  also Advice to Emigrants: colored frontispiece and other illustrations, muslin, 508 pp.,
	  12mo. </td>
    <td class="c2">1 50</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>SIDNEY'S HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA,</b></td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">The Three Colonies of Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia,
	  their Pastures, Copper Mines and Gold Fields, by <span class="sc">Samuel Sidney</span>,
      10 illustrations, muslin, 408 pp., 12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">1 25</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>PICTORIAL FAMILY ENCYCLOPEDIA</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Of History, Biography and Travels, comprising prominent Events in the
      History of the World, Biographies of Eminent Men, and interesting Accounts of Distinguished
	  Travelers, by <span class="sc">John Frost</span>, LL. D., 360 illustrations, muslin,
	  648 pp., 8vo.</td>
    <td class="c2">2 00</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"><span class="sc">The Same</span>—embossed morocco, marble edges,</td>
    <td class="c2">2 50</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4">*<b>TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">The Narrative of <span class="sc">Solomon Northup</span>, a citizen of
	  New-York kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a Cotton
	  Plantation near the Red River, in Louisiana, 7 illustrations, muslin, 336 pp., 12mo. </td>
    <td class="c2">1 00</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4">*<b>WILD SCENES OF A HUNTER'S LIFE</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Including Cummings' Adventures among the Lions, Elephants and other
      wild Animals of Africa, by <span class="sc">John Frost</span>, LL. D., with 8 colored and
	  300 letter-press illustrations, muslin, 467 pp., 12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">1 50</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>LIFE ON THE PLAINS</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">And among the Diggings, being Scenes and Adventures of an Overland
      Journey to California, with particular Incidents of the Route, Sufferings of Emigrants,
	  Indian Tribes, &amp;c., by <span class="sc">A. Delano</span>, illustrated, 384 pp.,
	  12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">1 25</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>THE AUSTRALIAN CAPTIVE</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Or, Fifteen Years' Adventures of William Jackman, including his Residence
      among the Cannibals of Nuyts' Land, with portraits and other illustrations,
      edited by Rev. <span class="sc">I. Chamberlain</span>, muslin, 392 pp., 12mo. </td>
    <td class="c2">1 25</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>FRONTIER LIFE</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Or Scenes and Adventures in the South-west, by <span class="sc">F.
	  Hardman</span>, illustrated, muslin, 376 pp., 12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">1 25</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>THRILLING ADVENTURES</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">By Land and Sea, being remarkable Facts from Authentic Sources, edited
      by <span class="sc">J. O. Brayman</span>, illustrated, muslin, 504 pp., 12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">1 25</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>DARING DEEDS OF AMERICAN HEROES</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">With Biographical Sketches, by <span class="sc">J. O. Brayman</span>,
	  illustrated, 12mo. 450 pp.</td>
    <td class="c2">1 25</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>LIFE AT THE SOUTH</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Being Narratives, Scenes, and Incidents in Slave Life, by <span class="sc">W.
	  L. G. Smith</span>, illustrated, muslin, 519 pp., 12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">1 25</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>BORDER WARS OF THE WEST</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Comprising the Frontier Wars of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio,
      Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee and Wisconsin, and embracing the Individual
      Adventures among the Indians, and Exploits of Boone, Kenton, Clark, Logan, and other
	  Border Heroes of the West, by <span class="sc">Professor Frost</span>, 300 illustrations,
      muslin, 608 pp., muslin, 8vo.</td>
    <td class="c2">2 50</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>WESTERN SCENES</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">And Reminiscences, together with thrilling Legends and Traditions of the
      Red Man of the Forest, illustrated, muslin, 8vo.</td>
    <td class="c2">2 00</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>GIFT BOOK FOR YOUNG MEN</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Or Familiar Letters on Self-knowledge, Self-education, Female Society,
      Marriage, &amp;c., by Dr. <span class="sc">Wm. A. Alcott</span>, frontispiece, muslin,
	  312 pp., 12mo. </td>
    <td class="c2">84</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"><span class="sc">The Same</span>—muslin, gilt edges and full gilt sides,</td>
    <td class="c2">1 50</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>GIFT BOOK FOR YOUNG LADIES</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Or Woman's Mission; being Familiar Letters to a Young Lady on her
      Amusements, Employments, Studies, Acquaintances, male and female, Friendships, &amp;c.,
	  by Dr. <span class="sc">Wm. A. Alcott</span>, frontispiece on steel, muslin,
      307 pp., 12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">84</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"><span class="sc">The Same</span>—muslin, gilt edges and full gilt sides,</td>
    <td class="c2">1 50</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>YOUNG MAN'S BOOK</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Or, Self-Education, by Rev. <span class="sc">Wm. Hosmer</span>, frontispiece
	  on steel, muslin, 291 pp., 12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">84</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"><span class="sc">The Same</span>—muslin, gilt edges and full gilt sides,</td>
    <td class="c2">1 50</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>YOUNG LADY'S BOOK</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Or, Principles of Female Education, by Rev. <span class="sc">Wm.
	  Hosmer</span>, frontispiece on steel, muslin, 301 pp., 12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">84</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"><span class="sc">The Same</span>—muslin, gilt edges and full gilt sides,</td>
    <td class="c2">1 50</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>GOLDEN STEPS FOR THE YOUNG</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">To Usefulness, Respectability and Happiness, by <span class="sc">John Mather
	  Austin</span>, author of "Voice to Youth," frontispiece on steel, muslin, 243 pp.,
	  12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">84</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1"><span class="sc">The Same</span>—muslin, gilt edges and full gilt sides,</td>
    <td class="c2">1 50</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>VOICE TO THE YOUNG</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">Or, Lectures for the Times, by <span class="sc">W. W. Patton</span>,
	  muslin, 213 pp., 12mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">75</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>THE YOUTH'S BOOK OF GEMS</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">By <span class="sc">F. C. Woodworth</span>, with 100 illustrations,
	  muslin, 386 pp., 8vo.</td>
    <td class="c2">1 25</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>THE STRING OF PEARLS</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">For Boys and Girls, by <span class="sc">T. S. Arthur</span> and
	  <span class="sc">F. C. Woodworth</span>, with many illustrations, muslin, 288 pp.,
	  16mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">84</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>STORIES ABOUT BIRDS</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">By <span class="sc">F. C. Woodworth</span>, with illustrative engravings,
	  muslin, 336 pp., 16mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">84</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>STORIES ABOUT ANIMALS</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">By <span class="sc">F. C. Woodworth</span>, with illustrative engravings,
	  muslin, 336 pp., 16mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">84</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-4"><b>WONDERS OF THE INSECT WORLD</b>,</td>
    <td class="c2"></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="c1-3">By <span class="sc">F. C. Woodworth</span>, with illustrative engravings,
	  muslin, 336 pp., 16mo.</td>
    <td class="c2">84</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<hr class="chap" />

<div class="transnote">

<h2>Transcriber's Note:</h2>

<ul>
  <li>Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.</li>
  <li>Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
    form was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.</li>
  <li>Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.</li>
  <li>Footnotes were moved to the end of the book and numbered in one
    continuous sequence.</li>
  <li>Other notes:
    <ul>
	  <li>p. 26: be at changed to bear. (...that parish must bear the cost....)</li>
	  <li>p. 29: Frith → Firth. (Firth of Forth.)</li>
	  <li>p. 84: Chesterle → Chester le. (Chester le Street.)</li>
	  <li>p. 336: an → on. (I could sit my eyes on.)</li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>
</div>

<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 52423 ***</div>
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