THE ROSE-WATER CURE.
[The Report of the Sweating Committee says that "the inefficiency of many of the lower class of workers, early marriages, and the tendency of the residuum of the population in large towns to form a helpless community, together with a low standard of life and the excessive supply of unskilled labour are the chief factors in producing sweating." The Committee's chief "recommendations" in respect of the evils of Sweating seem to be, the lime-washing of work-places and the multiplication of sanitary inspectors.]
Seventy-one Sittings, a many months' run,
Witnesses Two Hundred, Ninety and One:
Clergymen, guardians, factors, physicians,
Middlemen, labourers, smart statisticians,
Journalists, managers, Gentiles and Jews,
And this is the issue! A thing to amuse
A cynic, the chat of this precious Committee,
But moving kind hearts to despair blent with pity.
Cantuar., Derby, and mild Aberdeen,
Such anti-climax sure never was seen!
Onslow and Rothschild and Monkswell and Thring,
Are you content with the pitiful thing?
Dunraven out of it; lucky, my lad!
(Though your retirement seemed caused by a fad)
Was the Inquiry in earnest or sport?
What is the pith of this precious Report?
Sweating—which all the world joined to abuse—
Is not the fault of poor Russians or Jews;
'Tisn't the middleman more than the factor,
'Tisn't, no 'tisn't, the sub-contractor;
'Tisn't machinery. No! In fact,
What Sweating is, in a manner exact,
After much thinking we cannot define.
Who is to blame for it? Well, we incline
To think that the Sweated (improvident elves!)
Are, at the bottom, to blame themselves!
They're poor of spirit, and weak of will,
They marry early, have little skill;
They herd together, all sexes and ages,
And take too tamely starvation wages;
And if they will do so, much to their shame,
How can the Capitalist be to blame?
Remedies? Humph! We really regret
We don't see our way to them. People must sweat,
Must stitch and starve till they almost drop;
But let it be done in a lime-washed shop!
To drudge in these dens is their destined fate,
But keep the dens in a decent state.
More inspectors, fewer bad smells,
These be our cures for the Sweaters' Hells!
Revolutions with rose-water cannot be made!
So it was said. But the horrors of Trade,
Competition's accursed fruit,
The woman a drudge, and the man a brute,
These, our Committee of Lordlings are sure,
Can only be met by the Rose-water Cure!
The Sweating Demon to exorcise
Exceeds the skill of the wealthy wise.
Still he must "grind the face of the poor."
(Though some of us have a faint hope, to be sure,
That the highly respectable Capitalist
To the Lords' mild lispings will kindly list.)
No; the Demon must work his will
On his ill-paid suffering victims still;
But—he'd better look with a little less dirt,
So sprinkle the brute with our Rose-water Squirt!!!
