In England aged females die by their own hands, in order to avoid the workhouse.
There is one cause of all these miseries and horrors—one fatal scourge invented by the rich to torture the poor—one infernal principle of mischief and of woe, which has taken root in the land—one element of a cruelty so keen and so refined, that it outdoes the agonies endured in the Inquisition of the olden time.
And this fertile source of misery, and murder, and suicide, and crime, is—
THE TREATMENT OF THE WORKHOUSE.
Alas! when the bees have made the honey, the apiarist comes and takes all away, begrudging the industrious insects even a morsel of the wax!
Let us examine for a moment the social scale of these realms:
The lowest step in the ladder is occupied by the class which is the most numerous, the most useful and which ought to be the most influential.
The average annual incomes of the individuals of each class are as follows:—