The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign / Why It Exists, and How It May Be Extinguished

by Henry Charles Carey

Nothing indicates more fully the deterioration resulting from this unceasing struggle for life, than the harsh treatment to which are subjected persons who need aid in their distress. A case of this kind, furnished by the Times, as occurring at the Lambeth workhouse, so strongly indicates the decay of kind and generous feeling, that, long as it is, it is here given:—

"A poor creature, a young English girl—to be sure, she is not a black—a parcel of drenched rags clinging to her trembling form, every mark of agony and despair in her countenance, lifts her hand to the bell. She rings once and again, and at length the door porter appears, accompanied by a person holding a situation under the guardians—his name is Brooke—and he is a policeman. She is starving, she is pregnant, and almost in the pains of labour, but the stern officials will not take her in. Why? Because she had been in the workhouse until Tuesday morning last, and had then been discharged by 'order of the guardians.' Nor is this all. The tale of parochial bounty is not yet half told out. During that long wet Tuesday she wandered about. She had not a friend in this great town to whom she could apply for the smallest assistance, and on Tuesday night she came back to implore once more the kindly shelter of the parish workhouse. For yet that night she was taken in, but the next morning cast forth into the world again with a piece of dry bread in her hand. On Wednesday the same scene was renewed—the same fruitless casting about for food and shelter, the same disappointment, and the same despair. But parochial bounty can only go thus far, and no farther. Charity herself was worn out with the importunity of this persevering pauper, and on Thursday night the doors of the parish workhouse were finally and sternly shut in her face.

"But she was not alone in her sufferings. You might have supposed that the misery of London—enormous as the amount of London misery undoubtedly is—could have shown no counterpart to the frightful position of this unfortunate creature—without a home, without a friend, without a character, without a shelter, without a bite of food—betrayed by her seducer, and the mark for the last twelve hours of the floodgates of heaven. * * * Can it be there are two of them? Yes! Another young woman, precisely in the same situation, knocks at the same workhouse door, and is refused admittance by the same stern guardians of the ratepayers' pockets. The two unfortunates club their anguish and their despair together, and set forth in quest of some archway or place of shelter, beneath which they may crouch until the gas-lamps are put out, and the day breaks once more upon their sufferings. Well, on they roamed, until one of the two, Sarah Sherford, was actually seized with the pangs of labour, when they resolved to stagger back to the workhouse; but again the door was shut in their faces. What was to be done? They were driven away from the house, and moved slowly along, with many a pause of agony, no doubt, until they met with a policeman, one Daniel Donovan, who directed them to a coffee-house where they might hope to get shelter. The coffee-house did not open till 2 o'clock, when they had two hours' shelter. But at that hour they were again cast out, as the keeper was obliged to come into the street with his stall and attend to it. 'At this time (we will here copy the language of our report) Sherford's labour pains had considerably increased, and they again spoke to the same policeman, Donovan, and told him that, unless she was taken into the workhouse or some other place, she must give birth to her infant in the street.' Daniel Donovan accordingly conveyed the two unfortunate creatures to the workhouse once more, at 4 o'clock in the morning. 'The policeman on duty there,' said this witness, 'told him that they had been there before, and seemed to have some hesitation about admitting them, but on being told that one was in the pains of labour, he let them in.'"

What slavery can be worse than this? Here are young women, women in distress, starving and almost in the pains of labour, driven about from post to pillar, and from pillar to post, by day and by night, totally unable to obtain the smallest aid. Assuredly it would be difficult to find any thing to equal this in any other country claiming to rank among the civilized nations of the world.

At the moment of writing this page, an English journal furnishes a case of death from starvation, and closes its account with the following paragraph, strikingly illustrative of the state of things which naturally arises where every man is "trying to live by snatching the bread from his neighbour's mouth."

"It is hardly possible to conceive a more horrible case. A stalwart, strong-framed man, in the prime of life—his long pilgrimage of martyrdom from London to Stoney-Stratford—his wretched appeals for help to the "civilization" around him—his seven days fast—his brutal abandonment by his fellow-men—his seeking shelter and being driven from resting-place to resting-place—the crowning inhumanity of the person named Slade and the patient, miserable death of the worn-out man—are a picture perfectly astonishing to contemplate.

"No doubt he invaded the rights of property, when he sought shelter
in the shed and in the lone barn!!!"

The recent developments in regard to Bethlem Hospital are thus described:—

"Some of the cases of cruelty brought to light by the examiners are almost too revolting to describe. It appears that the incurables are lodged in cells partially under ground, where their only conches are troughs filled with straw and covered with a blanket. On these miserable beds, worse than many a man gives to his horse or dog, the victims lie in the coldest weather, without night-clothes, frequently creeping into the straw in order to keep warm. These poor unfortunates also are often fed in a way as disgusting as it is cruel, being laid on their backs, and held down by one of the nurses, while another forces into the mouth the bread and milk which is their allotted food. This revolting practice is adopted to save time, for it was proved on oath that patients, thus treated, ate their meals by themselves, if allowed sufficient leisure. The imbecile patients, instead of being bathed with decency, as humanity and health demands, are thrown on the stone-floor, in a state of nudity, and there mopped by the nurses. Such things would seem incredible, if they had not been proved on oath. Some who were not incurable, having been treated in this manner, exposed these atrocities, after their recovery; and the result was an investigation, which led to the discovery of the abominable manner in which this vast charity has been administered."

These things are a necessary consequence of an universal trading spirit. For the first time in the annals of the world it has been proclaimed in England that the paramount object of desire with the people of a great and Christian nation is to buy cheaply and sell dearly; and when men find themselves, in self-defence, compelled to beat down the poor sewing-woman to a penny for making a shirt, or the poor flower-girl to a scale of wages so low that she must resort to prostitution for the purpose of supporting life, they can neither be expected to be charitable themselves, nor to tolerate much charity in the public officers charged with the expenditure of their contributions. There is consequently everywhere to be seen a degree of harshness in the treatment of those who have the misfortune to be poor, and a degree of contempt in the mode of speech adopted in relation to them, totally incompatible with the idea of advance in real civilization.