The White Slaves of England

by John C. Cobden

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 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.

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.

A thrilling illustration of the operation of this law is narrated by Mr. James Grant. [90] We quote:—

"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, 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 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 regarded this world. Ere six weeks had elapsed they again met together—

Met on that happy, happy shore,

Where friends do meet to part no more."

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.

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 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.

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:—

"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 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?'"