11,602 in district and separate, often called “barrack,” schools;
17,090 in village communities, scattered, receiving, and other Guardians’ homes;
11,251 in institutions other than those mentioned above;
8,565 boarded out in families of the industrial classes; and
163,801 receiving relief while still remaining with their parents. It is a portentous array, of nearly a quarter of a million of children, and each has an individual character.
Pageants are now the fashion. Let us stand on one side of the stage (as did Stow, the historian, in the Whitechapel children’s pageant) and pass the verdict of the onlooker, as, primed with the figures and facts vouched for by the Royal Commissioners, we see the children of the State exhibit themselves in evidence of the care of their guardians.
First the babies. Here they come, thousands of them, some born in the workhouse, tiny, pink crumpled-skinned mites of a few days old; others toddlers of under three, who have never known another home.
“What a nice woman in the nurse’s cap and apron! I would trust her with any child. The head official, I suppose. But her under staff! What a terrible set! Those old women look idiotic and the young ones wicked. The inmates told off to serve in the nurseries you say they are! Surely no one with common humanity or sense would put a baby who requires wise observation under such women!”
“Alas! but the Guardians do.”
The Report states:—