8th, Where any able-bodied person, not being a soldier, sailor, or marine, shall not reside within the Union, but the wife, child, or children, of such person shall reside within the same, the Board of Guardians of the Union, according to their discretion, may afford relief in the work-house to such wife, child, or children, or may allow out-door relief for any such child or children, being within the age of nurture, and resident with the mother within the Union."
The fifth exception, relating to widows, is accompanied with a course of reasoning directed against its application; and as it is to be feared that the practice engendered by a former order, in which this exception had no place, may have become habitual, this exception will be treated as if it did not exist. Especial inquiries ought to be made, in order to ascertain whether widows with children are generally allowed out-door relief.
The immediate effect of this system of relief is a diminution of expenditure. But we must look beyond the immediate effects. It is to be feared that great politico-social evils result from this system. They have been somewhat reduced in number, perhaps, by the new prohibitory order. But it is too probable that the original wound has left a scar. The evils are not on the surface, and strike the mind at intervals. Perhaps we may be struck with the fact, that our prisons are filled with individuals who have been committed for slight offences, and for short periods; and it may casually appear, that the work-house has something to do with it. Then the question may occur, why the ordinary accommodation for wayfarers in the casual wards of work-houses has become insufficient or less ample than formerly? Or, when travelling, we may see whole families creeping along the roads apparently without object or aim; and if, after giving them a coin, you ask them where they are going to, and why they are going? you will be struck with the vagueness of their replies. Wherever you meet them, you find they are going from this place to that; and if you were to meet them every day for a twelvemonth, the answers would always be as indefinite. At another time, we may be deeply concerned in the subject of prison discipline; and while studying reports, returns, and dietaries, the subject of workhouse discipline may become associated with it, and induce comparisons. And it may come to our knowledge, that there is a vast body of persons to whom it is a matter of indifference whether they are inmates of a prison or a workhouse. Or the mind may soar above the dull, cold, field of politics, and extend its researches to the pure regions of morality, leaving the questions of science for those of philosophy; and then it will appear that there are causes in operation, and results constantly flowing, which escape the "economic" eyes of assistant Commissioners.
But we must avoid generalities. We still retain our original ground, viz. the rural Union, with its large area and its thinly scattered population. The reader must accompany us to the rural Union, where the spirit of the prohibitory order exercises its most baneful influence.
We saw the relieving-officer performing his round of duties. The poor were assembled at the cottage door. Two classes of applicants were then given. We must now, however, look deeper into human nature. The destitute consist of the virtuous and the vicious, the vulgar and the refined. There stands an able-bodied man with his able-bodied wife, and his large healthy family. His weekly wages amount to nine shillings per week. If he loses a week's work he is destitute. He is now making an application to the relieving-officer. But it is useless. He must walk to the Union, and become an inmate, where his dinner awaits him. The man who now approaches the officer is like the last, able-bodied and out of work; but, unlike him, he has an idle, unthrifty, drunken wife. He is always trembling on the confines of destitution; and the instant he is without work he is on the brink of starvation. His spirit is broken. His children are dirty and ragged, and appear emaciated without disease. He, too, must enter the Union. The next is a hard-featured man;—
"A savage wildness round him hung
As of a dweller out of doors;
In his whole figure, and his mien,
A savage character was seen
Of mountains and of dreary moors."
He does not seem to care whether relief is granted or not; and we may hear him say, "I don't want relief for myself, I can get my living somehow or other—but my wife and child musn't starve. I shan't go to the Union—I shall be off—and catch me who can."—In the cottage, a woman is seated with her children, whose husband has done that which the other has threatened to do. She may be industrious or idle, but she cannot support herself, thus suddenly thrown upon her own resources. Let us hope that she is allowed the benefit of the amended order.—There is the man whose children are approaching the state of womanhood or manhood. He has work to do, and he does it. He could manage to eke out a subsistence for himself—for his habits are simple and frugal; but his children are now a sore trial to him. His daughter has returned to his cottage with a child of shame. She has erred, but she cannot be turned from his door. She has tried to make the father contribute to the support of the child, but without success. Poor ignorant creature, instead of taking a competent witness with her, when she asked the man to assist her, she was too anxious to hide her shame. Instead of putting questions to him, in order "to get up" the corroborative evidence, she was too apt to spoil all by passionate upbraidings. And then, when she appeared before their worships the justices, she was too much abashed or excited, to enable her to develope those latent powers of examination and cross-examination which the law supposes her to possess. Those who have witnessed those humiliating proceedings in our petty courts of justice, and seen the magistrate at one moment kindly acting as counsel for the girl, then falling back to his position as judge, and observed the evident helplessness of the girl, must have left the court with the impression that the whole affair is a disgusting farce. She departs without redress. The "corroborative evidence" is declared insufficient. She goes to her father's cottage. His heart compels him to give her shelter, and a place at his scanty board. But the smallest assistance cannot be rendered with impunity. And there he stands an applicant. He is told, "you must come into the house." "But it is my daughter." "Then she must enter the Union." And, if she does, there she must remain until her child dies, or her hair grows grey.—On the other side, and away from the rest, stands a coarse-featured man, who has often been an inmate of the county jail. He is the smuggler on the coast, the footpad on the common, the poacher in the forest, the housebreaker, the horse-stealer, the sheep-slayer, or the incendiary. He may be any of these. He demands his rights, and threatens vengeance if refused.—We turn from this group, and walk slowly to the Union-house, now visible in the distance; and, in walking, the time may be well employed in reflection. The thought which occurs with the greatest vividness is this—for the reception of such a group, what must the arrangements be? There is the old man, honest but poor, who seeks there an asylum. There is the man old in sin and iniquity, as well as years. There is the able-bodied man and woman with their family. There is the able-bodied man with his drunken, unthrifty wife, and his emaciated children. There is the young girl, whom the season has thrown out of her ordinary field employment. There is the woman with her illegitimate child, either heart-broken, or glorying in her shame. There is the girl, young in years but old in profligacy, suffering for her sins. There is the matron in her green old age, the result of a life of industry and prudence. And there is the ruffian, and the thief, and the profligate vagrant, male and female. Now what arrangements can be made for this assemblage—the bad anxious to obtain temporary quarters, the good anxious to retain their homes?
Surely they are not classed according to rules in which age, and sex, and state of health are the only principles? The widow with the prostitute, the aged cottar with the aged vagrant. If this were all, the moral consequences would not be so fearful. Does the young girl, who is now innocent, associate daily with her who has wandered over half the neighbouring counties, sinking lower and lower each journey? If so, poison will be instilled, which produces certain moral death. Refer to any list, now seven years old, of the inmates of a workhouse, who were then aged from twelve to eighteen years, and then inquire what has become of them. Or inquire of those who have the administration in metropolitan parishes, or in manufacturing and sea-port towns, how many of those unfortunates, scarcely yet arrived at the state of womanhood, and suffering from loathsome diseases, were brought up, or were sometime inmates of one of these Unions. Then there are the children of all these;—the children of the farm-labourer associating with those of the vagrant, who has quartered himself in the Union during the rains.
The evils which this system occasions are not, unfortunately, either to be seen or understood by the casual observer. Even our observer may suppose that all is well, after he has inspected the place. He sees every thing clean and in order. There are no rags, no unshorn beards, no unclean flesh. The ordinary concomitants of virtue are here present—by compulsion. The rags, the filthiness of place and person, are absent—by order. This is forgotten; and, allowing the outward and visible to govern his judgment rather than the inward and spiritual, he leaves the place exclaiming, "Well! this is not so bad after all!" The outside is indeed white, but it is the whiteness of the sepulchre.
If this group is to be received into one building, there must be something peculiar in its arrangements. All these persons are suffering, more or less, from the want of food, or lodging, or clothing, or medical aid. They are now offered the whole of these blessings, and yet they do not feel blessed thereby. He has now that livelihood freely offered to him which had cost him many a sigh to procure, and he has often sighed in vain. What then can or must be the nature of the arrangements? It must be remembered that this Union is presumed to be a test of poverty, and therefore the condition of its inmates must be inferior to that of the independent labourer.