+ ~ -
 
Please report pronunciation problems here. Select and sample other voices. Options Pause Play
 
Report an Error
Go!
 
Go!
 
TOC
 

went into Shoreditch workhouse. Witness
succeeded in obtaining a little work, and would not go
into the establishment, as she could earn with her
daughter about 4s. per week, and three persons had
to subsist and pay rent out of that amount.
Deceased came out on Monday, the 3rd instant, after
being in the workhouse four days. He said to
witness, ' I would rather be at home, however much
trouble I am in.' The deceased left the workhouse
and went before the board of guardians, who, after
hearing the case, ordered him 2s. 6d. and a loaf
weekly. The deceased then came home and died in
a few days afterwards. They never had meat for
months. The only things they had to live upon
were dry bread, treacle, dripping, with a little tea
and sugar; and no beer. They were very deficient
of wearing apparel and bedding. The deceased had
not been able to work for the last eighteen months.
The 2s. 6d. per week from the parish, and the 4s.
witness and her daughter earned, were all they had
to subsist on and to pay rent, food, and firing. I
believe that the deceased died from the want of food
and the necessaries of life. When the deceased went
into the workhouse he was so ill from weakness and
debility that he reeled and staggered as he walked,
He had had nothing at home but dry bread for days.
While in the workhouse the deceased had one day
tea for breakfast, one day meat, another day pudding,
and meat again on Sunday. Deceased only had
meat twice while in the workhouse, and no stimulants.
After other evidence, Mr. Thomas Pool
Collier, surgeon, said that the deceased was dead
when he was called. Had made a post-mortem
examination. Several of the organs were healthy, but
the stomach only contained a little water-gruel.
There was not the slightest trace of fat inside or out
of the body. The walls of the stomach were thin
from want of nourishment, and the body was much
emaciated. The coroner having commented on the
case at some length, the jury returned a verdict of
‘ Died from starvation through the want of the
common necessaries of life.'"

Our next full-length model will be that of
Samuel Bailey, whose story is recorded in the
public journals, of January 30th, 1861:

"On Monday evening, January 28th, Mr.
Humphreys, coroner, held an adjourned inquest at the
Prince of Wales, Bishop's-road, Victoria-park,
respecting the death of Samuel Bailey, aged forty-one,
a widower.

"An emaciated boy, apparently about twelve years
of age, said: The deceased was my father.
Previous to our removal to the workhouse, we lived
at No. 12, Weatherhead's-gardens, Crab Tree-row,
Bethnal-green. My father was a cabinet-maker,
but had no work for the last three months, during
which time he has been selling the furniture to
procure us food, and for some time past we have had
nothing to eat but bread. On Friday, the 4th
instant, I went with my father to the workhouse,
and on the way he told me he was going to ask for
admission into the house, and I did not expect we
should have gone home again, but we did return;
and in the afternoon the relieving officer's assistant
came and told my father to go again to the workhouse
at four o'clock, and he did so, and they gave
him two loaves of bread and an order to go before
the board on Monday. We then returned home, and
the bread which he received lasted us until Sunday.
On Monday my father got up to go to the board at
the workhouse, but he fell down immediately, and
was unable to go. In the evening my aunt went to
the workhouse to request them to send the chair
used to convey those unable to walk; and, as her
application was not immediately attended to, she
swore at the person she saw, and because she did so,
he refused to send the chair, and she returned without
it, and said father must walk there; but he said
he could not, and we remained at home until
Wednesday night, when a policeman came and took
father to the workhouse in a truck, and I walked
by the side. When we got to the workhouse we were
immediately admitted, and father died soon after.

"Dr. Christie deposed to having made a post-
mortem examination, the result of which was that
he attributed death to exposure and want of
nourishment.

"An immense mass of evidence was taken at the
various sittings, which want of space compels us to
omit, all tending to show the fearful state to which
poverty had reduced the deceased.

"The jury returned the following verdict: ' That
the deceased died from exposure to cold and the
want of food and other necessaries; and the said
jurors do further say, the said death was accelerated
by the great neglect of the relieving-officer of Bethnal-
green parish; and the said jurors request the
coroner to forward a copy of the same to the parish
authorities, and also to the Poor Law Commissioners.'"

This will form a group: The policeman wheeling
the dying man to the workhouse in a truck,
and the son walking by the side.

We can easily find a dozen more "cases,"
even in London, and even within the months of
December, 1860, and January, 1861, to fill the
new Chamber of Horrors, but our impression is
that these will be enough. Before this museum
of poor-law victims has been open a year, we
believe that not a single instance of starvation
will have to be recorded throughout the land.

A DAY'S RIDE: A LIFE'S ROMANCE.

CHAPTER XLII.

If there be anything in our English habits
upon which no difference of opinion can exist,
it is our proneness to extend to a foreigner a
degree of sympathy and an amount of interest
that we obstinately deny to our own people.
The English artist struggling all but hopelessly
against the town's indifference has but to
displace the consonants or multiply the vowels of
his name to be a fashion and a success. Strange
and incomprehensible tendency in a nation so
overwhelmingly impressed with a sense of its
own vast superiority! But so it is. Mr. Brady
might sing to empty benches, while il Signor
Bradini would " bring down the house." What
set me thinking over this was, that, though
Silvio Pellico was a stock theme for English
pity and compassion, I very much doubted if a
single tear would fall for the misfortunes of a
Potts. And yet there was a marvellous
similarity in our sufferings. In each case was the
Austrian the gaoler; in each case was the victim
a creature of tender mould and gentle nature.

I travelled in a sort of covered cart, with a
mounted gendarme at either side of me. Indeed ,
the one faintly alleviating circumstance of my
captivity was the sight of those two heavily
equipped giants, armed to the teeth, who were
supposed to be essential to my safe conduct.
It was such an acknowledgment of what they