Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 373, November 1846Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 373, November 1846
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
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.
To effect this, how must the authorities proceed? In the first place,
there are arrangements which they cannot make. They cannot altogether
dispense with the counsels of the medical man, while the matter is under
discussion. And an inspector of prisons should be admitted, certainly,
as far as the ante-room. Then the locality of the Union-house must not
be unhealthy. The internal parts of the building must not be exposed to
the inclemency of the seasons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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