Crime -- England -- London; London (England) -- Social conditions; Poor -- England -- London
See what is happening! Thousands of children born to this kind of
humanity become chargeable to the guardians or find entrance to the
many children's homes organised by philanthropy. One course is taken the
bright and healthy, the sound in body and mind, are emigrated; but the
smitten, the afflicted, the feeble and the worthless are kept at home
to go through the same life, to endure the same conditions as their
parents, and in their turn to produce a progeny that will burrow in
warrens or scuttle out of them even as their parents did before them.
But the feebler the life, the greater the progeny; this we cannot
escape, for Nature will take care of herself. We, may drive out the
rabbits, we may imprison and punish them, we may compel them to live
in Adullam Street or in lazar houses, we may harry them and drive them
hither and thither, we may give them doles of food on the Embankment or
elsewhere. We may give them chopping wood for a day, we may lodge them
for a time in labour homes; all this we may do, but we cannot uplift
them by these methods. We cannot exterminate them. But by ignoring them
we certainly give them an easy chance of multiplying to such a degree
that they will constitute a national danger.
CHAPTER VI. THE DISABLED
In this chapter I want to speak of those who suffer from physical
disabilities, either from birth, the result of accident, or disease.
If this great army of homeless afflicted humanity were made to pass in
procession before us, it would, I venture to say, so touch our hearts
that we should not want the procession repeated.
Nothing gives us more pleasure than the sight of a number of people who,
suffering from some one or other physical deprivation, are being taught
some handicraft by which they will be able to earn a modest living.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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