Crime -- England -- London; London (England) -- Social conditions; Poor -- England -- London
So they pass! But the upperworld has not done with them; it does not get
rid of its natural obligations so easily. It suffers with them, and pays
dearly for its neglect of them. The disabled live on, they will not die
to please us, and they extract a pretty expensive living from the world
above. The worst of it is that these unfortunates prey also upon those
who have least to spare, the respectable poor just above the line. They
do not always sit at the gates of the rich asking for crumbs, for the
eloquence of their afflictions and the pity of their woes strike home
to the hearts and pockets of the industrious poor who have so little to
spare. But it is always much easier to rob the poor!
It is our boast that Englishmen love justice, and it is a true boast!
But when we read of accidents and of surgical operations, does our
imagination lead us to ask: What about the future of the sufferers? Very
rarely, I expect.
The fact is, we have got so used to this sight of maimed manhood that it
causes us but little anxious thought, though it may cause some feelings
of revulsion.
But there is the Employers' Liability Act! Yes, I admit it, and a
blessed Act it is. But the financial consideration given for a lost limb
or a ruined body is not a fortune; it soon evaporates, then heigho! for
the underworld, for bitterness and craft.
But all accidents do not come within the scope of that Act, not by any
means. If a married woman about to become a mother falls or rolls
down the stairs, when climbing to her home in the seventh heaven of
Block-land, if she sustains long injuries, who compensates her? If the
child is born a monstrosity, though not an idiot, who compensates for
that? If the poor must be located near the sky, how is it that "lifts"
cannot be provided for them? Who can tell the amount of maimed child,
middle-aged and elderly life that has resulted from the greasy stairs
and dark landings of London dwellings. Industrial life, commercial life
and social life take a rare toll of flesh and blood from the poor. For
this civilisation makes no provision excepting temporary sustentation in
hospitals, workhouses or prisons. Even our prison commissioners tell us
that "our prisons are largely filled with the very poor, the ignorant,
the feeble, the incapable and the incapacitated."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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