Social Transformations of the Victorian Age: A Survey of Court and CountryEscott, T. H. S. (Thomas Hay Sweet)
History
Social Transformations of the Victorian Age: A Survey of Court and Country
Escott, T. H. S. (Thomas Hay Sweet)
Great Britain -- Civilization -- 19th century; Great Britain -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
Most, if not all, of these East End clubs, which the University settlers
aim at teaching their members to run for themselves, rather than
indefinitely to leave their management to outside friends, are federated
to a central association, that the late Lord Lyttelton took a prominent
part in organizing. This was the body which, as has been already said,
decided that stronger drinks than water should not absolutely be
forbidden; but that central supervision should be exercised closely over
all the establishments, and that prompt action should be taken when any
breach of order, corporate or individual, was reported. The average
standard of order maintained has improved, and is still improving.
Generally and individually the club members have realized that their
material interest lies in checking the first beginnings of misconduct, and
in dealing with the offenders not only as guilty individually of a breach
of order, but as violating the first principles of collective fellowship.
Such a conviction indicates the progress made towards the creation of a
healthy opinion upon social matters with those who, a few years ago, would
have been pronounced by experts to be invulnerably proof against any
sentiment of the sort. East End boys are no doubt mischievous, and even
destructive creatures. So, for that matter, are all boys. If their
brethren of the upper class do not break out in the same way as the urchin
East Enders, that is because the march of refinement through the West End
has trodden out the old race of small boys and girls, and has replaced
them by little men and women whose only childhood will be reached in their
dotage. The very interesting experiences recorded in the volume entitled:
_The Universities and the Social Problem_[32] do indeed include some
rather alarming freaks of the East End waggishness. But to the small boy
in rags the process of whose reclamation from Bethnal Green barbarism to
Christian civilization had only begun a few weeks since, the trick of
pouring a paraffin can over a sleeping foe, and then applying a match, did
not seem more of an atrocity than to a West End boy of the same age might
have appeared the joke, borrowed from the pantomime stage, of placing the
baby on the floor by the door for the entering nurse to tumble over, or of
putting a red hot poker too close to be pleasant or even safe to the nose
of an unpopular housemaid. Men like Dr Barnardo or General Booth, who
both know something of Whitechapel waifs and strays, have not thought that
poor children in the East End inherit an exceptional amount of original
sin. Nor have they, nor others, discovered that ragged boys, nurtured on
fried fish and unspeakable pudding are incapable of being disciplined into
habits of obedience, truthfulness, and humanity, even though their ideas
of permissible humour be not bounded by the conventional limits of
gentleness and good taste. The administrators of the People's Palace, for
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account