In connexion with the subject of “the town,” it may be well to go a little into the matter of sewerage, which almost, above all things, demands the attention of those who care for the health of the labouring population, indeed, for the health of rich or poor.
This subject is admirably treated in a section of the Sanitary Report of 1842, under the head of “Arrangements for public health, external to the residences.” It is now almost a trite thing to show how closely connected imperfect sewerage is with disease. Scientific men will tell you that you may track a fever along the windings of an open drain. The Sanitary Report mentions that,
“In the evidence given before the Committee of the House of Commons, which received evidence on the subject in 1834, one medical witness stated, that of all cases of severe typhus that he had seen, eight-tenths were either in houses of which the drains from the sewers were untrapped, or which, being trapped, were situated opposite gully-holes; and he mentioned instances where servants sleeping in the lower rooms of houses were invariably attacked with fever.”
The above is a good instance to show how necessary it is to have some general measures on these matters of building and drainage. The expense of trapping a gully-drain is about £3; at least that is what, I understand, the Commissioners of Sewers are willing to do it for. Now is it likely that any poor man, having one of these nuisances before his door, will go to such an expense to have it prevented. It is probable that it would be very good economy for him to do so, even if his whole savings amounted only to £3. But we all know that few men are far-thinking enough to invest much of their capital in a thing which makes so little show as pure air. What do you find amongst the rich? Go through the great squares, where, in one night, a man will lavish on some entertainment what would almost purify his neighbourhood, and you will often find the same evils there, though in a different degree, that you have met with in the most crowded parts of the town. If the rich and great have so little care about what comes
“Betwixt the wind and their nobility”
you can hardly expect persons, whose perception in such matters is much less nice, to have any care at all. It is evident that the health of towns requires to be watched by scientific men, and improvements constantly urged on by persons who take an especial interest in the subject. If I were a despot, I would soon have a band of Arnotts, Chadwicks, Southwood Smiths, Smiths of Deanston, Joneses, and the like; and one should have gratified a wiser ambition than Augustus if one could say of any great town, Sordidam inveni, purgatam reliqui.
The supply of water is of course one of the chief means for the purification of a town. It is at present, I fear, grievously neglected throughout the country. The Sanitary Report draws attention to the mode of supplying water to Bath, and gas to Manchester: and adduces the latter as an instance “of the practicability of obtaining supplies for the common benefit of a town without the agency of private companies.” And Mr. Chadwick, after a lengthened investigation into the subject which will well repay perusal, thus concludes:
“I venture to add, as the expression of an opinion founded on communications from all parts of the kingdom, that as a highly important sanitary measure connected with any general building regulations, whether for villages or for any class of towns, arrangements should be made for all houses to be supplied with good water, and should be prescribed as being as essential to cleanliness and health as the possession of a roof or of due space; that for this purpose, and in places where the supplies are not at present satisfactory, power should be vested in the most eligible local administrative body, which will generally be found to be that having charge of cleansing and structural arrangements, to procure proper supplies for the cleansing of the streets, for sewerage, for protection against fires, as well as for domestic use.”
It is possible that some of my readers may think that the wretched state of ventilation, drainage, and building, which I have been commenting upon, is mainly to be accounted for by poverty. It belongs, they may say, to an old country; it is the long accumulated neglect of ages; it embodies the many vicissitudes of trade which Great Britain has felt; it is a thing which the people would remedy for themselves, if you could only give them more employment and better wages. In answer to this I will refer to an authority quoted by Mr. Chadwick in his Essay on the “Pressure and Progress of the Causes of Mortality,” read before the Statistical Society in 1843.
“In abundance of employment, in high wages, and the chief circumstances commonly reputed as elements of prosperity of the labouring classes, the city of New York is deemed pre-eminent. I have been favoured with a copy of ‘The Annual Report of the Interments in the City and County of New York for the Year 1842,’ presented to the Common Council by Dr. John Griscom, the city inspector, in which it may be seen how little those circumstances have hitherto preserved large masses of people from physical depression. He has stepped out of the routine to examine on the spot the circumstances attendant on the mortality which the figures represent. He finds that upwards of 33,000 of the population of that city live in cellars, courts, and alleys, of which 6618 are dwellers in cellars. ‘Many,’ he states, ‘of these back places are so constructed as to cut off all circulation of air, the line of houses being across the entrance, forming a cul de sac, while those in which the line is parallel with, and at one side of the entrance, are rather more favourably situated, but still excluded from any general visitation of air in currents. As to the influence of these localities upon the health and lives of the inmates, there is, and can be, no dispute; but few are aware of the dreadful extent of the disease and suffering to be found in them. In the damp, dark, and chilly cellars, fevers, rheumatism, contagious and inflammatory disorders, affections of the lungs, skin, and eyes, and numerous others, are rife, and too often successfully combat the skill of the physician and the benevolence of strangers.
“‘I speak now of the influence of the locality merely. The degraded habits of life, the degenerate morals, the confined and crowded apartments, and insufficient food, of those who live in more elevated rooms, comparatively beyond the reach of the exhalations of the soil, engender a different train of diseases, sufficiently distressing to contemplate; but the addition to all these causes of the foul influences of the incessant moisture and more confined air of under-ground rooms, is productive of evils which humanity cannot regard without shuddering.’
“He gives instances where the cellar population had been ravaged by fever, whilst the population occupying the upper apartments of the same houses were untouched. In respect to the condition of these places, he cites the testimony of a physician, who states that, ‘frequently in searching for a patient living in the same cellar, my attention has been attracted to the place by a peculiar and nauseous effluvium issuing from the door, indicative of the nature and condition of the inmates.’ A main cause of this is the filthy external state of the dwellings and defective street cleansing and defective supplies of water, which, except that no provision is made for laying it on the houses of the poorer classes, is about to be remedied by a superior public provision.”
After considering this account of the State of New York, it will hardly do to say, that, even under favourable circumstances, you can leave the great mass of the people to take care of those structural arrangements with regard to their habitations, which only the scientific research of modern times has taught any persons to regard with due attention.
We have now gone over some of the principal places where the employer of labour may find scope for benevolent exertion. It has been a most inartificial division of the subject, but still one that may be retained in the memory, which is a strange creature, not always to be bound by logic, but led along by minute ties of association, among which those of place are very strong and clinging. I now venture to discuss a branch of the subject which can hardly be referred to any particular spot, unless, indeed, I were to name the manufacturer’s own house as the fit ground for it: I mean the social intercourse between the employers and the employed. Some persons will, perhaps, be startled at the phrase; hardly, however, those who have come thus far with me. By social intercourse I do not merely mean that which will naturally take place in the ordinary charities, such as visiting the sick, managing clothing societies, and the like: but that intercourse which includes an interchange of thought, an occasional community of pursuit, and an opportunity of indirect instruction; which may be frequent and extensive enough to avoid the evil effects of a sense of perpetual condescension on one side, and timidity on the other; and which may give the employer some chance at least of learning the general wants and wishes of his people, and also of appreciating their individual characters.
This matter is not an easy one. It requires tact, patience, discretion, and the application of several of the maxims mentioned in the preceding chapter. I am not sure however, that it is any sacrifice whatever in the way of pleasure. The manufacturer’s family who occasionally give an evening to social intercourse with their people, will not, perhaps, find that evening less amusing than many that they may pass with their equals.
The advantage, to the rising generation of working people, of some intercourse with their betters, would be very great. I must here quote the authority of one who has fully expressed in action the benevolent views which he has indicated in the following words. “No humble cottage youth or maiden will ever acquire the charm of pleasing manners by rules, or lectures, or sermons, or legislation, or any other of those abortive means by which we from time to time endeavour to change poor human nature, if they are not permitted to see what they are taught they should practise, and to hold intercourse with those whose manners are superior to their own.” This intercourse will probably lead to something like accomplishments among the young people. Some of them will profit more than others from the manners and accomplishments which they will observe. And such differences will create a higher order of love among the working people. The manners of one sex will become different from the manners of the other; and the difference of individuals in each sex will be brought into play. All this is favourable to morality. When people work at the same kind of work, have no different pursuits to call out the different qualities of the two sexes, and have all of them manners of the same rude stamp, you can hardly expect that there will be much to ennoble them in their affections.
But, in themselves, the accomplishments and acquirements, which working people may attain from social intercourse with their betters, are great things. The same kind-hearted employer, whom I have quoted before, speaks thus upon the subject. “Another point which has appeared to me of great importance is to provide as many resources as possible of interest and amusement for their leisure hours; something to which they may return with renewed relish when their daily work is done; which may render their homes cheerful and happy, and may afford subjects of thought, conversation and pursuit among them.” Moreover, a habit of attention, and even scientific modes of thought, are often called out in young people when they are learning some game. Besides to do anything, or know anything, which is harmless, is beneficial. A man will not be a worse workman because he can play at cricket, or at chess; or because he is a good draughtsman, or can touch some musical instrument with skill. He is likely to have more self-respect, and to be a better citizen. He cannot succeed in anything without attention and endurance. And these are the qualities which will enable him to behave reasonably in the vicissitudes of trade, or to prepare as much as possible against them.
In the Report on the condition of children and young persons employed in Mines and Manufactures, there is some remarkable evidence given by a man who had himself risen from the state of life which he describes. It leads us to perceive the great good which any improvement in the domestic accomplishments of the women might be expected to produce. He says,
“Children during their childhood toil throughout the day, acquiring not the least domestic instruction to fit them for wives and mothers. I will name one instance; and this applies to the general condition of females doomed to, and brought up amongst, shop-work. My mother worked in a manufactory from a very early age. She was clever and industrious; and, moreover, she had the reputation of being virtuous. She was regarded as an excellent match for a working man. She was married early. She became the mother of eleven children: I am the eldest. To the best of her ability she performed the important duties of a wife and mother. She was lamentably deficient in domestic knowledge; in that most important of all human instruction, how to make the home and the fireside to possess a charm for her husband and children, she had never received one single lesson. She had children apace. As she recovered from her lying-in, so she went to work, the babe being brought to her at stated times to receive nourishment. As the family increased, so any thing like comfort disappeared altogether. The power to make home cheerful and comfortable was never given to her. She knew not the value of cherishing in my father’s mind a love of domestic objects. Not one moment’s happiness did I ever see under my father’s roof. All this dismal state of things I can distinctly trace to the entire and perfect absence of all training and instruction to my mother. He became intemperate; and his intemperance made her necessitous. She made many efforts to abstain from shop-work; but her pecuniary necessities forced her back into the shop. The family was large, and every moment was required at home. I have known her, after the close of a hard day’s work, sit up nearly all night for several nights together washing and mending of clothes. My father could have no comfort here. These domestic obligations, which in a well-regulated house (even in that of a working man, where there are prudence and good management) would be done so as not to annoy the husband, to my father were a source of annoyance; and he, from an ignorant and mistaken notion, sought comfort in an alehouse.
“My mother’s ignorance of household duties; my father’s consequent irritability and intemperance; the frightful poverty; the constant quarrelling; the pernicious example to my brothers and sisters; the bad effect upon the future conduct of my brothers; one and all of us being forced out to work so young that our feeble earnings would produce only 1s. a-week; cold and hunger, and the innumerable sufferings of my childhood, crowd upon my mind and overpower me. They keep alive a deep anxiety for the emancipation of the thousands of families in this great town and neighbourhood, who are in a similar state of horrible misery. My own experience tells me that the instruction of the females in the work of a house, in teaching them to produce cheerfulness and comfort at the fireside, would prevent a great amount of misery and crime. There would be fewer drunken husbands and disobedient children. As a working man, within my own observation, female education is disgracefully neglected. I attach more importance to it than to any thing else.”
This evidence is the more significant, because, one sees that the poor woman had the material of character out of which the most engaging qualities might have been formed. Let her have seen better things in early life, and even if her schooling had been somewhat deficient, had she but enjoyed the advantage of such social intercourse with her betters as we are now considering, that poor woman might have been a source of joy and hope to her family, instead of a centre of repulsion.
Dr. Cooke Taylor, in his “Tour in the Manufacturing Districts,” has given a table, which I subjoin, “showing the degree of instruction, age, and sex; of the persons taken into custody, summarily convicted, or held to bail, and tried and convicted, in Manchester, in the year 1841.” The table was formed on statistical details furnished by Sir Charles Shaw. It shows a state of facts which has been deduced from other tables of a like nature, but the facts are of such moment, that they can hardly be kept too much in mind; especially when we consider that there are large towns in which, as I have said before, half at least of the juvenile population is growing up without education of any kind whatever. [147] If such are the favourable results even of that small and superficial education, which by the way I would rather call instruction than education, described in the second and third headings of the table, what may we not expect from a training where the youth or maiden finds in her employers not only instructors, but friends and occasional companions? What store of labour on the part of judges, jailors, and policemen, must be saved by even a few of such employers.
TOTAL IN THE YEAR 1841. |
Degree of Instruction |
|||||||||||
|
|
1. Neither Read nor Write. |
2. Read only or Read & Write imperfectly. |
3. Read and Write well. |
4. Superior Instruction. |
|||||||
|
M. & F. |
Male. |
Fem. |
Male. |
Fem. |
Male. |
Fem. |
Male. |
Fem. |
Male. |
Fem. |
|
1st Class |
Taken into Custody |
13345 |
9925 |
3420 |
4901 |
2070 |
3944 |
1218 |
873 |
119 |
207 |
13 |
2nd Class |
Summarily Convicted or held to Bail |
2138 |
1661 |
447 |
795 |
265 |
660 |
198 |
193 |
14 |
13 |
. . |
3rd Class |
Tried and Convicted |
24 |
645 |
179 |
277 |
100 |
276 |
72 |
82 |
7 |
10 |
. . |
AGES. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Under 10 Years of age. |
10 Years, & under 15. |
15 Years, & under 20. |
20 Years, & under 25. |
25 Years, & under 30. |
30 Years, & under 40. |
40 Years, & under 50. |
50 Years & under 60. |
60 Years, & upwards. |
|||||||||
|
Male. |
Fem. |
Male. |
Fem. |
Male. |
Fem. |
Male. |
Fem. |
Male. |
Fem. |
Male. |
Fem. |
Male. |
Fem. |
Male. |
Fem. |
Male. |
Fem. |
1st Class |
62 |
6 |
681 |
83 |
1581 |
656 |
2425 |
909 |
1805 |
755 |
1775 |
582 |
1018 |
284 |
422 |
85 |
156 |
60 |
2nd Class |
4 |
. . |
151 |
17 |
302 |
84 |
418 |
150 |
264 |
93 |
327 |
75 |
129 |
39 |
49 |
14 |
17 |
5 |
3rd Class |
. . |
. . |
30 |
2 |
150 |
54 |
196 |
61 |
97 |
21 |
109 |
25 |
43 |
11 |
15 |
3 |
5 |
2 |
Some persons may object to encouraging anything like refinement amongst the operatives; and others, who would hardly object in open terms, find it difficult to reconcile themselves to the idea of it. Whatever there is in this repugnance that arises from any selfish motive should be instantly cast aside. Do not let us be meanly afraid that the classes below us will tread too closely on our heels. What a disgrace it is, if, with our much larger opportunities of leisure, with professions that demand a perpetual exercise of the intellectual faculties, we cannot preserve, on the average, an intellectual superiority fully equivalent to the difference of rank and station. Let the vast tracts now left barren smile with cultivation: the happier lands, which the rivers of civilization have enriched for ages, will still maintain their supremacy. And remember this, that every insight you give the humbler classes into the vast expanse of knowledge, you give them the means of estimating with a deference founded on reason, those persons who do possess knowledge of any kind. Let us have faith that knowledge must in the long run lead to good; and let us not fancy that our prosperity as a class depends upon the ignorance of those beneath us. Has not our partial enlightenment taught us in some measure to be reconciled to the fact of there being classes above us? And why should we fear that knowledge, which smoothes so many of the rugged things in life, should be found unavailing to soften the inequalities of social distinction? It is the ignorant barbarians who can pluck the Roman Senate by the beard; and who, in the depth of savageness, can see nothing in sex, age, station, or office, to demand their veneration. Make the men around you more rational, more instructed, more helpful, more hopeful creatures if you can; above all things treat them justly: and I think you may put aside any apprehension of disturbing the economy of the various orders of the state. And if it can be so disturbed, let it be.
What I have said above is not drawn from airy fancies of my own. Such things as I have suggested, have been done. I could mention one man, who might not, however, thank me for naming him, who has devoted himself to the social improvement of his working people: and, without such an example, I should never, perhaps, have thought of, or ventured to put forward, the above suggestions with respect to the social intercourse between masters and men. It is the same benevolent manufacturer from whose letters to Mr. Horner I have made extracts before. The general system on which he has acted may be best explained in his own words. “In all plans for the education of the labouring classes my object would be not to raise any individuals among them above their condition, but to elevate the condition itself. For I am not one of those who think that the highest ambition of a working man should be to rise above the station in which Providence has placed him, or that he should be taught to believe that because the humblest, it is therefore the least happy and desirable condition of humanity. This is, indeed, a very common notion among the working classes of the people, and a very natural one; and it has been encouraged by many of their superiors, who have interested themselves in the cause of popular improvement, and have undertaken to direct and stimulate their exertions. Examples have constantly been held up of men who by unusual ability and proficiency in some branch of science had raised themselves above the condition of their birth, and risen to eminence and wealth; and these instances have been dwelt upon and repeated, in a manner, that, whether intentionally or not, produces the impression that positive and scientific knowledge is the summum bonum of human education, and that to rise above our station in life, should be the great object of our exertion. This is not my creed. I am satisfied that it is an erroneous one, in any system of education for any class of men. Our object ought to be, not to produce a few clever individuals, distinguished above their fellows by their comparative superiority, but to make the great mass of individuals on whom we are operating, virtuous, sensible, well-informed, and well-bred men.” And again he states that his object is “to show to his people and to others, that there is nothing in the nature of their employment, or in the condition of their humble lot, that condemns them to be rough, vulgar, ignorant, miserable, or poor:—that there is nothing in either that forbids them to be well-bred—well-informed, well-mannered—and surrounded by every comfort and enjoyment that can make life happy;—in short, to ascertain and to prove what the condition of this class of people might be made—what it ought to be made—what is the interest of all parties that it should be made.”
Before concluding this chapter, I must say a few more words on the general subject of interference. No one can be more averse than I am to unnecessary interference, or more ready to perceive the many evils which attend it. There is, however, the danger of carrying non-interference into inhumanity. Mankind are so accustomed to the idea that government mainly consists in coercion, that they sometimes find it difficult to consider interference, even as applied to benevolent undertakings, and for social government, in any other than a bad light. But take the rule of a father, which is the type of all good government, that under which the divine jurisdiction has been graciously expressed to us. Consider how a wise father will act as regards interference. His anxiety will not be to drag his child along, undeviatingly, in the wake of his own experience; but rather, to endue him with that knowledge of the chart and compass, and that habitual observation of the stars, which will enable the child, himself, to steer safely over the great waters. Such a father will not be unreasonably solicitous to assimilate his son’s character or purposes to his own. He will not fall into the error of supposing that experience is altogether a transferable commodity. The greatest good which he designs for his son will, perhaps, be that which he can give him indirectly, and which he may never speak to the youth about. He will seek to surround him with good opportunities and favourable means: and even when he interferes more directly, he will endeavour, in the first instance, to lead rather than to compel, so that some room for choice may still be left. Not thinking that his own power, his own dignity, his own advantage are the chief objects for him to look to, his imagination will often be with those whom he rules; and he will thus be able to look at his own conduct with their eyes, not with his. This, alone, will keep him from a multiplicity of errors. Now the same principles, actuated by the same kind of love, should be at the bottom of all social government. I believe that we shall be better able in practice to place wise limits to interference by regulating and enlightening the animus which prompts it, than by laying down rules for its action determined upon abstract considerations. The attempt to fix such rules is not to be despised; but if the persons, or society, about to interfere on any occasion, desired a good object from right motives, I think they would have the best chance of keeping themselves from using wrong means. In many cases, an unwise interference takes place from a partial apprehension of the good to be aimed at: enlarge and exalt the object; let it not be one-sided; and probably the mode of attaining it will partake largely of the wisdom shown in the choice of it. If, for instance, a government saw that it had to encourage, not only judicious physical arrangements, but mental and moral development, amongst those whom it governs, it would be very cautious of suppressing, or interfering with, any good thing which the people would accomplish for themselves. The same with a private individual, an employer of labour for instance, if he values the independence of character and action in those whom he employs, he will be careful in all his benevolent measures, to leave room for their energy to work. What does he want to produce? Something vital, not something mechanical. It is often a deficiency of benevolence, and not an overflow, that makes people interfering in a bad sense. Frequently the same spirit which would make a man a tyrant in government, would make him a busy-body, a meddler, or a pedantic formalist, in the relations of ordinary life. I have taken the instance of father and son, which might be supposed by many as one in which extreme interference was not only justifiable, but requisite. In stating how necessary it is even there to be very careful as regards the extent and mode of interference, I leave my readers to estimate how essential it must be in all other cases where the relation is not of that closely connected character. I believe that the parental relation will be found the best model on which to form the duties of the employer to the employed; calling, as it does, for active exertion, requiring the most watchful tenderness, and yet limited by the strictest rules of prudence from intrenching on that freedom of thought and action which is necessary for all spontaneous development.
CHAPTER IV.
Sources of Benevolence.
There is a common phrase which is likely to become a most powerful antagonist to any arguments that have been put forward in the foregoing pages: and I think it would be good policy for me to commence the attack, and endeavour to expose its weakness in the first instance. If you propose any experiment for remedying an evil, it is nearly sure to be observed that your plan is well enough in theory, but that it is not practical. Under that insidious word “practical” lurk many meanings. People are apt to think that a thing is not practical, unless it has been tried, is immediate in its operation, or has some selfish end in view. Many who do not include, either avowedly, or really, the two latter meanings, incline, almost unconsciously perhaps, to adopt the former, and think that a plan, of which the effects are not foreknown, cannot be practical. Every new thing, from Christianity downwards, has been suspected, and slighted, by such minds. All that is greatest in science, art, or song, has met with a chilling reception from them. When this apprehensive timidity of theirs is joined to a cold or selfish spirit, you can at best expect an Epicurean deportment from them. Warming themselves in the sun of their own prosperity, they soothe their consciences by saying how little can be done for the unfed, shivering, multitude around them. Such men may think that it is practical wisdom to make life as palatable as it can be, taking no responsibility that can be avoided, and shutting out assiduously the consideration of other men’s troubles from their minds. Such, however, is not the wisdom inculcated in that religion which, as Goethe well says, is grounded on “Reverence for what is under us,” and which teaches us “to recognize humility and poverty, mockery and despite, disgrace and wretchedness, suffering and death, as things divine.”
There is a class of men utterly different from those above alluded to, who, far from entertaining any Epicurean sentiments, are prone to view with fear the good things of this world. And, indeed, seeing the multiform suffering which is intertwined with every variety of human life, a man in present ease and well-being may naturally feel as if he had not his share of what is hard to be endured. The fanatic may seek a refuge from prosperity, or strive to elevate his own nature, by self-inflicted tortures; but one, who adds wisdom to sensibility, finds in his own well-being an additional motive for benevolent exertions. It is surely bad management when a man does not make a large part of his self-sacrifices subservient to the welfare of his fellow-men. In active life nothing avails more than self-denial; and there its trials are varying and multifarious: but ascetics, by placing their favourite virtue in retirement, made it dwindle down into one form only of self-restraint.
I suppose there are few readers of history who have not occasionally turned from its pages with disgust, confusion, a craving for any grounds of disbelief, and a melancholy darkness of soul. It can hardly be otherwise, when you read, for instance, of the colossal brutalities of the Roman Emperors, many of whom indulged in a sportive cruelty to their fellow men, which reminds one of children with insects. When you find, again, some mighty Master of the World, renowned for valour, and for prudence, one of those emphatically called the “Good” Emperors, kindly presenting hundreds of men to kill each other for the amusement of the Roman multitude—when you are told that that multitude contained, what may have been for that age, good men, and gentle women—when, passing lower down the turbid stream of the recorded past, you read of Popes and Cardinals, Inquisitors and Bishops, men who must have heard from time to time some portions of the holy words of mercy and of love, when you find them, I say, counselling and plotting and executing, the foulest deeds of blood—when, descending lower still, you approach those days when law became the tyrant’s favourite scourge, and you find the legal slave telling his master how he has interrogated some poor wretch “in torture, before torture, after torture, and between torture”—when you have some insight into what that thing torture was, by contrasting the hand-writing of the distracted sufferer before and after his examination—when, to your surprise, you read that these very victims of persecution, were themselves restless and dissatisfied, unless they could direct the arm of power against another persecuted race—and when, coming to your own day, you find that men, separated from you by distance, though not by time, can show the utmost recklessness of human life, if differently coloured from their own. Pondering over these things, your heart may well seek comfort in the thought that these tyrants were, or are, rude men, of iron frame, ready to inflict, ready themselves to suffer. It is not so. A Nero clings to his own life with abject solicitude. A Louis the Eleventh, who could keep other men in cages, wearies Heaven with prayers, and Earth with strange devices, to preserve his own grotesque existence. A James the First, who can sanction at the least, if not direct, the torture to be applied to a poor, old, clergyman, was yet in the main a soft-hearted man, can feel most tenderly for a broken limb of any favourite, have an anxious affection for “Steenie and Baby Charles,” and an undoubted, and provident, regard for his own “sacred” person. What shall we say, too, of that Chancellor of his, a man, like his master, of a soft heart, full of the widest humanity, and yet, as far as we know, unconscious of the horror of those ill doings transacted in his own great presence? Why is it that I recall these things? Why do I bring forward what many of us, forgetting the iron weight with which the sentiments of his age press down even upon the mightiest genius, might look upon as a humiliating circumstance far greater than it is, in the life of a man we ought all to love so much? Is history a thing done away with, or is not the past for ever in the present? And is it not but too probable that we ourselves are occasionally guilty of things which, for our lights, are as sad aberrations as those which, in reading of the past, we have dwelt upon with the profoundest pity, and turned away from in overwhelming amazement? Are we quite sure that none of the vices of tyranny rest with us; and that we individually, or nationally, have not to answer for any carelessness of human life or for any indifference to human suffering?
What is it that has put a stop to many of the obvious atrocities I allude to as disgracing the page of history? The introduction of some great idea, the recognition, probably, in some distinct form of the command “to do unto others as you would they should do unto you.” And this is what is wanted with regard to the relation of the employer and employed. Once let the minds even of a few men be imbued with an ampler view of this relation, and it is scarcely possible to estimate the good that may follow. Around that just idea what civilization may not grow up! You gaze at the lofty cathedral in the midst of narrow streets and squalid buildings, but all welcome to your sight as the places where miserable men first found sanctuary; you pass on and look with pleasure at the rich shops and comfortable dwellings; and then you find yourself amongst ample streets, stately squares, and the palaces of the great, with their columns and their statues: and if then you turn your thoughts to the complex varieties of modern life, and the progress of civilization and humanity, may you not see the same thing there; how all that is good, and merciful, and holy, is to be traced up to some cathedral truths, at first little understood, just restraining rude men from bloody deeds, and then gradually extending into daily life, being woven into our familiar thoughts, and shedding light, and security, and sanctity, around us? And, as the traveller’s first impulse, when he rises in the morning after his journey, is to catch a glimpse of that famous building which must ever be the thing most worthy of note in the city; so, in your travels, would you not look first for these cathedral truths, and delight to recognize their beneficent influence wherever you may meet with anything that is good in man?
And now, reader, I have come to the close of this Essay. I do not assert that I have brought forward any specific, or even any new remedy of a partial nature, for the evils I have enumerated. Indeed I have not feared to reiterate hacknied truths. But you may be sure, that if you do not find yourself recurring again and again to the most ordinary maxims, you do not draw your observations from real life. Oh, if we could but begin by believing and acting upon some of the veriest common places! But it is with pain and grief that we come to understand our first copy-book sentences. As to the facts, too, on which I have grounded my reasonings, they are mostly well known, or might be so; for I have been content to follow other men’s steps, and so assist in wearing a pathway for the public mind. I am well aware that I have left untouched many matters bearing closely on the subject, more closely, perhaps, some of my readers will think, than the topics I have taken. In the fields, however, of politics, and political economy, there are many reapers: and the part of the subject which I have chosen seemed to me of sufficient importance to be considered by itself. I know that in much of what I have said, I have touched with an unpractised hand, upon matters which some of those who are great employers of labour will have examined and mastered thoroughly. Still, let them remember, that it is one thing to criticise, and another to act. Their very familiarity with the subject may render them dull to the means of doing good which their position affords them. We pass much of our time in thinking what we might do if we were somewhat different from what we are; and the duties appropriate to our present position invite our attention in vain.
To others I may say, there is nothing in these pages, perhaps, that will exactly point out the path most fitting for you to take; still I cannot but think that so many have been indicated, that you will have no difficulty in finding some one that may lead to the main object if your heart is set upon it. If you throw but a mite into the treasury of good will which ought to exist between the employers and the employed, you do something towards relieving one of the great burdens of this age, possibly of all ages; you aid in cementing together the various orders of the state; you are one of those who anticipate revolutions by doing some little part of their duty towards the men of their own time; and, if you want any reward to allure you on, you will find it in the increased affection towards your fellows which you will always have, when you have endeavoured to be just to them.
But I would wish to put more solemn considerations before you. Ask yourself, if making all allowance for the difference of times and countries, you think that the payment of poor rates, of itself, fulfils the command to visit the sick, clothe the naked, and feed the hungry. Depend upon it, our duties, however they may be varied by the different circumstances of different periods, cannot be satisfied by any thing that the state demands of us, or can do for us. We have each, from the highest to the lowest, a circle of dependents. We say that Kings are God’s Vicegerents upon earth: but almost every human being has at one time or other of his life, a portion of the happiness of those around him in his power, which might make him tremble, if he did but see it in all its fullness. But at any rate, the relation of master and man is a matter of manifest and large importance. It pervades all societies, and affects the growth and security of states in the most remarkable and pregnant manner; it requires the nicest care; gives exercise to the highest moral qualities; has a large part in civil life; a larger part in domestic life; and our conduct in it will surely be no mean portion of the account which we shall have to render in the life that is to come.
APPENDIX.
According to tables of which Mr. Grainger states that he has ascertained the general accuracy, the proportionate numbers among the working-classes in the Birmingham district at present receiving education are as follows:—Out of a population of 180,000 persons,
10,902 or 6.05 per cent. attend day or evening schools only; |
4,141 or 2.30 per cent. attend both day or evening and Sunday-schools; |
12,616 or 7.01 per cent. attend a Sunday-school only; making a total of |
27,659 or 15.36 per cent. of the population attending schools of some kind or other. |
Of this number—
5,835 are under 5 or above 15 years of age; leaving |
21,824 children between the ages of 5 and 15 attending school in the borough of Birmingham at the time the schools were visited. |
According to the population abstracts of 1821 and 1831, one-fourth of the total population consists of children between these ages. Hence it would appear, that of the 45,000 between the ages of 5 and 15 in the borough of Birmingham—
(Grainger, Evidence: App. Pt. I., p. f 185, 1. 13.)
In the Wolverhampton district, including the neighbouring towns of Willenhall, Bilston, Wednesfield, Sedgley, Darlaston, and also in the towns of Dudley, Walsall, Wednesbury, and Stourbridge, though there are many day-schools, yet the chief means relied on for the education of the working classes are Sunday-schools. In the Collegiate Church district in the town of Wolverhampton, containing a population of from 16,000 to 20,000 persons, there is no National or British School. There is not a single school, reading-room, or lending library attached to any of the manufactories, foundries, or other works, with one exception near Wednesbury; there are no evening-schools, and there is only one industrial school in these districts, namely, at Wednesbury. It is stated in evidence that the great majority of the children receive no education at all; that not one half of them go even to the Sunday-schools, and that those who do go to these schools seldom attend them with regularity. Throughout the whole of these districts, the proportion that can read is represented as being unusually small; some who stated that they could read, when examined, were found unable to read a word; and out of 41 witnesses under eighteen years of age examined at Darlaston, only four could write their names. (Horne, Report: App. Pt. II., p. Q 16, ss. 182 et seq.)
“The number of children on the books at the different schools in Sheffield, comprising every description of schools,” says Mr. Symons, “was made the subject of minute and accurate inquiry in 1838, by the Rev. Thomas Sutton, the vicar; and I have reason to believe that no material difference has taken place in the amount of scholars taught at the ‘common’ and ‘middling’ private day-schools since Mr. Sutton’s census was made.” From this census it appears that the maximum number of children on the books of the different day-schools, including the infant-schools, is 800; but on a personal examination of these schools by the Sub-Commissioner, he states that a large proportion, no less than 26.47 per cent. out of the total number on the books, must be deducted as being continually absent. “Assuming,” therefore, he continues, “that the schools thus estimated are a criterion of the rest (and they are certainly superior), the number who attend the schools out of the 8000 on the books is only 5869. Of the number present at the schools visited, when probably the least instructed were absent, it appears that 45.83 per cent. were unable to read fairly, and that 63.43 per cent. could not write fairly. Taking this as an index to the education of the total number on the books, it results that, of the whole 8000, 4333 only can read fairly, and 2925 only can write fairly, or, in other terms, have attained an elemental education.”
The population of Sheffield parish is computed to be 123,000. Of this number it is assumed that at least one-fifth will consist of children between the ages of three and thirteen. There will be therefore 24,600. Of these more than two-thirds will be of the working classes: at least 16,500, then, of these classes are of an age at which they ought to be receiving education at day-schools; yet little more than one-third of this number, viz. one only out of 2.8 attend day-schools. It is impossible to ascertain what proportion of those who do not attend day-schools can read or write; but as it is certain that they are less instructed by at least one-half, I have every reason to believe that, out of the total 16,500 working class children, not above 6,500 can read fairly. Among the older youths there is still less education, for they have had more time to forget the little they were formerly taught. This estimate is so thoroughly corroborated by the most trustworthy evidence I have received, that I entertain the belief that two-thirds of the working class children and young persons are growing up in a state of ignorance, and are unable to read. On the books of the Sunday-schools there were during the last year 2258, of which the average attendance was only 1708. From this it appears that 24.40 per cent. or nearly a quarter, are absent of the whole number on the books of the Sunday-schools. (Report: App. Pt. I. pp. E 18 et seq. ss. 136, 138, 144–148, 150, 151.)
In the returns from the Warrington district it is stated that nearly three-fourths of the children can read; but the Sub-Commissioner reports that of this number nine-tenths can only give the sound of a few monosyllables; that they have just acquired so much knowledge in the Sunday-schools, and that they will probably attain to little more during their lives. (Austin, Report: App. Pt. II. p. M 19, ss. 125 et seq.)
Report on the Physical and Moral Condition of the Children and young Persons employed in Mines and Manufactures.
II. AN ESSAY ON THE MEANS OF IMPROVING THE HEALTH AND INCREASING THE COMFORT OF THE LABOURING CLASSES.
This Essay is chiefly based on evidence respecting the condition of the labouring classes in towns. It is not, however, necessary, on that account, to consider the subject as applying to those classes only. There is good reason to believe that the state of the agricultural labourers does not differ much, at least in kind, from that of the working people in towns. The remedies for the evils in both are of the same nature; and whatever results are arrived at with respect to the health of towns may generally be adapted, without much difficulty, to the wants of the rural population.
London,
Feb. 6, 1845.
CHAP. I.
Distress amongst the labouring
Classes.
Knowing that there is an element of decay in any over-statement, I was very anxious, in the former Essay, to avoid even the least exaggeration in describing the distressed state of the labouring people. This anxiety was, in that case, needless. An elaborate Report has since been published by the Health of Towns Commission; and the evidence there given more than bears out the statements which I then made.
Indeed, the condition of a large part of the labouring classes, as seen in this Report, is evidently one which endangers the existence amongst them of economy, decency, or morality. You may there see how more than savage is savage life led in a great city. Dr. Southwood Smith in his evidence says,
“The experiment has been long tried on a large scale with a dreadful success, affording the demonstration that if, from early infancy, you allow human beings to live like brutes, you can degrade them down to their level, leaving them scarcely more intellect, and no feelings and affections proper to human minds and hearts.”
He mentions that it has happened to him, in his visits to the poor, as Physician to the Eastern Dispensary, to be unable to stay in the room, even to write the prescription.
“What must it be,” he adds, “to live in such an atmosphere, and to go through the process of disease in it?”
In another place he says,
“You cannot in fact cure. As long as the poor remain in the situations which produce their disease, the proper remedies for such disease cannot be applied to them.”
This state of things, too, according to the same authority, is advancing on us:
“Whatever may be the cause, the fact is certain, that at the present time an epidemic is prevailing, which lays prostrate the powers of life more rapidly and completely than any other epidemic that has appeared for a long series of years.”
The experienced student of history, reading of long wars, looks for their consummation in the coming pestilence. Gathering itself up, now from the ravaged territory, now from the beleaguered town, now from the carnage of the battle field, this awful form arises at last in its full strength, and rushing over the world, leaves far behind man’s puny efforts at extermination. We have a domestic pestilence, it seems, dwelling with us; and if we look into the causes of that, shall we find less to blame, or less to mourn over, than in the insane wars which are the more acknowledged heralds of this swift destruction? But, to return to detail. Mr. Toynbee, one of the surgeons of the St. George’s and the St. James’s Dispensary, tells us:
“In the class of patients to our dispensary, nearly all the families have but a single room each, and a very great number have only one bed to each family. The state of things in respect to morals, as well as health, I sometimes find to be terrible. I am now attending one family, where the father, about 50, the mother about the same age, a grown up son about 20, in a consumption, and a daughter about 17, who has scrofulous affection of the jaw and throat, for which I am attending her, and a child, all sleep in the same bed in a room where the father and three or four other men work during the day as tailors, and they frequently work there late at night with candles. I am also treating, at this present time, a woman with paralysis of the lower extremities, the wife of the assistant to a stable-keeper, whose eldest son, the son by a former wife, and a girl of 11 or 12 years of age, all sleep in the same bed! In another case which I am attending in one room, there are a man and his wife, a grown up daughter, a boy of 16, and a girl of 13; the boy has scrofulous ulcers in the neck; the father, though only of the age of 49, suffers from extreme debility and a broken constitution.”
The medical officer of the Whitechapel Union says,
“I know of few instances where there is more than one room to a family.”
Mr. Austin, an architect, gives us the following description of Snow’s Rents, Westminster, which is but one instance “among many worse,” of the state of things produced simply by the want, as he expresses it, of “proper structural arrangement and control.”
“This court is of considerable width, upwards of 20 feet, but the houses are mostly without yards, and the refuse, when become intolerable inside the houses, is deposited in the court itself, the whole centre being a pool of black stagnant filth, that accumulates from time to time, and is left to decompose and infect the whole neighbourhood. Ventilation, or rather a healthy state of the atmosphere is impossible. What little disturbance of the air does take place, would appear only to render its state more intolerable.”
Being asked what the condition of this court is with regard to drainage and the supply of water, he says,
“There are none whatever there. In wet weather, when the water attains a certain height In the court, it finds its way into an open, black, pestilence-breathing ditch in a neighbouring court; but in the ordinary state of things the whole centre of this place is one mass of wet decomposing filth, that lies undisturbed for weeks, from which, so dreadful is the effluvia at times arising, that in the tenants’ own words, ‘they are often ready to faint, it’s so bad!’ The supply of water consists in this: that 16 houses are accommodated with one stand pipe in the court! On the principal cleaning day, Sunday, the water is on for about five minutes, and it is on also for three days in the week for one half hour, and so great is the rush to obtain a modicum before it is turned off, that perpetual quarrelling and disturbance is the result.”
If we go now from the Metropolis to some of the great towns, we find, substantially, the same account, varied by the special circumstances of each place. Liverpool, which we will look at next, is probably the worst. An official enumeration of the court and cellar population of that town was made two years ago, from which it appeared that 55,534 persons, more than one-third of the working classes, inhabited courts; and 20,168 persons lived in cellars. There are also cellars in the courts containing probably 2000 inhabitants.
“With regard to the character of these courts, 629, or nearly one-third, were closed at both ends; 875, or less than one-half, were open at one end; and only 478, or less than one-fourth, open at both ends.
“The cellars are 10 or 12 feet square; generally flagged,—but frequently having only the bare earth for a floor,—and sometimes less than six feet in height. There is frequently no window, so that light and air can gain access to the cellar only by the door, the top of which is often not higher than the level of the street. In such cellars, ventilation is out of the question. They are of course dark; and from the defective drainage, they are also very generally damp. There is sometimes a back-cellar, used as a sleeping apartment, having no direct communication with the external atmosphere, and deriving its scanty supply of light and air solely from the front apartment.”
The above extract, and the numbers of the court and cellar population, are taken from Dr. Duncan’s evidence. He thinks, from extensive data in his possession, that the numbers, as given in this enumeration, are under the mark. And it is suggested that, possibly, casual lodgers have been omitted. Dr. Duncan then gives some further details which enable us more fully to understand what dog-holes these cellars are.
“Of the entire number of cellars, 1617 have the back apartment I have mentioned; while of 5297 whose measurements are given, 1771, or one-third, are from five to six feet deep,—2324 are from four to five feet, and 1202 from three to four feet below the level of the street: 5273, or more than five-sixths, have no windows to the front; and 2429, or about 44 per cent. are reported as being either damp or wet.”
In cellars of this kind there are sometimes 30 human beings, sometimes more, “furnished,” as Dr. Duncan tells us, “with a supply of air sufficient for the wants of only seven.” Occasionally, in this Report, there are scenes described in a circumstantial, Dutch-picture way which the most vigorous imagination, priding itself on its ingenuity in depicting wretchedness, would hardly have conceived. Take the following instance from the evidence of Mr. Holme of Liverpool.
“Some time ago I visited a poor woman in distress, the wife of a labouring man. She had been confined only a few days, and herself and infant were lying on straw in a vault through the outer cellar, with a clay floor, impervious to water. There was no light nor ventilation in it, and the air was dreadful. I had to walk on bricks across the floor to reach her bed-side, as the floor itself was flooded with stagnant water. This is by no means an extraordinary case, for I have witnessed scenes equally wretched; and it is only necessary to go into Crosby-street, Freemason’s row, and many cross streets out of Vauxhall-road, to find hordes of poor creatures living in cellars, which are almost as bad and offensive as charnel houses. In Freemason’s-row I found, about two years ago, a court of houses, the floors of which were below the public street, and the area of the whole court was a floating mass of putrefied animal and vegetable matter, so dreadfully offensive that I was obliged to make a precipitate retreat. Yet the whole of the houses were inhabited!”
Think what materials for every species of comfort and luxury, are perpetually circulating through Liverpool. If there had not been, for many a day, a sad neglect of supervision on the part of the employers, and great improvidence on that of the employed, we should not see the third part of the working population of such a town immersed in the most abject wretchedness, and all this wealth passing through and leaving so little of the comforts of life in the active hands through which it has passed. It may be said, however, that a considerable part of the population of Liverpool is immigrant, and Irish. Turn then to Nottingham, or York, or Preston, it is the same story. Mr. Hawksley, the engineer, says of Nottingham:
“With few exceptions the houses of Nottingham and its vicinity are laid out either in narrow streets, or more commonly are built in confined courts and alleys, the entrance to which is usually through a tunnel from 30 to 36 inches wide, about 8 feet high, and from 25 to 30 feet long, so that purification by the direct action of the air and solar light is in the great majority of these cases perfectly impracticable. Upwards of 7000 houses are erected back to back and side to side, and are of course by this injurious arrangement deprived of the means of adequate ventilation and decent privacy.”
Dr. Laycock says of York,
“From these inquiries it appears that in the parish of St. Dennis, in which strict accuracy was observed, from 8 to 11 persons slept in one room in 4½ per cent. of the families resident there; in 7½ per cent. from 6 to 8 persons slept in one room; of the total 2195 families visited by the district visitors, 26 per cent. had one room only for all purposes.”
The Rev. Mr. Clay gives an account of an examination of a part of Preston,
“The streets, courts, and yards examined contain about 422 dwellings, inhabited at the time of the inquiry by 2400 persons sleeping in 852 beds, i.e. an average of 5.68 inhabitants to each house, and 2.8 persons to each bed.
“In 84 cases 4 persons slept in the same bed.
„ 28 „ 5
„ 13 „ 6
„ 3 „ 7
„ 1 „ 8“And, in addition, a family of 8 on bed stocks covered with a little straw.”
The results of statistical investigations, with respect to the duration of life, are in unison with the inferences that we should naturally make from the facts before us. Dr. Laycock shows us that in York, in the best drained parishes, where the population to the square rood is 27, and the mean altitude above the sea in feet is 50, the mean age at death is 35.32; in intermediate parishes, where the population is denser and the altitude less, the mean age at death is 27.29; in the worst drained, worst ventilated, and lowest situated parishes, the mean age at death is 22.57. He mentions a fact well worth noticing, that the cholera in 1832 broke out in the court called “the Hagworm’s nest,” which is in the same spot where the pestilences of 1551 and 1604 had dwelt. Surely, in these last two hundred years, we might have drained and ventilated a locality which experience had shown to be so attractive to epidemics. The Rev. Mr. Clay has furnished a table, subjoined in the Appendix, showing the progressive diminution of vitality in the respective classes of gentry, tradesmen, and operatives, at Preston. Dr. Duncan says respecting the mortality of Liverpool,
“While in Rodney Street and Abercromby Wards, with upwards of 30,000 inhabitants, the mortality is below that of Birmingham—the most favoured in this respect of the large towns in England—in Vauxhall Ward, with a nearly equal amount of population, the mortality exceeds that which prevails in tropical regions. * * * * * 177 persons die annually in Vauxhall Ward for every 100 dying out of an equal amount of population in Rodney Street and Abercromby Wards.”
Vauxhall Ward is where the greater number of inhabitants dwell in cellars. Well may Dr. Duncan, in commenting on this difference of mortality in Vauxhall Ward and Rodney Street, declare that it is a fact “sufficient to arouse the attention and stimulate the exertions of the most indifferent.”