The gray light of a summer’s morning was dawning on the cathedral towers of the city of ——, when Mr. Burke, a surgeon, returned on horseback from the country, where he had been detained by a patient till past midnight. It was Sunday morning, and he was therefore less surprised than grieved to see what kind of people they were who still loitered in the streets, and occasionally disturbed the repose of those who slept after their weekly toils. Here and there lay on a door-step, or in the kennel, a working man, who had spent his week’s wages at the alehouse, and on being turned out when the clock struck twelve, had sunk down in a drunken sleep. Farther on were more of the same class, reeling in the middle of the street, or holding by the walls of the houses, with just sense enough to make their way gradually homewards, where their wives were either watching anxiously, or disturbed with miserable dreams on their account. The sound of the horse’s hoofs on the pavement roused the watchmen, of whom one rubbed his eyes, and came out of his box to learn the hour from the church clock, while another began to make a clearance of the tipplers, bidding them move on with threats which were lost upon their drowsy ears. One of these guardians of the night, however, was too far gone in slumber to be roused like the rest. Perhaps his own snoring prevented his hearing that any one passed by. Mr. Burke tickled this man’s ear with his riding whip, and asked him the meaning of certain clouds of dun smoke which were curling up, apparently at some little distance, between the gazers and the pale eastern sky. The watchman’s wit served him just so far as to suggest that there ought to be no smoke in that direction at this hour of a Sunday morning, and that he supposed smoke must come from fire. Upon this hint, Mr. Burke rode off at full trot, through such byways as would lead him most directly to the spot. Before he got there, however, his fears were confirmed by the various methods in which information of a fire is given. Rattles were sprung in quick succession, shouts and whoops were echoed from street to street, a red blaze was reflected from every chimney, and glittered like the setting sun on the windows of the upper storys, and the clangor of bells followed in less time than could have been supposed possible. Window after window was thrown up, as Mr. Burke passed, and nightcapped heads popped out with the incessant inquiry—“Fire! Where?”
This was what Mr. Burke was as anxious as any one to know, and he therefore increased his speed till he arrived on the spot, and found that it was not a dwelling-house, but a large grocery warehouse, that was in flames. Having satisfied himself that no lives were in danger, and that every one was on the alert, he hastened homewards to deposit his horse, and quiet his sister’s alarms, and returned to give assistance.
When he came back, two or three engines were on the spot, but unable to work from a deficiency of water. The river was not far distant; but so many impediments arose from the disposition of some of the crowd to speculate idly on the causes of the fire, and of others to bustle about without doing any good, that the flames were gaining ground frightfully. As more gentlemen arrived, however, they assisted Mr. Burke in his exertions to form two lines down to the river side, by one of which the full, and by the other the empty, buckets might be passed with regularity and speed. Meanwhile, the crowd felt themselves at liberty to crack their jokes, as nothing but property was yet at stake.
A child clapped its hands in glee, as a pale blue flame shot up where there had been no light before.
“That’s rum,” said a man. “If there be raisins beside it, ’tis a pity we are not near enough to play snap-dragon.”
“There will be a fine treat for the little ones when all is cool again,” observed another. “A fine store of lollipops under the ruins. Look how the hogsheads of sugar light one after another, like so many torches!”
“They say tea is best made of river water,” said a third; “and it can’t but boil in such a fire; so suppose you fetch your tea-service, neighbour.”
“Rather tea than beer,” replied another. “Did you taste the beer from the brewery fire? Pah! ’twas like what sea-water will be when the world is burnt.”
“I missed my share then,” answered the neighbour; “but I got two or three gallons of what was let out because the white-washer’s boy was drowned in it. That was none the worse, that I could find out. My wife was squeamish about it, so I had it all to myself. Heyday! what’s this about? Why, they won’t let a man look on in peace!”
The constables were now vigorously clearing a space for the firemen, as there was some apprehension that the flames were spreading backwards, where there were courts and alleys crowded with dwellings of the poor. The fear was soon perceived to be too well founded. From an arched passage close by the burning building there presently issued a half-dressed woman with two children clinging to her, a third girl shivering and crying just behind, and a boy following with his arms full of clothes and bedding. Mr. Burke was with them instantly.
“Have the houses behind caught fire?”
“Ours has, sir; and it can’t be saved, for there is no way to it but this. Not a thing could we get out but what we have on; but, thank God, we are all safe!”
“O, mammy, mammy!” cried the elder girl. “She has not been out of bed this week, sir. She’ll die with cold.”
Mr. Burke had observed the ghastly look of the woman. He now bade her compose herself, and promised that the children should be taken care of, if she would tell him where she wished to go. She answered doubtfully that her sister lived in the next street.
“O, not there, mother!” said the boy. “Let us go to John Marshall’s.”
“’Tis too far, Ned. My sister will surely take us in at such a time as this. Lord have mercy! The flames dizzy one so!”
And the poor woman fell against the wall. Mr. Burke raised her, and bidding Ned go before to show the way, he half led and half carried her the short distance to her sister’s house, the little ones running barefooted, holding by the skirts of his coat. On their way, they met a man whom the children proclaimed with one voice to be John Marshall.
“I was coming to you,” said he, supporting the widow Bridgeman on the other side. “This is a sad plight I see you in, cousin; but cheer up! If you can get as far as our place, my wife bids me say you will be kindly welcome.”
Mr. Burke thought the nearest resting-place was the best; and Marshall yielded, hoping the sister’s door would be open, as it ought. It was but half open, and in that half stood the sister, Mrs. Bell, arguing with Ned that the place was too small for her own family, and that his mother would be more comfortable elsewhere, and so forth. Mr. Burke cut short the argument by pushing a way, and depositing his charge upon the bed within. He then gave his name to the amazed Mrs. Bell, desired her to lend the children some clothing, and to keep her sister quiet till he should come again, sent Marshall for his wife, who would apparently nurse the widow Bridgeman better than her own sister, and then returned with Ned to see if any of the widow’s little furniture could be saved. Before they reached the spot, however, the tenement was burned to the ground, and the two or three next to it were pulled down to stop the fire, so that nothing more was to be done.
The widow seemed at first so much revived by the treatment which Mr. Burke ordered, and her cousin Marshall administered, that there was room for hope that the shock would leave her little worse than it found her; and the benevolent surgeon went home at six o’clock to refresh himself, bearing tidings to his sister, not only that the fire was extinguished, but that it appeared to have done no irreparable mischief beyond the destruction of property. He was not fully aware, however, in how weak a state his patient had previously been.
“Mammy!” said little Ann Bridgeman, who sat on a low stool, with a blue apron of her aunt’s over her shoulders, her only covering except her shift, “Mammy, there goes the church bell.”
“Hush!” said Jane, the eldest, who was more considerate.
“Mammy is awake,” persisted Ann, looking again into the curtainless bed to see that the widow’s eyes were open. “Do you hear the bell, mammy? And we cannot go to church.”
“’Tis a strange Sunday, indeed, my child,” replied her mother. “When I prayed last night, after all our work was done, that this might be a day of rest, I little thought what would happen.”
Her cousin, Mrs. Marshall, came to her and begged that she would try to rest, and not to trouble herself with uneasy thoughts.
“My mind is so tossed about!” replied the poor woman. “It distracts me to think what we are to do next. And there sit the poor children without so much as a petticoat to wear; and the room is all as if the fire was roaring about me; and a letter from my husband, the only one I ever had, that I thought to have carried to my grave with me, is burned; and I might as well have saved it, if I had had a minute’s thought; and——”
The sick woman burst into a hysterical cry which shook her frame so, that her cousin began to think how she could calm her. She ventured on a bold experiment when she found that her patient’s talk still ran upon the letter, and that the consolations of Mrs. Bell, who now came to the bedside, only made the matter worse.
“Well now, I wonder,” said Mrs. Bell, “that you should trouble yourself so about a letter, when you will be sure to remember what is in it. One would think it was a bank note by the way you cry after it.”
“A bank note!” cried the poor woman. “I would have set light to my house with a handful of bank notes, if I had had them, sooner than lose that letter; and yet nobody would think so by the way I left it behind me. There it was in the box with my rent, and with my mother’s gold thimble, nigh at hand as I got out of bed, and I might just as well have saved it. O Lord! what a wretch I am!” she cried. “Take the children away! Don’t let them come near me any more. Lord forgive me! Lord have mercy upon me!” and she raved fearfully.
“She’s out of her senses,” said Mrs. Bell, “and all for that trumpery letter. I’ll make her believe we have found it.”
“And so make her worse than ever when she discovers the trick,” said Mrs. Marshall. “No, that won’t do.” And she turned to the sick woman,—“I say, Mary, you would not mind so much about the letter if you were to see your husband very soon, would you?”
“Surely no,” replied the widow, looking perplexed, but immediately calm. “But my husband is gone, long ago, is not he? But perhaps I am going too. Is that what you mean, cousin Marshall?”
“I don’t know whether you be or no, Mary; but you have no strength for raving as you did just now. If you wish to live for your children’s sake, you must be quiet.”
“I was thinking a deal about dying last night, and what was to become of the children; but I forgot all about it to-day. Poor things! they have no friends but you two,” looking from Mrs. Bell to her cousin Marshall. “You will see to them, I am sure. You will not cast them out upon the world; and depend upon it, it will be repaid to you. I will pray God day and night, just as I would here, to watch over them and reward those that are kind to them; particularly whichever of you takes Sally; for I am much afraid Sally will go blind.” As she gazed earnestly in the faces of her relations, Mrs. Bell tried to put her off with bidding her make her mind easy, and trust in Providence, and hope to live. Her cousin Marshall did better.
“I will take charge of Sally and of one of the others,” said she. “I promise it to you; and you may trust my promise, because my husband and I have planned it many a time when we saw what a weakly way you were in. They shall be brought up like our own children, and you know how that is.”
“God bless you for ever, cousin! And as for the other two——”
“Leave that to me,” replied Mrs. Marshall, who saw that the patient’s countenance began to resume its unsettled expression. “Leave it all to me, and trust to my promise.”
“Just one thing more,” said the widow, starting up as her cousin would have retired. “Dear me! how confused my head is,—and all because you have moved the bed opposite the window, which my head never could bear. Listen now. In the cupboard on the left side the bed,—at least, that is where it was,—you will find a japanned box that I keep my rent in. At the bottom of that box there is a letter——”
“Well, well, Mary. That will do by-and-by.”
“Let me finish, cousin. Give that letter to Ned, and bid him keep it, because——”
“Aye, I understand. Because it is his father’s writing, and the only one you ever had.”
“Why, you know all about it!” exclaimed the widow, smiling, with a look of surprise. “I did not know I had ever told anybody. Well, now, I can’t keep awake any longer; but be sure you wake me in time in the morning. I must be up to wash the children’s things, for they want them sadly.”
She dropped asleep instantly when her cousin had hung a shawl at the foot of the bed to hide the strange window. Ned had gone some minutes before for Mr. Burke, who pronounced, on seeing her, that she would probably never wake again. This proved true; and before night she was no more.
The fire created a great sensation in the city. The local newspapers described it as the most awful that had occurred in the place within the memory of man; and the London prints copied from them. Strangers came in from the country to visit the smoking ruins, and the firm to whom the warehouses belonged were almost overwhelmed with sympathy and offers of assistance. Mrs. Bell was disposed to make a profit out of all this. She would have stationed Ned, in a tattered shirt, on the ruins of his mother’s dwelling to beg, and have herself carried about a petition in behalf of the orphan children. The funeral, at least, ought, she thought, to be paid for by charity; but there was no moving the Marshalls on any of these points. They were so sure that the widow would have died, at all events, in a very short time, that they could not see why the fire should throw the expense of her funeral on the public; and even Mrs. Bell could not pretend that anything of much value had been lost in the fire except the rent, which would never be called for. The Marshalls countenanced Ned’s dislike to go near the idle boys who were practising leaping on the ruins, and found it a far more natural and pleasant thing to dress the little Bridgemans in some of their own children’s clothes and take them home, than to appeal to strangers on their behalf.
“You may do as you please, neighbour,” cried Mrs. Bell, after an argument upon this subject. “If you choose to burden yourselves with two children in addition to your own five, it is no concern of mine; only don’t expect me to put any such dead-weight upon my husband’s neck.”
“Your husband earns better wages than mine, Mrs. Bell.”
“And that is what makes me wonder at your folly in not sending the children to the workhouse at once. No need to tell me what a little way a man’s wages go in families like yours and mine.”
“You have a good deal of help in other ways to make out with, indeed, neighbour,” observed Mrs. Marshall. “You have found the gentry very kind to you this year; so much so that I think the least you can do is to keep these children from being a burden on the rates, for the little time till they can shift for themselves.—I believe you bought neither coals nor blankets last winter.”
“Bless your heart, cousin, the coals we got did not last half the winter through; for my husband likes a good fire when he can get it, and always expected to find one in the grate when he came home from the Leopard, however late at night it might be; and I had to sell one of the blankets presently. The other, on the bed there, is the only one we have till winter, when I hope to get a new one, if the ladies are not too particular about my having had two already. But, really, it tries one’s patience to wait upon them ladies. Do you know I am disappointed again about the bag of linen against my confinement. I may be down any day now, and every bag is engaged, so that they can’t promise with any certainty. So I must just take my chance for getting through somehow.”
“And how is your baby provided?”
“O, they gave me a few trifles for it, which will do till I get about again, and can carry it to show how poorly it is off.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Marshall, “I do wonder you can bear to live from hand to mouth in that way. You got your first set of baby-linen at the same time that I did, and with your own money; and why yours should not have lasted as well as mine, I can’t think. Mine are not all worn out yet, and I always managed to replace, by timely saving, those that were. However, if you can’t clothe your own children, I don’t wonder so much that you will not feed your sister’s. Poor things! must they go to the workhouse?”
“Unless you choose to take them all, cousin. So wonderful a manager as you are, perhaps you might contrive it.”
Mrs. Marshall shook her head mournfully. She had not lodging room for more than two girls among her own, and could not have engaged that her husband’s rent should be ready if more than two in addition were to share their daily meals. As it was, they must give up one dish of meat a week, and make some other reductions of the same kind.
“Better ask the gentry to help you, at once,” said Mrs. Bell; “but I suppose you are too proud?”
“We will try what our own charity can do before we ask it from those who have less concern in the matter,” said Mrs. Marshall. “There is one thing I mean to ask, however, because I cannot anyhow get it for them myself; and that is, to have them taught like my own children. Poor Sally must learn to knit while she has some eyesight left.”
“Which of the others do you mean to take?” enquired Mrs. Bell, as if quite unconcerned in the matter.
Mrs. Marshall called in the four children from the next room to consult them, to her cousin’s utter amazement. She told them the plain truth,—that she had promised their mother to take charge of two of them, and that one of the two should be Sally; that the other two must live in the workhouse till they could earn their own subsistence; and that she wished them to agree with her which had best remain with her and Sally. Ned looked at his aunt with tears in his eyes; to which she answered by promising to see him sometimes, and to bring him some gingerbread when she had a penny to spare. Ned, who was too old to be spoken to in this way, brushed his sleeve across his eyes, and observed to cousin Marshall that Jane had better go with him to the workhouse, because she was the oldest and would be soonest out of it, and because Sally liked to have little Ann to do things for her that she could not see to do herself. Cousin Marshall was quite of this opinion; and so the matter was settled.
A long private conversation followed after Mrs. Bell had left the room; if conversation it might be called which consisted of sobs and tears on the part of the children, and exhortations and pity on that of their friend.
“Remember, Ned,” said she, “the one thing you must be always thinking about after you go into the workhouse is how soon you can get out again. It is God’s will that has taken your mother from you, and that has made your relations poor, and so we must try and not think your lot a disgrace; but it will be a disgrace if you stay long. Keep this up in Jane’s mind too, for I am afraid of her forgetting it, as she is rather giddy.—I am not sorry, Jane, to see you cry so much, because I hope it will make you remember this strange day. I have heard of workhouse frolics, my dear. Never let me hear of them from you. You will have a service, I hope, in a few years, and you must try to make yourself fit to live with a different sort of people from those you will find in the workhouse.”
Mrs. Bell, who had come back in time to hear the last few words, began to tell all she had heard about the pleasant kind of life people might lead in a workhouse if they chose; but her cousin cut her short by bidding the children take leave at once.
Few events wrung tears from this stout-hearted woman; but she kept her apron to her eyes the whole way home, and could not speak to any body all day.
Miss Burke had gone into the country the morning after the fire, and remained some weeks. When she returned, she inquired of her brother what had become of the family who had been burnt out. She was an occasional visitor at the workhouse school, and besides knew some of the elderly paupers, and went to see them now and then. Her visits were made as disagreeable as possible by the matron, who hated spies, as she declared, and had good reasons for doing so; many practices going forward under her management which would not bear inspection. She was sometimes politic enough to keep out of sight, when she was aware that something wrong had already met the lady’s eye; but she more frequently confronted her near the entrance with such incivility as might, she hoped, drive her away without having seen anything. The master was an indolent, easy man, much afraid of the more disorderly paupers, and yet more of his wife. He seldom appeared to strangers till called for; but was then quite disposed to make the best of everything, and to agree in all opinions that were offered. There was little more use, though less inconvenience, in pointing out abuses and suggesting remedies to him than to his wife; yet Mr. Burke and his sister conscientiously persevered in doing this,—the gentleman from the lights he obtained in his office of surgeon to the workhouse infirmary, and the lady, from her brother’s reports and her own observations.
Miss Burke’s first inquiry at the workhouse gate was for nurse Rudrum. The porter’s office consisted merely in opening the gate; so that when the lady had entered the court, she had to make further search. The court was half-full of people, yet two women were washing dirty linen at the pump in the midst. Several men were seated cutting pegs for the tilers and shoemakers, and others patching shoes for their fellow-paupers; while several women stood round with their knitting, laughing loud; and some of the younger ones venturing upon a few practical jokes more coarse than amusing. At a little distance, sat two young women shelling peas for a grand corporation dinner that was to take place the next day, and beside them stood a little girl whose business was apparently to clean a spit on which she was leaning, but who was fully occupied in listening to the conversation which went on over the pea-basket. This group looking the least formidable, Miss Burke approached to make her inquiry. Being unperceived, the conversation was carried on in the same loud tone till she came quite near, when one of the young women exclaimed,
“I don’t want to hear any more about it. I wonder you had the heart to do it.”
“To do what?” asked Miss Burke. “Something that you do not look ashamed of,” she continued, turning to the first speaker.
“Lord, no,” said the girl with a bold stare. “It is only that a young mistress of mine, that died and left a child a week old, bade me see that it was taken care of till her husband came back, who was gone abroad; and I could not be troubled with the little thing, so I took it direct to the Foundling Hospital; and I heard that the father came home soon after, and the people at the hospital could not the least tell which was his child, or whether it was one that had died. I kept out of the way, for I could not have helped them, and should only have got abused; for they say the young man was like one gone mad.”
“And was it out of your own head that you took the child there, or who mentioned the hospital to you?”
“I knew enough about it myself,” said the woman with a meaning laugh, “to manage the thing without asking anybody. It is a fine place, that Foundling Hospital, as I have good reason to say.”
“Pray find the matron,” said Miss Burke to the little spit-cleaner, who was listening with open mouth; “and ask whether Miss Burke can be admitted to see nurse Rudrum. I think,” she continued, when the little girl was out of hearing, “you might choose your conversation better in children’s company.”
“And in other people’s company too,” said the other sheller of peas. “I’ve not been used to such a place as this, and I can’t bear it.”
“You’ll soon get used to it, Susan, my love,” replied the bold one.
“Where do you come from, Susan, and why are you here?” inquired Miss Burke.
With many blushes, Susan told that she was a servant out of place, without friends and with no one to give her a character, her last master and mistress having gone off in debt and left her to be suspected of knowing of their frauds, though she had been so ignorant of them as not to have attempted to secure her own wages. It was a hard case, and she did not know how to help herself; but she would submit to any drudgery to get out of the workhouse.
“And who are you?” said the lady to the other. “Are you a servant out of place too?”
“Yes.”
“And without a character?”
“O yes, quite,” said the woman with a laugh. “It is well for me that there are some places where characters don’t signify so much as the parson tells us. Susan and I are on the same footing here.”
Susan rose in an agony, and by mistake emptied the shelled peas in her lap among the husks.
“There! never mind picking them out again,” said the other. “If I take such a trouble, it shall be for my own supper, when the rest are done.”
“So you really think,” said Miss Burke, “that you and Susan are on the same footing because you live under the same roof and sit on the same seat? I hope Susan will soon find that you are mistaken.”
At this moment appeared Mrs. Wilkes the matron, shouting so that all the yard might hear.
“Is it nurse Rudrum you want? She is out of her mind and not in a state for prayer. Gentlefolks are enough to send poor people out of their minds with praying and preaching.”
“I am not going either to pray or preach,” replied Miss Burke; “and you well know that it is some years since nurse Rudrum was in her right mind. I only ask the way to her.”
“Yonder lies your way, madam. Only take care of the other mad people, that’s all.”
Surprised and vexed to perceive Miss Burke persevering in her purpose, notwithstanding this terrifying warning, she continued,
“Remember, if you please, that the doctors don’t allow their patients to be made methodists of; though God knows how many are sent here by the methodists. You’ll please to take it all upon yourself, ma’am.”
Miss Burke, not seeing how all this concerned herself and nurse Rudrum, who were about equally far from methodism, pursued her way, as well as she could guess, to the right ward.—She could not easily miss it when once within hearing of nurse Rudrum’s never-ceasing voice, or the tip tap of her ancient high-heeled shoes, which she was indulged in wearing, as it was a fancy not likely to spread. Nurse was employed as usual, pacing to and fro in the ward appropriated to the harmless insane, knitting as fast as her well-practised fingers would go, and talking about Jupiter.
“Miss Burke, I declare,” cried she, as soon as her visitor appeared. “You are welcome, as you always are—always very welcome; but,” and she came nearer and looked very mysterious, “you are come from them people at a distance, I doubt. Now don’t deny it if you be. If they have practised upon me, you didn’t know it; so no need to deny it, you know.”
“I am come from Mr. Earle’s, nurse; and Mr. Earle sent his love to you, and hopes you will accept some tea and sugar; and the young ladies will come and see you when they visit me, and in the meanwhile they have sent you a Sunday shawl.”
A dozen curtseys, and “My duty to them, my duty and many thanks; and I dare say it is because they are so sorry about them people at a distance that practise upon my ancle, without so much as shaking their heads.”
“O, your ancle! I was to ask particularly how your ancle is. You seem able to walk pretty briskly.”
“That’s to disappoint ’em, you see,” and she laughed knowingly. “I only tell you, you know, so you’ll be quiet. They can’t touch me anywhere else, because of Jupiter in my cradle.”
“What was that, nurse?”
“O that was when they made me a watch-planet; and a fine thing it was to keep me from harm,—all except my ancle, you see. It was Jupiter, you know; and I feel it all over me now sometimes,—most in my elbows. It was only Jupiter; none of the rest of them. That was my mother’s doing; for Jupiter is the most religious of all the planets.”
And so she ran on till her visitor interrupted her with questions about some of her companions in the ward.
“Aye—a queer set for me to be amongst, a’n’t they? That poor man! Look at his sash;” and she giggled while she showed how a poor idiot was fastened by a leathern belt to a ring in the wall. “He spins a good deal as it is; but if he could walk about, he would do nothing. He has no more sense than a child, and people of that sort are always for tramp, tramp, tramping from morning till night, till it wearies one’s ears to hear them.”
And nurse resumed her walk. When she returned to the same place, she went on,—
“If these people could be made to hold their tongues, they would be better company; but you never heard such a clatter; they won’twon’t hear one speak. That girl sings to her spinning-wheel the whole day long, and she has but one tune. They say I am growing deaf; but I’m sure I hear that song for ever, as much when she is not singing as when she is. But do you think that I am growing deaf, really now?”
Miss Burke could only say that when people got to nurse’s age, and so on.
“Well now, ’tis only because of Jupiter,—listening as a watch-planet should, you know. You should have heard his music last night;—that that I used to sing to the little Earles, when master Charles was afraid to go to bed alone because of the ghost-story I told him; and I put him to bed in Miss Emma’s room for once, and nobody knew: so don’t tell my mistress, for she never forgave such a thing.”
Miss Burke smiled and sighed; for this master Charles was now a man of forty, and Mrs. Earle had been in her grave nearly twenty years. As the visitor was about to take leave, nurse laid her hand on the lady’s arm, drew up her tight little person to its best advantage, and gravely said,
“One thing more, Miss Burke. You will give me leave to ask why I am detained in this place, among idiots and dolts that are no companions for me? This is a poor reward for my long service, and so you may tell Mr. Earle.”
“We hoped you had everything comfortable, nurse. You always seem in good spirits.”
“Comfortable! You mean as to tea and sugar and shawls; but what is that compared with the company I keep? The Earles don’t know what they miss by what they do. Many a time I would go and see them, and carry them a piece of gingerbread, if I was not prevented.”
“Well, nurse, you shall come and see them at our house by and by. In the meanwhile,—you know the boys in the yard are very rude, and they are too apt to teaze old people. We think you are more comfortable out of their way.”
Nurse still looked haughty and dissatisfied.
“Besides,” continued Miss Burke, “watch-planets are not common, you know; and who knows how they might be treated in the world?”
“True, true, true,” cried the delighted old woman. “There are but two in the world besides me, and they are at Canterbury, where my mother lived nurse twenty years. ’Tis only them that study the stars that bow before watch-planets. Well! we shall all study the stars up above, and then will be the time for us watch-planets.”
So saying, nurse Rudrum returned to the track she had worn in the floor, and Miss Burke heard the well known pit pat all the way down stairs.
The lady now turned into the school, where she was equally welcome to mistress and scholars, especially after an absence of some duration, as now. The mistress, Mrs. Mott, was not exactly the person the ladies would have appointed to the office, if the choice had been left to them; but, all things considered, the appointment might have been worse filled. Mrs. Mott, a starched, grim-looking personage, had kept a dame school in a village for many years, during which time she had acquired a very high opinion of herself and her modes of tuition;—an opinion which she continued to instil into the guardians of the poor, by whom she was appointed to her present office; their choice being also aided by the consideration that Mrs. Mott must have parish assistance at all events, and might as well do something in exchange for it. The ladies who interested themselves about the children, seeing that the choice lay between having no school at all and having Mrs. Mott for a schoolmistress, made the best of the latter alternative.
When the lady entered, Mrs. Mott was doing what she rather prided herself upon,—carrying on two affairs at once. She was fixing work for the girls,—plying her needle as fast as possible—and leading a hymn which the children sang after her, kneeling on their benches, with their hands clasped before them, and every little body rocking from side to side to mark the time. When it was over, and the children scrambled down into their seats, a universal grin of pleasure greeted Miss Burke from her old acquaintance, and a stare of wonder from the new comers who yet knew her only by reputation. Mrs. Mott, meanwhile, went on drawing out her thread most indefatigably, and murmuring as if under some emotion.
“Good morning, Mrs. Mott. It is some time since I saw you last.”
“Time, madam! Aye: time is given, time is given where all else is given. ’Tis ours to seize it ere it flies.”
“How are your family, Mrs. Mott? I hope your sons are doing better.”
“Son, madam, son! I suppose you don’t know that the Lord has made choice of Jack?”
Miss Burke was much concerned; and tried to hear the story notwithstanding a hubbub at the bottom of the school, which at length roused the teacher’s wrath.
“Tommy bit Jemmy,” was the reply of twenty little voices to the inquiry of what was the matter.
“Tommy is a bad boy and must be punished,” was the verdict; and the sentence speedily followed. “We are going to prayers, and I will have no disturbance while prayers are going on; but I will have justice. So, as soon as prayers are over, Jemmy shall bite Tommy in whatever part he chooses.”
Miss Burke considered how she might best interfere with the process without setting aside the mistress’s authority. She waited till prayers were over, and then called the two boys before her. She represented to the sobbing culprit the enormity of biting human flesh, and then asked Jemmy if he had any urgent desire to bite Tommy.
“I don’t want to bite him, unless I’m bid,” was the reply.
“Very well; then, suppose you forgive him instead. This will make him very careful not to hurt you another time. Will it not, Tommy?”
Tommy agreed, and words instead of wounds were exchanged.
The next inquiry was for the Bridgemans. Ned was called out of the ranks of departing school-boys, and Jane was sent for, being detained from school this day to help to prepare for the corporation dinner. On her appearance, she was recognized as the cleaner of spits, who had listened so eagerly to the praises of the Foundling Hospital. Miss Burke told them how she had heard of their circumstances, and her intention to visit them from time to time. She asked them if they were happy.
“Yes, ma’am,” replied Jane, readily; “a deal happier than we thought.”
Ned, however, only bit his lip to keep back his tears. Miss Burke framed her speech to suit both.
“You know,” she said, “that we all consider that you are here only for a time, and we trust a short time. It has pleased God to take from you your natural protectors and teachers; and children like you must be taken care of, and taught, before you can find a way in the world. But, if you choose, you may soon make yourselves fit for a better and a happier place than this; and the more cheerfully you set about it, Ned, the more quickly you will learn. You, Jane, should seek out the more sober and quiet young women to talk to, instead of listening to the foolish gossip that goes on in the yard. Has Susan been kind to you?”
“She always keeps by herself when she can, ma’am.”
“She will be kind to you, however, I am sure, if you deserve it; and I believe she can teach you many things you will like to learn.”
In order to unloose Ned’s tongue, the lady made several inquiries about their comforts. They had nothing to complain of but that they did not like milk-broth, which composed their dinner twice a week, and that the workhouse dress was very hot and heavy. The first evil could not be helped—the other seemed very reasonable; and Miss Burke determined to urge an objection to it through her brother, as it appeared that a thick woollen dress was the most liable to dirt of any that could be fixed upon, and the most unseemly when worn into holes; besides this, the children were exposed to colds from the temptation to throw off the dress when heated, and from exchanging it for their own old clothes on Sundays and holidays. Jane had, as her brother declared, been scarcely ever without colds since she entered the workhouse, as cousin Marshall had been kind enough to provide her with a complete suit on her entrance, which Jane was fond of wearing whenever she went to church, or to the gardens, or——”
“To the gardens! What gardens?”
The public tea-gardens, where the girls and boys were treated very often on Sundays, sometimes under guidance, and sometimes without any. Jane was very eloquent in describing these frolics, and others which took place within the walls.
Miss Burke had little hope of counteracting such influences as these by an occasional visit; but she now said what she thought most likely to impress the mind of the poor girl, and then proceeded to find Susan, in order to recommend Jane to her care. She was glad to see Wilkes, the master, unaccompanied by his wife, and conversing with a gentleman whom she knew to be one of the visitors. Before she reached them, she perceived that Ned was following her with a wistful look.
“Have you anything more to say to me?” she inquired.
“Only, ma’am, that perhaps you may know when we may get out. I should like to see the time when we shall get out.”
“I wish I could tell you, my dear boy; but I can only guess, like you. I guess it will be when Jane is fit for service, and you for labour in the fields or elsewhere.”
“I can labour now,” said the boy, brightening. “If they would try me, I am sure I could dig all day.”
“Be patient, Ned; and then, if you turn out a clever workman when the right time comes, who knows but you may not only keep out of the workhouse yourself, but prevent somebody else from coming in?”
Ned smiled, pulled his forelock, and went away cheered.
Mr. Nugent, the visitor, met Miss Burke with an observation on the improvement of workhouses which rendered them accessible to female benevolence; whereas they were once places where no lady could set her foot. Miss Burke gravely replied that there was much yet for benevolence to do. The necessary evils of a workhouse were bad enough; and it was afflicting to see them needlessly aggravated,—to see poverty and indigence confounded, and blameless and culpable indigence, temporary distress, and permanent destitution, all mixed up together, and placed under the same treatment. These distinctions were somewhat too nice for the gentleman’s perceptions; at least, while announced in abstract terms. He stood in an attitude of perplexed attention, while Wilkes asked whether she would have the paupers live in separate dwellings.
Miss Burke observed that the evil began out of the workhouse; and that the want of proper distinctions there made classification in the house an imperative duty.
“We are too apt,” she said, “to regard all the poor alike, and to speak of them as one class, whether or not they are dependent; that is, whether they are indigent or only poor. There must always be poor in every society; that is, persons who can live by their industry, but have nothing beforehand. But that there should be able-bodied indigent, that is, capable persons who cannot support themselves, is a disgrace to every society, and ought to be so far regarded as such as to make us very careful how we confound the poor and the indigent.”
“I assure you, ma’am,” said Wilkes, “it grieves me very much to see honest working men, or sober servants out of place, come here to be mixed up with rogues and vagabonds.”
“But they are all indigent alike,” observed Mr. Nugent, “or your honest labourers would not have to come here.”
“All indigent, certainly, sir; but not all alike. We have had cottagers here for a time, after losing cows and pigs by accident; and even little farmers after a fire on their premises; and labourers, when many hundreds were turned off at once from the public works. Now, this sort of indigence is very different from that which springs out of vice.”
“It seems to me,” said Miss Burke, “that as wide a distinction ought to be made between temporary and lasting indigence, and between innocent and guilty indigence, within the workhouse, as between poverty and indigence out of it; and as the numbers are, I believe, very unequal, I should think it might easily be done. I suppose, Mr. Wilkes, those who require permanent support, the invalids and the thoroughly depraved, are few in comparison with those who come in and go out again after a time.”
“Very few indeed, ma’am. Mr. Nugent knows that our numbers are for ever varying. One year we may have seven hundred in the house, and another year not so much as three hundred. It seems to me the surest way of making the industrious into vagabonds, and the sober into rogues, to mix them all up together; to say nothing of the corruption to the children.”
“I heard the other day,” said Mr. Nugent, “that few of the children who have been brought up here turn out well. But it can’t be helped, madam. The plan of out-door pay must have its limits, and our building a new house for the moral or immoral, is out of the question in the present state of the funds. The rate has increased fearfully of late, as your brother will tell you. I confess I do not see what is to become of the system altogether, if we go on as we have been doing for the last five years.”
Miss Burke observed that she was far from wishing to urge any new expenses. She rather believed that much money would be saved by enabling the industrious to pursue their employments undisturbed, and by keeping the young and well-disposed out of the contagion of bad example. She pointed out the case of Susan as one of great hardship, and that of little Jane as one of much danger. Wilkes confirmed the fact of Susan being a good girl, and a well-qualified servant, and told that the other woman had been discharged from various services for theft and other crimes.
Mr. Nugent who, in the midst of his talk about improvement, disliked trouble and innovation, related that an attempt at classification had once been made by building a wall across the yard, to separate the men and women; but that the wall had been pulled down in a riot of the paupers, after which it was considered too formidable an undertaking to rebuild it.
Miss Burke thought, on her way home, that classification must begin among the guardians of the poor, before much reformation could be looked for. The intrepid and active among the gentlemen, if separated from the fearful and indolent, might carry the day against the ill-conducted paupers; but such a result was scarcely to be hoped while the termagant Mrs. Wilkes monopolized all authority within the walls, and the majority of the guardians insisted on the let-alone plan of policy being pursued; a plan under which everything was let alone but the rates, which increased formidably from year to year.
Mr. Burke came in earlier than usual this evening, the first time since his sister’s return that he could enjoy her society in peace. When he arrived wet and chilly from a stormy ride, and found a little fire, just enough for a rainy summer’s evening, burning brightly in the grate, the tea apparatus prepared, his slippers set ready, his study gown awaiting him, and a pile of new medical books laid within reach, as if to offer him the choice of reading or conversation, he wished within himself that Louisa would leave home no more till he was married, if that time should ever come. This wish was pardonable; for he was, to use his own expression, so accustomed to be spoiled by his sister that he scarcely knew what comfort was while she was away.
“Any notes or messages for me, Louisa?” he inquired, before resigning himself to his domestic luxuries.
“Alas, yes!” she replied, handing him two or three from their appointed receptacle.
“These will all do to-morrow,” he cried; “so make tea while I change my coat.” A direction which was gladly obeyed. On his return he flung the books on a distant table, stretched himself out with feet on fender, coaxed his dog with one hand, and stirred his steaming cup with the other.
“I wish I were a clergyman,” were his first words.
“To have parsonage comforts without getting wet through in earning them, I suppose,” said Louisa, laughing.
“You are far from the mark, Louisa.”
Louisa made many guesses, all wrong, about capricious patients, provoking consulting physicians, unpaid bills, jealous competitors, and other causes of annoyance.
“No, no, dear. It is a deeper matter than any of these. The greatest question now moving in the world is, ‘What is charity?’”
“Alas, yes! And who can answer it? Johnson gave a deficient answer, and Paley a wrong one; and who can wonder that multitudes make mistakes after them?”
“A clergyman, Louisa, a wise clergyman who discerns times and seasons, may set many right; and God knows how many need it! He will not follow up a text from Paul with a definition from Johnson and an exhortation from Paley. He will not suppose because charity once meant alms-giving that it means it still; or that a kind-hearted man must be right in thinking kindness of heart all-sufficient, whether its manifestation be injurious or beneficial. He will not recommend keeping the heart soft by giving green gooseberries to a griped child,—as he might fairly do if he carried out Paley’s principle to its extent.”
“A professional illustration,” replied Louisa. “You want me to carry it on unto the better charity of giving the child bitter medicine. But, brother, let the clergyman preach as wisely and benignantly as he may, why should you envy him? Cannot you, do not you, preach as eloquently by example?”
“That is the very thing,” replied her brother. “I am afraid my example preaches against my principles.—O, dear, if it was but as easy to know how to do right as to do it!”
“What can have wounded your conscience to-day?” replied Louisa. “You are generally as ready in applying principles as decided in acting upon them. What can have placed you in a new position since morning?”
“Nothing: but my eyes are more opened to that in which I already stood; and really, Louisa, it is a very questionable one. I will tell you.—I am a medical officer of various charities which would be good if benevolent intention and careful management could make them so, but of the tendency of which I think very ill. The question is whether I am not doing more harm than good by officiating at the Dispensary and Lying-in Hospital, while it is clear to me that the absence of these charities would be an absence of evil to society?”
“You must remember, brother, that your secession would have no other effect than to put another medical officer in your place. I am afraid you are not yet of consequence enough,” laughing, “to show that these institutions must stand or fall with you.”
“That argument of yours, Louisa, has done long and good service to many a bad cause. I can allow it no more weight with me than with a discontented Catholic in good old Luther’s days. No; my plea to my own doubts has hitherto been that my office gave me the opportunity of promoting my own views both among the benefactors and the poor; but I begin to think I may do so much more effectually by resigning my office in those charities which I consider to be doing harm, openly stating my reasons, of course.”
“Have you long meditated this, brother?”
“Yes, for several months; but a particular circumstance has roused my attention to-day. These anniversary times always disgust me,—these stated periods for lauding the benevolent and exhibiting the benefited. I am sure the annual dinner would be better attended by the subscribers to the Dispensary, for instance, if the custom of parading round the room as many of the patients as could be got hold of were discontinued. But it is the matter of fact of the Report, and the way in which it is viewed by the patrons, that has startled me to-day. I was referred to, as usual, by the secretary and one or two more for information respecting certain classes of patients, and I was shown the Report which is to be read after dinner to-morrow. You will scarcely guess what is the principal topic of congratulation in it.”
“That Lord B—— takes the chair to-morrow, perhaps? Now, do not look angry, but let me guess again. That the subscriptions have increased?”
“Aim in an opposite direction, and you will hit it.”
“That the funds are insufficient? Can this be it?”
“Just so. The number of patients has increased so much, that a further appeal is made to the public in behalf of this admirable charity, which has this year relieved just double the number it relieved ten years ago.”
“I thought,” said Louisa, “that its primary recommendation, ten years ago, was that it was to lessen the amount of sickness among the poor.”
“True,” replied her brother; “and upon this understanding many subscribed who are now rejoicing over the numbers of the sick. If the plague were to visit us, they might see the matter in its right light. They would scarcely rejoice that five hundred more were brought to the pest-house daily.”
“But how comes the increase?” inquired Louisa. “I understand it in the case of the Lying-in Charity, which seems to me the worst in existence, except perhaps foundling hospitals; but this is different——”
“From all other institutions, it is to be hoped,” interrupted her brother. “It is dreadful to see the numbers of poor women disappointed of a reception at the last moment, and totally unprovided. The more are admitted, the more are thus disappointed; and those who are relieved quit the hospital in a miserable state of destitution.”
“Probably, brother. What else could be expected under so direct a bounty on improvidence—under so high a premium on population? But how do you imagine the number of sick increases so fast? Are your Dispensary patients in due proportion to the general increase of numbers in the place?”
“Alas, no! They are much more numerous. Not only do numbers increase very rapidly; but from their increasing beyond the means of comfortable subsistence, the people are subject to a multitude of diseases arising from hardship alone. It would make your heart ache if I were to tell you how large a proportion of my Dispensary patients are children born puny from the destitution of their parents, or weakly boys and girls, stunted by bad nursing, or women who want rest and warmth more than medicine, or men whom I can never cure until they are provided with better food.”
“How you must wish sometimes that your surgery was stocked with coals and butcher’s meat!”
“If it were, Louisa, the evil would only be increased, provided this sort of medicine were given gratis, like my drugs. There is harm enough done by the poor taking for granted that they are to be supplied with medicine and advice gratis all their lives: the evil is increasing every day by their looking on assistance in child-birth as their due; and if they learn to expect food and warmth in like manner, their misery will be complete.”
“But what can we do, brother? Distress exists: no immediate remedy is in the hands of the poor themselves. What can be done?”
“These are difficulties, Louisa, which dog the heels of all bad institutions.—We must do this. We must make the best of a vast amount of present misery, thankful that we see at length the error of having caused it. We must steadily refuse to increase it, and employ all the energies of thinking heads and benevolent hearts in preventing its recurrence, and shortening to the utmost its duration. Here is ample scope for all the tenderness of sensibility which moralists would encourage, and for all the wisdom which can alone convert that tenderness into true charity.”
“What should be our first step, brother?”
“To ascertain clearly the problem which we are to solve. The grand question seems to me to be this—How to reduce the number of the indigent? which includes, of course, the question, How to prevent the poor becoming indigent?”
“If this had been the problem originally proposed, brother, there would have been little indigence now: but formerly people looked no further than the immediate relief of distress, and thought the reality of the misery a sufficient warrant for alms-giving.”
“And what is the consequence, Louisa? Just this: that the funds raised for the relief of pauperism in this country exceed threefold the total revenues of Sweden and Denmark. Aye; our charitable fund exceeds the whole revenue of Spain; and yet distress is more prevalent than ever, and goes on to increase every year. The failure of British benevolence, vast as it is in amount, has hitherto been complete; and all for want of right direction.”
“Well, brother, how would you direct it? How would you set about lessening the number of the indigent?”
“I would aim at two objects: increasing the fund on which labourers subsist, and proportioning their numbers to this fund.—For the first of these purposes, not only should the usual means of increasing capital be actively plied, but the immense amount which is now unproductively consumed by the indigent should be applied to purposes of production. This cannot be done suddenly; but it should be done intrepidly, steadily, and at a gradually increasing rate. This would have the effect, at the same time, of fulfilling the other important object,—that of limiting the number of consumers to a due proportion to the fund on which they subsist.”
“You would gradually abolish all charitable institutions then——O no! not all. There are some that neither lessen capital nor increase population. You would let such remain.”
“There are some which I would extend as vigorously and perseveringly as possible; viz. all which have the enlightenment of the people for their object. Schools should be multiplied and improved without any other limit than the number and capabilities of the people.”
“What! all schools? Schools where maintenance is given as well as education?”
“The maintenance part of the plan should be dropped, and the instruction remain.”
“But, brother, if one great evil of gratuitous assistance is that the poor become dependent upon a false support, does not this apply in the case of a gratuitous education?”
“The time will come, I trust, Louisa, when the poorer classes will provide wholly for themselves and their families; but at present we must be content with making them provide what is essential to existence. To enable them to do this, they must be educated; and as education is not essential to existence, we may fairly offer it gratis till they have learned to consider it indispensable. Even now, I would have all those pay something for the education of their children who can; but let all be educated, whether they pay or not.”
“The blind, and the deaf and dumb, I suppose, among others?”
“Yes; and in these cases I would allow of maintenance also, since the unproductive consumption of capital in these cases is so small as to be imperceptible, and such relief does not act as a premium upon population. A man will scarcely be in any degree induced to marry by the prospect of his blind or deaf children being taken off his hands, as the chances are ten thousand to one against any of his offspring being thus infirm. Such relief should be given till there are none to claim it.”
“I heard the other day, brother, of a marriage taking place between a blind man and woman in the asylum at X——.”
“Indeed! If anything could make me put these institutions on my proscribed list, it would be such a fact as that. The man could play the organ, and the woman knit, and make sash-line, I suppose?”
“Just so; and they could each do several other things, but, of course, not those common offices which are essential to the rearing of a family. It struck me immediately as a crime against society. Well—what other charities should stand?”
“Whatever else I resign, Louisa, I shall retain my office at the Casualty Hospital. I hope this kind of relief will be dispensed with in a future age; but the people are not yet in a condition to provide against the fractures, wounds and bruises which befall them in following their occupations. This institution may rank with Blind Asylums.”
“And what do you think of alms-houses for the aged?”
“That they are very bad things. Only consider the numbers of young people that marry under the expectation of getting their helpless parents maintained by the public! There are cases of peculiar hardship, through deprivation of natural protection, where the aged should be taken care of by the public. But the instances are very rare where old people have no relations; and it should be as universal a rule that working men should support their parents, as that they should support their children. If this rule were allowed, we might see some revival of that genial spirit of charity and social duty among the poor, whose extinction we are apt to mourn, without reflecting that we ourselves have caused it by the injudicious direction of our own benevolence.—This reminds me of the Bridgemans. Mark how those poor children are disposed of. Two are taken care of by distant relations who have never in their lives accepted charity, except the schooling of their children. A nearer relation, who has, to my knowledge, uselessly consumed many a pound of the charitable fund, sends the other two to the workhouse.”
“A case very appropriate to what you have been saying, brother. But how is poor Sally? Can nothing save her sight?”
“Nothing, I fear. I have already spoken of her case to several governors of the Blind Asylum, where I hope she may be received on the first vacancy. The Marshalls are too sensible, I am sure, not to see the advantage of getting her placed there; and it may be the means of releasing one of the others from the workhouse.”
Louisa now related her morning’s adventures. Her brother smiled as he warned her that she would, no doubt, be pronounced an eccentric young woman by Mr. Nugent, and declared that he thought her in the way to be admirably disciplined, between the railings of Mrs. Wilkes, the rude wonder of the paupers, and the more refined speculations of those who had different notions of charity from herself.
Louisa considered that an important constituent of charity was its capability of “bearing all things.” She blushed while she described to her best friend the little trials she was exposed to in her attempts to do good. Abuse from beggars she little regarded, as it was the portion of all who passed along the streets of this ill-regulated city without giving alms; much harder things to bear were the astonishment of her fellow-members of the school committee at her refusing to sanction large gifts of clothing to the children; the glances of the visitors of the soup and blanket charities, when she declined subscribing and yielding her services; and, above all, the observations of relatives whom she respected, and old friends whom she loved, on the hardness of heart and laxity of principle shown by those who thought and acted as she did.
“Laxity of principle!” exclaimed her brother. “That is a singular charge to bring in such a case;—as if less vigour of principle was required to reflect on the wisest, and to adopt unusual, methods of doing good than to let kindly emotions run in the ruts of ancient institutions! I should say that the vigour of principle is on your side.”
“Better make no decision about it, brother. It is not the province of charity to meddle with motives, whatever its real province may be.—But about your medical offices;—it seems to me that you must resign them, thinking as you do.”
“And then what a hard-hearted, brutal fellow I shall be thought,” said her brother, smiling.
“No, no: only an oddity. But the speculations upon you may prove good for the cause of charity.”
“It shall be done, Louisa; and that as soon as we have determined on the best manner. I shall give up the Dispensary and the Lying-in Charity, and keep the Casualty Hospital. As for the Workhouse Infirmary——”
“Aye; I was wondering what you would say to that.”
“I like it no better, but considerably worse, than many others; but it stands on a different footing, inasmuch as it is established by law; and it seems to me that I must follow other methods of abolition than that of withdrawing my services. There is no place of appeal for such an act, as there is in the case of a voluntary charity.”
“There is little enough that is voluntary in this case, to be sure, brother. Such complaints about the rate from the payers! Such an assertion on the part of the poor of their right to a maintenance by the state! Whence arises this right?”
“I do not admit it,” replied her brother. “Those who do admit it, differ respecting its origin. Some assert the right of every individual born into any community to a maintenance from the state; regarding the state and its members as holding the relation of parent and children. This seems to me altogether a fallacy;—originating in benevolent feelings, no doubt, but supported only by a false analogy. The state cannot control the number of its members, nor increase, at its will, the subsistence-fund; and, therefore, if it engaged to support all the members that might be born to it, it would engage for more than it might have the power to perform.—Others, who admit this in the abstract, plead for the right of the indigent of Great Britain to a maintenance from the state, on the ground of the disabilities to which the poor are peculiarly liable in this country, from the aristocratic nature of some of our institutions, the oppressive amount of taxation, and its pressure upon the lower classes. I admit a claim to relief here; but the relief should not be given, even could it be effectual, in the shape of an arbitrary institution like that of our pauper system. The only appropriate relief is to be found in the removal of the grievances complained of; in the modification of certain of our institutions; in the lightening, and, yet more, in the equalization of taxation.—Mark what a state we have arrived at from our mistaken recognition of this right to support! Though the subsistence-fund has increased at a rapid rate within a hundred years, through the improvements introduced by art and civilization, the poor-rate has, in that time, increased from five or six hundred thousand pounds a year to upwards of eight millions!”
“Some say,” observed his sister, “that it is not the recognition of the right which has caused the mischief, but the imperfect fulfilment of the original law. You know better than I whether this is true.”
“It is clear,” replied her brother, “that neither the letter nor the spirit of the original law was adhered to; but it is also clear that, in that law, the state promised more than it could perform. Did you ever read the famous clause of the famous 43d of Elizabeth? No? There lies Blackstone. I will show it you.”