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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 •f..l
 
 
 THE SEVEN AGES 
 
 OF A 
 
 VILLAGE PAUPER 
 
 V. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE C T. BARTLEY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "one SQUARE MILE IN THE EAST OF LONDON;" 
 'the PROVIDSMT KNOWLEDGE PAPERS;" "THE SCHOOLS FOR THE PEOPLE," FTC. 
 
 C<-c^ 
 
 <^ t n y^c>^AA'6z^ 
 
 J 
 
 CHAPMAN & HALL, i93, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1874.
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
 
 
 Bctiicatc^ 
 
 TO 
 
 ONE MILLION 
 
 OF 
 
 HER MAJESTY'S SUBJECTS, 
 
 WHOSE NAMES ARE NOW UNHAPPILY AND ALMOST 
 HOPELESSLY INSCRIBED AS 
 
 PAUPERS 
 
 ON THE 
 
 PARISH ROLLS OF ENGLAND. 
 
 QOi::d:^Oi
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The incidents related in these pages are facts, 
 however much my readers may differ from the 
 conckisions drawn from them. 
 
 The following also is a fact. This country, 
 which it is our boast to claim as the finest, 
 the best, the richest, the most charitable king- 
 dom in the world, allows its escutcheon to be 
 defaced by the deepest and largest blot of 
 pauperism, poverty, and misery ! 
 
 The following likewise is a fact. A million 
 of our people are at this moment actual paupers. 
 One in every twenty of us is now dependent, as 
 a matter of course, on the parish dole or the 
 misery of alms. JNIore than this. How many
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 go through Hfe without any tinge of these 
 pauperising influences ? Does a half of our 
 population ? Does a quarter ? or is it even 
 fewer still ? 
 
 Who is to blame for this ? Is it the poor 
 themselves ? Is it the rich ? Is it the mighty ? 
 Or have all who claim to be educated a share 
 in the responsibility ? 
 
 Are we, as a nation, contending with this 
 gigantic evil ? Are our Poor Laws, our colossal 
 charities so called, our glorious institutions, and 
 our vaunted philanthropy reducing this stream 
 of misery which it is their boasted purpose 
 to relieve ? Or arc they, by the false basis on 
 which they are built, and the indolent alms- 
 giving which so many of us indulge in, and 
 blindly mistake for Christian charity, making 
 matters seven-fold worse from generation to 
 generation ?
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY — THE VILLAGE .... I 
 
 IL INFANCY 50 
 
 in. CHILDHOOD . 66 
 
 IV. YOUTH 81 
 
 V. MANHOOD 102 
 
 VI. PRIME 125 
 
 VII. DECLINE 146 
 
 VIII. DECAY 163 
 
 IX. CONCLUSION 188
 
 THE SEVEN AGES OF A 
 VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 INTRODUCTORY.— THE VILLAGE. 
 
 T N these days of novelty we hear of strange 
 things. We hear of books being written 
 (a. on specks of dirt, of learned discussions being 
 held on creatures so small, that they require 
 the aid of a powerful microscope even to make 
 them visible ; we hear of every inanimate, as 
 well as every animate creature either claiming 
 its own place in the social circle, or else getting 
 someone else to take up its cause. Indeed that 
 man feels himself happy who can manage in 
 some way or other to bring to light something 
 
 B
 
 2 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 novel, which he can show to have a fair claim 
 for gaining attention, and such an one becomes 
 at once a hero, if the discovered object can be 
 shown in any way to have a grievance. 
 
 We can lay no claim to novelty ; the Village 
 and its inhabitants are literally as old as the 
 hills. The Village Pauper is, alas, too well 
 known, even to be looked upon as a curiosity 
 for the collector. He is 'dxQ flora ahmda of these 
 isles, growing as freely as the thistle, and like 
 that troublesome plant, multiplying and blooming 
 all the more as the richness of the soil becomes 
 developed. 
 
 This is our claim for being allowed to dwell 
 on the subject. The Village Pauper is an ele- 
 ment of our constitution : he is part and parcel 
 of our system, and as such would it not be a 
 grievance if his part were not taken t if his his- 
 tory were not written, and if his vcr}'- common-
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 placedness were not made the text for the Hues 
 of the poet and the oratory of the platform ? 
 
 But our programme is not so grand, or so 
 imposing, as to pretend to grasp the Village 
 Pauper as a whole ; our arms would not be wide 
 enough ; the race is so extended, that no doubt 
 in every part of the country varieties and pecu- 
 liarities are to be met with. We, however, take 
 one single specimen, and try to examine that. 
 We are, indeed, like the dealer in corn, who 
 pushes his probe into the sack and draws out a 
 few grains from which to judge of the nature of 
 the wheat. As a rule he finds this is a good test. 
 He glances at the sack, but he examines minutely 
 the few grains. We glance at the whole genus 
 of "pauper," but we have tried to study in detail 
 the few individuals of one particular village. But 
 why choose this one village.'' We might say why 
 not take this as well as any other ; but such an 
 
 h 2
 
 4 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 answer would probably suggest that it was 
 picked out for a special purpose, or to prove 
 some foregone conclusion, though we had not 
 the honesty to acknowledge it. It was really 
 taken like the sample of the corn — at random 
 from the sack. I wished to take one of my 
 children into the country for his health, and I 
 wrote to all the chief house-agents in a district 
 comprising the greater part of three counties. 
 Some thirty applications were thus made, and 
 from the answers received, we selected the farm- 
 house which we liked best. This village accord- 
 ingly was the one I tried to study in careful 
 detail during my visit, and in this way was my 
 sample selected. Could any selection be more 
 fair .'' and can the veriest grumbler find fault .'' 
 
 * * 
 *
 
 THE VILLAGE. 
 
 I. — The Village. Statistics. 
 
 A few words on our Village before we intro- 
 duce our hero. Though situated within twenty- 
 four miles of the great metropolis, it may be said 
 to be one of the most out-of-the-way places in 
 the country. It is four miles from a station, and 
 although at one extremity a well-known high- 
 way passes through a corner of it, the village 
 itself is off the line of any main road, and no one 
 would ever be likely to pass through it in going 
 to or coming from any familiar part. In size 
 the parish is considerable, having an area of over 
 6200 acres, with a population of 1456 souls, and 
 a rateable value of ;^9445. 
 
 After this statistical description of our basis 
 of operations, it need hardly be said that our 
 village is agricultural, and that beyond a few 
 brick-makers and mechanics, the population is
 
 6 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 entirely occupied in the various duties of farm 
 life. The wages are accordingly low, about 12s. 
 to I5J-. a-week, though they have been much 
 influenced of late years by the general rise in 
 other districts. The mechanics earn a pound or 
 2^s., and the brick-makers during the summer 
 earn fully 30^". a week. House-rent is fairly low, 
 varying from 2 to 5 guineas a year, according to 
 the condition of the cottages, which are suffi- 
 ciently large for a man and wife and four or five 
 children ; and it is only right to say that most 
 of them are very superior to the average of 
 London dwellings. The land is generally poor, 
 not fetching more on an average than 20s. an 
 acre, and in many places much less. 
 
 * * 
 
 *
 
 RELIGIOUS ELEMENT OF THE VILLAGE. ^ 
 
 II. — Religious Element of the Village. 
 
 The fabric of the church makes a charming 
 little picture. The churchyard is full of old 
 elms and one fine yew, under which, no doubt, 
 our ancestors have danced their war-dances 
 many a time without being bothered or haunted 
 by the village pauper. The rectory is close by, 
 and is as pretty a place as can be desired. In 
 addition to this, there is another church at the 
 outlying end of the parish, which has been re- 
 cently erected, chiefly by the liberality of the 
 rector. Chapels do not abound, as in some vil- 
 lages, though there is one not very far from the 
 church. From all I could gather, I do not think 
 this one flourishes very well ; and in this opinion 
 I am borne out by some remarks I heard made 
 by an old woman, the wife of one of the head 
 authorities at the chapel, who became very
 
 8 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 friendly with me during my stay. The old woman 
 was talking to a somewhat younger person than 
 herself in a most rapturous manner of the success 
 which had attended the school treat her children 
 had just had at the dissenting school, and which 
 had, of course, for the time, drawn away a large 
 number of the church school children. The 
 younger woman then asked when they were 
 going to have their festival, and the old woman 
 replied that they intended to give it up, because 
 it did not pay. 
 
 " You sec," she said, turning to me, " there's 
 no gentry about here, and what there is goes in 
 for the church. We can't manage it ourselves, 
 though we used to somehow. There's such a lot 
 like Mrs. Jones, regular 'devil dodgers,' as I call 
 them all ; them as goes one day to one place, 
 and then the next day to the other, and then 
 don't give nothing to either."
 
 RELIGIOUS ELEMENT OF THE VILLAGE. 9 
 
 " Well," replied the other woman, who was the 
 Mrs. Jones thus complimentarily alluded to, " I 
 keep to one place, I'm sure. I used to go to the 
 chapel, but since I gave that up I've been 
 regular to the church, that you must say. I'll 
 come to your festival, though, if you'll have 
 one." 
 
 " We don't want you, and wouldn't have you, 
 I can tell you," replied the old lady, " though 
 perhaps I should have called you turncoats and 
 not devil dodgers, if you think that's a little too 
 strong for you. I don't think it is a bit, though," 
 she added, half aside to me, by way of a final 
 blow-off. 
 
 The churches are well attended, and the service 
 is conducted creditably. The high church ideas 
 have of course crept in ; the rector is an elderly 
 man with a number of charming grown-up 
 daughters, and their tendency is, I need not
 
 lO THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 say, high. There is, however, httle which even 
 a low churchman could object to in the sim- 
 plicity and propriety with which all is conducted. 
 For myself I must say I rarely hear better singing 
 or a more reverentially conducted service in town, 
 notwithstanding the fashionable choirs and the 
 still more fashionable "impressive ceremonial." 
 One advantage, then, our village pauper has per- 
 manently over me, and that is, if he chooses to 
 avail himself of it, that he has a church service 
 such as I can rarely get in London, and one 
 which, at least to my liking, is much better than 
 what I am accustomed to. But then everybody 
 thinks differently, and does not care for what they 
 have, and so, perhaps, my village pauper might 
 prefer the service and ceremonial which I have 
 so often to endure much against my will. 
 
 * * 
 *
 
 MEDICAL ATTENDANCE. II 
 
 III. — Medical Attendance. 
 
 Next to the spiritual healing of our village 
 comes, of course, the provision for relieving its 
 bodily ailments. Here, however, we are not so 
 well off as we might be, or so fortunate as in our 
 ecclesiastical arrangements. We have no resident 
 medical man ; but the one who looks after us 
 comes from a neighbouring village four miles 
 off. How this can be improved, I don't know, 
 for it certainly would not pay a medical man to 
 live in our village, unless his presence secured 
 permanent illness all round, and possibly then 
 the people would as soon do without him, and 
 leave things as they are. 
 
 The truth of the matter is, that in our village 
 the Parish is the doctor, and all aim how they 
 may somehow or other get him allowed, when- 
 ever they are ill or think themselves to be so.
 
 12 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 There are some few, certainly, who do not con- 
 trive to get this rehef; they manage badly, I 
 suppose, are too thrifty, or careless in allowing 
 their careful habits to be known, or from some 
 other reason are excluded. These, instead of 
 striving to arrange a medical club, or some other 
 insurance against the heavy cost of a doctor's 
 bill, content themselves with grumbling at being 
 defrauded of the parish attendance. What the 
 doctor's charges are it is impossible to find out, 
 though from all I could ascertain, they must fall 
 very heavily indeed on those who have to pay 
 them out of their agricultural wages. For con- 
 finements the fee is one guinea, and although, 
 perhap.s, the doctor will say it does not pay him 
 to come four miles at all times of the day and 
 night, and then have perhaps to wait for years 
 for his fee, yet it is certain that such a sum is 
 too great a charge out of I5i". a week. A clerk
 
 MEDICAL ATTENDANCE. 1 3 
 
 earning ^200 a year would hardly care to pay 
 £^ 5 J. for the same service, though he could 
 better afford it than the agricultural labourer can 
 his guinea. Indeed, the very fact of the fee for 
 every confinement after the fourth being borne 
 by the parish is a tacit acknowledgment that 
 the charge is out of all proportion to the 
 earnings. 
 
 A medical club could not exist in our village, 
 because the few who do not get medical relief 
 for nothing by the parish — would not be 
 numerous enough to support it, even if they 
 wished. Besides this, they all hope to get on to 
 the parish next time they are ill, so that they do 
 not wish to provide for themselves, as it would 
 cut them out altogether from relief for all time. 
 The Poor Law has indeed too long encouraged 
 them in these ideas, and made it more worth 
 their while to try and scramble on to the parish
 
 14 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 by evasion if they can't manage it in any other 
 way, rather than tended to encourage and assist 
 them to make a business arrangement for them- 
 selves, whereby they could, by a small monthly 
 payment of a few pence, insure against the 
 chance of a long doctor's bill, or the necessity of 
 going to the parish. 
 
 If all the payments to the doctors for ordinary 
 sickness are in proportion to this large sum of a 
 guinea for confinements, they must fall very 
 heavily on those who have to struggle with illness 
 and the additional expenses consequent thereon, 
 together with the loss of earnings, which sickness 
 must entail even if it do not befall the actual 
 bread-winner of the family. 
 
 Medical clubs might and should be formed by 
 the parish through their relieving officers, perhaps 
 in towns in connection with some provident 
 dispensar}^ but in villages such as ours they
 
 MEDICAL ATTENDANCE. 15 
 
 might work independently. The rules might be 
 very simple and somewhat as follows : — 
 
 1. Any weekly- waged man paying monthly 
 or quarterly a sum of in advance, to have the 
 
 right, in the event of sickness, to receive medical 
 advice. 
 
 2. The relieving officer on his visit to receive 
 the contributions of the medical club. 
 
 3. No medical relief of any sort to be given 
 out of the Union-house, except to members 
 of the medical club. 
 
 The amount of payment required might vary. 
 In populous districts a penny a week, and a re- 
 duction for several in a family, would remunerate 
 a medical man handsomely, as compared with 
 what the parish now pays him. It might, however, 
 be good policy, at all events at first, for the 
 parish, if necessary, to supplement the payments 
 to the doctor, so as to charge a very small sum
 
 1 6 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 to each one joining the club. In the union 
 of which our own village is a part — presuming 
 that three-fourths of the inhabitants are of the 
 industrial class, and supposing that they all 
 joined such a club, and paid each a farthing a 
 week, or one shilling and one penny a year — the 
 receipts, without anything from the rates, would 
 be sufficient. This sum would enable the parish 
 to treble the salaries of all the medical officers, 
 who now receive ;^340 a year between them, and 
 to add 30 per cent to the salaries of the re- 
 lieving officers, for their trouble of collecting, 
 instead of expending out of the rates the ;^340 
 a year given to the medical men, as they do now. 
 A very small extra might cover the cost of con- 
 finements. 
 
 The moral result of such a system on the 
 people themselves would be, however, far more 
 important than the gain to the pockets of the
 
 EDUCATION. 1 7 
 
 ratepayers : and I am bold to assert that there 
 is not a parish in this country so poor and 
 distressed, but that the inhabitants could make 
 the effort indicated, and who would not very 
 rapidly feel and acknowledge the benefit of it, 
 were it introduced. In our village a very little 
 more than the rent and taxes of one of the 
 public-houses would do it, and I feel sure 
 the people would in a year or two rejoice at 
 such an arrangement. They would of course 
 grumble about it at first, but that is English and 
 
 only reasonable. 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 IV. — Education. 
 The education of our village is fairly good. 
 There may not be quite sufificient accommoda- 
 tion to fulfil absolutely the conditions of the 
 Act, but in a large straggling village this is very 
 
 difficult, and almost impossible literally to 
 
 c
 
 iS THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 comply with. There are very few children who 
 are not either at school, or who have not learned 
 to read and write. Mainly through the liberality 
 of the rector a beautiful school-house has been . 
 erected in the village, and although it has only 
 just been placed under government inspection it 
 has been doing good work for some years. 
 
 The feeling as to the advantage of education 
 is very different in our village to what it was 
 some years ago, and not a few of the villagers 
 deserve the greatest praise for the efforts they 
 have made, and are making in many instances 
 to secure to their children the benefits of a sound 
 rudimentary education. 
 
 "How have you managed about your children's 
 schooling.?" I said to a middle-aged woman one 
 day. 
 
 " They can all read and write, sir," she said, 
 with some pride, " and that's ail we could do for
 
 EDUCATION. 1 9 
 
 them. For seventeen years we had five ahvays 
 at school ; at one time as many as six. We 
 paid 2d. a week for each of them, at least, that's to 
 say, for all except them who went free. The last 
 clergyman sent three of ours to that school just 
 down the lane here ; there's always three who 
 can go there for nothing, and for some years it 
 was our three." 
 
 "Then your schooling must have cost you 
 something .-'" 
 
 " Yes, sir, it did, but it's a great thing for 
 them all to be able to read and write." 
 
 This shows that no small effort had been made 
 by this woman, and she is no solitaiy instance, 
 to the credit of the village be it said. This par- 
 ticular woman had had fourteen children, and 
 even supposing she and her husband, who was 
 an agricultural labourer, had contrived so to add 
 to the ordinary wages as to make them a pound 
 
 C 2
 
 20 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 a week on an average — and this is supposing a 
 great deal — the school pence must have made a 
 vciy considerable impression on the week's earn- 
 ings, and have cut off many a little personal 
 comfort and much-coveted luxury. Such cases 
 indeed as our village would produce, in this re- 
 spect, would put to shame many of the far 
 better paid inhabitants of our towns, who so 
 often declare so noisily that they cannot afford 
 the school pence. 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 V. — Charities. 
 
 Our village has one advantage ; it is troubled 
 very little indeed with what are called charities 
 or endowments, but what might with greater 
 propriety be called " Pauperisers." Discussing 
 the matter one day with my excellent friend the 
 sexton, he said :
 
 CHARITIES. 21 
 
 " Well you see, sir, we don't have much given 
 away here, neither money nor food. There is 
 some put out for beef and bread at Christmas, 
 though it ain't much ; but you know, sir, lots of 
 people get it who don't want it, and who it never 
 does any good to, while others who would think 
 it a God-send are thought not to want it. The 
 fact of the matter is, sir, as I often says, and 
 sees over and over again, that the least deserving, 
 the drunken and thriftless lot, always get every- 
 thing, because they look so poor and wretched 
 whenever Mr. Parson or Mr. Anybody goes to 
 see 'em. If they goes to church on a Sunday 
 regular as well, why then no one's got a chance 
 agin 'cm, sir, let 'em swear how they may during 
 the week." 
 
 The effect of the abundance of charities in 
 different other parishes, however, is not lost on 
 our favoured village. The residents look upon
 
 22 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 themselves as badly treated, from this very cir- 
 cumstance. 
 
 " This is a poor place, sir, I can tell ye ; nobody 
 gives nothing away, and we have to buy our 
 things in the winter, which is very hard. Where 
 my sister lives the people are good and kind, and 
 no mistake. It's all very well talking, but I like 
 to see people act up to it like. Why some ladies 
 give her children clothes to go to school with, 
 besides paying the school money. Nobody ever 
 gives ours a treat worth talking about here. She 
 gets her own clothes almost for nothing through a 
 Dorcas society, and coals too from the minister's 
 club. Then in winter she can always have as 
 much good soup as she likes for nothing. That's 
 what I call acting up to principle. Besides that, 
 her husband earns twice as much as mine can, 
 which makes it very hard indeed for me. This 
 is a poor place, sir, I can tell ye, for I've never
 
 PROVIDENT CLUBS. 2 
 
 O 
 
 had anything but a bit of beef on Christmas-day 
 from old Lady Give-away's money." 
 
 I must acknowledge, when I discovered this 
 condition of my village, I could not help think- 
 ing that anyhow it had certainly something to be 
 thankful for, and that very little of the pauper- 
 ised condition of the people could be laid at the 
 door of the former residents in bygone ages. 
 
 * 
 
 VI.— Provident Clubs. 
 
 Charities as they are called, from the way in 
 which they are usually managed, must unfortu- 
 nately be almost regarded as the antidote to 
 Provident Clubs, and such-like institutions. For 
 this reason, we may fairly consider this feature 
 of our village next. We have two clubs, and arc 
 exactly in the position of many other places as 
 regards this provision for the future. The old
 
 24 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 club is collapsing, and scarcely any members 
 remain in it, for the simple reason that the money 
 is well-nigh exhausted. When started, it was 
 formed on a wrong basis ; too little was charged 
 for the benefits promised, and although every- 
 thing apparently looked right for the first ten 
 years, during which money was accumulating, 
 yet it soon became evident after that that it 
 could not, as the members got old, meet all the 
 claims which would be made upon it. Young 
 people accordingly refused to enter, and formed 
 another club on their own account. The new 
 club is therefore the club of the village, and is 
 based on sound principles, so that, if the rules are 
 kept to, it is not likely to fall into the errors of 
 its predecessor. 
 
 The members must be men or boys from 
 fifteen years of age ; women are not admitted, 
 and the number in the club at the present time
 
 PROVIDENT CLUBS. 2$ 
 
 is 85, many of whom belong to several parishes. 
 The population of our village alone is 1456, 
 among whom there must be, according to the 
 usual average, no fewer than 370 persons who are 
 within the age and are eligible to become mem- 
 bers. There is, however, as we shall presently 
 see, good reason for this unsatisfactory result. 
 In fact, the wonder to anyone who goes into the 
 matter will be that so many join the club at all. 
 considering the strong inducements to the con- 
 trary owing to the Poor Law regulations. The 
 best way of judging of this may be gathered 
 from the following conversation I had with an 
 elderly woman on this subject : 
 
 " When your husband was ill, I suppose you 
 obtained parish relief.''" 
 
 " Yes, a little ; but my husband belongs to the 
 club. When he's ill he gets los. a week from 
 that, so they only allowed us 2s. more, making it
 
 26 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 about I2s. altogether, for our large family, and 
 we had nearly always six or seven children at 
 home." 
 
 " How much less would you have got if you 
 had not been in a club .'"' 
 
 " We should have got about the same alto- 
 gether, though a little less, they tell me. The 
 club money always goes against you, and they 
 make it up somehow by putting the two to- 
 gether." 
 
 "Then really you did not get much advantage 
 from the club, except the satisfaction of feeling 
 that what you were drawing was your own 
 money .'' " 
 
 " Well, not in that way, sir." 
 
 " Do you think that prevents people joining 
 the club.?" 
 
 "Yes; I am sure of it, sir. I have often heard 
 people say it makes no difference, so there is no
 
 PROVIDENT CLUBS. 27 
 
 good in belonging. You see the relieving officer 
 always asks you the first thing if you belong to 
 a club, and if you do, it's sure to go against 
 you." 
 
 " Do you think it should ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't know, sir ; I suppose they 
 know best ; but it certainly is no encouragement 
 for a man to try to keep himself; and my hus- 
 band, though he has always held to the club 
 since it was formed, has sometimes said the 
 same thing." 
 
 This is the real truth in our village, and our 
 village is no exception, I fear, to almost every 
 other village in the country. The state of affairs 
 is this. Free medical relief is provided, if no 
 other provision is made by the person himself, 
 and at the same time out-door relief is obtained 
 almost for the asking, while the notion is allowed 
 to grow up, that club money " always goes against
 
 2 8 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 a man." Club money, which should be one of 
 the honourable and independent ways by which 
 a man should provide for himself, in sickness, 
 old age, &c.- — for this to go against him seems 
 too absurd, and yet practically the present sys- 
 tem encourages such a notion, and has allowed 
 it to take deep root. Surely it is a wonder that 
 anybody provides at all for himself, that anybody 
 joins the club. The parish is really the village 
 club, and the best sort of club too for that matter, 
 for it never breaks, and no one who draws out 
 has to pay any subscription. No logic can be 
 clearer, so what is the good of our turning round 
 and wondering at the increase of pauperism ? 
 We might with much more reason wonder at 
 and admire the independent spirit which, in spite 
 of all that has been done, must still exist, from 
 the very fact of the way in which friendly 
 societies have grown up, and extended their
 
 THRIFT. 29 
 
 operations. This consideration shows that there 
 is a germ of thrift which by a Httle system 
 would develop and flourish like a willow by 
 
 the water-courses, 
 
 * * 
 
 VII.— Thrift. 
 
 Perhaps this subject should have been 
 touched upon before the last, but I thought that 
 provident clubs followed so well on improvident 
 charities that, even if I have done so, I venture 
 in this case to put the cart before the horse. 
 
 No doubt some thrifty persons exist in our 
 village ; the club proves that, and as we have 
 just seen, in spite of circumstances, the provi- 
 dent spirit is not exterminated, but it is not too 
 common. I somewhat doubt if any one of the 
 members of the club would own to having put 
 by a sovereign. Those who are careful are so
 
 30 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 on the sly and must hoard their savings, for 
 except as far as the club may be called a savings 
 bank, which certainly it is in one sense, there is 
 no regular savings bank within four miles. No 
 penny bank of any description exists, and 
 altogether the encouragements which have been 
 made to induce persons to depend on themselves 
 might almost be put down as nil. This is the 
 less excusable, as in a subsequent chapter I 
 point out the great advantages produced by a 
 penny bank which formerly existed in the 
 village, but which was given up, because no one 
 could be found to continue it ! 
 
 Whatever faults there may be then in the 
 habits of our villagers as regards thrift, they 
 cannot be said to be neglecting any provisions 
 which have been made for them ; nor can they 
 be called indifferent to the beneficent arrange- 
 ments by which thrift has been put into their
 
 THRIFT. 31 
 
 heads and by which they have been encouraged 
 to attend to it. They have in truth never had a 
 chance to try and get into better habits. I have 
 spoken to many who have readily acknowledged 
 that they might and could pi t by regularly small 
 sums, though they have no idea of the value of 
 such small sums. From what has been said this 
 cannot be wondered at, for unless a man knows 
 by his own or another's experience how shillings 
 and pence soon accumulate into pounds, how 
 can he be expected to believe it ? Even if he 
 believes it, is it reasonable to expect him to 
 walk eight miles for the purpose of putting a 
 shilling into the Post Office Savings Bank .'' 
 If the money he tries to save is kept in the 
 house, it either burns a hole in his pocket 
 very soon, or requires him to have the spirit of 
 a miser to prevent it from slipping away before 
 
 the week is out.
 
 32 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 The following is a specimen of a conversation 
 I had with a hard-working woman, the substance 
 of which was written down just after I had seen 
 her. 
 
 " Do you think you could have put by some- 
 thing regularly during your life, if you had tried 
 from the first, in spite of your fourteen children ? " 
 
 " Well, I don't know, sir, nothing of much 
 account, I think." 
 
 " Well, sixpence a week, suppose ? " 
 
 " That isn't much, is it, sir ? We could fairly 
 well have managed that, though of course at 
 such times as I was telling you on, during 
 sickness, we could not. At most other times I 
 think we might, but I fancy we should have 
 spent it unless we had put it away altogether 
 out of our power. We are nearly five miles 
 from a post office savings bank." 
 
 " That is to say, if it had been put in your
 
 THRIFT. 2,3 
 
 way, and you had been reminded of it, and the 
 money collected, you would have been more 
 likely to save it. You know that sixpence a 
 week saved, from the time that you were twenty, 
 would have made you and your husband fully 
 independent now." 
 
 "Would it, really, sir.? I shouldn't have 
 thought it ? I think we could have managed 
 that most times, which is not much, looking at 
 it in that way." 
 
 The truth is that in our village and in thou- 
 sands of other villages, thriftless habits exist for 
 two chief reasons, and these are, first, because 
 there is so little faciUty for anything like, 
 systematic thrift,— though it would be well 
 worth the country's while to spend a million a 
 year .in creating such facility,— and, secondly 
 because as will be seen we hope from subse- 
 quent chapters, that the Toor Law is at work, 
 
 D
 
 34 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 unceasingly retarding the growth of any inde-. 
 pendence in every hamlet of our island. 
 
 * * 
 * ' 
 
 VIII.— Public-Houses. 
 
 How could my description of the village ap- 
 proach completion without paying proper respect 
 to our Public-houses .-• No one will say that 
 they are not part of our constitution ; and as we 
 have mentioned churches, schools, doctors, and 
 other features more or less important, a word on 
 the public-houses must follow. If we do not do 
 this, we shall not only be incomplete, but we shall 
 give offence to an institution, which can boast of 
 more constituents than all the members of the 
 House of Commons put together. 
 
 A country village differs very much from a 
 town in the question of drink. In the first place, 
 beer, whether it be a wise or an unwise arrange-
 
 PUBLIC-HOUSES. 35 
 
 merit, is really part and parcel of a man's wages, 
 at least during certain periods of the year. 
 Every large farmer, and for the matter of that 
 almost every small one as well, brews beer in the 
 winter, not only for his family, but for his regular 
 hands, and for his extra assistants during har- 
 vest. In this way many thousands of gallons 
 are consumed, of which there is no return kept 
 at all, and for which no money actually changes 
 hands. Such an arrangement may have its 
 disadvantages, but it certainly has its advan- 
 tages as well, and the amount thus consumed 
 we will put down, by way of argument, though 
 perhaps some will be found to object to this 
 proposition, as a reasonable consumption of 
 malt. 
 
 We come then to the Public-houses and Beer- 
 houses. In our parish there are seven. True, it 
 
 is a large parish, but the population is but 1456, 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 and there is no part of it running close to a 
 town, so that it cannot be looked upon as in 
 any way exceptional. According to my friend 
 the sexton, whose conversation on this subject 
 I refer to in subsequent chapters, the number of 
 public-houses has increased of late years, and 
 what is even worse, though it is a natural con- 
 sequence, or rather perhaps the real cause of the 
 increase, they have been doing of late a very 
 brisk business, and making money. 
 
 The earnings of these houses it is not easy to 
 determine accurately. Taking the amount of 
 rent they have to pay as a basis, — and an extra 
 high rent is always obtained for a public-house, 
 which of itself shows the profitable idea with 
 which the trade is associated, — it is certain that 
 all round they do not take much less than ^^500 
 per annum each. Let us say, to be quite within 
 the mark, ;^3000 a-year for the seven, and we
 
 PUBLIC-HOUSES. 37 
 
 must remember that it is the cri'oss takincfs we 
 have of course to deal with. 
 
 We have already seen what a large quantity of 
 home-brewed beer is consumed, and we have for 
 argument's sake concluded that that is all fairly 
 required ; but how much of this ;^3000 a-year 
 is necessary or beneficial ? This is a difficult 
 question to answer. According to one way of 
 calculating, the whole ^^3000 a-year merely re- 
 presents somewhat less than i\d. a-day per head 
 of the population, and therefore such an amount 
 cannot be regarded as excessive, supposing 
 everybody limited him or herself to the proper 
 quantum. I cannot agree to this line of argu- 
 ment at all, though I do not want in any way 
 to be regarded cither as advocating or de- 
 nouncing teetotalism. In addition to the home- 
 brewed beer, some, no doubt, of this three 
 thousand pounds' worth of liquor is to be regarded
 
 38 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 as reasonably an article of food ; some may 
 supply those farmers who do not brew, and some 
 may in a variety of ways be fairly required, so 
 that to be on the safe side, let us suppose that 
 half of the ;6^3000 is in this way accounted for. 
 
 We have then ^^"1500 a-year still left, or more 
 than a pound a head for each of the population. 
 Who pays this .'' The agricultural labourer and 
 his family absolutely, and to his bodily injury, if 
 our argument has been sound ; to the damage of 
 his pocket, to the privation of comforts of all 
 sorts, which he and his family might require. 
 What would this sum of money do ? It would 
 give a pension of /^20 a-year, or nearly 8s. a-week, 
 to every person of the industrial class in the 
 parish over sixty years of age ; or it would sup- 
 ply the parish with a doctor, keep up the schools, 
 give a fair allowance to every one, when out of 
 work from accidental circumstances, do all and
 
 THE PARISH. 39 
 
 more than the poor law now does, and pay the 
 county rates as well. 
 
 He would be a bold Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer, who would dare even to propose that the 
 local rates should be much increased ; but what 
 would be thought, if he suggested that they 
 should be more than doubled, and that only the 
 agricultural labourer should pay this additional 
 tax .'' But look at the facts. In our village this 
 might be done, and at the same time the people 
 might if they chose be better off, by merely not 
 spending what they now throw away, as I ven- 
 ture to say unnecessarily and perniciously, at 
 the seven village public-houses. 
 
 * ♦ 
 
 IX.— The Parish. 
 
 If a village cannot be named without its 
 Public-house, what village could be complete
 
 40 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER, 
 
 without its " Parish ? " The village could not 
 exist : schools, churches, chapels, and everything 
 might be washed away before the " Parish" could 
 be done without. What indeed would my Seven 
 Ages amount to without the same presiding 
 genius ? In the following pages I attempt to 
 give the history of its workings, and to show the 
 influence which it exercises from the cradle to the 
 grave. Whether this be for good or for evil must 
 be left to my readers to determine ; but no one 
 can dispute the fact that the Parish does enter 
 into almost every stage of life. The Parish is 
 the midwife for the new-born babe; the Parish is 
 the nurse in sickness ; the Parish is the bank on 
 which all hope to draw, provided they put 
 nothing in, and which is grudgingly supplied 
 by those who can get nothing out, and who are 
 constantly in a state of feverish excitement as 
 to the ever-increasing demand of those who,
 
 THE PARISH. 41 
 
 having such privileges, strange to say, get poorer 
 and more miserable in exact proportion as they 
 avail themselves of them. 
 
 The Parish gives her comforts, but on one 
 condition, and that condition is destitution and 
 thriftlessness. She will have nothing to do with 
 any one who does not rest implicit faith on her. 
 She acts on the principle that no one must have 
 thought for the morrow, but must entrust the 
 morrow to her, and to her alone. If it gets 
 noised abroad in the neighbourhood where a 
 man lives that he is a careful man, and is saving 
 a little money — though in reality it be but a 
 pound or two — she will cause her relieving officer 
 to be more than usually hard upon that man if 
 ever he is in trouble and applies to her. Nay, 
 further, when he has spent all his savings and 
 has to come to her, it may even be that he will 
 be ordered into the " Union house," and his former
 
 42 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 foolish habits of thrift may be his ruin, for he 
 may be refused the prize, namely, the out-door 
 pension, which she has it in her power to bestow. 
 
 Thrift she objects to. It robs her of her 
 children, and she consequently, as a good parent, 
 sets her face against it. As a matter of fact she 
 has good cause to exult over the success of her 
 training, for thrift is in but too many cases all 
 but exterminated, and the idea has now taken 
 deep root that saving must on no account be 
 even acknowledged, much less practised. The 
 Parish rejects independent spirits, and will have 
 nothing to say to them ; and almost every one 
 has become such a disciple to this universal 
 tyrant, that he holds himself at all times ready to 
 declare and prove his own complete destitution, 
 and to claim the consequent reward of his fealty 
 to the Parish. 
 
 The Parish has for many years been acting
 
 THE PARISH. 43 
 
 on the following principles in all parts of the 
 country : — First, holding out to all persons, who 
 will live from hand to mouth, and who are con- 
 sequently always bordering on destitution at the 
 least difficulty, her system of out-door relief which 
 she promises will not fail to help them and to 
 keep them. Second, showing that practically an 
 unlimited supply of her out-door relief is to be 
 had for those who will only attend to her in- 
 junctions, and constantly remain on the borders 
 of destitution. 
 
 Her success has been wonderful. If the 
 Education Act works as well, scholars will soon 
 be as plentiful as blackberries in autumn. She 
 has long ago induced hundreds of thousands, if 
 not millions, to act on her principles, and few, 
 very few comparatively, ever think of disregard- 
 ing them. Saving and being thrifty she has 
 taught them is a work of supererogation. Does
 
 44 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 not she exist especially to look after those who 
 attend to her admonitions, and neglect to look 
 after themselves ? Further than this, she has 
 taught those who do save and are careful, to be 
 so on the sly, as a thing not on any account to 
 be known; under penalty, if she find it out, of 
 their having not only to spend their own money 
 in time of sickness and trouble, but of her dis- 
 owning them altogether and cutting off all con- 
 nection with them, except within the walls of 
 her prison — the Union House ! 
 
 In our village, according to the last published 
 statement, viz., that for Ladyday, 1873, there 
 were 133 persons relieved out of the population 
 of 1456, or more than one in eleven of the in- 
 habitants absolutely paupers in one half year ! 
 If every person who expected, as a matter of 
 course, to receive relief at some time or other, as 
 well as every one who had ever received it, and
 
 THE PARISH. 45 
 
 every one who will claim it again on the first 
 opportunity, were added to the score, what would 
 the sum total be ? Would it be half the popula- 
 tion or more ? Would it be too much to say 
 that fully three-quarters of the entire village 
 would be included ? Let those who doubt go 
 and inquire for themselv^es. 
 
 The consolers will say — Well, anyhow things 
 are at their worst The next move must be 
 upwards. Matters must be on the mend. Im- 
 proved education, that universal panacea, is 
 doing wonders. Is it so .'' What is the meaning 
 of the children of that well-to-do man, who 
 died last year so suddenly, being placed into 
 charities of all sorts as the most deserving of 
 cases .'' He was making his ^^looo a year, at 
 least,'and died without a shilling. What is the 
 meaning of trusting in Providence as some, with 
 mock religion, profess to consider right ? Does
 
 46 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 it not really mean indulging in everything while 
 we have got it, and trusting that so-called charity 
 will look after our wives and children if any- 
 thing happens to us ? Who cannot give in- 
 stances in his own family, be he high or low, of 
 some member who is not living on the dole of 
 public alms ? What is the meaning of the 
 millions who attend the free hospitals and dis- 
 pensaries in the metropolis alone ? Look at 
 the facts which have been brought out by the 
 Charity Organisation Society concerning well- 
 to-do persons using their influence in trying to 
 get their brothers, sisters, or other relations on 
 the roll of alms, which is only a refined, or 
 rather it might almost be called a fashionable 
 pauperism ? 
 
 The evil is not at its worst. The demoralizing 
 influence of this pauperism is spreading upwards 
 into the so-called higher stratum of society, and
 
 THE PARISH. 47 
 
 that in a remarkable way. Thousands of chil- 
 dren who should be provided for by their families 
 are now got into orphan schools. Thousands of 
 decayed or afflicted persons are provided for in 
 a similar way. The system of electing them 
 into these institutions by votes proclaims this. 
 Persons whose very position secures the election 
 of those candidates they take up, are not 
 ashamed to ask their friends for votes for those 
 to whom they themselves should be glad to give 
 a helping hand, and for whom they would be 
 obliged to provide, were it not for the growth of 
 this pauperising system. 
 
 Where is it to stop .-• A little leaven soon 
 leavens the whole lump. How much quicker 
 then will the enormous mass of pauperising 
 leaven,- which is spread throughout the country, 
 perform its work ? The greatest pauperiser 
 is the Poor Law. The administration of our
 
 48 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER, 
 
 gigantic chanties, which are rapidly becoming 
 commercial speculations and fashionable and 
 exciting lotteries, must be reformed, and we 
 are glad to see important movements against 
 the system of voting and other evils connected 
 with them. This, however, is not our present 
 subject, though it is very closely allied with it, and 
 the evil springs from very much the same cause. 
 Our text is the Village Pauper, his creation, his 
 life, and his character. For these the Poor Law 
 is responsible, and if the village pauper is to 
 become scarcer than he is, the Poor Law must 
 be completely changed. It must be made to work 
 on a different basis altogether. It must be made 
 to encourage thrift and independence, instead of 
 holding out a premium to destitution, misery, 
 and vice. It must be altogether and radically 
 amended, and if any persons should be in- 
 duced to wade through these pages, I hope that
 
 THE PARISH. 49 
 
 they will be convinced, if they are not so already, 
 that such a reform is indeed urgently required. 
 
 True, it is easier to point out defects than to 
 remedy them. Hence the crop of critics and 
 the lavishness of their abuse. To avoid being 
 altogether included in this category, I venture in 
 my concluding chapter to suggest the outlines of 
 a Poor Law system, wdiich I believe would meet 
 most of the present evils. I think it is a scheme 
 which, as it came into operation, would tend to 
 diminish the misery which it relieved ; which is 
 based on the only sound foundation, namely, 
 that relief should tend to prevent pauperism, and 
 not merely to relieve it when it has arisen and 
 because it exists. This last remedy, as we shall 
 see, really means fostering and cultivating the 
 growth- of poverty, hypocrisy and misery.
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 INFANCY. 
 
 " I '^HERE is always a tender sentiment about 
 infancy which it is difificult to define. The 
 infant of whatever class is the same for the few 
 first months of its existence ; and beyond the 
 value of the wraps with which it is encircled there 
 is nothing to distinguish the high-born from the 
 low-born child. The human being whom we see 
 before us in infancy is as deep a mystery as the 
 grave, and no indications of future greatness in 
 his after history are to be traced, even though 
 a future statesman or general of world-wide 
 fame be cradled before us, or only the abject 
 and despised pauper whose greatest dignity
 
 INFANCY. 51 
 
 will be to be known as an item on the parish 
 roll. 
 
 It must be left to the poet or the philosopher 
 to dilate on these subjects, and to describe in 
 graphic and touching strains the charms of in- 
 fancy, for our purpose is to descend to the lowest 
 and most common-place of circumstances. We 
 deal with what may be found in every parish, 
 and in its turn at almost every cottage, namely, 
 the village labourer's baby and its relationship 
 to that bogie foster-parent the Parish. 
 
 There is little that is poetic about this in most 
 peoples' eyes. 
 
 " What ! Mrs. Jones got another ? poor thing ! 
 What will she do with it ? Why that's the sixth, 
 isn't it ? Well, I know she had a hard matter 
 to get on with five, as her husband's no good." 
 
 Perhaps it's Mrs. Jones's first, and then the 
 
 congratulations are somewhat different, and sug- 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 gest the possibility of this being but a gentle 
 instalment of what is sure to follow. Certainly, 
 Mrs. Jones will be an exceptional Mrs. Jones if 
 this prophetic announcement is not eventually 
 accomplished. 
 
 The circumstances of a village birth are com- 
 monplace and familiar, but they are worth look- 
 ing into from this very circumstance. As they 
 are so universal, they must be important. An 
 addition to the family, like most other coming 
 events, casts its shadows before, and prepara- 
 tions for it have to be made. If it be the first, 
 these preparations are novel and exciting no 
 doubt ; but if the olive branches be already 
 somewhat numerous, familiarity has bred con- 
 tempt, and beyond the getting ready of a few of 
 the well-used liliputian articles of dress, the pre- 
 parations are regarded as of trifling importance. 
 
 And how can it be otherwise ? Every extra
 
 INFANCY. 53 
 
 mouth must take a nibble out of the family 1 5^-. a 
 week, and so as every extra nibble reduces the size 
 of the other nibbles, the prospect of an addition 
 cannot be looked upon with over-much delight. 
 This is only the case, however, until the arrival 
 of the little stranger. When it has appeared on 
 the stage of life, this little drawback is forgotten, 
 the idea of the extra nibble is obliterated, and 
 the young intruder is at once looked upon as 
 the most important member of the family circle. 
 
 But to come to the point, what has the foster 
 parent, the Parish, been about all this time ? 
 
 The action of that stern and venerable relative 
 is not always the same, it entirely depends on 
 circumstances. 
 
 The relieving officer, as her representative, asks, 
 "Husband in work.?" 
 
 " Well, yes, sir ; he was out you know a little 
 while ago, and things is very hard just now ; he
 
 54 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 only gets very low wages, and we've hardly any- 
 thing in the cottage, so how we shall ever pay 
 the doctor, who charges us a sovereign, I can't 
 make out no how." 
 
 " How many children have you .''" is the next 
 question. 
 
 " Three, sir ; and it's hard enough to get bread 
 for 'em I can tell ye." 
 
 " Can't be helped ; the guardians allow no 
 midwifery order unless there are four children 
 at least." 
 
 No doubt this rule is to show the great objec- 
 tion the tender foster parent has to small families. 
 If Mrs. Jones has only three, then she must 
 shift for herself, pay the doctor and the nurse, 
 and have the moral gratification of being superior 
 to a pauper, and above the reach of parish relief. 
 
 So much for the Parish treatment of an able- 
 bodied man's wife, who is in work, and has less
 
 INFANCY. 55 
 
 than four children. All the special pleading is of 
 no avail, the wife may prove that she and her 
 family are destitute, have always kept them- 
 selves so, but not even her husband's habits of 
 drinking will help her ; the stern Parish withholds 
 her support, and the infant may hereafter claim 
 to have been born free from the bar pauper 
 across his noble escutcheon. 
 
 Take another case from our \illage : the wife 
 of a brick-maker earning 30i'. to 35J-. a week 
 during the summer, and in winter obliged to get 
 odd work as an agricultural labourer at I3i-. to 
 I5J-. At the close of the summer season, her 
 number seven appears, and a demand, of course, 
 is at once made on the parish for doctor and 
 nurse, but is refused, as her husband is earning 
 more than 15^-. a week. 
 
 " I do call it a great shame," says a respect- 
 able neighbour, " for Mrs. Brown is often very
 
 56 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 bad off. I've know'd her without a crust of 
 bread to eat." 
 
 "But her husband makes a lot of money 
 brick-making all the summer." 
 
 " Yes ; but in the winter he can't make no 
 bricks." 
 
 " But he gets work at a farm, his wife tells 
 me." 
 
 " So he may ; but that's little enough." 
 
 "Anyhow, he's better off than most of his 
 neighbours." 
 
 ' " Well, I don't see it ; I thinks the guardians 
 is werry hard, -and it's a great shame." 
 
 The woman's cottage is miserable. The 
 relicving-officer, who acts also as registrar, 
 comes, in a (cw weeks after the stranger's 
 arrival, to register the birth, and finds the place 
 dirty, scarce a piece of furniture in it, and the 
 baby born against her parents' will, without the
 
 INFANCY. 57 
 
 mark of pauper being branded on it, is being 
 rocked in a tumble-down cradle, whose dilapi- 
 dated appearance, but for its nearness to the 
 ground, would suggest unpleasant reflections as 
 to the infant's safety. 
 
 The sight of the relieving-officer renders it 
 necessary for the mother to give vent to her 
 feelings, so she begins, — 
 
 " When my last baby was born, you gave me 
 the doctor and nurse ; I think it's ver}' hard as 
 you did not this time — particular as there's 
 seven now." 
 
 " Last time was the winter, and your husband 
 was not making bricks just then, so the guar- 
 dians allowed it," replies the officer. 
 
 " Well, all I can say is, I'm not going to work- 
 next winter like as I did last. I used to go up 
 the lane constant in the wet and dirt to earn a 
 shilling, and then, when this child was born, they
 
 58 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 wouldn't allow me the doctor. Them as tries to 
 keep away from the Parish gets worst off, and 
 that's true, and no mistake. The doctor charges 
 us a pound, and its more than we can pay." 
 
 " I am very sorry, but the guardians say these 
 events are not like illness, they are known as 
 likely to take place long beforehand, and should 
 be provided against. They settle it ; it's no- 
 thing to do with me, so what name shall I put 
 down ? " continues the philosophical relieving- 
 ofificer, thus hiding himself very properly behind 
 Jorkins the guardian. 
 
 " Lucy. I know you don't have many about 
 here called that," says the woman, evidently 
 feeling, in spite of herself, that a child so inde- 
 pendently born deserved no ordinary name. 
 
 The last case we relate is the true pauper 
 birth. Doctor, nurse, and assistance allowed by 
 the Parish. The woman who has dutifully con-
 
 INFANCY. 59 
 
 formed to the provisions of the law, and become 
 eh'gible by having had her four, and being well- 
 known to have put by nothing, but to have 
 regularly lived from hand to mouth, whatever 
 the family earnings, is now, above question, 
 deserving of every attention. The relieving- 
 officer asks the following questions ; he knows 
 how many children, of course, so he docs not 
 ask about that. 
 
 " What is your husband doing now ? " 
 
 " He works for Mr. Smith, sir." 
 
 " What does he earn .? " 
 
 " Very poor wages, sir." 
 
 " Well, how much — 14^-. ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ; not more than that." 
 
 If the relieving-officcr is very energetic, he 
 will try and fnid out if the family earn any 
 more ; but the woman will be a match for him. 
 She knows how fatal to her hopes any thrifty
 
 OO THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 habits would be, and if she has a httle store, it is 
 only in human nature that she should conceal it ; 
 or if her husband adds occasionally to his earn- 
 ings in some way privately, she well knows how 
 to hide an act so opposed to the parish rules, 
 that it would, if even hinted at, involve so heavy 
 a penalty as the loss of all aid at such a time. 
 
 The relieving-ofificer proceeds, as usual ; the 
 order is drawn out, and the guardians endorse it 
 at once. The doctor attends, and is paid by the 
 parish ; the nurse attends, and is paid by the 
 parish ; the special requisites in food, of what- 
 ever nature required, are all supplied on the 
 doctor's order, and paid for by the parish. Every- 
 body is satisfied, except the nurse, perhaps, who 
 thinks she ought to be paid more. And the 
 young infant can for ever . after claim, without 
 contradiction, his pauper birthright. 
 
 These are the three types of parish births ; aid
 
 INFANCY. 6 1 
 
 is refused to two of them, and granted to the 
 third. They are all alike in one respect, and that 
 is, that the parents all try to get the relief ; they 
 don't lose it for want of effort. They are ail alike 
 in another respect, namely, that the parents all 
 try to get it in the same way ; they all try to show 
 their destitute condition ; they all urge poverty ; 
 they all urge the impossibility of doing anything 
 for themselves ; and they are all ready to deceive, 
 by making out, if necessary, that they are earning 
 less than they actually are, as it is so much to 
 their interest to do so. 
 
 The conclusion to be drawn from this is ob- 
 vious. The theoretically perfect idea that 7ione 
 but the destitute shall be relieved, practically 
 means that all become destitute so as to get relief. 
 
 Struggling on as these people do on small 
 wages, for even if they earn more than they 
 state, it is certainly true that they don't earn
 
 62 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 much after all, how can it be expected that 
 they should not get the parish aid if they can ? 
 Why is it remarkable that they claim it ? Would 
 it not be much more remarkable if they did not? 
 " What are the rates made for," they say, " but 
 to help us ? The relieving officer's business is 
 to give us as little as possible so as to keep down 
 the rates ; but it's our look-out to get as much as 
 we can ; we can only do this by making a long 
 face, and always appearing poor, so we make a 
 long face and are poor. 
 
 " We can't do it, but what would be the good 
 of our saving our money if we could ; for then 
 they would not give us any relief, and it would 
 only save the rich farmers at our expense, and 
 they make enough out of us already .'' What's 
 the good of doctor's clubs and that sort of 
 thing to us .•' It's all very well for the rich 
 people to tell us to go in for them, but the rates
 
 INFANCY. 63 
 
 arc bound by law to do all that for us for 
 nothing." 
 
 The reasonableness of this, from their point 
 of view, is obvious, and the theoretical fallacy, 
 though evident, it is impossible to instil, with 
 things as they are. Talk of degradation, they 
 don't see it, and why should they .'* Parish 
 money is theirs, they are entitled to it, and to 
 get as much of it as possible is their aim, and 
 this feeling of endeavouring to get what we can 
 for nothing, is not peculiar to the pauper, it is the 
 same in all classes. Dickens's Barnacles are no 
 better, only they are of a more fashionable sort. 
 
 People in all ranks, will take what they 
 can get, and will lay themselves out to get as 
 much as they can — then why not the poor ? 
 It is the system which is to blame entirel)-. 
 Looked upon by many as theoretically perfect, 
 it is, for practical purposes, and as shewn by its
 
 64 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 working, radically bad and unsound. Like as 
 scientifically pure water is unfit for the wants 
 of frail man, so this theoretically perfect system 
 is unfit for the wants of those for whom it is 
 framed. A system intended to suit the wants 
 and habits of human beings must treat human 
 nature as it is and not as it should be, and not 
 according to some theoretical standard which it 
 may please us to set up. 
 
 Not one in a thousand would ask for the 
 parish doctor in a confinement if it involved 
 eoinfj to the union house. But to enforce this 
 rule would be cruel, and doubly so to introduce it 
 suddenly. If the Poor Law officers were not only 
 poverty relieving officers but poverty preventing 
 officers, surely the introduction of some such 
 scheme of medical relief as that proposed in my 
 concluding chapter would change all the evils 
 which we have been sketching out connected
 
 INFANCY. 65 
 
 with the village pauper's birth. It would make 
 it everybody's interest to endeavour to be as 
 well-to-do as possible. It would make reckless- 
 ness, squalor, and thriftlessness, no claim for any 
 but an unpopular relief, given within the walls 
 of the union house, and it would render each 
 woman able as a matter of right for which she 
 had paid without in any way feeling it, to claim 
 the services of the doctor without favour of any- 
 one and without the pauper brand descending 
 on the household. Like true charity, it would 
 tend to elevate instead of to debase, and like all 
 sound and solid systems, the more it was ex- 
 tended the greater would be the benefit to all, 
 but particularly to the poorest classes them- 
 selves, who are the most serious sufferers by the 
 present, system.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CHILDHOOD. 
 
 ' I ""HE Foster-Parent — the Parish — does not 
 recognise the child as a receiver of out- 
 door relief except through the agency of its 
 parents or guardians. Orphans and deserted 
 children of our village are permanently placed 
 in the Union-House. In some places they are 
 farmed out, that is, lodged with the most re- 
 spectable families which can be found willing, 
 for the sake of a small weekly payment, to 
 bring them up as well or as badly as they do 
 their own children. 
 
 The child's introduction to the parish may 
 begin, as seen in the preceding chapter, at the
 
 CHILDHOOD. 67 
 
 very moment the unfortunate creature first 
 appears on the scene of Hfe. It docs not follow 
 at all, however, that because he escapes this 
 earliest introduction to his future Foster-Parent 
 that he remains long without having an oppor- 
 tunity of making her acquaintance. He would 
 indeed be a most exceptional village baby if he 
 managed to keep clear of the Parish throughout 
 his early career. Before he has been very long in 
 existence the father gets ill and the Parish is of 
 course at once applied to. 
 
 " "What ! you again, Mrs. Brown ? " asks the 
 relieving officer. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; you aint more sorry to see me as 
 I be to come, I assure ye," answers the well- 
 trained woman. " We've kept off as long as we 
 could, but my husband's werry bad again this 
 winter time with his cough, worse than he was 
 last." 
 
 F 2
 
 6S THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 " I heard he was doing well last summer up 
 along with Mr. Smith, and he's only just knocked 
 off from there, isn't he ? " 
 
 " Pretty fair, sir, to be sure ; but things is so 
 werry dear, and we've never had what you may 
 call a good start." 
 
 " Well, I have no doubt they will allow you 
 the 5.f. again as you had last winter, Mrs. 
 Brown," says the relieving officer, reading the 
 doctor's certificate. 
 
 " There's another one of us now, please, sir, 
 you remember." 
 
 " Oh, I forgot that ; yes, to be sure, well, then, 
 I suppose it will have to be another shilling." 
 
 " If you please, sir," replies the old soldier, 
 with a curtsey, as much as to say, no fear 
 of my forgetting my rights though you may 
 .for me. 
 
 The new arrival thus receives his first morsel
 
 CHILDHOOD. 69 
 
 from the parish or his Poor Law baptism, and he 
 has the dignified position of counting as one 
 unit in calculating the family pittance and dole 
 of relief. 
 
 It may be that the unfortunate woman be- 
 comes a widow. To such the Poor Law is 
 naturally tender, and out-door aid is gi\-en at 
 once, even to the able-bodied. An extra sum 
 also is allowed for each child after the first one. 
 So far the aid cannot be objected to perhaps. 
 This allowance has however its abuses, as may 
 be seen from the following conversation I had 
 with a respectable man outside our village who 
 had risen from the weekly waged class, and had 
 got a little business in the washing line, though 
 he was only just removed from the lower stratum. 
 
 "It puts me out, it does," said he; "and I 
 have often thought of speaking about it, onl)- 
 one does not like to be too noisy in one's own
 
 70 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 place ; but I could give you a lot of queer cases 
 of widows. I could pick you out several at this 
 minute who, when their husbands died, received 
 so much from the parish for themselves, and so 
 much for their children, and who, as time has 
 gone on and the children have grown up, have 
 continued drawing the money all the same. No 
 one stops them ; and when they are found out 
 nothing can happen except the withdrawing of 
 the allowance then ; and to tell you the truth, 
 sir, their friends think that they have been rather 
 clever for getting it so long, and are very badly 
 treated when it's taken away. Oftentimes the 
 boys are earning 5^. a week, and yet the mother 
 gets parish money for them ; and I have known 
 them even leave the parish altogether, and the 
 daughters go out to good situations as servants, 
 and all the time the parish allowance is paid 
 every week to the mother just the same as when
 
 CHILDHOOD. 71 
 
 she was first a widow. This isn't right to us 
 who pay the rates ; but whether it's the reheving 
 officer's fault, or what it is, I don't know ; but 
 there's something wrong." 
 
 As the children grow up their education in 
 the art of managing their foster-parent is con- 
 tinued. At first they learn much from their 
 parents' conversation ; but as they get older 
 their technical education begins, and they are 
 often sent to the relieving officer on his weekly 
 visit to administer the parish money. The law 
 does not require the recipient to present him or 
 herself personally, and very properly so, for at 
 times it would be impossible. A bright-faced 
 little girl may often, therefore, be seen at the 
 relieving officer's table. Did ever anyone see 
 that bright face look up with a pleasant and 
 happy expression in answer to the officer's en- 
 quiry, " How is your father .''"
 
 72 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 If he is really better and been out doing work 
 on the sly, the child knows it, but must not let 
 even a look betray the fact. He may have got 
 over the doctor, if the doctor is not ver}^ strict. 
 The child knows all about this ; she has heard 
 and seen the chuckle of satisfaction when the 
 doctor's back was turned ; but to give a hint 
 would be fatal. She answers as her mother has 
 probably told her a few minutes before, that " he 
 is still very bad indeed, sir." She has been with 
 her mother to the relieving officer, and seen the 
 long face which was then put on. At first she 
 was a little surprised perhaps, for she has known 
 times when even an unusual run of plenty has 
 not in any way shortened the long story of dis- 
 tress. She soon learns the good of the melan- 
 choly twang. It comes naturally ; it's the way 
 of doing business with the relieving officer and 
 some other persons ; it pays ; without it nothing
 
 CHILDHOOD. 73 
 
 can be got for the asking, with it a good deal. 
 So the habit becomes fixed ; deceit is encouraged 
 and fostered, and grows up as part and parcel of 
 the child. Who can wonder ? Who can blame 
 the child ? Whose is the fault ? 
 
 The direct effect of almost every transaction 
 with the parish is thus to encourage deceit and 
 fraud. The honesty of the tender child, which 
 in other ranks of life is at times awkward in its 
 very simple straightforwardness, is never known 
 among the offspring of this cruel foster-parent ; 
 and the truth of the saying, "Like father, like 
 son," is exemplified in thousands and tens of 
 thousands of cases. 
 
 The following anecdote, which was told me 
 by the lady to whom it occurred, is a specimen 
 of this habitual practice of deceit, and the mat- 
 ter-of-course manner with which, for the hope 
 of getting something, an exaggerated tale of
 
 74 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 woe will be told, not only regardless of the 
 deceit, but, what is even more serious, regardless 
 of the pernicious influence on the children of 
 the household. 
 
 The lady, who was known to be very kind 
 and charitable, was visiting a cottage, and the 
 woman, who had been ill, was dilating as usual 
 on her privations and troubles. Amongst other 
 things, one of the most serious causes of her 
 complaints was how much she wanted good food, 
 and especially meat, though of course she had 
 not been able to taste any for ever so long. 
 During this conversation a large dog, which the 
 lady had with her, but which she had left out- 
 side, contrived to make its way unnoticed into 
 the cottas^e. The animal at once smcllcd out a 
 large bread-pan standing in the corner. In a 
 few moments he had pushed aside the cover 
 and triumphantly carried off before the whole
 
 CHILDHOOD. 75 
 
 company a large piece of meat which he had 
 found inside. The woman looked somewhat 
 awkward it is true, but said she had only just 
 got it through the relieving officer, and had 
 forgotten it ! 
 
 The children who stood by, had they belonged 
 to a middle-class family, would almost to a 
 certainty have said, " Why, mother, Fanny just 
 brought home some meat !" No fear of any 
 such mistake in the cottage ^\■e have mentioned. 
 All, from the toddling infant to the cunning 
 stripling, were too well-trained to commit them- 
 selves like that. Have they not seen and heard 
 and felt ever since they took notice at all, that 
 their parents' policy, whenever an}-thing was 
 likely to be picked up, was one of cunning deceit .-* 
 Probably, they would not know what you meant 
 by care and thrift ; yet they understand well 
 enough that whatever they can manage to get
 
 76 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 over and above stan^ation living must be kept 
 secret ; the possibility, even if it be a possibility, 
 of earning more than they are absolutely obliged 
 to spend at once to keep body and soul toge- 
 ther, must be a fact which they are bound never 
 to own to, a weakness which they must not let 
 anyone hear of, and much less those who have 
 something in their gift. They may have heard 
 the talk of helping those who help themselves, 
 but they know the reality of the reverse policy. 
 Aeain. who is to blame ? The children ? 
 
 The school-time comes on, and the pence 
 have to be paid, but not necessarily so. A few, 
 or perhaps a considerable number, manage to 
 get put on the clergyman's free list, or are aided 
 by different kindly disposed persons in the vil- 
 lage. If the child goes when very young, and 
 the parent manages to pay at first, the chances 
 are reduced of the parent getting the dole of
 
 CHILDHOOD. 77 
 
 ^lelp. If the child is seen about, it is sure to be 
 noticed, and some one will say, — 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Brown, that boy should be at 
 school." 
 
 " Indeed, he should, sir, and I only wish I 
 could send him, but really things is so hard that 
 I can't manage to pay the schooling regular, and 
 it's no eood his g-oing at all if he can't be re- 
 
 o o o 
 
 gular." 
 
 " I daresay say Mr. Vicar would help you." 
 " He might, sir, if he knew, but it isn't like me 
 to ask ; I'd rather go without, and that's true." 
 
 The result is, that some one soon knows of it, 
 and the child gets paid for, and if he has been 
 kept very dirty and ragged, probably some 
 clothes and boots are sent to start him off. Of 
 course, if the mother strains every point to send 
 the child to school early, pinches to pay the 
 pence, mends and patches his threadbare clothes
 
 78 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 after a long day's work to make him tidy, such 
 an one of course never gets a helping hand, she 
 does not want it ! 
 
 During the school-time itself, it may be hoped, 
 that at least some better ideas are put into the 
 child's head. No doubt it is so ; and many 
 schools, to their credit be it said, work wonders 
 in spite of all the influences of the home. Still 
 but few teach thrift ; but few showby practice 
 even if they do by theoiy, the advantages of 
 care and systematic thrift. In but few — and 
 our village is I regret to say one of them, 
 but I hope it won't remain so long — are Penny 
 Banks established, though one such might and 
 should be formed under the Post Office regu- 
 lations at every school. The effects would be 
 most important, they would familiarise the chil- 
 dren with weekly saving, they would habituate 
 them to the idea that such a custom is possible
 
 CHILDHOOD. 79 
 
 even for them ; and they would start them as 
 youths with a knowledge of the importance of 
 thrift, and that even though it be begun and con- 
 tinued in pence. Even those who never joined 
 the Penny Bank at the school, would get these 
 ideas infused into them in spite of themselves. 
 
 Thrift and care must surely be elements of 
 well-being to a country. Few will deny this ; 
 anyhow, it is certain that a thrifty household is 
 happier, more comfortable, more enviable, and 
 more contented whatever be the earnings, than 
 one where improvidence is allowed to rule, even 
 though it may at times see festive scenes of ex- 
 travagant plenty. We must, however, make up 
 our minds to the fact that the thrifty home must 
 be the exception, and not the rule, as long as 
 we allow our children to grow up in the atmos- 
 phere they now do. Even schooling alone will 
 not mend matters, and the wonder to those who
 
 So THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 look deep enough, is not that improvidence and 
 pauperism exist as they do and permeate so ex- 
 tensively, but that they find, in spite of all that 
 is done to foster and encourage these giant evils 
 in childhood, that still so many bright exceptions 
 are to be met with. Human nature may per- 
 haps be bad, but considering the way we have for 
 so long been trying to polish it, it is astonishing 
 that so many bright spots are still to be found. 

 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 YOUTH. 
 
 \T /"HO can deny that a sexton is a high 
 authority on the faihngs and imperfec- 
 tions of- human nature ? The old sexton, second 
 to no one unless it be the parson himself, is the 
 functionary of the village. The slackness or 
 briskness of his profession, whether it be in 
 burials, marriages, or christenings, may be 
 measured by the frequency ^\■ith which his 
 Sunday suit of black sees da}-light. My friend, 
 the sexton of our village, is an unusually 
 pleasant old gentleman, with a merry twinkle in 
 his eye. He has officiated for seven-and-twenty 
 years, and has seen more service than the
 
 82 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 parson, has outlived scores of curates of course, 
 has christened, married, and buried a generation 
 of his fellow-parishioners, amongst whom he has 
 lived for over sixty years. 
 
 Perhaps a sexton is a strange character to 
 select for the purpose of introducing the bright 
 period of youth or the third age of man, but 
 there is nothing like a sober beginning, so we 
 cannot do better than have the old man's views 
 from his own lips. 
 
 " When I was a boy, now more than fifty 
 year ago, things was quite different to what 
 they be now ; why the lads then 'ud bin ashamed 
 to be seen in a public-house — there was then 
 only three in this parish, and those starved ; now 
 there be seven and they are all fat. Why in 
 those times the business wouldn't pay. Fresh 
 people were alius a takin' the publics and 'ud 
 bring about ;^300 with them, but in a year or
 
 • YOUTH. 83 
 
 two they'd leave in debt all over the place — in 
 fact, they couldn't make nothing of it. 
 
 " The young fellows of fourteen and about 
 that, now wants men's wages and strike unless 
 they get 'em. I used, when I was a lad, to get 
 about a shilling a day and work pretty smart 
 for that, I can tell ye ; now, even in these parts, 
 the young fellows, particular the mechanics and 
 such like, make close upon a pound a Meek, but 
 they muddle it all away. They could live well 
 on half of it. Then they marrj^, and then they're 
 done for — they begin in debt and don't have no 
 kind o' decent home, and never get right. 
 
 " The girls is as bad ; they marr}- uncommon 
 young, many of 'em about sixteen, and the lads 
 too, for the matter of that, though there's excep- 
 tions of course, and sometimes they waits till 
 they're seventy, when the}' had better a' done 
 with it altogether. About two months ago we 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 had a queerish sort of a wedding between an 
 old man of seventy-five and a woman of over 
 sixty. One morning two women come alone up 
 to the church, and as I knowed there was a 
 weddin' a comin' off, as the banns and all that 
 had been done, I guessed as these two had 
 somc'at to do with it, as they was got up so 
 smart, and sure enough it turned out, as one of 
 'em was the bride and the other was her brides- 
 maid ; so says I, ' Well, where's the man .'' ' 
 
 " ' Oh, he's a comin' along, but he went over 
 the hill first' 
 
 " Presently I see'd an old man come up, and 
 I says to him, ' Here's the bridegroom ! We've 
 been a-waitin' some time ; ' but he cut up quite 
 rusty, for it turned out as he had nothing to do 
 with it. In a few minutes, up come another old 
 man all out of breath, and he was the party v/e 
 was on the look-out for.
 
 YOUTH. 85 
 
 " ' All right,' says I, ' here you be at last.' 
 
 " ' Have I got time,' says he, half in a whisper 
 to me, 'just to go and get a pint of beer ? ' 
 
 " ' If you're not more than ten minutes,' says I, 
 and off he went, but he was back in five minutes 
 all right. Then ye see, sir, they wanted another 
 man to give her away, so he said I'd do, and so 
 / gave her away and signed the book and all. 
 We have funny things happen sometimes in this 
 out-of-the-way place, to be sure." 
 
 We are, however, allowing the old man some- 
 what to lead us away from our subject. Youth — 
 and by that we mean generally the period of 
 life between the school age and the matrimonial 
 age — is the only part of the village pauper's life 
 when he may be said really to cut his foster- 
 parent, the Parish. A good strong lad is pretty 
 sure to be independent ; he has no wants beyond 
 his mere food and his dress. If he li\es at
 
 86 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 home he should add to the store, and if he Hves 
 away, he earns plenty to pay for his lodgings 
 and to keep himself withal. Even if the old 
 sexton somewhat exaggerated the amount of 
 his earnings, there is no doubt but that they are 
 \'ery large in proportion to his wants as com- 
 pared with what they will be when he has a 
 family. 
 
 The Foster- Parent, the Parish, consequently 
 lets him alone ; the church or chapel, as a rule, 
 also lets him pretty much alone ; his employer, 
 beyond paying him his wages and making him 
 work, lets him alone ; and as we have previously 
 seen, he is taught little at school concerning his 
 duties and the advantages of care and thrift. 
 Consequently the chances are that, unless he is 
 a very exceptional character, he follows the well- . 
 beaten track, spends ever}^ farthing he earns, 
 dresses like a swell, resents anything that may
 
 YOUTH. 87 
 
 be said to him, and altogether passes the hey- 
 day of youth — during which he might, with 
 proper guidance, sow the seeds of future inde- 
 pendence and comfort — in the most reckless and 
 unsatisfactory manner. 
 
 Girls, as the sexton says, are little or no 
 better. Most of them get good situations as 
 household servants ; dress to them is the one 
 thing needful, though it must, in all fairness, be 
 acknowledged that their mistresses do not 
 always set them the best of examples in this 
 respect. The same may also be said with re- 
 spect to girls who serve in shops ; they carry 
 their fortunes, as it were, on their backs, and 
 as long as they are well and strong, they never 
 think of looking ahead — why should they ? 
 They have never been taught to do so either b}- 
 precept or example. 
 
 Their parents may be on the parish — what's
 
 88 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 that to them ? What's the parish for ? If you 
 tell them that they may, if they don't mind 
 what they are about, come to it themselves, they 
 either laugh or say they " hope not." 
 
 To hear them make use of even such an expres- 
 sion as this is a little encouraging, as it shows 
 that in this third stage of life, the idea of the 
 possibility of their becoming regular paupers 
 themselves is not altogther an agreeable one. 
 
 Let me give the experiences of my friend the 
 relieving officer on this subject. The other day 
 he said to me : " I tell you what makes me feel 
 very angry, and that is when I see young people 
 got up extravagantly and know that their 
 parents are on the parish. Only the other day, 
 as I was coming home from church, there were 
 two young women in front of me and my wife, 
 dressed like ladies, silk dresses, bonnets with 
 feathers, and so on. You would have thought
 
 YOUTH. 89 
 
 that they were real ladies, that is to say as long 
 as they were quiet, for when once that sort 
 begins to talk and giggle, then you may guess in 
 a minute what they're made of. Now I knew 
 that those young women's mother had parish 
 relief regularly. Is that right ? There's another 
 case I am thinking of Only a few Sundays back 
 I met a young carpenter, belonging to our parish, 
 dressed up to any extent; I'd be bound his shoes 
 cost 2Ss. He was carrying a silk umbrella, 
 which must have cost a guinea at the least, and 
 his clothes were of superfine cloth. I couldn't 
 do it myself with my pay ; he was, in fact, as we 
 should say, ' dressed up to the knocker.' Well, 
 he lived alone with his mother, and will you 
 believe me, that young fellow allowed her to 
 apply for out-door relief .'' " 
 
 " You did not give it, I hope .-• " 
 
 " No, not exactly ; she was mcrch- presented
 
 90 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 with an order for ' the house,' and that stopped 
 it, of course." 
 
 Then comes the mania for smoking, which 
 has extended to our youths if not to our chil- 
 dren. This cannot even have the apology which 
 beer has from its being an article of food. For 
 children, regular smoking cannot be desirable. 
 The other day I met an urchin who certainly 
 did not look anything like the age he asserted 
 himself to be, who called out to me, — 
 
 " Got a match, gov'nor .'' " 
 
 " No," I answered, " I have not ; I don't carry 
 them in my pocket ; but what do you want it for, 
 you're too young to smoke .'' " 
 
 "I'm fifteen," he indignantly answered in a 
 voice somewhat swelling with indignation. 
 
 " Indeed," said I ; " are you sure it won't make 
 you sick .-' " 
 
 " No fear."
 
 YOUTH. 9 1 
 
 " All I can say, it's a pity it does not," I 
 rejoined. 
 
 "Then I'm precious glad it don't, gov'nor," the 
 boy retorted, and I passed on, feeling that I 
 was no match for him, and that evidently his 
 habits had been formed for many a long day. 
 
 But I am somewhat digressing and must 
 return to our village youth and his general con- 
 duct as regards the parish and its belongings. 
 Grandchildren never feel in any way bound to 
 help their old grandparents — why should they .-* 
 If they did, the parish aid would stop. A young 
 woman, who one day happened to be present 
 when her grandfather's case was being discussed 
 by myself and one or two of her neighbours, was 
 quite indignant at the idea of doing anything 
 to help the old man of seventy-nine. He had 
 had twelve children, most of them doing well, 
 but little enough did he get from an}' of them.
 
 92 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 One daughter was really very well off, but the 
 law cannot compel a married daughter to main- 
 tain a parent. A penny a week from each of 
 his grandchildren would have kept him in com- 
 fort, whereas he did not get any relief either 
 from them or his children, though the young 
 woman who was so indignant at the suggestion of 
 the possibility of her being able to do something 
 for him, had on a dress certainly not inferior to 
 that worn by many a well-to-do person, and 
 was at that moment home for a holiday from a 
 good situation. 
 
 The reckless carelessness of youth in money 
 matters is almost as characteristic of the country 
 as the squalid misery of old age, and, in fact, 
 the one is but the natural sequence of the other. 
 An incident may be mentioned which may be 
 regarded as a forcible illustration of the truth of 
 this assertion. At a fete given a short time ago,
 
 YOUTH. 
 
 a large party of workmen and their friends were 
 conveyed by train to the scene of the festivity, 
 and on coming back, owing to some delay, the 
 carriages were detained at one of the stations 
 for a quarter of an hour. The weather was 
 warm and many of the excursionists took the 
 opportunity of getting out for refreshment. 
 The charge made for a glass of beer was ^d., 
 which charge of itself was sufficient to assuage 
 the thirst of a good number who would otherwise 
 have indulged. One young man, however, both 
 of whose parents were receiving parish allowance, 
 and who would no doubt assert that their chil- 
 dren could barely live themselves, much less 
 help them, after tossing off one glass, nothing 
 daunted, called at once for another, and paid for 
 both without the slightest hesitation. My infor- 
 mant, the vicar of the parish in which the young 
 man resided, though perhaps equally thirst}-,
 
 94 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 was debarred by the price from gratifying his 
 inclination even to the extent of a single 
 glass. 
 
 Youth cannot be looked upon as a period of 
 pauperism in the strict sense of the term, for, as 
 before stated, able-bodied youths of both sexes 
 are rarely the recipients of any relief either out- 
 door or indoor. It ma)^, however, be regarded 
 as the period of preparation for pauperism, 
 during which the young person is carefully 
 avoiding any habit which may tend to mar his 
 future chances of eligibility for a claim on the 
 parish. He or she is, in fact, getting accus- 
 tomed to spend systematically, to live from 
 hand to mouth, and to regard any additional 
 receipt as only so much additional means for 
 personal indulgence, and present and immediate 
 enjoyment. 
 
 Such a state of things, though there are
 
 YOUTH. 95 
 
 happily many exceptions, must be taken as too 
 commonly the rule. In our village, I fear the 
 exceptions might be counted on one's fingers. 
 What is the cause of it ? who is to blame ? the 
 young persons themselves everybody will at once 
 say, and no doubt in one sense this is true. But 
 let us consider the atmosphere in which they 
 have been brought up. From the cradle, as I 
 have shown, they have seen their parents ahvays 
 living from hand to mouth ; from the first 
 dawn of intelligence they have been accustomed 
 to see them, as wx^ll as everybody around them, 
 depend in every trouble on the parish. Not 
 only so, but they have become familiar with, 
 and perhaps expert in, the art of deceiving the 
 officer as to their earnings, and consider it to be 
 the right thing to make out that they are worse 
 off than they really are. They have always 
 regarded the Parish as the banker to be drawn
 
 96 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 on in exact proportion to their destitution and 
 carelessness, and the relieving-officer as the man 
 to be habitually made to believe in their utter 
 inability to do anything beyond getting, under 
 the most favourable circumstances of life, a 
 bare subsistence from day to day. At school, 
 unless they have lived in a very favoured spot, 
 they have probably never been shown the ad- 
 vantages of thrift, for it is unfortunately rare for 
 even a Penny Bank to be held in a school during 
 school hours. Their whole experience, in fact, 
 up to the period of which I am speaking, if it 
 has taught them anything — and children are 
 very ready to pick up impressions — has tended 
 most forcibly to inculcate selfishness and care- 
 lessness. It has shown them the folly of doing 
 anything to provide for a rainy day, lest an ex- 
 cuse should be given to that niggardly fellow the 
 rclicving-officer — which he may some day use to
 
 YOUTH. 97 
 
 their disadvantage, when they are in trouble — to 
 cut down or disallow the outdoor parish money. 
 Employers, too, what have they done to en- 
 courage a better state of things ? True, it is 
 often a thankless task for them to fight against 
 obstacles such as I have enumerated ; but still 
 it is not the less their duty to endeavour to 
 afford to all in their service, and particularly to 
 the young, every facility for better things. How 
 many places of business have a systematic pro- 
 vision for encouraging permanent saving ? Many 
 have some provision : a burial fund, or a sick fund, 
 good as far as they go, but that is not enough. 
 Some employers, indeed, have done cvei-}-thing 
 in their power ; but, unfortunately, these are but 
 few, for every place of business should at least 
 have a collector of savings under the Post-Ofiice. 
 Each should have a Penny Bank, and even- em- 
 ployer should systematically encourage thrift. 
 
 H
 
 98 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 and the putting by weekly of some portion of 
 the wages, however small, as regularly as they 
 are paid. 
 
 What do the ministers of religion do to en- 
 courage thrift in youth, and to gain the confi- 
 dence of the young ? As a churchman myself, 
 I must, with sorrow, confess that the dissenting 
 ministers do far more in this respect than the 
 clergy of the Church of England. Thrift in 
 youth is one of the great antidotes to drink, and 
 may fairly be included as a part of the religious 
 duty of all sects. In our village there is no 
 Penny Bank, and not even a Post-Office Savings 
 Bank. There was once a successful Penny 
 Bank ; but the gentleman who started it left 
 the parish, and no one could be found to con- 
 tinue it ! Is this creditable to the clergy, the 
 dissenting ministers, or the better educated 
 classes of our village? To put a shilling by
 
 YOUTH. 99 
 
 involves a walk of nearly five miles to the Post- 
 Office, and the same distance back again. The 
 Post-Office boasts of its extension, and its sur- 
 plus revenue of a million and a half. Would it 
 not be real economy to spend a little of this in 
 giving extra facilities for thrift ?* 
 
 In justice, then, we are bound to say that it is 
 not only Youth which must be blamed for its 
 extravagance and recklessness. The Poor Law 
 encourages improvidence ; the Church, the 
 Employer, and the State do not do Avhat they 
 should, and what they might, to prevent impro- 
 vidence, or to inculcate better habits ; but they 
 lose the finest opportunities of doing both. If a 
 
 * In 1872 memorials were presented by the Society of Arts 
 and the Charity Organisation Society to increase the facilities of 
 the Savings Banks. They are under consideration ! One sug- 
 gestion was, that to a village where a Post-Office Savings Bank 
 could not well be started, a collector should be sent once or twice 
 a week in the evening to hold a sort of branch Savings Bank. 
 The idea was approved of, but that is all ! 
 
 H
 
 lOO THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 youth had seen the benefit of thrift all his life, if 
 from the earliest dawn of his intelligence, when 
 playing round his parents' knees, he had heard 
 those parents discussing how they could be 
 careful, so that when trouble did come they 
 might be able to get some timely aid, instead of, 
 as it is now, seeing them spend all, and live in 
 misery, and then, urging these very vices in 
 support of their claims for the pauper pittance; 
 if at school habits of thrift were inculcated, 
 and practically encouraged by a Penny Bank, 
 being always included in the work of every 
 school ; if every employer, in spite of the diffi- 
 culty he might find to exist between Labour 
 and Capital, and the discouragement given 
 but too often to his proposals, would have 
 a collector of savings appointed by his em- 
 ployes, a Penny Bank on his premises, and 
 other encouragements to thriftiness ; if mis-
 
 YOUTH. lOI 
 
 tresses would give their young servants kindly 
 and sound advice, and show a better example, 
 and would encourage them eveiy quarter, or 
 other pay-day, to put by something ; if all these 
 changes were made without youth being any 
 better, then wc might settle without hesitation 
 where the blame should rest. 
 
 No doubt, if all these steps were taken, reck- 
 lessness in individual cases would still be met 
 with. No laws or regulations will make man- 
 kind perfect. The most careful farmer will be 
 sure to find some weeds growing up with his 
 wheat ; but they are few as compared with the 
 heavy ears of the profitable crop. We must, 
 however, expect to reap what we sow. What a 
 madman would any lad in our village call him, 
 who, after sowing weeds and carefully rooting 
 out all good grain, expected when har\est came 
 to fill his barns with golden wheat !
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MANHOOD. 
 
 1\ /r ANHOOD is the next stage of life, and we 
 date it as commencing' at the marrying 
 period. As a rule the young people of the indus- 
 trial classes marry early ; for it is the exception, 
 especially in our village, for the women, if not for 
 the men, to have passed their teens before they 
 take upon themselves the dignity of married life. 
 Some may sneer, but if it has its drawbacks, 
 early marriage has its advantages, and in the 
 balance of the pros and co72S, it is very doubtful 
 whether the pros are not the heavier in the 
 scale. 
 
 While health and strength last, and before
 
 MANHOOD. 103 
 
 the family begins to enlarge the circle, things 
 go fairly well. In manufacturing places, where 
 women are largely employed, the first few months 
 of matrimony are honeymoons indeed. The 
 income of the man and wife is as large as it can 
 ever be, and may easily amount to from 35^'. to 
 50i". a week, and the necessary expenses are at 
 their minimum. In agricultural villages, though 
 this result does not follow, yet troubles have not 
 seriously begun, and the young couple are fairly 
 well-to-do as regards their weekly wants. The 
 effects of the canker-worm thriftlessness are, how- 
 ever, readily to be seen. The cottage is scarcely 
 furnished, nothing but the barest necessities are 
 visible, what little there is, is not paid for, or 
 only in part. The couple begin to regret that 
 during those days of youth, when they could 
 so easily have scraped together something for a 
 start, they did not do so. The young woman is
 
 I04 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 very likely only just from her place as a domestic 
 servant, where she had lived well and had had 
 good wages for two or three years at least. She 
 could easily have saved a ten-pound note ; her 
 swain could have done likewise ; and those sums 
 together would have started them uncommonly 
 well. 
 
 They pull along, however ; the young woman 
 does some washing perhaps, the man picks up a 
 little extra in the summer, and if they are for- 
 tunate enough to continue unencumbered a year 
 or two — above all, if their health remains, they 
 may get over the first debt for furnishing, which, 
 however, for a long time they feel to be very 
 heavy. Too often, unfortunately, matters arc 
 not so smooth. The first baby makes its ap- 
 pearance ; the expenses of this arrival, all who 
 have experienced it must know full well. The 
 parish will not yet have anything to say to
 
 MANHOOD. 10 
 
 3 
 
 them. They must go on for some time before 
 that acquaintance can be renewed. No aid can 
 be had before the fourth at earhest. The doctor 
 wants payment, the nurse wants payment, many 
 Httle expenses are needful even under the 
 most favourable circumstances, and if no illness 
 
 ensues. All these items come on the top of the 
 furnishing debt, and well-nigh overwhelm the 
 unfortunate couple. 
 
 Is there no medical club .'' Yes, perhaps ; 
 though in our village there is none except in 
 connection with a friendly society. The man 
 should have joined that — no doubt. How he 
 wishes he had when he was a youth, but he had 
 always laughed at the idea. He intended to 
 when he married ; but he put it off till he had 
 got over the expenses of furnishing ; now he 
 will join after he has got over his present diffi- 
 culties, that is, if he ever does get over them.
 
 I06 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 which is most improbable. Besides that, the 
 club does not admit women, and does not re- 
 cognise in any way such things as the arrivals of 
 babies. 
 
 In these straits the aid of the kind and bene- 
 volent is sought, and often not sought in vain. 
 It is hard to see a young couple in such diffi- 
 culties ; there is a sentiment about the cottage, 
 humble and rough though it be, and those who 
 are fortunate enough to live near charitable 
 persons, or whose homes are within the reach of 
 a kindly parson or minister, who is not only 
 willing but able to assist them, manage perhaps 
 somehow or other with this help to tide over the 
 difficulty. All honour to those who thus act ; 
 and there are few who would say for a moment 
 that they are wrong. It would be hard indeed 
 if the fact of a couple having failed to be pro- 
 vident and careful in their youth, should mar
 
 MANHOOD. 107 
 
 their whole future without hope of a fresh start, 
 and that particularly after the way the first three 
 periods of their lives have necessarily been spent, 
 as I have tried to depict in the preceding pages. 
 
 Nevertheless, this is about the last opportunity 
 which the majority of such persons will ever have 
 of redeeming themselves, and getting into a mode 
 of living which will make them permanently more 
 comfortable and independent. The kindly dis- 
 posed persons who now so often help them, have 
 it in their power, if not to change for the better 
 the career of all, yet to do so in numerous cases, 
 and to be the means of immensely influencing 
 their after conditions. 
 
 The young couple can get help from no one 
 but the uncertain aid of charity, as the parish is 
 not yet available except when the man is sick, 
 and he is now as healthy and hardy as possible. 
 These early difficulties have consequently shown
 
 loS THE SEVEX AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 them the very practical inconvenience of thrift- 
 lessness. They are still so young that there is 
 plenty of time for them to change their habits. 
 The man may easily give up a little of his beer, 
 and the woman too, perhaps, without much loss ; 
 their domestic happiness has not yet been im- 
 paired by years of squalid misery and poverty, 
 and what it may have suffered from these first 
 troubles has been repaired by the arrival of 
 the little stranger. The opportunity is golden, 
 but how rarely is it taken advantage of ! It is 
 certainly hard to lecture a drowning man, and 
 to help him out of the water is the first thing 
 to do ; but if after rescuing him you can manage 
 to teach him to swim before your influence is 
 lost upon him, why you not only cure, but 
 render the repetition of the accident much less 
 probable. 
 
 The charitable should then, in ever}^ case they
 
 MANHOOD. 109 
 
 can, teach the persons they thus help to swim. 
 A gift is easily made. The tossing away of the 
 rich man's crumbs to feed the poor, is one way, 
 and a very common way, of showing charity ; 
 but it is only alms-giving at the best. It may 
 do good to the recipient, or it may do harm, 
 without the giver being much the wiser, much 
 the happier, or much the better. 
 
 The kindly gift of the lady visiting the poor 
 and needy approaches true charity much nearer. 
 This, however, may also either do good to the 
 recipient or it may do harm, though as the 
 motives which inspire the act are pure and 
 noble, so does the act differ from that of the 
 one who indolently gives away what he does not 
 miss. If, however, the lady not only gives, but 
 gives in such a way as to tend to prevent the 
 recipient from wanting aid again, her act be- 
 comes one of the most useful and most charit-
 
 no THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 able which it is the happiness of one person to 
 perform to another. 
 
 The more easily the first aid is obtained the 
 first time anyone is in trouble, the more likely 
 is it that that person will return for a second 
 gift ; and although we may be glad to help our 
 fellow creatures, it is much better if they can be 
 enabled to get on without a repetition of assist- 
 ance. Wherever money or any other relief is 
 plentiful, recipients are to be found in a like or 
 even in an increased ratio. The first gift is, 
 therefore, of the greatest importance, and the 
 way in which it is given may place our young 
 couple either further on the road to pauperism, 
 or help to strand them higher up on the op- 
 posite shore of independence. If given, it 
 must be given kindly, but "wisdom is profitable 
 to direct ;" and those kindly persons who really 
 mean to do good, and who visit among, and are
 
 MANHOOD. I I r 
 
 beloved by, those around them, have it in their 
 power, as we have already said, to influence, in 
 the most important and beneficial manner, the 
 future of our imaginary couple, and of the many 
 tens of thousands of other couples of which ours 
 is but the type. 
 
 The aim of all alms and gifts should be to 
 relieve, not in the Poor Law sense, but in the 
 true sense, which is, that every assistance of 
 whatever description may tend to prevent a re- 
 petition of the evil and the suffering. Charity, 
 like the wise physician, should try to cure, even 
 though at first its remedies appear somewhat 
 sharp to the taste. It must not act like the 
 unnatural opiate, which makes the recipient 
 dependent on it, unable to do without it, and 
 constantly in want of a larger and a larger dose. 
 Instead of gifts of money or what not, if these 
 visitors would make loa7is, and require them to
 
 I 1 2 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 be repaid gradually each week, many a young 
 couple would at the time prefer it — they would 
 not feel degraded, and the best part of their 
 natures would be brought out in trying to repay 
 them. The charity of such acts would be as 
 great as and far greater than is involved in the 
 present system of gifts, the dole of alms would 
 be avoided, and this simple cure might be the 
 making of thousands who are now merely 
 relieved to be relieved again. 
 
 Some would never repay, the objector will at 
 once remark. Perhaps not ; but many would 
 do so, and not a few would continue to put by 
 the small sums for years, and gradually accu- 
 mulate the means by which they would be able 
 to face a trouble themselves. If in every village 
 the visiting ladies would form a travelling Penny 
 Bank and act as the collectors, — if they would 
 regard thrift as a duty, many thousands of the
 
 MANHOOD. 113 
 
 present generation, who are rapidly qualifying to 
 become out-door paupers, would never come on 
 the parish at all. Our young couple might get 
 over their difficulties, and avoid them in future, 
 by adopting a habit of weekly thrift, facilitated 
 by the really charitable acts of the visiting 
 ladies. If they got into difficulties again, as 
 some no doubt would, less gentle treatment 
 might be required, and incorrigible thriftlessness 
 would of course necessitate the being handed 
 over to the tender mercies of the parish ofificer, 
 and relief would be only obtained within the 
 workhouse walls. 
 
 Thousands of ladies who are doing nothing 
 in this country at the present time might, by 
 their united efforts, produce a revolution in the 
 condition of our people, — a revolution from 
 poverty' and misery to a state of comfort, 
 happiness, and independence.
 
 114 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 All this time we have been supposing that 
 our young couple lived where they could receive 
 some aid from the kindly disposed. What would 
 happen, however, if they did not ? If such is 
 their unfortunate position, domestic troubles and 
 difficulties must then grow rapidly. The first 
 debt is never got over, but only enlarged ; the 
 home becomes more miserable as want and a 
 straitness of means increase. The husband 
 becomes callous ; in spite of his poverty he 
 drinks more, and brings less home to his 
 wife ; and we see that sadly familiar picture of 
 domestic misery caused to a great extent, if 
 not entirely, by the thriftless habits which have 
 been born with, and encouraged to grow up in, 
 both man and woman from the cradle. 
 
 There is a condition incidental to manhood 
 which must be considered — and that is sickness. 
 All are liable to this, few escape it. If the wife
 
 MANHOOD. 115 
 
 or the children be ill, somehow, by hook or by 
 crook, the husband must pull along as best he 
 may, and pay the doctor and every other cost. 
 If he is ill himself it is different altogether. He 
 is the bread-winner, and if he is cut off his old 
 friend the parish will at once come forward with 
 her pittance and help. With free and impartial 
 hand, having helped to nurse him as a baby, she 
 comes back to him and ministers to his wants, 
 that is to say, if Jic has been true to his creed, is 
 destitute, and has done notJiing at all for himself. 
 
 On appealing for the parish aid under these 
 circumstances, the wife is questioned by the re- 
 lieving officer of course, and the first question is — 
 " Does your husband belong to a club .'' " 
 " No, sir, he never did," is the usual reply, and 
 the allowance comes in due time, ^s. or js. 
 a week, according to the family. 
 
 Suppose Mr. Brown to have been so foolish, 
 
 I 2
 
 I 1 6 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 in consequence of reading the Provident Know- 
 ledge Papers, as to have joined the club since he 
 was last ill, and to be now getting 5^. a-week 
 from it. This is a different matter, and on hear- 
 ing it the officer will look grave. 
 
 " That will make a difference, Mrs. Brown. 
 P^ive shillings you say he gets ; well, then, that 
 will reduce his parish money by 2s. 6d. The 
 guardians are liberal enough not to take advan- 
 tage of the whole five shillings, as they might 
 by law." 
 
 " What's the good, then, of our joining the 
 club 'i " asks Mrs. Brown, in great distress. " You 
 said it was a good thing, but now you knock off 
 half the money. We had better have spent the 
 club money while we had it." 
 
 " Very sorry, Mrs. Brown, but you are half-a- 
 crown a-week better off than you would have 
 been."
 
 MANHOOD. I 1 7 
 
 That may be ; but the woman, her husband, 
 children, friends, and whole circle, consider the 
 club a delusion and a snare, and ten to one if 
 they themselves continue in it, or if any of the 
 others join it. Why should they ? What's the 
 good of their saving the rates ? 
 
 The following is a fair example of this first 
 stage of adult life, and is an absolute case from 
 our village. The family consists of three chil- 
 dren ; the husband is a brickmaker ; and during 
 the summer months he earns at the least 2^s. 
 to 2,0s. a-week. In the winter, however, he takes 
 to farm work, and then gets less, that is, 
 about I2S. to i$s. According to his wife, how- 
 ever, he generally has bad health in the winter ; 
 and for the last three years the parish has al- 
 lowed the family ys. a-week. Out of this they 
 have to live. The rent of 2s. Gci. a-week they 
 manage to scrape together out of the summer
 
 Il8 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER, 
 
 earnings, as it is paid twice a-year only. I had 
 a long conversation one day with the woman, 
 who thought, of course, that the parish was not 
 as kind to her as it should be. 
 
 " It is veiy hard to live upon the Js. a week 
 with three children," she said to me, " though of 
 course we have to do it, as this is a very poor 
 place, and very little of any sort is given 
 away." 
 
 " During the summer mightn't you put by 
 something, and so make up for the winter .-' " 
 I suggested. 
 
 " Oh no, sir, we can't do that, things is so 
 dear." 
 
 " But in the winter you have to live and buy 
 firing on only /j. a week, you say." 
 
 " So we have, sir, but it's as much as we can 
 do to get along, I assure ye." 
 
 " Does not your husband belong to the club }
 
 MANHOOD. 119 
 
 for if he did, then he would get a better allow- 
 ance when he was ill." 
 
 " I don't know about that, sir, but my husband 
 never did hold much with those clubs." 
 
 Herein lies a good deal. First, because the 
 fact of his getting club money would partly 
 debar him from parish relief, perhaps when he 
 really wanted it, as we have just seen. Secondly, 
 because the club money is only paid to those 
 who are really unable to work ; and a man's 
 neighbours and friends, who are also members 
 of the club, have an interest in preventing fraud. 
 They consequently take very good care that no 
 one shall get anything at all out of their club 
 unless he is really laid up. To obtain the 
 parish money, however, a man has only to get 
 over the relieving officer, and perhaps a good- 
 natured doctor, both of whom, as in our village, 
 live miles away. His mates and companions in
 
 I20 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER, 
 
 this case think nothing of his throwing dust in 
 the parish's eyes, and getting an allowance which 
 they would resist his attempting to obtain from 
 their club. If anything, they rather help and 
 encourage him in his efforts, for they think it 
 fair game for any one to secure what he can, and 
 as much as possible, from the parish money. 
 
 Another incident in the domestic life of man- 
 hood is often to be found in the boarding out of 
 the children by the parents on the grand-parents 
 or old relations. The following example of this 
 kind of thing came under my notice a little out- 
 side the boundary of our parish. 
 
 The scene was a neat roadside cottage, where 
 an old woman was sitting in the sun knitting, 
 while a bouncing little girl was playing beside 
 her. The conversation somewhat naturally got 
 round to the parish and its hardships. This is to 
 a large class as favourite a topic as that of the
 
 MANHOOD. 12 1 
 
 shortcomings and delinquencies of domestic ser- 
 vants is to many people in another sphere of life. 
 
 " Well, they never come here with parish relief 
 unless they can't help it, I can tell ye. We have 
 to go after them if we want it. Me and my old 
 man has only lately got some allowance, but he 
 is turned of 70. I wish we had bought this cot- 
 tage, for what we have paid in rent we could, 
 and they tell me there is a way of doing it as 
 some folks do. We have lived in it four-and- 
 forty year. We used to pay two guineas a year 
 when it belonged to old Mr. Easygo ; but it was 
 sold, and we along with it, and the new master 
 makes us pay three guineas and a half, though 
 sure he did add a room and make the wash- 
 house bigger. We have to pay our rent regular, 
 as we always have done, I can tell ye." 
 
 " That's a fine little girl you've got there ; a 
 grandchild, I suppose .'' "
 
 122 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 " Yes ; we've always got one, and we keep 
 them till they run well, and then they go with 
 their mother. Her husband is a captain ; rides 
 a horse, and passes here sometimes. All her 
 babies were born here, and they grow up strong, 
 and she pays us well for keeping them, so we 
 don't mind, and with that and the parish, and 
 what my old man earns, we get along." 
 
 *' How do you manage for fires in the winter .-"" 
 I asked. 
 
 " Well, coals have been so dear that we have 
 given up using them. I have bought that stack 
 of wood, and that'll last us the winter, though it 
 did cost me £2 \2s., and that's a good deal out 
 of one's pocket." 
 
 The couple were evidently well-to-do, with a 
 daughter also in comfortable circumstances, 
 though the exact dignity implied by the title 
 " Captain" it was difficult to make out; probably
 
 MANHOOD, 123 
 
 he was a sergeant in a horse regiment. The old 
 people were drawing on the parish, though to do 
 so they must have made out, one would suppose, 
 a bad case, and must have told a very different 
 story to the relieving officer to that which the 
 woman had just told me. 
 
 Manhood is the middle stage of life, and as it 
 glides into the maturer period of prime, so does 
 the character and habit previously pliable, be- 
 come gradually rigid and almost unchangeably 
 bent in one or other direction. In some few 
 cases it holds its head towards an old age of 
 independence and happiness, but in the majority 
 of cases the previous training of infancy, child- 
 hood, and youth, which we have tried to sketch, 
 brings forth the natural fruit. The parish, with 
 all her attendants of cunning and deceit, all the 
 pinching of a paltry pittance, all the unhappiness 
 of ungrateful children, stands out as the onlj-
 
 124 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 prospect in the coming future, a future the Hnes 
 of which become sharper and harder as they are 
 approached, and from which there is no escape 
 until the day when a hopeful and merciful end 
 ushers in the dawn of a brighter existence. 
 
 Again we ask whose fault is this .-' Is it the 
 pauper's .-' Is it the parish .-' Is it the clergy ? 
 Is it the minister ? Is it the public ? Must 
 we not say that all have a share ? If the least 
 to blame might cast the first stone, who would 
 have the privilege .-* The paupers .''
 
 CHAPTER VI . 
 
 PRIME. 
 
 ' I ''HE die is cast. The growth to maturity is 
 completed, and according as he has been 
 trained so must the man remain until the end. 
 If straight and erect, then he holds his head high 
 above the influences of his earlier life, is removed 
 from the atmosphere of his first existence, and 
 passes from our notice, as he ceases to belong in 
 any way to the parish, and the chances are a 
 thousand to one if ever his former foster parent 
 has again anything more to do with him. He 
 no longer comes within our scope, and we must 
 descend to the more familiar object, the hard 
 working family pulling along merrily, it may be,
 
 126 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 while health and strength continue, but nearing 
 old age, with the idea dawning more and more 
 upon them, that there will soon be nothing 
 between them and a dependence on their old 
 acquaintance, the parish, with all her unattractive 
 belongings. 
 
 The foster parent, however, is considerate for 
 those of her children who have been true to her, 
 and takes care that they shall not be reminded 
 too suddenly of their coming lot. It may be 
 that health and strength have estranged them 
 from her for some time, but as the family 
 increases she reminds them of her existence. 
 Considerately, and in a friendly and attractive 
 way, she offers them a doctor and nurse when 
 their fifth baby appears. If there should be any 
 objections or foolish sensitiveness about coming 
 to her for aid, she thus breaks the ice. Sick- 
 ness, and that too in the wife with a young baby
 
 PRIME. 127 
 
 to boot, arc all circumstances which render it 
 only natural for anyone to take advantage of 
 the proffered kindness. The man's circumstances 
 are but indifferent, and he must deny his wife 
 comforts if he is proud. The family applies of 
 course, generally without much pressing, and 
 so its acquaintance with its old friend begins 
 again pleasantly, and is renewed as each 
 additional event of a similar nature comes 
 round. 
 
 The aid is so easily obtained, the man has 
 never let it be known that he has put by a 
 pound or two, even if he be such an exceptional 
 character as to have done so. Beyond it being 
 somewhat of a strain to his conscience when he 
 and his wife have to draw a long face to the 
 relieving officer in applying for the aid, it is 
 obtained without any trouble. Why, then, 
 should he not take it ? He works hard, and is
 
 128 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 not over well paid. What is the parish for .'' 
 That lazy fellow Jones has had relief for years, 
 so why not he ? The scruples, even of those few 
 who feel them at all, are soon got over, and the 
 foster parent has thus skilfully begun to draw 
 the man and his family to herself. Of course 
 those who have had a good deal of illness 
 during the preceding period of their lives are 
 but too familiar already with the parish, and feel 
 only too glad to have so reasonable an excuse 
 for applying to her once more. 
 
 As the prime age of life passes on, perhaps 
 even the strongest begin to feel indications of 
 decline. The man is somewhat less up to his 
 work than he was. Why not see the doctor, a 
 fri-end suggests ? Why not .'* The best thing 
 he can do, no doubt. He does so. The parish 
 doctor is naturally the person he appHes to, and 
 this official recommends him something, and
 
 PRIME, 139 
 
 gives him an order on the parish for it, as a 
 matter of course. 
 
 One day a good example of this came under 
 my notice. A woman from our village applied 
 to the relieving officer for an order for some cod- 
 liver oil. It was for her husband, who was not 
 strong, though in full work, and she brought the 
 doctor's recommendation for it. The relieving 
 officer explained to me that the guardians 
 allowed aid of this kind, as they felt that it 
 was better to keep up the people in health 
 than to run the risk of their breaking down 
 earlier, and so falling on the parish before 
 their time. In the case I refer to, he asked the 
 woman what her husband was earning. She 
 looked confused and awkward, just as if he had 
 accused her of something wrong, and then said 
 she did not know. " Come, now, that won't 
 do," he replied. " Do \ ou mean to say you 
 
 K
 
 130 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 don't know what he brought you home last 
 Saturday ?" 
 
 After some hesitation, as if she had been 
 confessing a crime, she stated that she had had 
 fourteen shilHngs, which of course she knew 
 all the time, though whether that was really 
 the whole truth or not it was impossible to say. 
 
 Why did she try and conceal it ? Was there 
 anything disgraceful in it .'' Surely not. As a 
 matter of fact it did not affect her chance of 
 the order for the grant, but the system of relief 
 had taught her that deceit as to earnings to 
 the relieving officer was the necessary thing. 
 
 Would this demoralisation be possible with 
 a medical club, such as is described in my 
 first chapter ? The man would then have 
 claimed his cod-liver oil freely and independ- 
 ently ; it would have been his right, whatever 
 his earnings ; he would have paid for it from
 
 PRIME. 131 
 
 having been a member of the ckib, and there 
 would have been no deceit, for it would have 
 been useless and unnecessary. 
 
 It is refreshing to turn to a good case in the 
 prime of life, of real independence and industry 
 not spoiled as yet, even with the influence of 
 this omnipresent spectre the parish. The family 
 I refer to I met in our village, and it is certainly 
 a specimen of hard work and care. The hus- 
 band is a farm labourer, earning throughout the 
 year, when at his regular work, about 14s. or 
 1 5 J. The wife helps matters somewhat at her 
 spare intervals by hawking a few small articles, 
 such as needlework, baskets, &c., whenever she 
 can manage it, for she has had seven children. 
 They have never had anything to do with the 
 parish, though she owns that sometimes, when 
 her husband has been ill, she has found it hard 
 to pull along ; nevertheless, with hearty good- 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE SEVEN AGES OK A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 feeling she is thankful to say that "she has 
 never troubled no one." In harvest she and her 
 husband generally take about 20 acres to reap, 
 and that brings them in some £iS, for they 
 usually get 15^. an acre for this work. Then 
 the whole family go hopping for five or six 
 weeks, according to the season, and at this the 
 nine of them make from 10s. to I4J-. a-day. 
 This enables them to have something in hand, 
 with which to get through the winter and to pay 
 their rent. They also pick up a little by glean- 
 ing, and except in a very bad year they rarely 
 get less than three to four bushels of wheat. 
 Very few people care to glean now in our part, 
 the woman informed me, but she found it all 
 helped, and the children could do it without its 
 interfering with anything else. It is indeed a 
 fact that many fields are not gleaned at all, and 
 thousands of bushels of wheat are thus wasted.
 
 PRIME. 13; 
 
 in spite of the " poverty " of the villages and 
 the " impossibility of saving ! " 
 
 My friend told me that their rent was 4s. a- 
 week, which they paid regularly every Monday 
 morning. When pressed about it, she acknow- 
 ledged that they were better to do than most 
 of their neighbours, " though it's true that they 
 could do the same if they had a mind ; but 
 that's just the point, sir, they haven't the mind 
 to help themselves." 
 
 " Do you find that you get the most consi- 
 deration when you are in trouble and sickness, 
 or anything of that sort ?" 
 
 " No, indeed, sir, that's just it ; if a person's 
 careful and gets things a bit decent, and is 
 steady and all that, you know, sir, and he gets 
 ill or anything, why then they comes and says, 
 ' Oh, Jones can't want help ; he's much too 
 respectable. All his place is quite tid}- ; lie
 
 134 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 ought to be ashamed of himself for asking.' If 
 a person's always drunk, and lives in a dirty 
 room with a few broken chairs, why then they 
 say it's a very sad case, and we can't let him 
 starve. I've seen lots like that, sir." 
 
 This energetic woman, however, took it almost 
 for granted that she would end her days " on the 
 parish," though she did not seem quite to like 
 the idea. She told me frankly that she did not 
 know a single old person who had not some 
 relief, and she supposed when she and her hus- 
 band could not work any longer that they would 
 have the same. 
 
 " Don't you think, now, that you could manage 
 to put something by so as to be independent 
 when you are old .''" I asked. 
 
 "Lor' bless you, sir, what could we do ; why 
 all we get isn't much." 
 
 "Do you think, now, that you could manage
 
 PRIME. 135 
 
 to Spare a few pence every Saturday night, if 
 someone whom you knew was all right, came 
 and took it from you and it was safe ?" 
 
 " Well, certainly, sir, I have no doubt we 
 could do that if we tried ; anyhow, most times 
 sixpence. It would be only like a little more 
 rent. Sometimes, I daresay, we might manage 
 more ; but what would be the good of that ?" 
 
 " Why it would come to a good deal in time. 
 In 30 years, 6d. a-week would come to some- 
 thing like ;^50." 
 
 " Would it really, sir } Well, I never thought, 
 it could do that ; and certainly if we could put 
 something by every week, and knew where to put 
 it, we could easily manage at least sixpence." 
 
 " What ! in spite of the seven children V 
 
 " Yes, sir, I have no doubt but what we coulc] 
 most times, if we really had a mind to." 
 
 We may now turn to the other side of die
 
 136 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 prime of life, and take a much more familiar 
 case, which, indeed, bears out the statement of 
 my last informant, that the least deserving 
 always get the most assistance. I obtained this 
 example from my old friend the sexton, and I 
 cannot do better than tell it in his own words. 
 
 " A few weeks ago, when Mr. Washey was 
 curate, just afore the new one come, you know, 
 Mr. W. comes to me, and says, — 
 
 " ' I hear that those Smithsons are in a dread- 
 ful state, starving, and the children crying for 
 bread,' 
 
 " ' That's like to be true enough,' says I, 
 ' though he's a sawyer, and earns regular 30^-. a 
 week, and most times 35^-.' 
 
 " ' Even if that's true,* says the parson. 
 
 " ' You may take my word for it,' says I, rather 
 sharp. 
 
 " ' Well, John, I say if such is the case,' he goes
 
 PRIME. 137 
 
 on, ' I can't have them starve, will you take an 
 order for bread to them if I fill it up here.' 
 
 " 'Of course,' I says, ' with the greatest of plea- 
 sure ; and he fills it up there and then, and 
 afore twenty minutes I had got to them. Well, 
 they was regular starving ; the woman she sends 
 one of her girls to the shop, which you know is 
 close by, and in a few minutes she comes back 
 with her apron full of pieces of bread — and you 
 never see such a thing. They all set to on the 
 floor, like so many pigs, or like that 'ere dog of 
 yourn ' { which happened to be lying down 
 before us with a bone), ' and set to. But lor', 
 sir, that's no good, they are just the sam6, I lay 
 any odds, now at this very minute. On Satur- 
 day and Sunday they have a regular go in. 
 The woman's got no management ; they are a 
 shiftless lot, and a pound is soon gone in the 
 way they set to on a Sunday. I've seen 'em
 
 138 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 myself, so there is no mistake about it. The 
 thing is, sir, that the thriftless lot, such as them, 
 gets the most help. They won't do nothing for 
 many as now really wants a lift, though it might 
 be the making of 'em ; but them as deserves 
 nothing gets looked after, like them Smithsons, 
 though it ain't of no real good to them.' " 
 
 Let me take another example of the prime of 
 life and its enjoyments, not belonging to our 
 village, it is true, though a specimen of some 
 I fear who do. The conversation here given is 
 almost word for word that which took place, and 
 was written down by me within a few hours of 
 hearing it. The man was a well-to-do mechanic, 
 though his face showed evident signs of his 
 habitual enjoyments. He was fairly dressed, 
 and by no means ignorant. His end — though he 
 now earns at least three pounds a week — must, 
 without fail, if he live long enough, be the parish.
 
 PRIME. 139 
 
 " Well, I don't smoke very much, leastways, 
 except on Sundays ; then I like to have a 
 
 regular go in, and I generally get through two 
 ounces." 
 
 " Do you feel all right afterwards ? It would 
 upset me altogether." 
 
 " No ; my throat's dry and uncomfortable, 
 though I always go in for somicthing to drink at 
 the same time." 
 
 " That's a queer sort of enjoyment. I never 
 care to smoke above just a little after dinner ; 
 but if it made me uncomfortable, I would not 
 smoke at all. The game, as they say, would not 
 be worth the candle." 
 
 "Then you're not an anti-tobacconist, nor a 
 teetotaller either, perhaps, sir ? " 
 
 " No, I am not ; I find I require a little beer." 
 
 " I was a teetotaller once, but only for three 
 days. Couldn't stand it longer."
 
 I40 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 " But what you spend on tobacco would be a 
 fortune to you, to say nothing of the beer." 
 
 " I daresay I might have more money, if 1 
 gave it up ; but when work's slack and one feels 
 low, there's no mistake about it, a good drink 
 pulls you up." 
 
 " It does not improve your pocket anyhow." 
 " I don't know about that. I've got more 
 power over myself than some, you know ; they 
 nev^er get me into the gutter. When I've had 
 too much, I go home, and straight to bed. I 
 knew a man, a fellow-workman of mine, who 
 had ^2000 left him. Well, do you know, sir, he 
 was on the drink for sixteen weeks." 
 
 " What ! never sober for sixteen weeks .'' " 
 " No ; he went in regular for it for sixteen 
 weeks. He soon got through his money, not all 
 himself, at least, for others helped him ; but 
 somehow or other it soon went."
 
 PRIME. 141 
 
 " But what is the fascination of drinking till 
 one is insensible far worse than an animal ? 
 That's what I can't make out." 
 
 " There's no doubt about it, sir ; anyhow of an 
 evening, what's one to do .'' I'm a single man, 
 thank goodness. If I wasn't to drink, I should 
 be miserable, and dull, and that like, so I say 
 it's a real good thing, and keeps me longer out 
 of the grave." 
 
 " Can't you read and amuse yourself in the 
 evening in some such way.-"" 
 
 " Read, sir .-• I read the papers, the Sporting 
 News and the Police News, but I've got no 
 books, and I should have to walk miles to a 
 library. Catch me doing that. No ! We've 
 only got a certain time to live, and I think we 
 ought to enjoy ourselves, or else beer, drinks, 
 and tobacco would not be given to us." 
 
 Such was the conclusion of his philosophy ;
 
 142 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 an evident confusion of truth and error, the 
 remains of better teaching, on which a shallow 
 and low sophistry had been grafted. This is 
 a specimen of a fair, average example of a 
 section of the community. Is it a large or 
 a small section ? Certain it is that all the 
 members of it will, sooner or later, accord- 
 ing to whether sickness or old age disables 
 them first, as sure as fate, swell the pauper 
 roll. 
 
 Such is the prime of life with thousands and 
 tens of thousands of us ! The good, the bad, and 
 the indifferent are drifting alike in one direction, 
 and all having but one prospect in the future — 
 the parish. The sound of such words as the 
 " Prime of Life " mocks on the ear, when we 
 really see what they too often mean, and that 
 the Prime of Life is but the first irretrievable 
 step on the road to miserable old age. While
 
 PRIME. 143 
 
 health and strength last, this spectre is out of 
 sight, but each ache and pain brings up the 
 phantom and calls to the mind of the unhappy- 
 man and his wife the wretchedness which is in 
 store for them. Once more, we ask, who is to 
 blame, and how is this to be improved .'' Will 
 social changes alter it ? Is it the tyranny of capi- 
 tal which is in fault .-* Is it to be cured by legis- 
 lation .-• Legislation, no doubt, can do much. A 
 revised Poor Law to encourage thrift instead of 
 inculcating thriftlessness must commence the 
 change ; but the change itself must be wrought 
 by the people collectively and individually. 
 The facilities for improvement may be in- 
 creased ; encouragements for well-being and 
 well-doing may be held out by a wise legisla- 
 tion ; the tools, in fact, may be selected of the 
 best possible nature, and of the most suitable 
 description for the work in hand ; but the
 
 144 1"HE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER, 
 
 taking advantage of these improvements and 
 encouragements, and the absolute using of the 
 tools to produce the desired and necessarj' 
 results, must be left to the people themselves. 
 Each town and village, each family and indivi- 
 dual, must make the effort. 
 
 When legislation has made the necessary 
 
 changes, then, by guidance, instruction, and edu- 
 cation, we may hope to see the Prime of Life a 
 
 step to an independent and happy old age. No 
 doubt, even under these conditions, there will be 
 instances of persons, who will remain as they 
 are at present, unimproved and miserable, for 
 human nature will not be rendered universally 
 perfect by any legislative changes, but these 
 we may fairly hope will then be the excep- 
 tion, and not the almost universal rule. Until, 
 however, these changes take place we all, as a 
 community, must in our apathy acknowledge
 
 PRIME. 14: 
 
 that the blame and the disgrace must rest upon 
 ourselves. Let us beware lest the consequences, 
 be they what they may, do not likewise fall 
 upon us and one day astonish us.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 DECLINE. 
 
 'T'^HE autumn tints and the lovely shades 
 which light up the last few hours of a 
 bright October evening, how beautiful and how 
 refreshing they are after a glorious and brilliant 
 day, but how dull and chilly they strike, when 
 the sun cannot shine, and when all in con- 
 sequence is wrapped in the mist and rawness 
 of the shadows of the coming winter. 
 
 The decline of man should be the glorious 
 sunset of a well-spent life. Respect and rever- 
 ence should now exist in very earnest. Experi- 
 ence has done almost all she can, and the grey 
 head, still mentally full of vigour, is only limited
 
 DECLINE. 147 
 
 in action by bodily weakness which is creeping 
 on. What finer prospect can there be than the 
 decline of a well-spent life, in whatever station, 
 whether it be the deep-thinking man of letters, 
 or the hard-working son of toil and labour, who 
 by his own exertions looks forward with con- 
 fidence to the repose and comfort of his remain- 
 ing years, be they few or many. Riches are not 
 necessary for this, for wealth may add a weight, 
 even if it be a gilded one, to the enfeebled 
 strength. One thing, however, is necessary, one 
 thing is essential, the want of which will mar 
 the bright prospect altogether, and, like the 
 absence of the sun, will change the glorious 
 autumnal tints into the dark, sombre, and chilly 
 mists of winter. This one thing is independence 
 and manly self-respect. This is one essential to 
 a bright old age ; this is necessary to convert 
 the patient and sad hoping for the end, too 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 often embittered with the painful feeHng that 
 others also look forward with relief to the last 
 event, into a happy period of rest from the weary 
 labour of life. 
 
 What is the prospect of tens and hundreds of 
 thousands of our people ? Is it the bright days 
 we have referred to ? Is it the pleasant assem- 
 bling round them of their children ? Is it the 
 ease and comfort of repose ? Indeed no. It is 
 none of these. It is work, as hard and as long 
 as the frame will allow, a hand to mouth exist- 
 ence during health to be eked out, whenever 
 sickness comes or decay enfeebles, as far as it can 
 be managed by a begging for the parish dole. 
 
 Take the case of a washerwoman in our 
 village, hard-working and sober, though years 
 began to tell considerably on her face and figure. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. Brown, what do you know about 
 the parish ? "
 
 DECLINE. 149 
 
 " Not much yet, sir, I am thankful to say ; I 
 have had it a Httle once or twice, and several 
 times when I had a baby they allowed me the 
 doctor, but beside that I've not had anything 
 from them." 
 
 " How many children have you had ?" 
 
 "Fourteen, sir, and eleven are living, and I am 
 thankful to say they are all doing fairly." 
 
 " You must have found it a hard matter to 
 eet on with all those .'' " 
 
 " Well, yes, sir, we have at times. We have 
 lived on lOi". a week with nothing else at all. 
 It's not much, it's true, but we have done it, 
 though only for a short time. Now I have only 
 one child left and we are pretty comfortable, as 
 my husband earns near 14-r. and I does a little 
 in washing." 
 
 " What do you expect to do when you arc 
 too old to work any more ? "
 
 150 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 "Well, we shall keep off as long as we can, 
 but I suppose some day we shall get put on to 
 the parish." 
 
 " That's a poor look out, isn't it ? Do you 
 know of any old person in the parish who gets 
 on without the relief ? " 
 
 "No, sir, I don't; we would rather not have to 
 take it, but what are we to do .-* " 
 
 " I fear that for you it is rather late to begin, 
 but if young persons would only think a little 
 and put by a few pence each week, the parish 
 relief might soon be done away with. Do many 
 Sfo into the union house from here ?" 
 
 " No, not many : they don't like it, and keep 
 out as long as they can." 
 
 " Do you think the most deserving get most 
 assistance ? " 
 
 " No, sir, I'm sure they don't. I've seen it 
 often times, though I am thankful to say it is
 
 DECLINE. 151 
 
 not the case with my husband, for he is a very 
 sober man ; but there's no doubt about it, that 
 the fellows who do least, and drink most, get 
 most from the parish, and from anything else 
 that's given away. My husband, though he has 
 been so steady all his life, would never come in 
 for anything from the clergyman. Mr. Vicar 
 would say, ' Why you, John, you ought to be 
 above it,' though, as I tell you, sir, at times, with 
 all our children we have had a push for it." 
 
 " But as you get older do you mean to say 
 that you have no idea beyond the parish half- 
 a-crown apiece .-' " 
 
 " It does trouble me sometimes, it's true ; but 
 it's no good thinking about it, perhaps we shan't 
 live long enough." 
 
 " Won't your children help you .-• they are 
 doing well." 
 
 "They can't, sir, they've all got families
 
 152 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 pretty well, and those who haven't are a long 
 way off. They may do something now and 
 then, but they wouldn't keep us, just to save the 
 parish — why should they ? " 
 
 Why indeed ! The parish has for generations 
 been busy teaching this lesson, and she may be 
 proud of her success. Let me refer to my old 
 friend the sexton again, on this point. He is a 
 man who has reached the decline of life and has 
 had a large family. 
 
 " The children, as a rule, sir, thinks nothing 
 about keeping their parents, and don't care if 
 they do see them getting parish money. When 
 there's two or three doing fair, they ought to be 
 ashamed to let their parents get the money; 
 but lor', sir, it's little the likes of them care, 
 though I don't say but there is exceptions — and 
 '■^ood ones too, but we don't come across them 
 too often."
 
 DECLINE. 153 
 
 " How about your children, how many had 
 you ? " 
 
 " My wife had seven girls right off, so I had as 
 much on my hands as most : after that she had 
 five sons. They are most on 'em doing well. For 
 myself I have been nearly all my life on piece- 
 work, thatching and such like, and not much to 
 trouble me now ; but the fact is that as soon as 
 my children had left off their mother's milk they 
 began with me. Never saw anything of 'em 
 perhaps for months, but whenever they wanted 
 anything sure enough they'd come to me. 1 
 don't know how it 'ud be, if I wanted them to 
 help me, which I'm glad to say I don't. 
 There's only me now, for I'm all alone : my 
 wife is dead and the children are all different 
 ways in the world." 
 
 Inexcusable as such children's conduct is, and 
 unnatural as it is, in spite of all their training,
 
 154 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 yet we must acknowledge that the parish 
 system is largely at the bottom of it. They are 
 all taught, both parents and children, to look to 
 the parish in declining years, and they are fully 
 aware that by showing independence or letting 
 it be known that they have received open help 
 from anyone they will run a risk of losing the 
 parish money. The children make the most of 
 this. 
 
 If they have consciences, and a feeling that 
 they should do something, they are not en- 
 couraged to come forward boldly and provide 
 for their parents, but beyond the gift of an 
 occasional shilling or some food, they do little 
 or nothing. Declining years are thus em- 
 bittered, and the ingratitude of children may 
 be added in no small degree to the sins and 
 offences of the parish system. 
 
 Take another of the practices incident to
 
 DECLINE. 155 
 
 declining years, namely riding the parish, which 
 the out-door relief system directly encourages, 
 and then virtuously tries to fight against. It 
 endeavours to destroy the briars and thistles, by 
 cutting down a few of the mature plants, after it 
 has sown the seed of the troublesome weeds 
 broadcast all over the country. This riding the 
 parish is one of the many difficulties which a 
 relieving officer has to contend with. The lazy 
 fellows, particularly as they get on in years and 
 their appearance assists them, try to ride the 
 parish, as they call it, that is, to get an allowance 
 for being unable to do much, when they really 
 are hale and strong. A good case of this 
 occurred in our village a few years back. A 
 man in dechning years had been regularly on 
 the books for a long period, but the relieving 
 officer, from several circumstances which came 
 to his knowledge, became convinced that the
 
 156 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 man could work, if he liked, though he would 
 not do so and pretended that he could only just 
 manage to walk each week to the office for his 
 relief. At last, the relieving officer told him 
 plainly at the beginning of one winter, that, if 
 he continued to tiy and ride the parish as he 
 had done the year before, he should ride a rough 
 saddle. 
 
 The man of course was very angry and 
 abusive, but the next week the officer armed 
 himself with an order for the Avorkhouse, and on 
 the man presenting himself for relief, he handed 
 this to him. It was almost like a thunder- 
 clap to the unfortunate man. He became 
 furious, declared he would do for the officer, and 
 his threats might have alarmed many an 
 ordinary man. He was, however, obliged to go 
 to the house, or at any rate he did go for a fort- 
 night, but from that day to this (and years have
 
 DECLINE. 157 
 
 passed since) he has been at work, and has never 
 asked the parish for a shilhng. 
 
 An easy-going reheving officer, or one who 
 did not care to take out-of-the-way trouble in 
 this way — for which, by-the-bye, he runs a risk of 
 getting abused, not only by the paupers but by 
 the guardians, if the man can induce some one 
 to take up his cause without going thoroughly 
 into it, as so many persons do — may do immense 
 mischief by quietly overlooking such cases. 
 Indeed even with the greatest care and atten- 
 tion it is not easy to detect, or to prevent, such 
 examples of fraud. 
 
 Another phase of this evil is the continuance 
 of relief in kind long after a person has got well 
 from an illness, which has been provided for by 
 the parish. One of the members of the Board of 
 Guardians of our village informed me of a case 
 of this sort, which had come to his knowledge.
 
 158 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 ' A man who had been ill, but who had suffi- 
 ciently recovered to be able to earn full wages, he 
 discovered to be, nevertheless, in the receipt of 
 several pounds of meat a week, for weeks after 
 he had returned to his occupation. The doctor, 
 it is true, had ordered it, but the guardian 
 seemed to think it passing strange, and the aid 
 was evidently becoming a regular supplement to 
 the man's earnings. He must have obtained it 
 by the simple process of the putting on of a 
 miserable and doleful face, whenever the doctor 
 paid his visit, or came across him. His acknow- 
 ledged recovery was likely to be a thing in the 
 distant future, so long as the least appearance of 
 illness would secure so welcome an addition 
 to his daily repast. 
 
 The decline is and must be in keeping with 
 the previous periods of life. If the parish in- 
 fluences throughout childhood, manhood, and
 
 DECLINE. 159 
 
 prime have not been lost, the decline must be 
 the sequel to what has gone before. The sun 
 oftentimes sets most brilliantly after a cloudy 
 day, but not so the sunset of the parish pauper. 
 Nature is far kinder than man, and as the 
 village pauper enters the last stage of his exist- 
 ence here below, the gleams of sunshine are 
 indeed few and far between, and nothing is 
 before him but the shadow of the poor house or 
 the miserable pittance of out-door relief — useless 
 to him from its being insufficient to keep body 
 and soul together, unless he can slyly get some 
 little outside help besides. 
 
 What a prospect ! but who is to blame ? Shall 
 we rush in at this juncture and give money to 
 these unhappy people ? Shall we rail against 
 their former employers for not keeping them ? 
 Shall we dilate on the tyranny of Capital over 
 Labour .-* We may do what we please, but all
 
 l6o THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 or any one of these efforts will be of little use. 
 Money and charity may relieve individual cases, 
 but most probably with all our care only the 
 least deserving will be thus benefited. The 
 employer Avill easily show us what a little way 
 even all his profits would go to provide comfort 
 to all he has employed, and the bug-bear Capital 
 would readily convince any one of impartial 
 mind, that but for it the very pittance which is 
 now obtained would be impossible, and that were 
 she superseded, as some seem to think essential 
 to the happiness of the world, starvation alone 
 would be the end of our village pauper. 
 
 Who, then, is to blame, if all these are not .-* 
 Is it hard to say that, without the efforts of the 
 sufferers themselves, there can be no help for 
 this state of things .? Not that those who are 
 actually suffering at this moment can do any- 
 thing — not that those who have fallen into this
 
 DECLINE. l6l 
 
 state can do anything ; but those who are on the 
 road to it might and must make the effort, if a 
 better result is to be obtained. No one on the 
 banks of a mountain stream can stop a boat 
 from dashing over a waterfall, as it nears the 
 fatal spot. No one on the banks can save it, 
 even for miles up the stream, if the crew persist 
 in pulling along without taking any heed of 
 the certain end. Ropes may be thrown to it, 
 poles may be stretched out within reach of those 
 on board, but if every effort from outside be 
 made, it will be useless unless the men them- 
 selv^es lay hold and make an effort. The tide 
 runs strong, and each moment stronger, and 
 exertion must not only overcome this, but must 
 do more if safety is to be obtained. The higher 
 up the river this effort for safety is made, the 
 easier it will be, but every moment's dela}' 
 increases the danger in a geometric ratio. 
 
 M
 
 1 62 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 Granting all this ; who is to blame ? Do we 
 throw out the ropes, as we might ? do we from 
 ■the safe bank, make every effort to save the 
 boat ? do we do what we might to point out to 
 the crew a safer stream, which ends in a calm 
 and pleasant lake, though the way to it be 
 somewhat against the tide at first ? Do we do 
 all this, or do we not rather, with the en- 
 couragement which we give to improvidence 
 and destitution by our Poor Law system and 
 our so-called charity, push the boat on its fatal 
 track along the swift tide of self gratification 
 and present indulgence ? Who then is to 
 blame ?
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DECAY. 
 
 •npHE waiting for the end. The toddling old 
 man, the bent down old woman, dragging 
 on an existence as best they can, whose chief 
 break in the dull routine of their days is the 
 weekly visit of the relieving officer, carrying the 
 pittance in his train. Unable to work, a burden 
 to themselves, a burden to their families, a 
 burden to the parish, a burden to everybody, 
 their end can only be hailed with a sense of 
 rehef and pity by all who know them. They 
 have gone through the previous six stages of 
 life ; they have been disciples of that cruel 
 foster-parent the parish, and the same sad end 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 awaits them which they have seen befal nearly 
 all the survivors of their own childish days. 
 
 Let me take a few examples from our village. 
 The crop is heavy, and we need not go far to 
 find what we want. Any old person we meet 
 will do. That old man bowed down on his 
 stick, just passing through the churchyard gate, 
 what is his history } He is eighty-nine, and 
 is a perfect type of a village pauper. He has 
 been a weaver, and no doubt for many years 
 has made good wages, but he has had a family of 
 twelve children, whom he has brought up fairly 
 well. He is in the receipt of 2s. 6d. a week 
 parish allowance, a pint of beer a day, and some 
 meat. His sons seem to have disappeared, or 
 at any rate to have kept far enough off not 
 to be compelled to assist to keep him, but four 
 of his daughters live near. Two of them have 
 large families and say their hands are full,
 
 DECAY. 165 
 
 though the cost each week of but a few pints of 
 the family beer would give the old man many a 
 little thing which he would regard as a luxury ; 
 a third is not so well off, though she does the 
 most for her old father and gives him a tea 
 almost every day ; a fourth is very well to do 
 indeed, her husband keeps a public-house, and 
 might with ease, and with no privations to her- 
 self, support the old man in comfort. She and 
 her husband, however, refuse to do anything at 
 all, and the law cannot compel them. Why 
 should she, she should like to know .-* What 
 does she pay rates and taxes for, and what's the 
 parish for .'' He can pull along somehow, and 
 if he does not get enough, it's the parish's fault, 
 not hers. So long as they don't send him to the 
 house, neither she nor her husband care. They 
 would object to the house, for that would dis- 
 grace them, they think.
 
 l66 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 Apt and hopeful disciples of the parish 
 system, which not only renders such conduct 
 possible, but makes it so easy and so natural to 
 unnatural human nature ! 
 
 Let us trace the history of another case of 
 decay. This one is, indeed, far better than 
 the last, but a melancholy end for so good 
 and true a life. The old couple live in a 
 pretty little old-fashioned cottage, covered with 
 creepers. My wife and I had been led to take 
 an interest in them from Mrs. Stem being 
 laid up with what she called " the brumchitis." 
 One afternoon we both looked in to see how 
 she was, and to have a little chat with 
 her. Her husband has been a hard-working 
 labourer, but is now seventy-eight, and in 
 very failing health, which has been in a great 
 measure aggravated by a sunstroke which he 
 had a year ago, and the effects of which had
 
 DECAY 167 
 
 returned with the heat of the summer. Mrs. 
 Stem was a nice kindly old woman, bhnd in one 
 eye, very clean and tidy, who greeted you 
 heartily and most pleasantly, and accompanied 
 her salutation at the same time with a regular 
 old-fashioned curtsey. 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Stem, and how are you to-day.^ 
 You don't look very well." 
 
 " Thank you, marm " (with each sentence 
 came a little bow), " it's very kind of you, marm, 
 I'm sure ; I am better, marm, to-day, and the 
 doctors say I am getting on nicely, they do, 
 marm, only as my cough, you see, it do rack my 
 side it do, and you see this brumchitis it makes 
 one feel so werry weak it do ; I am sure I give 
 you and the gentleman many thanks for what 
 you've sent me." 
 
 " Ah, I'm afraid you have had a trying time 
 of it ; you look very pulled down."
 
 1 68 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 " Well, yes, marm, I have had, to be sure. I 
 thought once I should not get the use of my 
 left leg again, but the doctors say, all I wants 
 now is to get strength, though my years are 
 again me, you see, marm, and I was a-bed, 
 yes I was indeed, marm, for ten days, and have 
 only just got about this last week, come next 
 Thursday, but I am so thankful to think the 
 Lord has spared me and made me well enough 
 to wait upon my husband, for he took on so 
 when I was a-bed." 
 
 " Isn't your husband well, then } " 
 " Dear, no, marm, his head is so bad ; he was 
 ill all last year with a sunstroke, and we all 
 thought he'd never get over it, but he is spared 
 to me still, thank God. He is such a good 
 husband, so steady, and that's a great thing, 
 isn't it, marm .?— never goes to bed without 
 kneelin down here and sayin his prayers— he's
 
 DECAY. 169 
 
 always been the same, and so hard-working^, 
 he's so fond of work that although he's not 
 fit for it, still if he feels a little better, he 
 will go, if it's only to puddle through a 
 little." 
 
 " How do you and he get on, then ? Can he 
 earn much ? " 
 
 " Well, not much. You see, marm, he gets a 
 little by working when he can for Mr. Square, 
 where he has been these ten years, but, you see, 
 it's a long way oft", so he nigh gets tired afore 
 he gets to his work. Just now, Mr. Square, you 
 see, has lent him to the rector, who wanted some 
 little job done, and so they giv' it to my old man 
 a^ it's nigher for him, and he can get home to 
 his dinner, you see, marm. He used to work 
 for Mr. Pool twenty years up to the time of his 
 death, and a good master he were to him, marm, 
 as every one will say. To-day he's just puddled
 
 1 7° THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 over to his work — that work he's doing for the 
 rector." 
 
 " Oh, is that he cHpping the hedge ? " 
 
 " That's he, sir." 
 
 " He's deaf, isn't he ? I have spoken to him, 
 but found we couldn't get on." 
 
 "Yes, he is very deaf, he can't hear not no 
 one — but still that don't interfere with his work, 
 and they keep him on as long as he can do 
 anything. He likes to get about, as I said, and it 
 employs his mind — don't it ? He gets a shilling 
 a day when he's there, and when he was ill, the 
 parish used to allow us Ss. a week. Now he's 
 at work again we only gets 3^." 
 
 "But you don't live on that only, do 
 you f 
 
 " No, marm ; the rector, you see, sends us a 
 good many things ; he is very kind, and a good 
 many others, too ; then the parish gives us a
 
 DECAY. 171 
 
 piece of meat a week you see as well, and then 
 I do a little work, and so we manage. My 
 father he was a large farmer, but he married 
 again and I went out to service, till my aunt, 
 she was a very old lady, wanted some one to 
 take care of her, and so I went and lived along 
 with her, and there I picked up my old man. 
 We had a little money once, but we 'pren- 
 ticed our sons to good trades, and I am werry 
 thankful we did, for they are werry steady, and 
 it don't seem lost, you see, marm. One was a 
 coachbuilder and was doing werry well, but he 
 died and left a wife and fiv^e children. The 
 other two they are carpenters, and have been 
 many years in their sitiwations, and sometimes 
 they send me a shilling, but you see they've got 
 families, both on 'em, and can't spare much, and 
 they are werry kind and I don't complain, marm." 
 "When you were upstairs ill, and I called,
 
 172 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER, 
 
 you had a nurse, hadn't you — Mrs. Gamp, wasn't 
 it ? How did you Hke her ? " 
 
 " She was werry kind, and was here a fort- 
 night. The parish, you know, marm, paid her 
 her half-crown a week, and as my old man was 
 ill too, I don't know how we should have got on 
 without her, though that's the first time I've 
 troubled them that way." 
 
 " How does the parish pay you your 3^-. ? Do 
 they send it every week .-' " 
 
 " Well, no, marm, it's only paper, we don't 
 get the money, and for that matter it's the same 
 as the meat. I go to the shop and order 3^-. 
 worth of things, just as I get the beef from the 
 butcher for the beef-tea. It's all paid by order, 
 you see, marm." 
 
 " Do you think the parish treats you well ? " 
 
 " Yes, marm ; I've no cause to complain at 
 all, if we can onl}- pull along and I can get up
 
 DECAY. 173 
 
 my strength ; but wc neither of us is so young as 
 we used to be, for I'm turned seventy-five and 
 my old man is seventy-eight." 
 
 "Well, good bye, wc shall see you again some 
 day soon, no doubt." 
 
 " Good bye, marm, and I'm sure I 'turn you and 
 the gentleman many thanks for your kindness." 
 
 The old woman will never get up her strength 
 again, I fear ; and although the money spent in 
 apprenticing and bringing up the children well 
 may have been a good investment for the chil- 
 dren, I fear, with shame it must be owned, that 
 the poor old couple arc the worse off for having 
 done their duty. This couple I found, from 
 careful inquiries, to be, in every sense, most 
 worthy old people, and yet what an end to so 
 well-spent a life ! 
 
 Take another old man at random, just as we 
 meet him in the road. What is his history ?
 
 174 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 He is now seventy-seven and cannot do any- 
 thing but a little weeding, and that only now 
 and then. He and his wife have 6s. a week, and 
 it is as much as ever they can do to live. They 
 have four or five sons in America, all doing 
 well, but he finds that now they are away, they 
 don't think much of helping their old parents. 
 He is a most kindly old man, and does not 
 grumble in any way. He has another son who 
 is a gentleman's outdoor servant, but he has had 
 such a number of misfortunes, and the doctor so 
 often in his house, that he hardly knows how 
 to get on himself I asked him what he had 
 been, and he said that he used to do timber 
 work, felling, barking, and such like, and that 
 he had earned very fair wages. 
 
 "Could you, do you think, have put by 6d. 
 a-week for fifty years of your life, if you had had 
 a mind, and had thought of it ? " I said.
 
 DECAY. 175 
 
 "Well, ye see, sir," he replied, "we don't think 
 of those things when we are young, but now I 
 wish I had. That's what I tell the young chaps, 
 but they won't listen, though I think feome of 
 'em would, if they had a chance and some en- 
 couragement. Mr. Goodman, when he lived 
 here, had a penny bank of a Monday night, and 
 many of the people put in. My boy did for four 
 or five years ; and then, when Mr. Goodman 
 went away, all the money was divided out, as 
 no one else would go on with the bank." 
 
 " Most of them spent all they had saved, I 
 am afraid .•*" 
 
 " Well yes, sir ; but my boy didn't. He took 
 it all, and went straight off and paid his way 
 to America, where he is doing very well indeed 
 now. That Penny Bank made a man on him, 
 sir, for he never could ha' gone unless he had 
 saved up the money. Lots of young chaps
 
 176 THE SEVEN AGES OK A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 want to go away to America now, but they 
 can't get the money, and the parish has given 
 up paying it for them," 
 
 " If they can't save it up themselves, they are 
 not the sort to do much good, even if they went, 
 I fancy ? " 
 
 " Well, perhaps not, sir." 
 
 " You said, just now, that your son had had a 
 good deal of illness. Have you no doctor's club, 
 that is, a club into which you could pay so 
 much every month when you are Avell, and 
 then have a doctor as your right, without any- 
 thing more to pay, when you or your family are 
 ill?" 
 
 " No, sir, we haven't got nothing of that sort. 
 Most of the people get the parish doctor ; and 
 those who can't — and my son can't manage it — 
 has to pay, and it comes ve.ry hard, just when 
 they want a lot of extra things too ! "
 
 DECAY. I 7 7 
 
 " Do you think they would pay a penny 
 a-week all the year round, so that they might be 
 able to have a doctor, and pay nothing more if 
 they were ill ? " 
 
 " I don't know, I am sure, sir, how that would 
 be ; perhaps those might who don't get the 
 parish doctor." 
 
 Take another case, and it shall be the last. 
 That very old fellow in the clean smock frock. 
 He is the oldest man in our village. 
 
 " I be fourscore and ten, sir ; least-ways, I'm 
 rather past that. I can't do nothing at all now, 
 though last summer I did get about a little and 
 did some weeding ; but I can't now, my eyesight 
 is so bad. I've lived in the parish all my life." 
 
 " Then the parish, I suppose, is now your 
 friend.?" 
 
 " Well, sir, I gets 3.?.; but it's poor living when 
 I can't get nothing else."
 
 1 78 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER, 
 
 The old man is so well-dressed and looks so 
 hearty, that it is impossible that he can exist on 
 T,s. a-week. He has been too long on the 
 parish, however, not to make out as a matter of 
 course the worst he can. " I worked for twenty- 
 years for Captain Dasher, up yon hill, sir ; per- 
 haps you knowed him. He lies there now, 
 under that stone, side of that 'ere elm. He was 
 a good master, though he did swear dreadful. 
 He'd been a soldier, and he learned it then I 
 suppose. He wore a pigtail, for he had such a 
 respect for it, he used to say. He would tell 
 how it saved him from drowning once ; for he 
 fell into the water, and as he was sinking a 
 cabin-boy caught hold of his pigtail and pulled 
 him out ; so he always wore it out of respect 
 like for it." 
 
 " Where are all your children gone to ?" 
 
 " Well, some of 'em is dead, and some are in all
 
 DECAY. 179 
 
 parts like ; though I have never seen nor heard 
 from any of them for this many a year." 
 
 " I suppose you have got some friends who 
 help you ? " 
 
 " Not many, sir ; but I do sometimes get a 
 dinner, for the parish money isn't much, and we 
 can't live on it." 
 
 The same old stoiy ; the life of labour ending 
 in the parish dole, eked out with alms, and any 
 scraps which can be added to the store. Such 
 a lot to any one Avho had not been all his life 
 accustomed to a hand-to-mouth existence would 
 be unbearable ; but the parish has always pre- 
 pared her children, broken them in, in fact, to 
 this miserable state of existence. Thc\' drae 
 on, some will say in faith, and it is well indeed 
 for them that they have faith, for it must be 
 sorely tried from week to week, and from day 
 to day. 
 
 N 2
 
 l8o THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 We might multiply instances until we had ex- 
 hausted almost every old person in the parish, 
 for they are all alike, all in a similar state of 
 misery. All, or very nearly all, having been 
 reared in the same school, budding, blossoming 
 and ripening under the same influences, and 
 consequently bringing forth the same fruit. 
 How is all this ? Is it the natural condition of 
 people thus to end their days .'* If the labourer 
 is worthy of his hire, is not a well-spent, hard- 
 working life worthy of something better than 
 this wretched end.-" We read that "at eventide it 
 shall be light," but how often do we see it so ? 
 
 The puzzling questions come once more : 
 Who is to blame for all this ? Who can alter 
 it ? Who can make it better .-* Who can brighten 
 the last few years, and make the sunset on this 
 side the grave a little more suggestive of the 
 brilliant dawn which we all profess to believe
 
 DECAY. 1 8 I 
 
 awaits the well-spent life, beyond, when that last 
 portal is passed, and when poverty and the poor 
 law shall have worked their all ? Can nothing be 
 done ? Is there some law of nature which will 
 render all our efforts useless ? Indeed, no ! We 
 often, in our conceited ignorance, heap upon what 
 we call nature much of our own shortcoming. 
 This great evil can and must be remedied, and 
 we are the people who must do it. To boast of 
 our religion, our alms, our charitable institutions, 
 our riches, is a mockery, while matters remain 
 as they are. It is not money that is wanted. 
 The flinging away of surplus guineas, the drop- 
 ping of gold into the bag after a stirring sermon, 
 is not what is wanted. It is patient and real 
 charitable work and solid labour, and that in a 
 right direction, which alone can stop this gigantic 
 evil. People must be taught how to reform and 
 improve themselves, facilities for this must be
 
 1 82 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 put into their way, and they must be encouraged 
 themselves to make use of them. The often 
 apparently thankless task of trying to prevent 
 people falling is the real charity which is wanted, 
 far more at the present time than the giving of 
 aid to those who have fallen. The most de- 
 serving objects of charity are not necessarily the 
 persons in the lowest and poorest condition ; 
 but often those who are struggling to keep 
 themselves in an honourable and manly posi- 
 tion. A tottering column may be left to fall, 
 and the sensation thereby pfoduced may secure 
 the collection of ample money to rebuild it, 
 but we may try in vain to renovate the broken 
 fragments, or to renew the delicacy of the 
 sculpture which once adorned its sides. While 
 it stood, and when we might, by a great and 
 troublesome effort it may be, have shored it up, 
 gradually put new foundations, and rendered it
 
 DECAY. 183 
 
 again safe and able to stand the shock of ages, 
 we did not beheve it was dangerous, nor attend 
 to the warnings that the foundations were going. 
 A heedless man may walk over the edge of a 
 precipice, and, if he falls, there may be no lack 
 of hands to try to do what they can for him. 
 His case may become a sensational one. 
 Money may be collected and what not. All 
 however is useless, though some little child 
 might before he fell have led him into a safer 
 path. 
 
 This is what is necessary. We must use our 
 efforts to fence off this precipice of destitution 
 which the poor law now delights to leave 
 exposed ; we must divert the path, which the 
 poor law and indiscriminate alms have laid out 
 so enticingly, long before it gets near this fatal 
 spot. We must uproot all the present land- 
 marks which point to destitution and poverty
 
 184 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 as the only road to relief. We must put up 
 correct finger-posts at every turning, to lead 
 to independence and manly comfort and 
 happiness, and to facilitate the journey thither 
 in all the seven stages of life. We must get 
 a band of trusty persons, who well know the 
 roads, to stand at every corner and lead 
 travellers on the right way. We must, in fact, 
 use every power to prevent habits which lead to 
 destitution and misery, from being sown and 
 cultivated, instead of trying to cure the evils 
 after we have not only allowed them to grow 
 up, but have fostered them by our poor law 
 system, our unwise alms, and our own bad 
 
 examples. 
 
 * * 
 * 
 
 A few words more, and our seven ages are 
 complete. I hear the solemn tones of the village 
 bell ; I see the accustomed hearse and mourning
 
 DECAY. 185 
 
 carriage ; I see a number of persons in the well- 
 known hired drapery of an undertaker's store ; 
 I pass into the village churchyard, and my old 
 friend the sexton is there, clad in funeral garb, 
 officiating in the last sad office of his calling. 
 The service is soon ended, and I step closer to 
 the grave. " Mrs. Ann Wisden ; aged 89 years." 
 I read on the plate. A great age ! " Who was 
 she?" 
 
 " The widow of the man who kept ' the 
 Grapes,' over the hill, sir. He died forty years 
 ago, and lies buried here ; but I remember the 
 day as if it had been yesterday." 
 
 " She was well to do then, I suppose .''" 
 
 " The family is, sir, I should say ; but she 
 belonged to this parish." 
 
 " How do you mean .''" 
 
 " Well, it was our guardians who allowed her 
 her money."
 
 1 86 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 " Was she then in receipt of relief?" 
 " Yes, sir ; ever since the day of her husband's 
 death I fancy ; anyhow, as long as I can 
 remember, for I always took it to her." 
 " But this is not a parish funeral ?" 
 " Oh no, sir ; them's her children, they pay 
 for all this. They would not have her buried by 
 the parish for anything ; very few does that, if 
 they can anyways help it." 
 
 The village pauper lives and dies on the re- 
 lieving-officer's books, but thus far and no 
 farther. Even if the burial club fails, children 
 and brethren come forward voluntarily, if not 
 ungrudgingly, to perform this last act to their 
 departed father, mother, sister, brother, or friend, 
 and to snatch, so to speak, at the last moment 
 the remains from the parish grasp. Thank God 
 for this feeling. It sheds a ray of light over the 
 scene. It shows that in spite of what has been
 
 DECAY. 187 
 
 done to stifle and dry up all independent and 
 honourable sentiment, some true spark of a 
 better feeling remains ; and this is sufficient to 
 encourage us to think that there is even yet 
 something left on which to graft a wiser and a 
 better system. It points to the possibility even 
 of rendering the parish relief during life as 
 distasteful and as unnecessaiy, as the parish 
 burial is at death.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CON'CLUSIOX. 
 
 T HAVE thus attempted to trace our Hero's 
 life. Born by the parish, dandled on the 
 knees of a parish nurse, and educated by the 
 parish. Then comes a change, and he is un- 
 willingly estranged and made an independent 
 being-, during the robust health of manhood and 
 prime, although, all along encouragements are 
 held out to him by his fond foster-parent, to 
 return to her as to his true friend, whenever 
 sickness or misfortune can give a pretext, or the 
 slightest excuse. Then as decline and decay 
 creep on, the grey hairs secure for the second 
 childhood, and to the end of the chapter, a
 
 CONCLUSION. 189 
 
 permanent continuance of the comforts and 
 blessings of the parish pittance and the pauper's 
 dole! 
 
 Such is in short the life of our Hero, the 
 Village Pauper. Whether man or woman ; 
 whether indolent or industrious ; whether re- 
 spectable or dissolute, whatever be the previous 
 history of the past life, as the instances we have 
 seen have shown, the result is about the same, 
 except that the advantage is invariably given 
 to the worst of each category. Nor can we 
 console ourselves with the idea that the class 
 is but a fraction of the community. It is almost 
 co-extensive with the name of the relief, — "The 
 Parish." It permeates through all, — it sheds its 
 blighting rays of pauperism on all stages and 
 on all sections. 
 
 If she is thrown off for a time, this tender 
 parent again receives her erring children, without
 
 190 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 one word of reproach, provided they forsake their 
 mistaken notions, and give up all idea of helping 
 themselves, or at any rate make a pretence of 
 so doing. That independent spirit, that proud 
 look which delights to boast of its requiring no 
 help from anybody is what the parish most 
 objects to. She will give to such no aid 
 whatever; be their trouble what it may, they 
 must be broken before they can be again 
 received into favour. The growth of such a 
 spirit might endanger, particularly in these pro- 
 sperous times, the very existence of the parish 
 itself! 
 
 Such is the practical line of action of the 
 parish at present, as has been seen throughout 
 our pages. I am not however, in the parish 
 interest, but entirely opposed to it ; and I ask 
 once more what is to be done to prevent the 
 further spread of this gigantic monster } To rid
 
 CONCLUSION. 191 
 
 the country of it, if it be possible, or at least to 
 reduce its proportions and its power. 
 
 The remedy must be a sweeping one : the 
 whole system on which the Poor Law Relief is 
 administered must be completely changed. Not 
 only must we patch up, and amend here and 
 there, but we must alter the very foundation on 
 which the structure is built. Instead of making 
 it uphill work, and opposed to a man's interest 
 to be thrifty and careful, it must be downhill 
 work, and made to be to everyone's interest and 
 advantage, to foster and develop such qualities 
 in himself and children. This must be done, too, 
 from an evident and understandable point of 
 view, which will at once commend itself to the 
 unlearned villager, and not only from a high 
 moral point of view, which is but often too high, 
 even for the well-educated to appreciate and to 
 act up to. Many may agree so far, and may
 
 192 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 have their own view as to how this may be done, 
 but I will venture to state my own peculiar 
 notions on the subject. 
 
 In the first place, we must start with an idea 
 which, though some may think it to be anti- 
 scriptural, is, I fear, a necessary result of modern 
 civilization. We must allow, that even if a man 
 will not work yet he cannot be allowed to starve. 
 Some have ventured to preach a different doc- 
 trine; but leaving out of the question any kindly 
 sentiments, it is clear that with an army of a 
 million paupers, of whom some two hundred 
 thousand are able-bodied men and women, we 
 could not at the present time, from reasons of 
 policy alone, introduce so drastic a cure for our 
 pauper epidemic. We must still hold the notion, 
 that, by the law of the land, no one shall starve, 
 unless he has a mind to do so, and in which 
 case, of course, no law and no enactments can
 
 CONCLUSION. 193 
 
 prevent a person from carrying out his determi- 
 nation, and in fact committing suicide. 
 
 Relief, however, as everyone knows, divides 
 itself into two chief branches, the outdoor and 
 the indoor. Indoor relief is that given in the 
 Union House, and it is the form of aid which 
 is not liked, for the necessary curtailment of 
 liberty is not only unpopular, but very much 
 objected to. It is the feature of relief of the 
 present system which that tender foster-parent 
 keeps in the background, and only brings out 
 occasionally, and when she cannot help it. The 
 truth is the parish objects to indoor assistance, 
 because it is so expensive, or rather because it 
 looks so expensive. A man and his family cost 
 a good deal in the house, but a few shillings, say 
 half-a-crown a week, will keep them quiet out of 
 it. The parish does not calculate that the cost 
 of twenty families at half-a-crown a week is more 
 
 o
 
 194 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 than that of one family in the house, and as a 
 matter of fact, at the present time the total out- 
 door relief costs fully twice as much as the indoor. 
 To send a family "to the house," however, looks 
 also somewhat hard. No doubt, if it were done 
 often, even if justly, and with beneficent results 
 on the public at large, there would be a com- 
 plaint. The least deserving would probably 
 make the most noise. Some mistaken, though 
 kind-hearted people would take up the cases, 
 and the guardians would give way. The 
 relieving officer would probably be the scape- 
 goat, for it would have been his energy which 
 led to the whole matter. He would be ordered 
 not to be too-officious and hard, and in a short 
 time he would give up his thankless task of try- 
 ing to reduce pauperism, and follow the way of his 
 brethren for very self-defence. The people would 
 triumph, and the out-door relief would extend.
 
 CONCLUSION. 195 
 
 This is one of the radical objections to the 
 present system. Any attempt to improv^e the 
 condition of the people and to check the growth 
 of pauperism depends largely on the relieving- 
 officer's action, and also on the way he is 
 supported by the guardians. This support may 
 at any time be withdrawn, or a sensational case 
 may be made by some leading person in the 
 neighbourhood, without perhaps too careful a 
 study of the facts, and the beneficial effects of 
 months or years, it may be, are thus destroyed. 
 
 I would suggest, then, leaving indoor relief as 
 it is, but making thrift tJic condition of outdoor 
 
 relief. I would suggest that outdoor relief 
 
 HI 
 
 money or kind be never given, except on proof 
 of previous thrift — that tangible evidence of 
 thrift, or the results of thrift, be made the sole 
 standard of eligibility for outdoor relief — the 
 outdoor relief test, in fact. That when a person
 
 196 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 applied for relief, the officer, instead of asking 
 him whether he was destitute or of presuming him 
 to be so, should ask him what he had saved. If 
 the man said, " I am a member of a club which 
 allows me 2s. 6d. a week," instead of that fact 
 disqualifying him to a great extent from obtain- 
 ing aid as it does now, though he cannot exist 
 on it, the man, from that very circumstance, 
 should have a certain amount added to what he 
 already had. If he showed that he had bought 
 a deferred annuity which now brought him in 
 say 2s. a week, then that so much should be 
 added by the parish on that very account. If 
 an old man produced his Post-Office Savings 
 Bank book with twenty pounds to his credit, 
 that the amount, or part of it, should be invested 
 in an annuity, and so much added to it by the 
 parish. 
 
 In the case of old people there would be no-
 
 CONCLUSION. 197 
 
 difficulty in cariying this out, after a due number 
 of years of warning, and children or others would 
 also be practically encouraged to help to make 
 up the amount, so as to enable their parents to 
 obtain outdoor relief At the present time we have 
 seen that children in but too many cases stand 
 aloof, and do not help their parents, or only do 
 so on the sly, lest the old people's parish allow- 
 ance should be withdrawn. Practically, there- 
 fore, the existing system discourages them from 
 coming forward as they should. Sons, who are 
 legally bound to help to support their parents, 
 too often avoid doing so, and escape the clutches 
 of the law by removing to such a distance that 
 it is not worth while for parishes to incur the 
 expense of sending after them. Were the plan 
 proposed to be adopted, children would be in- 
 duced to help their parents, in order to prevent 
 them from being sent to the Union House.
 
 198 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 People who had brought up families would thus 
 be able to look forward in their old age to some 
 return from them ; and those who had not had 
 these expenses might reasonably be expected to 
 be able from their own earnings to save enousrh 
 themselves to qualify for sufficient outdoor relief 
 as above described, to enable them to live in 
 comfort. 
 
 Those who could not show any results of thrift 
 would, as a class, be the undeserving, and would 
 have to keep off the parish altogether as best 
 they could, and in old age they would have no 
 choice but to go into the Union House. 
 
 As regards younger persons in temporary dis- 
 tress from sickness or other causes, a somewhat 
 different arrangement, though similar in prin- 
 ciple, would have to be adopted. Instead of 
 having to prove their destitution as at present,. 
 why should they not bring their Post-Office
 
 CONCLUSION. 1 99 
 
 Savings book to the relieving officer, showing 
 what they had put by and how it had in- 
 creased regularly each week or month ? Why 
 should not widows be asked if their husbands 
 had been insured, or if they could show some 
 evidence of previous thrift in support of their 
 claims for outdoor assistance ? A long illness 
 might have drained their savings, but if they 
 had been allowed outdoor relief during that ill- 
 ness under the system just proposed, it would 
 be evidence that they were deserving of the 
 outdoor help being continued for a time. If 
 they could do nothing of the sort, but had 
 evidently been thriftless, it would be better and 
 kinder, with a view to reduce poverty and dis- 
 tress, to decline any assistance but that given in 
 the Union House. Cripples and persons who 
 had been permanently in a state of inability to 
 work, might be the exception to the rule, and
 
 2 00 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 help might perhaps be continued to them 
 as at present, and even more liberally, for no 
 one would wish that their unhappy lot should 
 be rendered still more unfortunate by any appa- 
 rent harshness. 
 
 We next come to medical relief. As we have 
 seen throughout our pages, this is at present 
 administered exactly as money or relief. Destitu- 
 tion is the qualification which must be super- 
 added to sickness before medical relief can be 
 obtained ; and everyone seeks to make out the 
 best case he can for such relief when he wants 
 it, and he usually obtains it, almost as a matter 
 of course. How, then, can it be expected that 
 provision should be made for sickness ? If the 
 bread-winner is laid up, that alone, provided his 
 family be destitute, is sufficient qualification for 
 medical outdoor relief. Though illness comes, 
 at all times, and often without warning, it is one
 
 CONCLUSION. 20 1 
 
 of those calamities which we all know we are 
 liable to, so that everyone by a system of clubs 
 may most easily and at a trifling cost ensure 
 medical attendance for himself should he ever 
 want it. What good, however, can a medical 
 club be ? It merely implies a man paying 
 voluntarily for what he now gets for nothing. 
 It is useless to urge on persons the importance 
 of joining provident medical clubs and such like 
 when they can spend the money they are asked 
 to pay to these in any way they like, and with 
 very little trouble and far less personal effort 
 obtain in sickness outdoor medical relief almost 
 for the asking. 
 
 I would suggest that in populous places where 
 provident dispensaries or medical clubs are es- 
 tablished, the parish medical relief might be 
 abolished altogether, except that of course which 
 is given within the walls of the union infirmar}',
 
 202 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 and to the old persons in the receipt of out-door 
 relief under the system I have proposed. In 
 villages and sparsely populated districts, there 
 are but few provident dispensaries or medical 
 clubs. The solitary medical officer generally 
 holds the appointment of parish doctor, and, for 
 the reason we have already given, he has little 
 to induce him to form a provident medical club 
 of his own. He is probably pretty well aware 
 of the persons he has to deal with, and is not 
 likely to be so deluded as to suppose that they 
 will join his club for the gratification of paying 
 him, when they regard him as paid by the parish 
 for looking after them for nothing. 
 
 Why should not however the parish, that is, 
 the Poor Law itself, establish provident medical 
 clubs in villages.^ The relieving officer could 
 collect the money and manage it with very little 
 extra trouble, which he would willingly do for
 
 CONCLUSION. 2 0^ 
 
 the extra pay he might earn without in any way 
 encroaching on the rates. The suggested ruks 
 of such a parish medical ckib I have given in the 
 first chapter under Medical Attendance, and I 
 have also there pointed out the startling results 
 which a subscription to such a club of even a 
 farthing a week would produce in our village. I 
 would beg to refer my readers to that statement. 
 
 I will now briefly indicate the action of these 
 proposals in each of the Seven Ages, with the 
 idea of showing how they would contrast with 
 the working of the present system as I have 
 described it in the life of our Hero the Village 
 Pauper. 
 
 Infancy. 
 
 The mother would not have to pay her guinea, 
 or to apply as a pauper, making out as bad 
 a story as she could, with as much or little 
 truth as suited her case, in order to secure the
 
 2 04 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 advantages of the parish doctor and the parish 
 nurse in ushering our hero into existence. 
 She would simply send for her doctor as her 
 right, from the fact that she had subscribed 
 to the club, though it were but a farthing 
 a week. Without much extra payment a nurse 
 could be supplied in the same way, and in as 
 independent a manner. 
 
 Childhood. 
 Although the direct influences of the change 
 of system at this period would apparently be 
 less than in any other, indirectly they would be 
 about the most important of all the periods of 
 life. The child, instead of being brought up in 
 an atmosphere of deceit and poverty, accustomed 
 from the first dawn of intelligence to notice the 
 dodges practised, whenever possible, on the 
 parish, and to regard all such dodges as a matter
 
 CONCLUSION. 20 = 
 
 of course, would be trained in altogether a dif- 
 ferent school. It would no longer be to his 
 parents' advantage to live entirely from hand 
 to mouth, and to keep themselves on the border 
 of destitution. Their only chance of aid in sick- 
 ness and trouble (out of the workhouse) would 
 be care and thrift. It would be to their ad- 
 vantage to be known as respectable and careful. 
 Such being the case, the conversation and general 
 tone to which the child would be accustomed 
 would be altogether different from what it now 
 is ; and this influence would necessarily have a 
 most important effect on his whole character. 
 
 Youth. 
 The beneficial effects on this period would be 
 very much the same as those we have just re- 
 ferred to during childhood. As the child grew 
 up and his intelligence developed (his is used
 
 2o6 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 , . _ T 
 
 in the generic sense throughout, including, of 
 course, both sexes), he would see that the ad- 
 vantage was all on the side of thrift and care. 
 If he went to obtain relief for his parents, his 
 story would not be a tissue of deceit, for the 
 tangible evidence of thrift and care which his 
 parent would put into his hand on which to base 
 his plea for help, would require no such imposi- 
 tion. He would see the evil consequences of a 
 wilful recklessness and improvidence, and would 
 have a direct advantage held out to him to join 
 some sound Friendly Society as early as pos- 
 sible. No doubt at this period of life, which is 
 naturally joyous and somewhat heedless, it is 
 difficult to make impressions unless the indi- 
 vidual has been most carefully brought up. The 
 whole tendency, however, instead of being to 
 recklessness, as at present, would be the other 
 way. It could never be said that " belonging to
 
 CONCLUSION. 207 
 
 the club always goes agin ye ; " but the pro- 
 moters of such institutions would have a most 
 powerful incentive whereby to induce persons 
 to join as early as possible, so that they might 
 always be able to get some friendly assistance 
 instead of the Workhouse if they were ill or in 
 serious difficulty. 
 
 Manhood. 
 Here the advantages of the change of system 
 would begin to be felt in earnest. The medical 
 club, what a blessing this would be found to be ! 
 Illness in the villager's family would be stripped 
 of half its suffering. As we have seen, until the 
 fifth baby appears, even with his I5J-. a week 
 the struggling man must provide his own doctor 
 in all cases except when he himself is laid 
 up. He would do so now, but by a small fixed 
 payment which he would not feel ; and there 
 would be no such thinsrs as doctors' bills to
 
 2o8 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 cripple him for he knows not how long. No 
 one would be loaded for years with debts which, 
 under the present arrangement, it is difficult to 
 see how a villager can avoid, unless by fair or 
 unfair means he can somehow or other get the 
 parish doctor allowed him. 
 
 Now as regards the provision for the future, 
 that is, the store for a rainy day and for old 
 age. Here the influence of the change of system 
 would be felt powerfully. Our hero the villager, 
 who, by-the-by, we should not have to call " the 
 \-illage pauper," as we do now, would not be 
 afraid of being known to be careful and thrifty. 
 In illness these very habits would be the only 
 passport to relief if he required it out of the 
 Union-house. He would have no longer an 
 object in keeping his dwelling as miserable as 
 possible ; a tidy hearth, a piece or two of fur- 
 niture, could not then be pointed at as reasons
 
 CONCLUSION. 209 
 
 when he was in trouble for passing him by en 
 the other side. In every way, in short, the di- 
 rect encouragement would be to improvement 
 instead of, as it is now, to a hand-to-mouth 
 existence and systematic "shiftlessness," an ex- 
 pression whicli my old friend the sexton so often 
 makes use of 
 
 Prime. 
 
 This word, it is to be hoped, would not strike 
 as such a misnomer under a sounder system of 
 Poor Law relief. The practical encouragement 
 to care and thrift would in time in many 
 thousands of instances tell most materially on 
 the villager. 
 
 Besides his club money, each one would b,: 
 glad to let it be known that he had been put- 
 ting by a trifle. We should not be so apt to 
 hear the idea of being careful resented as a sort 
 of stigma, and to hear it boasted, as I did one
 
 2 TO THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 day by a man in the prime of life, " that he did 
 not hold to saving ; so long as he could get 
 along now he did not care. Something would 
 turn up, he supposed." The secret of all this 
 is, as we have so often remarked, the fear of 
 having the parish money disallowed when it is 
 wanted. The whole of this would of course be 
 changed. Everybody would try and let it be 
 supposed he was careful instead of the reverse. 
 If he deceived in this matter he would only 
 deceive himself, for the relieving officer would 
 require the tangible proof when he applied, and 
 without this the person's statement would be 
 valueless. The idea of being careful and 
 thrifty might in time become the fashion, and 
 take the place of many of those long and miser- 
 able statements of distress which are so often 
 and so mechanically poured into the ear of the 
 willing listener. It is to be hoped that the
 
 CONCLUSION. 211 
 
 change of spirit which such a system would 
 produce would secure the establishment of a 
 Post Office Savings Bank in every hamlet. If 
 the people demanded it, such facilities would 
 have to be given them at once. I assert it to 
 be highly disgraceful to the Post Office, and to 
 all of us, that even now a village such as ours 
 should be four miles from any Post Office 
 Savings Bank. True I must own, that at 
 present there is little demand for the good 
 offices of such an institution. This however 
 is no excuse, for we should not of course 
 wait for the demand, but forestall it as we 
 do education, and as the go-ahead proprietor 
 of the public-house usually manages to do. 
 Under a reformed poor-law system, based as 
 I propose on a system of thrift, I believe the 
 demand for saving facilities would utterly asto- 
 nish everyone, and that in a few years the 
 
 P 2
 
 212 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 benefits derived from them would extend to 
 the remotest village and to the most obscure 
 villager. 
 
 Decline. 
 The fruit of a well-spent life should not be 
 bitter, but sweet. As the body begins to show 
 signs of age, as we have seen, so the spectre 
 now rises before it of the miseries of a depend- 
 ence on the parish dole. This under the pro- 
 posed system would be very much changed, 
 True, to some who persist in a life of careless- 
 ness, thriftlessness, or drink, there would be 
 no prospect but the Union House. For those 
 however — and their number would soon extend 
 — who by care, industry, and thrift, or by the 
 bringing up of children, had made even some 
 slight provision according to their means, the 
 prospect would be far brighter than it is now, 
 for they would know that their scanty but
 
 CONCLUSION. 213 
 
 hard-earned and hardly put-by savings would 
 secure them proportionate assistance and in- 
 creased comforts. In sickness they would claim 
 the medical attendance they had paid for, and 
 during the intervals of incapacity from, work 
 they would be able — not by an abject beg- 
 ging for relief, not by deceitfully concealing 
 any little saving they may have made, and in 
 which case the conscience of the careful man is 
 sorely tried, but by honourably basing their 
 claim on a well-spent and a thrifty life— to secure 
 a subsistence in proportion to their previous care, 
 and one at any rate sufficient to keep them as 
 human beings. 
 
 Decay. 
 
 The last scene of all that ends this strange, 
 
 eventful history. Truly it is "sans everything," as 
 
 the great poet writes, unless we except in these 
 
 days the parish dole and the miserable looking
 
 214 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 forward to the end. The changes which such a 
 system as is suggested would produce, surely 
 must alter this. It would then nearly always be 
 light at eventide to the deserving, or at any rate it 
 would be within a man's power throughout life 
 to make it so, which at present it can hardly 
 be said to be. Some few lives would no doubt 
 disappear under the dark clouds of the Union 
 House as they do now, though not a greater 
 number than at present, and in a few years I 
 venture to say that the practical encouragement 
 to thrift would reduce this number to the mini- 
 mum. Care and thrift would have been practi- 
 cally encouraged, and corresponding fruit would 
 necessarily be borne. The parish dole would be 
 converted into an honourable independence. 
 The grey hairs would be respected. Instead of 
 the tottering limbs relying on a tale of a life of 
 thriftlessness, misery and deceit for their claim to
 
 CONCLUSION. 2 I 
 
 bread, without the restraint of the workhouse 
 walls, they would with boldness tell the opposite 
 story, and trust to that as a qualification for 
 comfort and consideration. Instead of the de- 
 ceitful hiding of all brighter prospects, such as 
 the aid of friends and other blessings, from a 
 fear of losing the parish coppers, the direct 
 advantage of openness in all such matters 
 would be obvious. Instead of children shield- 
 ing themselves in their unnatural selfishness and 
 neglect of their old parents under the plausible 
 excuse of its being the business of the parish to 
 look after the aged and the destitute, they would 
 have a direct influence in a line of conduct 
 altog-ether difierent and more creditable. The 
 decay of a well spent life might then be truly 
 made a blessed time of rest, and the tottering to 
 the. grave the peaceful happy ending to the lives 
 of honest and noble toil which our villagers
 
 2l6 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER. 
 
 might finally hope to enjoy. Old age and 
 decay would not then be as the black shadow 
 casting its gloom over life, even from the cradle, 
 and becoming darker and darker as years roll 
 on, but it would be, to the industrious, hard- 
 working, careful man and woman, as the bright 
 sunset of rest from the weary labours of life. 
 
 Such it is believed would be the result, if a 
 wise and sound system of relief were intro- 
 duced and carried out, during the seven ages of 
 those who are now known only as Village 
 Paupers. We must remember it is not the 
 relief itself which is so powerful for good or evil, 
 but it is the system and principles on which that 
 aid is given which have so great an influence 
 on the habits, the feelings, and on the very lives 
 of the people. Relief can no more produce a 
 general and permanent improvement on the 
 country than spasmodic and uncertain alms.
 
 a' 
 
 CONCLUSION. 2 I 7 
 
 We must go deeper. Relief must 15^ so adminis- J 
 
 tered that it is true to its name. It must tend 
 Xo prevent suffering, and not merely to remove it 
 when it has come upon us. This prevention 
 must be accomphshed by the people themselves. 
 The law may practically show the way, may 
 systematically teach, exhort, and hold out en- 
 couragement, but the change of habit must be 
 made by the people themselves. 
 
 One of the curses of the country now is that 
 this universal influence, the Poor Law, not only 
 holds out no inducement for people to change 
 and improve their condition, but encourages 
 them to remain as they are, which means, prac- 
 tically, to increase in poverty. Solomon of old 
 said that the "destruction of the poor is their 
 poverty," and we ma}' depend that as surely as 
 we foster this poverty, so surely do we add to 
 their misery and destruction. The least part of
 
 2lS THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER, 
 
 the evil is the increase of the Rates. It would 
 be well to double these taxes if by so doing our 
 village paupers might be exterminated, but this 
 is not necessary, but the reverse, for every in- 
 crease now means an increase of misery and 
 destitution. The proposed change would tend 
 shortly, and most materially, to reduce the cost 
 of the Poor Law system. I must not, however, 
 weary my readers with the minute details 
 of the changes, which are gone into at some 
 length in another place.* In conclusion I may 
 say, that what Ave want is for the Poor Law to 
 be based on the old maxims, that prevention is 
 better than cure ; that encouraging virtue is 
 better than punishing vice ; that assisting a man 
 to make himself independent, is far higher 
 charity than helping him when he has fallen ; 
 
 • "Thrift as the Outdoor Relief Test," Bell & Sons. Second 
 Edition,
 
 CONCLUSION. 2 1 9 
 
 that every act and every tendency of a system 
 which has a universal influence over every 
 village, and almost over every cottage, should be 
 directly to encourage those qualities and habits 
 on which alone the stability, well-being, and 
 prosperity of our countiy can be based ; and 
 that allowing it to continue as it is now, is to 
 foster beggary, destitution, and vice. Who will 
 dare to say that it is wise, kind, noble, or even 
 politic, to make the seven ages of our people 
 synonymous with the seven ages of a miserable 
 pauper ? 
 
 THE END. 
 
 nRAUBURV, AGNE'.V, & CO., rKINTEKS, WHITEFKIARS.
 
 THRIFT AS THE OUT-DOOR RELIEF TEST. 
 
 THE POOR LAW IN ITS EFFECTS 
 ON THRIFT. 
 
 By GEORGE C. T. HARTLEY, 
 
 Hon. Sec. Provident Knowledge Society. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 GEORGE BELL & SONS, YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN ; 
 
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 THRIFT: 
 
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 sus»<;estions contained in it were most rcm.irkable. While not liinding himself to 
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 Eighth Thousand. Price One Shilling; in Boards, Gilt Edges, Tiuo Shillings, 
 
 THE PROVIDENT KNOWLEDGE PAPERS. 
 
 1. PENSIONS— How to buy them. 
 
 2. INSURING ONE'S LIFE— How to set about it, by 
 
 Small Payments, Weekly or otherwise. 
 
 3. EASY TABLES, for Pensions and Insurance. 
 
 4. PENNY BANKS. 
 
 5. PENNY BANKS IN EVERY ELEMENTARY 
 
 SCHOOL. 
 
 6. MONEY IN THE BANK. 
 
 7. COLLECTORS OF SAVINGS. 
 
 8. INTEREST AND SECURITY. 
 
 9. PAWNBROKERS. 
 
 10. DOMESTIC SERVANTS. 
 
 11. INCOMES WITHOUT INCOME TAX. 
 
 12. A PENNY A WEEK. 
 
 13. "WHAT'S THE GOOD OF SAVING?" 
 
 *ff* These Papers are also published in separate Numbers, each contaiimi^^ 
 full particulars of one of the subjects above named. Price One Penny 
 each, or Seven Shillings a Hundred. 
 
 Post Free, for three or more Numbers, from tlie Hon. Secre- 
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 THE SEVEN AGES OF A VILLAGE PAUPER, 
 
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 The Provident Knowledge Society, 
 
 112, BROMPTON ROAD, LONDON, S.W. 
 
 ^xttwdht Committic. 
 
 THE DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND. 
 
 THE EARL OF DERBY. 
 
 THE EARL OF SHAFTE.SBURY, K.G. 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. GATHORNE HARDY, M.P. 
 
 GEORGE C. T. BARTLEY, Hon. Sec. atid Treasurer. 
 
 The Objects of this Society are : — 
 
 ist. To promulgate information as to the best means by which the Wage-Classes, 
 Domestic Servants, and others, can put by weekly sums to provide for old age. 
 
 2nd. To make known more generally the advantages afforded by the Post Office 
 for purchasing Pensions, or Deferred Annuities and Life Assurances, by weekly and 
 other payments. 
 
 3rd. To facilitate the collecting of such small weekly sums, 
 
 4th. To induce Manufacturers and other Employers of labour to open on their 
 premises offices for the receipt of such weekly sums in accordance with the Post-Office 
 Rules, and by such other means as experience may suggest. 
 
 5th. To encourage and assist in the establishment of Penny Banks in connexion 
 with all Works, Manufactories, and Elementary Schools. And, 
 
 6th. Generally to endeavour to inculcate the habit of providing for old age, sick. 
 ness, &c., and for possible premature death, among those earning small wages. 
 
 The Society is not eleemosynary, and does not give relief in any form. It is 
 believed that an extension of provident habits will lead to an immense improvement 
 in the social and moral well-being of the community, and that the improvidence of 
 the poorer classes is attributable chiefly to their ignorance of the means of saving. 
 The primary operations of the Society will be to make known in all parts of the 
 kingdom, by public and cottage lectures, by addresses, by personal intercourse, and 
 by other means, the facilities which already exist for enabling a man, in the best 
 manner and at the smallest possible sacrifice comJ>atible -with sound commercial 
 security, to provide — in proportion to his earnings — for himself in old age, in sickness, 
 &c., and for his family in the event of his premature death. The Society also 
 endeavours to effect alterations or extensions in the Government systems at present 
 in existence, when required ; and to frame and suggest others, should experience from 
 time to time prove them to be necessary. 
 
 *,,* Information on all points connected with the Society, and every assistance in 
 forming schemes to encoura,;e frugality, will be given by the Hon. Sec. on applica. 
 tion to him by letter at the above address, or personally by appointment. 
 
 Subscriptions and Donations are gladly received, and may be paid to the Hon. 
 Tre.asurer as above, or to the Society's account at the London and County Bank, 
 Knightsbridge, London.
 
 THE INSTALMENT CLUB AND 
 MIDDLESEX PENNY BANK. 
 
 OFFICE— 112, BROMPTON ROAD, LONDON, W. 
 
 PATRONS. 
 
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 112, Brompton Road, London, W. 
 
 Each Local Manager who collects the money gives a legal Bond of Security to the 
 Trustees in a large amount. 
 
 ADVANTAGES. 
 
 1. Penny Bank, — Any sum may be put by, from a Penny and upwards. Interest 
 2^ per cent. : that is, one half-penny for each completed pound which is left in the 
 Bank for a full month. The month is reckoned from any day. 
 
 Money may at all times be withdrawn by giving a week's notice, or by letter to the 
 Director, posted on the Thursday before the day on which the money is required. 
 
 2. Instalment Club. — Any article may be bought by weekly or other paj'ments of 
 a penny and upwards, at almost wholesale prices. 
 
 3. Life Insurance. For Stuns of £100 and under. — All such insurances should 
 be in the Post Office, on Government Security, and payments may be made either 
 weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, or yearly. To any one wishing 
 thus to insure the arrangements will be explained, and every assistance given in 
 obtaining and filling up the forms required. 
 
 For Sums over £100. —These cannot be made in the Post Office. Persons, how- 
 ever, may insure in any office they wish, by weekly or other payments to the instal- 
 ment Club, and assistance will be given by a Loan, repayable by instalments ofjabout 
 two-thirds of the amount of the first premium. 
 
 4. Pensions, that is, Deferred Annuities, for Old Age. — These can be obtained 
 from the Post Office up to £$0 a-year, on Government Security. They may be pur- 
 chased by weekly or other payments spread over ten or more years. To any one 
 wishing thus to provide for his old age the arrangements will be explained, and 
 every assistance given in obtaining and filling up the forms required. 
 
 5. Endowment of Cliildren, &c. — F.acilities afforded for all means of providing for 
 the future by weekly or other payments. 
 
 6. Medical Attendance. — For a small p.aymcnt varying according to age from 5^. 
 to 6(/. a month, all doctor's expenses may be insured against in time of sickness. 
 
 Branches have been opened at South Kensington Museum, and at le.'^, Omega Place, 
 Alpha Road, N.W. Others are in course of formation. Arrangements will be 
 made for opening I-!ranches anywhere in Middlesex. 
 
 Apply to the Director, G. C. T. BAETLEY, 112, Brompton Road, London, W.
 
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