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THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 CERF LIBRARY 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 REBECCA CERF '02 
 
 IN THE NAMES OF 
 
 CHARLOTTE CERF '95 
 
 MARCEL E. CERF '97 
 
 BARRY CERF '02 
 
■ 
 

 , 
 
THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS 
 
Zhc poor ano Gbcir Ibappincss 
 
 MISSIONS 
 
 MISSION PHILANTHROPY 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN GOLDIE 
 
 Hontion 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 
 1895 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, 
 london and bungay. 
 
 
 
Hyoo 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. Introductory i 
 
 II. Philanthropy 21 
 
 III. The Church's Influence on Philanthropy ... 38 
 
 IV. The Political Philanthropist and the Claim 
 
 of Right 53 
 
 V. The Old and the New Philanthropists — The 67 
 Gospel of Discontent and Socialism .... 
 
 VI. A Chapter of Advice : Individuality, Habit, 
 
 Imitation 81 
 
 VII. Labour 99 
 
 VIII. The Submerged Tenth 118 
 
 IX. Some Missions - The Attitude of the Poor 
 
 TOWARDS THE MISSION 133 
 
 X. A Sentimental Mission 153 
 
 XI. A New Philanthropy 169 
 
 XII. Nature as an Educator : the Duties of the 
 
 New Philanthropist 185 
 
 XIII. The New Philanthropist as Doctor and Nurse 202 
 
 M5673I2 
 
THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 Introductory: dealing - with the inability of religion or sentiment 
 to affect the Poor — Comparison of Missions and the Salva- 
 tion Army — Natural law. 
 
 These pages are written throughout on the bases 
 of Natural Law. For the amelioration, or improve- 
 ment, in the condition of the Poor, we can no longer 
 put any faith in those virtues that have been so long 
 looked upon as the proper regenerators of mankind 
 — Religion, Morality, Education. Nor can we include 
 in our philanthropy, what have been considered the 
 leaven and essence of philanthropy — Ideality, Sentiment, 
 Imagination, or what goes to form our higher concep- 
 tions of life. 
 
 The Poor, though well acquainted with all these 
 things, do not find them in any way useful to them in 
 the battle of life, and as they must themselves be the 
 principal agents in their redemption, their sympathy 
 and co-operation must first be obtained before we can 
 hope for success in our philanthropical efforts. Such 
 co-operation can only be gained when the Poor have 
 perfectly satisfied themselves of the advantages to 
 them personally of the plan to be adopted ; and in 
 their judgment of any scheme there are three 
 
 b 
 
2 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS \ 
 
 important points to be considered, viz. : How much 
 better will it be when adopted, over the present 
 condition of things ? How much trouble will it take to 
 adopt it ? and, To what extent will it disturb, or work in, 
 with our present habits ? Which, strange to say, are 
 the very questions the most cultivated classes put 
 before themselves, when asked to modify, or -adopt,, 
 some new form of life. It is Natural law. 
 
 The Poor put no reliance upon the religious or 
 intellectual side of human nature as instruments to 
 contend with misfortune. The philanthropists believe 
 that they do not know what they are rejecting. Jt has 
 been the constant wail of the philanthropists that if 
 only the Poor would hearken to religion, or cultivate 
 their minds, so as to know the Divine power of the one, 
 or the strengthening, elevating influence of the other, 
 they would seek no other guides to their happiness. 
 Unfortunately for this view of the case, among the 
 Poor are a class, the most hopeless because the most 
 perfectly helpless of all the different varieties of poverty 
 that come to the gutter, who have exactly the 
 experience the philanthropist has longed for. These 
 are the droppings, the sediment from the higher classes. 
 All of them have had the usual religious training from 
 their childhood up ; all have had what is called a 
 liberal and intellectual education. Some have come 
 from the manse itself ; many of them can add letters 
 after their names. In these the Poor have an object 
 lesson. The forces that they have been told so persist- 
 ently had power to raise them from their lowly state, 
 had not the power to arrest the descent of these hapless 
 brethren, not even at the first sign of motion, when the 
 strength of a child's hand should have been sufficient. 
 But do these educated unfortunates rely upon their re- 
 ligion or intellectuality to help them to contend with their 
 distress? No. They get rid of them, so far as they can, 
 
I INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 and become as the people with whom their lot is cast. 
 They find situations requiring" education are filled by a 
 class more poorly paid than the day labourer, and yet 
 who have to wear respectable clothes, clean linen, and 
 polished boots. It were infinitely better to wear fustian, 
 and live as you chose on four shilling's a day, than be a 
 clerk on twenty shillings a week ! They find that it was 
 not the religion itself that they loved, as they thought 
 it was, but the ostentation of it, and here no person 
 cares whether they go to church or not. They have 
 not the clothes — why should they bother? And that is 
 an end of it. 
 
 The question may be asked, Why those things to 
 which the better classes attach so much importance, as 
 to make them the guiding principles of their lives, and 
 a never ending source of enjoyment, cannot be made 
 of the same service to the Poor? There are many 
 we know, who never looked at the question in such a 
 light, believing always that there can be no difference. 
 It is therefore best at this early stage we should put 
 our readers in possession of our experience. 
 
 Religion and mental cultivation do not take root in 
 the social scale so low as the stratum of the Poor. There 
 is a law in Nature of "equivalents" which we have 
 touched upon in another chapter (Chap. Ill) by which we 
 all expect a distinctly profitable return for our actions ; 
 and it is not until we rise in the social scale to that 
 class to whom religion and cultivation are profitable do 
 we find them cultivated. And as we have stated, where 
 they are found below that class they are allowed to 
 stagnate as useless weapons. These virtues did not 
 originate among the Poor, and flow upward ; they 
 came from the leisured classes, and in their spreading' 
 downwards, they come to barren and sterile soil, where 
 they do not grow naturally. Neither do they grow 
 equally, religion descending further than intellectuality, 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS l 
 
 because of its persistent propagation, and the many 
 temptations held out to make it profitable. 
 
 It cannot be denied that the outward show of religion 
 is profitable, otherwise we would not have so many 
 impostors and hypocrites. But it is hardly conceivable 
 how deeply the element of profit is interwoven with it, 
 even to those who believe themselves sincere and single- 
 minded. We will take the case of a gentleman earnestly 
 and conscientiously imbued with religious feeling. That 
 Religion should be absolutely and wholly its own reward 
 to him, he takes no part in any religious service, public 
 or private. He never speaks about it, or permits himself 
 to be drawn into argument upon the subject. As far as 
 he is concerned he will do no action that would infer to 
 his fellow men that he is religious, so that they will not 
 base their opinion of him from his religion. We know 
 such a person. He has told us that after all, his religion 
 is not allowed to be to him its own reward. His actings 
 with all with whom he comes in contact are so just and 
 upright, his promises so scrupulously fulfilled, and 
 his whole bearing showing so much more consideration 
 for others rather than himself, that instead of passing for a 
 non-religious person, he has the reputation of being the 
 most religious person in his neighbourhood. We asked 
 him what profit he derives from this reputation ? He 
 said it would be hard to tell in words : a hundred little 
 kindly services every day ; his slightest wish is scrupu- 
 lously regarded ; he is made the arbiter of almost every 
 quarrel and dispute, and his influence always goes for 
 peace. Numerous responsibilities are thrust upon him 
 unsolicited, from the people's confidence in his rectitude. 
 In fact, he said, half-seriously, half-playfully, if he 
 wished he might entrust his happiness to these willing 
 neighbours, and not be in any way disappointed. 
 
 When secret religion — or that which is as near secret 
 as well can be— is so openly rewarded, made so 
 
i INTRODUCTORY 5 
 
 personally advantageous, what must the usual public 
 exhibition of it be, as it is at present ? To the great 
 bulk of this Protestant country it is only the public acts 
 that are worth observing ; and why ? Because it is 
 only through our public worship that our social and 
 commercial reputation can be fostered. So little do 
 we believe a man would take the trouble of private 
 religion, that when we hear of such a case, we are 
 sceptical, and suspect him of some ulterior design. 
 Now in descending through the classes, religion stops 
 where its ostentation ceases to be socially profitable. 
 Strange to say, that class is the most religious of all 
 the classes as regards regularity of public attendance. 
 Thus the most careful in religious observation lies 
 next to a class almost wholly indifferent to it. The 
 reason is simple — to the one it is the principal mark of 
 class distinction ; to the other it is not. 
 
 The class we refer to — the lowest of the religious 
 classes — is the small shop-keeper, the better paid work- 
 man (the foreman and draughtsman), and the clerk. 
 All these people come in contact with the better 
 classes — their master and his customers, on whom 
 their success in life depends ; and the easiest acquired 
 reputation for respectability is by religious observance. 
 The small shop-keeper has not the capital to do an 
 independent trade with the public like the larger ones ; 
 he has to depend upon his reputation with the few who 
 deal with him. The clerk is continually in his master's 
 presence, and must have a character ; and the foremen 
 and skilled workmen are being continually consulted, 
 and must have a reputation that can bear inspection. 
 But the common workman only comes in contact with 
 the foreman, to whom he owes nothing but his work, 
 and towards whom he holds a pretty independent 
 manner. He gets neither overtime nor larger wages for 
 being religious, and therefore he does not take the trouble. 
 
6 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS i 
 
 Having been among, and having - studied the ways of, 
 the workman all our lives, we have seen this natural 
 evolution, not once, but twenty times :— A wild and 
 harum-scarum workman — all the best men are gener- 
 ally wild, because they know they always get a pref- 
 erence, and are never long - without employment — this 
 workman, boastful of his independence, caring - as he 
 says for neither man nor devil, leads a very irregular 
 life. By and bye, he is suddenly made under-foreman. 
 This produces a slight change in him, while he is pro- 
 testing there is no change. But if he does not want to 
 return to the ranks, he has to be more regular ; he has 
 always to be in a position that he can be called up for 
 consultation. He becomes more serious, and he has no 
 time for larks at night. In a short time he is made 
 a full-fledged foreman. With his increased wage he 
 can afford to live in a better class of house. His wife 
 chooses a house in the centre of the class to which she 
 now aspires, and this class are a church-going people. 
 If she wants to make acquaintances for herself and 
 daughters, as she does, she must go to church (never a 
 disagreeable thing to women) ; but he must also, and 
 there you are ! Without a missionary, without an item 
 of religious awakening, without having to open a Bible, 
 a man becomes a Christian because it is the social habit 
 of the class he has just joined. 
 
 The intellectual stratum is not so low as the religious 
 one. It lacks the element of profit from public exhibition. 
 To find it we have to rise to that class where it is 
 a necessity. A virtue that is not publicly profitable is 
 only cultivated as a necessity. This may seem very 
 hard upon the virtuous, who have always very superior 
 reasons for their actions. But virtue requires culti- 
 vation, long and weary hours of study in the early 
 stages without any recompense of pleasure, and Nature 
 objects to the expenditure of labour for a deferred 
 
i INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 pleasure, if a present one of equal value can be 
 obtained. The thousands who arrange at some part of 
 their lives to take up for the winter a special study, 
 some going in for art, some for music, some for 
 languages, others again going to have a serious course 
 of mathematics, chemistry, microscopy, and who throw 
 the whole thing up after two or three lessons, are 
 examples of this rule. The pleasure proposed to be 
 derived from the final acquisition of their subject 
 becomes less and less as the hours of study are 
 increased, until it cannot compete with some trifling 
 pleasure of the hour. We must look for cultivation 
 then, either in the classes who born and brought up in 
 it in youth remain in its environment, or to those who 
 have the time for it and to whom it is a necessity. 
 
 In the upward progression of the social scale, no fact is 
 more notorious than that the hours of labour shorten and 
 their reward or remuneration increases. Put in another 
 way, the hours of leisure steadily increase, and in proper 
 proportion the means wherewith to enjoy them, as we rise 
 in the social scale. This is as it should be, because it is 
 our leisure that is the most important part of our lives, 
 and also the most expensive. Among the ordinary busi- 
 ness classes this rule holds good. There are two notable 
 exceptions. There are some businesses that have long 
 hours, and yet are very profitable. The people engaged in 
 these trades have short leisures, and plenty of money to. 
 spend them with. Because of this circumstance these 
 people arecalled "common," "vulgar," and "degraded," 
 and they certainly are illiterate. Why? Because with their 
 money they can purchase the pleasures of a higher class 
 than their own, while they have neither the manners nor 
 the breeding of that class ; they therefore make an un- 
 favourable contrast when they come in juxtaposition with 
 its members. They are common, because the superior- 
 ity of the class above them is seldom shown to them 
 
S THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS i 
 
 with cither the good taste or good sense that should 
 belong to such a class, and they are driven, when thus 
 insulted and angered, to assert their position on a purely 
 money basis. Their shortness of time and length of 
 purse turn them to games of chance and excitement — 
 gambling, betting, racing, dog-, cock-, or man-fighting. 
 Anything that will crush the most excitement into the 
 shortest time, regardless of cost. They are illiterate 
 because every person would rather purchase their 
 pleasure than make it. Mental cultivation is a home- 
 made means to pleasure, and consumes much time in 
 the making of it. They have not the time to make it, 
 and they have the means of purchasing other forms. 
 
 On the other hand there is a class whose fortune, or 
 misfortune, it is to be the very opposite of the foregoing 
 one. They have short hours, but they have not the 
 means of enjoying their long leisure in the common and 
 traditional manner. How then can they kill that time 
 between labour and sleep, so deadly to the pockets of 
 all of us ? By study — the cheapest and best amusement 
 in the world. The young men of all the professions, of 
 the civil service, of the banks, insurance companies, 
 and such like ; young men who receive a small salary 
 rising by infinitesimal degrees through a long period 
 of years ; some receiving no salary, some paying a 
 premium for the honour of being there ; — without 
 private means — and few of them have any — how could 
 these young men put in an existence, if it were not for 
 books, for literature, for art, all of which can be had 
 for next to nothing ? Do not imagine it is an innate 
 love of learning that bothers these young men, it is only 
 a want of cash. Give the most enthusiastic among them 
 a hundred or two a year more of salary, and in twelve 
 months see how he has been prosecuting his studies. 
 The theatre, the music-hall and the supper-room will 
 have received the most of that year's income. 
 
I INTRODUCTORY 9 
 
 A clergyman had two sons, and they were brought 
 up as lads with a similarity of tastes in all things, as if 
 they had been twins. One was placed in a bank where 
 he had not much to do, and almost nothing to get at 
 the end of the month as the reward of his exertions. 
 But he got home very regularly about five o'clock in 
 the evening. He had to find something to do between 
 five and eleven, without almost a stiver to do it on. But 
 there was his father's library ; there were all the young 
 men's improvement and literary societies connected with 
 the Church ; there was even a small laboratory at home 
 that he and his brother used for chemical experiments 
 when they were home from college. The other went 
 to a shipbroker's office. He w r as a little later of getting 
 home, he was a little dirtier when he got home, but he 
 had a larger salary. By the time he had dined, and 
 dressed up, he had money enough to enjoy himself 
 without study. He went into town to meet his office 
 companions, a ship captain occasionally, who treated 
 the boys liberally. They visited, now a music-hall, now 
 a billiard saloon, now no higher than a friendly public 
 house. It was a sad blow to his father and his brother, 
 that this young man should have given up, as they 
 said, the pure joys of intellectual occupations and become 
 so worldly. The young fellow felt bad about it himself, 
 not knowing the true reason, and being brought up in 
 that agreeable faith, that you are to blame the devil 
 for everything you do not understand, should it turn 
 out bad. All he knew was that study now was dis- 
 tasteful, and his mind ran on other pleasures. The 
 parson sought many reasons to account for the disparity 
 of tastes between his two sons, and he found as 
 many as he sought, some hereditary, some consti- 
 tutional, some profoundly psychical. He consoled 
 himself with the reflection and assurance that at least 
 one of his children loved wisdom for its own sake, and 
 
io THE POOR .WO TIIKIR HAPPINESS i 
 
 delighted in the pursuit of knowledge. Alas ! poor 
 man ; he went and destroyed that happy consolation 
 himself. He had occasionally to look at the worldly 
 side of things, and when he did so, as regards the 
 welfare of his children, he had some thoughts at the 
 inequality of their future. The shipbroking youth was 
 pushing himself on rapidly, and would soon have a free 
 expenditure as great as his father's, while his studious 
 brother was still keeping his clothes clean on an annual 
 increment of five pounds. It was enough for merely 
 recording discounts and overdrafts, but it was likely to 
 be a long time before it would be enough to live upon. 
 The parson spoke to some friends, and the young man 
 was transferred to a merchant's warehouse. In a little 
 time also came the transformation. Like his brother, 
 this studious young man began to come home late, and 
 in a great hurry ; wanted dinner in haste ; had no time 
 to speak to any body ; was going to meet his companions 
 at such a time, and was likely to be late ; they were all 
 going to see something or another, and he might be late 
 of getting home ; there would be no use of any body 
 sitting up for him. This was the chronic state of 
 affairs : wild horses could not get this studious 
 youth to spend an evening at home, or to take an 
 interest in his old pursuits. He was making money 
 now. 
 
 The manufacturing town or the seaport town may, 
 and often do, have as many young men of liberal 
 education, sons of wealthy manufacturers or ship- 
 owners, as the town, noted as the centre of banking, 
 insurance, or financial institutions, but they never have 
 the same intellectual tone. They are always more in- 
 terested in current events, because they can afford to 
 keep themselves abreast of current events. The manu- 
 facturing or seaport town, though not large, will have 
 a theatre, music-halls, and all the recognised places 
 
i INTRODUCTORY n 
 
 of public amusement, and these will be well patronised. 
 The banking- town, though larger, may have a theatre, 
 which is not well patronised. There is but one audience, 
 and it cannot go more than once a week to the theatre 
 It therefore does not g"o for pleasure, but for instruction, 
 and like a lecture, or a sermon, a week is little enough 
 for the drama's thorough discussion and digestion. 
 
 If religion or education could be made of service by 
 the Poor in their daily struggle with straitened means- 
 although the one is to them unduly repressive at the time 
 they most enjoy their freedom, and the other requires a 
 vacant mind and large allowance of leisure — even in the 
 face of these difficulties they would make a bold effort to 
 attain them. But they cannot see the merit in these 
 things themselves, nor can they see around them any 
 example of people who have cultivated the one or the 
 other as a cure for poverty. 
 
 As a sample of how the intellectual and the unintel- 
 lectual, applied to the same thing, affect the Poor, we 
 will take the following - : — 
 
 In the poorer districts of every larg-e town there have 
 been for years mission churches, mission halls, and 
 mission stations. Some districts are perfectly honey- 
 combed with them. To those who are not used to 
 mission work, we may state, briefly, these halls are 
 miniature churches, open on certain days in the week 
 for the propagation of religion in the neighbourhood. 
 The audience at the most successful of them leaves 
 much to be desired ; the general average is two or 
 three benches of steady old retainers. Sometimes "to 
 brighten up the service a bit," or "to make it more 
 interesting," they have the assistance of a fashionable 
 parson or popular lecturer. A young - lady presides at 
 the harmonium, and a choir of young ladies and young - 
 gentlemen in many instances give their services to 
 render the music. Everything is done that can be done, 
 
[2 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS i 
 
 to attract the people from the streets, but they refuse 
 to be drawn. 
 
 Into this district of over-supplied and empty mission 
 houses marches the Salvation Army. We are speaking 
 of it in its early days, its days of phenomenal successes 
 in the face of every obstacle that prejudice and jealousy 
 could raise against it. Here there were neither rever- 
 ence nor repression, all was excitement and employment. 
 Every person could join in and take a hand, all the work 
 was done by themselves. They sang - their own hymns, 
 and made them to suit their taste. They fitted them with 
 stolen music from the ''Halls," and they replaced the 
 intellectual harmonium with the brainless drum and un- 
 tutored cymbals. They had other musical instruments 
 which they could not play very well, but everybody's 
 own noise is music, it is other people's music that is 
 noise. They were content with the noise they made 
 with their instruments, and so w T ere the majority of their 
 hearers. The instruments were there less for their 
 sweet strains than that they were excellent mediums for 
 the players to exhibit their enthusiasm and earnestness. 
 Everything that could exhilarate, excite, and inspire 
 enthusiasm was incorporated into their service. The 
 enthusiasm of the performers was contagious, and the 
 listener felt, no matter what his abilities or his ambitions 
 were, there was room for the development of them all 
 in the ranks of the " Army." 
 
 To the Poor the Army was less a religion than an 
 agreeable occupation. Unlike the mission hall, that 
 only opened on special nights, they could engage them- 
 selves in salvation work every night, as long as the 
 excitement, the strangeness, and the enthusiasm lasted. 
 All the terms of their service were adapted to take the 
 mind from reverence and reverend associations, and to 
 cultivate their natural pugnacious instincts. They 
 hated the name of religion, and they suspected any 
 
i INTRODUCTORY 13 
 
 person who attempted to coax them to come and 
 hear this man speak, or such' a choir sing. Whatever 
 suggested a hall and the necessity of sitting quiet for 
 half an hour or an hour, they knew would be accom- 
 panied with the certain prayer and praise and exhorta- 
 tion. But ask them to come and storm hell or make a 
 grand assault upon the devil, or have some knee drill, 
 or whatever terms they used, and it appeared to them 
 quite a different thing. 
 
 Between the Salvation Army realism — vulgarism if 
 you will — and the Higher Criticism, the Inner Holiness, 
 the Symbolism and the Mysticism, that the D.D.'s 
 M.A.'s, Fellows of Colleges, and other highly intellectual 
 churchmen delight to dabble in, there does not seem to 
 be anything in common but the name Religion. Yet 
 the devotee of the one would not change it for the other, 
 and the Poor would have remained to this day without 
 any religion rather than accept the intellectual kind so 
 long offered them, and offered them in vain. 
 
 When the writer, full of strong religious convictions, 
 found it was impossible to be of service to the Poor 
 unless through the laws that governed their lives — 
 Natural law — he met with a great disappointment ; one 
 he, for the time being, believed would prove fatal. 
 There was nothing he had been taught from his youth 
 up more emphatically and persistently than that all our 
 evil actions arose from our natural inclinations ; that 
 our natures were inherently evil, and required repression 
 and discipline, and that anything suggestive of Nature 
 as a sole guide to action was at once denounced, and 
 compared to the lives of the brutes in the fields ; that 
 all that Nature taught us was to eat, to drink, and care 
 nothing for to-morrow, because to-morrow was not 
 ours. Was it then to propagate vice and passion that 
 we had stirred ourselves so ? And if nothing but evil 
 was to come of our attempts to help the Poor from their 
 
14 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS I 
 
 distress, was it not better they should be left to perish, 
 arid perish quickly, that the tale of guilt would be so 
 much the less ? 
 
 But the writer knew the Poor, had known them all 
 his life, and he knew they were not going to change 
 their habits because he believed he had made a dis- 
 covery ! They were, in fact, quite ignorant that he had 
 made such a discovery, and if he had informed them, 
 they would have ignored the information and gone on 
 their way as usual. To the writer, however, despair 
 gave way to hope. This then, said he, is Natural law ; 
 there is no bestiality here ; there is no straining after 
 vice ; there is no lack of hope, ambition, or desire 
 for improvement. What overlies these virtues in 
 the Poor is the pressing demands of their necessi- 
 ties. Their bodies are ever in need — one thing or 
 another — and the body is the natural master of 
 the mind. When we studied each life individually, 
 even the very worst of them, they had a natural 
 virtuous bent. They would rather do a good turn 
 than a bad one. 
 
 The study of Natural law was necessary then, to see 
 where the Poor differed in their actions from the other 
 classes : whether the cause of that difference lay in them- 
 selves, or in circumstances outside of themselves ; and 
 in either case, what was the origin of these causes. 
 After years of study and experiment, we came to the 
 conclusion that the difference between the Poor and the 
 Rich so far as law-breaking is concerned, lies mostly in 
 their social condition. The cultivation by groups of 
 people of special forms of life, habits, and customs, to 
 the extent as to make other forms intolerable to them, 
 and therefore, where they have the power, to attempt 
 the suppression of such forms is one of the most prolific 
 causes of the Poor offending. The Poor do not make 
 their own amusements, their habits, fashions, or cus- 
 
1 INTRODUCTORY 15 
 
 toms; all these have descended to them from the better 
 classes of a past age. But unfortunately, these pleasures 
 only reach the Poor when the better classes of the 
 present age have condemned them, and legislated 
 against them because the Poor refuse to give them up 
 voluntarily. Yet the better classes of the past who 
 introduced these condemned manners would not have 
 surrendered them to the Poor of their day, or the wise, 
 or any class even at the threat of a revolution, but 
 praised them, clung to them, extolled them, and left a 
 long catalogue of plays, romances, poems, 'and songs in 
 their glorification. Their descendants, the better classes 
 of the present day, are following in their footsteps as 
 regards the pleasures of the hour, and their grand- or 
 great-grand- children will be busy legislating against 
 these pleasures just as the Poor of their time have 
 succeeded to them. 
 
 The Social Life is our true formative life ; it is our 
 only free life wherein our natural desires show their 
 course and inclination, form the habits most suitable to 
 them, and utilise all the conditions of our life in their own 
 service. Our business has its conditions, so also has 
 our rest. There must be a wide difference then between 
 the enjoyment of a life, from which all obstacles are 
 removed by legislation, and the enjoyment of a life that 
 as much legislation as can reasonably be passed is 
 made to hamper and forbid. These are the different 
 conditions of life under which wealth and poverty exist. 
 There is no legislation interferes with the pleasures of 
 the Rich ; there is hardly a pleasure of the Poor that is 
 not under some form of restriction. This burden of 
 repression — brain repression — becomes to all men at 
 certain times intolerable, but more especially at a time 
 of pleasure.* Almost our first action of enjoyment is 
 mental and physical freedom, the relieving all our 
 muscles, nerves, and limbs, and thoughts from their 
 
i6 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS i 
 
 usual restraint. The Rich have no restraint to throw 
 off when they wish to enjoy themselves. They do so 
 every day, and it is the habit of their lives ; but the Poor 
 cannot enjoy themselves without throwing - off restraint, 
 and to do so is generally a police offence. 
 
 It maybe wondered by some why, as the Poor change 
 their habits, they cannot be persuaded to make a great 
 step forward and at once adopt the habits of the 
 wealthy classes of their own time, and so live in their 
 approval and concurrent morality. Such a question 
 looks superfluous on paper, yet it is asked every day in 
 the actions of those philanthropists and missionaries 
 who preach to the Poor on their evil ways. The Poor 
 as well as the Rich adopt their habits by Natural law, 
 and are no more responsible for them than a lady is for 
 the fashion she will wear next year ; and the philan- 
 thropist who disapproves of the habits of the Poor and 
 approves of his own, is as unaware why he is addicted 
 to the habits of his life as he is why golf became 
 fashionable. Social habits are adopted by the law of 
 Imitation, one of the strongest laws in humanity ; but 
 our freedom of imitation is restricted by the social law 
 of Uniformity, and we can only adopt as a habit what 
 our own set agree upon adopting. 
 
 We have touched upon this one instance of how the 
 Rich make the lives of the Poor unnecessarily difficult to 
 them by their intolerance. Each class of society is 
 following a natural law in the formation of circles of 
 uniformity, but here Nature ceases ; it is civilisation, 
 and especially religion that teaches us to condemn 
 all other formations but our own. Nature has ordained 
 that we shall each of us form the individual and social 
 habits and customs in which we find life easiest and can 
 pursue our happmess with least hindrance ; # but it stops 
 at interfering with the owners of other lives doing the 
 same. But civilisation, education, or religion (we 
 
i INTRODUCTORY 17 
 
 mention all three so that each reader may choose for 
 himself which he believes to be the true formative force 
 within us) has brought us to a pass that it seems the 
 only happiness left to one half of the world, is to forbid 
 the other to have any. When these earnest people 
 come to know some day, as it is to be hoped they will, 
 that virtue springs naturally from happiness, they may 
 reflect upon the amount they are treading out of 
 existence each year in their efforts to propagate it. 
 
 The definition of Natural law or the laws of Nature 
 in life are very diverse and vague. It depends largely 
 on education and prejudice. To some people it is 
 the mechanical satisfaction of the physical necessities. 
 They exclude the use of the intelligences. Like the 
 animals, they say, when a man is hungry, he takes the 
 first loaf he sees, no matter whose it may be, and he 
 eats it. And further, as long as there is eatable matter 
 to be had, this man will remain as he is, and eat w r hen 
 he is hungry. To such people Natural law is an in- 
 sufficient eruide to existence. It means stagnation and 
 animalism. Others again admit in Natural law the use 
 of the intellectual faculties, but only for the purpose of 
 showing, that it only uses them on the immoral side 
 — never for a virtuous purpose. This is the opinion of 
 the pietists. The heart of man, they say, is deceitful 
 and desperately wicked. It is to be continually watched 
 over, and its desires repressed. 
 
 Self-preservation is the first law of Nature, it is said. 
 If a person fell into the water, would he not try and 
 save himself, and in so doing would he not use all his 
 brains and experience? Then would this be an immoral 
 because natural use of one's intelligence ? A learned 
 professor 1 has just said in a lecture: — "Then, again, 
 
 1 Prof. William Wallace, of Oxford. Fifth of the Glasgow 
 Gifford Lectures, season 1894-95. As reported in Glasgow 
 Herald, March 1, 1895. 
 
iS THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS i 
 
 the modern [erities] said the natural was immoral. 
 What a ghastly prospect was set forth in that state- 
 ment. We could not abjure Nature. In ninety-nine 
 hundredths of our life we must be natural. Were we 
 therefore immoral ? " 
 
 In the opinion of the writer, Natural laws, or the laws 
 of Nature, are the uniform, inalienable conditions to 
 which all life is born, and through which alone it can 
 attain happiness. Were the universe stationary, and the 
 environment of life always the same, these laws would act 
 without deviation or variation, and life every where would 
 be mechanical and automatic. In such a case life would 
 require no brains, having no choice of action. But 
 because all the world is changing and unforseeable, 
 even we ourselves, Nature has supplied life with a 
 faculty to surmount, or at least contend with, the diffi- 
 culty. This common faculty we, in ourselves, call 
 Reason, and are very proud of the extent to which we 
 are endowed with it over other forms of life. The 
 original use of brains and their equivalent in other 
 forms of life is only that of selection. We hunger and 
 we thirst every day, and several times a day ; yet we 
 never hunger or thirst under exactly the same con- 
 ditions, either as regards ourselves or our means of 
 satisfying them. Even when the same means are at 
 hand, they must take their chance with all other means 
 available. It is the function of the brain to satisfy 
 this ever-changing desire ; and it is a question of 
 education and prejudice why we differ so widely in 
 doing so. The professor, the bishop, and the working 
 man may all thirst at the same time, and the one will 
 assuage himself with water, another with wine, and 
 the third with beer, and each will prefer his own 
 method, and in doing so is following a natural law. 
 While Natural law is careful over the twitching of a 
 muscle, or the bending of a finger, there is also room 
 
i INTRODUCTORY 19 
 
 within its scope for the grandest, the wildest, the most 
 delicate or most profound thought the brain is capable of. 
 Our thoughts lie to our point of strongest desire as the 
 needle to the pole. The banker thinks of money- 
 making, and the lover of his mistress ; the poet of his 
 rhymes, and the soldier of ambition. But all of them 
 have at times strong desires, to which their thoughts 
 lie close, but which they carefully guard against pub- 
 licity. The strongest desires of the Poor are always 
 physical comfort and rest. Life itself would have to 
 be destroyed before that could be altered. 
 
 The subject and classification of Natural laws is too 
 vast for discussion here. Our apology for touching 
 upon it at all, is that many of these laws are referred to 
 throughout the following pages, and it w^ould be a fair 
 reproach of the reader's against us, that we have intro- 
 duced new or contentious matter without putting the 
 whole argument from which we draw our deductions 
 before them. Until a future day. we are afraid that 
 reproach must lie against us, but in the meantime we 
 hope that with the definition of Natural law we have 
 just given, and the explanation of each we have made 
 in referring to it, the reader will be able to under- 
 stand our meaning, though he may dispute our 
 conclusions. 
 
 To the Poor Law systems of the country we make no 
 reference : they are outside the scope of our argument. 
 A legal enactment is not a philanthropy, and it is with 
 philanthropy alone we propose to deal in the meantime 
 
 whether the voluntary interference of one class with 
 the lives of another class is for the good of that other 
 class or not ? The question is put as boldly as can be. 
 It is admitted that the interfering class believe they are 
 intermeddling for the other's good ; but this is denied 
 by the Poor, unless in the one particular of the free- 
 gift-to-all-comers' mission. It is admissible that we 
 
 c 2 
 
2o THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS i 
 
 should incorporate into the simple question we have 
 set before us, the further one — whether it is morally 
 and economically just that a class or section of the 
 community should supply, free of cost, to another 
 section of the community those things that Nature 
 and a healthy state of society require they should work 
 to provide for themselves ? 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PHILANTHROPY 
 
 Philanthropy : its subjection to moral law — The different moral 
 laws of the different classes — Class a barrier to sympathy — 
 Natural philanthropy and unnatural philanthropies. 
 
 What is philanthropy? The word means "love of 
 mankind," and a philanthropist is a person who loves 
 his fellow man and fellow men. It is a compound of two 
 Greek words meant to embody the idea of universal 
 brotherhood. As regards real life no such thing or 
 person ever existed, or could exist. 
 
 In the opinion of many, these ideal conceptions of 
 life, though known to be impossible of attainment, are 
 looked upon as serving a good purpose in encouraging 
 people — mostly young — -to strive to attain as near as 
 possible to them, so that in the effort they may reach a 
 higher possible standard than has yet been attained. The 
 common advice to the young is, " to always keep before 
 you a high ideal, always strive to reach it or as near to 
 it as you can." This would be very good advice, if and 
 where the limit of human action is unknown, but where 
 the limit of our efforts is perfectly well known these 
 impossible ideals, in the experience of the writer, do 
 more harm than good. They often deprive the person 
 
THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS n 
 
 of all inclination to make any effort, because they are 
 known beforehand to be unattainable. And they are 
 quoted as justifications for making - no special effort, by 
 the lazy and unambitious, who say that it is no use 
 trying" impossibilities. 
 
 The impossibility of any person loving" the whole 
 human family, or even all of that infinitesimal portion 
 he personally comes in contact with, lies in this, that 
 he would have to be a person without any knowledge 
 of good or evil. According to Natural law — not civilisa- 
 tion's laws — not even a lunatic is without that know- 
 ledge, and therefore without likes and dislikes. 
 
 The origin of good and evil springs from our personal 
 experience. Our object in life — the object of each 
 individual — is to find his happiness, and in pursuit of 
 that object we love — nor can help ourselves — all who 
 assist us, and are friendly to us ; and we hate all who 
 would hinder us or are wilfully antagonistic to us, 
 nor can we help that hate. That is the primary moral 
 law of all men, and remains throughout life the 
 strongest. 
 
 Civilisation made in each country, and according to 
 the social habits of the people, and to a certain extent 
 in accordance with its religion, a common uniform code 
 of morality to supersede our personal and individual 
 ones. And so comes our national sense of right and 
 wrong. 
 
 The moral code, or code of right and wrong that 
 obtains among the people with whom we have to deal 
 and amidst whom our life is cast, is the code we 
 generally accept for our own guidance. It is the easiest 
 to live, the one we can depend upon as guiding the 
 actions of others towards ourselves, and we can no 
 more love the person who wilfully violates it, and so 
 hurts the community, and ourselves as part of it, than 
 we can love the person who turns us to ridicule. Our 
 
ii PHILANTHROPY 23 
 
 actions generally, or at least our free actions, we must 
 believe to be right, seeing they are the result of our 
 own reasoning. The person who seeks to turn them to 
 ridicule, by so doing seeks to persuade others that they 
 are wrong. We cannot love the person who seeks to 
 make us wrong when we believe we are right. 
 
 No man can love what he believes to be wrong, and 
 to love the person who is guilty of the wrong is to love 
 the wron«f itself. 
 
 The highest human nature can attain to in dealing with 
 the wrong : we can suspend our resentment of it : we 
 can forgive : we can pity — but we cannot love. To do 
 so were to cross the barrier and approve of it. 
 
 Wherever the community is divided into classes 
 there is another barrier raised to our efforts at philan- 
 thropy, in its Greek sense. The sympathy of the 
 classes flows upwards and not downwards, in the very 
 opposite direction to our desire to help. We cannot 
 love the class below 7 our own : we tolerate them. They 
 are the heirs to our cast-off habits, as we are the 
 successors to the habits of the class immediately above 
 us. It may have been a generation or two ago since we 
 discarded the habits that are fashionable with our lower 
 class. Having disused them we also condemned them, 
 and we can entertain no warm affection for the class 
 that continues them. As with the class immediately 
 next to our own, so is it with all the classes below us 
 down to the bottom, increasing in degree as we descend, 
 because the habits they affect are older, longer in time 
 given up by us, and thought therefore more disreputable. 
 It is the penalty we pay for social life that our 
 sympathies and affections seldom descend below our 
 own class. 
 
 The writer experienced an ecstasy of love for the Poor 
 that lasted about five years. So strong was the passion 
 upon him that he felt it no effort to be capable of any 
 
24 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS n 
 
 sacrifice for them. To be of service to them he spent 
 all his leisure with them. He became one of themselves 
 as far as he could ; he suppressed all social distinction 
 not to offend them ; he determined to see no evil in 
 their actions where they saw none, not to rouse their 
 prejudice. What he disapproved of he remained silent 
 upon, not to lose their confidence. He went among 
 them denuded of every feeling but that of wishing to 
 help them. He drank with them, so far as he could 
 drink, to find out whether drink was to them a neces- 
 sity or an indulgence. He had only two ambitions — to 
 promote their happiness, and to solve, if possible, the 
 mystery — if mystery there were — of their lives ; whether 
 they were living the highest form of virtue their 
 circumstances permitted, or whether, according to 
 every missionary's story and police report, they de- 
 liberately preferred evil to good. These two ambitions 
 worked on entirely different lines, and produced in the 
 writer a strange consciousness of a double existence. 
 The enthusiastic one had no thought for anything but 
 how to make the poor he met with happy ; how for the 
 time he was with them he could give them some 
 pleasure, remove from them some annoyance, settle as 
 far as he could that they should not suffer for a little in 
 advance. He cared not what the cost, if he could do 
 it ; was oblivious to all after-effects of his actions. 
 Sufficient for the day was its own misery ; if that could 
 be lifted, we could hope for the morrow. But there 
 was no day looked upon as satisfactorily spent that had 
 not made some happy faces, brightened some home, or 
 relieved some despondency ; and the night only brought 
 a prayer for greater strength, and dreams of further 
 usefulness. 
 
 The observant side of our existence was unimpas- 
 sioned, cool, and collected, observing everything, re- 
 membering everything, watching faces and actions, 
 
ii PHILANTHROPY 
 
 25 
 
 permitting no detail, however trifling, to escape. It tried 
 to see behind the grimy veil of hardened and expres- 
 sionless muscles ; it sought to penetrate beyond the 
 bleary film of the eye. What was going on in the 
 brain, what the impelling and repressive forces at work 
 upon the intelligence ; these were the observations and 
 reflections of this side of our work. And at night, when 
 at home, everything was weighed and summed up ; 
 probable motives were imagined, to be tested next 
 opportunity ; effects were calculated upon, to be watched 
 and followed to their conclusion. 
 
 This dual existence, strange though it seems, worked 
 perfectly harmoniously. The enthusiastic impulse was 
 immensely the stronger and felt no restraint ; the other 
 side was simply observant. It made no protest, but 
 summed up its conclusions every night and presented 
 them to the working side as a kind of guide to the 
 morrow's work. 
 
 But the strangest thing of all was that after some 
 time the observant side began to close its nightly 
 reflections with the remark, "You do not love the 
 Poor ! ' For some time this remark passed unheeded. 
 It was so preposterous ! To feel one's self sometimes 
 vibrating with this emotion ; to have no thought night 
 nor day but how to serve them, and yet to be told we 
 did not love the Poor. What could be the motive of 
 our actions ? We worked alone, and spoke to no person 
 about our doings but those personal friends who knew 
 what we were doing. We felt safer to trust our own 
 feelings in the matter, than heed our other selfs over 
 cautious speculations. Besides, it would not have 
 mattered, we could not help ourself. But the nightly 
 Repetition of the remark had the same effect as 
 the drop of water upon the stone. It wore a place for 
 itself into our thoughts, that w 7 e found it getting daily 
 more difficult to ignore. We found ourself thinking 
 
26 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS n 
 
 of it when we had imagined we had banished it. We 
 found it coming - between us and our work. It must 
 therefore be faced and satisfactorily settled. Something 
 like the following conversation took place between our 
 dual self. " Why do you say I do not love the Poor? " 
 " Because in fact you do not do so." " Knowing the 
 feelings that possess us, and the way we spend our 
 time, what other motive or incentive could we have? " 
 "You do not act towards the Poor as you do to 
 people you love, not even as to people of your own 
 class with whom you are only intimate." " Have I not 
 suppressed all class distinction? Do I not make them 
 my equals in all things, speak to them and act to them 
 as one of themselves ; have I not overcome my pre- 
 judices against their ways and doings?" "Yes, in 
 outward appearance, but not in feeling. Your feelings 
 remain in their natural state, and you have to exercise 
 an effort of will to overcome them. Nor is one effort 
 enough ; each night you have to renew it, sometimes 
 more than once in a night. With the people you like, 
 you require to suppress nothing ; no effort is required 
 to spend the time with them, nor is your mind even 
 occupied with the subject." "That may arise from 
 long habit and education. The people of my own class 
 I understand better and our thoughts flow more freely ; 
 also we have the same moral code, the same principle, 
 the same ideas of right and wrong." " But the differ- 
 ence in your feeling does not arise from these causes, 
 because it is not confined to your own class, nor your 
 own principles. When you spent your holiday at that 
 little fishing village last summer you took a liking to 
 the natives. There was the very drunken butcher, who 
 sometimes fell off his cart. You felt no inclination tp 
 condemn his conduct ; you only laughed at his help- 
 lessness. There was the very blasphemous boatman ! 
 the choleric old fisherman. You felt no prejudice 
 
ii PHILANTHROPY 27 
 
 against their faults ; you good-naturedly overlooked all 
 their faults because you liked them, and yet your princi- 
 ples were opposed to their lives. But it is not so with 
 the Poor. If one gives way to swearing, you do not 
 laugh ; you become grave, but say nothing. If you find 
 one of your poor acquaintances tipsy, you do not enjoy 
 the joke. You have to stay with him and see him 
 home. Should one get into a passion and be inclined 
 to fight, it is not the funny thing it was in the 
 summer, but a very serious matter. When you like 
 one set of Poor whose habits you disapprove of, why do 
 you not treat the other set the same?" "I was not 
 thinking of the Poor of the village to interest myself in 
 them, and to help them." "The greater the interest 
 the greater the affection. It should make you all the 
 more able to forgive the city Poor ; yet you know such 
 is not the case." Silence for a few minutes. Again 
 the enthusiast: "What then can be this impelling 
 motive within me, over which I have so little command, 
 if it is not love ? " "It is love, but not of the Poor. Not 
 of any one of them, not of the whole regiment. It is 
 love of their well-being, their happiness. Intense 
 study of their condition — what you called the ' Question 
 of the Poor' — brought you an idea that you could solve 
 the problem of their happiness. The constant contem- 
 plation of the immense benefit to civilisation, let alone 
 the Poor, you would confer, if successful, kept your 
 mind in a frenzy, and the gorgeous pictures, the realisa- 
 tion of your hopes, kept passing panorama-wise before 
 your mind supplied the daily stimulant." "With all 
 that, taking you at your own words, how can I love the 
 welfare and happiness of the Poor yet not love the 
 Poor?" "Easily enough; it is your idea of their 
 happiness you love, not them. All of them who happen 
 to walk with you on that line you can love readily 
 enough ; but they are very few, the great majority are 
 
28 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS n 
 
 going their own way, crossing and recrossing your 
 track, sometimes obstructing" it, and these you cannot 
 love. You cannot love two opposite principles at one 
 and the same time ; you cannot love their happiness 
 and those of them that hinder and thwart it." 
 
 Such is the case with all philanthropists : they are fully 
 persuaded that they love the Poor ; but the philanthro- 
 pist may be better described as, not one who loves the 
 Poor, but one who hates their w T ays. A man who loves 
 the Poor must love them as they are, and therefore 
 would not seek to change them. A man who is con- 
 tented with the lives of his fellow men is never a 
 philanthropist. In philanthropy we must first see 
 something we dislike. How then can we love those 
 that continue against our efforts in the objectionable 
 state ? This is the state of civilised philanthropy where 
 the different classes lead different lives. Were we all 
 of one class this form of philanthropy could not exist ; 
 as nobody objects to the habits of his own class, 
 nobody was ever known to missionise his own set. 
 
 As Nature made no arrangement for people to live in 
 strata, Natural philanthropy is of a different form. It 
 is purely individual, as Nature meant all life to be, and 
 it is neither a philosophical nor divine conception. It 
 is purely self-defensive — the strongest spur to action 
 that we have. 
 
 Pain is the great arch-enemy of that happiness we 
 are all bound to seek. We cannot endure it ourselves ; 
 all our faculties are trained to watch for it and avoid 
 it, and to relieve ourselves of it when it comes to us. 
 We cannot even endure the sight or the knowledge of 
 it in others. That Natural philanthropy is no virtue 
 is evidenced in this — it is not the other person's pain we 
 relieve by our philanthropical efforts, but our own. 
 The person through whom we are made to suffer may 
 be able to bear with equanimity what is acute distress 
 
II 
 
 PHILANTHROPY 29 
 
 to us, yet that does not arrest our efforts to have it 
 removed. From this fact arises the folly of many 
 missions. The Poor have greater power of endurance 
 than the higher classes, yet the higher classes start 
 missions among the Poor to relieve them of what by 
 the standard of endurance of the better classes must be 
 great misery, but by the standard of the Poor is hardly 
 more than a passing inconvenience. 
 
 Natural philanthropy cannot be systematised. It 
 must wait the incident and occasion that calls it forth, 
 and it can go no further than the satisfactory settlement 
 of that case, until it is awakened again by some new 
 circumstance. It is simplicity itself, as perfect in the 
 helping of an old lady over a crossing, or picking 
 up an old gentleman who has fallen, as in feeding 
 thousands in a famine-stricken country. It never errs, 
 and can never be improved upon, for, like all Nature's 
 laws, it works perfectly, and has no exception. 
 
 It is upon this Natural law of suffering that social 
 philanthropy is founded. It does not look much the 
 same thing, and those who affect social philanthropy 
 prefer putting it upon a higher plane — sometimes 
 spiritual, sometimes sentimental. The comparison 
 between them is only this — where they differ social 
 philanthropy goes wrong. The social philanthropist 
 must first feel a distress before he is roused to action, 
 but instead of relieving, or helping to relieve the distress 
 he feels, he must generalise that all that class, or all 
 that particular neighbourhood where it was exhibited 
 suffer alike, and from the same cause. The districts 
 where the Poor live are so congested, that it is safe to 
 say, within the same area they stand to the wealthy 
 quarters in population as ten to one. When a West 
 End lady sees a little boy standing at one of the entries 
 in a poor quarter, bootless, and apparently cold, she is 
 moved by her own suffering at the sight. So far, quite 
 
30 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS n 
 
 natural. But she takes for granted that all the children 
 in the neighbourhood are starving - with cold because of 
 their bootless condition, and through the press and the 
 platform she makes piteous appeals for funds to start 
 a mission to clothe " the little ones," especially their 
 pedal extremities. So far she is as reasonable as if 
 the father of that boy visited the West End, and came 
 to the conclusion that all the men of that district re- 
 quired their hair cut because he saw a minor poet 
 walking down Regent Street. 
 
 Unfortunate also, is it, that social philanthropy 
 should be based on the same principle of personal 
 suffering as Natural philanthropy, because it is those 
 possessed of least endurance who are the leading 
 philanthropists — the hysterical, the neurotic, the fibre- 
 less. They are the first to scream out at anything 
 they fear may be disagreeable to them, and they call 
 their selfishness by such fine names as " Refined Sensi- 
 bilities," "Public Morality," "Common Humanity." 
 We have called them selfish, but they do not think they 
 are selfish, and the word may sound too harsh. But 
 the action is selfish all the same. In their opinion 
 everything is due to them from the public ; nothing is 
 due from them to the public. The murderer must 
 escape the law because they do not like capital punish- 
 ment. The judge's decision must be overturned, and 
 the law of the country brought into contempt, because 
 they dislike its penalties. Thieves and false accusers 
 must escape scot-free, because there are circumstances 
 in their career that are interesting. They care nothing 
 for the protection of life or property, regard for the 
 law, or social customs, when their sensibilities are 
 affected. Public opinion or State policy must surrender 
 to them at once before their sufferings can be assuaged. 
 And what do they render in return? Let State necessity 
 or local requirements but touch some of their many 
 
ii PHILANTHROPY 31 
 
 prejudices, and then listen to the howl ! Not though 
 hundreds of young men go to an early grave each year 
 from preventible causes would they yield one iota 
 of their selfish requirements. These are the extreme ; 
 but they will soon be the only philanthropists. All 
 others they are driving from the field. To be moderate 
 or sensible is — in their eyes — to differ from them, and 
 that is a greater crime than breaking the whole moral 
 law. They are the extremists for weakness at one end 
 of the social ladder, and the Poor are the extremists for 
 hardihood at the other ; and when they take to interest- 
 ing themselves in the affairs of the Poor, the Poor smile, 
 and rather like it. 
 
 The rational philanthropist is in no way more removed 
 from being governed by his feelings than the Natural 
 one. He may take an immensely wider view of the 
 problem of life, but there had first to be a sore that 
 vexed him before he took any view at all. He may 
 pass by the sores, or wounds, seeing in them only 
 evidences of a deep-seated, malignant disease that 
 threatens a fatal development. He may consider it no 
 case for local treatment, and give his mind to a remedial 
 and general course of treatment. But it is the surface 
 wound that shows the disease, and according to its 
 painful effect upon us is the interest and activity we 
 show in its removal. 
 
 There is no man can err in helping the removal of 
 the distress he may see in his daily round, unless by 
 giving money. Money is seldom required ; but our 
 faith in its power to be a substitute for everything, and 
 our cowardice in the face of trouble, makes us ever 
 ready to buy ourselves off from a disagreeable duty. 
 By so doing we have created a nice, large class who 
 prey upon the public sympathy — from the man who, 
 with a piece of soap in his mouth, can simulate fits, 
 to the comfortable and cosy begging-letter writers 
 
32 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS n 
 
 who make their five and ten pounds a week. These people 
 when found out we punish ; yet it is we who have 
 created them. An epileptic person requires no money, 
 but a physician ; and if that plan were followed he 
 would cease to be epileptic. A begging-letter is seldom 
 written to a person residing in the same town as the 
 writer thereof, or where the case, so pathetically and 
 distressingly described, is supposed to occur. No 
 person should send money to any one not in his own 
 town. Each town has enough, and more than enough, 
 philanthropists to take charge of its own distress. 
 Exceptional cases of affliction such as the begging-letter 
 writer loves to portray cannot be hidden, and must be 
 known locally, and are sure of being treated. 
 
 With the exception of these pests, our practice of 
 Natural philanthropy is free from being imposed upon. 
 None can tell our pain endurance, and if it be a case 
 we do not feel causes or entails much suffering, our 
 sympathies are not aroused. Should they be aroused, 
 we only require to help the sufferer to relief from his 
 suffering, we do not require to buy for him immunity 
 — that is no philanthropy. But there is one thing 
 about Natural philanthropy different from all the other 
 systems : it requires to respect no moral or ethical code. 
 We cannot justify many of the causes of our own 
 sufferings ; as a rule we seldom can morally defend 
 any of them ; but all the same we are diligent in 
 seeking relief from them. So also must it be with our 
 sympathetic pain ; we require to ask no questions how 
 it came there, we have only to remove it. Nature has 
 protected us from the repetition of any action where 
 the sufferer may think to profit by our sympathy — the 
 sympathy passes into indifference. Note how our 
 sympathies are aroused at the sight of a new form of 
 distress ; but after we have seen it every day for a 
 month or two, note our indifference. 
 
ii PHILANTHROPY 33 
 
 It is claimed by those whose opinion we are entitled 
 to respect, that Natural philanthropy is not sufficient to 
 meet the difficulties in a large town. We answer, that 
 it has never been tried ; and that in our own experience 
 the cases of real distress requiring- aid are very few. 
 There are plenty evidences of distress, some the natural 
 condition of the people, and some short acute forms that 
 are known not to be of any duration, and for which the 
 sufferers do nothing themselves, and that would be gone 
 and forgotten before one could arrange to do anything. 
 But the distress that is unusual, and likely to last for a 
 time, and beyond the effort of the sufferers themselves 
 to contend with, is very much rarer than is generally 
 understood. We cannot say, ourselves, whether in- 
 dividual philanthropy would be adequate to cope with 
 all the legitimate distress in a very congested district, 
 calculating all the people of the better classes who may 
 have occasion to find their way there, but we advocate 
 it to all and sundry as the only form of philanthropy 
 that can do neither themselves nor the poor any harm ; 
 in fact, do both much good. The time is coming, and 
 coming faster than many people think, when the 
 socialistic demands of the Poor, to which our legislators 
 are helplessly sinking, will arouse the classes to an in- 
 dignant sense of self-defence, and all philanthropy will 
 cease on the ground that it is no longer necessary to help 
 those who have learned so well how to help themselves. 
 A sense of ingratitude and injustice will strengthen all 
 against any flow of sympathy, no matter what the ap- 
 parent distress. At that time it may be serviceable 
 to the reader to know of a system of philanthropy 
 that can be exercised without hurt to any one. 
 
 However, we must consider things as they are, and 
 not as they should be, if we wish to make any practical 
 progress. As long as the classes in large towns love 
 each other so indifferently that they prefer living in 
 
 D 
 
34 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS n 
 
 different quarters — the rich always furthest away from 
 the poor — some artificial form of philanthropy may be 
 necessary. And as long as we believe that all the in- 
 habitants of a poor district are synchronically starving, 
 synchronically drunk, and uniformly irreligious, there 
 may be some reason for systematising our philan- 
 thropical efforts on a permanent, continuous basis. 
 Few people believe all the Poor to be one thing or 
 another at the same time, but we always speak at our 
 missions and write of them as if there dwelt no 
 exception among them. It is always the great misery 
 and starvation of the Poor — not among them ; the 
 awful intemperance of the Poor ; the fearful impiety of 
 the Poor. 
 
 An organised philanthropy in which more than one 
 person is concerned must of course have a principle. 
 It is the binding element of subscribers, managers, 
 and organisers, and no matter what that principle may 
 be, if it is a moral one, dealing with a line of conduct — 
 one we should all like to see the Poor adopt for their own 
 sakes — then there ends the mission's usefulness at once. 
 The Poor have their own moral code ; it is not ours. 
 We cannot adopt theirs ; they cannot adopt ours. This 
 question of morality separates the classes more than 
 anything next to wealth, but it destroys the sympathy 
 between the classes more than wealth does. 
 
 A digression here to explain our meaning may be 
 permitted. By morality or moral law we do not mean 
 the decalogue. That instrument, we take it, was a 
 hurried declaration of the two great principles of 
 government that had existed for all time in savage as 
 well as in civilised peoples ; the two principles by which 
 any form of order alone can exist. The first five an- 
 nouncements establish authority from that of God to 
 the parent ; and the last five, the protection of property 
 from that of life and wife down to reputation. 
 
ii PHILANTHROPY 35 
 
 National morality, as we have said at the beginning of 
 this chapter, is a guide to our actions one to another as 
 citizens of the same country. It is based on the spirit 
 of existing laws ; an extension of their principles 
 beyond the limit where penalties can be enforced. But 
 though people of the same nation, we are mostly strangers 
 to each other, and our intercourse in many cases is 
 very limited ; and so national morality is an insufficient 
 guide to our conduct. Each separate act should have 
 its ethical principle understood by the doer, the sufferer, 
 and the witnesses. Social life is the fullest life we 
 have, and the morality that springs therefrom is gener- 
 ally the governing laws of our conduct. The social 
 habits of each class are different, and therefore so must 
 their morality be. Each approve of their own habitual 
 actions, and their perceptions of good and evil are 
 modelled and educated upon these actions. That hardly 
 any one class can approve wholly of the actions of 
 another class shows they have a different morality. 
 They all live under the same laws, and the preponderat- 
 ing majority have had the same fundamental education 
 in religion. It is not these that influence and guide 
 our lives most, but the morality of our class. It 
 modifies our interpretation of both religion and law. 
 
 The difference, then, of educational from Natural 
 philanthropy is the moral note introduced into the 
 former, and that is also its stumbling block. This has 
 been recognised for some years past by certain philan- 
 thropists, and they have established relieving missions 
 free from the educational taint. In most of the large 
 towns in the country there are missions for feeding, 
 clothing, sheltering, and otherwise providing the Poor 
 with anything they stand in need of — free, gratis, and 
 for nothing, not even a hymn being required of them. 
 But still these missions cannot wholly do without the 
 moral safeguard. Like all missions, it is other people's 
 
 d 2 
 
 
36 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS n 
 
 money the managers are working - upon, and before 
 they can find people willing to part with their money, 
 the subscribers require a guarantee that the money 
 must be used for a good purpose. The guarantee that 
 is forthcoming is that all cases are specially inquired 
 into before help is given. Any one acquainted with the 
 ways of the Poor will know of what value such a 
 guarantee is. It is one of the highest moral principles 
 of a large worthless class to swindle both mission and 
 missionary, because of the total lack of sympathy 
 between them, and of the contempt the Poor have for 
 the stupid way the philanthropist goes about his work. 
 While the distributing mission is advertising for funds, 
 it seems to forget that it is also advertising to all and 
 sundry among the Poor where to get food and clothing 
 for the asking — always in a proper manner. There are 
 a great many among the Poor to whom a great-coat, 
 or a pair of boots, or even a g'ood square meal comes 
 in handy at any time, and although they may not have 
 been thinking about them at any particular time, the 
 advertisement where to go reminds them not to lose the 
 opportunity. That they can satisfy the special inquiry 
 they have no fear ; they live all the year round and 
 enjoy a life that would bring tears to the eyes of the 
 tender-hearted, well-fed, well-clothed philanthropists 
 who " run " the mission. But should they suspect they 
 are not down to the necessary requirements all they 
 require to do is to strip in a neighbouring entry to the 
 proper nakedness, and give their pal their clothes to 
 hold until they come back. The variation from Natural 
 philanthropy that the distributing philanthropy shows, 
 is, that instead of relieving the distress that has 
 occurred the latter advertises to the Poor that a certain 
 evidence of distress, accompanied by the ability to 
 stand a certain inspection, entitles all to relief gratis. 
 Now if there is any class among the Poor whgse lives 
 
ii PHILANTHROPY 37 
 
 always show these evidences they are not in distress, 
 yet they are eligible for relief. There is such a class, 
 and these missions are their great propagating agencies. 
 
 The interfering with the normal conditions of any 
 person's life is not philanthropy. 
 
 The intermittent thrusting of pleasures upon the 
 Poor — pleasures they cannot indulge in themselves — is 
 not philanthropy. 
 
 The artificial augmentation of their earning power 
 or spending power is no philanthropy. 
 
 And, above all, the attempts of a weaker class to 
 gauge what is the suffering of a strong class destroys 
 in both that fortitude which is the sole hope for the 
 regeneration of mankind. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CHURCH'S INFLUENCE ON PHILANTHROPY 
 
 The Church's influence on philanthropy, showing- the evolution of 
 public charity from the Church as first almoner to the 
 mission becoming - more important than the Poor. 
 
 There is no such thing in Nature as a free gift, or as 
 it may more familiarly be described, Nature's law is 
 " nothing for nothing." Nature has made no provision 
 how one man's possessions can become another person's 
 without an equivalent. What we call free gifts are only 
 gifts to which we do not attach conditions for repayment 
 that can be legally enforced. But that they are not free is 
 proved by the fact that they create new and different rela- 
 tions between the giver and the receiver, from that 
 in which they stood before. These new relations in the 
 minds of both are a credit of obligation on the one side, a 
 debit of obligation on the other. The obligation repre- 
 sents the equivalent of the gift, but is left blank. 
 
 If there were such a thing as a free gift, the relation- 
 ship of the parties towards each other would remain 
 unchanged, a manifest impossibility. Should a person 
 find some money, he is personally the gainer by the 
 amount found, but his relations to his fellow men remain 
 unaltered by the find. But should he receive it as a 
 
in CHURCH'S INFLUENCE ON PHILANTHROPY 39 
 
 free gift from any one ; while all the rest remain the 
 same, his relations to that one person are changed by 
 reason of the gift. 
 
 The workings of this Natural law will be seen in the 
 Church's relations to philanthropy. 
 
 The Church was the first organised professional 
 almoner. There were many circumstances in past 
 history why it should be so. It was for many turbulent 
 years the only stable permanent institution of civilisa- 
 tion. The history of the toilers — all who are condemned 
 to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow — can be 
 written in three short chapters from the date of civilisa- 
 tion : — Slavery — with the minimum of poverty and no 
 philanthropy. Feudalism — whereby the peasant was 
 allowed to work for himself when his master did not 
 require him — a fee for his land in peace time, and bodily 
 service in war. Emancipation — when the fee was 
 increased to cover all obligations. 
 
 Feudalism caused many Poor — the widows and 
 children of those slain in battle, and the wounded, 
 maimed, and incapacitated, who could no longer work. 
 There was an obligation upon the superior — Lord or 
 Chieftain — to support these people, and to whom could 
 that duty be delegated when the clan was abroad or in 
 camp, but the only institution in the country that was 
 above the issue and effects of war — the Church. 
 
 As Feudalism created a condition of greater poverty 
 than slavery, so Emancipation exceeded Feudalism 
 in the same process. The freer the people became 
 from obligation, the more they could indulge their 
 own desires ; and these left no margin of protection 
 from misfortune, folly, ill-health, or famine. The more 
 poverty grew from personal freedom of action, the less 
 also became the obligation of the seignors to subscribe 
 for its relief. 
 
 To return to the Church. In the distribution of alms 
 
40 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS ill 
 
 the Church experienced the Natural law that there was 
 an equivalent to everything, and that the Poor were 
 grateful and willing to be reciprocative, if opportunity 
 occurred, for the benefits they received. It was there- 
 fore natural that the Church should turn this gratitude 
 to its own account. All institutions must keep their 
 interests in the forefront of their actions. But this is 
 peculiarly the case with the Church, because it believes 
 that its own interests are, or include, the paramount 
 interests of all humanity. The Church changed the 
 moral note into a religious one, and the gratitude and 
 desire to reciprocate that moved the Poor was sought to 
 be converted into submission to discipline and religious 
 observance. 
 
 From this very natural action of the Church many 
 curious effects flowed, all more or less obliterative of 
 Natural philanthropy. In the first place the establish- 
 ment of a permanent intermediary in philanthropy 
 interrupts the flow of gratitude to the proper person to 
 whom it is due. In Natural philanthropy the bene- 
 factor and his subject meet, and the gratitude of the one 
 to the other is active and direct. This gratitude is a 
 powerful instrument for good in the benefactor's hands, 
 if he wishes to use it, and it can always be depended 
 upon for reasonable service when wanted. But when 
 it becomes known that the distributor is not the real 
 benefactor, but only an agent performing a duty, then 
 there is no gratitude due to the agent, and the benefactor 
 to whom the gratitude is due is unknown. The Church 
 felt this lack of gratitude, and imperceptibly and un- 
 consciously, to cure it began to separate as widely from 
 each other as possible the Charitable and the Poor. It 
 was easily done in those days. The lands, the money, 
 and the privileges the Church received from the wealthy 
 on behalf of the Poor was not likely to become known 
 to the Poor, or if known, would soon pass from their 
 
in CHURCH'S INFLUENCE ON PHILANTHROPY 41 
 
 remembrance, and the Church would then stand in the 
 place of the original donor, and exact its full tribute of 
 gratitude. All simple actions that are agreeable to us 
 soon become settled principles, and are capable of ex- 
 tension. The next step was to preach the doctrine of 
 separation, i.e. that it was the duty of the rich to give 
 to the Church (of course for the Poor), and their reward 
 was the Church's blessing, and the Church dealt with 
 the Poor as they thought proper. Here philanthropy 
 ceased altogether. The Rich gave to the Church as a 
 religious duty ; that the money was for the Poor or any 
 other purpose was a matter of detail. 
 
 When the Church stood towards the Poor as their 
 principal benefactor, it found that gratitude would not 
 flow as freely to an impersonal institution as to an 
 individual philanthropist. The Church is in that unfor- 
 tunate position it can never see or believe itself to be in 
 the wrong, and what it mistook for studious ingratitude 
 was only natural effect. To stimulate the gratitude of 
 the Poor it began a course of favouritism which finally 
 ended in preaching the doctrine of selection. The moral 
 code that influenced individual philanthropy could not 
 sympathise so much with the individual whose condition 
 was the result of his own folly, as it could with the 
 person whose poverty was the result of unavoidable 
 misfortune, and naturally its efforts on behalf of the 
 one were not likely to be as full and spontaneous as the 
 other ; but the new code declared it was the duty to help 
 the person whose folly was attributable to himself, if he 
 only declared his penitence, in preference to the unfor- 
 tunate through no fault of his own, if he were indifferent 
 to religion. How much of that sentiment still exists 
 we do not know ; but forty years ago it was the accepted 
 dogma on charity in many parts of the country. The 
 writer's mother was a woman of strict religious training. 
 She was very keen in her sympathy with suffering, yet 
 
42 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS m 
 
 a woman of cool reason and clear perception. But from 
 her education she could be beguiled out of any and 
 every thing - giveable she possessed by a pious story of 
 misfortune, and shut her heart sternly to cases of real 
 suffering if associated with impiety. 
 
 The Poor were just as able and willing to make the 
 necessary pretence of religion, when they wanted any- 
 thing, as they are at the present day able to pass 
 the special investigation of the distributing missions. 
 Religion is not a necessity to their existence, and forms 
 no part of their lives, unless when it is necessary to 
 adopt it. If the Church could have had the patience to 
 wait to see what gratitude the Poor were inclined to 
 render them for their doles, taken it, much or little — 
 it was costing them nothing — without murmur, and 
 moulded it to the religious edification of the poor, they 
 would have done something. But, ever impatient and 
 dogmatic, it put its price upon the goods first, and the 
 Poor, if they required them much, bought them with 
 false coin, or left them alone otherwise. 
 
 The effect upon the Poor was not very great ; the 
 effect upon religion was very degrading. Instead of 
 being that high and holy thing unsullied by worldly 
 thoughts or ways, it was hawked in the market. 
 Instead of being preached to all the world, who would 
 wish to hear, boldly but reverently and with dignity, it 
 was offered in the streets and the slums with bribes and 
 bonuses to induce a purchase, the very thing that made 
 it worthless in the eyes of the Poor. 
 
 The strange metamorphoses wrought by the Church 
 in philanthropy, whereby from being the most insigni- 
 ficant of the parties interested, being merely an agent 
 to fulfil the behests of the principal, it changed to a 
 position overtopping and dominating the others, 
 dictating the duty of the one, and discharging it to the 
 other at its own discretion, need not be laid to its 
 
in CHURCH'S INFLUENCE ON PHILANTHROPY 43 
 
 charge as an intentional design. It was the natural 
 evolution of philanthropy on the introduction of a 
 middleman, where Nature required none. It can be 
 seen working every day at the present as well as in the 
 past, because the position of middleman is so attractive 
 to all who have tried it, or seen the inward workings 
 of a mission, that none would think of doing without it. 
 
 Just fancy, young man, if you are inclined to be philan- 
 thropical. You have only to get hold of a moderately 
 attractive idea — it does not require to be too brilliant, 
 because your friends may not be able to understand it 
 if it is. You need not worry yourself about its practica- 
 bility ; make up for the lack of that by throwing in a lot 
 of sentiment — the more useless and impracticable the 
 sentiment the better. Always remember that the people 
 who are going to support your mission only know the 
 sentimental side of the philanthropical question. It is 
 the Poor who know the practical side ; but they can be 
 ignored. 
 
 Your idea once formed, you have only to talk it over 
 with your friends. Should any of these be of a practical 
 nature, and show you that you are overlooking obvious 
 facts, prove to him that it is the ennobling principle 
 of your scheme, the elevating strength of its natural 
 virtue, the attractive force of its spirituality, that you 
 look to, to irresistibly overcome all difficulties. He will 
 say no more, and your other friends, who may have 
 mentally agreed with him will be glad they did not say 
 anything, and will answer, " I believe you are right." 
 Having formed a little band of sympathetic, but unin- 
 fluential supporters, your next move is to write the 
 subject up in the correspondence columns of the press ; 
 your friends of course taking their share. 
 
 You will not have long to wait until some prominent 
 philanthropist will send you a note inviting you to meet 
 him to talk over the matter. This is the tide that leads 
 
44 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS in 
 
 on to fortune. If you are wise you will not talk so 
 much about your scheme as about yourself. It will be 
 upon the impression you create personally that the 
 success of your scheme will depend. In all probability 
 it may be the fiftieth or sixtieth plan the good gentleman 
 has helped to begin ; in all probability he would not 
 understand your scheme if you attempted to explain it to 
 him. He will be mainly interested in who and what you 
 are. It will be your own fault therefore if you deceive 
 him. You must be religious, enthusiastic, sentimental, 
 and, above all, you must be a firm believer in the inter- 
 ference of the Divine Spirit in worldly things, for that is 
 to be the guiding force of your plan, and the shield for 
 all your folly, ignorance, and mischief. It does not 
 matter whether you believe in Divine interposition or 
 not : they do. Why we say they, we will explain. 
 
 In all the large towns we have resided in, the great 
 cities of London, New York, &c, excepted, we have 
 found that the wealthy philanthropists who make a 
 profession of philanthropy are a small coterie that herd 
 together because of this bond they have in common. 
 They seem to be a people who have got the idea that a 
 certain portion of their income must be spent yearly on 
 philanthropical purposes, whether these purposes exist 
 or have to be made for the occasion. Being wealthy, 
 they do no philanthropical work themselves, but sub- 
 scribe and patronise. They know nothing about the 
 Poor, and would like to know even less, if that were 
 possible. There is no pain or distress of the Poor that 
 they see or suffer from, and therefore seek to remove. 
 Their philanthropy is purely of a spiritual form. They 
 are intensely religious, and hate impiety, intemperance, 
 immorality, &c, and they, with all the rest of us, are 
 taught that these evils flourish more profusely among 
 the lower than the other classes. They cannot even 
 trace where they personally or socially suffer from the 
 
in CHURCH'S INFLUENCE ON PHILANTHROPY 45 
 
 habits of the Poor ; their quarrel is with vice, and they 
 are willing to lend a not over-critical ear to any scheme 
 that is meant to contend with it. They are great 
 believers in God's grace as a regenerating agent, partly 
 because of their religious training, partly because not 
 one in fifty of the schemes they are asked to support 
 has any other excuse for its existence. 
 
 As the distributing mission advertises to the Poor 
 where they can get food and clothes for nothing, so 
 these wealthy philanthropists by their actions advertise 
 to the charlatan and bogus evangelist where they may 
 get ready and remunerative victims. In private circles 
 they are called the milch-cows of philanthropy. Nothing 
 is too preposterous for their gullibility to swallow ; no 
 amount of failure brings experience. They stand in 
 their stalls and their udders are ready to be sucked, be 
 it by the quack doctor who professes to cure intem- 
 perance with a pill, or the Yankee preacher who is 
 going to destroy vice by preaching during the week- 
 days to the most religious classes in the city. 
 
 The decision as to taking up your philanthropical 
 scheme, we have said, will rest upon the effect you per- 
 sonally make. If you play your cards properly, then 
 you will be reported as "sincere." "Such a good 
 young man, so earnest, so enthusiastic, so full of the 
 true spirit of philanthropy." Then they will agree that 
 they must do something for you ; they must take up 
 your scheme and see what comes of it. Now comes 
 the real pleasure of existence. You are asked to after- 
 noons, to teas, to dinners, and to evenings among 
 these wealthy people to talk the matter over. If you 
 are unmarried and good looking, all the young ladies 
 will be so sympathetic ; while the elder folk will be 
 courteous and attentive. 
 
 The next stage is the first public meeting, not a large 
 one, but so enthusiastic ! All devoted philanthropists 
 
46 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS in 
 
 come to applaud and approve. You may be a little 
 nervous when you find yourself upon a platform for the 
 first time, next to the chairman, who may be the mayor, 
 or the bishop, or a nobleman from the neighbouring- 
 county. Your nervousness will soon pass away when 
 you find every word or two vociferously applauded, and 
 before you sit down you will have come to believe you 
 are a born orator. You will have drunk of the poison 
 of public applause, and you will be longing and itching 
 for further opportunities. You will dream of public 
 meetings, and every trivial matter to be settled you 
 will require a public meeting to settle it. 
 
 After your first preliminary meeting there are con- 
 gratulations and introductions all round. The com- 
 mittee has to be formed, and during the process the 
 invitations to the houses of the wealthy roll in. You 
 are enjoying yourself immensely, but they see it in a 
 different light ; they call it hard work, and say they 
 never saw any young man work so hard and spend 
 himself so unselfishly. 
 
 You may be beginning to wonder where it will all 
 end, but you need have no fear. Your committee will 
 do everything for you, they will find everything, the 
 money will be coming in. You will not even be asked 
 to take a working part in your own scheme ; all that 
 will be done by paid servants. You will be required 
 for far more important (and pleasant) duties. You will 
 be consulted about the purchase or hire of the hall, the 
 engagement of the staff, the districts to be experimented 
 upon. You will enjoy the luxury of casting other 
 people's money about in large and generous sums. 
 Finally, when the opening meeting takes place, when 
 all who are of any importance have attended to wish 
 your scheme "God speed," when it has been prayed 
 for and blessed, and afterwards when the oratory and 
 enthusiasm have been turned on full blast, when every 
 
in CHURCH'S INFLUENCE ON PHILANTHROPY 47 
 
 person is congratulatory and hopeful, you yourself will, 
 for the first time, begin to doubt — L if you have not 
 doubted before. 
 
 Such as the Church made the mission it remains with- 
 out change to this day. It is not because the system 
 worked so admirably that there was found no room for 
 improvement. It is not from any lack of inventive 
 genius among the generations of philanthropists that 
 have come and gone since the system became an institu- 
 tion among us. It is not that new forms of distress and 
 new social difficulties have not appeared in the lives of 
 the Poor. It is from the simple reason that when one 
 is satisfied with existing methods, his mind does not 
 occupy itself with thoughts of change. The position ot 
 middleman is so agreeable that there is not likely to be 
 any change so long as missions and their peculiar form 
 of philanthropy last. 
 
 The destruction of individual philanthropy made 
 philanthropy a virtue of the Rich. All who had not a 
 surplus of means were excluded from its exercise. The 
 mission will tell you that such is not the fact ; that the 
 smallest donation will be thankfully received, &c. These 
 are mere conscience quibbles. The record of every-day 
 experience is different. The public advertisement of 
 subscriptions alone, prevent all but those who can con- 
 tribute a respectable sum from entering the lists. The 
 institution that is informing us daily of its requirements, 
 amounting to hundreds and thousands, does not per- 
 suade the person of a few shillings that he can be of any 
 important service. But the money question is not the 
 question ; it is bad in philanthropy, root and branch. 
 Those who camwt subscribe believe themselves to be 
 free from philanthropical obligation. We leave it then 
 to the arithmetician to make out this problem. Say 
 there are seven millions of people in the district called 
 London ; say one-sixth of these are able-bodied people 
 
48 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS in 
 
 of both sexes. Say that in London there are not more 
 than seven thousand people who yearly subscribe to a 
 voluntary mission. Say whether all the money sub- 
 scribed by these seven — or we will be generous and say 
 seventy — thousand could effect more good than the 
 individual service of a million of people among the 
 Poor? If there were no mission, every one would have 
 grown up to his personal responsibility to human 
 suffering. The fact, of course, must be looked at that 
 the classes do not mix. But on the other hand, if such 
 an artificial form of philanthropy can be taught, as that 
 we give money to remedy distress we know nothing 
 about and do not suffer from, might we not be as easily 
 taught the duty of visiting and mixing with our poorer 
 brethren ? What the good to them would be, arising 
 from such personal sympathy, may be easily guessed — 
 there would be no poverty or distress in a month, but 
 what was absolutely unavoidable. What the effect 
 upon ourselves would be is inconceivable. If we re- 
 duced ourselves to one class, there would only be one 
 standard of religion and morality, and it would be that 
 of the better class. To those who have spent their money 
 as water in trying to make the Poor religious and moral 
 we offer that suggestion for them to ponder over. 
 
 When the Church preached philanthropy as a re- 
 ligious duty, it raised the duty to the Church's 
 schemes, the mission to the poor among them, 
 to a higher consideration than the objects for which 
 they were instituted. And this remains to this day. To 
 the missionary, the welfare of the mission is the first 
 concern ; the object for which it was established the 
 next. To every Church the welfare of its institutions 
 is greater than the purposes they are meant to serve. 
 We heard of an amusing instance of this the other day. 
 A gentleman met a friend whose business place is in one 
 of the lowest quarters of the town. The friend told him 
 
in CHURCH'S INFLUENCE ON PHILANTHROPY 49 
 
 that from this cause he knew nearly every inhabitant in 
 his street. They were not a very reputable lot, but the 
 principal business of most of them was to play upon the 
 public sympathy. Among them were street-singers, 
 beggars, musicians, the lame, the halt, and the blind in 
 outward appearance. The friend kept the gentleman 
 laughing at their many devices to deceive the public — 
 "fakes" whose triumphs the Poor themselves enjoyed 
 immensely. But among this unworthy crowd, he told 
 the gentleman, there were some real cases of distress, 
 some people who refused these unworthy means of 
 making money, and who preferred to toil on and keep 
 their sorrows to themselves. The gentleman gave the 
 friend a five-pound note, and told him to use it among 
 the Poor as he thought fit. The knowledge of this 
 transaction came to the ears of some members of the 
 church to which the gentleman belonged. The action 
 gave considerable offence. The parson and some of 
 the principal men in connection with the church took 
 him to task for not giving the money through their 
 own mission. The gentleman's defence was that the 
 money was for the Poor, and every penny of it would 
 be used to its full value. That was no defence. His 
 duty, he was told, was to the mission of the church. 
 It also had Poor, and required money ; and how could 
 it do its work unless it was supported ? The gentleman 
 pleaded again that to give his money to the Poor must 
 surely be the same as giving it to a mission to give to 
 the Poor. But the church managers knew it was a very 
 different thing, and were by no means appeased. 
 They could not tell him the true reason, namely, that 
 the maintenance of the mission was more important to 
 them than the relief of the Poor ; that had he given 
 his money to the mission its own necessities would 
 first be provided for, and the balance go in charity, 
 and in charity to those only who would acknowledge 
 
 E 
 
50 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS m 
 
 the mission, not the gentleman, as their benefactor, 
 and be grateful accordingly ; or, as an old lady put it, 
 "Giving away all that money to people they did not 
 know anything about." Here, such artificial philan- 
 thropy as there was was subservient to the glory of 
 the mission. 
 
 This exaltation of the mission, especially in those 
 towns where there was some sectarian rivalry, 
 culminated in the production and manufacture of a new 
 class of philanthropists. These we call the Bumblepuppy 
 philanthropists, because we can find no other name for 
 them. We saw one day a book called "Bumblepuppy," 
 and on opening its pages for an explanation, we were 
 informed that Bumblepuppy was in all respects a game 
 like whist, so like, that the players believed themselves 
 to be playing whist while they were only playing 
 Bumblepuppy, as they played in ignorance, or defiance, 
 of the known principles of whist, or both. From 
 trivial things to serious, these philanthropists act 
 towards philanthropy in exactly like manner. They call 
 themselves philanthropists, and believe themselves to be 
 so. They act outwardly as other philanthropists act, 
 but they are ignorant, or defiant, of its known principles, 
 and they are proud of their ignorance or defiance. 
 They are the emissaries of a special mission or " cause " 
 which holds the first and only place in their hearts. 
 They make no pretence to love the Poor ; they are at 
 war with all who differ from them, and whatever 
 punishment their imprudence brings upon them they 
 glory in as a form of martyrdom. No reason can affect 
 them, no argument convince, no prayer restrain. 
 
 These people do not go among the Poor, because 
 there is no evil to cure in their own and other classes, 
 but because they believe their social position should 
 have weight with the Poor, while it gives them no 
 influence over their own people. One of these 
 
in CHURCH'S INFLUENCE ON PHILANTHROPY 51 
 
 philanthropists may have ''religion' for his cause, or 
 " temperance." His next door neighbour may be his 
 antithesis — infidel, bibulous. The philanthropist knows 
 that these circumstances give him no right to enter his 
 friend's house at any time he may wish, to lecture 
 and admonish him upon his habits. They are not 
 likely to be friends, from their different habits, but 
 they will continue quite neighbourly notwithstanding. 
 Their wives may be in the same set, their children 
 play together, or be at the same school. They exchange 
 the compliments of the day when they meet in the 
 morning. They walk to the car together and talk about 
 the weather and business. And should they meet in 
 the afternoon they may walk home together. 
 
 Now see the Bumblepuppyist among the Poor. 
 Every spark of civility, common courtesy, and con- 
 sideration is left behind. He enters the houses of the 
 Poor without any other preliminary than a peremptory 
 knock, not even that if the door be open. He has no 
 hesitation in interrupting their conversation, breaking 
 up their privacy, giving his advice upon their actions. 
 He opens his subject irrespective of their time and in- 
 clination, and if he knows of any recent occasion of 
 backsliding among them, he admonishes them as if he 
 were their priest and confessor. Should they show 
 any resentment, he has no hesitation in condemning 
 them, and drawing the attention of others to what he 
 calls their hardened and depraved state, and in the 
 Meeting Hall in the evening he advertises their name 
 and story as a warning to others. 
 
 Who is this person who takes upon himself to go 
 anions: the Poor and call over their sins to them ? 
 Is he their judge, their lord, or master ? If 
 you ask him by what authority he acts, he will 
 blasphemously say, "In the name of God" ; and to 
 avoid further blasphemy you are silent. 
 
 e 2 
 
52 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS m 
 
 The Poor hate this person with a bitterness that is 
 not easily describable ; but what is more unfortunate is, 
 that he is the cause of them to a large extent hating 
 everything and everybody that is associated with 
 mission work. In forming our opinion of types we are 
 not wholly acquainted with, it is the exaggerations that 
 impress themselves strongest upon our memory. The 
 Bumblepuppy is the extreme of anything that professes 
 to associate itself with philanthropy, and because of the 
 annoyance and irritation he produces in the Poor, when 
 the word "missionary" is mentioned it is his form 
 that is imaged in their minds. They know he dare 
 not act towards his equals as he acts towards them. 
 They know he is taking advantage of his social 
 position, or he dare not act as he does. The Poor are 
 as amenable to reason as any other class if approached 
 in the proper manner. They are as accessible as any 
 other class, and by the same avenues. They are as 
 ready to listen to anyone who has anything to say to 
 them, and requests to be heard in the customary way ; 
 but they see all these preliminary social forms daily 
 thrust aside in their case, and by people in whom they 
 recognise no authority, and to whom they owe no 
 allegiance. Flesh and blood will not stand that any 
 person unauthorised and unsolicited should come 
 amongst us to denounce our habits, interfere with our 
 pleasures, condemn our lives, and do all in his power 
 to destroy our happiness, and expect that we should 
 take his doings calmly beside. 
 
 Of all the excrescences that the evolution of philan- 
 thropy has produced since the advent of the middleman, 
 this person is truly the most injurious. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE POLITICAL PHILANTHROPIST, AND THE CLAIM OF 
 
 RIGHT 
 
 The Political Philanthropist and the Claim of Right — The Poor are 
 not political — When politics were thrust upon them they had 
 nothing- but personal wants — The aspiring- politician offered 
 these philanthropically — Workmen claimed them as rights — 
 Political rivalry admitted the right — Labourist demands. 
 
 The Poor, not being given to intellectual pursuits, are 
 not political. Politics are a mental study ; they lie purely 
 in the intellectual region, some people calling them 
 the study of the science of good government. It has 
 been the misfortune of the poor that they have had 
 politics thrust upon them, and of the rest of the country 
 that they do not know how to use the privilege. 
 
 When the first Reform Bill was passed, it was after 
 years of agitation by an intelligent, educated people, 
 who demanded to have a share in the guiding of the 
 country for which they were so heavily taxed. It was 
 looked upon in those days as a very liberal bill. But 
 the basis of its franchise was a money one, while the 
 true qualification for politics is political knowledge or 
 education. Every person who joined the agitation for 
 reform believed himself a properly qualified person to 
 judge of the great questions of the day. The Reform 
 
54 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS iv 
 
 Bill, so to speak, run its shears through the mass and 
 separated those who had so much money from those 
 who had a penny less, and left the question of brains 
 alone. Those left outside the pale were no better off 
 than before, their grievances were not redressed, and 
 all the evils from the standpoint of the principles they 
 were contending for remained the same. An agitation 
 for reform may be said to have sprung up from the day 
 the Reform Bill passed into law. The numbers were at 
 first few : the scissors had taken away a great many, 
 and it was twenty to thirty years before the numbers 
 became great enough to be again a political "Voice" 
 that must be heeded. 
 
 The second Reform Bill sank down into the social 
 body as far as the intellectual line, and from thence- 
 forward there was nobody left outside the political 
 circle who had any desire to get in because of their 
 political knowledge. So far there w T as nobody left 
 outside to agitate for a further extension of the 
 franchise, nor would there have been such an agitation 
 from them till Doomsday. The agitation came from 
 the inside. Not from those who were in want of it, but 
 from those who wished them to have it. The pleasure 
 of swaying large masses by shibboleths, of holding 
 them by playing to their prejudices, and by exchanging 
 principle for popularity, was a temptation ever before the 
 hard-driven politician. The hour of stress came, either 
 to the politician or the party, and the floodgates were 
 opened, and the government of the country passed into 
 the keeping of the least intelligent portion of the com- 
 munity, under the advice and guidance of the next 
 least cultivated portions, the portions that produce the 
 agitator and the wealthy parliamentary aspirant. The 
 one advises the Poor what they should do, and the other 
 offers to do what they advise. 
 
 It is one thing to entrust your vessel to a person who 
 
iv THE POLITICAL PHILANTHROPIST 55 
 
 has studied navigation and practised seamanship, and 
 another to put the tiller in the hands of one who knows 
 nothing about a helm, and does not want to know. 
 The first can keep the course that is given him until 
 another is set, the other becomes pleased with the 
 power he has over the vessel, and delighted at being 
 able to make it go where he chooses. Such a change has 
 been noticeable in our legislation since Demos was king. 
 
 In the previous extensions of the voting privilege the 
 newly franchised looked upon themselves as men taken 
 into partnership with those already franchised, for the 
 purpose of assisting to govern the nation. They knew 
 the broad principles of government that were observed 
 by both contending parties. They were familiar with 
 the political questions of the day, and they were pre- 
 pared to lend a deliberative voice on the subjects under 
 parliamentary consideration. They simply swelled the 
 bulk of parties without altering their politics. It was 
 impossible to expect our latest legislators to do so ; 
 they had no preparation. Vet those most interested in 
 including them within the parliamentary circle fully 
 hoped they would act as their predecessors acted. 
 What they did do was, they refused to amalgamate. 
 They knew nothing about parliamentary precedent ; 
 they cared less about parliamentary principles. They 
 were ignorant of economics, and therefore suspected 
 them. Under the fostering care of their agitators they 
 became a class by themselves, and a party by them- 
 selves, with the sole purpose of benefiting their own 
 condition at no matter whose cost, or of any considera- 
 tion for the country. 
 
 These newly franchised had no previous experience in 
 acting together unless during strikes, and it was not to 
 be wondered at that their parliamentary action was the 
 same as their industrial action when on strike. A 
 strike has no principle, and admits of no argument. 
 
56 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS tv 
 
 It is a simple declaration of will, either on the part of 
 the employers or the employed. But having- once been 
 made it rises to the height of a dogma or faith, from 
 which all reason is excluded, and for which all things 
 must be endured. 
 
 The parliamentary legislation of the working classes 
 is only their industrial demands writ large. Instead 
 of having to deal with an individual employer they had 
 in parliament all the employers, and any person, be he 
 Whig or Tory, who sought to remonstrate, reason, or 
 advise with them on any of their demands was at once 
 put down as a friend or sympathiser with the capitalist, 
 and an enemy of theirs. Politics, so far as they were 
 the science of good government, ceased to exist 
 because the new legislators knew nothing about them, 
 but, like the unskilled navigator, they were pleased to 
 find they had control of a machine that could do many 
 things for them that it would be too troublesome to 
 do for themselves. A class that was capable, for years 
 before they had any legislative power, of settling satis- 
 factorily the one primary condition of all labour — 
 wages — sought to occupy the parliament of the 
 nation in fixing such minor details for them as the 
 hours they should work, the compensation for accidents, 
 the position and safety of the machinery, the healthi- 
 ness of the factory and the occupation, and such-like 
 trifling matters. Shades of Chatham, Pitt, and Fox ! 
 To think that the great British Parliament, the mother 
 of all parliaments, was now reduced to being the valet 
 and charwoman of the great unwashed ; that the 
 principal occupation of between 600 and 700 gentlemen 
 of wealth and education was to arrange the details of 
 Mr. Demos's employment when he chooses to work. 
 To fix when he shall begin in the morning ; to see he 
 docs not work five minutes past his time at dinner or 
 evening. To go before him, and see that the place has 
 
iv THE POLITICAL PHILANTHROPIST 57 
 
 been properly swept out and cleaned, that the machinery 
 has all been covered up, the tools and tackle tested, 
 and all dangerous weapons hid away. Then remain 
 behind and clear up after him, as he might want to 
 work to-morrow again. By and by parliament will be 
 employed passing legislation to supply the workman 
 with his meals, to help him on with his coat when his 
 work is done, and drive him home when he feels tired. 
 But while he puts parliament to the task of settling for 
 him the minor details of his labour, he retains in his 
 own hands the two important — all-important principles 
 of labour — the settlement of the wages, and the right 
 to strike when he pleases. These things he will trust 
 to no silly parliament to interfere with. 
 
 There are many wealthy but weak gentlemen to 
 whom the social distinction of being a member ot 
 parliament was something worth doing a good deal for. 
 In the days of a more restricted electorate these gentle- 
 men dare not have presumed to aspire to such an 
 honour. Then, the constituencies demanded social 
 position, local influence, and a reasonable amount of 
 political knowledge. Now that the constituencies, or 
 their caucuses, supply the politics themselves there is 
 more room for selection. And the politics that are 
 supplied can only be subscribed to by a person to whom 
 a seat in parliament is of more importance than any 
 political principle. It was a sore position for these 
 gentlemen to find themselves in. They had to support 
 in public, principles and measures that their whole life's 
 experience, convictions, and prejudices held to be rank 
 heresies. They could not defend them with any heart 
 against their political opponents ; they could not justify 
 them to their own friends. At last, when the position 
 was becoming intolerable, they found relief by abandon- 
 ing all defence, and assuming the high ground of 
 philanthropy. The Poor, they said, were not to be 
 
t~s. • ■ 
 
 58 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS iv 
 
 treated by the ordinary hard-and-fast laws of civilisa- 
 tion. The laws of God and Nature, under which all 
 men are born to work, were in their case to be 
 abrogated. But as there were difficulties in the way of 
 doing so, they would be content in the meantime, if 
 they were interpreted in a wide and generous spirit as 
 regards the Poor, but the Poor only. They were here- 
 after to be elevated to the position of a sacred class. 
 They were to receive always more than they gave ; they 
 were to be allowed to reap where they had not sown ; 
 and if any man owed one of them fifty he was to pay 
 him a hundred. 
 
 The making labour profitable to the employer so that 
 he might be able to give employment was not now the 
 one thing necessary ; that was a too coarse and vulgar 
 way of looking at the relations between capital and 
 labour. Labour was to be made happy and contented 
 first, and the employer was an ungrateful fellow who 
 looked for any other reward than the happiness of his 
 employes. The wage basis was not to be fixed as here- 
 tofore, as the workman's proportion of profit, taking 
 .he and the proprietor as partners in the manufacture of 
 an article, but on the workman's requirements for 
 amusements and leisure. The hours of labour were to 
 be arranged so that no man's day's work should fatigue 
 him that he could not properly and freshly enjoy his 
 pleasures in the evening ; to do so were slavery. The 
 parliamentary philanthropist never tired himself with 
 his day's labour; why should the workman? It was 
 discovered by the same gentlemen that the wage-earners 
 had been shamefully treated in the past, and to make 
 amends we could not do too much for them now. 
 
 When philanthropy is supposed to be the guide of 
 one's actions, discussion of them by the ordinary laws 
 of experience are excluded. The opponents of the 
 parliamentary philanthropist dared not now laugh at his 
 
iv THE POLITICAL PHILANTHROPIST 59 
 
 crude and selfish schemes ; to do so was to laugh at his 
 goodness of heart, his sympathy with the Poor, his 
 philanthropy ; and to laugh at a person's philanthropy 
 is in the eyes of some as bad as to laugh at his religion 
 — especially the people who expect to benefit by his 
 good intentions. On the contrary, they found them- 
 selves in a very awkward fix. They could not do 
 without their share of the new vote, and they were now 
 deprived of appealing to the masses upon the grounds 
 of principle, sentiment, experience, or progress. None 
 of these could hold the field against philanthropy, and 
 so to philanthropy they also had to come, and out- 
 herod Herod in their coming". 
 
 The political tie is the next strongest one to the 
 social ; much stronger than the religious or educational 
 ties. For one person affected by a new religious idea 
 hundreds are moved by a new political one. With both 
 the great political parties of the State preaching 
 philanthropy on the platform, in the press, and in every 
 drawing-room in the country, the nation has become 
 saturated (to use a favourite expression of the poli- 
 ticians) with the idea of political philanthropy. 
 
 The difference between political and private philan- 
 thropy is that the former has no power of personal 
 discrimination of cases, no power of stopping when the 
 occasion for their services are past except in special 
 cases, and that each philanthropical suggestion becomes 
 a " Claim of Right," and must be presented and argued 
 as such before it can pass into legislation. 
 
 The Poor, like all other people, hate the name of 
 Charity. It is suggestive of dependence and gratitude. 
 One cannot win their suffrages by offering them any 
 amelioration of their condition as the gratuitous gift of 
 himself or his party ; it must be offered to them as a 
 long-withheld act of justice, as a right, and an equitable 
 adjustment of the benefits of government. 
 
6o THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS iv 
 
 The Claim of Right at present of the wage-earner is a 
 pretty lengthy one, and there is not an item in it all that 
 the workman found out for himself; not an item that 
 pressed upon his daily life to the extent of being a 
 nuisance he would wish to have removed. All of them 
 were found out for him by the agitator, or suggested 
 to him by the political philanthropist. In addition to 
 his hours of labour and all its petty details that we have 
 just mentioned, there is the grand principle that it is 
 the duty of the country, in other words, that it is the 
 duty of every person and class in the country, to see 
 that the conditions of life of the wage-earner are never 
 changed for the worse. The paramount duty of the 
 nation is to place the workman above the vicissitudes 
 of fortune. What no person can do for himself, the 
 country is to combine to do for this favoured class. He 
 was to be insured of suitable, comfortable, warm, 
 roomy, cleanly, sanitary houses. He was entitled to a 
 reasonable amount of leisure for amusement and enter- 
 tainment ; he had a right to a generous diet of good 
 unadulterated food, and warm clothing, and a holiday 
 to coast or country for himself and family during the 
 summer. He was to have a wage that would freely 
 provide him with all this, and a margin for exceptional 
 occasions. He was to have this wage for working less 
 hours than at present. He was to be kept free from 
 competition, especially alien labour, so that his wage 
 would not be interfered with ; he was to have a guarantee 
 that it should never be reduced, and the Government or 
 municipalities were to keep open workshops for his 
 relief, so that he should never be out of employment. 
 He was to be freed from all care and responsibility 
 about himself. He was to be rewarded if he got hurt, 
 maintained if he fell sick, and relieved if he chose to 
 remain idle ; and if he lived to be sixty years old he 
 need not work any more. 
 
IV THE POLITICAL PHILANTHROPIST 61 
 
 That the Poor should ask these things, they are to be 
 excused. They know nothing of politics, and they are 
 being incited and urged to do so by members of both 
 political parties as their right. That they stopped short 
 of demanding that they should not work at all shows 
 they have still some moderation left, because that is the 
 only true and natural desire they have themselves. 
 But that there are educated men who for the sake of 
 parliamentary prestige can be found to encourage them 
 in rushing to their ruin, shows to what a low ebb 
 politics have come. 
 
 The number of protections that the working classes 
 are seeking to hedge round their present conditions of 
 labour with denote a fear that they have reached the 
 economical line of true value. Every person of course 
 will have his own opinion on the subject, but we take 
 our conclusions from the workman's own fears. His 
 anxiety to be protected from a reduction, by making an 
 irreducible standard ; his fears of competition by aliens ; 
 his dread that his work may become unprofitable to 
 private employers in his anxiety to see Government and 
 municipal workshops opened ; all these denote that he 
 feels his present conditions of life are higher than he 
 could maintain them by his own labour in open compe- 
 tition. The workman feels this, and despite the 
 assurances of the agitator, and the benevolent patronage 
 of the political philanthropist, he knows his own 
 feelings are a better guide to the true state of affairs. 
 
 The workman knows better than any other person, 
 because he sees what his advisers do not see. He sees 
 all around him, not only alien labour, but native labour 
 ready and willing to work for his employer for less 
 money than he is doing ; not only labour outside his 
 Unions, but within — half the work of their " Unions " 
 and " Societies" is the coercion of their own members. 
 
 The raising of workmen's wages to an abnormal 
 
62 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS iv 
 
 height, either naturally or artificially, is to attract to 
 that high wage all the workmen who have been earning 
 less. If the increase affects all workmen alike in the 
 country, as at one time in the United States and our 
 Australian colonies, then it draws the workmen from all 
 other countries where wages are lower : if it affects 
 one trade only, it draws men from other trades who 
 believe themselves capable of the work (and there are 
 a great many tradesmen acquainted with more than one 
 occupation) ; if it affects a trade in a town, then that 
 town is the Mecca of all the workmen in the country 
 who work at that trade. There is nothing human can 
 stop that law of attraction. Autocratic, Democratic, 
 and Republican governments have all tried in vain. It 
 is part of the greatest law of life, " The best conditions 
 for its own existence" ; it works in all life automatically — 
 even the owner of the life could not stop it — and it is 
 exhibited in the wage-earner by finding the best market 
 for his labour, no matter where it may be. 
 
 The attempt to raise artificially the wages of any 
 trade, is to first draw more men to that trade than 
 there is work for, and then the competition that sets in 
 brings back the wages sometimes to a lower standard 
 than before the rise. It is always the stranger who 
 takes the lower wage first, and the resident for whose 
 benefit the attempt was made is left in idleness. 
 
 The old philanthropists have been for about fifty 
 years teaching the working classes that all virtue, or 
 rather all the virtues these working classes in the 
 opinion of the philanthropists lacked, must first be 
 cultivated by thrift, self-denial, prudence, and general 
 restraint. Only through the exercise of these personal 
 qualities could virtue spring ; but through these all 
 goodness, religion, virtue, morality, etc., would naturally 
 flow, and the fear of poverty and distress would pass 
 away for ever. To use their wages with prudence, to 
 
iv THE POLITICAL PHILANTHROPIST 63 
 
 see that every farthing spent was not only spent upon a 
 proper object, but made to go as far as possible. To 
 practice self-restraint and self-control against mere 
 personal indulgence. Rather to do without, for sake of 
 saving a little each week, than spend all. These and 
 similar recommendations were the staple advice of the 
 old virtuous school of philanthropy. If the regenera- 
 tion of man, and the cure for, or protection against 
 poverty, lie in the exercise of these qualities, how are 
 they to be fostered under the new philanthropical 
 teaching ? Already one of the most popular of work- 
 men's agitators has laughed and sneered at thrift, and 
 has contemptuously expressed himself about Smiles, a 
 writer on the subject. The workman is to be an 
 irresponsible being, and the government is to supply 
 him, without any effort on his part, with all that the 
 exercise of these virtues of prudence, thrift, and self- 
 denial are supposed to bring to their disciples. We 
 wonder if the two schools of philanthropy are aware of 
 the antagonism of their teachings ! We wonder if the 
 parliamentary philanthropist would prefer to see a 
 nation the product of his own philosophy, or one of the 
 older teachers' ! 
 
 The gentlemen who have been so assiduous in 
 teaching the labourer what his " rights " are, have not 
 been very explicit in informing him how they are to be 
 reached. On this subject they are studiously vague 
 or discreetly silent. Yet this to the workman is the 
 most important part. At present the wages of un- 
 skilled labour could not attain all the good things 
 entered in his schedule ; it is doubtful if even the 
 average wage of skilled labour is sufficient to purchase 
 them. What a state of perpetual discontent and 
 unrest must the life of the workman be in, who is told 
 he is entitled to a certain life of comfort, and yet his 
 wages are unable to procure it for him ! The anger of 
 
64 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS iv 
 
 that discontent must be turned against some one. Not 
 the agitator, nor the parliamentary philanthropist. 
 Oh ! no, — the employer ! The unpolitical workman can 
 see no further than the man who pays him his wages, 
 and does not pay him enough. Enough for what? 
 Not the work he has done, but the ideal life he is told 
 should be his. Within the past ten years what strikes 
 have occurred from this reason, and this alone ! What 
 thousands of pounds have the workmen thrown away 
 in wages ! What thousands of pounds of profit have 
 they deprived the employers of, and through them the 
 country ! What trades they have ruined, diverted, 
 and made wholly unprofitable because of this belief in 
 an ideal life without the possibility of an ideal wage I 
 And this is supposed to be a cure for poverty. 
 
 The unpolitical workman is not expected to know 
 his true relation to his employer ; but his advisers, the 
 agitator and the politician, should ; or should not 
 interfere with the life and economy of the artizan at 
 all. They should know that the higher wages are 
 forced above their natural level the more constricted 
 the labour market becomes. For every shilling the 
 men of a trade succeed in forcing up their wages, they 
 also force so many tradesmen into idleness. By re- 
 ducing the profit of the employer on his hire of labour 
 they are reducing his power of hire. If he be a 
 manufacturer, he is less capable of meeting a falling 
 market, and has no recourse but to shut his works, 
 while others can keep theirs still going. He cannot, 
 like the others, manufacture stock in dull times ; his 
 cost price will be so high, the market is sure to be 
 against him. He has to wait ; and can do nothing 
 unless at the short periods, when the market rises to 
 high tide. When the employer is not a manufacturer, 
 but an employer of labour, say as a contractor, en- 
 gineer, mechanic, etc., he is forced out of competitive 
 
iv THE POLITICAL PHILANTHROPIST 65 
 
 work, and must depend wholly on local repairs, ad- 
 ditions, etc. Where he might be able to employ 
 hundreds and thousands, he is reduced to tens. 
 
 London at the present day, where the doctrine of 
 workman's rights has been most assiduously and ac- 
 ceptably preached, is known in the case of many trades 
 to be suffering - from artificial wages, and it is only the 
 enormous size of the place that deprives people, es- 
 pecially the working man, from seeing clearly the great 
 contraction of its trade in these departments. 
 
 From the number of its factories and workshops 
 of all kinds, London is a huge repairing shop, capable 
 of permanently supporting an army of workmen — 
 builders, engineers, mechanics, etc., to attend to its 
 local wants. These local wants are at the mercy of 
 local tradesmen, who are again the victims of the 
 workmen and their societies. No matter what the cost 
 of these repairs, additions, alterations, or the rate of 
 men's wages, they have to be done and paid for. But 
 it is also known, because of the rate of workmen's 
 wages, and other irksome conditions enforced by their 
 Unions, London is entirely thrown out of the market 
 for new work ; not only new work for the country, or 
 for foreign countries, but new work for its own use. 
 Its highly paid ideal-lived artizans have to stand aside 
 and see provincial workmen build its bridges, its ferries, 
 its factories and their machinery. Anything and every- 
 thing that can be put beyond the local tradesmen is 
 being got from the provinces. The shipping of the 
 world goes up the Thames, and should, under favour- 
 able circumstances, require for overhaul and repairs 
 almost as many engineers and artificers as are already 
 in London ; but we have been informed by more than 
 one shipowner, that the general instructions to captains 
 bound for London, is, that if they have another port 
 of discharge in the kingdom, they are not to spend a 
 
 F 
 
66 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS iv 
 
 penny on the ship in London. We do not know any- 
 thing about its railways, but, like its ships, we suppose 
 there are more locomotives, carriages, and trucks enter 
 and leave London every day than any other place — 
 at least in Europe. But we have never heard of it 
 having any prominent locomotive works or repairing 
 sheds. Probably in this case also, everything that can 
 run on wheels, or be carried, is removed beyond the 
 influence of the London workman. Truly the Claim of 
 Right is like a leprosy from which all business flees. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE OLD AND THE NEW PHILANTHROPISTS- — THE GOSPEL 
 OF DISCONTENT AND SOCIALISM 
 
 The old and the new philanthropists : comparison — The indiffer- 
 ence of the Poor to philanthropical teaching -The philanthro- 
 pist's attempt to rouse the Poor by preaching the Gospel of 
 Discontent — The Poor accepted the new doctrine as the 
 foundation of Socialism. 
 
 The ways of the new philanthropist throw a strange 
 reflection on the ways, the beliefs, and the methods of 
 the old. The old philanthropist never thought of 
 interfering with the economy of the lives of the Poor 
 in whom he was interested, unless to the extent of 
 advising them of a better method (in his opinion) of 
 how to spend their wages. As the Poor had no political 
 power then, there were none found to gratuitously 
 mislead them as to what government should do for 
 them. In those days, say forty years ago, government 
 was not expected to do anything for anybody but tax 
 them, and in that no one found any source of relief. 
 The old philanthropist taught the workman that even 
 the wages he worked for and received should be looked 
 upon as the bounty of Providence, for which he should 
 be grateful, and which he should dispose of with the 
 ever-present feeling of having been specially favoured. 
 
 F 2 
 
6S THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS v 
 
 It was the lack of this guiding feeling in the spending 
 of their wages, to which the old philanthropist and his 
 kind attributed all the misery and poverty of the lower 
 classes. 
 
 It was not that the poorer classes did not earn enough 
 money to keep them, but that they spent it wrongfully. 
 
 Holding these views — and, to a certain extent, they 
 were the true ones — they saw no other guiding and 
 controlling influence to keep the Poor in the proper 
 path but religion. It was contemptuously held against 
 this class of philanthropists, that if you asked them for 
 bread they gave you a tract. It was a pity that their 
 philosophy was so liable to abuse. People who ex- 
 hibited no striking or ostentatious morality in their own 
 lives, became suddenly censorious and rigidly critical 
 in their neighbour's ways and mode of living immedi- 
 ately that neighbour showed signs of distress, and the 
 necessity for relief. These people brought religious 
 philanthropy into disrepute by their actions. But these 
 people have existed from all time, and have always 
 been bringing something into disrepute — generally the 
 finest or most sacred of human emotions — to cloak 
 their own selfishness. But in ninety-nine cases out 
 of a hundred, a tract was more serviceable to the 
 necessitous than a loaf. In the first place it was for 
 want of a tract or disregard of its teachings that they 
 came to their unenviable plight. What is the use of 
 repairing a man's dogcart for him if he still determines 
 to drive down hill with it again to the inevitable smash, 
 and refuses all advice to take the level and the safe 
 way ? Better let the cart lie than waste your time and 
 material only to have your work to do over again. Of 
 two men receiving the same wages, and the conditions 
 of whose domestic arrangements are much the same, 
 does it not make life a little harder for the one who 
 works by the " tract," subordinating all his personal 
 
v THE OLD AND THE NEW PHILANTHROPISTS 69 
 
 desires for the sake of spending wisely and thriftily, and 
 saving carefully, as if his weekly wages were so many 
 talents he had to give an account of "to the uttermost 
 farthing," to find his neighbour light his pipe with his 
 " tract," and with his earnings satisfy every desire as 
 it arises until his money is spent, then go and borrow 
 from his wiser neighbour ? Temporary relief involves 
 no principle, teaches no lesson, solves no difficulty, and 
 to those who only seek to relieve their own distress at 
 the sight of another's, it is well ; but to those pious 
 philanthropists, the effect they hoped to produce by 
 their religious teaching was an absolute cure for 
 poverty, and to them temporary relief was as in- 
 significant as to the physician who meant to eradicate 
 the disease. 
 
 If the principle is to be established, that distress must 
 be relieved because it is Distress, then its relief must 
 become paramount to personal possession. This is the 
 root-germ of socialism, the gospel of irresponsibility, 
 and encouragement to spendthriftness. It is also the 
 doctrine preached by the new philanthropist, only he 
 thinks he saves himself from the charge of socialism 
 by throwing the burden of relief, not upon those who 
 have the means (himself among others), but upon the 
 government or the municipality. 
 
 The older philanthropists knew that no man could 
 see or suffer distress without seeking to relieve it, and 
 that was sufficient for temporary purposes ; but their 
 purpose was to protect against its recurrence and to 
 destroy it. They believed in and so taught their 
 poorer brethren the beauties of holiness, the security 
 and protection of self-denial, the comfort of cleanliness, 
 the strength and confidence derived from education, the 
 heart's-ease of a moral and law-abiding life. Who 
 would dare to talk to the poorer classes now of their 
 religion, but their own friends of the Salvation Army ? 
 
;o THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS v 
 
 Do not they spend their Sundays and evenings teaching 
 their betters Scepticism, Agnoticism, Freethought, Bob 
 lngersoll, Tom Paine, The Rights of Man, etc., etc.? 
 Who dare insult the workman by hinting at self-denial ? 
 The retort comes quick — "Give us enough to practise 
 self-denial with." But in the past, before the latest 
 franchise, this stream of goodly talk by godly men 
 went on night after night in mission quarters. 
 
 To see clearly in one's own mind a cure for such a 
 distressful sore on the social body as poverty, to preach 
 it day and night to unheeding ears, and to find the 
 most indifferent of all to our prelections were the 
 greatest sufferers from the evil, was enough to try the 
 temper and patience of even a philanthropist. The 
 wall of indifference that lies naturally between the giver 
 and receiver of advice towered up here also, high 
 as the Alps, impenetrable as granite. The plan could 
 be demonstrated to be successful as easily as two and 
 two make four. The people for whose advantage it 
 was specially devised were bribed to come and hear it 
 explained. Their sympathies were enlisted by presents 
 and refreshments. They came, they took the presents, 
 they listened and agreed the system was both efficacious 
 and desirable, and then went on their own old way. The 
 plan had everything to recommend it but one — it was 
 not Natural. 
 
 Nature through the Poor, as through every other 
 living form, is continually crying for rest, and not for 
 labour, and all the good things offered to the Poor by 
 the pious philanthropists, both male and female, had 
 that misfortune ; they entailed upon the Poor extra 
 labour while they only sought rest. 
 
 Even to the person of religious instincts the attend- 
 ance at public services entails extra labour, but to a 
 class without religious instincts or religious education 
 none but themselves can tell what an effort it requires. 
 
THE OLD AND THE NEW PHILANTHROPISTS 
 
 7i 
 
 The brain that has been compressed all day during 
 work is liberated and relieved from concentration the 
 minute work is done. Every step homeward the work- 
 man feels to be a step lighter and easier, because the 
 brain is beginning to unwarp itself, and act in sympathy 
 with the body's physical motion instead of as before, 
 controlling it. To attempt to manacle the brain again 
 into a religious mood is more than is possible to 
 thousands of educated gentlemen, let alone the weary 
 worker. That is a mental hindrance we have all felt. 
 The rest was equally insuperable, physically. The lives of 
 the Poor, both male and female, are fully occupied, and 
 they have no room for extra labour ; and further, their 
 hours were filled up under a law called " The economy of 
 Effort," and to follow the advice of the philanthropist 
 would require an expenditure of exertion from which 
 Nature recoils. In other words, the life offered by the 
 philanthropist may have been, and doubtless was, best, 
 but it was not easiest. We are all striving, not for the 
 best, but the easiest life, only we are not always con- 
 scious of the fact. It is only now and then we awake and 
 take ourselves to task, and determine to strive for the 
 better instead of the easier. The better life looks 
 beautiful, and we think it easy ; yet what tremendous 
 energy and will-power we require to accomplish so 
 little of it ! And little as it is, it is more than we can 
 permanently retain. How can it be otherwise? Nature 
 demands of us the easiest form of existence, and with- 
 out our knowing it she has been utilising all our forces, 
 all her forces in us, to that end. She has directed our 
 tastes and our habits, our likes and our dislikes, our 
 judgments and opinions, all into this one channel of 
 personal easement, and it is not one small thing but our 
 whole existence that is to be combated by the change. 
 Thus day after day we delight in habits that we know 
 are not good for us. We persist in habits our friends 
 
;-• THE POOR ANT) THEIR HAPPINESS V 
 
 assure us are hurtful, and all our defence ot them is 
 that they do us no harm, and our consciences are not 
 altogether satisfied with the truth of our answer. We 
 call in physicians when we have made ourselves too 
 sick to pursue our usual habits, and after the first 
 wave of fear and apprehension is past, we cannot 
 even take the trouble to follow their directions. And 
 yet we wonder that the Poor do not turn their lives 
 topsy-turvy at our request, abandon habits formed by 
 Nature for laborious ones of the philanthropist's, and 
 turn their evening's rest into another day of toil for 
 their own improvement ! 
 
 A philanthropist was caught in a shower coming 
 home from a mission meeting. His wife, who was very 
 solicitous of his health, was anxious he should change 
 his clothes as a precaution against cold. He had 
 excited himself somewhat at the meeting ; he had 
 hurried home. The fire in the sitting-room was bright 
 and cheerful ; his easy chair lay near very invitingly. 
 All that could be brought him in the shape of dry 
 clothes and that could be changed in the room he 
 changed ; but when it came to his trousers it was a 
 different matter. He would have to leave his cosy 
 warm chair and go upstairs to a cold bedroom and 
 make the exchange there. He found, therefore, "his 
 trousers were not so wet as he had first supposed ; they 
 were not wet through and through ; his underclothing 
 was quite dry; he would not need to change." Of 
 course he was the only person of that opinion. Next 
 morning he had a sore throat, and then inflammation 
 of the lungs. Ten days afterwards, when his friends 
 were allowed to see him, he told us what excited him 
 at the meeting. "The working man," he said, "do 
 all you can for him, toil for him as you will, 
 will not lift his little linger to help himself; will not 
 move hand or foot for his own good. It is simply 
 
V THE OLD AND THE NEW PHILANTHROPISTS 73 
 
 maddening ! " And he did not see the similarity of his 
 own action ! 
 
 The philanthropist, of course, did not know he 
 was violating the laws of Nature in asking the Poor to 
 alter their lives so as to protect them in the future from 
 poverty. He knew less about Natural laws than the 
 social laws under which he himself principally lived. 
 To him, what he asked of the Poor seemed very easy. 
 He took a bath every morning ; but it was a domestic 
 who prepared the bath for him on the previous nights. 
 He was very liberal in the t matter of towels, because he 
 was a great believer in friction ; but then it was his 
 laundry, either public or private, that washed and pre- 
 pared his towels for him. He went to his linen-drawer 
 while dressing, and found there all he wanted in the 
 way of shirts, collars, cuffs. He threw them off when- 
 ever he wished to, and saw them no more until they 
 were nestling again amidst their spotless brethren 
 waiting their turn. After this fashion personal clean- 
 liness was very easy ; but how much of the labour of 
 it in his case was due to the philanthropist himself? 
 The workman, if he had a bath, would require to attend 
 to it himself. He would be too tired in the evening, 
 and have no time in the morning. His wife would 
 have to wash his towels, and she has no time. And 
 having no laundry, when he wears clean linen it is at 
 half a day's expense of somebody hanging over the 
 washtub. It is astonishing how little of the routine 
 of our lives we do for ourselves, and how much of it is 
 done for us by others ; and in those things we are in 
 the habit of saying "I do " and " I did " we are oftener 
 nearer the mark if we said we permitted them to be 
 done to us. If we were as the Poor, and had to do 
 everything for ourselves, with how little we could put 
 up ! Ask the miner, and the camper-out generally. 
 Or if we determined to try single-handed how much we 
 
74 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS v 
 
 could do in a day, the result would be too disappointing 
 to attempt to keep up with the demands of social life 
 as long- as we remained unaided. But the better class 
 know no other life than that of being- done for, and at 
 that cost the result is very satisfactory ; and when the 
 Poor refused both their advice and example, because 
 they would require to do everything for themselves, the 
 philanthropists were very angry. 
 
 It was indifference, they said — indifference to their 
 own well-being, indifference to their own comfort, and, 
 worst ingratitude of all, indifference to the labours, the 
 advice, and wishes of those who were working for their 
 good. 
 
 When a person, man or woman, starts philanthro- 
 pising, it is not a trifle that can stop them : certainly 
 that reason which less prejudiced people would think 
 should be final and all-sufficient, has in the past, and 
 even in the present day, little effect upon them — that is, 
 that their services are neither desired nor necessary. 
 The indifference of the Poor was not to be allowed to 
 stand in the way of their improvement — we must, said 
 the philanthropist, rouse them from their indifference. 
 Many ways were tried, all more or less based upon 
 bribery, and, as we have said, the poor took the bribes 
 and continued in their old way as before. Then the 
 philanthropists discovered an awful fact — the poor re- 
 mained in their own form of life, with all its occasional 
 hardships, because they were happier that way, they 
 believed, than in the brand-new moral and sober life 
 offered to them by their reformers ! 
 
 This knowledge to any other persons than reformers 
 would have shown them their mistake. They had come 
 l here with the happiness of the Poor at heart. It was 
 to increase that happiness for which, they declared, 
 they laboured ; and finding that the present form of 
 life of the Poor was a happier one than any they could 
 
V THE OLD AND THE NEW PHILANTHROPISTS 75 
 
 offer, there was nothing for them to do but admit their 
 error and retire : or if they were really single-minded 
 in their desire for the happiness of the Poor, they should 
 have made their life the subject of their studies, and 
 tried to alter the worser parts by such infinitesimal 
 degrees that the Poor would hardly feel the change, 
 would, in fact, drop into the alteration naturally as by 
 gravitation. But philanthropists soon become more 
 enamoured of their specific than the people it is meant 
 to benefit. It is so common, it might almost be called 
 the rule, that philanthropists who interest themselves in 
 a class, from a sympathetic affection to do them good, 
 become ere long their most cordial haters — crime : they 
 will not dance to the philanthropist's piping. Such 
 was the case with the old philanthropists in this 
 instance. They were angry that the Poor should be 
 so happy in their misery. It was intolerable, after 
 they had laboured so long to make them happy in 
 another way. The philanthropist is never in error, 
 and between the two lives there could be no com- 
 parison as to which was the truly happy one. The 
 happiness of the Poor must be destroyed so that the 
 newer life may become attractive. When we destroy a 
 person's happiness, and reduce him to a state of abject 
 misery, a life of few attractions becomes even desirable. 
 If these good and well-intentioned people had had par- 
 liamentary power, as they desired to have, they would 
 have destroyed the homes and household gods of the 
 Poor. They would have forbidden their habits, taken 
 charge of their expenditure, banished their amuse- 
 ments, and turned their hours of leisure into a drill - 
 ground of religion, hygiene, and education. They 
 would have made the Poor as unhappy as legislation 
 could make them, in the hope that the virtuous but 
 unlovely life of reform they offered them might become 
 attractive. They had no legal powers, so they deter- 
 
76 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS v 
 
 mined to try what powers they had, they determined to 
 preach to the poor the Gospel of Discontent. 
 
 Nothing seems stranger than to look back a few 
 years and see hundreds of good and pious people 
 earnestly engaged on a hundred platforms in attempting 
 to destroy the happiness of a large section of their 
 fellow-men. Invective, sarcasm, ridicule, indignation, 
 and contempt were all employed in their exhortations 
 to the Poor to give up their happiness. Were they 
 going to live like the brutes ? Were they going to 
 stagnate and rot? Were they going to be for ever 
 content with their sty, like the swine ? Was their 
 whole aim in life to be meat for the belly and clothes 
 for the back, then a folding of hands, and sleep ? Was 
 to-morrow and to-morrow to be as this day till life 
 ended ? All these and many other sayings were hurled 
 at the workman to make him miserable. Every step 
 he took seemed to bring a new and special curse into 
 his ears. He was told to rouse himself, and shake off 
 his sloth. He was to put aside all his own likes and 
 indulgences. He was to struggle for a larger house ; 
 he was to be better clothed ; his family were to be 
 better educated and better fed ; his wife's vanity was 
 to be allowed a larger indulgence in the way of finery 
 (it was not so stated ; it was put that his wife should 
 have an opportunity of being more respectable), and 
 his evenings were to be spent in self-improvement. 
 Such a change of text did not add popularity to the 
 mission, and indeed it was strange to see the few who 
 were bribed and coaxed to attend coming out from 
 one of the meetings with a cold shiver running down 
 their backs, their hearts in their boots, and their 
 capacity for any kind of enjoyment that night totally 
 destroyed. At the meetings they no more heard of 
 the joys of heaven, they sang no hymns of the Better 
 Land. They had been stormed at, their habits and 
 
v THE OLD AXD THE NEW PHILANTHROPISTS 77 
 
 ways denounced from their rising - in the morning- to 
 their rest. They were to be made miserable, and they 
 felt it. 
 
 All this did little good to the mission because few 
 went near it. The philanthropist was never wise in 
 his or any generation. Not having - legal power to 
 make the old life impossible, to make it unhappy did 
 not make a virtuous life attractive. It made the old 
 life more attractive. To drive a dog away from a bone 
 does not make a biscuit more attractive to him while 
 the bone still remains in sight. The Poor might be made 
 temporarily unhappy by the reformer's denunciations, 
 but when these passed away it was the old life to which 
 they clung. A cordial hatred of the mission, mission- 
 aries, and philanthropists sprung up among the Poor as 
 a reward for their exertions, and the philanthropists 
 sighed and fumed alternately that they were without 
 power. 
 
 At last the power came ; but not to the philan- 
 thropist : to the workman. What wonder, then, that 
 the workman should use his new powers to demand 
 that better condition of life that had been preached at 
 him in season and out of season as absolutely neces- 
 sary both to his health and morals, and that his wages 
 were unable to furnish ! How could the philanthropists 
 resist such a demand ? It was themselves who had 
 taught it. The gist of their whole argument, whether 
 they spoke on behalf of religion, morality, or educa- 
 tion was that these virtues were a mere matter of 
 money. By saving his money and directing it to 
 certain objects the wage-earner might become virtuous, 
 but not otherwise ; and each particular virtue demanded 
 a larger tribute from his wages than they could afford. 
 Religion demanded of him respectability, and among 
 the poor respectability means clothes. It is one of the 
 glaring hypocrisies of the Church, that it welcomes 
 
;S THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS v 
 
 the Poor without distinction of garment. Religion is 
 nothing if not outwardly respectable. Let the work- 
 man in his oily or his limy clothes appear at the mis- 
 sion, and it is all right for the first night. Let him 
 come again the same way, and he gets worried to 
 death to come respectable, and if he cannot procure 
 the clothes, the mission will. Respectability meant a 
 duplication of the clothes of himself and family ; a 
 capital expenditure far beyond his means. Morality 
 taught him that there could be no virtue, chastity, or 
 sexual purity unless the sexes lived apart. The work- 
 man, the poorer sort, who occupied a house of one 
 apartment, found to be moral he would require to 
 double his rent and take a house of two apartments, 
 an expenditure he did not feel called upon to cope with. 
 He was not much interested in morality: he left that to 
 the women folks, believing it was a matter more of 
 their affairs than his. He lived as his grandfather and 
 great-grandfather had lived before him from time im- 
 memorial, and their women folks knew how to protect 
 themselves. Their minds did not run so perpetually 
 upon the immoral as their wealthier sisters, and so 
 they could enjoy a greater scope of freedom with inno- 
 cence. The educationist (before the School Board 
 days) told him that all depravity arose from a want of 
 an adequate knowledge of the three Rs. At the same 
 time, that knowledge had to be bought and paid for in 
 hard cash ; and when the Sanitarian came along, his 
 requirements showed the workman that double his 
 wages, all his spare time, and an incessant strain 
 of attention would hardly be sufficient to meet them. 
 The summing-up of all these arguments was, in the 
 minds of the Poor, that a man with only twenty shil- 
 lings a week could not be moral, whereas a skilled 
 workman or a small trader with two pounds to two 
 pounds ten shillings a week could not be otherwise, as 
 
v THE OLD AND THE NEW PHILANTHROPISTS 79 
 
 he had all the requirements in clothes, houses, and 
 means of education in which virtue resided. The Poor 
 had many songs and stories of the olden time in which 
 all virtue was depicted as purely personal qualities as 
 partial to the dwellers in the hut as in the palace. 
 Some poets went further, and believed the lowly cot a 
 better seedplot of virtue than the court of princes. 
 But the Poor also knew there was a great change 
 coming over the spirit of the age, and that money was 
 now becoming everything ; and so perhaps virtue was 
 falling under its potent influence also. But the strange 
 thing remained, that it was not said that money could 
 buy virtue, but that, like the tea-men who push their 
 sales by giving presents with the purchases, it was given 
 away to people of a certain income, an income un- 
 fortunately a good deal larger than theirs. 
 
 We do not say there is a connecting link directly 
 associating the philanthropists' Gospel of Discontent 
 and the socialist agitators' demands. But there is this 
 strange coincidence, that for the first time in the history 
 of industrial labour in this country the Poor were being 
 taught that virtue was largely a matter of income. At 
 the same time they received the franchise, and the first 
 articulate demand the socialists among them made was 
 for an income commensurate with the practice of virtue 
 independent of all economic conditions, that their 
 arguments were an exact repetition of the arguments 
 of the philanthropists ; that the only people who sup- 
 ported them in their preposterous demands were the 
 wealthy philanthropists and their friends ; and that the 
 term a " living wage," so common in our ears since, 
 meant when first used a moral or virtuous living wage, 
 i.e. y a wage sufficient to let the workmen live a moral 
 or virtuous life according to the scale laid down by 
 the philanthropist. 
 
 There is a proverb that it is only the first step that is 
 
So THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS v 
 
 difficult, and certainly in socialism after the first step it 
 is remarkably easy, and from the "living wage" of 
 only a few years ago they have progressed in their 
 demands, the latest being — only as a temporary 
 expedient until they take everything in the shape of 
 wealth — that wages should never be reduced ; that they 
 should have thirty shillings a week when doing what 
 theatrical folk call "resting" ; that a grateful country 
 should afford them every attention and luxury during 
 sickness or accident ; and that they should retire upon 
 an ample pension at the extreme old age of fifty. When 
 that state of affairs comes about, the philanthropist 
 must think— how very virtuous the people will become ! 
 
CHATTER VI 
 
 A CHAPTER OF ADVICE : INDIVIDUALITY, HABIT, 
 
 IMITATION'. 
 
 A chapter [of advice — The Natural laws of Individuality, Habit, 
 and Imitation as they affect the lives of the Poor. 
 
 In the cosmogony of Nature all life was individual, 
 absolutely and integrally a separate entity from all 
 the rest of the world : a perfect machine giving and 
 receiving no aid from any other form of life. Each life 
 had its destiny, and the proper functions to try and 
 attain it ; and although that destiny was the common 
 destiny of all life, to it, it was the destiny of itself only ; 
 it could not interpret the aims or feelings of any other 
 living thing, and life to it only existed in and for itself. 
 We see that form of life still in the vegetable world. 
 Each blade of grass, though there be millions in a 
 field, is as independent as if it grew alone. It requires 
 nothing of any other blade of grass. The vigorous 
 may destroy the weaker, may take the sun from some ; 
 but at the same time may be protecting others from the 
 wind's rough blast. Yet they are neither cruel nor 
 kind : they have not turned aside to do these things. 
 They are pursuing their destiny, for which purpose life 
 was given them. There are no theories of mutual 
 
82 THE POOR AXD THEIR HAPPINESS Vt 
 
 helpfulness, no communism or socialism in the vegetable 
 world, because there are none needing help. 
 
 When we come to the animal kingdom we find a 
 different state of things. Degeneracy has here set in, 
 and has gone too far for us to guess what was the 
 primal strength of the various kinds, and how far we 
 have fallen from it. But there is a science by which 
 wise men trace back the history of animal life from 
 rudimentary remains, and if we follow that plan we 
 may find we have still some of our primal Natural laws 
 amongst us, although we have long since lost the 
 faculties they governed. 
 
 The first noticeable point is that the wildest animals 
 are still the strongest, and we may presume are nearer 
 to their original nature. When we speak of strength 
 we do not mean mere muscularity, but that perfect 
 proportion of power in an animal that for offensive and 
 defensive purposes makes it fearless, and independent 
 to follow its habits. The elephant may be more mus- 
 cular than the lion, tiger, or leopard, but it is not so 
 strong. It herds together sometimes, showing a weak- 
 ness in defensive qualities. The whale may be larger 
 and more muscular than the shark, but it is not so 
 strong, because it "schools," showing that numbers 
 are necessary to the protection of the individual. The 
 predatory animals are generally found alone ; they re- 
 quire nothing of any other animal, and they can do 
 their business best by themselves. Next in strength 
 come the animals that herd, the birds that flock, the 
 fish that shoal. These reserve their individuality in all 
 things but the one weak and common object that keeps 
 them together — it may be for defence, it may be for 
 direction ; but whatever it is for, it is a weakness, 
 a falling away from original strength that can only be 
 covered by numbers. To require the assistance of any- 
 thing or anybody is a confession of personal weakness ; 
 
vi A CHAPTER OF ADVICE 83 
 
 and that we feel it a defect, we not only are continually 
 rebelling against it, but we see that the young in their 
 extra vigour and energy are always less gregarious 
 than the old, more independent because of their 
 strength. But the most degenerate form of all life 
 is the form that has been reduced to combination and 
 co-operation, such as the bee, the ant, the beaver. 
 The deer may herd with the deer from youth to old age, 
 and neither would ever give the other a drink, would 
 save fodder for it, would help it if it were wounded. 
 All that they ask of each other is the strength of their 
 presence, the aid of their watchfulness. But such 
 animals and insects that^ have become so weak that 
 they have lost the power of doing certain things for 
 themselves, and are dependent for these things on 
 others, have reached the lowest stage of life ; rather 
 half-life or quarter-life, as they cannot live without the 
 other half or three-quarters that make the complement 
 of their hive or colony. 
 
 The next rudimentary law still effective in animal 
 life by which we may guess their relative degeneracy 
 is their inclination or disinclination to motion. The 
 destiny of life is rest : happiness is rest ; and the 
 stillest forms of life are the strongest and nearest 
 original conditions. The predatory animals are almost 
 never in motion unless when hunting. All the animals 
 that work singly only work from the compulsion of 
 necessity. Nature is incapable of a single unnecessary 
 action. Strength has two special qualities always at 
 work, the one the power to satisfy all its desires, the 
 other the power to suppress all unnatural and unattain- 
 able desires. Weakness, on the other hand, does not 
 restrict and limit its desires to within its own powers 
 of accomplishment. Its desires increase in proportion 
 as it is unable to attain them. The solitary working 
 animals, having all their life and functions, their aims 
 
 g 2 
 
84 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS VI 
 
 and objects, within themselves, exhibit the perfection 
 of achievement. The herding and flocking" animals 
 have to surrender part of their individuality for the 
 protection they receive ; they are therefore more on 
 the motion to keep with the company. They cannot 
 rest when they wish, or linger where they wish, as the 
 stronger animals can. They must be with the herd, 
 and rest when it rests. There is much personal labour 
 entailed upon the herding and flocking animals and 
 birds, because of the weakness that binds them to- 
 gether. Nature has its law of " equivalents," and for 
 the benefit of communion, individuality must in propor- 
 tion be surrendered. Individuality is the most essential 
 quality we possess for the maintenance and conserva- 
 tion of personal strength, and its surrender is a greater 
 loss than any gain we can derive from combination. 
 
 The co-operative forms of life have almost wholly 
 lost their individuality. They cannot rest when they 
 wish ; they cannot change their minds under changing 
 circumstances ; they have no liberty to be swayed by 
 any new or attractive events ; they must do their share 
 of the mutual work. Under the impulse of hunger the 
 tiger may start out on the hunt, but may be drawn 
 away by some counter attraction. It has no other 
 animal to consult on the matter ; and if the new attrac- 
 tion rises higher in interest to the tiger than its hunger 
 it most certainly will follow it. Not so the poor ant ; 
 its life is not its own, it belongs to its community. It 
 is a slave among slaves for the pleasure of existence. 
 It dare not economise its labour, because that is due to 
 others : it is needless for it to economise its consump- 
 tion, because that is provided by others. It represents 
 the maximum of labour and the minimum of rest. Yet 
 rest is happiness, labour is pain. 
 
 All weaker forms of life are of a more intricate con- 
 struction, a more complex organisation. Nature made 
 
vi A CHAPTER OF ADVICE 85 
 
 all things strong and simple ; but in the degeneracy 
 of life, and the feeling of waning strength, the indi- 
 vidual form had to begin within itself the process of 
 combination and organisation. What had originally 
 been accomplished by one or two simple functions had 
 to have special organs developed to attend to each separ- 
 ately ; and this subdivision went on as each new crisis 
 of exhausted energy threatened to engulf the whole life. 
 As combination with others demanded a surrender of 
 individuality, so the multiplication of separate organs in 
 the body destroyed the autonomy of the whole. Each 
 of these organs could get out of order from causes 
 affecting itself only — that is, independently and by 
 itself — and thereby disarrange the whole machinery. 
 Each could contract disease by itself that could kill 
 the whole organism. The machinery that w r as to 
 benefit by having so many sections never knew when 
 it might be stopped by one or other of these sections 
 getting out of order. Wise and skilled mechanics 
 never admire or approve of complicated machinery ; 
 yet we are taught to believe that the complexity and 
 delicacy of the human organism is a special sign of 
 man's superiority. That is one of the peculiar forms 
 of man's vanity. Without caring to inquire too curi- 
 ously into the truth that might be disagreeable to him, 
 he has adopted the rule that wherever he differs from 
 the other forms of animal creation the difference is 
 always an evidence of his superiority. Reader, if you 
 are at any time asked to admire the wonders of Provi- 
 dence, or the beauties of Nature in some fine and 
 delicate organism, some complex form of life, some 
 manifold arrangement of functions in the same animal, 
 and besought to believe they are higher, superior 
 objects of creation, read your history aright, and see 
 only in those weak and fragile objects evidences of the 
 degeneracy of life, every function and every organ 
 
S6 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vi 
 
 being - the milestones that mark its descent from pristine 
 strength and simplicity. 
 
 Nature has a law within all forms of life, called 
 the Economy of Effort, that refuses to allow it to use 
 any more energy in any action than what is known or 
 found to be necessary. The animals, &c, that combine 
 and co-operate know this. They know that nothing 
 but necessity has driven them to surrender their indi- 
 viduality and freedom. The animal that has a member 
 or an organ more than another does not feel itself to 
 be of a higher order of creation thereby, but thinks 
 sadly of the time when some weak progenitor was 
 forced to add this further burden to his armour, that 
 his descendants must use and waste energy over, 
 perhaps for all time. These animals, though forced to 
 combine and co-operate, do not extend their operations 
 in that direction ; the law of individuality works steadily 
 in them, keeping them seeking and dreaming for the 
 strength that would give them independence. 
 
 What position man occupies in this sliding-scale of 
 life it would take up too much space to describe. His 
 case is peculiar. Into his life have passed vicissitudes 
 and episodes that so far as we know, all other forms of 
 life have avoided. Some of these have hastened the 
 decay ; some have arrested it, and for a time in- 
 vigorated the weak and nerveless constitution ; others, 
 again, have been unequal in their action, strengthening 
 some at the expense of others. His strong desire for inde- 
 pendence in his own person, but uniformity in others, has 
 kept him nursing his individuality, that in many cases 
 it appears so strong as to give one the impression that 
 its strength is unimpaired, and this individuality makes 
 it impossible for him to combine to any great extent, 
 either in numbers or duration. There is so great 
 diversity found within the race that in some aspects it 
 may be taken as a microcosm of the whole life-world. 
 
vi A CHAPTER OF ADVICE 87 
 
 To the great mechanical and methodical subdivisions 
 of labour we see around us, such as the management 
 of railways, the building o( ships, &c, we make no 
 allusion here. To do these things men have to be 
 trained, and to what men are trained is not Natural. 
 These are only indications how highly men can be 
 trained for money, and sometimes the man capable of 
 the highest training for co-operating in this form may 
 be so strongly individual as to have almost no social 
 cohesion with his fellow-men. When we take Natural 
 actions in man we will see how little power of combina- 
 tion he has. In the face of national or common danger 
 he combines as well as the other animals. While the 
 danger is imminent, there is no talk of precedence, no 
 quarrels of leaders, no divided counsels. Then none are 
 for a party, all are for the State. But remove the 
 danger, sufficient to give them breathing time, delay it 
 long enough for them to get past their apprehension, 
 and their individuality asserts itself, and disaffection and 
 disintegration set in. Rebellion against oppression we 
 know to be a plant of very slow growth. The indi- 
 vidual sufferer at the moment is all for rebellion, but 
 those who are not suffering, find their individual in- 
 terests rise higher than the common one, and the 
 general history of rebellions is, that while fortune 
 smiles upon them they are supported, and vice versa. 
 So much of all forms of combinations of men is 
 governed by authority in civilized countries that little 
 is left to individualism. This is the best proof of 
 man's incapacity to combine. Nothing but some power 
 greater than and above himself can hold him in 
 action or interest with his fellow-man. Thieves, 
 we know, fall out over the division of the spoil. 
 They risk long terms of imprisonment in gaining 
 it, and then betray each other in their bitter 
 or noisy quarrelling over its distribution. This 
 
88 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vi 
 
 common occurrence is known to kings as well as 
 criminals. 
 
 All the Natural laws in man are ministers to his indi- 
 viduality. Although he has cultivated the habit of 
 sociability, it, too, is dominated by individualism. 
 When a man finds any circle unprofitable to him, he 
 leaves it, and seeks another more congenial. He alone 
 knows what he seeks from society and if he finds it ; 
 nor is he sure that for two successive days it will be 
 the same thing. 
 
 The habits of the Poor of the present day are the pro- 
 duct of centuries, centuries during which they had only 
 one object, that of finding their happiness. Their 
 present mode of life is the highest attainment of plea- 
 sure at the least expenditure of money and effort. 
 They have had to work out the problem against environ- 
 ment, the conditions of labour, natural disadvantages, 
 and the laws of the land, and no human being but one 
 of themselves could improve upon it. And even one of 
 themselves could only affect it in some trifling detail. 
 Yet it changes constantly, but slowly, and imper- 
 ceptibly to the livers, but seeable in periods of time 
 by the historian and observer. Slowly as it changes it 
 can neither be forced nor arrested. 
 
 The forces at work in changing the habits of the 
 Poor and all other classes are two — exhaustion and 
 imitation. Civilisation having destroyed the natural 
 instinct in man whereby he knew r all things that came 
 within the limits of his interests, whether they would 
 be useful or otherwise, or, in other words, the instinct 
 of selection, he has to acquire the knowledge by 
 imitation. To a small extent we are influenced by 
 education, because education is thrust upon us ; but 
 it is always over-ridden by imitation, because educa- 
 tion is disagreeable and artificial and insincere in 
 the teacher. We do not imitate disagreeable things ; 
 
vi A CHAPTER OF ADVICE So 
 
 we are seeking - our happiness, and, having to depend 
 upon our fellow-man for our knowledge ot' pleasure, 
 we only imitate him in what he seems to enjoy, in 
 what he is in earnest in, his natural, and perhaps 
 unconscious, expression in all moods. The Poor do 
 not copy the virtues of the better classes, because the 
 better classes do not show any happiness in their 
 virtues, and are fools enough to tell the Poor that 
 there is no happiness but that of religious duty 
 found in them. But the Poor are quite willing to 
 imitate the pleasures of the Rich, if they have the 
 means. The child who knows every inflexion of her 
 mother's voice, and every emotion they betray, knows 
 perfectly well that when her mother assumes an artifi- 
 cial tone never used on any other occasion, and stilted 
 formal language that bears no relation to her natural con- 
 versation, that she is neither natural nor happy. She 
 may be teaching - the child a prayer, or improving - her 
 morals ; all the child knows is that the whole thing is 
 depressing and unreal. She has therefore no desire to 
 imitate such moods. See the same child an hour or so 
 afterwards, with wide open eyes and intense expression, 
 listening to her mother scolding - the servant, or deep in 
 gossip with a visitor. Then she knows the parties are in 
 earnest, and in the latter case enjoying themselves. 
 So she gets her doll and scolds it in the language of her 
 mother, or makes a gossip of it to talk scandal. The un- 
 tutored native sees nothing of happiness in the life or 
 teaching of the Missionary. (Often the poor missionary 
 sees little himself.) The savage might wish to have his 
 coat or waistcoat because he sees the missionary attaches 
 a mysterious importance to his garments, and the nigger 
 might wish to know what virtue is in them. But see the 
 difference when the trader comes along. With open eyes 
 the nigger sees how masterful he is. Whether it is 
 cattle or bearers he has, see how he manag'es them ; hear 
 
9o THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vi 
 
 his oaths. Then he smokes tobacco and drinks spirits, 
 and no man can doubt the expression he wears of con- 
 tentment and satisfaction over these operations. There, 
 there is something for imitation if you will, and the 
 nigger will have learned the whole contents of a slang 
 dictionary, ere he can repeat the Lord's Prayer. 
 
 Because our habits are imitative and not natural to 
 us, we tire of them ; we exhaust them ; we find them 
 out. They become insufficient for our purpose, and we 
 drop them, to pick up others. The other animals and 
 birds having" retained their instinct of selection, choose 
 habits exactly suited to their needs, and never change 
 them. They have the same satisfying power last as 
 first. The process of exchanging our habits, we have 
 said, is slow and imperceptible, because they are gener- 
 ally changed one at a time, and a man may have a 
 hundred actions in his day, all interwoven with each 
 other, all interdependent upon each other for the 
 pleasure they bring, and when one is being discarded 
 its tendons have to be gently unravelled and released 
 from the others, without pain or disturbance. And the 
 new one has to be slowly grafted on in like cautious 
 manner. 
 
 The Natural law of the exchange of habit is to 
 acquire a more restful, less active habit than the 
 discarded one, if possible — what the moral people 
 call slothful and of downward tendency. But it is in 
 obedience to the two fundamental laws in us, Rest and 
 the Economy of Effort, and it matters not whether it 
 be called upwards, downwards, or crossways, it is 
 onward to Rest and Strength. The social law of habit 
 is the opposite ; by it habits are chosen because of 
 their expensivcness and labour, in the hope that our 
 social rival may be discomfited, and unable to follow 
 us. From this social rivalry comes the great energy 
 o( habit of our social classes, and it is these vigorous 
 
vi A CHAPTER OF ADVICE 91 
 
 habits they extol so much as virtues ; habits in reality 
 the product of petty rivalries. In the better classes 
 are the same Natural laws as in the Poor, the desire for 
 Rest and the P'conomy of Effort, but they are suppressed 
 for the sake of social distinction, and tiresome, laborious 
 habits adopted. No wonder they tire of them so 
 quickly. There is nothing - in them but their selectness, 
 and when that goes they go also. 
 
 But the Poor are more natural than the Rich, and 
 their habits endure longer. Yet how strange it seems 
 to the Poor for people to come among them and tell 
 them that virtue, and presumably happiness, lies in 
 toiling when there is no need for it. All virtues arc 
 laborious. 
 
 Again, the habits of the classes are toilsome and 
 expensive, according to their means, but the labour 
 does not fall upon the people who enjoy them ; nor even 
 then would the habit be very enjoyable if it were not 
 supported by everything that can contribute to heighten 
 its pleasure : servants, houses, carriages, leisure, &c. 
 Stripped of their accessories, the most of them would 
 be intolerable ; yet the philanthropists recommend 
 these to the Poor, who must take them bare if they 
 take them at all. 
 
 Associated with the desire to improve the conditions 
 of life of the Poor is the hope (but fond delusion) that 
 the Poor will cultivate the virtues common to the 
 people who enjoy the intended improvements already, 
 and some go even further (parsons especially) and 
 are confidently expecting a development of morality 
 greater than exists at present in the standard of 
 improvement they are to attain. How such a thing is 
 to come about it is difficult to imagine, more especially 
 with the strong tendency in the Poor to descend in the 
 social or laborious scale, rather than ascend. There 
 exists at present, or has existed, in various parts of the 
 
92 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vi 
 
 country cases where the Poor have enjoyed all the 
 improvements it is possible to offer them, and their use 
 of these advantages is patent to all but the bat-like 
 philanthropist, who refuses to have his sentiments 
 disturbed by the intrusion of facts. 
 
 In certain districts of the country there are colliers 
 who have enjoyed shorter hours of labour than the 
 much-cried-for eight, and who only work five days in 
 the week as a rule, and sometimes only four. Does 
 the advantage of so much daily leisure incline them to 
 literary tastes ? Such a question would be laughed at 
 by any one of themselves if put to him. Beyond 
 the evening papers with the " odds " in it, they seek 
 no more literature. The extra time allows them to 
 elaborate their pleasures, gives them opportunities of 
 enjoying more exciting amusements. And elaborate 
 pleasures and strong excitement is in the eyes of the 
 philanthropist more immoral than those they could 
 enjoy if they had only an hour or two between their 
 work and their bed. Nor is this in country districts 
 where the workmen have no libraries, no conveniences 
 for reading and study. In some cases the pits are 
 within the boundaries of the town ; the men live in the 
 town, and the town has public libraries, art galleries, 
 &c. But of this latter fact, not one in five of the work- 
 men is aware, not one in fifty cares, and not one 
 in a hundred will ever put their foot within them. 
 
 There are free libraries and museums, and, but more 
 rarely, art galleries scattered over many of the towns 
 in England and Scotland that the w r orkmen never put 
 a foot into. The student, the country lodger, and such 
 like are their only visitors, and in many cases it is not 
 for mental improvement, but to pass the time. 
 
 There are gymnasia in many towns that have been 
 presented by public-spirited citizens, who have imagined 
 the working classes have been sighing for such a form 
 
Vi A CHAPTER OF ADVICE 93 
 
 of amusement. There has been the usual presentation 
 by the donor, and speech by the mayor accepting the 
 gift on behalf of the town, and an oration by a pro- 
 fessor upon athletics, and then the usual adjournment 
 to the banquet-hall for cake and wine. For the first 
 week extra police are required at the gymnasium to 
 keep order. The thing is new, and many want to see 
 it. Six months afterwards, the chains are dangling in 
 rust, the ladders are rungless, the trusses are all cut 
 into with initials, swings are broken, &c. Nobody is 
 ever seen to amuse himself in it but a few boys, and 
 the idle take possession of it to destroy it. So is it also 
 with fountains, statues, and all ornamental work put 
 among the Poor to educate them. When not abused, 
 they are treated with indifference. Nobody wants 
 them ; nobody cares for them. The people go past 
 them and around them, sit sometimes at the base of the 
 statues, or in the chairs surrounding the fountains, and 
 never give a thought what they are. 
 
 There have been hundreds of instances where poor 
 workmen have got the offer of larger houses than they 
 chose to pay for, either rent free or at a nominal rent. 
 We have known many cases. These houses were 
 generally old houses within works, that the proprietors 
 had not made up their minds what to do with, whether 
 to add them to the works or pull them down altogether. 
 On the principle that a house is kept in better condition 
 when inhabited than when empty, they offer them 
 temporarily to some poor, deserving workman. In 
 other cases they are cottages in connection with large 
 works that cover a great area. The cottage overlooks, 
 perhaps, some unguarded part. It is cheaper to give 
 the cottage to a workman than to pay a watchman. 
 A poor workman with a family is selected, because the 
 family will always be about the door as a look-out. 
 How then do the Poor take advantage of these offers ? 
 
94 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vi 
 
 They bring - their few sticks of furniture from their old 
 house ; they do not, nor would they, spend one farthing 
 on the further furnishing of their house. So far as the 
 furniture will cover, they cover, and they live exactly 
 as in the previous house to the extent of their furnishing. 
 All the rest is left empty and bare, where the children 
 can play themselves, and the mother make a drying- 
 green of on a wet day. But where it is permitted, or 
 where it can be done under the rose, they invariably let 
 the empty space to lodgers : young, strong labourers 
 who have next to no belongings, and do not care where 
 they sleep, their principal concern being where they 
 will get breakfast. For these, the daughters are turned 
 out of their bed and given a shakedown on the floor of 
 one of the rooms. Where is the great moral influence 
 of the separation of the sexes to flow from in these 
 cases ? There are no locked doors, sometimes not even 
 shut ones. There is too much traffic in and out all 
 evening, and until very late they do not know for certain 
 how many guests they may have. They go to sleep at 
 all hours, some early, some late, and they roam about 
 with perfect freedom, none daring to be so exclusive as 
 to appropriate any more space than he or she can lie 
 upon. 
 
 What about the morals ? What about the sanitation 
 that the better housing of the Poor was to stimulate ? 
 
 These being individual cases may be felt to be in- 
 sufficient. Let us take, then, an instance with which 
 every citizen of an ordinary sized town is acquainted 
 with. Every town has its slums. Who make these 
 slums? Not the natural decay of properties; not the 
 desertion of the fashionable people from the neighbour- 
 hood ; not the rapacious landlord rack-renting the Poor 
 in his insanitary dwelling. None of these. The Poor 
 make the slums for their own convenience, in the 
 making of slums, that the Poor should take advantage 
 
Vi A CHAPTER OF ADVICE 95 
 
 of a deserted neighbourhood is only saying that, like 
 everybody else, they profit by whatever opportunities 
 present themselves. But they will make slums if there 
 be no deserted localities. The decay of property is 
 often the result of slum life, rather than the induce- 
 ment. The Poor make slums of quite new property. 
 And the idea that any landlord can invite the Poor 
 to become his tenants in an insanitary building at 
 a higher rent than they choose to pay, is one of the 
 greatest fallacies that has ever been circulated by the 
 ignorant, credulous philanthropist. Of all people in 
 the world how can the Poor in cities be rack-rented ? 
 They have virtually no furniture ; their rents are col- 
 lected weekly in advance ; there is nothing to keep 
 them from removing on a few hours' notice. Those 
 who cannot pay have to ^o, and are accustomed to 
 shifting, but in that case they have to live with friends 
 until their finances are restored. The general plan is 
 to coax and wheedle the landlord to give them time, 
 and curse him heartily when his patience is exhausted. 
 There are slump-rents at all prices, and there is 
 nothing to induce a man to pay more than he 
 chooses. On the other hand, the landlord has no 
 weapon to protect his property from being made slum- 
 property but by raising his rents ; and once a property 
 is "slummed" it is ruined. And when a property 
 has been "slummed" raising the rent is the only 
 recourse the owner has for the removal of objec- 
 tionable and suspicious characters. His tenants are 
 too many, and the rents too small to indulge in legal 
 forms. 
 
 There are some cities philanthropically inclined who 
 acquired power to tear down their slums. They were 
 a godsend to the proprietors of that kind of property, 
 who got a very good price for their buildings, and were 
 in the main glad to be rid of them. But the displaced 
 
96 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vi 
 
 Poor were the people who suffered most, and the shop- 
 men who depended upon their trade, next. The former 
 had to go and form new rookeries, often to the land- 
 lord's disgust, and the latter had to remove also, or 
 become bankrupt when there was no population to 
 trade with. The process of forming- a slum is very 
 simple — we have seen it often. One of the skimmers 
 has only to take an empty house in any of the pro- 
 perties in the locality they have chosen as their own. 
 The house may be larger, and the rent dearer than he 
 is inclined to pay, but he sublets parts of it, and fills 
 the rest with lodgers. Complaint is made to the land- 
 lord, but ere he can take legal steps, the other tenants 
 have fled. No tenant, with a little furniture, a steady 
 wage, and an attempt at respectability, will endure the 
 reproach of living among skimmers. The landlord can 
 never rehabilitate his property. He has the choice of 
 keeping it empty, or filling it with the Poor, and when 
 he chooses the latter, they swarm in like bees. While 
 they are doing so the neighbours on both sides are 
 flying from the spot, and new tenements are ready for 
 the Poor as fast as they can fill them. The philanthro- 
 pists of the City Improvement schemes seemed to have 
 a notion that when they had torn down rookeries, 
 straightened and widened streets, that the remaining 
 space would be eagerly leased by the builder to erect 
 new and improved buildings. But having driven the 
 Poor away to other quarters, when they were ready to 
 lease their ground there were no inhabitants ; nothing 
 but dreary wastes of ruins and hoardings without trade 
 or life. Under no circumstances could the old inhabit- 
 ants be conjured back to the locality, and until a new 
 class found some use for these barren spots they 
 remained deserts in the heart of the city. 
 
 There are some societies formed for the better 
 housing of the Poor. The people who form these 
 
vi A CHAPTER OF ADVICE 97 
 
 societies might as well take for their object the pro- 
 viding - of drier atmosphere for fish. Some have built 
 new buildings, some have bought old buildings and 
 repaired and improved them up to the latest sanitary 
 standard. The houses have high ceilings, the necessary 
 amount of light and cubic space to each apartment, 
 and all sanitary conveniences, and in some cases they 
 have added inside fixtures to which the ordinary classes 
 are accustomed, but the Poor are not. These 
 fixtures can easily be destroyed, or unfixed and carried 
 away. 
 
 To get bank interest for the money invested they 
 require to charge a rent the Poor will never be inclined 
 to pay. To protect their property they require 
 "decent" tenants, and it is to escape respectability 
 that the Poor form their slums. To do a lot of 
 cleaning, &c, which they know the Poor would never 
 do themselves, they have a resident janitor or care- 
 taker, and the Poor will never submit to such espionage. 
 Who, then, fill these houses, because they get rapidly 
 filled ? A better class come down to them. People 
 who have been paying more rent for larger houses. 
 The newly-built houses have architectural pretensions 
 and broad pavements, with large well-lighted shops on 
 the ground floor : the bought and improved houses 
 have been made respectable by the alterations and the 
 selection of tenants. This is a lower standard of 
 respectability than existed before, and those who had 
 to pay for more than they wanted are glad of the 
 opportunity to save their rent. Thus these philan- 
 thropists are helping the Natural law of descent by 
 providing people with smaller and cheaper houses than 
 they were content with before. 
 
 The slum is as necessary to the Poor as the palace 
 to the Rich. The poor man does not live in his house 
 as the better classes do ; he lives on the street, and 
 
 H 
 
98 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vi 
 
 only uses his house as a retreat for food or rest. 
 Requiring - no more than that, he is not going - to pay 
 much rent for it. He is not going to keep curtains in 
 his window, or polish the handle of his door. He is 
 going to have no rivalries about cleanest houses, or 
 finest furniture. All these things belong to people 
 who live in their houses. He lives on the street. The 
 street is his home. There he meets his friends ; there 
 he is known ; there he finds his amusements ; there is 
 his favourite public-house ; there is his reading-room, 
 news-room, and art gallery. It is for his street he 
 pays the price of a good rent in cars to take him to 
 his work and back at night ; it is for his street that he 
 pays the landlord the high rent which he does. His 
 attachment is to his street ; not his house. 
 
 So far as we have seen from experience, no moral 
 improvement may be expected from any improvement 
 of the material condition of the Poor, unless it is one 
 that they themselves desire, one that is a hindrance in 
 the meantime to the free play of their virtuous instincts. 
 What such hindrances are, we will deal with by and 
 by, but as they almost all arise from the difference in the 
 standards of morality of the two classes, so they can 
 be removed by an assimilation of these standards into 
 a working law of life for all humanity. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 LABOUR 
 
 Labour the penalty of life — The evolution of the wage-earner — 
 The effect of machinery : to make labour a caste — Limits of 
 the workman's ambition circumscribed — Strikes — Municipal 
 workshops — A suggestion for the utilisation of the unem- 
 ployed. 
 
 Labour is the curse of human existence, made so by 
 man — a curse from which every man, woman, and 
 child that was ever born into the world, or ever will 
 be, has fled from, and will flee from, as from a pesti- 
 lence. The busiest person engaged in physical labour, 
 if his actions are free, onlv shows the easrer desire with 
 which he is anticipating, or seeking to anticipate, his 
 emancipation. The Poor will sweat and toil to give 
 their children better education and better clothing than 
 their position allows, in their endeavour to get them 
 into situations where they can escape physical labour. 
 And these same children will accept gladly a lower 
 wage than they could otherwise earn, with greater 
 demands upon it, making their lives one long strain 
 of the severest repression, to escape the hated thing. 
 The man of small or straitened means, blessed with 
 a family of daughters, will submit to almost any form 
 
 H 2 
 
ioo THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vn 
 
 of retrenchment to save his girls from going out. That 
 is the irretrievable step in social distinction. They may 
 be clever, well-educated, well-trained young ladies ; 
 no personal charm or qualification can compensate 
 for such a fatal action. The ill-bred, under-educated, 
 under-mannered daughter of a successful tradesman 
 is aware of her social superiority to the lady who may 
 have to go out, and will have no hesitation in remind- 
 ing the latter of the difference between them. The 
 merchant may receive a legacy, and he puts it into 
 his business for further speculation ; the tradesman 
 may become heir to some money, and his first thoughts 
 are upon extending his business ; but the workman's 
 one hope of succeeding to money is to quit labour. 
 Young or middle-aged, no matter how easy or well 
 paid, if man can live without labour nothing will 
 induce him to work. 
 
 Why labour is so repulsive to man is because it is 
 unnatural. Nature's order of toil is as follows. All 
 living things must find the material for their existence 
 from the earth. Water and food was all that was 
 required, nor could they seek for these until Nature 
 within them called for them; thus what "work" was 
 required of them was sought for under a stimulus that 
 made their labour so light they did not feel it. The 
 pangs of hunger or of thirst possessed them to the 
 exclusion of any knowledge of their labour to appease 
 them. But, further, lest any animal or bird should 
 take a liking for work of any kind, unless under the 
 inspiration of immediate want, Nature implanted in all 
 of her creations a law which prohibits them from any 
 unnecessary motion. This was Nature's plan to keep 
 all things from disturbing her order and arrangement 
 of the earth. But man, who came to believe the earth 
 was made for him, changed all this. 
 
 When authority was discovered by man it produced 
 
vii LABOUR 101 
 
 slavery, and as slavery permitted those in authority to 
 escape even Nature's limit of personal labour, it was 
 very welcome. Happiness is rest. A wave of slavery 
 passed all over the known world, and from this slavery 
 civilisation sprung-. No number of men could be found 
 anywhere with sufficient cohesion to form a "nation" 
 without the strong - coercing the weak. No ancient 
 city ever was built by freemen ; no king, or nation, or 
 contractor had money enough to pay their wages. 
 They were all built by slaves, working under the lash 
 — driven, stalled, and fed like other beasts of burden. 
 In the slave all Natural laws were driven away, and the 
 hours of his labour were the ascertained power of en- 
 durance in him. This did not alter the nature of man, 
 but intensified his hatred of labour and his love ot 
 freedom. The only good point of slavery was that it 
 destroyed poverty. The most prolific source of poverty 
 is, not that a man cannot feed himself from his labours, 
 but that he will not. The slave got no choice in the 
 matter ; the reward of his labour was his keep, and in 
 the interests of his master it was seen to that he was 
 fed. If the slave had been given money to buy his 
 food, he would have spent as much of it as he dared 
 on other pleasures. If he could, he would have sold 
 his food and clothing for something he longed for, 
 something he envied others the enjoyment of. But 
 the master required a strong, well-fed, healthy slave, 
 and their feeding he had to see to himself. 
 
 Here was the first difference of interests between 
 employer and employed, a difference that, having 
 remained unsolved all these years, is as acute to-day 
 as ever. The employer, and you, the philanthropist — 
 as you belong to the employer class you also hold his 
 opinions — believe that the first use a workman should 
 put his wages to is to provide " the necessaries of life ' 
 for himself and family ; while the workman, though 
 
102 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vn 
 
 not holding- any opinion on the matter, uniformly acts 
 as if the family bread-and-butter was his very last con- 
 sideration — as it generally is. A thing of daily occur- 
 rence cannot rise to be a matter of consuming interest 
 unless something uncommon happens to it ; and it is 
 only when he is compelled to give the matter his atten- 
 tion that the workman thinks about the condition of his 
 larder. Even then, it is made the scapegoat for all 
 shortages or retrenchments. When the workman is 
 animated with a strong desire for something, the pur- 
 chase of which will make such inroads upon his pay 
 that he will be obliged to live for the w T eek on very 
 short commons, his belief in how little food he can live 
 upon is marvellous. The question is only relatively 
 one of poverty ; it is more directly one of wages. If 
 the workman were first to provide the needs of his 
 household, even on a generous scale, it would soon 
 become known what the average cost of living was, 
 and how much the workman had remaining at his free 
 disposal. This would be very pleasant to the philan- 
 thropist and society in general, because it would produce 
 in the workman a more regular and steady mode of life. 
 To the employer it would also be very grateful, as he 
 would make that remainder balance the Aunt Sally 
 of every wave of depression or bad market he had. As 
 long as the employer believed the workman had a 
 balance, he would consider the latter overpaid. The 
 employer believes that the workman works for a 
 living. Not so the workman. He knows what he 
 works for : he works for the pleasure of spending his 
 wages as he thinks fit. He has got rid of the last 
 vestiges of the Truck Acts — useful, beneficial acts for 
 the reduction of poverty, but scandalously abused by 
 the greed of the employers ; he has got rid of every- 
 thing that comes between him and hard cash for every 
 penny of his wages ; and how he chooses to dispose 
 
VII LABOUR 103 
 
 of them he considers his own affair. But we know 
 it is the smallest portion that goes towards household 
 expenses ; and if that small proportion is not enough, 
 then he complains that his whole wages are insufficient 
 to support him and his family, and he is ready for a 
 strike. If lowness of wages had any bearing upon 
 the poverty of the working classes, it would be worth 
 inquiring here what a minimum wage should be ; but 
 so little has it to do with the question, that when from 
 any cause the workman's wages cease, it is the higher 
 paid who are first in distress. This is because they 
 live on a higher plane than the others. They become 
 used to regular meals and full meals, and a suspension 
 of these brings them to unendurable distress at once, 
 while their more frugal neighbours (compulsorily so) 
 eat at irregular times, when they have the means and 
 opportunity, and endure the rest. A gentleman con- 
 nected with shipbuilding, and also on the Board of the 
 Poor-house of the district, informed the writer that 
 when the shipbuilding became dull and the men had 
 to be discharged, it was the wives of the skilled work- 
 men, to whom he had been paying wages for months 
 °f £ 2 > £3> an d £3 10s. a week, who were the first to 
 ask relief. Not for about a month afterwards came the 
 wives of the labourers who attended upon them, and 
 whose wages were from eighteen to twenty shillings. 
 Low wage or high wage is a matter that should only 
 concern the people directly interested. The lowest is 
 well above the amount required for household ex- 
 penses, if the workman likes ; the highest is not 
 enough, if he does not like. It is the abuse and the 
 stoppage of the wage, whatever its amount, that 
 brings poverty. 
 
 As slavery gave place to free labour, the wages of 
 the free labourer were calculated on the work of the 
 slave — the value of his weekly production or output. 
 
404 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vil 
 
 less the price of his living. There was no other way. 
 Slavery was not all abolished at once ; is not yet ; and 
 the freeman had to compete with forced labour. If 
 he were not profitable to his employer there was no 
 need for him. 
 
 It is claimed by business and professional men that 
 they are workers equally with the physical labourer, 
 some asserting" that brain work is harder than manual 
 labour. The claim cannot be admitted as regards 
 equality of conditions. There is not a brain worker 
 who would exchange his occupation for one of toil : 
 there is not a labourer who would not exchange his 
 occupation for one of business ; there is not a neutral 
 person without experience of either, when compelled to 
 choose, would choose the pickaxe in preference to the 
 pen. The manual labourer stands alone in his pecu- 
 liarity. He cannot multiply himself like the merchant 
 or manufacturer. He cannot, extend his labour beyond 
 himself. He cannot accumulate his labour to live upon 
 it in his old age. He cannot depute it to younger 
 men when he grows old, and yet reap the profits of it. 
 He cannot sell it when he wants to retire. Throughout 
 life he can never increase his capital, but must always 
 draw upon it. His greatest period of productivity 
 (and therefore high wages, where permissible) is when 
 he has least responsibilities (early manhood), and so he 
 learns improvidence and the love of spending money 
 (having no one but himself to keep) ; and as he advances 
 in life his energy fails and his burdens increase. Now 
 let us look at even the small tradesman. By a single 
 thought he may see how he may save upon a transac- 
 tion ; but the thought is as applicable to five hundred 
 transactions of the same kind, and he can reap the 
 profit from all these as easily as one. Thus this 
 tradesman multiplies himself by five hundred in one 
 action. If he finds out how to save in the making up 
 
vii LABOUR i #5 
 
 of his goods, it does not apply to one occasion only 
 but may be repeated as often as he makes a sale. But 
 when the workman makes a stroke with the hammer 
 or a heave with the spade, these actions cannot repeat 
 themselves without renewed labour. If the manufac- 
 turer can make a profit out of the employment of one 
 man, the more men he employs the greater the profit, 
 and the one transaction may cost him no more thought, 
 and therefore " work," than the other. The small 
 tradesman can open a branch in a neighbouring sub- 
 urb, and superintend both. He is thus as it were two 
 tradesmen ; he also can conduct a business at a 
 distance in another town through servants ; but the 
 poor workman cannot. The workman can toilfully 
 save his wages against his old age, but a tradesman 
 does not need. A well-conducted business accumulates 
 and increases of itself and after twenty or thirty years 
 its owner can live upon it when he can do it no good. 
 Thrift not being a natural gift in man, generally only 
 those can practise it who have a strong interest in the 
 process, and an ever-present feeling of reward for their 
 self denial, to encourage them and help them to con- 
 tend with every new desire that arises from the 
 knowledge that they have the means to indulge it. 
 The smallest independent worker, small tradesman, or 
 shopkeeper, even the pedlar, has ever before him this 
 inducement to encourage him to thrift. Every addi- 
 tional penny he can add to his business he knows makes 
 his labours less and his profits greater. " Capital ! 
 more capital ! " is his cry, and all that he can save is 
 added to his stock. The workman has no such en- 
 couragement to save his money. His life is rounded 
 off in so many pay days. When he has received 
 his wages the world is quits with him, and a new 
 week is a new contract. There is no continuity in 
 his interests that binds him to the world, as there is in 
 
106 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vn 
 
 business life, by which he is called upon to make any 
 sacrifice. 
 
 So far we have sought to show the natural disad- 
 vantages of the man who labours for hire, instead of, 
 as Nature meant him, for himself. To this must be 
 added another one for which we are partly indebted to 
 the appliance of machinery to all kinds of industry, 
 and partly to the men themselves. Before the intro- 
 duction of machinery, there were no large individual 
 employers of labour, but there were many small ones. 
 There were no railways, no steamships, nothing that 
 required large w r orks, or ponderous machinery. Coal 
 was only needed for domestic consumption. All there- 
 fore that was made or manufactured was done so in a 
 very small way, and to embark in trade for one's self 
 required little or no capital. Everybody with the 
 slightest ambition could begin business for himself. 
 Few masters employed more than two or three men, 
 and each man therefore learned his whole business 
 thoroughly. The people who therefore sought employ- 
 ment were of two classes : the lazy and unambitious, 
 and the active and ambitious. It was only the former 
 who meant to be a workman all his life. The latter 
 looked upon wage-earning as a necessary but inter- 
 mediate condition. Through it he could best learn his 
 trade, and wait for the proper opportunity to begin on 
 his own behalf. Diverse as these motives were they 
 were both willing to serve for a wage that left a con- 
 siderable margin of profit to the employer ; or in other 
 words, a living wage and no more — the unambitious 
 one, because if he could live upon it, that was all his 
 concern ; and the ambitious one, because the spirit of 
 the master was already in him and to increase wages 
 as a servant was to cut his throat when a master. 
 The revolution then which machinery wrought was 
 this ; the workmen only learned a section of the 
 
vii LABOUR 107 
 
 process of manufacture, or an insignificant part of his 
 trade. This was a fatal blow to his ever becoming a 
 master on his own account. He again became a slave, 
 this time not to his employer, but to his machine. 
 Without it he was useless. Machinery required 
 capital, and the number of workmen who could start 
 for themselves under the new conditions was further 
 reduced. But the forcing up of wages by strikes and 
 other artificial means, so reduced the margin of profit 
 on each man's hire, that the only recourse for the 
 employer was to recoup himself by increasing the 
 number employed. Works were increased, extra 
 capital invested, newer and more improved machinery 
 erected, until it required a fortune, or a limited liability 
 company to conduct a single work. The last hope of 
 any workman being able to begin for himself in any of 
 the great staple industries of the country has vanished, 
 and he may reflect that he has helped to throw himself 
 back into the slavery from which he sprung : this time 
 he is a slave to his trade. 
 
 At the present day thousands of men are born to a 
 trade, or part of a trade, in which they know their whole 
 lives are to be spent as wage-earners. They know the end 
 from the beginning. Their aspirations, ambitions, and 
 desires are confined within its limits, and within these 
 limits what can they fasten upon, what interest them- 
 selves in ? An increase of wage. For what purpose ? 
 To save ? to accumulate for the purpose ot beginning 
 business? to invest? to improve their condition of 
 life ? None of these ; merely, while it lasts to have a 
 pleasant roughness of money with them. That is the 
 average working man's highest ideal. For that, they 
 employ agitators and organizers : for that, they endure 
 strikes : for that, they go idle when there is plenty of 
 work. How are the interests of the employer and 
 employed to be conjoined ? When will the wages 
 
10S THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vn 
 
 question ever be settled ? The masters are bound 
 hand and foot by Economic law, they cannot employ 
 labour unless it is remunerative. The agitator refuses 
 to recognise any Economic law in the employment of 
 labour. 
 
 Of the philanthropist, and all who have the happiness 
 of the wage-earner at heart, we ask that they read 
 these lines carefully. They will see plainly that of all 
 people in 'the world, the conditions of the toiler's life 
 should not be interfered with. It is unique in its 
 limitations, and there are none but the employer and 
 his workmen know the variations of these limits. 
 Perhaps in the whole working life of a labourer they 
 may never have averaged more than ten per cent, for and 
 against. Every strike costs the workman more than he 
 gains whether he win his purpose or not, and the most 
 laudable thing the well-wisher of the workmen can do, 
 is to stand aside and be silent, when men are on 
 strike. It is only fair to both parties, and it will 
 reduce the strike in regard to time to small compass, 
 thereby saving the men furthur expenditure. Strikes 
 will come ; but they will be of short duration, and little 
 harm done if the two parties are left alone. If you 
 think to interfere where you can only do harm, advise 
 the workman to take a lower wage. He will not do so ; 
 but if all those who take upon themselves to advise the 
 workman were giving him this advice, it would have 
 the effect of keeping him longer at a stable wage than 
 at present. It is essential to the happiness of the 
 workman that he should have stability of conditions, a 
 long spell at the same rate of wages, so that his habits 
 should get solidified, and he learns to put his money to 
 its best use. At high-pressure wages there are a 
 great many in every trade who never get a constant 
 twelvemonths' employment. If the workmen would 
 take a shade less wages, the employer could give all, 
 
vii LABOUR 109 
 
 constant employment, and so the men would earn more 
 in the year though less per week. 
 
 On the other hand, see the harm to the workmen and 
 the trade of the country the agitator can do when he 
 can get the support of the public outside. The 
 memorable dockers' strike in London was the first of 
 any magnitude in which the public were cozened to 
 take a part. Immediately the public became interested 
 the real point in dispute was pushed to the back- 
 ground. The agitator atevery street corner, and the press 
 in every issue, poured forth most eloquently upon the 
 hard life of the docker generally, his small wage, his 
 struggles every morning for employment, and his mode 
 of living. All of which is as pertinent to him one day as 
 another, one year as another, whether he is on strike or 
 full employment at top wages. But it prejudiced the 
 public, and was a great injustice to the Dock company. 
 Their numbers may be small but they are entitled to 
 even-handed justice. The moneys of widows and 
 orphans may have been in their keeping ; why are they 
 not also to be considered ? Lord Macaulay says that 
 the people of England have a fit of madness every ten 
 years, over something or another, and London appears 
 to have one specially on its own account in the interval. 
 It lost its head over the dockers, as it had over 
 slumming. Cheques poured in upon the organizers ; 
 the coffers were kept full, being renewed every day by 
 sympathisers, and the docker had a much better time in 
 idleness than when at work. 
 
 This tangible form of sympathy cost the workmen 
 of this country in a few years over a million sterling of 
 wages, in addition to making their future employment 
 more difficult by the disorganisation of business ; but 
 above all it introduced a new element into the question 
 of wages and strikes that will cost them twenty 
 million more if they pursue it. The organisers and 
 
no THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vn 
 
 agents of the men agreed that strikes in future must 
 be carefully dressed up to win the approval of the 
 public, their sympathy, and cash. To do so the most 
 effective way was to make as many of them (the public) 
 suffer as possible, and those living too remote from the 
 scene of action have their minds rilled with the magnitude 
 of numbers. This was the way the succeeding strikes 
 were engineered — the midland colliers' strike, the 
 seamen's strike at Hull, the Scotch railway strike, 
 and colliery strike. It was most pitiful to see those 
 agitators, for weeks before the strike, showing their 
 anxiety and eagerness to work up the public sympathy. 
 Public utterances everywhere, platform speeches every 
 night, and press communications daily, all addressed to 
 the public. Deputations carefully chosen to entrap 
 the masters in an unenviable light. Great cry for 
 arbitration, while putting every obstacle in its way. 
 And so the poor workmen were held like dogs in a 
 leash ; if the public would rise to the sport, then they 
 would get value for their money ; but if not, the strike 
 either never took place, or it fizzled out like a damp squib. 
 The public sympathy cannot for long be maintained 
 on sordid questions of whether it is sixpence per day 
 up, or sixpence per day down. They must have some 
 soul-satisfying principle to pour their sentiments over, 
 and the agitator is quite willing to supply them. A 
 principle may be anything, and can be sprung upon 
 the employer at any time irrespective of the content- 
 ment of the men, the state of trade, or the briskness 
 or dulness of any particular occupation. It may be the 
 eight-hours question ; it may be whom they choose to 
 allow the employer to take on, or pay off; it can at all 
 times be the everlasting principle that wages are too 
 low for the agitator's liking. Here is an instance, and 
 we must state our authority is the public press in their 
 daily report of the proceedings : Mr. Tom Mann, in his 
 
vii LABOUR in 
 
 report of the Dockers' Union of London, said that the 
 hindrance to his endeavours to gain an increase in 
 wages for them was their own suicidal or cutthroat 
 competition. Here was the confession of a leader 
 meditating a strike without the workmen's consent, or 
 with that kind of consent that said he was welcome to 
 do so if he could do it without them. They were too 
 much engaged in attending to their own affairs. There 
 were more labourers than work, and they who had it 
 were anxious to keep it, and those who were idle were 
 trying to get a share of the employment, even at a 
 lower rate of wages, which we take to be the cutthroat 
 or suicidal competition Mr. Mann complained of. The 
 dockers had no grievance to mend, no quarrel with their 
 employers to adjust, no discontent with their labour, no 
 sense of injustice to brood over, yet their paid servant 
 or organiser was meditating to destroy this harmonious 
 state of things and provoke a strike ! There was no 
 ground as between employer and employed to fix a 
 quarrel or strike upon. How then was it to be done ? 
 We do not know, but we presume on the general 
 principle that wages are always too low. We have 
 heard language from this gentleman and some of his 
 friends, from which the only deduction one can reason- 
 ably make is that in their opinion the wages of the 
 workmen are too low, and continue to be too low, and 
 no matter what happens will ever remain too low. Here 
 then is a declared enemy to any settlement of the 
 industrial question. In this case he was only defeated 
 by the individuality of the men themselves. To them, 
 to keep in employment personally was more desirable 
 than helping Mr. Mann to successfully assert his principle. 
 But will it always be so ? The very slightest friction 
 between master and men might have raised a feeling in 
 the men that would have made them give ear to the 
 agitator and his principle. 
 
112 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vn 
 
 It would make one despair of ever seeing - a happy 
 and contented working class, to think that every trade 
 of any dimensions pays one or more persons whose 
 business is to watch and take advantage of every 
 change in the condition of trade, no matter how insig- 
 nificant, to assert claims they know cannot be admitted, 
 and attempt to enforce them through the suffering of 
 the men themselves. But above all things, whether 
 there is any change in the conditions of labour or no, 
 they must never allow the question to be settled. The 
 relations of the men and masters must never be allowed 
 to reach that point from which harmony and goodwill 
 might engender. The sea must never be calm, the day 
 must know no rest, the armies must not fraternize. 
 Unrest, turmoil, and suspicion are now the relationship 
 between master and man ; and to keep them properly 
 apart the agitator makes himself the intermediary 
 through whom all communications must pass. In one 
 sense, the employer hires his man from the agitator. 
 It is he who allows them to work ; he who fixes the 
 conditions of their hire ; he to whom all disputes must 
 be referred ; and he who takes them away when he 
 likes. But the devil has a halt ; and the schemes of 
 men are imperfect because they are unnatural, and 
 Nature is the only perfect thing in this world. There 
 is one thing that will always militate against the triumph 
 of the agitator's principles. Since the public have 
 sympathized with the workmen on strike, the workman 
 now expects to be paid for striking. It then lies with 
 the public to put an end to strikes by taking no part in 
 them whatever. They are not in a position to judge 
 in the matter, and to take one side is to wrong the 
 other, as no matter which side they support they are 
 encouraging that side to continue the strike longer than 
 they otherwise would ; and every hour and every day a 
 person helps to continue a strike he is doing the worst 
 
vii LABOUR 
 
 "3 
 
 service to his friends he possibly could. Without 
 outside support no strike would last more than a week 
 or so, and, best of all, they would never rise to the 
 importance of attracting public attention ; and when 
 they fail in that, the agitator's occupation is gone, and 
 industrial peace may visit the land. 
 
 We have referred before to the workman's demand 
 that the State or municipalities should protect him from 
 ever being out of employment. 
 
 The demand is unique in its selfishness. The great 
 army of warehousemen and clerks are exactly in the 
 same position as the artisan. They are liable to dis- 
 missal any minute, and they are subject to all the 
 vicissitudes of dull trade, contraction of employment, 
 &c, that the workman is. And worse, they work as 
 long, and in many cases longer hours, for less pay. 
 But, of course, they have no agitators to imagine their 
 wrongs for them. When severe industrial depression 
 overtakes this country, the suicides never belong to the 
 workman class ; they generally come from the poor 
 clerk brigade. For them there is no philanthropical 
 schemes, no demands for permanent employment, no 
 parliamentary consideration of their condition. They 
 are allowed to endure their distress alone, until 
 endurance itself seeks relief in the river. 
 
 We have been surprised lately to see that this pre- 
 posterous demand (natural enough in the mouths of the 
 agitator and the invertebrate parliamentarian) should 
 be accepted as a matter-of-course by magazine writers, 
 philosophers, and students of the industrial question — ■ 
 people who are supposed to think and write on the 
 question impartially. Without justification or argument 
 they have adopted the doctrine as if it were a settled 
 principle of the conditions of labour. "Of course," 
 says the latest of these writers, "the workman must 
 be found employment." 
 
 I 
 
i r 4 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vil 
 
 The desire for municipal workshops so strongly advo- 
 cated by the workmen's leaders as a solution of the 
 unemployed question, is twofold ; and the reason given 
 to the public is not the paramount one. If a town 
 started a workshop it would have to give the highest 
 conditions in all respects, the most extreme demands 
 to its employes, pay the highest wages, grant the 
 shortest hours, &c, without any consideration of 
 economy. Then the agitator would use this artificial 
 condition of labour, as a lever to raise all private 
 employment to the same level. But let us see if 
 municipal workshops would even perform the services 
 required of them. The Government have just now some 
 royal dockyards, in which they repair, overhaul, and build 
 our navy, and have also added making their engines. 
 There are also throughout the country plenty of shipyards 
 and engjine works. When these latter are empty, how 
 many men thrown out of employment do, or can, these 
 State works find work for ? Precious few, if any. 
 They have their own staff of workmen, and they have 
 no room for more. Just so would it be with the 
 municipal works. They would be bound to have 
 a permanent staff. The conditions of labour in them 
 being more favourable than with private employers, 
 they would be " rushed " by the men to get into them. 
 Once they were full, the men would not leave, and the 
 managers could not discharge them. The town dare 
 never close the works and set them all adrift again. No 
 matter how brisk trade became, they would hold there 
 would always be plenty of men to overtake it. Then 
 when a period of dulness came again, what room would 
 our municipal workshops have for absorbing the unem- 
 ployed ? None, none whatever ; while the work would 
 be carried on at a fearful loss. 
 
 The Admiralty, however, have another way of finding 
 work for the unemployed, a most excellent way, and one 
 
vii LABOUR 115 
 
 we would strongly recommend to the philanthropist and 
 the municipalities. When private shipyards and engin- 
 eering shops are idle, the Admiralty give out to these 
 works as many orders as it can, and keep the men in 
 employment until better times come. Now let us see 
 how that would do if adopted by the towns to give their 
 citizens employment. 
 
 Nearly every large town is identified with and 
 dependent upon one special industry. In some it is 
 cotton, some lace, some ironwork, some chemicals, and 
 it can only be when that particular industry was dull, 
 that there could be any real distress. What then is to 
 hinder the town giving the employers sufficient work to 
 keep their men engaged until orders come, in the usual 
 way again ? With anything like care it could be done 
 at very little expense, sometimes at a profit. When an 
 industry is dull, its raw material is generally very cheap ; 
 the employer is willing to take very little for making, 
 would often be glad to get cost price, rather than shut 
 his works and waste his machinery, and the wages of the 
 workmen would also have to be reduced. As the whole 
 thing is done for his, the workman's, benefit, he must 
 also share some part of the sacrifice. And in spite of 
 his leaders he would, because public opinion would be 
 asrainst him. With such all-round reductions the manu- 
 factured article would come out at a low cost, and 
 might either be sold in the market at once, or stored 
 against a rise. Private manufacturers make money 
 this way ; why should the town not do it without much 
 loss ? All the town has to do, if it were textile fabrics 
 that was the principal business, was to settle the price 
 with the manufacturers, and the quantity (not allowing 
 them to do more than enough to keep their regular 
 hands going), and either let them sell the material or 
 store it, whichever seemed most profitable, the town 
 indemnifying the manufacturer against any loss. 
 
 1 2 
 
u6 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vn 
 
 Almost all kinds of manufactures could be dealt with 
 in this way, subject to some alterations of details 
 necessary from the nature of the material and the 
 rules of its trade. Even ships could be built upon this 
 plan. There are many private owners of shipyards 
 who lay down the keels of boats for themselves when 
 their slips are bare. They have their staff to keep 
 any way, and their machinery is best working, while 
 they have a natural desire to keep their workmen 
 together as long as they can. Sometimes the workmen 
 are told what is intended, and are asked to take a less 
 rate of wages. These boats are often sold before they 
 are launched, and if not at a great profit, seldom at a 
 loss. All that a shipbuilding town has to do, is to 
 settle the price per ton of a handy steamer of a 
 popular size and tonnage, and let the shipbuilder sell 
 it if he can, or submit offers. If the town got cost 
 price, it should take it. Its purpose is not to make a 
 profit, but to keep its shipworking population employed 
 without loss. 
 
 Let us look at the advantages of this system over 
 the known disadvantages of the other. The cost 
 would be less, and, managed with an honest intention, 
 might be infinitesimal even, compared with the useless 
 alternative of stone-breaking, where one parish would 
 sell for ^5 what cost it between ^70 and £80. It 
 would free the city from requiring to invest any capital 
 in works, and as regards expenditure the town would 
 always be free to stop or reduce its contracts as- it saw 
 fit. The workmen would continue at the employment 
 to which they were trained, and engaged in which they 
 were most profitably exercised. They would not even 
 have to change employers, and so could remain in 
 their houses, &c, as usual. The conditions of labour 
 would not be disturbed in any way ; and the continuous 
 circulation of wages would also keep in their wonted 
 
vii LABOUR 117 
 
 prosperity all the tradesmen that depend upon the 
 wage-earner : the butcher, baker, grocer, clothier, &c. 
 In fact, the prosperity of the town w r ould be continuous 
 and unremitting. Only the true and honest workman 
 would be benefited by this process, and that alone 
 would show the immense army of loafers who are 
 ever ready to join the unemployed and share their 
 charity. All this would be saved. And last of all, it 
 is a plan by which even-handed justice is served all 
 round. The proprietors who are always ignored, are 
 here considered with the rest. They make no pecuniary 
 gain, but their works are kept going, their men con- 
 tinue with them, their business goes on as usual, and 
 when business becomes brisk again, they are ready for 
 it without trouble and expense. All the tradesmen 
 who deal with the working classes, and are bound 
 more or less to give them credit, would also be con- 
 sidered. While the workmen got their wages regu- 
 larly, the tradesmen they dealt with would get their 
 accounts, and continued business. At present, when 
 men are out of employment, of course they have no 
 money to pay their tradesmen, and soon no clothing or 
 furniture. Then, when charity sets in, it comes from a 
 rich quarter of the town that buys the food from its 
 own tradesmen. All debts by the Poor are repudiated. 
 They are fed ; and their poor tradesmen are starved. 
 Then when the game is over, the workman seeks for 
 work in another quarter, and is heard of no more. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE SUBMERGED TENTH 
 
 The submerged tenth — Instances of the preference for voluntary 
 poverty over social repression — Their lives and habits — 
 Examination of the plans for their redemption — Their great 
 industrial value — Philanthropy useless ; a lower civilisation 
 or simpler form of life needed. 
 
 The condition of industrial and social life at the 
 present day is one of severe repression, and the idea 
 possessed by so many of our teachers that the only 
 virtue is Uniformity, is steadily acting - to make that 
 repression more and more severe. Every action that 
 is not a free and spontaneous one is the product of 
 repression ; and when we consider that the inhibitive 
 or repressive faculty is the weakest mental quality we 
 possess, we may guess the amount of mental friction 
 continually going - on within us from this constant 
 subordination of natural impulse to socially approved 
 action. It is this brain-wear that makes lunatics, 
 hystericals, and a great many of the Poor. From 
 childhood to old age we are drilled, dragooned, mar- 
 shalled, and ordered about until many are incapable 
 of any action of their own initiative. They require 
 the support of the knowledge that some person has 
 done it before. But on the other hand, the burden 
 
vin THE SUBMERGED TENTH 119 
 
 of life becomes too great for many to bear, and they 
 fall from the ranks, no longer able to march with their 
 neighbours. And when they fall they fall, like Lucifer, 
 never wishing to rise again. When they reach bottom, 
 there they find a large proportion of their fellow-men 
 who have voluntarily proposed to themselves to remain 
 poor because of its many advantages. There are two 
 forms of life open to every citizen, the high and the 
 low. They are both perfectly legal ; but because the 
 moralist has chosen the high one, he condemns the low 
 one as immoral. The high life is the utmost expen- 
 diture of energy, to make the most money, to purchase 
 the largest amount of pleasure ; the low is the reverse 
 — the least expenditure of energy, no more than enough 
 to meet temporary needs, and to extract pleasure from 
 life wherever and whenever it presents itself. The 
 toiler thinks there is little pleasure in life, because he 
 is always working, and when he has leisure he has not 
 the money to purchase pleasure ; but these citizens 
 we refer to know better, infinitely better, than the 
 philanthropist, who talks of their lives being dull, 
 and grey, and monotonous, and requiring brighten- 
 ing up : they know that to a person of leisure who 
 studies the question thoroughly a large city affords a 
 continual succession of free amusements. After a 
 trial of both forms of life, the submerged tenth have 
 chosen the lower for its advantages. In the high life, 
 which all are condemned to try first, they found they 
 had to work like a machine from a certain hour to a 
 certain hour, day after day. Their leisure had to be 
 spent in conformity with the opinion of their neigh- 
 bours. They had to dress to please their neighbour. 
 They had to hold the same opinions. Their neighbour 
 chose their amusements for them. Even the disposal 
 of their money was not free from judgment and 
 opinion. They had to buy things they did not want 
 
t2o THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vm 
 
 because their neighbour bought them, and give away 
 money because he gave. There was no room for 
 natural action in their lives, no freedom, no liberty. 
 And the only reward to them for all this slavery and 
 repression was their neighbour's good opinion, which 
 was not sincere. 
 
 In the low life they found all the conditions they 
 appreciated — freedom, irresponsibility, relief from 
 monotony, the pleasure of following every whim, ex- 
 emption from the worry of respectability, and un- 
 limited leisure. This is the life the Rich aim at and 
 cannot attain ; this class can attain it without wealth. 
 All they have to pay for the pleasure of this form of 
 existence is a little bodily discomfort occasionally, not 
 enough for any man of ordinary courage and endur- 
 ance to cry out about — an empty stomach for a day, 
 too light clothing for a sudden frost, and an occasional 
 bed without pillow or blankets. But custom develops 
 a high form of endurance, and experience soon reduces 
 the chances of these things happening to a minimum, 
 until their possibility is no longer a consideration. 
 
 Drawn from all classes of society, this community 
 has three characteristics, any one of which is a suffi- 
 cient cause for this life being agreeable to its owner. 
 There are the people of low natural energy, who never 
 could compete with their fellow-men in a day's work. 
 These people have retired from the battle of life in 
 disgust. Impossible to fulfil their natural desires by 
 their labour, they reverse the process, and suppress 
 desire to a point considerably below their powers of 
 achievement. It is the more easy to do this, as their 
 desires generally flow as weakly as their energy. Then 
 there are the unambitious people, strong enough and 
 healthy enough, but who do not see in the aims and 
 aspirations of their fellow-men anything very desirable, 
 and certainly no reasonable compensation for the labour 
 
viil THE SUBMERGED TENTH 121 
 
 necessary to attain them. To such a class a low form 
 of life is natural. They work at odd times, but leisure 
 becomes dearer to them as it is enjoyed, and latterly 
 only their necessities drive them to legitimate employ- 
 ment. But the great majority are people of a different 
 stamp. Mostly descended at one time or another from 
 the better classes, they have some education, some- 
 times their mental strength exceeding their physical. 
 Their principal characteristic is a mercurial tempera- 
 ment and an incapacity to follow any system of order 
 or uniformity. Regularity is unendurable ; they must 
 follow the whim of the moment. Their desires are 
 evanescent, but for the time being impressive, and one 
 gives way to another so rapidly, that ere they can act 
 to fulfil one, another has superseded it, as brilliant, as 
 commanding, and as exigeant. They thus become ac- 
 customed to let their desires exhaust themselves with- 
 out any attempt at fulfilment — the simplest plan where 
 possible, and in their case the only one, as they have no 
 power of restraint. These people could not work as 
 civilisation demands that men should work. The con- 
 sciousness that their hours and actions were under 
 some other authority than themselves would soon 
 make the position too irksome, and the reward, no 
 matter how great, falls in value as the irritation in- 
 creases. Nor is this only in physical wage-earning 
 labour. Some of them have been in affluent positions, 
 with nothing to do but sit in their office from ten to 
 four, but the restraint was unendurable. Punctuality 
 and duty are impossibilities ; they are equally mon- 
 otonous, and would require a brain-service that would 
 be too exhausting. 
 
 These people are the true philosophers of life ; 
 they are its natural humourists. All the ambitions 
 and desires they daily see others strive for, groan over, 
 and, ultimately failing in, give way to despair, are to 
 
122 THE POOR AXD THEIR HAPPINESS vm 
 
 them quite unworthy, and therefore amusing - . They see 
 people striving and quarrelling, deceiving and cheat- 
 ing for objects as indifferent to them as the fate of 
 the butterfly they sometimes chase. Their inability 
 to appreciate the aims of others gives them a healthy 
 contempt for their mental calibre ; and their disbelief in 
 anything as a motor of action but a keen and pressing 
 self-interest (the only thing that moves them to action) 
 gives them a rooted scepticism in disinterestedness. 
 Their low estimation of the ordinary aspirations of their 
 fellowman makes them feel that nothing but a powerful 
 incentive to something great and noble could stir them 
 to action, and they are grateful that that incentive 
 never comes. 
 
 Being indifferent to other men's motives, they are also 
 indifferent to the laws that govern other men in their 
 relations and actions one to another. They play upon 
 the sympathies of the charitable without compunction : 
 they hoax the missions, and lay in wait for the 
 philanthropist. They are equally ready to demonstrate 
 as the unemployed — the nearest the truth of all their 
 demonstrations — or for local veto — the furthest from 
 the truth of all their demonstrations. Like stage 
 supernumeraries, they are ready to be a bridal 
 chorus or a destroying army. Having no convictions 
 themselves they are ready to play upon the convictions 
 of others. Having no enthusiasm they admire it in 
 others, and omit no opportunity of stimulating it, 
 because enthusiasm is inclined to be generous. Hav- 
 ing leisure they cultivate their minds : they know 
 all the favourite topics of the day, and are ever 
 willing to enlighten their duller but wealthier brethren 
 in exchange for drinks and other small perquisites. 
 They know the nature and rules and modes of application 
 of all the charities and missions. They are familiar 
 with every form of free entertainment from the Sunday 
 
Viii THE SUBMERGED TENTH 123 
 
 breakfast to the Christmas dinner. They are posted 
 as to every public and private entertainment where 
 largesse and gifts form a part. They are ever on the 
 watch for a sympathetic listener, and a politician might 
 envy them the genius — from practice — with which they 
 can strike the topic that will soonest lead to the 
 main chance. 
 
 When the pinch arises they can sing a hymn witn 
 fervour in exchange for a breakfast, and then burlesque 
 the performance to a person for a drink to wash it 
 down. With seeming repentance they will outsit a 
 sermon upon their sins for a pair of trousers, then 
 entertain a few friends with a highly-caricatured version 
 of the service, and the proceeds of the trousers. The 
 fault does not lie with them, but with those who sell 
 breakfasts for hymn-singing, and trousers for sermon- 
 hearing. These characters are no more sincere in their 
 burlesques than in their piety ; they are selling their 
 talents for what they will fetch. They are all things to 
 all men, that will make life easy for them. 
 
 This section is of course the leaders of the others ; 
 the others admire their genius and talent, and follow 
 them like lambs. These people are in reality the Poor. 
 They are the people whom the philanthropist and the 
 missioner meet ; they are the deputationers ; they are 
 the only articulate section of the Poor ; they are the 
 unemployed in all his stages. They are also the work- 
 man ; it is they, and not he, who are always demanding 
 his rights, and are eloquent upon his grievances. It is 
 their desire to make labour as remunerative as possible ; 
 they are still compelled to work a little, and work to 
 them is more hateful than to any other of God's 
 creatures. It is not therefore for the big wage, but 
 because less work would do. The Economic laws of 
 labour are their special detestation ; they savour of order 
 and regularity and proportion ; to suspend them is 
 
I2 4 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vm 
 
 their great desire so that they could work when they 
 chose, and fix their own remuneration. 
 
 These are the people upon whom the social reformer 
 in all his phases has spent his years of energy, and his 
 endless subscriptions. He has been helping to make 
 life easy for them, and more firmly rooting them in their 
 chosen life. He has had truly a disheartening task. 
 Their desires are so small he could interest them in 
 nothing ; their interests so slight he could root them to 
 nothing. They have no possessions to assail, no 
 affections to threaten, no faith to undermine. They 
 have no yesterday to remember or regret ; no to-mor- 
 row to hope for, or to fear. They know only the day 
 when it comes, and the best and easiest mode of 
 enjoying it. 
 
 These are the people for whom so much more is 
 intended. Over-sea colonies, and at home Industrial 
 farms. Of the over-sea colonies it is premature to 
 speak. We only hear occasionally of their progress in 
 regard to the settlement of locality, &c, and it seems 
 that it will require the income of a real colony to work 
 one of them. Of the industrial farms we have more 
 precise data. How is anything in the country going 
 to attract these people from the cities, where all their 
 pleasures are, and their opportunities? The country 
 cannot compete with the towns just now to any man 
 where the wages are equal, because of the greater 
 attractions and pleasures of the latter. How is it 
 possible to attract to the country people who only live 
 for pleasure, and who only know the pleasures of a 
 large city ? Why do all the wealthy people of the 
 country flock to London ? Yet the same people wonder 
 why the Poor gravitate to the cities. There are some poli- 
 ticians anxious to put the people back upon the land. 
 They will find that a more difficult task than they imagine. 
 It will not be the getting of the land, or of money to 
 
vin THE SUBMERGED TENTH 125 
 
 stock it, or work it, but the getting- the people them- 
 selves to surrender the pleasures of city life for the 
 country. Again, how is it possible to induce people 
 who hate work and love freedom, to go into these 
 glorified poor-houses and completely change their 
 nature, and take kindly to regular employment and 
 continued supervision ? If these people wanted work, 
 they could get it in the city on more remunerative 
 terms than that of semi-pauperisation ; if they had been 
 desirous of leading a regular life they could have done 
 so under more favourable conditions than that of com- 
 pulsion. Everybody who knows them, and has come 
 in contact with them, has been using every endeavour 
 he thought would be effectual in encouraging and 
 seeking to help these people to lead regular lives — their 
 friends, the missionaries, their workman neighbours, 
 and even the police. 
 
 But the question is not, Who will patronise these 
 institutions? Somebody no doubt will, as there are 
 always curious and impulsive people who rejoice in 
 experiments. Were these institutions thirty times as 
 numerous as they are so far projected, they could be all 
 filled to overflowing, and the submerged tenth live and 
 enjoy itself in the cities as usual. Supposing these 
 institutions absorbed the whole of the floating Poor of 
 the present day ; what then? In another year or so 
 there would be another submerged tenth to deal with. 
 These people are the product of civilisation, and 
 civilisation is continuing to make them at an ever- 
 increasing pace. What matters carrying away the 
 overflow of a fountain in buckets if the fountain is 
 allowed to flow on ? But the mission-maker is so proud 
 of his idea that he shuts his ears and his eyes to every 
 evidence that his mission is not fulfilling the purpose 
 for which it was designed. Only keep him busy and 
 that is enough for him ; it is his one and only great 
 
i26 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vm 
 
 argument of success. If there are people found to go 
 to the over-sea colony, then it will be a great success, 
 whether these people could pay their own passage or 
 not, whether they are tramps wanting to do the 
 colonies, sailors shifting to a new port without wanting 
 to work their passage, tradesmen who want to do the 
 tramp, or that large class of exuberant youth who want 
 to go abroad, and are governed in their choice by the 
 cheapness of the journey — all these may keep the over- 
 sea scheme busy, not one of those for whom it is meant. 
 But the public will only hear in glowing praise the 
 numbers patronising it, and the urgent necessity for 
 funds. In like manner the industrial farm will be the 
 country representative of the casual ward, and all the 
 tramps in passing may have a turn at it. There are in 
 the city and country hundreds to whom it may be 
 useful, the workman passing from one centre of industry 
 to another, the deserter and the town loafer when 
 things become too hot for him, and workmen on strike. 
 All these can make a country casual ward useful at times, 
 but none but the philanthropist imagines that because 
 these people take advantage of the farm when they 
 want to, that they bind themselves to any alteration of 
 their mode of life afterwards. If the farms fill as they 
 must fill — because once started they will go on raising 
 the inducements until they attract guests — then the fact 
 that they are filled will be the philanthropist's all- 
 satisfying evidence of success, although they have been 
 forced to raise the attractions so high that they are 
 enticing people from honest labour. 
 
 That the philanthropist looks no further himself for 
 evidence of the success of his mission, but also has 
 persuaded the public to accept as sole criterion the fact 
 of his being well patronised, we give a particular 
 instance. When the great frost of the beginning of the 
 present year came on, the city of Glasgow began relief- 
 
vin THE SUBMERGED TENTH 127 
 
 works. In its usual way it began with small induce- 
 ments and many precautions, and ended in reckless, 
 almost criminal, liberality and extravagance. At the 
 beginning the usual " deserving cases only " farce was 
 attempted, and something under a hundred applicants 
 per day appeared. But as there is no city keeps an 
 organisation able to compete with periods of sudden 
 and temporary distress, the personal inquiry business 
 broke down. Then two and three hundred appeared 
 not afraid of the superficial questions that were put to 
 them. The Lord Provost invited subscriptions to meet 
 the expenses, and money rolled in upon him harder 
 than it could be used, breadstuff's were sent daily by 
 the tons, and unlimited parcels of clothing from 
 manufacturers, merchants, and warehousemen. Then 
 the saturnalia began ; anybody and everybody could get 
 warm meals, food, orders upon tradesmen to the value 
 of three or four shillings' worth, clothing of all descrip- 
 tions, and in some cases money. People left their work 
 to have a share in the plunder while it lasted, and by 
 the computation of one of the newspapers the number 
 of applicants for relief rose in one week from seven 
 hundred to twenty thousand. With an unanimity that 
 was wonderful all tJie press accepted this great increase 
 of numbers as a sad evidence of how widespread the 
 distress had become. None seemed to think the reason 
 lay in the town having recklessly made the conditions 
 of charity more profitable than honest employment. 
 
 But to return to the submerged tenth. These 
 people we have said are the product of civilisation, 
 rather we should say the by-product of over-civilisation. 
 They principally belong to the English-speaking people, 
 and the English-speaking people pride themselves they 
 are in the van of civilisation. They are the tramp of 
 America, the sundowner of Australia, and the loafer at 
 home. The laws of their country they may endure ; the 
 
I2S THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vm 
 
 vagaries of municipal legislation is a severe trial ; but 
 beyond these, to be hounded, bullied, and worried by 
 the demands of the social reformer, the pietist, and 
 moralist, let alone the teetotaller, is only to be borne 
 by the strong and the dull — -the one who goes on his 
 way unheeding, and the other who goes on his way un- 
 knowing. Civilisation may go on year after year 
 adding to the demands it makes upon the citizen, but if 
 it does not make citizens with strength enough to bear 
 these demands then the process of accumulating 
 submerged tenths must continue. 
 
 With the exception of the Autolycus-like habit of 
 keeping a very keen eye on the unconsidered trifles of 
 others — for what are unconsidered trifles to others are 
 often a day's commissariat to them — these people are 
 innocent of offence. But they are at deadly enmity 
 with the social reformer, who to them is the incarnation 
 of all evil. His baleful eye is ever upon them ; he is always 
 reminding the police of their duty toward them ; he is 
 ever at the ear of the city council asking for further 
 powers to crush them ; he sighs and groans in the 
 churches over them, and resurrects old and musty 
 statutes to annoy and harass them. His soul is 
 steeped in the dull uniformity of his own habits. He 
 cannot sleep at night to think of these people going 
 to bed when they like, or not at all. He cannot work 
 with any pleasure when he thinks that these people, so 
 much beneath him, only work when they choose. 
 
 Yet a town can better allow them to remain as harm- 
 less as they are than drive them to worse, and any 
 attempt to force them into habits that they hate will 
 only tend to make them swell the criminal classes. 
 The question is not a moral one. They are not 
 criminal for the same reason that they are not 
 workmen, they do not want its labour, they do not 
 want its reward, and it imperils their freedom ; but if 
 
vin THE SUBMERGED TENTH 129 
 
 their present life is made too difficult, then they will 
 have to make a choice. 
 
 Now let us look at the other side — the industrial 
 value of the submerged tenth. It is a worthy comment 
 upon the bias and prejudice of the philanthropist and 
 social reformer, that in the submerged tenth they have 
 never looked for another side, or suspected an in- 
 dustrial value. Professing to study the lives of the 
 Poor, they have gone among them only looking for 
 what they expected and wanted to find, their objection- 
 able habits, thriftlessness, drunkenness, and irregular 
 lives. 
 
 The submerged tenth fills a most important place in 
 the industrial economy of all large towns. They are the 
 reserve forces of trade ; its governors or regulators. 
 They protect its sudden demands and expansions from 
 bringing on crises and disorganisation, and they allow its 
 contractions to act gently and evenly without creating 
 disorder and distress. In the normal condition of trade 
 all the regular workmen are employed ; no trade keeps 
 a staff of unemployed. Where, then, would the extra 
 supply come from in periods of inflation ? In every 
 trade there are times of temporary necessity where, 
 for a day or so, a large staff is required. Where are 
 these to be found ? No employer can keep a staff for 
 emergencies. When all regular men are employed, 
 there is the necessity for an army of odd-job men. No 
 corporation could keep a squad of men for temporary 
 purposes. There is no class could fill these require- 
 ments but the submerged tenth. All regular workmen 
 base their lives upon regular pay ; cessation of work 
 means poverty, and if trade is dull in their town they 
 leave it, or try to get employment in some other trade. 
 Only people to whom idleness is the natural condition 
 of life could make temporary employment profitable. 
 Idleness to them is no hardship, and temporary employ- 
 
 K 
 
i " s o 
 
 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS 
 
 VIII 
 
 ment is attractive and enjoyable. Almost all the loafers 
 have a trade and have to work occasionally, but when 
 wages are high, managers become pressed for men and 
 therefore indulgent, and discipline is relaxed, then the 
 loafer under the freer conditions can work a little loneer, 
 perhaps long enough till the crisis is past. Then when 
 he is discharged the conditions of trade are not affected, 
 he goes back to his natural element of idleness. Thus 
 the loafer fills a place of the utmost importance to 
 industry, a place no other class could take. Upon him 
 the elasticity of trade depends. The workman is in- 
 debted to him for his own constant employment. The 
 employer is indebted to him for meeting his temporary 
 demands without extra cost. The philanthropist is 
 indebted to him that poverty is neither more abundant 
 nor more acute, as he acts as a buffer between the 
 regular workman and bad times. And the whole com- 
 munity is indebted to him because he gives both a 
 pliability and stability to the general conditions of trade, 
 being the only section of the community that can be 
 absorbed in its expansions and thrown off in its con- 
 tractions without harm or inconvenience. 
 
 No philanthropy can touch this people ; no society 
 for improving the condition of the Poor affect them. 
 All such efforts will only confirm them in the mode of 
 life they find best adapted to their natures. Only an 
 alteration in the laws that have made them what they 
 are could arrest their further growth. What they want 
 is a lower civilisation, greater individual freedom, less 
 demands upon them for the benefit of others. The old 
 reformers fought for freedom ; the social reformers aim 
 at social slavery. The English idea of civilisation is 
 the endless manufacture of legislation ; laws that follow 
 you into your house ; laws that follow you into your 
 business ; that pursue you upon the street, and mix with 
 your pleasures. The citizen lying buried beneath tons 
 
vin THE SUBMERGED TENTH 131 
 
 of personal legislation is its apotheosis. What effect has 
 it upon the stranger, to be shown the orderliness of our 
 citizen's lives, when afterwards lie finds that orderliness 
 was not their own, was not voluntary, but that they 
 were slaves to a hundred statutes that governed every 
 act of their lives? A trained monkey was as good a 
 type of civilisation. From such restraint neither strength 
 nor virtue can grow. The over-legislated has no room 
 for the exercise of his natural inclination to virtue. 
 All incentive is stamped out of him. If the law will 
 have its very large pound of flesh, there is no inclination 
 to add to it voluntary contributions. 
 
 The highest form of civilisation should be based upon 
 the Greatest freedom of the citizen and the lowest limit 
 of enactment. A few broad comprehensive statutes 
 should be all that are required. The evidence of the 
 civilisation should lie in, and be seen in, the conduct of 
 the citizen, and to cultivate the highest virtues a man 
 must have the greatest freedom. 
 
 Supposing there was no new law permitted to be 
 passed in this country for a hundred years. Instead of 
 flying to Parliament for legislation for every petty 
 grievance and dispute, men would have to turn to some 
 other mode of settling their differences. Among the 
 modes available, compromise would be the most popular. 
 This would be the first bringing together of your own 
 and your neighbour's interests, although it is after the 
 action. The next step would be to make the com- 
 promise easy ; both you and your neighbour would seek 
 to keep any difference that might arise between you as 
 narrow as possible, never allowing it to grow to propor- 
 tions that could be either serious or annoying. From 
 that step to the next is natural and unavoidable, namely, 
 to consider your neighbour's interests with your own 
 before the action, to avoid the possibility of friction. 
 The only way the human mind has of performing this 
 
 k 2 
 
[32 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS vm 
 
 operation is by leaning" palpably to " virtue's side," or, 
 in other words, making- your actions as profitable to 
 your neighbour as your own interests will permit. 
 Here lies the root-matter of all virtue. It is free from 
 all self-sacrifice, which is unnatural ; but it includes all 
 the mutual consideration, mutual help, and mutual 
 support the world requires. There would be no quarrels, 
 no anger, no disputes ; no necessity for law unless the 
 few broad principles already specified, required more as a 
 guide to action than as a restraint ; no interference with 
 personal liberty in any form ; while the citizen, and not 
 the Statute Book, would be the nation's exponent of 
 civilisation. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 SOME MISSIONS. — THE ATTITUDE OF THE POOR TOWARDS 
 
 THE MISSION 
 
 Some missions — The Attitude of the Poor towards the mission— 
 The Moral and Economical aspect of mission work — Its 
 patronage and publicity — Its parasites and abuse — Natural 
 law of debtor and creditor between the Poor and the mission. 
 
 We have dealt already with the religious and educa- 
 tive missions, but of the making - of missions there is 
 no end. Philanthropy being sympathetic suffering, the 
 Rich are not in the habit of submitting without an effort 
 to any kind of suffering, sympathetic or otherwise, and 
 so each time they suffer through the distress of the Poor 
 they have to invent a new mission, on the ground that 
 the numerous existing missions are still insufficient for 
 their protection. When we are gazing upon a fire, and 
 suddenly see the movement of a figure in the upper flat, 
 retreat by the stair cut off, and the escape too short to 
 reach the window, it is our own agony to which we 
 give expression when we ask, Can nothing be done ? 
 Can no one do anything? Or, gazing at the ship upon 
 the rocks, the few remaining sailors being washed from 
 the rigging one by one, and there is no help near, no 
 lifeboat, no rocket apparatus, it is our own unendur- 
 
134 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS ix 
 
 able anguish that asks, Is there no help ? Can we not 
 do anything- to save them? Once find that "any- 
 thing 1 ," no matter what it is, and our weakness and 
 sufferings disappear in action. The doomed sailors 
 suffer as they have suffered, but our burden is dissi- 
 pated in hope of relief and help. From great things to 
 small, that is exactly how it is with the philanthropist. 
 When he sees a poorly-clad woman, an apparently 
 starving man, or neglected child, his cry at once is, 
 Can nothing be done ? Cannot we do something ? 
 Existing agencies having permitted such a thing to 
 exist, we must start a new one. Thus it is our inability 
 to endure the sufferings of the Poor that is the main- 
 spring of all missions. Whether the Poor can endure 
 their own sufferings without much distress, we do not 
 seek to inquire ; to the true philanthropist it would not 
 matter if they could, it would not relieve his distress. 
 Only removing it out of sight would satisfy him, and 
 for that purpose he requires a mission. Thus, at the 
 very initial stage of his operations, he may be organ- 
 ising an institution for the relief of what does not 
 exist ; for if the Poor do not suffer from their appear- 
 ances of distress, of what use is the mission? More or 
 less this element of exaggeration is in all missions, 
 because of the difference of pain-endurance between 
 the Rich and the Poor. 
 
 All purely relieving missions, although they differen- 
 tiate as to their form of relief — some confining them- 
 selves to children's clothes, some are dorcas-missions, 
 some medical dispensaries — are the same in principle 
 and general character. They advertise to the whole 
 city what they have to dispose of ; and as their success 
 depends, not upon the careful guardianship of the 
 material in their charge, that it should be only used for 
 the purposes for which it was intended, but upon the 
 amount they can get rid of in a given time, such a 
 
ix ATTITUDE OF THE POOR TOWARDS MISSIONS 135 
 
 thing" as confining themselves to genuine cases is a 
 myth. Were they to do so they might put up their 
 shutters, and shut their door in a week for want of 
 occupation, and in some cases need not have begun at 
 all. That those institutions whose success depends 
 upon how many useful articles they can give away are 
 not more successful, is a high compliment to the sturdy 
 independence of the poorer classes. If they opened 
 their stalls on the same condition among some of the 
 shabby-genteel sections of society they would be better 
 appreciated. As it is, it is never the really poorest 
 class who patronise the mission, the class for whom the 
 mission was created, but the people who are one or two 
 social steps above them, people on the verge of respect- 
 ability and who would be compelled to purchase that 
 great emblem of respectability, clothes, if they could 
 not get them for nothing. 
 
 These relieving missions, however, beyond breeding 
 a class of parasites, not of the Poor, do not do much 
 harm. They delude their subscribers that they are 
 " doing something " for the Poor, and their feelings are 
 relieved from suffering their distress : they afford some 
 excellent opportunities for the busybodies — but non- 
 subscribers — to air their oratory at the annual meet- 
 ings, and to pass a number of votes of thanks, among 
 which is one to the officers, two or three snugly-paid 
 individuals whose interest is not to let the institution 
 go down. Like hotels among the Rich, the Poor will 
 get to know where these institutions are located, if 
 they should want them, and perhaps a genuine case of 
 distress may occasionally find them useful. 
 
 So generally acknowledged is it that these missions 
 are as incapable of protecting themselves from being 
 taken advantage of, as they are of discharging the 
 duties entrusted to them without depending upon a 
 great many people who have no interest in them but 
 
136 THE POOR AXD THEIR HAPPINESS ix 
 
 what they can get from them, that when a new one is 
 spoken of, or an old one recommended, stress is put 
 upon the means they have of ferreting - out and succour- 
 ing cases of genuine distress. Now by the laws of 
 Nature distress is pain, and pain is weakness, and every 
 living thing desires to hide its weakness and display its 
 strength ; and these distressing cases among the Poor 
 that are wormed out are cases where the Poor have 
 preferred bearing their troubles by themselves in secret, 
 rather than expose them, even for the relief they knew 
 the mission would afford them. There is more good 
 to humanity in a person bearing his own troubles in 
 silence than in all the virtues ; and this exceeding good 
 that all Nature strives for is destroyed and trampled 
 upon by this gimlet-and-keyhole searching for genuine 
 distress. If genuine distress does not seek relief, it 
 does not wish to exchange its secret for succour, and 
 its wishes ought to be respected. But among the Poor 
 the missioner and his satellites have no respect for 
 privacy or domestic decency ; a case of genuine distress 
 is a rare prize in a host of blanks, to be told in triumph ; 
 reported in the newspapers ; and the reward of the 
 brave victim is not only to have his secrecy destroyed and 
 his weakness laid bare, but to have the fact made public 
 all over the country. A neighbour of one of these heroes 
 tells the visitor of the mission, he does not think all is 
 right with So-and-so, and the visitor (male or female) 
 is all alert at once. The door of the victim is knocked 
 at and entrance demanded, searching and most personal 
 questions as to his or her last meal, and of what it con- 
 sisted, as to their present state of funds, their prospects 
 of another meal, &c, are put as if the victim was on his 
 or her oath. Without permission, the larder, the wardrobe 
 (what stands for these in a single room), and every 
 part of the house is searched, as if for stolen goods. 
 Soon under this pressure weakness breaks down reso- 
 
ix ATTITUDE OF THE POOR TOWARDS MISSIONS 137 
 
 lution, and the whole truth comes out ; then the victim 
 is carried in triumph to the mission, his feeling of shame 
 and disgrace outweighing all the good fifty missions 
 could do him. But then his story, pathetically dressed 
 for publication, makes the fountains of charity flow ; 
 and no matter what the mission, or what its purpose, 
 the fountains of charity must be its first concern. 
 " Butchered to make a Roman holiday," and the fibre 
 of resolution and endurance that was growing so finely 
 is destroyed, perhaps for ever ! Better be a mission 
 parasite than the victim of a " genuine case of 
 distress," to be advertised all over the country. 
 
 The moral and economic aspects of these missions 
 are not so harmless. 
 
 If a mission takes upon itself to clothe a man's child 
 while the man is too indifferent to do so adequately 
 himself, he will let it, and be thankful for the relief. 
 But he will in future arrange his finances without 
 setting aside any provision for the clothing of that 
 child. No matter how little money he was earning 
 when the mission took the child, or how much more 
 he may earn afterwards, he will never have money 
 enough for that child's clothing. It has ceased to be 
 part of his economy. For whatever purpose, moral or 
 immoral, he spends his wages, the mission increases 
 his spending power by relieving him of part of his 
 obligations. 
 
 The habit of a great many, perhaps the majority, of 
 the lowest class of wage-earners is, after paying such 
 debts as they cannot escape, and making the lowest 
 provision for the coming week (as they cannot be 
 trusted), to spend their money in drink and other things 
 on Saturday night — every penny of it. Does the mis- 
 sion that provides Sunday breakfasts help these people 
 to learn a better and more provident use of their 
 money, or by its aid help them to still further reduce 
 
138 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS ix 
 
 the amount they set aside, and leave more for the 
 saturnalia? The law of Nature is that man can only 
 pass to a better state by pain. All the benefactors 
 of mankind have only been able to protect their fellow- 
 men from evil, or warn them to avoid it, by their 
 personal experience of it. When a person can endure 
 the results of his actions he is hard to convince of their 
 vice, but when he cannot, he requires no other con- 
 viction than his own experience. If a person spends 
 in one day the money that was to provide food for the 
 following six, there is the starvation of these six to 
 teach him better next time ; but if a mission relieves 
 him of the suffering of his own act, where is the 
 educative element to come from, when the individual 
 is beyond the resources of religion ? 
 
 But there are some missions less harmless than 
 these — missions to provide the poor with pleasures 
 they of themselves can never hope to attain, but once 
 enjoyed, leave them either with a teeling of discontent 
 at the limitations of their own lives, or a strong desire 
 to imitate these pleasures without adequate means, and 
 so increase their poverty and improvidence. 
 
 By the laws of their caste, the upper crust of 
 society is forced to live a very peripatetic form of life. 
 They have to be in London during the season. They 
 have to go out of town somewhere, when it is over. 
 They have to go to the moors in August for the 
 shooting. They have to be at home for Christmas. 
 They have again to come to town in February for the 
 opening of Parliament, then go off to the Mediterranean 
 in spring, and again return for the season. And 
 according to our means, for our means generally denote 
 our leisure, by the laws of Imitation we all follow this 
 plan as far as we can, down to the middle classes who 
 can only afford a holiday of a month or so, each 
 summer, at coast or country. Such a perambulatory 
 
ix ATTITUDE OF THE POOR TOWARDS MISSIONS 139 
 
 life teaches the eye to habituate itself to great variety 
 of colour, change of scenery, and greater diversity and 
 movement in life. Monotony and sameness in anything 
 becomes unendurable. 
 
 A person trained to this life goes down among the 
 Poor in their native quarter. He is less interested in 
 their physical condition than their surroundings. He 
 cannot endure the monotony of grey in their houses and 
 streets ; his eye is offended with the regularity of the 
 architecture of the street, its sameness, lack of colour, 
 and absence of ornamentation. The houses are high, 
 the streets narrow, and he says there is no Sun, and he 
 cannot breathe for want of air. He thinks the Poor 
 feel all these things as he does. He declares that 
 what the Poor require is their lives brightened up a bit ; 
 lie says they are longing for sunshine and fresh breezes, 
 for flowers and scenery, and to hear the birds sing ; and 
 of course for this purpose they must have a mission. 
 
 Now the eye of everybody, town dweller or peripa- 
 tetic, is formed in regard to colour, motion, and variety 
 by his environment, and the town dweller can no more 
 sigh for the environment of the country, which he has 
 never seen, than he would for the coronation 
 robes of King Cophetua. He may have some know- 
 ledge of both, and a curiosity to see them, but he 
 suffers no loss for want of them. The writer is born of 
 the street streety, and notwithstanding some years of 
 roving, finds a more restful pleasure to* the eye in a 
 street than anywhere else. He has consulted hundreds 
 of a similar training, and their experience is all the same. 
 He never sees the sun, and for sunshine his object is to 
 get out of it if too warm, or get into it when balmy and 
 temperate. He walks the street every day of his life, 
 his eyes never rising above the level of his own sight. 
 He sees the street and the pavement, the shops and 
 the passers-by, but he could not tell you w T hat like the 
 
i 4 o THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS ix 
 
 upper story of a house is that he passes every day. 
 Like the sun, it is beyond his line of vision unless at a 
 distance. This is the experience of the great bulk of 
 the industrial classes of a town, and sometimes they 
 are nine tenths of the whole inhabitants. 
 
 Of course it is not the Poor who benefit by these ex- 
 cursion missions, whether they are single day, week-end, 
 or fortnightly ; they are of all these. To go out of town 
 requires that essential of respectability — clothes, and the 
 Poor have not got them. But the family of the well-paid 
 workman have, and go as substitutes for their poorer 
 brethren. It is a great relief to the workman, as other- 
 wise he would require to pay for their holiday himself. 
 
 Some of these excursionising missions confine their 
 operations to children. They can always have the 
 children of the Poor for nothing, but they have first to 
 clothe them ; after that they can keep them as long as 
 they like. What effect these holidays have upon the 
 little things, unless that of a little healthfulness, we 
 do not know. They are irresponsible beings upon 
 whom effects exhaust themselves, and do not pass to 
 the community. But where the mission is not one of 
 selection and favour, there is plenty of rivalry, 
 sycophancy, deceit, and lying, upon the part of parents 
 to get their children included in the favoured number, 
 and an ill-natured grunt when they are returned upon 
 their hands again. 
 
 There is more sympathy, sentiment, and tears can be 
 spent over children in an hour than over adults in a 
 week, and yet children are born with the natural 
 power of making their own enjoyment. They require 
 neither change, nor toys, nor company. Like the lamb, 
 the puppy, or the kitten, their pleasure comes from 
 within themselves, and if they can find nothing near 
 them to play with, they can chase their own tails. 
 
 From the occasional trip to the country, to the re- 
 
ix ATTITUDE OF THE POOR TOWARDS MISSIONS 141 
 
 poseful ease of Convalescent Homes is but a step. One 
 would think from its name that a Convalescent Home 
 was an adjunct or extension of a hospital, under strict 
 medical superintendence. But in many towns such is 
 not the case. Were such the case all the subscriptions 
 would go to the hospital, and all the credit would go 
 to the hospital's board of directors. Perish the thought ! 
 Are there not poor people who nurse their sickness at 
 home, but have not the means to get the necessary 
 change of air during - convalescence ? And, therefore, 
 shall we not build a convalescent home of our own for 
 these poor people? Shall we not have fashionable bazaars 
 with nobility at the stalls ? Shall we not have laying of 
 foundation stones, and building of wings, and all with 
 the necessary amount of fulsome flattery, mutual 
 admiration, resolutions, and champagne luncheons. 
 
 These voluntary institutions are made to be abused, 
 are abused, and are known by everybody to be abused. 
 Like every other voluntary institution, these Homes 
 depend for their success upon their occupation. To 
 keep fully occupied, to show the need every now 
 and then of extension, to read at the annual meeting 
 the same old report with the same stupid figures about 
 how many have enjoyed its advantages, and the usual 
 deficit, is all that an institution of this kind requires 
 to keep it upon the broad road of prosperity. Who 
 the people are who board and lodge in these caravans, 
 it is best not to ask. They are a set of professional 
 loafers, who go from one to another with all the ease ot 
 honoured guests. They know the proper forms by which 
 to apply for admittance, with all the necessary recommen- 
 dations, and when is the best time for application. These 
 institutions being governed by amateurs, who mistake 
 elaboration of form for the true spirit of business, are 
 saturated with red tape and formula, and it is only 
 these loafers who study all their forms. The regularity 
 
i 4 2 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS ix 
 
 of your form of application is of more importance 
 than the desperation of your case. These institutions 
 cannot keep empty while the workman is recovering" 
 from sickness, and would require their services. They 
 must fill their wards with whoever comes, and when 
 the true case appears they have no room for him, 
 unless he can wait until they have another bazaar and 
 build a new wing for him. 
 
 A lady informed the writer that although she sub- 
 scribed to every mission in connection with her church 
 and social circle, and her husband, from his counting - - 
 house, subscribed to every public institution that was 
 voluntarily supported, she had callers in one week to 
 the number of twenty-five soliciting for missions from 
 half-a-cro\vn to one pound. The writer informed her 
 that it was only because the other fifty or so did not 
 know her address, or that their collectors were engaged 
 elsewhere, that she escaped a visit from them also. 
 With one or two rare exceptions all of these are 
 voluntary institutions, with no check of any kind upon 
 them, no responsibility for their stewardship to any 
 person. They are all begotten of vanity and the influence 
 " running a mission " has in social circles. They are all 
 highly sentimental, because they are meant for talking 
 and not work, and their principal aim is to shed glory, 
 admiration, and envy upon their principals. It may be 
 safe to say, that as regards the Poor they are all useless 
 and utterly idiotic. Some are to encourage the Poor to 
 window-sill floriculture, as if the Poor had not enough to 
 do already. Some want to encourage their taste for art 
 by presenting them with approved oleographs. Others 
 want to teach the women how to make their own 
 clothes, forgetting that all but the house-mother are 
 out at work all day, and having earned rest and leisure 
 for the evening have no intention to give it up to 
 renewed labour. And the house-mother must have 
 
ix ATTITUDE OF THE POOR TOWARDS MISSIONS 143 
 
 been expected to have a dual existence if she could cook 
 for her family, do the work of the house, and attend to 
 her children, and at the same time study paper patterns, 
 or learn to work the sewing-machine. 
 
 A few matrons connected with a fashionable church 
 were grieved to hear that the female Poor wore their 
 underclothing without repair until they were done with, 
 and then bought new ones. These ladies had large 
 houses, servants, sewing-machines, and, when required, 
 seamstresses. At every washing the family linen was 
 carefully gone over, stitched, and repaired, and they 
 therefore knew the value of the proverb "a stitch in 
 time." It vexed and astonished them to learn that the 
 Poor not only did no repairing, but did not know how, 
 even the mysteries of plain-sewing being beyond them. 
 The mission was at once started. It was announced 
 from the churches, circulated in the mission halls, and 
 advertised in the local papers that the Poor would be 
 taught the making of underwear, that all material would 
 be provided gratis, and sewing-machines and teachers 
 would be in attendance. When the doors were opened 
 on the first night, in there walked — whom? The 
 daughters of the Poor ? Not one of them ; but about a 
 dozen demure young ladies, respectably dressed. They 
 were warehouse girls, whose situations depended upon 
 their maintaining a certain standard of respectability in 
 clothes. These young ladies had a strong suspicion 
 that they would get the made articles home with them — 
 the articles cut and made by the teachers — which turned 
 out true, and these were very useful to them. But they 
 soon showed that their interest was centred in the outer, 
 not the under, garments, which they treated with the 
 same contempt as their poorer sisters. How to alter, 
 clean, and renovate dress was what was asked — and the 
 mission closed. 
 
 It was not safe to speak about that mission to any 
 
144 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS ix 
 
 of these matrons for months afterwards. They simply 
 snorted with indignation and anger at what they called 
 the ingratitude of the Poor. They never thought any 
 blame attached to themselves in not having first con- 
 sulted the Poor to see if their purpose was desirable or 
 feasible. Such a condescension was beneath them. 
 Anybody might be glad of the offer they made, &c, 
 &c. Yet strange to say, the people specially singled 
 out to receive this great blessing were not glad ; if 
 anything, were uninterested and unmoved. 
 
 The attitude of the Poor towards all these missions — 
 towards missions of all kinds but the giving kind — is 
 one of indifference and contempt. The principal reason 
 for this is that in the eyes of the Poor every mission is 
 steeped in patronage and condescension. Nor can this 
 be otherwise, from the nature of Social Law. Every 
 social seam must patronise the seams below it, to show 
 the line of demarcation between them. There is 
 nothing that gives a philanthropist of the middle 
 classes a right to tell his poorer brother how he 
 should live but his social position ; and all he has to 
 tell him is patronage — "what we do"; and what we 
 do is right. Yet a person living a social flight or two 
 above the philanthropist patronises him in the very 
 same way. Many of the habits of the two classes are 
 different, and he tells the philanthropist it is only 
 " what we do" is right. Why should a lord or bishop 
 be listened to with more respect than an ordinary 
 person ? Yet we know that they are. Why should a 
 well-dressed man think he has a right to be listened 
 to by a workman ? It is not what is said at missions 
 — all of that the Poor have heard a thousand times — it 
 is how it is said. You are not living as we should wish 
 you. Your habits are offensive to i/s. You would find 
 it much better for yourselves if you would do as we 
 advise you ; and so on. This patronage is infinitely 
 
ix ATTITUDE OF THE POOR TOWARDS MISSIONS 145 
 
 worse when it is ladies who are evangelising - . Men 
 are governed in their actions generally by their busi- 
 ness instincts, because their business hours are their 
 intensest ; but women are wholly social in thought, 
 intent, and deed, and the patronage is laid on with 
 rigour. The self-consciousness of a woman is never 
 laid aside. She always knows who she is, and who 
 she is speaking to, and in her conversation she thinks 
 less of using words that are convincing in themselves 
 than of words that should be convincing because she has 
 said them. The instinct in every woman to let what- 
 ever woman she comes in contact with "know her 
 position" never dies. It is not an intention always to 
 humiliate, but an inherent weakness that knows not 
 how else to assert itself. This is very plainly seen in 
 what are called reclaiming missions. It is a pity that 
 men do not reclaim : they have their businesses to 
 attend to, and so it is left to women and those men 
 who are ultra-feminine by nature. If men reclaimed, 
 their business habits would keep them from too much 
 intercourse with the culprit. There would be no up- 
 braiding, and no conscious superiority. They would 
 assure the unfortunate by their action, rather than by 
 speech, that the whole case was understood, and need 
 not again be referred to. They would tell him, with no 
 more superiority than must always exist in one who 
 has orders to give, what was required of him, and 
 leave him in peace to fulfil it. But the female re- 
 claimers have a very different way of going about things. 
 They never fail to let the Magdalen know the difference 
 between them ; they have not the courage to sympa- 
 thise with her, for fear of being thought to sympathise 
 with her life ; they keep marking their horror of her 
 past by a frigidity and distance from her person that is 
 both painful and humiliating to the victim. They show 
 her in every action that she may become reclaimed, 
 
 L 
 
146 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS ix 
 
 but will never be allowed to become one of them. 
 "What use, then, submitting- to all this indignity?" 
 says the victim ; " better a thousand times back to my 
 old life, with all its evils and hardships. There, at 
 least, are friendship and sympathy ; there none can 
 cast a stone at me." Of all missions the reclaiming is 
 the stupidest and most useless, but of course hugely 
 sentimental. And of all people most incapable for the 
 work are the ladies who gush about it being peculiarly 
 women's work, because of their womanly sympathies, 
 their warm hearts, that know too well what women's 
 trials are, &c, &c. Among women there are only two 
 classes — the virtuous and the other kind ; and when a 
 woman sins she knows there is no social redemption. 
 The pure will not have her, whether she gives up her 
 old life or not, and there is no middle class. She 
 cannot stand alone, and she must have companionship 
 and sympathy. No wonder these Magdalen institu- 
 tions have generally to catch their victims at the prison 
 gate. 
 
 The prison-gate mission for men stands upon a 
 different platform ; there is here no insuperable social 
 barrier, and men are strong enough to be able to 
 sympathise with criminals without being suspected of 
 criminal tendencies ; they are also strong enough to 
 treat a person kindly without sympathising with his 
 career. Yet the principle of the mission is as senti- 
 mental as it is wide of the facts. The idea that all 
 young people who are in prison are anxious when they 
 come out of being saved from their companions is 
 imaginative, but nothing more. It implies that the jail- 
 bird is always innocent, and his companions criminal, 
 and only waiting his release to tempt him again to be 
 their catspaw. Such a condition of things is the stock 
 property of the novelist and "The Ticket-of-leave- 
 Man " ; but it is a poor compliment to the police, or 
 
ix ATTITUDE OF THE POOR TOWARDS MISSIONS 147 
 
 the innocent-guilty party himself. If the police can 
 never catch anybody but an innocent, it is a pity ; and 
 if an innocent finds he has been entrapped, why does he 
 not denounce his colleagues ? The facts are generally 
 these : if a jail-bird is of the criminal classes he wants to 
 get back to his friends as soon as he is released. There, 
 and there only, the fatted calf is killed for him. Generally 
 the)' are at the gate waiting for him. If he be not of 
 the criminal classes and has got into trouble through 
 misfortune — his own or another's — when he gets out he 
 wants to get back to his family or friends. There only is 
 sympathy and privacy. Should his offence be too great 
 for society to tolerate him again, then long before his 
 release, preparations have been made for his emigration. 
 That man does not want to see any prison-gate mis- 
 sioned No person with friends requires the services of 
 a mission. Who, then, is friendless and criminal ? It 
 is a rare and unnatural combination. Everybody in 
 jail, whether innocent, criminal, or friendless, has 
 thought out the question long before his release what 
 he shall do when he gets out, and in his plans there are 
 no thoughts of prison missions unless to take advantage 
 of them. It may be objected here that we have left no 
 room for repentance. Remorse and repentance for 
 criminal acts are strongest when the prisoner is in the 
 dock receiving his sentence. It is then the full force of 
 his act comes home to him ; then the difference 
 between his position and that of the law-abiding 
 is most strongly impressed upon him. The calm re- 
 flection of a few months in jail effaces wholly or in part 
 this feeling ; intense impressions are not durable. The 
 culprit gets to think of his action as from the stand- 
 point of a neutral party, and his mind is fixed upon the 
 future and how to repair his fallen fortunes. If he 
 intends continuing his career, he is not likely to tell 
 
 l 2 
 
1 48 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS ix 
 
 any one ; if he intends to reform he is less likely to 
 begin the process with a few strangers who will adver- 
 tise the fact. 
 
 With a large submerged tenth who are voluntarily 
 living the lowest form of city existence, there is no 
 benevolent mission of any kind they cannot turn to 
 account. Every mission that gives a bed or breakfast, 
 a bath or a pair of boots, is offering to them a higher 
 mode of life than their own ; always an attraction if 
 unaccompanied with too much of the quid pro quo, labour 
 or restraint. Therefore, no matter how sentimental the 
 mission may be, it can always be sure of an inter- 
 mittent patronage sufficient to make a report. But 
 that there is not the slightest intention of these patrons 
 to reclaim themselves or in any way alter their habits 
 is perfectly well known. The philanthropist is content 
 with so very little in the way of promise of redemption 
 that he not only meets his poor halfway, but goes him- 
 self all the way. He so keeps before his mind the ideal 
 side of his mission, that he does not like to think any one 
 could possibly come for the lures and bribes ; therefore 
 when a person seeks his mission he convinces himself 
 that it is for its healing springs. Undeceived a thou- 
 sand times he retains his faith and conviction with the 
 tenacity of despair ; to accept the truth would be to 
 prove his mission a failure. The only defence he has 
 is to charge the Poor with deception and ingratitude. 
 
 On behalf of the Poor we say the charge is not well 
 founded, and we only notice the subject because it is 
 the most popular defence of mission failure. 
 
 Mission philanthropy, as we have said elsewhere, is 
 sentimental, that is, it is without reason, without 
 knowledge, without regard to the laws of Nature, 
 economy, or causation. Commercial or practical men 
 are afraid to examine and discuss philanthropical 
 
ix ATTITUDE OF THE POOR TOWARDS MISSIONS 149 
 
 schemes in the same business-like way they would 
 trade affairs. If they did, every one of the mission 
 schemes would be condemned, or so modified as to 
 take all the beautiful sentiment out of them ; and to 
 condemn philanthropy in its wildest aspect, that is, its 
 most sentimental, is to be pilloried as an enemy to 
 progress and a hinderer of the elevation of the masses ; 
 something - suggestive of being irreligious and immoral. 
 But although philanthropy is so superior to ordinary 
 law it demands a very exact fulfilment of all the laws 
 and prophets towards itselt. This is necessary from 
 its inherent weakness. A sentiment is like nothing 
 else in the world, and to be successful requires all and 
 sundry connected with it to act towards it on a higher 
 plane of virtue, than exists anywhere. That is the 
 reason they remain sentiments — or failures. The 
 Poor do not see the sentiment of a mission, and if they 
 did would leave the people of the mission to carry out 
 their sentiment themselves, because the Poor do not 
 govern their lives by sentiment. What they see in the 
 mission, is a number of the better classes come volun- 
 tarily among them to get them to change their mode 
 of life. They have made no compact with these 
 gentlemen, they have undertaken no obligation ex- 
 pressed or implied. If the mission be a purely 
 teaching one, they are not likely to come much in 
 contact ; but if the mission offers gifts, they may have 
 occasion for these gifts. Without caring what the 
 mission thinks, or wishes, or understands, they follow 
 the Natural law that governs the whole world under 
 the circumstances — even philanthropists — they resolve 
 to pay as little for them as they can. If they have to 
 sing a hymn, or endure a sermon for what they want, 
 they do so if it is worth it, and they cannot escape 
 the infliction, and they consider then the bargain finally 
 
i 5 o THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS ix 
 
 closed. But when they are told that for a temporary 
 relief, say a dinner or a pair of boots, they are ex- 
 pected to come every night afterwards to be prayed 
 over or sermonised, they wonder what manner of man 
 he is who expects so much for so little, and if he deals 
 in such a generous manner in his own affairs. To 
 attempt to establish an equivalent between a temporary 
 obligation and a perpetual one, would be repudiated by 
 the reason of a child ; and to expect that for an over- 
 coat or blanket a person is going to change the habits 
 of a lifetime, going to adopt a new set of habits for 
 the rest of his life, is as unreasonable. The Poor pay 
 what they have to pay to the mission for what they 
 get, and their consciences are clear. The charge of 
 deceit is technically correct, but it is a form of deceit 
 universally practised, and not even the missioner can 
 cast a stone. The wife can only gratify her wishes 
 through her husband. When she wants him to give 
 her something, she seeks to make herself a persona grata 
 to him. She is more affectionate, more considerate, 
 studies more than usual his tastes, his comforts, and 
 his inclinations, and when she has won him into his 
 best humour, proffers her request. Of course she was 
 deceiving him. So little however does she think of her 
 moral obliquity that she prefers this manner to straight- 
 forward asking. The daughter in like manner cajoles 
 her father with bursts of duty and professions of love 
 that come to an end after the request is granted. She 
 is deceiving him just the same as the Poor deceive the 
 mission. Every person who has a desire, studies the 
 easiest and most certain way of getting it, and if it 
 can only be got through another person, his help, or 
 consent, the first thing is to propitiate him. Instances 
 are too numerous to quote, as the principle runs 
 through nearly every action of our daily life. 
 
ix ATTITUDE OF THE POOR TOWARDS MISSIONS 151 
 
 It is the fault of the better classes, and the philan- 
 thropist more than any other person, that the Poor can 
 get nothing" from or through the Rich unless under 
 promise of moral regeneration. That is the unchange- 
 able condition on which the better classes will lift a 
 finger to help the Poor. We cannot spend fifty years 
 denouncing their immoral lives, their thriftlessness, 
 their drunkenness, and their irreligion, and then supply 
 them with the means of continuing them. As well 
 expect a teetotaller to comply with the request of a 
 drunkard to give him money to continue his debauch. 
 Therefore when the Poor require the services of the 
 mission, they seek them through the only way that is 
 open to them ; nor need the missioners be deceived 
 by their protestations any more than the father is by 
 his daughter's blandishments, if it were not that they 
 are wholly absorbed in the pleasing imagination of 
 having caught a convert. 
 
 There is an underlying perpetual warfare between 
 the teacher and the pupil. The latter wants to acquire 
 his knowledge in the natural way, by experience and 
 imitation ; the former, by the civilised process of precept 
 only. In other words, we educate our people upon the 
 plan : It is not what you wish to know, but what we 
 wish you should know. Such a system can only be 
 carried out where there is some authority to enforce it. 
 If we did not teach our children while they were under 
 our authority, they would only learn what they wished 
 to know. Such is the position between the mission and 
 the Poor. We are desirous that they should learn, and 
 are industriously teaching them one half of our lives 
 only, the religious and the moral half, the self-denying, 
 self-repressing, self-sacrificing, anti-pleasure half. They 
 are busy ruining themselves imitating the other 
 half of our lives, the ease-giving, pleasure-giving, self- 
 
152 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS ix 
 
 indulgent, enjoyable half; and as long - as we cannot 
 make our own lives a whole, an indivisible whole, of 
 virtue and happiness combined, the Poor will follow 
 their natures and continue to imitate the happiness 
 only. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL MISSION 
 
 A sentimental mission— A personal experience that explains 
 
 itself. 
 
 The writer was sitting" one afternoon in one of the 
 wards of a large city hospital. I was visiting - an old 
 friend, a woman, who had just gone through a very 
 painful and dangerous operation. She had struggled 
 with her ailment, as most women do, for a long time in 
 private, but its recurrence, more painful and debilitating 
 each time, at shorter and shorter intervals, at last com- 
 pelled her to submit herself to medical treatment. 
 Her physician had a reputation as a gynaecologist, and 
 no doubt treated her as skillfully as he could, but after 
 a time he informed her that nothing could save her 
 but an operation, an operation by no means common 
 nor always successful. The doctor impressed thoroughly 
 upon his patient the dangerous nature of the operation, 
 and left it to herself to decide whether she would risk 
 it, or live on in continuous pain, without hope of re- 
 covery or almost of alleviation. The woman's outlook 
 was not a happy one. Weakened mentally and physi- 
 cally with pain, she had hardly the strength of mind 
 to come to any decision. When her sufferings were 
 
'54 
 
 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS 
 
 great, any relief, no matter how doubtful or dangerous, 
 seemed to her welcome ; when they passed for the 
 moment, the dread of a fatal termination frightened her 
 back into the old submission and endurance. Her 
 friends however got her coaxed to submit to surgical 
 treatment, and for this purpose she must go to the 
 hospital. Her physician arranged all the details of her 
 removal ; promised to call upon her when in the hos- 
 pital, and to be present at the operation, so that she 
 would not be in the hands of strangers altogether. 
 
 After she had agreed to submit herself, she wrote 
 for me to call and see her, and when I did so she asked 
 me if I would promise to call and see her in the 
 hospital, and in the event of things taking an un- 
 favourable turn, discharge her wishes. For family 
 reasons— the usual family bickerings — she had deter- 
 mined to place her affairs in the hands of an outsider, 
 one who could have no interest beyond the 
 discharge of an obligation he had voluntarily taken 
 upon himself. For the purpose of private conversation 
 the doctor got us the privilege of one hour per week, 
 on a different day from the regular visitors' days. 
 
 The afternoon I speak of, was either my first or my 
 second visit after the operation had been performed. 
 The operation, so far as it left the patient still living, 
 was successful, but as the woman had been over an 
 hour upon the demonstrating-table, they had allowed 
 her to catch cold, and pneumonia set in. In her 
 weakened and fevered condition this nearly proved 
 fatal. However, when I visited her she was slowly 
 recovering, but very weak. 
 
 A very quiet subdued ward was this one for female 
 patients. A hall of about fifty feet long by twenty-five 
 or so broad, with a corresponding high roof, and tall 
 narrow windows on both sides at regular intervals. 
 Between the windows were the cots, about eight or nine 
 
x A SENTIMENTAL MISSION 155 
 
 on either side, and each cot had its patient. The swing- 
 ing - doors at the two ends swung noiselessly, and as the 
 floor was covered with deadening matting in the centre 
 one knew not who entered or left unless by watching the 
 door. There was no conversation between the occu- 
 pants ; the distance between their cots made conversa- 
 tion difficult, because the slightest raising of the voice 
 echoed throughout the ward, and frightened them. 
 The silence laid its gentle influence upon us all, and it 
 came natural to us to talk in undertones. When the 
 nurses came to attend to a patient, to diet or dress 
 her, it was done in silence, and the conversation went 
 on in whispers. When the doctor appeared to speak 
 to the nurses, it was in a low undertone, and the little 
 Bible-reader — the only other stranger beside myself — 
 flitted from cot to cot in silence and spoke in whispers. 
 I had but just come in, and had taken my seat in 
 the usual position, facing the patient and with my back 
 towards the door. We had only spoken a few words 
 when there burst upon us suddenly and without 
 warning the most horrible noise it was ever my fate 
 to listen to. It was not a yell, a scream, or a shout, 
 but a sustained strident noise, like a steam-pipe escape. 
 Such for an instant was the effect upon my unsuspect- 
 ing jarred nerves that I ducked my head between my 
 shoulders as if to escape a blow, and in this position 
 ere two or three seconds passed I knew what the 
 matter was — it was some ladies singing hymns. I did 
 not look round — I did not require to — J did not wish to. 
 I felt an anger surging in my heart to which it had been 
 a stranger for years. I looked at my patient. It was 
 not the expression of resignation she gave me at find- 
 ing our precious hour destroyed by this interruption, 
 but the distress evidenced in every line of her face at 
 her inability to hide the torture the singing was inflicting 
 upon her, under a sense of religious duty. The cot next 
 
156 
 
 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS 
 
 to her was surrounded by a folding - screen : the woman 
 was dying. Further down was the little Bible-reader of 
 whom I have spoken, talking" to a patient. I had met 
 her in the ward before, and was particularly struck by 
 her method of working, it was so gentle, so worldly- 
 wise, and so successful. Knowing the prejudice the 
 Poor have to be bibleised, she kept her book well under 
 her arm as she entered. She would go quietly to a cot, 
 sit down and talk to the patient. The subject was 
 always the patient's self, and her affairs. The Bible- 
 reader had found out that that was the quickest way of 
 interesting them. She talked about their home, their 
 family, their ailment, &c. "Could she do anything - for 
 them ? " and when she had got them to open their 
 hearts to her, then came the request, "Might she not 
 read a little to them ? " More than once I had watched 
 with amusement and curiosity, the scene. The patient 
 pillowed up to a sitting position, reading or knitting. 
 When the attack began the conversation went on, and 
 so did the knitting. By and by the knitting stopped 
 and the hands were still : then the work fell from the 
 idle fingers, or was gathered up and put away. After 
 that we looked for the Bible to come out of its hiding- 
 place. But what she read was for the ear of the patient 
 only ; the cot next to them must not be disturbed, she 
 might not be attuned for reading, and even the Bible 
 can be as distressing as the Devil's Tarantelle when 
 the mind is the prisoner of the body's pain. The little 
 reader had to attune all her subjects herself, and some- 
 times after all they refused her request. They were too 
 distraught with other things to control their thoughts. 
 On this occasion the reader had just opened her Bible 
 when the singing began. The pained expression upon 
 her face as she realised that all her work had gone for 
 nothing, as only a fog-horn could have been heard 
 above the din of the music, was vexing to see ; nor 
 
x A SENTIMENTAL MISSION 157 
 
 need she wait any longer ; not that day again would the 
 nerves of these poor and helpless creatures be calmed 
 sufficiently for thought or reflection. She rose and left. 
 Some of the other patients had been sleeping, and 
 the expression of dread and amazement with which 
 they tried for a moment to understand what awoke 
 them would certainly not help their convalescence. 
 Others, again, after listening for a minute or two, 
 turned their backs upon the singers and covered their 
 heads with the bedclothes. One poor girl, with a face 
 like a frightened deer, looked as if they had come to 
 upbraid her, and her alone. Whether they were look- 
 ing at her I could not say, but her startled look sug- 
 gested that they were. Evidently the suddenness of 
 their attack had wrenched her mind back upon some 
 tender past, because after looking for some means of 
 escape, and finding herself at bay, in desperation she 
 attempted to join them in their hymn. Her lips moved 
 spasmodically, but no sound came. Two or three only 
 of all the patients showed any interest in the perform- 
 ance — that is, they sat up in bed with that respectful 
 attention the Poor invariably assume towards their 
 betters in religious matters. 
 
 The writer has been a musical enthusiast all his life, 
 and he has given years of study to it, especially vocal 
 music and voice-production. It was therefore no 
 trouble to him to know without looking round that 
 there were only two singers — females — and that they 
 were neither young nor beautiful. Their voices were 
 pitched in a higher key than their natural timbre, and 
 to sustain the pitch they had to yell without any con- 
 trol over the voice whatever. This constant straining 
 had produced a harsh, hard tone, without a particle 
 of sympathy or softness, that was exceedingly nerve- 
 piercing. There was no attempt at modulation, light 
 or shade, nor observance of the nuances suggested by 
 
158 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS x 
 
 either words or music. They were as even in tone 
 all through as a steam-whistle. I had heard the same 
 voices in many female music-hall singers, who had 
 spent their lives in contending with discordant and 
 unruly orchestras ; but the voice is most frequently 
 the product of congregational singing — congregational 
 singing of the worst kind, where everybody shouts 
 louder than her neighbour so as to hear her voice 
 come back to her above the din. They started a 
 second hymn after the first, without stoppage or break 
 of any kind. It was evident they were discharging 
 a duty — and one that required something of an 
 effort — and that so much of this discordant horror 
 must be poured on the lacerated nerves of these poor 
 patients. 
 
 The writer's mood had changed from anger to a deep 
 sorrow. He knew these young ladies were victims to 
 somebody's idiotic sentiment, and that they were acting, 
 perhaps, under a deep sense of religious conviction. 
 Then, he turned, as his custom is, to self-accusation. 
 Why, he asked of himself, must everybody associate 
 age and ugliness with whatever actions they dislike ? 
 Why should these ladies not be young? How should 
 they not be beautiful ? Many young ladies have un- 
 musical voices ; plenty of pretty girls cannot sing any 
 better than these. It is true, I answered myself, we 
 always attribute all the vices to the person in whom 
 we find one we dislike ; but in this case the thing is 
 different. In hopes that I was wrong, and injustice to 
 the ladies, I turned round to look at them. Two ladies 
 past the first and past the second bloom of youth, 
 standing together upright as pillar-boxes, and as 
 motionless, with hymn-books open before them, faces 
 as expressionless as sphinxes, and with no more 
 movement than was necessary to sing, were looking 
 straight ahead of them, and pouring out their hymns 
 
x A SENTIMENTAL MISSION 159 
 
 without caring what effect they had on any person. 
 The taller of the two was above the middle height : 
 every line of her face and figure denoted resolution. 
 The face, like most resolute faces, was square and flat : 
 there was not a soft or rounded line about it. It had 
 no cheek, it had no chin, it had no lips — all these had 
 long since been absorbed in muscle, and the muscles 
 lay firm as whipcord beneath the skin. She looked a 
 person who was capable of doing a duty without being- 
 able to enter into the spirit of it, and in following the 
 letter of it would care little for the effects it produced on 
 others. The other lady was not so tall, but would be 
 considered tall when standing alone. She was a 
 modified version of her friend, but looked as if she was 
 not yet capable of doing without the support of her 
 friend's stronger nature. She had not the features 
 that had ever been beautiful, but had the appearance 
 of one who, conscious of Nature's lack of gifts, 
 determined to be noticeable for her willing services. 
 
 After the third hymn the ladies closed their books 
 'with a snap, turned upon their heels, and left the ward 
 as abruptly as they had come. Whether they spoke to 
 the nurses on coming in I cannot tell ; they spoke to no 
 one when going away. 
 
 The abrupt change to the ordinary quietude again, 
 made it by contrast an exaggerated stillness, and the 
 intensity of the silence felt as if it was stronger than 
 any of us could break, nor could we bring back our 
 jangled thoughts to their usual groove. I fell into a 
 reverie. I saw before me, as if it were a scene upon the 
 stage of a theatre, a hall in connection with a church. On 
 the platform was the clergyman of the church in the chair, 
 supported by one or two other clergymen, some ladies, 
 and two or three milk-cow philanthropists. The 
 audience about half-filled the hall, they were mostly 
 women — ladies connected with the church — but there 
 
160 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS x 
 
 was also a sprinkling of men, of whom the writer was 
 one. 
 
 The meeting - opened with the usual praise and prayer, 
 and then the chairman introduced the purpose of the 
 gathering and the principal speaker. The latter was a 
 peripatetic evangelist who had a new and beautiful idea, 
 and had honoured this particular church so highly as to 
 give them the benefit of it first. In his introductory 
 remarks the chairman dwelt much upon that as a 
 great manifestation of God's goodness to them in 
 choosing them for the good work. 
 
 Then the peripatetic unfolded his scheme. Every- 
 body who has any acquaintance with religious philan- 
 thropy is aware of the extraordinary licence the 
 speakers permit themselves. Gross exaggeration and 
 improbability are so woven into scriptural quotations 
 and Bible illustrations that from reverence for the latter 
 we pass the other unchecked. On this occasion imagina- 
 tion ran riot. Nobody knew anything about the subject, 
 and each speaker only sought to vie with his prede- 
 cessors in glow of language and wealth of illustration. 
 The audience grew quite enthusiastic, the writer among 
 them. 
 
 Because that a repetition hereof the inflated language 
 used at the meeting would sound like mere blasphemy 
 and burlesque, the writer does not use the words that 
 are as well remembered to-day as the hour he heard 
 them. 
 
 The speaker began by complimenting the city in its 
 forward position in all good works. He mentioned 
 several charities that had struck him as unique, and 
 well worthy imitation by other towns. He remarked 
 that there was a feeling abroad that the town was over- 
 missioned, that their work conflicted and over-lapped ; 
 but these were unworthy considerations to be put aside 
 at once. There could be no arrest of the forces for 
 
x A SENTIMENTAL MISSION 161 
 
 good, no stoppage of the sacrifice we were willing to 
 make for our neighbours' welfare. In such a mood he 
 was thinking one day, not what already had been 
 done for the Poor, or whether it was enough or too 
 much, but what more could be done for them, and as 
 he thought, suddenly an idea came into his head. (Of 
 course he suggested by divine inspiration.) Looking 
 over the vicissitudes in the life of the Poor, what was 
 the most sorrowful and saddest part? Surely when 
 overtaken by sickness they had to leave their homes, 
 their children, the sympathy of friends, and enter the 
 hospital ! There, suffering and weak, strangers to 
 each other, ruled by science, order, and silence, must 
 they not long for the warm voices of sympathy and 
 love ! What then could we do to brighten the sad 
 moments of the sick. It was not a case of material 
 comfort ; all that was medicinally provided for them. 
 They were only temporary dwellers, and therefore it 
 could not be a thing of a continuous nature ; nor would 
 it be well to be of a nature to require their co-operation 
 or tire them. And having worked up a large catalogue 
 of ineligibles, he unfolded his idea. What could be 
 more comforting to them than to hear the old familiar 
 hymns of their youth sung to them softly and sweetly 
 by young, fresh voices? How it would draw their 
 thoughts from their sufferings ! How it would carry 
 them back to the days of childhood when they sang 
 these self-same tunes at their mothers' knee, or as they 
 went and came in bands from Sunday-school ! We all 
 know the power that music has over the human heart, 
 and if we planted here and there a hymn in the hearts 
 of these poor stricken ones, might it not remind them 
 that there is One on whom all suffering should be laid ? 
 Might it not even bring healing and comfort to the 
 rebellious spirits who cannot recognise God's providence 
 in pain ? And so on. 
 
 M 
 
i6- THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS X 
 
 And again — In what more appropriate service could 
 the divine gift of music be spent than in the service of the 
 Divine giver ? And surely in comforting the afflicted, we 
 are engaged in His highest service. The gift of song is as 
 rare as it is priceless ; its sway for good or evil over 
 our emotions is almost unequalled. How seldom is it 
 used to all the advantages for good it might be. Here 
 is an opportunity that any musical young lady might 
 embrace with enthusiasm, &c, &c. 
 
 As we have said, each speaker followed the other in 
 the same strain, only trying to excel his predecessor in 
 floweriness of language and imagination. Was there 
 one of them all knew what he was talking about ; knew 
 the ordinary working of a hospital, and yet believed in 
 the feasibility of the idea? The writer was as full of 
 enthusiasm as the others, but he had never been inside 
 of a hospital. He knew accidents were taken there, 
 and when he passed he saw people walking in the 
 grounds in what seemed a state of convalescence. He 
 had sa^hg with others in asylums to the lunatics, in 
 workhouses to the Poor, and in Convalescent Homes to 
 the guests, and he thought this mission would run on 
 similar lines. The singing would take place in a hall, 
 and such as were strong enough and had the doctor's 
 permission would be the audience. 
 
 The mission was formed, and because there was no 
 need for male voices may be the reason the writer took 
 no more interest in it. 
 
 When the singers had gone, I inquired who permitted 
 such an outrage. " Does the resident doctor allow it? " 
 I asked. He said he had nothing to do with it. " But the 
 professors," I said, " do they know of it, and do they ap- 
 prove of it ? : ' " They have no power to stop it," was the 
 reply. "What!' I said, "the professors on the direc- 
 torate, have they no power?' " No ; they are outvoted 
 
x A SENTIMENTAL MISSION 163 
 
 by the lay directors." Then came back to me, as it had 
 done many a time before, the omnipotence of the word 
 " Philanthropy." The lay members of such an important 
 public institution as a hospital would be men of credit and 
 renown in the city, and would almost assuredly be con- 
 spicuous for their religious observances. If one of these 
 was connected with the church that started the mission, 
 he dare not for his reputation refuse to see that per- 
 mission was granted. Connected or not connected, 
 none of them if asked dare refuse their support. They 
 would be declared enemies of religion and philanthropy. 
 The professors had the fixing of the hour, and arranged 
 one when they were never there, an hour also at which 
 the lay director was winding up his business to go 
 home ; so the torture could go on without any of them 
 knowing" the evil of it. 
 
 It rises to the lips of a reader almost naturally, that 
 the design of the mission and the carrying of it out were 
 two widely different things ; and if the original plan had 
 been fulfilled there is no reason to suspect that it would 
 not have had the effect so fondly imagined of it. That 
 if, instead of the singers who sang, there had been 
 young and fresh voices, the effect would have been 
 different. It is because of this difference between aim 
 and execution that the writer came to the conclusion 
 that all those who attended that meeting were as 
 ignorant of the ways and workings of a hospital as he 
 himself. The first visit he made to a ward would have 
 assured him, if he had been thinking about it, that such 
 an idea could not have been carried out, and if it could, 
 it would have done no good. Of all the missions the 
 writer has acquaintance with, this one required the 
 greatest courage in the performers. The mental strain 
 necessary to carry through such an unsympathetic task 
 was simply tremendous. What young ladies, up to 
 twenty-two years of age, not two, but say even four ot 
 
 M 2 
 
1 64 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS x 
 
 them, could go to a great building like a hospital, could 
 move along its wide and echoing corridors making the 
 only noise in the whole building, none speaking to them, 
 or taking notice of them — as all had their own duties to 
 attend to — turning into a ward like an empty hall, met 
 there also by silence, and breaking out into song without 
 preparing a single one of their audience. 
 
 We can conceive of young ladies going to an insti- 
 tution where they are waited for and welcomed, where 
 with the encouragement of the staff they are brought 
 to a ward, and allowed to go about and make the 
 acquaintance of the patients, telling them what they 
 intend to do, and asking them if they had any favourite 
 hymn they would wish to hear. That, we imagine, 
 young ladies might have the courage to do, if they 
 could get over the depressing influence of the all- 
 pervading quietude and the suggestive appearance of 
 the still figures under the white sheets, or the meaning 
 of the screens surrounding the cots. But that is an 
 impossibility. Even if the staff were musically sym- 
 pathetic themselves, what does that matter when most 
 of their patients have been ordered rest and quietude ? 
 And if the young ladies were allowed to fraternise in 
 the ward as a preparation for their performance, they 
 cannot sing to one alone, as the little Bible-reader 
 could read ; then what about the others in the ward ? 
 Though fifteen out of sixteen could have enjoyed the 
 music, there must be silence if it is necessary for the 
 health of the sixteenth. What professor would allow 
 any young people to go into his ward and disturb his 
 patients by talking to them — neither being friends 
 of the patients, nor expected by them ? If the young 
 people got speaking to the patients they would never 
 open their mouths in song. Their sympathies would 
 be too strong for them. They would see these poor 
 people were suffering, that their thoughts were as far 
 
 
x A SENTIMENTAL MISSION 165 
 
 from music or its endurance as from the cattle plague ; 
 they would see that to thrust music on these people 
 would be a distracting" cruelty, and their courage would 
 fail them, and they would slip gently home and come 
 no more missionising. 
 
 It is strange how ready the philanthropist is to ex- 
 periment upon the Poor. The belief in the therapeutic 
 virtues of music is old and common. Yet what person 
 of the better classes practises it upon his own sick ? 
 We walk the streets where the wealthy reside, and we 
 see straw laid down, and every loose thing about the 
 door wrapped in deadening cloths. Indoors everything 
 is quiet, and to be kept quiet for the patient's sake. 
 We have been in hundreds of the middle-class houses 
 where sick people lay. We have helped to chase away 
 barrel-organists and all other street musicians from the 
 neighbourhood. We have carried polite notes to the 
 neighbours requesting them to desist from all music- 
 playing and singing for the sick one's sake. Indoors 
 the piano or organ was shut, all musical instruments 
 put away, and everything in the shape of noise, musical 
 and otherwise, banished and suppressed. When we 
 are so careful to protect our own sick from its dis- 
 tracting noise, how can we imagine that it is good 
 for the sick Poor, or that they have any desire for it ? 
 
 What answer can be given to such a question ? 
 What other answer have we, than that in this country 
 philanthropy is accounted a special kind of righteous- 
 ness ? and as the " peripatetic " said, we cannot have too 
 much of it. It is true, the philanthropical and religious 
 classes cannot have too much of it ; but what about 
 the Poor? Are they not to be considered? It would 
 be all very well if these philanthropical people would 
 practise their ideas and sentiments upon their own paid 
 servants, so that the servants could leave when they 
 had had enough of it, or strike for higher wages when 
 
166 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS x 
 
 the situation became oppressive. Or upon their cattle, 
 or anything that was their own. But philanthropy is 
 a very simple thing, with no room for sentiment or 
 religion about it. It is merely the desire to help our 
 less fortunate fellow man ; and out of common courtesy 
 we should first make sure our interference with his life 
 and habits will be acceptable, and in what way our 
 services will be of use to him. We have to do that 
 under similar circumstances to a person of our own 
 class ; why not to the Poor, when we are so anxious 
 to be of service to him ? 
 
 There is a defence ever upon the lips of the philan- 
 thropist when all others fail, and that is Good In- 
 tentions. It is as much a justification for his folly as 
 " Didn't know it was loaded " is to the hero of a gun 
 tragedy. It is best we should put plainly, for the 
 guidances of others, the limitation of such a defence. 
 When we are called upon to take action in any matter 
 of which we have neither knowledge nor experience, we 
 can only govern ourselves by good-intentions. Because 
 of our ignorance we would rather not act at all, or get 
 some one of experience to act for us : failing that, we 
 must do the best we can ourselves. And if our action 
 under such circumstances be not the best that could 
 have been done — be not even good — be positively the 
 very worst that could have been done — yet we have not 
 been wrong, because wrong implies a knowledge of 
 right : we have only been unfortunate in our good in- 
 tentions. But there is no justification in the world for 
 a person to act voluntarily, and at the same time act in 
 ignorance. A voluntary act must be accompanied by a 
 perfect and intimate knowledge of all the details and 
 circumstances connected with everything affected by 
 it, and a positive knowledge that its results will be 
 beneficial and acceptable. As there is no need to act 
 at all, so voluntary action is only justifiable by perfect 
 
x A SENTIMENTAL MISSION 167 
 
 knowledge. What a world this would be if we were 
 allowed to act towards each other as we do to the 
 Poor ! Stop the machinery of a mill : interfere with the 
 working - of a coal-pit : reverse the engines of a loco- 
 motive : ruin men's businesses, and destroy their 
 homes. All these things have occurred through volun- 
 tary interference combined with ignorance : all justified 
 by good intentions ; but so signally condemned that 
 we never hear of them now. Many bye-laws are in 
 existence forbidding people to touch what they do not 
 require to touch, whether from good or ill intentions. 
 
 That nervous unrest which besets so many of our 
 philanthropists, as exemplified in the questions — What 
 shall we do ? What is to be done next ? Can no- 
 thing be done ? finds great comfort in the text— " Do 
 good : be ever doing good," as a mandate for their 
 meddlesomeness. As a Christian admonition to ail- 
 that in the necessary actions of their lives there are 
 few that cannot be made profitable to the community 
 as, well as to themselves — it is undoubtedly good 
 advice. But it is not by any means the highest or 
 safest guide to human actions. That is — " Do no 
 evil." Follow that advice, and no matter how ener- 
 getic or quiescent you choose to be in the world, the 
 sum total of your actions is good— unalloyed good. 
 But the thread of life is of such a mingled yarn, that 
 follow the other plan, and the sum total of your actions 
 may be for evil after all — even with the very best 
 intentions. To act merely for the sake of doing good 
 is folly and foolishness. There are many "goods" in 
 every action, and many evils. It is better to do 
 nothing than do wrong, no matter how sentimental 
 the wrong may look. 
 
 It is the convalescent, not the sick, who can appre- 
 ciate music, or desire it. As long as a person is 
 really sick and suffering, all noises are distracting. 
 
i6S THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS x 
 
 Quietude at that stage is always desired, not that it 
 has any curative effect, but that it leaves the patient's 
 mind wholly free from disturbance, to be devoted to his 
 sufferings. Immediately the body is free from suffer- 
 ing, the mind returns to its normal condition ; returns 
 before the body's strength returns, and with its return 
 come back all the old desires — the longing for all the 
 old habits and customs upon which the patient relied 
 for his pleasures and enjoyment when in health. If 
 music had been one of these, the patient would wish 
 for it again ; but his desire for it would never be as 
 strong as the smoker's longing for his pipe, or the tea- 
 drinker's for her cup. Music ranks only among the 
 second class of our desires, such as billiards and whist. 
 If they can be had, so much the better ; but if not, they 
 will neither constitute a lack nor create a yearning. 
 The first-class desires are all personal — drink, smoke, 
 tea, &c. The mind cannot long be diverted from them, 
 nor will it accept any substitute for them. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 A NEW PHILANTHROPY 
 
 A new philanthropy— The weakness of the age cannot bear 
 criticism — Without the initiative power to invent their own 
 philanthropy — Self-improvement — Strength — What the poor 
 have to do — What society has to do. 
 
 We are informed by an authority that is not to be 
 ignored, that no book dealing with existing methods is 
 acceptable, unless it also contains a new plan. De- 
 structive criticism, they say, is worthless unless accom- 
 panied by constructive forms of a new and attractive 
 kind. That is, we must not find fault with anything, 
 unless we are prepared to substitute some other thing 
 in its place. It is an extraordinary commentary on 
 the wisdom of this, the almost twentieth century, and 
 the heir of all the gathered philosophy of its prede- 
 cessors, that it is not to be told it is wrong, unless at 
 the same time it is set right. It is content to go on in 
 wrong if you have no other information for it. It is to 
 do nothing for itself; it is not to stop and inquire ; it 
 is not to take warning, and seek new methods : the 
 responsibility for all that must be upon the head of him 
 who has found present systems faulty. What if his 
 knowledge goes no further than to find Error without 
 having found Truth ? Then he is to remain silent. 
 
i-o THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xi 
 
 When we see a man idly rowing on the river, should 
 we discover he is caught in the current of the falls, 
 unless we can also find a method for his safety we are 
 to be silent. Our knowledge may go no further than 
 his danger : then let him go over the falls, boat and 
 all ; your remarks are only destructive criticism ! 
 And this strange demand does not apply to science, to 
 philosophy, to economics ; it is principally confined 
 to social life and habit, and especially to philanthropy 
 — all actions that, if not voluntary, are mostly matters 
 of convenience. Science surrenders its secrets slowly, 
 bit by bit, step by step, as if Nature said — "Digest 
 this slowly and thoroughly, then you will be in a fit 
 condition to appreciate the next step." It may take a 
 hundred years before the man is born who finds out 
 that a hitherto accepted truth is false ; it may take 
 another hundred years to beget the man who finds out 
 what the truth is. Would not the man who only dis- 
 covered Error be held an enemy to mankind and science 
 if he kept his information to himself because he did not 
 discover Truth at the same time ? How many scientific 
 questions have only got the length of the knowledge 
 of Error and are waiting patiently for the discoverer of 
 Truth ! So also in the business affairs of life, because 
 man is rational in business, being self-interested. We 
 are continually finding old methods fail ; we can only 
 see where they are faulty ; we cannot find a cure 
 always for the fault. Error and Truth do not grow 
 side by side, the one the complement of the other, like 
 the fabled bane and antidote. Yet we are always glad 
 of what knowledge, no matter how small, we can get 
 about business concerns. If we cannot avoid the 
 action we may at least strengthen its weak parts. 
 But in the unnecessary schemes of philanthropy we 
 must not cast out devils until we have gathered the 
 swine for their new tenancy. 
 
xi A NEW PHILANTHROPY 
 
 J? 1 
 
 The age has reached that stage of degeneration at 
 which Rest is more feared than sought. The weak and 
 overstrung nerves dread the approach of Rest as the 
 drunkard fears sobriety, or the opium-eater the hour 
 of disillusionment. From labour to labour, from ex- 
 citement to excitement is endurable, but the thought 
 of absolute idleness makes us shudder ; against that 
 civilisation must pile up safeguard upon safeguard. 
 We must have books, music, theatres, dancing, every- 
 thing and anything that will keep us from ourselves 
 and from the dread ennui of Rest. 
 
 It is only the strong who are capable of enjoying 
 rest ; who can be with themselves as a friend ; who 
 can find their happiness within, and that do not require 
 to borrow it from without ; who can find pleasure in 
 letting all their faculties lie fallow for a time, and feel 
 content in the steady accumulation of new energy, re- 
 pairing exhausted and worn tissue in brain and body, 
 and driving away the clinging remnants of old excite- 
 ment that hang to the nerves as tobacco-smoke to 
 curtains. But the weaker we are the further we are 
 from this peace, and the jaded, worn nerves that 
 require rest most can least endure it. And of such 
 are the philanthropical classes. It is their nervous 
 dread of pain in any shape or form that makes them, 
 or the most of them, philanthropists, and it is their 
 craving for something new that makes them impatient 
 of all criticism that does not carry with it a new 
 excitement. The criticism is only endurable when 
 hidden in the jam of a new method. And as children 
 would prefer the jam without physic, so if our pages 
 were all new philanthropical schemes they would be all 
 the more welcome, though unaccompanied by a single 
 reason why they should supplant the old. 
 
 We have been obliged to write the foregoing because 
 we would have preferred laying down our pen at the 
 
172 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xi 
 
 close of the last chapter. We thought that every 
 person who read these pages would wish to conduct 
 his philanthropy in future in his own way, guided by 
 his own experience and such of these lines that ap- 
 pealed to him as Truth. If diversity is the law of 
 Order, so is variety the father of Perfection. When 
 everybody brings together the fruits of independent 
 experience, then each can discard his own weak points 
 for his neighbours' stronger ones ; and by this constant 
 process of selection and rejection we may gather all 
 the best points together and weave them into a homo- 
 geneous and practicable whole. We have come, how- 
 ever, to depend so much upon Imitation as a guide to 
 our actions, that, like sheep, we are helpless and con- 
 fused without a leader. The more civilised we become ; 
 the more educated and the more refined, the more the 
 power of independent action is lost to us, and the more 
 we must depend upon Imitation. Nor is the leader 
 always the person who knows most about the subject ; 
 he may only be a person of stronger fibre than the 
 others, with sense enough to know what is the best 
 plan for himself, and power enough to put it into 
 execution. The loss of this power of initiative has 
 kept the world behind thousands of years in its 
 progress towards truth and knowledge. Instead of 
 Research marching on with the light and springy step 
 of Youth, encouraged and sustained by its tens of 
 thousands of worshippers, its feet are clogged and 
 chained to some cumbrous log to which all are cling- 
 ing desperately. Not until it can shake off that log 
 will its feet be free, and then only to be fettered again 
 by some other. 
 
 How would it look, if when news was carried to a 
 village of the loss of a wayfarer, the villagers would 
 not go in search for him until some one among them 
 guessed where he might be ; then under this leader the 
 
xi A NEW PHILANTHROPY 173 
 
 whole village sally forth to search in this one spot only. 
 Failing- to find him there, they return to the village 
 until some other person makes a suggestion, and they 
 go forth again, and return again, and so on. The idea 
 that they should all scatter themselves, each taking a 
 different part, so that the whole neighbourhood may be 
 properly searched cannot occur to them, because they 
 have lost all power of initiative and have ceased to 
 trust in any thing that suggests individual action or 
 diversity of method. Just so it is with the philanthro- 
 pist, he has no confidence in individual action. The 
 mission was in existence before him : it is the log to 
 which he has chained himself ; to think Philanthropy 
 by other means is beyond his capacity. The Poor, and 
 the world, must wait till the mission is dead before a 
 new step in philanthropy can be taken. 
 
 There is, however, one reason above the others why 
 we should have preferred leaving the making of plans 
 to those who delight in them, and that is, that in the 
 plan we present there is an almost fatal suggestion ; 
 a suggestion that has always been the most distasteful 
 and ungrateful that could be presented to a human 
 being — self-improvement The reformer, as a general 
 rule, will undertake to reform anything upon earth but 
 himself. Only whisper self-improvement to him, and 
 the joy and the hope die out of his eyes ; his hands 
 fall idly by his side ; his enthusiasm turns cold to the 
 shivering point ; he finds it is not the game he meant 
 to play, and he can have no pleasure in it. 
 
 Divided as the Rich and Poor are from each other by 
 so many things, all antagonistic to any possibility of 
 co-operation, there is only one ground upon which they 
 can meet and work together for good and that is — 
 strength. Strength will cure all evils, it will banish 
 distress, it will defy misfortune, it will protect against 
 hunger, it will promote peace. 
 
•74 
 
 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS 
 
 XI 
 
 The Poor must be taught strength, and as their 
 teachers are weaker at the present moment than they, 
 their teachers must first cultivate it in themselves. 
 
 This is not a very pleasant outlook for the missioner. 
 The equivalent for his services among" the Poor, was 
 the good opinion of the pious, and his own class, — one 
 of the greatest social rewards one could find. That 
 was the secret of the popularity of the mission. But 
 in the new philanthropy the equivalent for services to 
 the Poor will be the gratitude of the Poor, in proportion 
 to success ; a very different and by no means equal 
 reward. When the Poor send an imposing deputation 
 of unemployed to the authorities demanding relief 
 because they cannot find work, and when work is 
 immediately offered to them at regulation rates, it is 
 wonderful how soon that army melts into a corporal's 
 guard of honestly intentioned men. The others found 
 when the alternative was presented to them that it was 
 relief, not work, they wanted. Let us hope our friends 
 the philanthropists have not made the same mistake. 
 They never cease from telling us that it is the love of 
 the Poor, and that only, which inspires and sustains 
 them in their good work. Surely we may depend upon 
 them when they are offered that, and that only, as 
 their reward. Surely when they find there is no 
 alternative, no missions, no societies, no oratory, no 
 advertisement, no money needed in the new method, 
 they will not, like the unemployed, find out their mistake, 
 and silently steal away. 
 
 Whether it will be the old, or whether a new set of 
 philanthropists will require to grow up to put the new 
 philanthropy in motion, we do not know ; but he must 
 first teach himself, before he can become the mentor 
 of the Poor. lie must go among the Poor, not as a 
 philanthropist but as a private individual, until he has 
 taught himself to endure their sufferings firmly and 
 
xi A NEW PHILANTHROPY 175 
 
 calmly. He has to teach himself what they can endure, 
 and what they cannot, before he can know what he has 
 to relieve, or what he has to help them to suffer. He 
 has to learn what they call hunger, and what they look 
 upon as only a passing privation, so that he may know 
 who^to feed and who to leave alone. He must learn to 
 look^trnmoved upon habits foreign to his nature, and 
 tolerate sights that would be disgusting in his own 
 class. Until he can do so he will never know when he 
 is falling back into the weakness of seeking to improve 
 the Poor for his own sake, rather than for theirs. 
 Until he can see, and feel, and tolerate the lives of the 
 Poor as they themselves can do, he cannot know what 
 their disabilities are. Like the physician going through 
 his ward in the hospital, he must be able to endure the 
 sufferings of his patients without losing his sympathy, 
 or desire to help them. Nor should he stop there, but 
 cultivate a fortitude greater than that even of the Poor, 
 so as to have some reserve strength to fall back upon 
 on an emergency. 
 
 The Poor are in future to be treated as men, not as 
 women and children — as men with all the capacity 
 within themselves of taking up their own fortunes and 
 meeting their own responsibilities. They are to be 
 encouraged to do for themselves what the mission 
 has hitherto been doing for them. They are to be 
 invited to become part of the community, and to take 
 their share of helping forward its progress ; their part 
 is to destroy misery, suffering, and distress in them- 
 selves individually, instead of as formerly merely 
 creating these things for others to attend to. Where 
 by reason of weakness they may be inclined to fail, 
 they are not to be relieved of the task, they are to be 
 strengthened and supported until they overcome it. 
 
 There is no such thing in any man's life as chronic dis- 
 tress ; distress is incidental. All, then, that is required 
 
176 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xi 
 
 is to teach the sufferer how to bear it, to help him to bear 
 it if necessary, but not to relieve him of it. That teaches 
 him nothing- but weakness. The next time he will not 
 even endure so long before throwing his burden upon 
 you, and so on, until he will not even bear the apprehen- 
 sion of it ; from that also he must be relieved. The de- 
 mand for a higher social condition is just the demand to 
 be relieved from the apprehension of distress. Under the 
 false teaching" of their friends, the Poor just now believe 
 there is no duty incumbent upon them to contend with 
 distress. They make no effort to do so, and what is 
 worse, they make no effort to avoid causing* it by their 
 own actions. There are many of their actions from 
 which they know distress must inevitably follow. But 
 what of that. They only look upon it as one of the 
 hard conditions of their lives, from which it is the duty 
 of the charitable to relieve them. The action is easily 
 avoidable ; but nobody has told them that they are 
 morally bound to avoid it ; or bear the punishment it 
 brings, without complaint or hope of relief. They 
 would do one or other if left alone ; but as the mission 
 only concerns itself with the distress, the Poor are not 
 inclined to endure where relief is offered, or give up a 
 habit that brings pleasure before the pain. The 
 pleasure they get ; the pain they avoid ; and so 
 Nature's law of "deterrent" is stultified. 
 
 There is no condition of life to which a workman misfht 
 aspire — artificial means, living wage, high organisation, 
 or what not — that is above the possibility or appre- 
 hension of distress. All that any of these states could 
 do, if attained, would be to show they were not high 
 enough for the purpose. On the other hand, there is 
 no condition so lowly, even to voluntary poverty, where 
 distress cannot be avoided, or endured with the 
 help and support of sympathetic friends. When a 
 person has to endure the consequences of his own 
 
xi A NEW PHILANTHROPY 177 
 
 actions, it is natural in him to reduce their effects as 
 much as possible. The practice of endurance makes a 
 man strong - , physically and morally, courageous, self- 
 reliant, and fearless ; the practise of guiding our habits 
 so as to make endurance unnecessary makes a man 
 stronger, teaching self-control, self-denial, and inde- 
 pendence. All conduce to make a man the master of 
 his destiny. 
 
 If we can produce a man who, no matter how much 
 or how little he may earn, can so economise it that he 
 will always be able to supply him with such food and 
 clothing as he himself feels sufficient for his wants ; and 
 in the exceptional cases where he may fail, will feel it 
 incumbent upon himself to utilise his sufferings as a 
 stimulus to greater effort ; and to endure in silence, until 
 he has exhausted every means within his power to find 
 employment ; and only after total failure, feel justified 
 in seeking" his fellow man's help. If we can make, not 
 such a man, because there are plenty of them already, 
 but set in motion such a condition of life that will level 
 up all men to this standard of strength, because it is 
 only strength that is wanted, we believe we will have 
 done a good deal towards solving- the question of social 
 poverty. But what we aim at most, we believe we will 
 have helped the Poor themselves a step or two towards 
 their happiness. Nor would it be the Poor only, who 
 would benefit individually by the change ; for if all the 
 classes above the Poor are levelled up to their standard 
 of strength, they will find in their own lives such an 
 infinitely better condition of things, that most of the 
 difficulties of their present life will vanish, solely from 
 the strength that is able to cope with them and fear 
 them not. 
 
 We say nothing whatever about religion, morality, 
 education, or temperance. When the Poor have over- 
 come the fear of want, they will have time to study these 
 
 N 
 
178 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xi 
 
 things as their betters do. They are all easy to the 
 strong man ; it is the weak who are always taking a 
 short cut through vice to gain their ends. But again, 
 on the other hand the strong man, although he 
 tolerates, is apt to despise authority, and the Poor in 
 their strength mav throw these aside as obsolete 
 guides for an old and now impossible condition of life, 
 and take to cultivating virtues of their own, more in 
 accordance with their formed habits and the evolution 
 of them, into perfection. Further, in the case of the 
 strengthened Poor, these virtues, Religion, &c, would 
 have to be presented from a new standpoint. Just 
 now they are pressed upon them as infallible cures for 
 poverty. When the Poor have cured their own poverty 
 without the aid of these virtues they may still remain 
 as irreligious, immoral, ignorant, and intemperate as 
 many of their wealthy brethren of the present day who 
 never have had to fear want. In such a case these 
 virtues would have to be recommended to the Poor as 
 having some other attraction. But to ease the minds 
 of the timorous, we will add : Virtues are mostly 
 leading-strings for the weak, the strong man is in 
 himself virtue personified. All men are conscious that 
 the right path is the easiest, if one'has the strength to 
 tread it. The strong man treads it from choice because 
 it is the easiest ; the short cuts of vice have no induce- 
 ment for him, he sees so plainly that after all they are 
 the longest, most intricate, and toilsomest way round. 
 To change the confirmed habits of men is not a task 
 that can be accomplished in a year or two. There 
 is first the necessary preliminary of changing their 
 opinions, of convincing them that the change desired 
 will be beneficial to them. There is no man could 
 persuade the Poor, that the change we desire of them 
 will be for their good, to the extent of getting their 
 co-operation, but there is a voice the Poor are in the 
 
xi A NEW PHILANTHROPY 
 
 179 
 
 habit of listening to that will bring conviction to them 
 where man would fail — the voice of Nature. There 
 are three stages they must pass through ; the process 
 of disabusing their minds of their present convictions ; 
 their conversion by Nature ; and their co-operation 
 after conversion. 
 
 While this process is going on in the Poor, their 
 betters have also some duties to perform in connection 
 therewith. The quickest way to persuade the Poor 
 that the opinions which they have been unfortunately 
 taught, and now firmly hold, namely that they are to 
 be allowed to create distress which it is the duty of 
 the better classes to relieve, is erroneous, is to with- 
 draw at once all eleemosynary aid, all extraneous 
 supports, no matter what the kind, and especially 
 missions of all kinds. This of course will pain the 
 philanthropist much more than the Poor, because of his 
 greater weakness, but if he cannot do so much for those 
 he loves, how can he ask them to do anything for him? 
 Among the Poor, those who will suffer most will be the 
 mission-parasites ; nor can we hope they will be in- 
 clined to try honest work again. We expect they will 
 join the submerged tenth, and with their religious cant 
 make a great outcry that they are the deserving Poor, 
 the industrious idle, whom to feed and keep in idleness 
 is the first duty of the government, the first care of 
 the charitable. But when no person heeds them, 
 none take note of them, with the astuteness of their 
 class they will see that, as they themselves would put 
 it, the game is up. They will then be left with Dame 
 Nature, who will teach them that their enjoyment in 
 future, will be in proportion to their labour. 
 
 The thriftless, the improvident, and the self-indulgent, 
 who have got to believe that they have a right to spend 
 every penny upon themselves, that they earn, because 
 one mission is feeding, clothing, and holidaying their 
 
 N 2 
 
■ So THE POOR AXD THEIR HAPPINESS xi 
 
 children ; while another is supplying - their wives with 
 all their household wants ; and a third revives and re- 
 stores themselves on Sunday after their usual Saturday 
 debauch ; these three types will take the change very 
 unkindly, will do all they can to try and evade having 
 to take the responsibilities of their families upon 
 themselves ; and will loudly protest they are not able 
 to do so with the money that they earn. (Which is quite 
 true, as long as they spend it in their customary 
 manner.) But when they find they are talking to 
 closed ears, or when a person comes forward and 
 offers to take their wages and feed and clothe their 
 family with it, they too will find Dame Nature waiting 
 to teach them the economy of life. 
 
 There is another type, though on rather a different 
 footing, that has something to unlearn ; the willing-to- 
 work-but-can't-find-it unemployed. This person has 
 been unfortunately taught that, should he happen to 
 be dismissed, from dulness of trade or other cause, he 
 is not required to look for work again, unless in his 
 own immediate neighbourhood ; nor to accept of it even 
 then, unless it be the same work as he is accustomed 
 to, at the highest current rate of wages, with the 
 shortest hours, and all other superior conditions of his 
 trade ; and that if these cannot be found (and it is not 
 likely they are to be found in a neighbourhood where 
 men are being paid off from slackness of trade), he has 
 a just claim upon the government to find them for him. 
 Before this person can be disillusionised, the better 
 classes must be well on their way in the accumu- 
 lation of strength. They must have cultivated it 
 sufficiently that we can have a Parliament of strong- 
 men, not the Government only, but the whole Parlia- 
 ment, so strong that they will fear no party sufficiently, 
 to flatter them ; strong enough for the fever of 
 philanthropy for philanthropy's sake to have subsided 
 
x! A NEW PHILANTHROPY 181 
 
 in them ; for their brains to be cool and firm, and see 
 only the good of any class in its bearings upon the 
 good of all ; strong enough to care so little for 
 place, as to be unshaken by its temptations ; strong 
 enough to deprecate legislation, and teach in its place 
 mutual concession and arrangement. Such a Govern- 
 ment would tell the industrious idle (of the present 
 conception) that the term "unemployed" means a 
 person, who when he finds himself out of employment, 
 seeks for work in every quarter of the country where it 
 is likely to be found, offers to take any kind of work 
 he is capable of, and at whatever remuneration that is 
 tendered, until the depression in his own particular 
 trade is past. That every person claiming the assist- 
 ance of Government must make a declaration that they 
 have done all this and still failed, otherwise they are 
 classed with the voluntary idle. The Government, 
 while declaring that it is not within its province to 
 take notice of the occupation or profession of any 
 individual, may on economic grounds, offer the un- 
 employed work on terms sufficiently below the ordinary 
 rate to make what to it is unnecessary and un- 
 desirable employment, profitable. 
 
 This class, however, are not exactly of the distressful 
 Poor ; they are only bothered with the over-develop- 
 ment of the Economy of Effort in them. They desire 
 that the Government should do that for them which they 
 are best able to do for themselves, and when the 
 Government declines the duty, there will be few of this 
 willing-to-work-but-can't-find-it class. But there will 
 always be some, and on their behalf, and on the behalf 
 of others, this strong Government has a further duty to 
 perform, and that is, to curb the power of the trade 
 societies as regards their right to make rules that there 
 shall only be one standard wage in every trade. There 
 is no reason why these societies should declare the 
 
iS2 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xi 
 
 industrial world to be the monopoly of the young- and 
 vigorous only ; and that is the actual result of such a 
 law. Further, it is making the period in a man's life 
 of capacity for labour shorter and shorter, and the 
 selection of men more limited every year. Thus it is 
 increasing the number of men who, with still plenty of 
 work in them, but not just enough for the high pressure 
 an employer requires for the high wages demanded of 
 him, are compelled to remain idle, and the employer 
 and unemployed are not allowed to make any com- 
 promise. And, further, the high pressure of work, 
 high wages, and a corresponding high life, make pre- 
 mature old men of the workmen, and have been the 
 prolific cause of the increase of old age pauperism, and 
 the demand for old age pensions at fifty-five years of 
 age. 
 
 Defective energy is almost always accompanied with 
 a proportionate lowness of desire, and the weak are 
 quite willing to take less for their work than their more 
 vigorous brethren, making their smaller wage do all for 
 them that the greater wage does for the other. And 
 with waning strength it is the same. It is a question 
 if the failing of strength is not first exhibited in the 
 failing of desire ; and that that period in our lives when 
 the philosophers tell us that Reason is beginning to 
 assume its sway over Passion, is nothing more than 
 fchat the vigour that incited the passion is diminishing ; 
 and with a less urgent passion to blind us, Reason can 
 see more clearly the issue of our actions. 
 
 It was Legree the slave-driver who believed that the 
 most economical way of dealing with his slaves was to 
 work them at high pressure for the few years they could 
 stand it, and then purchase fresh ones. There are also 
 some coach and cab proprietors in large towns who 
 believe the same about horses. They say that the period 
 of usefulness of hackneys in large towns is short, and 
 
xi A NEW PHILANTHROPY 183 
 
 it is most profitable to take it out of them as soon as 
 possible, then get rid of them, and get new ones. There 
 are others who believe in the opposite plan, that if man 
 or animal is never worked in a day more than the 
 night's rest can amply restore, there is work in both up 
 to almost their last days. 
 
 In their arguments for Government protection from 
 idleness, the leaders of the workmen have asserted the 
 claim that men who are willing to work should have 
 work. Let the Government take them at their word, so 
 far as to see these leaders do not put obstruction in the 
 way themselves. Give every man the right to work at 
 whatever wages is mutually agreed upon between him- 
 self and his employer. The workman does not work 
 for his society, but for the man who pays him his 
 wages. It is a private contract between them with 
 which no one should have a right to interfere. The 
 differentiation of wages can quite easily co-exist with a 
 standard rate for the able-bodied full-timer, and that 
 standard would be the guide for the differentiation ; 
 thus protecting the weak from imposition, if such were 
 attempted. 
 
 When there is payment by capacity, then the under- 
 energised would find permanent work, as well as the 
 vigorous. The waning strength would be content to 
 work at a lower rate, in preference to being idle. Even 
 old age would not be refused whatever it could do, for 
 whatever it could get, and its independence would not 
 be assailed. A great number of the submerged tenth 
 would be absorbed on terms suitable to their capacity. 
 But the great advantage would be that the pressure of 
 toil would instantly be lowered to a safe and healthy 
 state. Even the vigour of manhood would prefer a 
 steadier, evener condition of life, with a view to a longer 
 period of preserved strength. There would be no Eight 
 hours question requiring to be settled. Men would not 
 
[84 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xi 
 
 be so exhausted with their labour as to look with favour 
 upon eight hours compulsory rest every clay, without 
 adequate means to enjoy them. Each trade or work 
 would settle its own hours on the principle of the 
 amount of toil required in its exercise. Workmen 
 would carry their energies long- past the present pre- 
 sumed age of incapacity — fifty-five. At sixty and sixty- 
 five they would be independent ; and the old age pension 
 question would settle itself by most of them being able 
 to die in harness. The others could easily be dealt 
 with. Finally, there would be a more vigorous, less 
 toil-weary race of workmen, who would transmit their 
 vigour to their children, and each succeeding generation 
 w r ould grow in that strength which is the root of all 
 happiness, and the solvent of all difficulties. 
 
 So much for the first, or unlearning stage. Let us 
 now consider the second, or convincing stage. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 NATURE AS AN EDUCATOR : THE DUTIES OF THE NEW 
 
 PHILANTHROPIST 
 
 Nature as an educator — The duties of the new philanthropist — 
 Nature's law of Deterrents — Their educative force — Weak- 
 ness will endure certain deterrents for the indulgence in 
 certain habits — The moral teaching- of fisticuffs. 
 
 It is a favourite sentiment with the pious, that "as 
 gold is refined by fire, so the heart must be tried (or 
 purified) by pain." It is an extraordinary thing- that 
 they never tried this sentiment upon the Poor ! It 
 could have been done so easily. The Poor had plenty 
 of pain ; but instead of waiting its chastening effects, 
 the whole effort of the philanthropist was to relieve 
 them of their distress, and then attempt to chasten 
 their hearts by argument. Perhaps they thought the 
 Poor were not fit subjects for the practice of such a 
 beautiful sentiment. If so, it is the only sentiment we 
 know, that they have not practised upon the Poor. 
 Perhaps they thought that the lesson of pain could 
 only appeal to those who knew its meaning — that, 
 what is the fact, one has first to be pious before pain 
 will make him any more so ; and conversely, the 
 irreligious before pain are left irreligious still by its 
 
1 86 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xn 
 
 experience. The beautiful and pious sentiment is only 
 a poetic attempt at expressing the common pheno- 
 menon that pain is weakness, and in our weakness we 
 seek for aid where we believe we will find it — the pious 
 to their religion ; the Poor to the mission ; and the weak 
 to the strong. But the persons who have no recourse 
 but to endure it, do so in the different phases of their 
 strength — the strong, silently ; the middle strength that 
 fears it may overwhelm him, like the stag at bay, with 
 anger and fury ; and the weak, querulously or noisily. 
 
 Nature's true lesson of pain, however, is pithily 
 summed up in the proverb — " A burnt bairn dreads the 
 fire." Instead of pain being a purifier, or the hand- 
 maid of religion or anything else, it is simply a deter- 
 rent. That is Nature's use for it, and for that she 
 created it. In our original state (and to a large extent 
 yet) any violation of her laws brought pain. Her 
 teaching is wholly virtuous ; every action that she 
 dictates is to bring happiness ; but every attempt to 
 alter or avoid her laws is met with the deterrent pain. 
 Man who has spent his time in trying to improve 
 upon Nature has got no farther yet. The world is 
 still governed by the dread of pain. There are some 
 religions profess to teach by love, but in the matter of 
 education, love is only indulgence, or the process of 
 making my will more agreeable to you than your own, 
 a system that may suit the nursery, but would bankrupt 
 any institution or Government in a week. 
 
 In our original state the nature within us formulated 
 the body's demands ; not only in the broad principles 
 of hunger, thirst, and rest which we still retain, but 
 was perfect and comprehensive over the whole world 
 of our knowledge, choosing the exact fruit, or root, or 
 blade of grass, as the case might be. So far, with 
 infallible machinery that governed our actions to the 
 smallest detail, we could not have erred ; and if we 
 
xii NATURE AS AN EDUCATOR 187 
 
 could not have erred we should have required no in- 
 hibitive faculty, and no deterrent. But there was also 
 in us a law called the Economy of Effort, and that law 
 was a continual temptation to ignore Nature's demands 
 because of the trouble they would cost, and also, when 
 once stirred to action, was inclined to oversupply itself 
 to avoid future trouble ; therefore, to counteract such a 
 possibility, Nature added pain as a penalty for the 
 breach of any of its laws. 
 
 The ethics of Nature are pleasure unaccompanied 
 with pain, or pleasure accompanied with pain. There 
 must always be pleasure in our free actions, because 
 we arc following our destiny of seeking our happiness. 
 But the right way is unaccompanied by pain or evil 
 result, and the wrong way is accompanied by a deter- 
 rent as a cause for remembrance and regret. It is by 
 this primitive code we leave the Poor in Nature's hands 
 to be educated. 
 
 In doing so we know we are open to the charge of 
 dealing in heroic treatment, or, from another point 
 of view, may be called harsh, cruel, and hard-hearted. 
 We arc quite aware, as we write this, that it is as 
 impossible for the philanthropical classes in their 
 present weak condition, to permit the Poor to endure 
 the natural consequences of their own actions, as for a 
 young mother to keep from cuddling her baby, although 
 the doctor may have warned her, she does so at great 
 risk to its existence. It is not the child that requires 
 the cuddling, but the mother. In like manner, it would 
 not be what the Poor would suffer, but what the 
 philanthropists would. But until they allow the Poor 
 to learn to avoid suffering in themselves, suffering 
 will continue to increase, instead of diminishing. 
 
 All what we call the softer or humanising virtues are 
 the product of weakness, and minister to and create 
 further weakness. They are, in their effect upon man 
 
1 88 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xn 
 
 and his future happiness, but gilded vices. That Mercy 
 that descends like the dew from heaven, is our inability 
 to contemplate, let alone enforce, the punishments we 
 have decreed for certain offences. It is no uncommon 
 thing for that Anger which is so characteristic of weak- 
 ness, to have decreed a more vigorous punishment than 
 a calmer state of mind can look upon as just, and so 
 one weakness is set to counteract another — the weak- 
 ness of mercy recoiling from the weakness of anger : 
 thus we are afraid to put in force our own decrees. 
 In other cases, we make penalties, only looking at 
 them as deterrents, and when they fail as such, we 
 are incapable of contemplating them as punishments. 
 But the common springs of Mercy are our degeneracy. 
 Punishments that come down to us from a stronger 
 age, when deterrents had to be measured by our 
 powers of pain endurance, are now declared inhuman, 
 barbarous, and brutal. Thus we flatter our weakness, 
 and make a virtue of our inability to contemplate, let 
 alone endure, pain. Yet by such action we do not 
 reduce the causes of pain — we increase them, and 
 increase our fear of it. Our fear of it, we call tender- 
 ness of heart, and refined sensibility. We cultivate it 
 in ourselves and encourage it in others ; and the fear of 
 pain is the parent of vice. 
 
 We all know that the Perpetual Petitioners for the 
 Remission of all Punishments are the weakest, most 
 invertebrate, and hysterical of the community. They 
 are composed of women and clergymen, and they 
 believe their folly is dictated by the highest sentiments 
 the heart is capable of. Whether it is the murderer or 
 the murderess, the thief in good society, or only the 
 person who may have a child born during the period of 
 incarceration, it is all the same to them. They cannot 
 endure the contemplation of suffering, and because they 
 cannot, the laws of the land are to be set aside ; but 
 
xii NATURE AS AN EDUCATOR 189 
 
 rouse the same people's anger and there is no punish- 
 ment, however severe, they cannot revel in. Read the 
 reports of the assizes ; there is no one so bad that he 
 cannot get a clergyman to give him a good character, 
 even if the crime has been carefully premeditated or 
 long indulged in. When there is no defence, lawyers 
 are hired to tell a pathetic story. New defences spring 
 up every day ; " contributory negligence," when a man 
 trusts his servant to go to the bank for him, and does 
 not immediately take measures to see that he has gone 
 and performed the business required of him ; " undue 
 temptation" when a man's wages are not in proportion 
 to the money he handles; "irresponsibility for his 
 actions," when a man, not having the courage to fight 
 his enemy sober, gets drunk for the purpose, and 
 perhaps kills him. 
 
 These, and even more trivial appeals for mercy, 
 would not be so continuously offered if they had no 
 effect ; but we know they have an effect, and see that 
 some judges welcome them as an excuse for miti- 
 gation. We only mention this, to show that there is 
 throughout the length and breadth of the land, a nervous 
 desire to avoid the natural consequences of our actions, 
 if they are painful. 
 
 The tender-hearted need not fear we are going to 
 desert the Poor however. There will always be plenty 
 of silent watchers to see that none are over-burdened ; 
 plenty to encourage them. But it is necessary that as 
 far as the Poor are concerned, they will remain to them 
 unknown and unseen. We are informed that the 
 troops that are sent to the West Indies become in two 
 or three years quite enervated. The climate is too 
 equable ; it is a perpetual summer and "always after- 
 noon," and in it the troops become weak and exhausted. 
 They have to be sent to the rigorous winters of Canada 
 to brace them up, and restore their relaxed energies. 
 
iqo THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xn 
 
 Just such a process have the Poor to go through. Out 
 from the mephitic, heated atmosphere of contending 
 charities, the Poor are to be braced and strengthened 
 by independence. It will be a cold, a vigorous, and a 
 frosty atmosphere, but it is necessary so to be, to call 
 into play their relaxed energies. The person who 
 hitherto spent all that he earned on wage-day, will 
 have six days' hunger to contend with. He will not 
 like it, and soon he will refuse to suffer. He may try 
 to do with food on alternate days, which will only make 
 the hunger of the off-days more keen. By and by, he 
 will learn to distribute his money over the whole week. 
 When he does so he will have learned much ; he will 
 have learned self-restraint, the first step to all reform ; 
 he will have learned the self-denial that leads to thrift, 
 whether he desires to pursue it to that extent or not. 
 Having learned to refuse his desires while he has the 
 money to gratify them, because the money is required 
 for other purposes in the course of the week, he can 
 also refuse his desires while in possession of the means 
 of gratifying them, for any other purpose that may 
 appeal to his self-interest. And so by a course of 
 treatment of this nature, not for a few years only, or 
 any time so short that the Poor would refuse to learn 
 their lesson, but for all time, the wage-earner would 
 avoid giving himself any suffering to bear that could 
 be avoided, either by the imitation of a higher life 
 than he can comfortably maintain, or by indulgence 
 one day at the expense of another. To have learned 
 to expend their earnings as judiciously as they could, 
 and to have made every personal effort to earn 
 enough for their wants, is all we can ask of any class 
 or person. 
 
 There will ever be a time when desire will overcome 
 habit and resolution, and suffering must follow ; but 
 the weakness that fell before desire will be ashamed to 
 
xii NATURE AS AN EDUCATOR 
 
 191 
 
 expose its sufferings ; and resolution will be called up 
 to help the unfortunate to endure in silence until the 
 incident is past. Nor will such a lesson be wholly lost. 
 There are all the unforeseen incidents of life that cannot 
 be provided against. These are divided into two 
 classes : the sudden loss of income, and exceptional 
 circumstances that call for extra expenditure. These 
 are met by the other classes, especially the lower 
 middle classes, with fortitude and resolution, and 
 sometimes secrecy ; and the Poor having learned to 
 meet their own sufferings with courage, will also 
 struggle with those that are thrust upon them. Nor is 
 the comparison between the lower middle classes and 
 the Poor in the face of unforeseen calamity an unfair 
 one to the latter. It is thought that the Poor, living as 
 they do from hand to mouth, are less protected against 
 misfortune than any other class. But this is not the 
 case. We might even say, that for true heroic endur- 
 ance in the face of sudden distress, the lower middle 
 classes take the palm. All the lower middle classes 
 live at a higher rate than their means warrant. It is 
 they who have the true struggle to make ends meet. 
 This is owing to the social rivalries of the women. 
 Successful rivalry is the one aim and object of their 
 lives. From that cause alone they are the most moral 
 of the classes, as they have to practise every self-denying 
 virtue. But from that cause also they are least 
 protected against emergency. Yet they have to assume 
 the virtue which they are far from possessing, and so 
 they bear their burdens not only with courage, but with 
 the smiling face of plenty. 
 
 The Poor have many means of fortifying each other 
 to bear their misfortunes. They have nothing else. 
 They have no money to purchase relief; but they have a 
 ready sympathy, and willing hands to help to make mis- 
 fortune endurable. This is the charity of the Poor, true 
 
i 9 2 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS x;i 
 
 charity, and all have heard how much the Poor do for 
 one another. 
 
 Sudden forms of misfortune the Poor have to suffer 
 at present, because they are not of a kind that the 
 missions can reach until the acute stage is past. But 
 they bear them sullenly, unwillingly, and with a grudge 
 against society, sometimes, as being the cause of them ; 
 but whether or no, from the confirmed conviction that 
 they should be protected from all suffering, like so many 
 children. When they have learned to take up the 
 burden of their own lives, they will also see that they 
 must, like all the other classes, include its never absent 
 chapter of accidents ; and with free trade in employment, 
 and the final refuge in Government work, misfortunes 
 must be easily recoverable. 
 
 As there are forms of voluntary poverty, so also there 
 are forms of voluntary distress, and although the Poor 
 have their share of it, they have no monopoly. It may 
 seem strange, that with every faculty within us made to 
 detect and recoil from pain, we yet voluntarily invite it. 
 Not the Poor alone, not any class or nation, but the 
 whole world according to their several degrees of 
 strength, the strong man least and the weak one most ; 
 all are in the habit of knowingly inflicting upon them- 
 selves avoidable pain. The drunkard is only a 
 glaring type of an universal habit — the willingness to 
 endure the penalties of our actions, for the pleasure of 
 them. Women are the grossest example of this habit ; 
 they endure physical pain, some almost constantly, for 
 sake of their fashions ; they cultivate bodily ailments 
 that produce sickness and accelerate death, by habits 
 they are prone to, and refuse to give up. How few 
 have reached middle life that have not continued the 
 habit, or resumed it, that their physician has warned 
 them to give up ! What man has died whose friends 
 do not know the habit that helped to carry him off? 
 
xii NATURE AS AN EDUCATOR 193 
 
 Nor is the habit confined to vicious or immoral action ; 
 it is as common and as hurtful in actions that are 
 approved of by religion and society. 
 
 Nature made no protection against this violation of 
 her laws. All things she gave life to, she endowed with 
 sufficient strength to hold their place in the cosmogony 
 of the world, and as the greater the strength we possess 
 the less strong our desires, so her deterrents were made 
 for the strong and not for the weak. Thus the weak- 
 ness in us sets her punishments at defiance in pleasures 
 that have become necessary to us. 
 
 The test of pleasure is the sense of strength it im- 
 parts. As pain is weakness, so pleasure is strength, 
 and the more strength we possess in ourselves the less 
 we seek from outside sources. Conversely, the weaker 
 we are the more dependent on extraneous aids we be- 
 come. Habit, again, destroys the native strength in 
 us, that is the equivalent of what it supplies, until we 
 are forced to depend entirely on it for strength, instead 
 of ourselves. 
 
 Drinking is the most pleasurable of all habits, and 
 that is the reason it is most common — universal, unless 
 where forbidden by religion. It gives strength to the 
 consumer more quickly, more fuliy, and with the least 
 trouble of any other pleasure in the world. The rapidity 
 with which it stimulates, counteracting depression, 
 weariness, and weakness, makes it invaluable to those 
 who have learned to rely upon it. Its deterrent is 
 great, and its after-suffering sometimes awful, yet they 
 are not a sufficient counter-check to the habit, and all 
 the additional punishments man has added, and 
 threatened to add, have been of no avail. Because of 
 the very fulness of strength it imparts, it plays havoc in 
 proportion with the natural strength it supplants, and 
 its votaries are quickly reduced to a weakness that 
 makes them wholly dependent upon it for any pleasure 
 
 o 
 
i 9 4 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xn 
 
 or strength they can have. In such cases it is not a 
 matter of self-denial, or strength to resist the tempta- 
 tion. In obedience to the law of destiny whereby they 
 must seek their happiness, those who have set their 
 happiness in this habit will fight for it with all their 
 strength and knowledge. Not till we cultivate strength 
 within the human frame up to the point where stimulation 
 is unnecessary, will the drinking habit become unde- 
 sirable. Not until we have recovered sufficient strength 
 to have restored Nature's punishments to their true 
 position of deterrents, will the whole fabric of indulgence 
 in vicious habits disappear. 
 
 Over the persons who have made drink a necessity 
 of their lives, Natural law can have no influence, neither 
 hitherto have the additional punishments which the 
 laws of the country sometimes inflict. On the other 
 hand, to relieve them of the consequences of their own 
 acts, is only to encourage them. Therefore the first 
 thing the new philanthropist has to learn is to dis- 
 tinguish between voluntary and involuntary distress 
 among the Poor, as he has also to learn to distinguish 
 between voluntary and involuntary poverty. It is not 
 necessary to tell the philanthropist how this information 
 can be acquired. The policemen on the beat know 
 these men at a glance ; the publicans know them ; the 
 keepers of the lodging- and doss-houses know them ; 
 and the honest Poor who live among them know them. 
 It is not that the philanthropist should go to any of 
 these authorities to acquire the information that we 
 mention them, although the philanthropist may consult 
 any of them on an emergency, but that he should learn 
 his own lesson as they have learned theirs, by ex- 
 perience. 
 
 We will now give the new philanthropist a sketch of 
 his duties. When you go amongst the Poor take next 
 to no money with you. No matter in what guise you 
 
xii NATURE AS AN EDUCATOR 195 
 
 go you will be " spotted " ; and from previous education 
 every one of the undeserving - Poor will suspect you to 
 be upon a philanthropic mission, with money to disburse. 
 You will be told by every one whom you approach the 
 most pitiful stories of hardship and poverty imaginable, 
 and if you do not offer money, it will be asked of you. If 
 you remain adamant to these appeals then they will 
 conclude you suspect their sincerity, and on your next 
 visit they will have a "living picture" of poverty 
 arranged for you, and having told their well-concocted 
 story, will insist that you can prove the truth of it by 
 coming with them to see. If you are once weak 
 enough to give them money, you had best leave that 
 district and never return to it. Your usefulness will be 
 gone ; you will never be allowed to recover yourself; 
 you will never be believed in your assertion that you 
 are going to discontinue the habit ; but the distress in 
 that neighbourhood will grow apace and flourish for 
 your benefit. 
 
 When you have thoroughly persuaded all and sundry 
 with whom you come in contact, that you are not going 
 to deal in money on any account, then the pests will 
 leave you ; indeed you will be severely left alone by 
 every person — the honest Poor not desiring money of 
 you, and the dishonest having been refused it. You 
 will then be in a first-class position to study the Poor 
 without molestation. Your next move is to map out 
 the limits of your operations, making them small rather 
 than large, and you will familiarise yourself with your 
 locality by strolling slowly through it while you are 
 studying the population. By this process you will also 
 become recognised by its inhabitants, and when you 
 begin your mission work you will find this of great 
 advantage. If you see a broil, neither run into it nor run 
 away from it. In the first case you do not know 
 enough of its origin to be a judge ; and in the second 
 
 o 2 
 
196 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xn 
 
 case you are not fit to do the Poor any good, if you are 
 not strong enough to look upon their quarrels as calmly 
 and unflinchingly as they look upon them themselves. 
 And further, unless in a case of gross unfairness, make 
 a habit of non-interference. If you interfere between 
 men quarrelling you will create a prejudice against 
 yourself, not only by the combatants, but by the on- 
 lookers, which you will find, by their withdrawing their 
 sympathy from you, will militate against your work. 
 When you have become used to the Poor you will find 
 that fisticuffs, instead of being brutal and degrading, is 
 the most healthful and moral way of settling their 
 disputes. Why we should encourage in our boys at 
 school what we condemn in grown-up men seems 
 strange, but is accounted for by the argument of our 
 own weakness. We are stronger than our youths ; we 
 can endure their little fights because we believe they 
 cannot hurt each other much ; but when they become 
 men and can deal each other blows at which we 
 shudder, then fighting is brutal and degrading. We do 
 not prohibit it because we can no longer bear it, which 
 is the true and only reason we have against it. Pages 
 have been written about the manliness, courage, and 
 moral healthiness that school-fighting teaches boys. 
 How can all these virtues pass from it when it is prac- 
 tised by old boys ? When do the virtues die out of this 
 habit, and the vices grow into it ? Is there any other 
 habit of life that has this chameleon-like quality of 
 changing its merits with age ? And if it does not 
 change, then it must always be vicious, and we should 
 not allow our boys to practise it ; or it must be always 
 virtuous, no matter the age of the belligerents. 
 
 At the school age boys are still much in the hands of 
 Nature ; their inhibitive and reflected faculties are 
 almost dormant ; their energy is great, and urgent to 
 action ; and is only partially restrained by their imper- 
 
xii NATURE AS AN EDUCATOR 197 
 
 feet knowledge of conventional right and wrong. All 
 these things combine to retain in them their naturally 
 high individuality. Their actions are quick to follow 
 their desires, and are mostly selfish. This is quite 
 harmless when they are alone ; they are then subject to 
 Nature's deterrents. But when civilisation compels 
 them to live with a great many other boys, they have 
 to learn the code by which boys live together. 
 No teaching in the world would ever be effective, 
 because their actions are too rapid for reflection. Their 
 lesson might be impressed upon them every day ; in an 
 hour they would break it before they knew, and then for 
 the rest of the day they would be miserable and unhappy. 
 But the boys know a far better way, and copying the 
 Nature that teaches them through pain, they erect 
 combat as a deterrent. Without that, the strong would 
 be bullies and tyrants, the weak, sneaks, liars, and 
 thieves. Every boy in a school where fighting is 
 allowed, knows that if he says or does anything to the 
 hurt of one of his schoolmates, he must do so at the 
 risk of what punishment the injured one can inflict upon 
 him ; and every boy knows he must live himself so 
 morally, according to school morals, that he must be 
 prepared to defend his reputation against every insinu- 
 ation. Thus boys are taught to be truthful ; as they 
 dare not risk a false charge ; they are taught to be 
 courageous, and just : just, to apologise if they have 
 made a false statement ; courageous, to defend the truth 
 when they have proclaimed it. If we had a kind of 
 machinery that would have a similar effect through life 
 upon both men and women ; one that compelled us to be 
 truthful, just, and brave to our neighbours, while at the 
 same time it constrained us to live a life of honour and 
 honesty that we must be prepared at any moment to de- 
 fend ; no matter how harsh it might seem, the world would 
 rise and call it blessed, instead of brutal and degrading. 
 
198 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xn 
 
 If we want to know the value of fisticuffs as a moral 
 agent we have only to compare a boys' school with a 
 girls' school. We have no wish to be severe upon the 
 girls — the fault does not lie with them, but with their 
 system of education— but we know that the recognised 
 untruthfulness, unfairness, and cruelty the sex practises 
 upon its own members is learned as early as, and some- 
 times earlier than, the school age ; when girls find there 
 is no physical punishment to act as a deterrent in their 
 conduct towards each other, they find no natural con- 
 sequences flowing from their actions to guide and 
 restrain them. 
 
 The Poor in many respects are just like schoolboys. 
 They have never learned to express themselves by 
 argument. The expression of their thoughts and in- 
 tentions during their w r orking hours is by action, and 
 the habit is confirmed in them. When they quarrel, 
 they have no language but the personal and offensive 
 kind that only aggravates the matter. They have not 
 been educated to a brain repression that can supplant 
 instantaneous revenge with a permanent dislike and 
 desire for reprisals. A few blows are interchanged 
 (both parties are sufficiently strong to ignore the 
 physical pain), and all is over. The combatants may 
 be separated by friends, or may become immediately 
 afterwards drinking cronies. The cause of the row 
 is past and gone ; neither bears resentment, neither 
 carries away any evil intention against his neighbour. 
 
 The Poor could not live as they do, upon the street, 
 everybody being hail-fellow-well-met with everybody 
 else, unless they had a rough-and-ready method of 
 settling their disputes, and one that acts as a whole- 
 some deterrent against disputes arising. They cannot 
 get away from each other by shutting themselves up 
 in their houses as the classes do, and without that 
 essential, the rest of the plan would only produce a 
 
xii NATURE AS AN EDUCATOR 199 
 
 hell-on-earth among - them. When the better classes 
 quarrel they have the courage to slander, but not to 
 fight. They nurse their resentment for a lifetime ; ever 
 vigilant to do their enemy every harm they can. They 
 leave their feuds to their children as solemn obligations 
 to the dead. They divide their social world, making 
 enemies of all who show any sympathy with their 
 opponent. They widen and widen the area of the 
 feud until whole clans are involved in it. They pride 
 themselves on the steadfastness and durability of their 
 hate. They ruin the lives of children as yet unborn, 
 as in Romeo and Juliet. And all this from no other 
 cause of quarrel than a rash or heedless word, or 
 biting their thumbs at each other. 
 
 If the Poor in a single street made every quarrel a 
 vendetta, sought partisans, and continued the feud 
 every night, would it be a less brutal and degrading 
 spectacle than their present method of settling it at 
 once, and washing away all recollection of it afterwards 
 in a glass of beer? 
 
 These sudden quarrels ot the Poor are never long, 
 because of the fear of the police, and they are generally 
 as harmless as a French duel. But sometimes there 
 are accidents. Sometimes a man gets killed, or his 
 skull fractured by falling on the kerbstone, or an arm 
 or a leg gets broken in the fray. These results are all 
 pure accidents ; but when they get into the papers 
 there is a great outcry about them. But when we take 
 the trouble to average them, we find that there is not 
 recorded a serious accident from fighting more than 
 about once a week ; and there must be among the 
 industrial centres of the country thousands of quarrels 
 every night. During the hunting season there were 
 far more accidents — fatal and maiming — caused by 
 hunting. During the boating season there is an 
 enormously higher death-rate from drowning than 
 
200 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xn 
 
 quarrelling. The proportion of serious hurt from 
 fighting is something next to deaths from railway 
 travelling — something microscopical to the million 
 carried. 
 
 When, therefore, you see a quarrel among the Poor, 
 do not interfere unless there is gross injustice being 
 done ; and should such be the case there will be 
 plenty of others to interfere more effectively than 
 you. But when the combat is over, see to the de- 
 feated. No matter how ugly his wounds may look 
 (if he has got any), do not judge them by their appear- 
 ance, but as the sufferer judges them ; he may be 
 stronger than you. Make light of them if he makes 
 light of them. Should he complain of them, then help 
 him to a surgery to have them attended to. But do 
 not let him get faint-hearted under them. Encourage 
 him to endure, although you do all in your power to 
 heal his wounds. When our little toddling child falls, 
 we pick him up, and see to the wound. When we have 
 satisfied ourselves it is but trifling, we minimise it to 
 him to hush his crying ; we make light of it, to teach 
 him to endure, to be manly and courageous, and not 
 cry at every hurt. Why we do not do so with our 
 fellow-man is because we cannot endure his hurt our- 
 selves. But if we could, and could teach him to do so 
 also, we should raise the point of endurance higher in 
 us all, and to do so is not only to conquer so much 
 distress, but to acquire so much solid virtue — virtue 
 that will not be shown only in physical fortitude, but 
 in every action of our lives, and in every thought that 
 governs our actions. It is our sense of strength 
 that makes us think aright, as it is our weakness 
 that suggests easier courses. 
 
 Should you see a drunkard staggering along the 
 street, follow him until you see if he can navigate 
 himself along without molestation. If he can do so, 
 
xii NATURE AS AN EDUCATOR 201 
 
 you have nothing further to do with him ; if he is 
 incapable, keep him from being- abused until you find 
 a policeman to take care of him. We do not advise 
 this from any lack of sympathy, but from experience 
 we find the station is the safest place for an incapable. 
 There are no rest-houses or shelters for inebriates, 
 but the police station-houses. There, they are in 
 safety, and out of harm's way. There, they have 
 better conditions than at home, as a rule : they have 
 quietude and rest, general supervision, and, if neces- 
 sary, medical attendance. We are informed that it is 
 a general rule with the police, that if the inebriates 
 are unfamiliar to the authorities, and have not been 
 disorderly, they are generally dismissed in the morning 
 without a charge being made against them. If such 
 is the case — and we know it to be the rule in some 
 towns — then you are doing an " incapable " no harm, but 
 good, in giving him into the care of the police. But 
 if the person should happen to be one of those volun- 
 tary sufferers for drink's sake, then you have the 
 advantage of the police's knowledge as well as your 
 own. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE NEW PHILANTHROPIST AS DOCTOR AND NURSE 
 
 The New Philanthropist as Doctor and Nurse — A continuation of 
 
 his duties. 
 
 When you feel strong enough to take up your work, 
 your first duty is to cultivate the acquaintance of all 
 and sundry on your beat — the street-corner men, the 
 loafers, the police and shopkeepers ; the drunkards, 
 thieves, and harlots. Not by specially seeking them 
 out, but by having a cheery word for everybody you 
 meet. You must always be ready to enter into con- 
 versation with them on a footing of perfect equality and 
 friendship, because it is through them you will know 
 where the true distress is. You must put aside all 
 your prejudices, and bury for the time being all your 
 class morality ; you must put on your armour of strength, 
 and say f< I will do no wrong." And unless you feel 
 you can talk to anybody and everybody without 
 being defiled, you are not yet strong enough ; and 
 unless you feel you can resist what you hold to be 
 wrong, even when desirous for sympathy's sake, you 
 are not yet strong enough. And further, until you 
 can suppress the desire to advocate your own morality, 
 
xin THE NEW PHILANTHROPIST 203 
 
 as a prophylacterie against the strange doctrines you 
 will hear, you are not yet strong enough. You must 
 not talk morality to the Poor, or they will at once 
 suspect the cloven hoof of the mission, and all 
 sympathy between you will be gone. But you will get 
 plenty of opportunities without seeking them. They 
 will appeal to you readily as to the right or wrong of 
 their actions. Then you can tell them what you would 
 do, and what you would not do ; but you must not 
 condemn. You will find no one will press you to do 
 anything you say you cannot do for conscience sake ; 
 but on the other hand, you are not to expect that your 
 refusal should so influence them that they also will 
 forego the action, whatever it might be. That will 
 often happen, but not always. More commonly they 
 will not offend you by doing it in your presence. Do 
 not deduce from that that they are not guilty of it in 
 your absence, and finding such to be the case get 
 angry. 
 
 When you have gained their confidence, and when 
 they have come to know you, then they will tell you 
 of the true cases of distress in your neighbourhood, 
 and as long as you do not give them any money you 
 may rely upon the cases they point out to you being 
 genuine ; and further, as long as you show you are 
 prepared to give time and trouble to help them to bear 
 their burdens, their sympathies will be with you, and 
 they will be very jealous of who requires your services, 
 to see that you are not imposed upon. When you 
 break this rule, there will be a scramble among them 
 who will get your ear first, to get your largesse. 
 
 If you are informed of a workman being out of work, 
 interest yourself in him. Find out what his occupation 
 is, and where he worked last. Inquire among your 
 friends where such kind of work is likely to be had, 
 but do not give him money to live upon in the mean- 
 
2o 4 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xm 
 
 time ; give him encouragement and work — work in 
 finding - out where work is to be had. See him every 
 day until he is successful, and when you find he is 
 coming near extreme poverty, ask an employer to give 
 him work for a fortnight, and you will pay the employer 
 what difference he will require as between what the 
 man is worth and the standard rate of wages : a fort- 
 night or a month according to your means, but never 
 more than a month at a time. When your object 
 becomes known, many employers will oblige you 
 without asking any money from you, if you do not 
 abuse their kindness by sending too many idle men to 
 them. The workman is not to know of your arrange- 
 ment, neither are the workmen in the employers' service, 
 When you have found work for your unemployed, you 
 do not tell him so, but give him the address as a likely 
 place to find work, and get him to promise to call. 
 Then you will know whether he is desirous of work 
 or not. If he calls he will get employment, and if you 
 still find him idle, he has evidently not applied. The 
 reason why we limit his employment at your expense to 
 a fortnight, is because two or three weeks' wages will 
 start him again to look for work on his own account, 
 and the cost to you will be no more than if you had 
 given him money, even a shilling a day when you first 
 found him unemployed. Remember that, in dealing 
 with a wage-earner, there are always two motives 
 working in him, that make him more reluctant to 
 search for work than an employee of the other classes. 
 The change from labour to leisure is more grateful to 
 him than to the warehouseman or clerk. The social 
 stigma of idleness in their case, soon to be seen in the 
 reduced economy of the household, does not affect him ; 
 and so the excitement that counteracts his economy of 
 effort is wanting ; and from his habit of looking to 
 be paid for everything he does, he weighs the proba- 
 
xiii THE NEW PHILANTHROPIST 205 
 
 bility of success of any and every exertion he is asked 
 to make, with a strong prejudice against it, a prejudice 
 he makes no effort to overcome, unless he is almost 
 assured it will be successful. Against this inertia the 
 workman must always be stimulated. There are many 
 we have known, capable of retaining their work when 
 it has been found for them, but unable to overcome 
 their disinclination to look for fresh work when out of a 
 job. The charity of a shilling a night to some of these 
 to get them a supper and breakfast, to fit them to look 
 for work the next day, has often made them contented 
 to remain idle if their clothes were good, and their bed 
 sure ; and the slightest expression upon your part to 
 look for work for a man will instantaneously make 
 him drop all effort on his own account, in addition to 
 holding you responsible, as it were, for his continued 
 idleness if you fail. When you have got a workman 
 employment in the manner we have suggested, the 
 employer will be the best man to tell you if he be 
 worthy of further solicitude. If he be a good and 
 willing workman, the employer may find room for him 
 on his permanent staff ; but if that is impossible, you 
 will have confidence in recommending him to some 
 other employer. 
 
 In regard to your use of money that is only employed 
 in cases, not only of great necessity, but when all other 
 plans fail. Resist the temptation to escape from their 
 suffering by giving them money to relieve it. When you 
 have to give them money it must always be in conjunc- 
 tion with your services to see them through their 
 trouble, not instead of doing so. All the money you 
 will require to use will be very little. Remember 
 always, you are acting towards them as one of them- 
 selves, ready with your services and better knowledge 
 to help them through their troubles. They never have, 
 themselves, more than a shilling or so, and so you are 
 
>o6 
 
 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS 
 
 XIII 
 
 not required to have any more either. Always expend 
 the money yourself, that is, purchase for them the things 
 they require, thing's they absolutely cannot do without, 
 and that there is no other way of getting. It is not 
 from want of confidence in the Poor we advise this. 
 The mission-philanthropist could not trust the Poor 
 with money because it generally went in drink. This 
 was because he could not tell genuine from fraudulent 
 distress, and most cases were fraudulent because the 
 philanthropist could not himself endure distress ; and so, 
 like a coward in face of it, or a harrowing tale of it, he 
 paid the money and ran away. Your reasons are 
 different. Your cases are genuine, and your confidence 
 firm, and, further, you are not afraid of suffering ; but 
 there is this : your idea of the purchasing power of 
 money, and that of the Poor is different. In your 
 economy, a half a crown does not go far ; but with the 
 Poor a shilling will go further. The rich philanthropist 
 who gives money to the Poor does so according to his 
 own valuation of money, not theirs. A shilling is thrown 
 to one, where a few coppers were all that was required ; 
 half a crown where a shilling would suffice, and so on. 
 Then the desire for money springs up anew. When the 
 Poor have satisfied their legitimate demands from money 
 thus received, the overplus is very agreeable spending ; 
 so agreeable that it becomes their paramount desire, to 
 which all things must serve ; and their future distresses 
 come thick and fast, to be dressed up with an eye to 
 securing the greatest surplus for future enjoyment. 
 
 It is so difficult, you may never be able to know what 
 is the purchasing value of money to the Poor, and for 
 that reason you must buy yourself the things they stand 
 in need of. 
 
 All cases that are of greater magnitude than can be 
 met by temporary relief of the slightest kind, are not 
 for temporary assistance, but to be dealt with perma- 
 
xin THE NEW PHILANTHROPIST 207 
 
 nently by the proper parties. Temporary relief not 
 only does no good, but because it is pleasant, creates a 
 reluctance on the part of the Poor to face a permanent 
 settlement of their difficulties. A woman who may be 
 suddenly left destitute, either by the death or desertion 
 of her husband, and who is unable to work for her 
 family, cannot be kept for life on personal charity. 
 Whether a settlement of her case is made by an allow, 
 ance being granted by her relatives, or she has to go to 
 the workhouse, the matter should be gone into and 
 settled at once. The woman is in no wise benefited by 
 temporary aliment ; on the contrary, as charity is likely 
 to be more generous to her than her permanent settle- 
 ment, she will be, because of it, more reluctant to enter 
 the latter, and discontented when she does. It is there- 
 fore your duty in this and all other cases of distress not 
 to think of temporary relief, but to set in action at once 
 the permanent cure for them. This is the keynote of 
 your whole position. Their sufferings will absorb them 
 to the exclusion almost of the power of action ; even if 
 they knew the right course to follow, their weakness 
 under distress would always suggest to them temporary 
 and immediate relief, without consideration of after 
 effect or permanent good. It is your place to supply to 
 them the strength their sufferings have robbed them of. 
 What is that in social life but active sympathy ? But 
 your sympathy must not only be active, it must be 
 experienced, full of knowledge and power, practised in 
 ready resources against emergencies, and acquainted 
 with all the permanent methods of relief that legally 
 exist. You are the person who comes to them fresh and 
 strong, to give their case your clear, unafHicted brain, 
 to give them your well-stored energy, to put to their use 
 your knowledge of their case and its cure, and to see 
 the latter entered upon and pursued to the end. You 
 are, in fact, to be both their physician and nurse, but 
 
2o8 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xm 
 
 more their nurse. The doctor sometimes himself falls 
 sick, and becomes so weak mentally and physically, that 
 although he knows what his case requires he has not 
 the strength to follow his own prescription. It is the 
 nurse that supplies the strength, that does such work 
 for him as he could not do for himself, that raises him in 
 her arms, and helps him to do things he otherwise were 
 unequal to. With all his knowledge, he would be in 
 danger of death without the strength the nurse supplies 
 him with. This is the true case with the Poor and the 
 friends who would help them ; it is only strength they 
 want. Every man and woman knows how they would 
 contend with their misfortunes if they had but the 
 strength ; but the plans they can all solve, and the 
 difficulties they can overcome, while these difficulties are 
 at a distance, are no longer possible to them when a 
 difficulty is upon them. They had forgotten, that with 
 the distress upon them, they would be weakened so by 
 it that they would not have the strength to pursue their 
 plan. They generally find they are so prostrated by 
 their suffering, as to be incapable of thinking of plans of 
 any kind, and shudder even at the contemplation of any 
 part in one they may be required to perform. But when 
 a friend restores to them that which they have lost — the 
 cool brain to consider their case, as they did when it was 
 afar off, and the energy and vigour of body to carry it 
 out ; to do for the sufferers what they are no longer able 
 to do for themselves, to help them to do as much for 
 themselves as they can — then their energy quickly comes 
 back ; their minds are lifted from their troubles, to 
 become interested in the success of their efforts, and 
 their difficulties soon vanish. 
 
 Thus, while it is your duty to qualify yourself, as far as 
 you can, to be a physician of the Poor ; to know where 
 work may be found when it is wanted, and to learn how 
 best to settle the troubles that you are likely to meet 
 
xin THE NEW PHILANTHROPIST 209 
 
 with during - your work, still you will find the most 
 effective part of your services will be in the character of 
 nurse, or the lending- the Poor the strength they have 
 been temporarily deprived of by their sufferings. 
 
 It is essential, therefore, that you yourself, to be 
 qualified for your duties, should be always strong ; and 
 in the cultivation of strength and endurance, you will 
 find a personal reward unequalled by any other thing in 
 the world. Do not undertake more than you can do, 
 nor give way to enthusiasm. In the first place if you 
 over-tire yourself there will be a reaction, and in your 
 temporary weakness you will become disheartened. 
 Enthusiasm brings disillusionment. Neither go among 
 the Poor when you are cross or ill-tempered. As your 
 work is absolutely voluntary, you have no need to go 
 among the Poor unless when you are prepared to lend 
 them your strength, willingly and cheerfully. Do not 
 talk to anybody about your work — that is a form of 
 weakness whereby we desire to get full credit for our 
 good works from our friends ; but in this case it is the 
 Poor who will reward you, in addition to the satisfaction 
 you will have at seeing the progress of your work. 
 There is nothing more just than that it is the person 
 who receives a benefit whose secret the transaction 
 should become ; and the Poor will talk plenty of your 
 good deeds. Your business will soon become known ; 
 it cannot hide. All in your neighbourhood will know, 
 and all whose acquaintance you cultivate for the 
 services they may be able to render you, will know. 
 Let that be enough of publicity. Do not talk about 
 your work as a duty, do not look upon it as such. 
 When you begin to talk and think so, you are tiring of 
 it, and losing strength. Think always of it as a pleasure, 
 one you would like to pursue further if you had the 
 strength, one that, like the gymnasium, is a good 
 exercise for your strength and endurance, and, therefore, 
 
 p 
 
210 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xm 
 
 one that is enjoyable in proportion to the strength and 
 endurance you bring to meet it. 
 
 The next stage in the education of the Poor is co- 
 operation. When the honest Poor have had ex- 
 perience, how by help and encouragement to face the 
 difficulties of their lives, they will practise helping each 
 other, without calling on the services of the philan- 
 thropist. Having learned that it is only temporary 
 strength they require, this they can supply to each other 
 as occasion necessitates. Conjoined with the pleasure ot 
 helping each other, the helpers will take every care that 
 they require no assistance themselves, and so because 
 help is everywhere no one will seek it, if possible. 
 When this stage is reached, and taking for granted 
 that the better classes are progressing in strength 
 equally with the Poor, we will have attained to the 
 Natural conditions, as far as civilisation will allow us, 
 from which we have departed, namely, that everybody 
 should bear their own burdens, without inflicting 
 trouble and annoyance upon their neighbours. 
 
 What sort of society shall we then have when the 
 honest Poor have succeeded in contending with the 
 difficulties of their lives, with no more than natural 
 assistance? There will be no charity for the undeserv- 
 ing Poor to live upon. They, too, whether they like it 
 or not, must bear the burden of their own lives. In 
 such a case, by Natural law they will make these 
 burdens as light as possible. However little it may be 
 at first, they will work, and tiring of the too fine 
 economy of a small wage, they will work more and 
 more until they reach their capacity of continuous 
 labour. They will then rank as industrious Poor, and 
 begin to gather strength with them, merge into them, 
 and march with them. For the first time the industrious 
 Poor will become a class ; not with social laws, rivalries, 
 
xin THE NEW PHILANTHROPIST 211 
 
 and social morality, but in so far as there will be a broad 
 line of demarcation between them and the idle and lazy, 
 and this line they will have a natural instinct in keeping 
 as well defined as possible. Not so, however, those who 
 are outside of it. It will confer upon them a greater 
 prominence than they care to accept. None of them 
 are strong enough to endure the reputation of being 
 called pariahs. They, too, will seek refuge among the 
 workers, and become workers with them. Hitherto 
 the undeserving poor have flourished, because neither 
 society nor civilisation could distinguish between them 
 and the honest, but when we have secured the 
 honest Poor from distress, then the others will find 
 their occupation gone. There will be no beggars, no 
 tramps, no street singers or other nuisances. The 
 submerged tenth will then onlv consist of those who 
 have a legitimate occupation, and can make a living as 
 odd jobmen. And, last of all, the drunkard will fall into 
 line also. Not the old and debilitated of the present 
 age, whose only hope is to drink themselves into their 
 graves comfortably ; but as the young gather strength 
 they will have less need for stimulants, and as their 
 need for it becomes less, its deterrents will appear more 
 formidable ; when their need for it is not very great, its 
 expensiveness will strike them as too unequal to its 
 service, and a disinclination will grow in them against 
 it, until they feel they can do wholly without it. 
 
 There are only two ways of contending with distress ; 
 by purchasing freedom from it ; or by striving with it 
 and conquering it. As the former is the system upon 
 which civilisation is based, it is not to be wondered an 
 that her philosophers cannot think outside of their own 
 condition of life, and its habits. Within a few days of 
 each other, lately, a Conservative statesman, a Radical 
 leader, a Nonconformist clergyman, and a Labour 
 agitator have all made public their various panaceas 
 
212 THE POOR AND THEIR HAPPINESS xm 
 
 for industrial and social distress. There is a family 
 resemblance in the principles of them all, the details 
 alone giving - them their differentiation. They all in 
 various forms subsidise the able-bodied workmen, 
 relieve them of the expenses of bringing up their 
 children, and reward them for their incapacity to 
 provide for themselves at any time of their lives, by 
 providing wholly for them in their old age. Thus from 
 the cradle to the grave, the industrial classes are to be 
 supported beyond their own powers of production. 
 Whether this is done by the various suggestions of 
 artificial wages, government grants and exemptions, 
 or direct spoliation, does not matter to the workman. 
 His business in future will be to create distress, so as to 
 increase his subsidy, and the evil will become greater 
 instead of less. On the other hand, to be able to avoid 
 the manufacture of it, and to contend with that which 
 is unavoidable, all that each individual requires is a little 
 strength. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, L1MITFD, LONDON AND BUNGAY. 
 
WORKS BY CHARLES BOOTH. 
 
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