Walk in a Workhouse
ON a certain Sunday, I formed one of the congregation assembled in
the chapel of a large metropolitan Workhouse. With the exception
of the clergyman and clerk, and a very few officials, there were
none but paupers present. The children sat in the galleries; the
women in the body of the chapel, and in one of the side aisles; the
men in the remaining aisle. The service was decorously performed,
though the sermon might have been much better adapted to the
comprehension and to the circumstances of the hearers. The usual
supplications were offered, with more than the usual significancy
in such a place, for the fatherless children and widows, for all
sick persons and young children, for all that were desolate and
oppressed, for the comforting and helping of the weak-hearted, for
the raising-up of them that had fallen; for all that were in
danger, necessity, and tribulation. The prayers of the
congregation were desired 'for several persons in the various wards
dangerously ill;' and others who were recovering returned their
thanks to Heaven.
Among this congregation, were some evil-looking young women, and
beetle-browed young men; but not many - perhaps that kind of
characters kept away. Generally, the faces (those of the children
excepted) were depressed and subdued, and wanted colour. Aged
people were there, in every variety. Mumbling, blear-eyed,
spectacled, stupid, deaf, lame; vacantly winking in the gleams of
sun that now and then crept in through the open doors, from the
paved yard; shading their listening ears, or blinking eyes, with
their withered hands; poring over their books, leering at nothing,
going to sleep, crouching and drooping in corners. There were
weird old women, all skeleton within, all bonnet and cloak without,
continually wiping their eyes with dirty dusters of pocket-
handkerchiefs; and there were ugly old crones, both male and
female, with a ghastly kind of contentment upon them which was not
at all comforting to see. Upon the whole, it was the dragon,
Pauperism, in a very weak and impotent condition; toothless,
fangless, drawing his breath heavily enough, and hardly worth
chaining up.
When the service was over, I walked with the humane and
conscientious gentleman whose duty it was to take that walk, that
Sunday morning, through the little world of poverty enclosed within
the workhouse walls. It was inhabited by a population of some
fifteen hundred or two thousand paupers, ranging from the infant
newly born or not yet come into the pauper world, to the old man
dying on his bed.
In a room opening from a squalid yard, where a number of listless
women were lounging to and fro, trying to get warm in the
ineffectual sunshine of the tardy May morning - in the 'Itch Ward,'
not to compromise the truth - a woman such as HOGARTH has often
drawn, was hurriedly getting on her gown before a dusty fire. She
was the nurse, or wardswoman, of that insalubrious department -
herself a pauper - flabby, raw-boned, untidy - unpromising and
coarse of aspect as need be. But, on being spoken to about the
patients whom she had in charge, she turned round, with her shabby
gown half on, half off, and fell a crying with all her might. Not
for show, not querulously, not in any mawkish sentiment, but in the
deep grief and affliction of her heart; turning away her
dishevelled head: sobbing most bitterly, wringing her hands, and
letting fall abundance of great tears, that choked her utterance.
What was the matter with the nurse of the itch-ward? Oh, 'the
dropped child' was dead! Oh, the child that was found in the
street, and she had brought up ever since, had died an hour ago,
and see where the little creature lay, beneath this cloth! The
dear, the pretty dear!
The dropped child seemed too small and poor a thing for Death to be
in earnest with, but Death had taken it; and already its diminutive
form was neatly washed, composed, and stretched as if in sleep upon
a box. I thought I heard a voice from Heaven saying, It shall be
well for thee, O nurse of the itch-ward, when some less gentle
pauper does those offices to thy cold form, that such as the
dropped child are the angels who behold my Father's face!
In another room, were several ugly old women crouching, witch-like,
round a hearth, and chattering and nodding, after the manner of the
monkeys. 'All well here? And enough to eat?' A general
chattering and chuckling; at last an answer from a volunteer. 'Oh
yes, gentleman! Bless you, gentleman! Lord bless the Parish of
St. So-and-So! It feed the hungry, sir, and give drink to the
thusty, and it warm them which is cold, so it do, and good luck to
the parish of St. So-and-So, and thankee, gentleman!' Elsewhere, a
party of pauper nurses were at dinner. 'How do YOU get on?' 'Oh
pretty well, sir! We works hard, and we lives hard - like the
sodgers!'
In another room, a kind of purgatory or place of transition, six or
eight noisy madwomen were gathered together, under the
superintendence of one sane attendant. Among them was a girl of
two or three and twenty, very prettily dressed, of most respectable
appearance and good manners, who had been brought in from the house
where she had lived as domestic servant (having, I suppose, no
friends), on account of being subject to epileptic fits, and
requiring to be removed under the influence of a very bad one. She
was by no means of the same stuff, or the same breeding, or the
same experience, or in the same state of mind, as those by whom she
was surrounded; and she pathetically complained that the daily
association and the nightly noise made her worse, and was driving
her mad - which was perfectly evident. The case was noted for
inquiry and redress, but she said she had already been there for
some weeks.
If this girl had stolen her mistress's watch, I do not hesitate to
say she would have been infinitely better off. We have come to
this absurd, this dangerous, this monstrous pass, that the
dishonest felon is, in respect of cleanliness, order, diet, and
accommodation, better provided for, and taken care of, than the
honest pauper.
And this conveys no special imputation on the workhouse of the
parish of St. So-and-So, where, on the contrary, I saw many things
to commend. It was very agreeable, recollecting that most infamous
and atrocious enormity committed at Tooting - an enormity which, a
hundred years hence, will still be vividly remembered in the bye-
ways of English life, and which has done more to engender a gloomy
discontent and suspicion among many thousands of the people than
all the Chartist leaders could have done in all their lives - to
find the pauper children in this workhouse looking robust and well,
and apparently the objects of very great care. In the Infant
School - a large, light, airy room at the top of the building - the
little creatures, being at dinner, and eating their potatoes
heartily, were not cowed by the presence of strange visitors, but
stretched out their small hands to be shaken, with a very pleasant
confidence. And it was comfortable to see two mangy pauper
rocking-horses rampant in a corner. In the girls' school, where
the dinner was also in progress, everything bore a cheerful and
healthy aspect. The meal was over, in the boys' school, by the
time of our arrival there, and the room was not yet quite
rearranged; but the boys were roaming unrestrained about a large
and airy yard, as any other schoolboys might have done. Some of
them had been drawing large ships upon the schoolroom wall; and if
they had a mast with shrouds and stays set up for practice (as they
have in the Middlesex House of Correction), it would be so much the
better. At present, if a boy should feel a strong impulse upon him
to learn the art of going aloft, he could only gratify it, I
presume, as the men and women paupers gratify their aspirations
after better board and lodging, by smashing as many workhouse
windows as possible, and being promoted to prison.
In one place, the Newgate of the Workhouse, a company of boys and
youths were locked up in a yard alone; their day-room being a kind
of kennel where the casual poor used formerly to be littered down
at night. Divers of them had been there some long time. 'Are they
never going away?' was the natural inquiry. 'Most of them are
crippled, in some form or other,' said the Wardsman, 'and not fit
for anything.' They slunk about, like dispirited wolves or
hyaenas; and made a pounce at their food when it was served out,
much as those animals do. The big-headed idiot shuffling his feet
along the pavement, in the sunlight outside, was a more agreeable
object everyway.
Groves of babies in arms; groves of mothers and other sick women in
bed; groves of lunatics; jungles of men in stone-paved down-stairs
day-rooms, waiting for their dinners; longer and longer groves of
old people, in up-stairs Infirmary wards, wearing out life, God
knows how - this was the scenery through which the walk lay, for
two hours. In some of these latter chambers, there were pictures
stuck against the wall, and a neat display of crockery and pewter
on a kind of sideboard; now and then it was a treat to see a plant
or two; in almost every ward there was a cat.
In all of these Long Walks of aged and infirm, some old people were
bedridden, and had been for a long time; some were sitting on their
beds half-naked; some dying in their beds; some out of bed, and
sitting at a table near the fire. A sullen or lethargic
indifference to what was asked, a blunted sensibility to everything
but warmth and food, a moody absence of complaint as being of no
use, a dogged silence and resentful desire to be left alone again,
I thought were generally apparent. On our walking into the midst
of one of these dreary perspectives of old men, nearly the
following little dialogue took place, the nurse not being
immediately at hand:
'All well here?'
No answer. An old man in a Scotch cap sitting among others on a
form at the table, eating out of a tin porringer, pushes back his
cap a little to look at us, claps it down on his forehead again
with the palm of his hand, and goes on eating.
'All well here?' (repeated).
No answer. Another old man sitting on his bed, paralytically
peeling a boiled potato, lifts his head and stares.
'Enough to eat?'
No answer. Another old man, in bed, turns himself and coughs.
'How are YOU to-day?' To the last old man.
That old man says nothing; but another old man, a tall old man of
very good address, speaking with perfect correctness, comes forward
from somewhere, and volunteers an answer. The reply almost always
proceeds from a volunteer, and not from the person looked at or
spoken to.
'We are very old, sir,' in a mild, distinct voice. 'We can't
expect to be well, most of us.'
'Are you comfortable?'
'I have no complaint to make, sir.' With a half shake of his head,
a half shrug of his shoulders, and a kind of apologetic smile.
'Enough to eat?'
'Why, sir, I have but a poor appetite,' with the same air as
before; 'and yet I get through my allowance very easily.'
'But,' showing a porringer with a Sunday dinner in it; 'here is a
portion of mutton, and three potatoes. You can't starve on that?'
'Oh dear no, sir,' with the same apologetic air. 'Not starve.'
'What do you want?'
'We have very little bread, sir. It's an exceedingly small
quantity of bread.'
The nurse, who is now rubbing her hands at the questioner's elbow,
interferes with, 'It ain't much raly, sir. You see they've only
six ounces a day, and when they've took their breakfast, there CAN
only be a little left for night, sir.'
Another old man, hitherto invisible, rises out of his bed-clothes,
as out of a grave, and looks on.
'You have tea at night?' The questioner is still addressing the
well-spoken old man.
'Yes, sir, we have tea at night.'
'And you save what bread you can from the morning, to eat with it?'
'Yes, sir - if we can save any.'
'And you want more to eat with it?'
'Yes, sir.' With a very anxious face.
The questioner, in the kindness of his heart, appears a little
discomposed, and changes the subject.
'What has become of the old man who used to lie in that bed in the
corner?'
The nurse don't remember what old man is referred to. There has
been such a many old men. The well-spoken old man is doubtful.
The spectral old man who has come to life in bed, says, 'Billy
Stevens.' Another old man who has previously had his head in the
fireplace, pipes out,
'Charley Walters.'
Something like a feeble interest is awakened. I suppose Charley
Walters had conversation in him.
'He's dead,' says the piping old man.
Another old man, with one eye screwed up, hastily displaces the
piping old man, and says.
'Yes! Charley Walters died in that bed, and - and - '
'Billy Stevens,' persists the spectral old man.
'No, no! and Johnny Rogers died in that bed, and - and - they're
both on 'em dead - and Sam'l Bowyer;' this seems very extraordinary
to him; 'he went out!'
With this he subsides, and all the old men (having had quite enough
of it) subside, and the spectral old man goes into his grave again,
and takes the shade of Billy Stevens with him.
As we turn to go out at the door, another previously invisible old
man, a hoarse old man in a flannel gown, is standing there, as if
he had just come up through the floor.
'I beg your pardon, sir, could I take the liberty of saying a
word?'
'Yes; what is it?'
'I am greatly better in my health, sir; but what I want, to get me
quite round,' with his hand on his throat, 'is a little fresh air,
sir. It has always done my complaint so much good, sir. The
regular leave for going out, comes round so seldom, that if the
gentlemen, next Friday, would give me leave to go out walking, now
and then - for only an hour or so, sir! - '
Who could wonder, looking through those weary vistas of bed and
infirmity, that it should do him good to meet with some other
scenes, and assure himself that there was something else on earth?
Who could help wondering why the old men lived on as they did; what
grasp they had on life; what crumbs of interest or occupation they
could pick up from its bare board; whether Charley Walters had ever
described to them the days when he kept company with some old
pauper woman in the bud, or Billy Stevens ever told them of the
time when he was a dweller in the far-off foreign land called Home!
The morsel of burnt child, lying in another room, so patiently, in
bed, wrapped in lint, and looking steadfastly at us with his bright
quiet eyes when we spoke to him kindly, looked as if the knowledge
of these things, and of all the tender things there are to think
about, might have been in his mind - as if he thought, with us,
that there was a fellow-feeling in the pauper nurses which appeared
to make them more kind to their charges than the race of common
nurses in the hospitals - as if he mused upon the Future of some
older children lying around him in the same place, and thought it
best, perhaps, all things considered, that he should die - as if he
knew, without fear, of those many coffins, made and unmade, piled
up in the store below - and of his unknown friend, 'the dropped
child,' calm upon the box-lid covered with a cloth. But there was
something wistful and appealing, too, in his tiny face, as if, in
the midst of all the hard necessities and incongruities he pondered
on, he pleaded, in behalf of the helpless and the aged poor, for a
little more liberty - and a little more bread.
-THE END-
Charles Dickens' short story: Walk in a Workhouse
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