66

THE COMING SLAVERY.

THE kinship of pity to love is shown among other ways in this, that it idealizes its object. Sympathy with one in suffering suppresses, for the time being, remembrance of his transgressions. The feeling which vents itself in poor fellow!" on seeing one in agony, excludes the thought of "bad fellow," which might at another time arise. Naturally, then, if the wretched are unknown or but vaguely known, all the demerits they may have are ignored; and thus it happens that when, as just now, the miseries of the poor are depicted, they are thought of as the miseries of the deserving poor, instead of being thought of, as in large measure they should be, as the miseries of the undeserving poor. Those whose hardships are set forth in pamphlets and proclaimed in sermons and speeches which echo throughout society are assumed to be all worthy souls, grievously wronged, and none of them are thought of as bearing the penalties of their one misdeeds.

On hailing a cab in a London street, it is surprising how generally the door is officiously opened by one who expects to get something for his trouble. The surprise lessens after

counting the many loungers about taverndoors, or after observing the quickness with which a street-performance, or procession, draws from neighboring slums and stableyards a group of idlers. Seeing how numerous they are in every small area, it becomes manifest that tens of thousands of such swarm through London. They have no work," you say. Say rather that they either refuse work or quickly turn themselves out of it. They are simply good-for-nothings, who in one way or other live on the good-forsomethings-vagrants and sots, criminals and those on the way to crime, youths who are burdens on hard-worked parents, men who appropriate the wages of their wives, fellows who share the gains of prostitutes; and then, less visible and less numerous, there is a corresponding class of women.

Is it natural that happiness should be the lot of such? or is it natural that they should bring unhappiness on themselves and those connected with them? Is it not manifest that there must exist in our midst an immense amount of misery which is a normal result of misconduct and ought not to be dissociated from it? There is a notion, always more or less prevalent and just now vociferously expressed, that all social suffering is removable, and that it is the duty of somebody or other to remove it.

Both these beliefs are false. To separate pain from ill-doing is to fight against the constitution of things, and will be followed by

far more pain. Saving men from the natural penalties of reckless living eventually necessitates the infliction of artificial penalties in solitary cells, on tread-wheels, and by the lash. I suppose a dictum on which the current creed and the creed of science are at one may be considered to have as high an authority as can be found. Well, the command "if any would not work neither should he eat" is simply a Christian enunciation of that universal law of Nature under which life has reached its present height-the law that a creature not energetic enough to maintain itself must die; the sole difference being that the law which in the one case is to be artificially enforced is, in the other case, a natural necessity. And yet this particular tenet of their religion which science so manifestly justifies is the one which Christians seem least inclined to accept. The current assumption is that there should be no suffering, and that society is to blame for that which exists.

"But surely we are not without responsibilities, even when the suffering is that of the unworthy?"

If the meaning of the word "we" be so expanded as to include with ourselves our ancestors, and especially our ancestral legislators,

I

agree. I admit that those who made, and modified, and administered, the old poor-law, were responsible for producing an appalling amount of demoralization, which it will take more than one generation to remove. I admit, too, the partial responsibility of recent.

and present law-makers for regulations which have brought into being a permanent body of tramps, who ramble from union to union; and also their responsibility for maintaining a constant supply of felons by sending back convicts into society under such conditions that they are almost compelled again to commit crimes. Moreover, I admit that the philanthropic are not without their share of responsibility; since, while anxiously aiding the offspring of the unworthy, they do nothing for the offspring of the worthy save burdening their parents by increased local rates. Nay, I even admit that these swarms of good-fornothings, fostered and multiplied by public and private agencies, have, by sundry mischievous meddlings, been made to suffer more than they they would otherwise have suffered. Are these the responsibilities meant? I suspect not.

But now, leaving the question of responsibilities, however conceived, and considering only the evil itself, what shall we say of its treatment? Let me begin with a fact.

A late uncle of mine, the Rev. Thomas Spencer, for some twenty years incumbent of Hinton Charterhouse, near Bath, no sooner entered on his parish duties than he proved himself anxious for the welfare of the poor, by establishing a school, a library, a clothing club, and land-allotments, besides building some model cottages. Moreover, up to 1833 he was a pauper's friend-always for the

pauper against the overseer. There presently came, however, the debates on the poor-law, which impressed him with the evils of the system then in force. Though an ardent philanthropist, he was not a timid sentimentalist. The result was that, immediately the new poor-law was passed, he proceeded to carry out its provisions in his parish. Almost universal opposition was encountered by him; not the poor only being his opponents, but even the farmers on whom came the burden of heavy poor-rates. For, strange to say, their interests had become apparently identified with maintenance of this system which taxed them so largely. The explanation is, that there had grown up the practice of paying out of the rates a part of the wages of each farm-servant-"make-wages,' as the sum was called. And though the farmers contributed most of the fund out of which "make-wages" were paid, yet, since all other rate-payers contributed, the farmers seemed to gain by the arrangement. My uncle, however, not easily deterred, faced all this opposition and enforced the law. The result was that in two years the rates were reduced from £700 a year to £200 a year, while the condition of the parish was greatly improved. 66 Those who had hitherto loitered at the corners of the streets, or at the doors of the beershops, had something else to do, and one after another they obtained employment"; so that, out of a population of eight hundred, only fifteen had to be sent as incapable paupers to