XIV. A Pleading for the Worthless

A PLEADING FOR THE WORTHLESS, (Fortnightly Rcvieu; 188P.I

The workless and thriftless have had their sentence. Let me plead now for the worthless. There was once a commonwealth in which every wrong against a neigh bour was judged and punished, not only as a wron"- against man, but also against a higher law. The lord of the harvest did not glean his fields, nor did the master of the vineyard and of the olive-yard go twice over the vines and the olive-trees. The gleaning and the after-gathering were for the poor, the widow, and the orphan. Usury was unlawful. The lender might take a pledge for repayment of a loan, but he might not take the stone by which the borrower ground his corn, nor the cloak in which he slept at night. If taken in pledge by day, it was to be restored by nightfall. Every fifty years all prison-doors were opened, all debts absolved, all lands returned to the rightful heir. Even the lower animals shared in the generous equity of the common law. The ox was not muzzled when he trod out the corn, and he rested on the seventh day.

And yet this commonwealth was not Christian, nor the unconscious inheritor of Christian civilisation.

Does history tell us that such words as follow could, without aberration of mind, have been addressed to such a commonwealth?

"It seems almost incredible that in wealthy Eng land, at the close of the nineteenth century, so much destitution should exist; and, still more, that vagrancy and mendicity should so prevail. It may be well asked, Is this the grand total result of the wisdom of our legislators, the efforts of our philanthropists, the Christianity of our Churches: that our streets are infested with miserable creatures, from whose faces almost everything purely human has been erased, whose very presence would put us to shame but for familiarity with the sight — poor wretches, filthy in body, foul in speech, and vile in spirit— human vermin? Yes, but of our own manufacture; for every individual of this mass was once an innocent child. Society has made them what they are, not only by a selfish indulgence in indiscriminate almsgiving, but by permitting bad laws to exist, and good laws to be so administered as to crush the weak, and wreck the lives of the unfortunate.1"

But these words have been publicly written as an impeachment of Christian and civilised London. The justice of the impeachment cannot be denied.

I. My purpose is to trace out the causes of this monstrous wreck of humanity, and to see how far we are responsible for the creation of these dangerous and pitiable outcasts from our Christianity and our civilisa tion.

1. The first cause of this social wreckage is the destruction of domestic life. A large proportion of i Working Thriftlut, Worthless. By Francis Peck. Contemporary Eeviev, January 1888.

the people in London are herded in places not fit for human habitation. While the Koyal Commission on the Housing of the Poor was sitting, efforts were made again and again to set on foot an inquiry as to the number of the people who were thus inhumanly housed. Such an inquiry was held to be impossible. The reason of this reply I have never been able to ascertain. But Governments seem to shrink from the trouble or the expense of inquiry. If there be any impiety in numbering the people, as some good men said at the time of the first census, there can be no impiety in numbering the miserable. The number of families living in one only room is less indeed now than a few years ago; but the number of families of from five to ten persons living in two rooms — fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, of all ages, and sometimes with lodgers — is still very great. I will not enter into details. Any one who heard, or has even read, the evidence taken before the Housing Commission will never forget it. That which creates a people is domestic life. The loss of it degrades a people to a horde. The authority and the obedience, the duties and the affections, the charities and the chastities of home, are the mightiest and purest influences in the formation of human life. A good home is the highest and best school; it forms and perpetuates the character of a nation. What moral influence or formation of the life and character of children is possible in overcrowded dens where all is misery and confusion? I refer to the report of the Commission, and to the evidence of Lord

2C2 A PLEADING FOR THE WORTHLESS.

Shaftesbury and Mr. Horsley, and gladly refrain from explicit details.

2. The next cause of utter wreck is, I will not say intoxicating drink, but the drink trade. This is a public, permanent, and ubiquitous agency of degradation to the people of these realms. That foul and foetid housing drives men and women to drink, and that drink renders their dens sevenfold more foul and fcetid, is certain. The degradation of men, women, and children follows by an inevitable law; but only those who are striving to save them have any adequate knowledge of the inhuman and hopeless state of those who have fallen into drunkenness. I am not going to moralise upon drunkenness. I will only say that the whole land is suffering from the direct or indirect power of the drink trade. In times of depression only one interest still prospers — its profits may be slightly lessened, but its gains are always large and safe; that is, the great trade in drink, which enriches half a million of brewers, distillers, and publicans, with the trades depending on them, and wrecks millions of men, women, and children. This one traffic, more than any other cause, destroys the domestic life of the people. The evidence taken by the Housing Commission expressly shows that in the overcrowded rooms in Dublin the moral wreck wrought in London is not equally found. A counter action or preservative is there present and powerful. This I can affirm also of a large number of homes in London. The same is affirmed on evidence of Glas gow. Nevertheless, these exceptions only prove the rule. The drink trade of this country has a sleeping partner who gives it effectual protection. Every successive Government raises at least a third of its Budget by the trade in drink. Of this no more need be said. It changes man and woman into idiocy and brutality. It is our shame, scandal, and sin; and un less brought under by the will of the people — and no other power can — it will be our downfall.

3. A third cause of this human wreck is the absence of a moral law. It is materially impossible for one half of the population of London to set foot on a Sun day in any place of moral teaching or of Divine worship. If all the churches and places of worship were filled three times on Sunday, they would not, I believe, hold more than 2,000,000. But the population of London properly so called is 4,000,000. Of the re maining 2,000,000 of men, how many have received Christian education, or even Christian baptism, or moral teaching? How far is God in all their thoughts? This may be an argument without weight to some of our social philosophers; but to those who still hold fast, not only to faith, but to the intellectual system of the world, it is a fact of evil augury, as self-evident as light. They who think themselves able to live and die well without God will treat this assertion lightly; but they who believe, with S. Jerome, "Homo sine cognitione Dei pecus," will be unable to understand how the moral life of men can be sustained without the know ledge of God. Where there is no legislator there is no law, and where there is no law each man becomes a law to himself; that is. the perversion and passions of his own will are his only rule of life. What ruin to himself and all depending on him comes from this needs no words. Look at our calendars of crime and our revelations of social vice. And yet every one of these human wrecks was once an innocent child.

From these three chief causes comes all personal demoralisation hy immorality, intemperance, and ignorance, and, therefore, by poverty in its worst form. From these also come the greater enormities, as some appear to think — namely, imposture and idleness. Such are the social outcasts that form our criminal or dangerous class. And so long as they are born in dens, and live in drunkenness, and die without the light of God's law, they will multiply and perpetuate their own kind. Multitudes are at this day in London in the abject poverty of moral degradation, and of reckless despair of rising from their fallen state. But these three causes are the direct results of the apathy or the selfishness of what is called Society, or, more truly, of our legislation, or neglect to legislate, or of good laws inefficiently administered.

IT. Some are of opinion that a great part of the crime in London springs from poverty. Others say.that in times of distress the gaols are comparatively empty. This would seem to imply that want does not lead to crime. Both of these assertions are true. No one will say that poverty always leads to crime, much less that poverty never leads to crime. Therefore, both sides admit that poverty sometimes leads to crime. This reduces the question to one of degree: how far is poverty a cause or motive to crime?

There is, indeed, no necessary connection between poverty and crime; for poverty is a state which may generate the highest human perfections of humility, self-denial, charity, and contentment in a hard lot and life. Such a lot may be the inevitable lot of some. It may be also voluntarily and gladly chosen by others, who for many motives not of this world, choose poverty rather than wealth.

But this is not our question. The poverty of which we speak is that into which the majority of poor men are born; in which they hardly earn bread for themselves and for their homes; a poverty always on the brink of want, to which they may be reduced in a day by no fault of their own, that is, by the ruin of their employer, the vicissitudes of trade, the suspension of work by natural causes, such as winter, or the failure of the raw material of their labour. When once reduced to this state of want, there is nothing before them but the legal relief of the Poor Law, coupled with conditions which their highest and best instincts make them refuse, or doled out to them inadequately, so as to give no real and lasting relief. This forms a pauper habit of mind; helplessness, hopelessness, and the loss of self-respect. Will any thoughtful man say that in such a state a father, seeing a wife sinking by want and toil, and his children famishing for lack of bread, is free from the strong temptation to find unlawfully the food which society refuses, except on odious conditions, to give him lawfully? Add to this the sense of injustice when, without fault of his own, he is brought down to want. And, as men are human, there comes in a sting of resentment when he sees on every side an-

2C6 A PLEADING FOR THE WORTHLESS.

abundance of food and clothing in those who never labour and never lack.

The ostentation of luxury is a sharp temptation to men in despair. It is not only the hunger that pulls down a man's own strength, but the cry of those who look to him for bread that sounds daily in his ears, and haunts him wherever he goes. This is true of the most upright and honest man; but all men are not honest and upright. Surely it is Pharisaism to preach to such men, " Go in peace; be you warmed and filled; yet give them not those things that are necessary " for the body. It is both injustice and hardness of heart to denounce almsgiving, to defeat the giving of work, and to offer nothing but the break-up of home as the condition of food necessary for life. If such a man begs, he may be taken up. If he can bear his miseries no longer, and steals, his moral rectitude is broken down; and once destroyed, all boundaries are gone.

They must know little of life who do not know what ruin of men and of women comes from the straits of poverty. Forgery, embezzlement, prostitution, are brought on gradually, and after long resistance to temptation, even in the educated, by the desperation of want. Will any one say: Yes, but they imply vice as the motive. I answer: And are the poor free from vice? But again, vice is in such cases the consequence as well as the companion of crime. The moral nature lias given way. The misery of want destroyed it before vice or crime was perpetrated. There was a time when forgers and prostitutes were as far from their fall as those wuo moralise about them when fallen.

And if this be true of all men, bow much more true of the worthless for whom I am pleading?

A student of crime the other day thought that he had disproved the proposition that poverty leads to.crime by showing that in times of distress the prisons have fewer inmates; and that the statistics of crime show a diminution of prisoners in the ten years from 1877 to 1886, which was a period of depression.

A little more thought would show that this is no disproof.

For, first of all, Sir Lyon Playfair some years ago exhibited in a tabular form, resulting from official inquiry, conclusive evidence to show that when wages are low drunkenness decreases, when wages are high drunkenness increases. Shall we, then, say that prosperity leads to crime? If so, blessed indeed are the poor! Surely no man will maintain that prosperity is to be checked and deprecated, and that the duty of legislators and political economists is to reduce the prosperity of the country in order to check the crime.

Moreover, the proposition that poverty leads to crime does not mean that poverty on Monday leads to crime on Tuesday, but that poverty leads to all manner of temptations. Sometimes the misery of innocent children will drive a man to do what his conscience condemns. Sometimes a daughter, to support an aged mother, will do what her whole soul abhors. They who live among statistics, and have seldom, if ever, lived among the poor, little know how poverty brings temptation, and temptation both vice and crime.

But as we have statistics, let us go to them, though they are like the quadrants and compasses by which the tailors in Laputa measured their customers. The moral life of men cannot be measured by mere num bers. Nevertheless, they are pointers.

And, first, it is beyond contention that the majority of our prisoners are of the poor. This fact alone proves at least the close relation of poverty and crime. It would be an affectation of scepticism to say that this close relation is not by way of cause and effect.

Secondly, the official statistics show this both directly and indirectly.

At page xxxix. of the Judicial Statistics for England and Wales in 1886-87, it is stated that of the people committed for crime, 27*5 per cent could neither read nor write, 70'0 could only read or write imperfectly, only 2-8 could read and write well, and only O'l, or one in a thousand, had superior instruction.

If it be said that this proves ignorance to be the cause of crime, I answer that poverty was the main cause of this ignorance.

Thirdly, the occupation of prisoners gives the same indication. Of no occupation there were 10'5 percent; labourers, charwomen, and needlewomen, 52 '0; factory workers, 6'0; skilled mechanics, 14'1; professional employment, O'.1, T.H. |; prostitutes, 3'3; domestic servants, 2*5.

These statistics prove beyond doubt that, in proportion as the criminals are further from poverty, the smaller the number; in proportion as they are nearer, the greater the number; and that the vast majority are those who are absolutely poor, and live in all the vicissitudes of poverty. It is an old-world saw that half our virtues are from the absence of temptation.

But, lastly, the statistics of increase in indoor paupers and decrease in prisoners in the years be tween 1877 and 1886 prove nothing. There are many explanations of this fact. I have it on high authority that thousands of adults who used to be imprisoned are now fined under the amended Summary Jurisdiction Act of 1879; and thousands of children who used to be sent to prison are now sent to reformatory or industrial schools, or let off with a reprimand. The Report of 1887 shows for Great Britain the number of children in industrial schools as follows: 2

In 1877 12,555

These two facts fall precisely into the ten years from 1877 to 1886, and prove that a change both in the treatment of persons charged and in the tables of statistics had been made, which accounts for the decrease of prisoners.

III. From the change in the administration of the Poor Law two consequences have followed. First, a profuse almsgiving.

We have been told with great confidence that five millions of money were spent in a year in alms in London alone. Without doubt much was imprudently spent; and this imprudence caused many accidental evils of mendicity: mendacity, indolent dependence upon help, neglect of duty, wastefulness, and refusal 2 Report for 1886, p. 9.

to work for bread. But to affirm that this is the inevitable result of almsgiving is to condemn what the Author of Christianity enjoins. And there have not been wanting men of note and name who have censured His teaching as erroneous. The effect of these ex cesses is to provoke a reaction which is somewhat strong and vivid in certain minds. Again, to tell us that almsgiving springs from selfish indulgence of emotion, or of self-contemplation, is as shallow as the Hutchinsonian philosophy, which tells us that men do right only because it makes them happy; or the Benthamite, that they do so because it is expedient. Compassion has suffering for its proper object, as hunger has bread. These philosophies of the second syllogism are credible to those who know of no Divine commandments; but to those who know a higher law and a nobler lore they would be simply ridiculous, if they were not mischievous. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the charity and generosity of individuals and of societies were profusely abused; and that the accidental evils of good things when abused were many. But it is to be borne in mind that this large almsgiving of five millions of money arose, not only from the promptings of charity, but from the constant sight of suffering unrelieved by the Poor Law. If it had been more compassionately administered, these five millions would in all likelihood have never been given. They rose to this vast sum by the daily sight of unrelieved want. It was so far a spontaneous return to the profusion of old days.

And here it may be well to call to mind the recommendations of the Poor Law Commissioners in 1834. They provided for loans to deserving men in time of distress, attaching the wages of the same on the return of work.3 And, further, the Commissioners continued as follows:

" We recommend, therefore, that the Central Board be empowered to incorporate parishes for the purpose of appointing and paying permanent officers, and for the execution of works of puhlic labour." 4

Under the Executive Commission afterwards ap pointed, road-work was provided for the outdoor relief of the Spitalfields weavers, which they largely under took.

At the time of the cotton famine in Lancashire out door relief was provided in the form of earth-works, as sanitary works, for the relief of 40,000 men. A million and a half of money was lent to the local authorities by the Government for the execution of remunerative sanitary work. Seven thousand took the work; and the rest, with the assistance of friends and relations were otherwise provided for. A large part of sanitary drainage work is earth-work; and but for a change in the administration, such work to the amount of a million and a half of money would have been provided, and might now be provided by a return to the administrative principles formerly recommended.

A great amount of almsgiving, then, manifestly resulted from the refusal or discontinuance of such employment of labour.

» Report of Commissioners, &c., p. 337. Fellowts, 1834. 4 Report, p 326

But, further, there was a second consequence from the changed administration of the Poor Law. As the large return to almsgiving sprang from this change, so the existence of the Charity Organisation Society sprang from the profuse giving of alms. It was said that of the five millions two were devoured by the administrators or distributors; there was constant overlapping, so that money was given by several persons or societies to the same person or case, and to most undeserving.

The Charity Organisation Society arose with these chief attributes. First, to promote correspondence and co-operation among the many beneficent societies, so that their alms should not be wasted by overlapping and relieving the same case twice over.

Secondly, for the detection of impostors who were obtaining help under false pretences; living as paupers, and refusing to work for their bread.

Thirdly, to assist the deserving in time of transient distress, either by gift or by loan. This part of the Society's work is most wise and charitable. It is in the spirit of the Acts of Elizabeth and of the recom mendations of the Commission in 1834.

Fourthly, to oversee the cases of poverty brought before them, and to aid, both by help and by advice, those who were striving to maintain or to retrieve their state.

All these are excellent offices of true and prudent charity. There may be others unknown to me, but these were the motives which induced me to become a mem ber of the Society at its outset. So long as it is coextensive with the whole field of poverty, and adequately supplied with means, large-hearted in promoting all prudent agencies of relief, and free from the narrowness of doctrinaires, it must be regarded as a valuable supplement of the legal and mechanical operation of the Poor Law. They are both needed, and neither without the other could cover the whole area of poverty. More over, it is necessary that voluntary and personal service without hire or reward should be added to the legal administration of relief. In point of education, intelligence, and perseverance, the members of the Charity Organisation Society are of the highest efficiency.

The words, " I am a man,, and everything human to me is as my own," ran through the old Latin world like an electric spark. They were written by an emancipated slave who had known sorrow. " Love your neighbour as yourself," was spoken by One Who made Himself a servant and the man of sorrows for our sakes. Compassion is fellow-feeling, and a share in the suffer ings of others. If the commonwealth of Israel was pervaded by pity for poverty, and compassion for sorrow, what ought to be the large and watchful compassion of England for its people? It is a Christian people. It believes in Him Who said "I have compassion on the multitude." There is no doubt that in every great city there will be a refuse of the population who, through their own perverse will, blind conscience, and evil passions, gather together into a demoralised and dangerous horde. But it is also certain that each was once an innocent child. The bloated and brutal man, if he had been nurtured by a loving mother in a pure home fit for man to live in; if he had grown up in the con-

VOL. III. t sciousness of a Divine law and presence; if he had lived in honest labour, found as a rule in the labour market, or as an exception, in times of distress, provided by the compassion of a wise charity, or of a law wisely and charitably administered — he would not have become the wreck in body, mind, and speech, which we may see in our streets every day. If parents, teachers, pastors, had been faithful, if the legislation and administration of public and social law had been conceived and carried out, not with a view to money or to enrichment, or to retrenchment, but for the moral and domestic life of the people, though some men will always wreck themselves, society would not be guilty of the ruin of its offspring. When society is sound, it sustains individuals who are falling. When society declines, it pulls down individuals in its fall. A commonwealth in which domestic life is perishing has a settlement in its foundations.

If, then, the worthless are what they are because the society of to-day has wrecked them, what is society doing, or willing to do, to redeem and save the worthless? None are so bad that there is not still a hope. But the class of men and youths who came into open day some weeks ago are not to be bettered by neglect, much less by defiance. Goodness will overcome evil, and kindness will break the hardest hearts. If the confidence of the worthless and dangerous could be won, it would be like the warmth of the sun breaking up a frost. The poor youths of eighteen and nineteen may be bad, but they are not yet hardened in evil. Are they to be left to become hopeless criminals? Surely there are men and women ready to go among them. Human sympathy, kind care, personal service, patient goodwill, are powers which never fail. If, through faults of ours, however remotely or indirectly, by commission or omission, they are outcasts, let us nov; begin and try to bring them back to what once they were. The memory of their childhood is not dead within them: if it be only as a gleam of innocence long lost, it is also a throb of a higher life not yet extinct for ever.