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ing, eating, and sleeping. Is it to be wondered at that our country has become the great theatre of mobs, yea, we may say murders too, when we remember that the poor and their children, in manufacturing towns and districts, are kept in ignorance and regarded but little superior to the beasts that perish?

9. The causes of the strike in Patterson we will here state in addition to those already presented:→→→

"1st. The manufacturers have not only required of us to labour on an average of from twelve to fourteen hours per day, but they have added additional labour without advancing our wages. 2

2nd. They have imposed upon us, against our will and consent, a systém of payment, viz., an order system, which reduces us to the disagreeable necessity of paying whatever price the extravagance of the storekeeper may think proper to demand.

3rd. They have in a number of instances, where settlements have béen demanded, kept back one week's work, and demanded a receipt in fullice

4th! They have been uniformly in the practice of deducting one quarter from each day's labour when we were behind the time but five minutes 22 slos pun

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to Now I'am aware that in England those employed in factories complain of similar treatmeat, and they attribute such treatment to the want of your Charter" that they are wrong in their opinions on this subject, they are here assured from the mouths of their brethren who live under such "Charter," and who are, as they confess, in a state of grovelling ignorance, in the way of intemperance and crime: they have fallen asleep and have been robbed of all they possessed: their children are in the thraldom of vice, working from twelve to fourteen hours a-day; confined more like criminals than the children of a free people; scarcely time to eat their scanty meals, and, at night, worn down and exhausted by excessive labour. Their country is the great theatre of mobs and murderers, and the working part of the community are regarded but little better than the beasts that perish.

This, then, is their condition, as stated by themselves, and which, I trust, will enable you to judge as to how much better or worse it is than is your own. There is one thing that, without experience, you cannot know: it is the excessive and oppressive heat in the summer season, which, as I believe, makes it harder to work six hours there than twelve in England. But, while you have this advantage, they have the advantage of having votes, and can, once a-year, choose a beggar from the street to represent them, and he is qualified without being worth even a bunch of matches: so that he sleeps a few nights, if it be upon straw, in the district, they can, if they please, and he is willing, send him to make

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the laws of their country. To what, then, shall we attribute their sufferings? To nothing, certainly, other than that they are incapable, as a whole, of knowing what, according to the laws of nature, is good for themselves. This, granted, we must allow that the most superior and intellectual men should manage and direct public affairs, and that it is not possible for the ignorant and inexperienced to select such men. Such a duty should be left to those who are capable of judging; and who are they? If we had a public and unerring test to try them by, it would be well; but, as that is impossible, we must resort to other, though perhaps imperfect, means. That there are men who have had much education bestowed upon them, and yet, for want of capacity or other causes, are shamefully ignorant, all will agree. That there are men of property equally ignorant and very tyrannical is also too true. But all must allow that a suitable education, for a lawgiver is absolutely neces sary for the well-being of our country.begojore bar zang zog of bas an And, as to property, we do not believe that the want of it is any proof of a man's ignorance, want of principle, or capacity to fill important situations; but we may suppose, though it ought not to be, that property has a tendency to bind a man more strongly to the interest of his country; and, if so, he is the more likely to be careful and considerateto do nothing that, has a tendency to involve that country in difficulties; for, by doing so, he would put in jeopardy his individual property, that he or his forefathers have taken so much pains to obtain. busi adt Every man, then, possessed with common sense will be convinced that the first-named qualification cannot, without dangerous conser quences, be dispensed with; and that, from the last-named, benefits may arise. Qualifications the reverse of these have been tried at times in various countries, and have ever led to a state of things similar to that here in part described by your friend and well-wisher,

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TS MY FRIENDS, to the Bishop's Itchington, Sept. 5, 1839. to 901 911 my last I neglected to speak of several things that I think you ought to be made acquainted with. In the first place, you appear to think that if your Charter was lawfully established there would be an end to poverty and wretchedness. In this I know you to be altogether mistaken; ; and, from what I am about to lay before you, you cannot do otherwise, I think, than become convinced that I am right.

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You have a hew Poor-law', with which your leaders generally seem very well pleased; but to that part of you who are poor and have daughters, or find it necessary to ask for relief under that law, perhaps, it may not be altogether so charming; and I dare say that you have no idea that in Pennsylvania, where a similar charter to yours is the law of the land, there is a poor-law exactly like yours, as far as yours goes, which is hot near so far as to cruelty as that of the Republicans. In the neighbourhood of Philadelphia there is a workhouse lately built, anything like the equal to which, for size, I have never heard of, and any ten that I have seen in England, as far as my eye will guide me correctly, Would not, in that respect, be equal to it. In this place, when the poor are received, their hair is cropped close, the uniform dress put upon them, man and wife are separated, and children from both; and, in short, all and everything that is so odious in the eyes of an Englishman, like myself, who lived in unreformed days, when there was no need of places like these, and when, in my native village, if there was a solitary being who, from whatever cause, wanted assistance, it was the special care of his fellow-creatures that it should be granted in such a manner as not, if possible, to hurt his feelings, or to let him think that his poverty might be considered a disgrace.

How different the feelings of the Americans, who are for ever exulting over their large poor-houses, their prisons, and their cruel punishment to human beings! When a stranger visits the city of Philadelphia, it is a hundred to one that the first walk he takes with his American friend will be to the Waterworks, on the river Schuylkill. These works force up the water to the top of a big hill, where there are reservoirs

sufficient to hold water enough for the use of the whole city.// This is truly a beautiful place, naturally beautiful, to say nothing of the art that has been bestowed upon it. The money spent in these works was, perhaps, three or four times greater than it need have been; but the works are there, and, if the natives were as proud of them as they are of their prisons and poor-houses, it would speak more, I think, in favour of their civilization. They, however, take their friends to the top of this fair mount, not so much to admire these works, and the scenery about them, as to have what they call a superb and splendid view of their magnificent poor-house, and of their two new and enormously large prisons, which, they tell us, resemble castles of the middle ages. When, on 1. on that mount, you face the west, you behold the former; turn to the left, or turn to the right, and you behold one of the latter-the three standing about a mile apart, in a triangle. Your friend will call your attention most particularly to these things; he will talk of nothing else during your stay. If you are from Europe he will ask you if, in the "Old Country," you have anything of the kind half so "elegant ?" To which, of course, you will be glad enough to be able to reply in the negative, which will greatly please him; and he will say, " I guess, in our insti tutions, we are going a-head of all nations." But, while the creature is thus indulging his silly vanity, a man of sense or feeling would be so enraptured with the natural scenery as to disregard such soulless and cold-blooded remarks. He would he listening to the wild roar of the rushing water tumbling over the beautiful falls: he would be viewing the sky-blue serpentine river, so proud, as it were, of its own banks, that not a projecting rock, tree, or shrub thereon, but it doubly shows us first above, and then, through its glass-like face, below: he would, perhaps, be calling to mind the noble race that, but a short time since, roamed those woods; and be drawing the contrast between the ever-brave and faithful Indians, and the ever-faithless, dollar-loving beings that now call those woods their own. But enough of this: we must haste to a further account of the poor, and of the poor-law, of that country. On

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Just before I left Philadelphia I went with a friend to see the " great workhouse," commonly called the Blockley Almshouse; and I might, if I thought it best, describe it in my own way, but I choose rather to let the Americans themselves do it, and I therefore take the following extract from an article in The Pennsylvanian :

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"The almshouse is, as our readers understand, over the river Schuylkill: it is a vast and magnificent pile, covering an area of ten or fifteen

acres. We passed, attended by, a cicerone, furnished us by the courtesy of the steward, through the institution. That the merit of cleanliness may be accorded is very certain, and, if the establishment were in every other respect equally worthy of praise, nothing could possibly be advanced against it.

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1: "The term Blockley Palace' admirably applies to the extent and grandeur of the edifice (perhaps to the monthly revels of the initiated), but most surely not to the meagre fare furnished the inmates, who are supplied with just such bread as one would cast to swine, and twice a-week experience the luxury, not unattended with labour, of masticating about half a pound of tough beef; those who do little jobs about the building go through a diurnal process of the same nature, besides an extra accommodation of a leetle' tobacco. A system of favouritism, odious in its character, prevails to a great extent, and is deserving of the severest reprehension. Accompanied as we were by one under the rod of authority, we could not prosecute, to the extent desired, the supervision, or make the inquiries contemplated; we saw enough, however, to become convinced that the strong arm of reform should be stretched towards the Palace,' and that it should be thoroughly purged of the

excrescences.

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Charges of a very grave character have been publicly preferred against the conduct of those in authority, relating to the exercise of arbitrary and cruel conduct towards the poor who are domiciled in the palace: they have never yet been met even by contradiction, much less by dispróval. A reason for this silence can only be imagined, and, as it involves the character and conduct of some of the directors (charg ing them with gulling the public and gulping liquors at that public's expense), would seem not undeserving their attention.

"There are now in this establishment (or were when we visited it) 1605 persons, exclusive of 75 infants in the Children's Asylum, making, in toto, 1680, of whom about 250 are coloured. As above remarked, nine-tenths of the whole number are of intemperate habits, and of the worst disposition. Among such a horde of persons, confessedly of such bestial habits, is it not natural that the honest and respectable poor should shrink from mingling, and prefer a life of severe privation attendant on extreme penury to such association?

“It is high time that the Almshouse should be looked to, and we hope, at no distant period, that the expediency of instituting a rigid scrutiny into the character and conduct of its officers, as well as into the nature of the institution, and its operation, will be suggested to the Legislature.

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