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Page 34
Perhaps comfortable, satisfied readers may be startled, or even
offended, if I say that there are young creatures in our great cities
who rarely see even the light of day, save when the beams are filtered
through the reek of a court; and these same infants resemble the black
fellows of Western Australia or the Troglodytes of Africa in general
intelligence. I have little heart to speak of the parents who are
answerable for such horrors of crass neglect and cruelty. By laying a
set of dry police reports before any sensitive person I could make
that person shudder without adding a word of rhetoric; for it would be
seen that the popular picture of a fiend represents rather a mild and
harmless entity if we compare it with the foul-souled human beings who
dwell in our benighted places. What is to be done? It is best to
grapple swiftly with an ugly question; and I do not hesitate to attack
deliberately one of the most delicate puzzles that ever came before
the world. Wise emotionless men may say, and do say, "Are you going to
relieve male and female idlers and drunkards of all anxiety regarding
their offspring? Do you mean to discourage the honest but
poverty-stricken parents who do their best for their children? What
kind of world will you make for us all if you give your aid to the
worst and neglect the good folk?" Those are very awkward questions,
and I can answer them only by a sort of expedient which must not be
mistaken for intellectual conjuring; I drop ordinary logic and
theories of probability and go at once to facts. At first sight it
seems like rank folly for any man or body of men to take charge of a
child which has been neglected by shameless parents; but, on the other
hand, let us consider our own self-interest, and leave sentiment alone
for a while. We cannot put the benighted starvelings into a lethal
chamber and dispose of their brief lives in that fashion; we are bound
to maintain them in some way or other--and the ratepayers of St.
George's-in-the-East know to some trifling extent what that means. If
the waifs grow up to be predatory animals, we must maintain them first
of all in reformatories, and afterwards, at intervals during their
lives, in prisons. If they grow up without shaking off the terrible
mental darkness of their starveling childhood, we must provide for
them in asylums. A thoroughly neglected waif costs this happy country
something like fifteen pounds per year for the term of his natural
life. Very good. At this point some hard-headed person says, "What
about the workhouses?" This brings us face to face with another
astounding problem to solve which at all satisfactorily requires no
little research and thought. I know that there are good workhouses;
but I happen to know that there are also bad ones. In many a ship and
fishing-vessel fine fellows may be met with who were sent out early
from workhouse-schools and wrought their way onward until they became
brave and useful seamen; there are also many industrious
well-conducted girls who came originally from the great Union schools.
But, when I take another side of the picture, I am inclined to say
very fervently, "Anything rather than the workhouse system for
children! Anything short of complete neglect!" Observe that in one of
the overgrown schools the young folk are scarcely treated as human;
their individuality--if they have any to begin with--is soon lost;
they are known only by a number, and they are passed into the outer
world like bundles of shot rubbish. There are seamen who have never
cast off the peculiar workhouse taint--and no worse shipmates ever
afflicted any capable and honourable soul: for these Union weeds carry
the vices of Rob the Grinder and Noah Claypole on to blue water, and
show themselves to be hounds who would fawn or snarl, steal or talk
saintliness, lie or sneak just as interest suited them. Then the
workhouse girls: I have said sharp words about cruel mistresses; but I
frankly own that the average lady who is saddled with the average
workhouse servant has some slight reasons for showing acerbity, though
she has none for practising cruelty. How could anybody expect a girl
to turn out well after the usual course of workhouse training? The
life of the soul is too often quenched; the flame of life in the poor
body is dim and low; and the mechanical morality, the dull,
meaningless round of useless lessons, the habit of herding in
unhealthy rooms with unhealthy companions, all tend to develop a
creature which can be regarded only as one of Nature's failures, if I
may parody a phrase of the superlative Beau Brummel's.
There is another and darker side to the workhouse question, but I
shall skim it lightly. The women whose conversation the young girls
hear are often wicked, and thus a dull, under-fed, inept child may
have a great deal too much knowledge of evil. Can we expect such a
collection to contain a large percentage of seemly and useful
children? Is it a fact that the Unions usually supply domestics worth
keeping? Ask the mistresses, and the answer will not be encouraging.
No; the workhouse will not quite suffice. What we want to do is to
take the waifs and strays into places where they may lead a natural
and healthy life. Get them clear of the horror of the slums, let them
breathe pure air and learn pure and simple habits, and then, instead
of odious and costly human weeds, we may have wholesome, useful
fellow-citizens, who not only will cost us nothing, but who will be a
distinct source of solid profit to the empire. The thing has been and
is being done steadily by good men and women who defy prejudice and go
to work in a vigorous practical way. The most miserable and apparently
hopeless little creatures from the filthy purlieus of great towns
become gradually bright and healthy and intelligent when they are
taken to their natural home--the country--and cut adrift from the
congested centres of population. The cost of their maintenance is at
first a little over the workhouse figure; but then the article
produced for the money is far and away superior to anything turned out
by any workhouse. The rescued children are eagerly sought after in the
Colonies; and I am not aware of any case in which one of the young
emigrants has expressed discontent. How much better it is to see these
poor waifs changed into useful, profitable colonists than to have them
sullenly, uselessly starving in the dens of London and Liverpool and
Manchester! The work of rescuing and training the lost children has
not been fully developed yet; but enough has been done to show that in
a few years we shall have a large number of prosperous Colonial
farmers who will indirectly contribute to the wealth of mighty
Britain. Had the trained emigrants never been snatched away from the
verge of the pit, we should have been obliged to maintain them until
their wretched lives ended with sordid deaths, and the very cost of
their burial would have come from the pockets of pinched workers. I
fancy that I have shown the advisability of neglecting strict economic
canons in this instance. I abhor the pestilent beings who swarm in
certain quarters, and I should never dream of removing any burden from
their shoulders if I thought that it would only leave the rascals with
more money to expend on brutish pleasures; but I desire to look far
ahead, and I can see that, when the present generation of adult
wastrels dies out, it will be a very good thing for all of us if there
are few or none of the same stamp ready to take their places. By
resolutely removing the children of vice and sorrow, we clear the road
for a better race. Let it be understood that I have a truly orthodox
dread of "pauperisation," and I watch very jealously the doings of
those who are anxious to feed all sorts and conditions of men; but
pauperising men by maintaining them in laziness is very different from
rearing useful subjects of the empire, whose trained labour is a
source of profit and whose developed morality is a fund of security.
We cannot take Chinese methods of lessening the pressure of
population, and we must at once decide on the wisest way of dealing
with our waifs and strays; if we do not, then the chances are that
they will deal unpleasantly with us. The locust, the lemming, the
phylloxera, are all very insignificant creatures; but, when they act
together in numbers, they can very soon devastate a district. The
parable is not by any means inapt.
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