wonder that the end of lives so employed is spent in the receipt of charity or in the workhouse.
We have no doubt that in very many cases the fearful habit of intemperance aggravates the evils of poverty, if it is not the cause of them, but it cannot account for all the misery of the world, as long as such facts as these stand forth against us. For destitution resulting from this state of things the workhouse is the appointed refuge; no other asylum is provided on a scale adequate to meet it. In other countries the help is supplied, not by private benevolence alone, but by the assistance of Government also, for the need exists there as well as here. In the pamphlet entitled Metropolitan Workhouses and their Inmates,[1] a description is given of the "hospices" in Paris for the incurably sick and aged, which appear in a great measure to take the place of our workhouses; the management of them seems to be admirable. The following is an account of a similar institution in Malaga, shewing that even in ill-governed Spain these things are better managed than with us:—[2]
"There is a sort of large workhouse in this place, supported by voluntary contributions: it is called the 'Casa de Mendicidad, de Socorro, e de Maternidad.' The 'Mendicidad' department is for obstinate and notorious beggars, who are taken there by the police; the 'Socorro' for any poor who like to enter it voluntarily; the 'Maternidad' for foundlings or orphans, or for any children whose parents like to send them there. There are four sisters of mercy, belonging to the order of St. Vincent de Paul, They attend to the babies, teach the girls, and go out to nurse the sick. It was quite delightful to see the terms on which the sisters and the children were; the respect, entirely devoid of fear, that the latter have. The difference between this and that focus of corruption, an English workhouse, struck me. I know an English child of only six, who has learnt such evil habits in a workhouse and become so rooted in them, that if she had remained there a year longer I should say she must have been ruined for life. These Spanish children when they grow up go out into service, but if their mistresses do not like them, they are to be sent back to the house. If any of them wish to remain and become sisters, they may do so; but I believe the general end is they marry or go into service. Altogether, instead of being a prison like our workhouses, it was a happy home."
It is somewhat strange that English benevolence, so widely
- ↑ P. 36.
- ↑ Practical Working of the Church in Spain. Rev. J. Meyrick.
by hard work earns 3s. a week. Another earns a scanty subsistence by converting strips of leather into buttons for leather gaiters, being paid 1½d. per gross, consisting of thirteen dozen. By her utmost efforts she can make two gross a day, earning 1s. 6d. per week. Another makes a dozen collars for 7½d." In cases of private employment the remuneration is in many instances as bad; a poor widow, trying to maintain her family, is occupied in the making of paper bags for a large warehouse, receiving 6d. for a thousand of them, providing the paste; and when they are finished, she has to pay for their conveyance to their destination.
