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CHAPTER XV.
"RURAL LIFE OF ENGLAND."
From "Rural Life of England," by Wm. H. Howitt, we take the following extract:
"The wildness into which some of these children in the more solitary parts of the country, grow, (recollect this is in Lancashire, near the great city of Manchester,) is, I imagine, not to be surpassed in any of the back settlements of America. On the 5th July, 1836, the day of that remarkable thunder-storm which visited a great part of the kingdom with much fury, being driven into a cottage at the foot of Pendle by the coming on of this storm, and while standing at the door watching its progress, I observed the head of some human creature, carefully protruded from the doorway of an adjacent shed, and as suddenly withdrawn on being observed. To ascertain what sort of a person it belonged to, I went into the shed, but at first found it too dark to enable me to discover anything. Presently, however, as objects became visible, I saw a little creature, apparently a girl about ten years old, reared very erectly against the opposite wall. On accosting her in a kind tone, and telling her to come forward and not be afraid, she advanced from the wall, and behold! there stood another little creature, about the head shorter, whom she had been concealing. I asked the elder child, whether this younger one were a girl. She answered, 'Ne'a.' 'Was it a boy?' 'Ne'a.' 'What! neither boy nor girl? Was she a girl herself?' 'Ne'a.' 'What! was it a boy I was speaking to?' 'Ne'a.' 'What in the name of wonder were they then?' 'We are childer.' 'Childer! and was the woman in the house their mother?' 'Ne'a.' 'Who was she, then?' 'Ar mam.' 'O! your mam! and do you keep cows in this shed?' 'Ne'a, – bee-as.' In short, common English was quite unintelligible to these poor little creatures, and their appearance was as wild as their speech. They were two fine young creatures, nevertheless, – especially the elder, whose form and face were full of that symmetry and fine grace that are sometimes the growth of unrestrained Nature, and would have delighted the sculptor or painter. Their only clothing was a sort of little boddice with skirts, made of a reddish stuff, and rendered more picturesque by sundry patches of scarlet cloth, no doubt from their mother's old cloak. Their heads, bosoms, and legs to the knees, were bare to all the influences of earth and heaven; and on giving each of them a penny, they bounded off with the fleetness and elasticity of young roes. No doubt the hills and the heaths, the wild flowers of summer, and the swift waters of the glens, were the only live long day companions of these children, who came home only to their oatmeal dinner, and a bed as simple as their garments. Imagine the violent change of life by the sudden capture and confinement of these little English savages in the night-and-day noise, labor, and foul atmosphere of the cotton purgatories!
"In the immediate neighborhood of towns, many of the swelling ranges of hills present a much more cultivated aspect, and delight the eye with their smooth, green, and flowing outlines; and the valleys, almost everywhere, are woody, watered with clear, rapid streams, and in short, are beautiful. But along the rise of the tall chimneys of vast and innumerable factories, and even while looking on the places of the master manufactories, with their woods, and gardens, and shrubbery lawns around them, one cannot help thinking of the horrors detailed before the committee of the House of Commons, respecting the Factory System; of the parentless and friendless wretches, sent by wagon loads from distant work-houses to these prisons of labor and despair; of the young frames crushed to the dust by incessant labor; of the beds into which one set of children got, as another set got out, so that they were said never to be cold the whole year round, till contagious fires burnt out and swept away by hundreds these little victims of Mammon's ever-urging never-ceasing wheel. Beautiful as are many of these wild recesses, where, before the introduction of steam, the dashing rivulet invited the cotton-spinners to erect their mills; and curious as the remains of those simple original factories are, with their one great water-wheel, which turned their spindles while there was water, but during the drought of summer quite as often stood still; yet one is haunted even there, among the shadows of the fine old trees that throw their arms athwart streams dashing down their beds of solid rock, by the memory of little tender children, that never knew pity or kindness, but labored on and on, through noon and through midnight, till they slept and yet mechanically worked, and were often awaked only by the horrid machinery rending off their limbs. In places like these, where now the old factories and large houses of the proprietors, stand deserted, or are inhabited by troops of poor creatures, whose poverty only makes them appear the more desolate. We are told by such men as Mr. Fielden, of Oldham, once a factory child himself, and now a great manufacturer, who dares to reveal the secrets of the prison-house, that little children have even committed suicide to escape from a life worse than ten deaths. And what a mighty system is this now become? What a perpetual and vast supply of human energy and human life it requires, with all the facilities of improved machinery, with all the developed power of steam, and with all the glowing thirst of wealth to urge it on! We are told that the state of the factories is improved, and I trust they are; but if there be any truth in the evidence given before the Parliamentary committees, there is need of great amelioration yet; and it is, when we recollect these things, how completely the laboring class has, in these districts, been regarded as mere machinery for the accumulation of enormous capitals, that we cease to wonder at their uncouth and degraded aspect, and at the neglect in which they are suffered to swarm over these hills, like the very weeds of humanity, cast out into disregarded places, and left to spread and increase in rank and deleterious luxuriance."
What is so poetically and graphically described by Mr. Hewitt, is verified in its minutest details in the "Glory and Shame of England," a very interesting work by C. Edwards Lester, an abolitionist of New York.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE DISTRESSED NEEDLE-WOMEN AND HOOD'S SONG OF THE SHIRT
We take what follows from the January No., 1849, of the Westminster Review – we having nothing to remark, except as to the line from the French song, which has taken the place of the Marseilloise as the great National Song, we should rather say, National Dirge. It is the maddening cry of hunger for employment and bread, and more resembles the howl of the wolves of the Pyrennes, as they start in quest of prey, than the Anthem of Liberty. It truly represents, embodies and personifies the great Socialistic movement of the day. Whilst statesmen and philosophers speculate, the mass agitate, organize and threaten. Winter before last, they took possession of the streets of New York, and levied enforced charity. This spring, they meet in the Park and resolve, "that there were fifty thousand men and women in vain seeking employment during the last inclement winter. America echoes to France, "Vivre en travaillant, ou mourir en combatant!" 'Tis the tocsin and the watchword of free society. 'Tis the grumbling noise of the heaving volcano, that threatens and precedes a social eruption greater than the world has yet witnessed. But let us give the language of the Reviewer:
"The question of human misery – its causes and their removal, is at the bottom of the movement which is now convulsing Europe, and which threatens to agitate it for some time to come. Could some practicable scheme of relief, generally acceptable to all classes and adequate to cope with the magnitude of the evil, be but suggested, what a load of anxiety would be taken from the mind of many a Minister of State! – what comfort would be offered to many a desponding philanthropist!
"Human misery has at last found tongues and pens to make itself heard and felt. It appeals to our feelings and our understandings, to our sympathies and fears. Its wails melt us to pity, its ravings terrify us, its woes sicken us. It will no longer hide itself. We must either remove it, or submit to have it constantly exposed to our gaze in all its horrid deformity.
"Hitherto the comfortable classes have virtually answered the bitter complaints of the uncomfortable classes in some such terms as these: 'Poor people! we are very sorry for your suffering – we really feel for you – take this trifle – it will be some relief. We wish we could do more; – and now pray be quiet – don't distress us with your writhings and agonies – resign yourselves to the will of Providence, and bear hunger and cold in peace and seclusion; – above all, attempt no violence, or we must use violence to keep you quiet.' The answer of the uncomfortable classes to such admonitions, day by day becoming more unmistakable, is: 'Relieve us, relieve us! Make us comfortable, or show us how we may make ourselves comfortable: otherwise we must make you uncomfortable. We will be comfortable or uncomfortable together.'
"'Vivre en travaillant, ou mourir en combatant.' In our last number, we ventured to offer a few indications as to what we considered a part, an important part, of the remedial measures to be resorted to for the prevention of human misery. We were then dealing with that question as a whole. We now propose to address ourselves to miseries of a class.
"The sufferings of the distressed needle-woman have obtained an infamous notoriety – they are a scandal to our age and a reproach to our boasted civilization. They have been clothed in language at once truthful and impressive, full of pathos and yet free from exaggeration. Well known as Hood's immortal lines may be, we reproduce them here, because no narrative, no statistics of ours, could be more true nor half so much to the purpose:
THE SONG OF THE SHIRT
"With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread.
Stitch – stitch – stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt;
And still, with a voice of dolorous pitch,
She sang the 'Song of the Shirt!'
"Work – work – work!
While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work – work – work!
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's O! to be a slave,
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!
"Work – work – work!
Till the brain begins to swim;
Work – work – work!
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam and gusset and band,
Band and gusset and seam,
Till o'er the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!
"O! men, with sisters dear!
O! men, with mothers and wives,
It is not linen you're wearing out!
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch – stitch – stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt;
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A shroud as well as a shirt!
"But why do I talk of death?
That phantom of grisly bone?
I hardly fear his terrible shape,
It seems so like my own!
It seems so like my own,
Because of the fasts I keep —
Oh, God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!
"Work – work – work!
My labor never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread, and – rags.
That shatter'd roof, and this naked floor,
A table – a broken chair;
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!
"Work – work – work!
From weary chime to chime,
Work – work – work,
As prisoners work for crime!
Band and gusset and seam,
Seam and gusset and band,
Till the heart is sick and the brain benumb'd,
As well as weary hand.
"Work – work – work!
In dull December light,
And work – work – work,
When the weather is warm and bright —
While underneath the eaves
The brooding swallows cling,
As if to show me their sunny backs
And twit me with the Spring.
"Oh! but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet —
With the sky above my head,
And the grass beneath my feet,
For only one short hour —
To feel as I used to feel,
Before I knew the woes of want
And the walk that costs a meal!
"Oh, but for one short hour!
A respite however brief!
No blessed leisure for Love or Hope,
But only time for Grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart —
But in their briny bed
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!
"With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread —
Stitch – stitch – stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Would that its tone could reach the rich!
She sang this 'Song of the Shirt!'"
We annex part of an article from Jerrold's Magazine, which draws quite as clear a picture of the condition of the English poor, and points out the only feasible remedy for the evils of that condition:
SLAVERY
THE ONLY REMEDY FOR THE MISERIES OF THE ENGLISH POOR
BY A PHILANTHROPIST
Whoever is unprepared to cast aside not only his prejudices, but many of what may be considered well-formed opinions, had better not attempt to peruse the following few pages. I must demand of my reader that he come to the perusal, the beau ideal of a juryman. No information that he has gained elsewhere, no feelings that he has cherished as virtues, no sentiments that he has cultivated as noble, and no opinions that he may have formed as infallible, must interfere with his purely and simply receiving the following arguments on their own cogency and truth alone.
The writer considers he has made a great discovery in moral and political science; and elevated by his subject above all personal influences, he commits it to be worked out by others, without the ostentation of recording his name, or deeming that the applause of present or of future generations can add to his sublime delight, in discovering and applying a "panacea" to the varied and bitter ills that beset three-fourths of the poor inhabitants of the "United Kingdom."
As some account of the means by which a great discovery has been arrived at is necessary, in order to prepare the mind for its reception with due respect, I shall give a brief outline of the process by which this all-important truth was elicited.
Born with natural sensibilities, I early learnt to shrink from pain endured by others, as if felt actually and bodily by myself. Thus constituted, what a scene was displayed to me when I came into the great and moving society of mankind! What mighty heaps of misery did I discern! What details did the records of the various courts of justice disclose! What regions of squalor, misery, and degradation did my travels reveal to me in every city, and every hamlet, I visited! The bent of my future avocation was soon fixed, and I became a philanthropist by profession. Not to make a trade of it at monster meetings, or fancy fairs, but as a pursuit to which I felt myself called by a spiritual voice, as distinct, I should say, as that which ever called a theologian from a curacy of fifty pounds a year to a bishopric of twenty thousand.
It is not necessary to recapitulate the horrors I have witnessed in the regions of poverty. It is said that the eras of pestilence and famine are passed, but so will not those say who have visited the dwellings of the operatives of our great manufacturing towns, when the markets are glutted, and the mills and manufactories are closed. Pestilence still rages fiercely as ever, in the form of typhus, engendered by want. In the mission I have called myself to, I have stood upon the mud floor, over the corpse of the mother and the new-born child – both the victims of want. I have seen a man (God's image) stretched on straw, wrapped only in a mat, resign his breath, from starvation, in the prime of age. I have entered, on a sultry summer's night, a small house, situate on the banks of a common sewer, wherein one hundred and twenty-seven human beings, of both sexes and all ages, were indiscriminately crowded. I have been in the pestilential hovels of our great manufacturing cities, where life was corrupted in every possible mode, from the malaria of the sewer to the poison of the gin-bottle. I have been in sheds of the peasant, worse than the hovel of the Russian, where eight squalid, dirty, boorish creatures were to be kept alive by eight shillings per week, irregularly paid. I have seen the humanities of life desecrated in every way. I have seen the father snatch the bread from his child, and the mother offer the gin-bottle for the breast. I have seen, too, generous sacrifices and tender considerations, to which the boasted chivalries of Sydney and Edward were childish ostentation. I have found wrong so exalted, and right so debased – I have seen and known of so much misery, that the faith in good has shivered within me.
For a time, when I urged these things in the circles of the comfortable, I received many various replies. By some it was said that it was the lot of humanity – that it had always been so, and, therefore, always must. That to enlarge on the evil was only to create discontent, and so injure "the better classes." It was in vain I urged to these reasoners that for hundreds, and, perhaps, thousands of years, creatures little better than Calibans infested the morasses and forests of Europe. That civilization had an onward progress, and that the history of the world proved the one great truth – that man is the creature of circumstances. By some, the evils were denied: by some few, deplored. By all, the discussion was avoided; though the destruction that menaced the Roman empire from the invasion of the barbarian world was never so imminent, nor could the consequence be so dreadful, as that which the wealthy, and civilization itself, would sustain from the insurrection of outraged poverty.
I next tried the politicians. I devoted some years to history and political economy. I even entered the senate. In politics, I found no means of relief. The struggle there was for the preponderance in power, and the reply, "Help us to get into power, and then we will see what we can do." The utmost was to institute inquiries; and from the information thus gathered, has been collected a record of misery, such as never was before displayed.
It is true, some steps have at last been taken in the right direction; some few noble spirits have spoken out to the "comfortable," the dreadful truths. That something must be done, is now acknowledged by all who think. The foolish, the careless, and the truculent, can no longer avowedly declare the cries and groans of the miserable multitude to be seditious discontent; nor ascribe their sufferings to the results of retributive justice.
Baffled in every search for a remedy at home, I determined to search foreign nations, and having carefully journeyed through Europe, I sought successively the East and West, until I had traversed the civilized countries of the world. It was in the remote regions of the East and West that I found a clue to my discovery. I here found mankind as multitudinous as at home, but much more happy. Starvation, except in cases of general famine, was unknown; and, on the contrary, I heard the sounds of revelry and dancing, of mirth and leisure, amongst the lowest classes. How different to the everlasting toil of the superior Englishman! "These, then," I said, "are the concomitants of bondage!" Having thus struck out the idea, I followed it up with logical severity, and enunciated the truth that slavery and content, and liberty and discontent, are natural results of each other. Applying this, then, to the toil-worn, half-fed, pauperized population of England, I found that the only way to permanently and efficiently remedy the complicated evils, would be to ENSLAVE the whole of the people of England who have not property.
Of course, I expect a shout of execration and contempt at such a bold proposition; but, as I have already said, I seek only to gain the hearing, at first, of the impartial and the original thinker. That I am disinterested, will at once be allowed, when I declare I do not seek to be one of the enslaved. But let us proceed to examine how this mighty benefit would manifest itself. The first great advantage would be, that the lower classes of society would be placed on an equality with the domestic animals; and by becoming property, become valuable and valued. At present there can be no doubt that a horse that is worth fifty pounds is much more cared for than a man who is worth nothing. We have lately seen a case where a woman was allowed to expire in parturition, because no more than eight shillings was allowed for the midwife's fee; whereas, when a famous racing mare foaled, ten guineas were not thought too great a sum to secure the attendance of a first-rate veterinary surgeon. Now, had the woman been a slave, her offspring would have been worth something, and, of course, her safety secured.
Like all great discoveries, the ramifications of the advantages are found to be endless, and, if once fully entertained, would be irresistible. Entire and complete slavery of the poor would put an end to all the discussions of their rights, and clearly and definitely work out the relative duties of all classes. We should have no more occasion for vague special pleading, such as we find in Paley and other moral philosophers, who endeavor to reconcile dependence and independence, and liberty and obedience. Sedition would be at once annihilated; for where there was no hope nor recognition of equality, there would be no attempt to raise claims which were stifled before born. All vain ambition, such as that now subsisting, between the potboy and the peer, as manifested in Chesterfield's mosaic gold and cigars, would be prevented. The potboy would be a contented slave, and the peer left to his superiority in clothes, trinkets, and sensualities.
It will of course be asserted that the people would not be contented as slaves, but it is only to make a state inevitable, and humanity is soon reconciled to it, as we are to death, governments, and the income-tax. Besides, what is liberty? a word now almost forgotten; a battle sound used to juggle men in every age and country; in Greece, Rome, and America, the war-cry of slaves to fight for the liberty of slavery. Must we, then, ever remain the tools of words; reject all the true advantages of slavery because we cannot bear the name, and take all its evils, and more, because we wish to renounce the sound? What are soldiers and sailors but bondsmen? Indeed, they are a happy specimen of slavery; well fed, clad, and tended; with plenty of leisure and repose. Why, then, should they be happier than the peasant, who pines away his dreary existence on bread and potatoes and water? What is the convict but a slave, who by his crimes has earned his right to be kept well and safe from the elements and want? We reward the criminal with slavery and competence, and leave the honest man to liberty and want.
If, indeed, the old noble cry of "Liberty and Beer" could be realized, then it were vain to urge my discovery; but as Englishmen, in proportion as they have gained their liberty, have lost their beer, it behooves us to see whether they had not better hasten back to that state, when inventoried with their masters' swine they shared also their superfluities.
