Various - Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 377, March 1847

In order to deal effectively with pauperism, it is necessary to know the causes which lead to the impoverishment of individuals and masses of individuals, and to be familiar with the condition, manners, customs, habits, prejudices, feelings, and superstitions of the poor.

We do not propose to institute an elaborate inquiry into the causes of pauperism , or to make the topic a subject of separate investigation. Our chief object will be, to collect into classes those of the poor who are known, from personal observation, to become chargeable to parishes, which process will afford abundant scope for remark upon the causes which led to their impoverishment. We may require the company of the reader with us in the metropolis for a short space, and may satisfy him that he need not travel ten miles from his own door in search of valuable facts, and at the same time convince him that pauperism is not that simple compact evil which many would wish him to believe. We might also show that, in the metropolis and its suburbs, there exist types of every class of poor that can be found in the rural and manufacturing districts of England; just as it might be shown, that its inhabitants consist of natives of every county in the three kingdoms. Its fixed population, according to the quarter in which they live, would be found to resemble the inhabitants of a great town, a cathedral city, or a seat of manufactures. And that portion of its inhabitants which may be regarded as migratory, would complete the resemblance, except that the shadows would be deeper and the outline more jagged. These persons make London their winter-quarters. At other seasons they are employed by the farmer and the grazier. It is a fact, that the most onerous part of the duties of the metropolitan authorities are those which relate to these migratory classes. Among them are the most lawless and the most pauperised of the agricultural districts. Others, during the spring, summer, and autumn months, were engaged, or pretend that they were engaged (and the statement cannot be tested,) in the cutting of vegetables, the making of hay, the picking of pease, beans, fruit, and hops, and in harvest work. Or they travelled over the country, frequenting fairs, selling, or pretending to sell, knives, combs, and stay-laces. Or they were knife-grinders, tinkers, musicians, or mountebanks. As the winter approaches, they flock into the town in droves. There they obtain a precarious subsistence in ways unknown; some pick up the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table, others overcrowd the workhouses. It would lead to many curious and useful results if this matter were fully investigated. The reader’s company is not, however, required for this purpose; at the same time, the previous remarks may, in some measure, prepare his mind for the consideration of kindred topics. It may introduce a train of reflection, and prompt him to inquire whether the wandering habits of these outcasts have been in any degree engendered by the strict workhouse system and workhouse test enforced in their native villages, by the destruction of cottages, and the breaking up of local associations, and whether these habits have been fostered by the facilities with which a bed and a mess of porridge may be obtained at the unions, without inquiry into their business and object in travelling.

Let us steer our course along the silent “highway,” the Thames, and make inquiries of the few sailor-looking men who may still be seen loitering at the several “stairs;” we shall learn that not many years since these narrow outlets were the marts of a thriving employment, and that there crowds of independent and privileged watermen plied successfully for fares. These places are now forsaken, and the men have lost their occupation. Some still ply; and the cry at a few stairs, of “Boat, your honour?” may still be heard. Others have been draughted into situations connected with the boat companies, which support them during the summer months. A large number swell the crowds of day-labourers, who frequent the legal quays, the sufferance wharves, and the docks. And the rest, unfitted by their age or habits to compete with labourers accustomed to the other fields of occupation, sink lower and lower; sustained for a time by the helping hands of comrades and old patrons, but at last obliged to seek a refuge at the parish workhouse. Death also does his part. At Paul’s Wharf stairs, a few inches above high-water mark, a few shrubs have been planted against the river wall – and above them is a small board, rudely cut, and on it are inscribed these words, – “To the memory of old Browny, who departed this life, August, 26, 1846.” Let us stroll to the coach offices. Here again we see a great change – great to the common eye of the public, who miss a raree show, and a still greater one to the hundreds and thousands of human beings whose subsistence depended upon the work done at those places. A few years ago, the reader may have formed one of a large group of spectators, collected at the “Peacock” at Islington, to witness the departure of the night mails, on the high north road. The cracking of whips, the blowing of horns, the prancing horses, the bustle of passengers and porters, and the consciousness of the long dreary distance they had to go, exercised an enduring influence upon the imagination and memory of the youthful observer. Now, a solitary slow coach may be sometimes seen. In those days, all the outlets of the metropolis presented similar scenes. Then call to remembrance the business transacted in those numerous, large, old-fashioned, square-galleried inn-yards; and reflect upon the hundreds who have been thrown out of bread. The high-roads and the way-side inns are now forsaken and silent. These remarks are not made merely to show that there is an analogy between the several districts and employments in the metropolis, and those of the country. If this were all, not another word would be written. But it so happens that the comparison affords an opportunity, which cannot be passed over, of referring to the changes which are going on in the world; and forcibly reminds us, that while some are rising, others are falling, and many are in the mire, trodden under foot, and forgotten. It is with the miserable beings who are in the last predicament, that poor-laws have to do.

The political economist may be right when he announces, that the introduction of machinery has, on the whole, been beneficial; and that the change of employment from one locality to another, depends upon the action of natural laws, of which he is merely the expositor. It may be the case, too, that he is attending carefully to the particular limits of his favourite science, when he occupies his mind with the laws themselves, rather than with their aberrations. But those who treat upon pauperism as an existing evil, to be dealt with now, should remember that they have to do not with natural laws, as they are separated and classified in the works of scientific men, but with the laws in all their complexity of operation, and with the incidents which arise from that complexity.

The coachmen, the guards, the ostlers, the horse-keepers, the harness-makers, the farriers, the various workers in the trade of coach-builders, and the crowd of tatterdemalions who performed all sorts of offices, – where are they? The inquirer must go into the back streets and alleys of London.