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Leader (1850-1860), 27th September 1856, Edition 1 of 2, Page 925

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      THE HOPE OF THE WORKHOUSE . Disclosures that are made from time to time by the press justify the account of : English workhouses written by Mrs . Jameson . * As that lady , unlike a number of her countrymen , does not declaim against an evil without suggesting a remedy , her protest is entitled to some attention . Having provided for the poor , we are too little in the habit of

      inquiring koto we have provided for them A fortunate accident occasionally brings to liglit some bad aspects ( perhaps , however ^ not the worst ) of our poor-law system , and there is then , an uproar ; but the fitful charity dies away , and the paupers are left to their guardians . Against this class of gentlemen we have no wish to urge any general charge vrhich we Lave not the means of

      substantiating . But it may be said , without mjustice , thab , upon the whole , they are the guardians of the tax-payers , not of the poor . Their duty , as interpreted by themselves , consists in seeing that the inmates of the workhouse are not too comfortable , and that no one is an inmate who can by any quibble be excluded . We will not take the recent flogging caaea as characteristic of our workhouse administration . They may be exceptional , though decidedly tliey were the scandal of the parish of Marylebone . At all events , it is not to be denied that some workhouses are better governed tban others . There are the clean and the dirty , the systematic and the slovenly , the healthy and the pestiferous ; the harshly and the lcindly controlled . There are matrons of motherly virtue and matrons as odious as stupidity in a stnte of chronic intoxication can be . You mi \ y find the master to be of an amiable , conscientious character , or he may be a privileged ruffian , a small womanilogger .

      Mrs . Jameson affirms that she has seen in workhouses things she could hardly speak of . But setting aside their "worst aspects , her complaint is that the most vulgar of human beings are employed to manage the most ignorant , . paupers to govern paupers , tl » o aged and infirm to attend upon those more infirm and aged still . The chanty of the law is worked by a hard and coarse machinery . The tax which supports it is " paid so reluctantly , with so little sympathy in ita purpose , that the wretched paupers seem tc bo regarded as a sort of pariah locuBts , sent to devour tho substance of the rate-payers as the natural enemies of those who ar < taxed for their subsistence — almost a / criminals . " Mrs . Jamebotst is not e-x aggorating . Let us ask any ono famiiiai

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      appointing officers who are fitter to be led than" to lead . . Still more when it sets itself in opposition to the elite of the country . An antagonistic democracy is as false in its exclusiveness as an antagonistic aristocracy ; and the principle holds good in religion as much as it would in science , as much as it does in politics . The existence of an Establishment that cannot be supported voluntarily by the whole body of the people , prevents the existence of a real national Establishment representing the -whole body of the people . ' The Established Church ' blocks out a National Church . It is

      be"With this unhappy being , the curate , the incumbent "was placed in fiendish contrast . Every gentleman knows the position ( said the Times ') in ¦ which an incumbent stands , as a matter of course , to those whose services le has secured for 70 ? ., or 50 / ., or 26 ? . a year- Of course there is another side to this question , as incumbents take care to inform us . Curates are represented as an inferior race of men , otherwise they would not still be curates . . . . . They are drudges , it is said : there are plenty of them , as there is of drudges in every department , aad it is needless to

      pay more than the market price for an article of trade with which the market is overstocked . ...... . . It is not easy for any one to maintain a high tone , a dignified manner , or the other components of greatness , on 80 £ . a year . . . . . Poverty is very depressing . . . " . . When l a poor creature , ' as saucy young ladies and gentlemen call him , gets up in tne readingdesk , drones out the prayers , and hammers through an old sermon , few know bow often it may be said that he once had genius , sentiment , learning , and zeaL hut that .

      Chill penury repressed Ms noble rage . . And froze the genial current of the soul . ^ This is stating ' the other side of the case with a vengeance ! but the incumbents would not submit to be crushed by the Times . Accordingly , they come out strongly , and unquestionably they have a case . The " Rector of West Cainniell" declares that on account of the abatements in the income of an incumbent , when he was curate receiving the stipend , sometimes of SOI . a year and a house , 100 ? . or 140 Z ., he " could not afford to take

      one of five livings offered to him . " Another sends the account of his living , which is nominally -worth between 300 Z . and 400 Z . a year ; but after his expenditure in rent , taxes , curacy , &c , he has about 140 Z . of apparent income ; out of which he has to make his contributions towards charities -. and in the year of his appointment , first fruits and such claims left him with little more than 507 . Rigid economists revive old stories of pluralities , ^ of livings held ' in eommendam ; ' while the incumbent exercises other duties , probably

      scholastic . Or they point out the fact that the clergy know the scale of income which they may expect ; that ¦ they have their choice of a profession ; that they are not bound to marry or have large families ; and that therefore they must not charge the consequences of their own imprudence upon the slender incomes allotted to curates or incumbents . The arguments of these economists appear to be , that if the clergy of the Established Church are ill paid , they ought to choose another profession , and they ought to regulate . their

      matrimony and their families according to their cloth . Here political economy preaches tlie same doctrine with the Roman Catholic Church , and would establish a celibate clergy . The other economists set off the great prizes of the Church against its deplorable blanks , and seem to think that it is good fun to gamble in the chances of Church preferment In all these comments , in all these advocacies and complaints , we have not yet departed from the strict limits of the Established Church '; we are but repeating the statements , arguments , and comments of

      church-Church and the sects together do not provide room for two-thirds ; yet the actual attendance in the Establishment is about oneseventh , and in all places of worship together not much more than one-third ! All people who are physically able to go to church could not find room , but the room provided is much in excess of those who are willing . -The primary want , thenj is a more efficient Ministry ; but who in these days are to get a more efficient Ministry when the rate of pay is such , that the incumbent and the curate

      sources . The Church , indeed , once had tithes ; but who can recover them from the lay impropriator 3 ? The only remedy which occurs to the most outspoken friend of the Church is alarming : — "If the Church , of England is to stand , sooner or . later we must come to a general voluntary contribution , for its partial support , and sooner is better than later ; indeed , postponement may be irremediable . " The great Establishment , then , lias nothing left for it but to send round the plate !

      "What are its hopes of success when its best performers display their powers in empty churches , while a Spurgeon , the newest novelty of one of the most heterogeneous sects in the country , is obliged to remove from a . private chapel to Exeter Hall , in order that he may thunder his exciting sermons into tens of thousands of ears . There is a zest in the prospect of being damned . Sttjkgeon tells his ' axiditory that the indifference of the clergymen is misprision of

      datnnaquarrel , not over a surplus salary , but over a deficiency which each wants to thrust upon the other ? The two societies—the Pastoral Aid and the Additional Curates Societyraise respectively 37 , 2642 . and 17 , 323 Z . in the year- —a mere drop in the ocean . The churches of the Establishment are empty for want of a clergy to draw an audience into that theatre ; two great societies raise the paltry sum of 52 , 000 Z . for the purpose of recruiting the clergy—about 51 . a head on the total number of the clergy ; and here we seem to have come to the end of the

      retion ; that the neglectful incumbent is answerable for the perdition of all the souls in his church ; and that at a future day , when he has passed from these petty squabbles with liis curate , he may have his parish " come howling after him into hell . " There is no lack of voluntary contributions towards this kind of preaching ; they are collected for Spubgeon at the doors of Exeter Hall , in sums enough to supply a stimulus greater than alcohol for this vehement orator . But

      how can the incumbent or the curate , dragged down by a deficiency of 10 Z . in the annual pittance , vise to sublimities like these ? It is an unequal competition . The confession that the Establishment has no resources but the plate , is a confession that the days of the Establishment are numbered—that is , as an Establishment . The voluntary system could never Biicceed for tho support of ministers whose

      nunistrarnen . But despondency can go yet further . Our weekly contemporary appeals to the statistics of Mr . Hoka . ce Mann , and draws from them the most painful of all conclusions . The Spectator quotes from Mr . Mann ' s book the proportions of attendance at divine service on Sunday . Fifty-eight per cent , of the whole population of the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire and Lancashire could attend

      sertions have been arranged according to the ideas of James the Fihst's day . The very call for a revision of the Bible—a call supported by the whole force of better intelligence in these days—shows that while we must revere the spirit of the men who translated tho Bible , we must inevitably revise their imperfect manner of doing their work . But if we must revise tho verbal construction of that volume , does it not follow tliat we must revise the whole construction of the

      vice : the number would be 937 , 000 . The Church of England provides 238 , 000 sittings : the number of sittings provided by tho Church and the sects together is 573 , 000 . The number of attendants at church is 122 , 000 ; at all places of worship , 348 , 000 . In the great manufacturing towns , therefore , the Church provides a quarter of the accommodation required "by tho population ; the

      machinery for tho exposition of tho religion that the volume teaches ? This is exactly what the country has been doing , by means of ' Dissent . ' "But when the multitude sets itself to administer any affairs of an elevated character , it inevitably falls into tho error of

      coining pauper , because it draws its whole resources from the past , aiid lives upon tithes that Lave been impropriated ; and its sole chance of saving itself is by converting itself into an administration for the religion of the entire country , —making itself what it has ceased to be , the Church of England .

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      September 27 , 1856 . J THE LEADER . 925

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      * The Communion of Labour : a . Second Locturo 01 tho Social Employments of "Women . By Mrs . Jameson Longman and Co . ¦

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 27, 1856, page 925, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2160/page/13/