whose adverse minute had, in the words of their
respected chairman, "set them papers a' writin'
of us down." I can see that orator now, with
acts of parliament, official reports, blue-books,
and parish documents, at his elbow, rising to ask,
with affected moderation, if the Poor-Law Board
claimed to teach the guardians how they were
to spend the parishioners' money? I can see
him, too, blandly attempting to convict the
official of self-contradiction, of vexatious
interference, of unfairness and hostility; and I can
see his colleagues at the board solemnly wagging
their vacuous faces, and ticking off what they
considered his oratorical points, like a batch of
very unintellectual supernumeraries rehearsing
the trial scene in the Merchant of Venice. This
conduct was prompted, be it remembered, by the
indignation of guardians at being called upon to
make suitable provision for paupers, and it is a
fair sample of the spirit in which every suggestion
for parochial reform is received. The
central management aimed at by the Association
for the Improvement of the Infirmaries of London
Workhouses would remedy all this, and
place every detail of nursing, of classification,
and of medical attendance for the sick, in
independent hands. It is well to remember that
while Mrs. Betsey Prig has been largely superseded
in our hospitals by properly trained nurses,
she flourishes in a highly aggravated form in the
metropolitan workhouses it is sought to amend.
Reduced in circumstances and soured in spirit,
deprived of liberty and perquisites,
remunerated by beer and gin, this model nurse
becomes a demon of torture to the hapless wretches
under her. Scalding sick paupers to death in
boiling water; persistently aggravating sick
paupers' sores until they become mortal, and the
victims die; slaying sick paupers by administering
wrong medicines, and by giving stimulants
when stimulants are death; killing sick paupers
by withholding and getting drunk on their
medical comforts, and by turning them out of
the sick wards at night—, are among the gentle
peculiarities of which this representative lady
has been constantly convicted during the last
few years.

Or the male Prigs, the broken-down cobblers
or chapmen, who are selected by guardians to
nurse sick male paupers, I will only say that
they are rough, brutal, and ignorant; that they
emulate their sister in cruelty and neglect;
and that one of them recently justified himself
to me for allowing a poor wretch who had
tumbled out of bed in a fit to die on the floor
without assistance. "He were dead enough,
he were," remarked this warm-hearted
functionary, "and wot were the use o' rousin'
Mr. Blunt, or anybody? They couldn't bring a
dead man to life agin, not they indeed; and
why should they be disturbed? No, no, I knows
my dooty better. 'Ow did I know he wos
dead? Wy I shook him, and he never
answered, that's how. Wos the body cold wen I
see it? Yes, it were; leastwise his feet wos quite
cold." All this with a senile assumption of
wisdom, judgment, and tact, which was
inexpressibly grim. During the same visit, we
looked in hap-hazard at one of the wards we
passed. It was devoted to the chronically
infirm. What is the screen round that bed for—
anybody dead? "Oh no, not dead, sir; but one
of the old men is rather seriously ill, and I
thought it would be more comfortable, both for
him and for the others, to have him screened
off. We're always anxious to do everything in
our power, you see, and——" But we were
at the screen before the sentence was concluded,
and there we found the seriously ill patient
seriously ill no longer; and that his spirit,
unwatched, unministered, had passed silently away
from boards, and screens, and wards, leaving
the poor neglected body to be moved when it
should please some one in authority to discover
it was dead.

It is to uproot and extirpate the horrible
indifference proved by such instances as these,
that the movement commented on has been
inaugurated. Professedly confined to ameliorating
the condition of the sick poor, it is fair
to hope that its action will indirectly benefit
the poor generally. If it be decided that
workhouse infirmaries are to be supported by a
general rate, the logical deduction would seem
to be that the remaining portions of those
establishments may be similarly provided for. Of
course we shall have a parrot cry against
centralisation, and be solemnly warned of the
danger of tampering with local self-government.
It will be strange, however, if the solid benefits
of the latter cannot be secured without retaining
evils which are inconceivably wicked and
unjust; and if by some fusion of the elements
of responsibility and representation we do not
secure justice both for ratepayers and the poor.
It needs a stout heart and a good cause to
attack cupidity and obstinacy in their strongholds;
but the new association possesses both,
and may hope for the support of all who believe
the alleviation of helpless suffering to be a
responsibility which a Christian society should
cheerfully accept.

AT HOME WITH THE SPIRITS.

I HAVE so good an opinion of human nature,
that if a person were solemnly to tell me, in
language interlarded with pious phrases, that
he had once died and been brought to life
again, I should be disposed to believe rather
that he was a deluded person who deceived
himself, than that he was a canting liar,
attempting to deceive me. It is easy to believe
that a desperate man, whose life is at stake, or
who is in some other great emergency, will
call God to witness that which is not true; but
it is not easy to believe that a man, moving
in respectable society, who is under no awful
dread of this kind, could deliberately seek his
daily bread, and strive after notoriety, by
professions which he knows to be false, wicked,
and audaciously blasphemous. With this
disposition to regard the apostles of startling and