and open to the yard, of which it is a part.
The water is not turned on to the brick floor
for the sole purpose of giving the dotards cold.
Potatoes are being scraped and washed by
three or four of the least decrepit, and the
others are blinking and winking by their side,
because to be sheltered from the biting wind,
and to sit down, is less chilling than their other
alternative—standing in the open yard. "What
is the matter with the old man making the
painful noise when he coughs?" "Well, I
didn't notice which one it was; but they're all
very old, you see, and liable to coughs." Such
a row of helpless, hopeless, withered faces!
One of them essays to bow cringingly as we
enter; but the rest, like their prototypes round
the fire in the sick-ward, eye the potato
peeling like worn-out puppets, to whom volition
or change of gaze is impossible. The
majority seem so torpidly inanimate as to be
unconscious of all but cold; and there is not
one among them to whom a warm room,
kind treatment, and what are called
"comforts," are not as necessary as food and clothing
are to the healthy and strong. To shut those
forlorn people out in a flagged exercise-yard,
or to leave them neglected in an open
outhouse, is simply shortening their lives. Looking
at them critically, it was difficult to
understand how the line of demarcation is drawn
between the sick and the infirm. If to need
nursing, medical care, and constant warmth, be
"sickness" in a parochial sense, assuredly the
men before us were sick. Let the guardians
who read this paper make a tour of their spick-
and-span model workhouse for themselves, and
forgetting for a moment the incomparable
virtues of whitewash, and the saving grace of
cold water, let them, this winter, talk to the
old people who are sent out to work, listen to
their ailments, and observe their infirmities; and
if their experience does not affect the discipline
of the place, our faith in the kindness of
Cheshire squires is gone. The house is
confessedly occupied by the old and worn out.
Out of the one hundred and twenty-three
inmates it contained at our visit, there were but
two able-bodied men; yet the whole of the vast
gloomy place, which has accommodation for
double the number there now, is kept in order,
and every domestic function discharged, by
people who are admitted to be past work.
Either, then, the classification is false, or tasks
are improperly thrust upon those unable to
discharge them; and as we have seen that the
house does not suffer, it is tolerably obvious
the paupers do. Those dim-eyed, purposeless
old men haunt us. We want to master
the details of their daily lives, to know the
lying down and getting up of people to whom
a funeral of one of their number is a treat,
and who take a pride in following the ghastly
hearse which they themselves are soon to fill.

We hastily ask the master to conduct us to
the old men's sleeping-ward, and this is what
we see: A long room, light, airy, cold. Beds
running down each side, leaving a clear space
in the centre and between each. Floor, white
and spotless. Walls without so much as a fly-
spot to break their uniformity. Windows facing
each other at regular intervals, so as to ensure
a thorough supply of keen fresh air. Outside
the door, and at the stair-head, is a washing-
place, with a copious supply of cold water and
a couple of towels, which were clean at our
visit, and are changed "when necessary." Here
the feeble old men in the potato-shed sleep.
The door is locked which communicates with
the master and the rest of the house, but they
are mercifully allowed free access to the staircase,
to the cold water, and the closet. There
is no bell or other means of communication; no
wardsman, no pauper nurses charged with the
limited responsibility which it is equally common
and wrong to thrust upon them. In this room,
which would be excellent for healthy vigorous
lads, but is desolately penal for the decrepit
wretches sleeping in it, men of seventy, eighty,
and ninety spend their nights, unguarded,
uncared for, unremembered, until the hour comes
for unlocking the door and permitting them to
go forth to the yard or potato-shed again.
"Is there no one here," we ask, "to act for
you in case of accidents? Suppose one of the old
men were suddenly taken ill, or had a fit, or
were quarrelsome, is there no one in charge?"
The workhouse is too well conducted for any
possibility of the kind. "Never have any
trouble of that sort, I do assure you; and never
find it necessary to put any one in charge. Of
course the least infirm among them naturally
takes the lead; but we've no wardsmen, it ain't
necessary. As for a fit, or anything being
wanted, one of 'em would get up, of course, and
come down-stairs and through the other ward,
and then knock at the door nearest my room,
and I should be sure to hear directly." " Are
paupers always ready to help each other? Are
there not sometimes bad and intractable characters
among them?" "Well, we never meet
with any such. All is quiet and orderly when
they're once locked up; and as for squabbling or
fits, we never have anything of the kind." In
short, the arrangements are of the best possible
kind; a bell would be a superfluity, and a wardsman
or night-nurse rather a nuisance to the
people than otherwise. Listening to this, and
silenced by the courteous firmness with which
the master puts us right, we recal an ugly
circumstance which happened at Bethnal-green
workhouse a couple of years since. In just
such a ward as this, aged and infirm men were
locked up at night, without fire or light, as
here; but with this apparent advantage over
their Staffordshire fellows—a pauper wardsman
had strict orders to call the master if anything
went wrong. One night an old man suddenly
fell out of bed, and lay somewhat unaccountably
on the floor. After a time, one of his neighbours
called on the pauper in charge, who,
finding him "quite cold," refused to rouse any
one unnecessarily for a dead pauper, and, after
grumbling at being disturbed, retired comfortably
to bed again, and the body was removed in