this long chamber jar upon one as much as
if it were a living tomb. Nor is there any
more trace of its being the home of people
with the same wants and feelings as ourselves,
than would be found in a row of trestles upon
which corpses were to rest. Not a shelf, not a
book, not a tray-stand, not a solitary attempt at
cheap decoration, relieved the dreary uniformity.
It made one's eyes ache to note the comfortless
cleanliness of the chilly chamber and the
prison-like regularity of the rows of couches.
Not a word can be said against the beds,
as beds; though the master was "unable to
say" whether at this time they accommodated
two inmates each, or one. They are
clean and fairly comfortable. It is the
absence of all human personal interest, of every
trace of individuality, which strikes us as
repulsively harsh for any but a criminal class. A
prison, cleanly, well ventilated, but still a prison,
where the inmates are looked after according
to fixed rules, and where any yielding to
personal tastes, any attempts at rendering the last
earthly resting-place of the unfortunate, the
broken-down, and the afflicted, home-like, is
against the rules—such was our estimate of
this dreary establishment. The axiom
enunciated at the tramp-ward, "Starve vagrants, and
there'll be an end of vagrancy," is paraphrased
within the house into, "Withhold necessaries
from paupers, and you'll make pauperism
unpopular." This might be defended, if idle,
worthless scamps were battening upon the poor-
rates. In such a case, by all means make their
discipline and regimen harsh. Hem them in by
rules and regulations, forbid them comforts, and,
while finding them with food and shelter, rigorously
exact labour in return. And these
admissions may be made with the more
confidence, when it is remembered that the present
inmates are, almost without an exception,
declared by the parish authorities themselves to
be unfit for work.

The children are at school, and, passing the
receiving-ward, we enter a large room where
an organ and other fittings show that it serves
the double duty of chapel and schoolroom.
Both boys and girls are being taught here,
under a male and female teacher respectively,
and look well fed and happy. There are
evidently no undue hardships for them. Their
young blood keeps them in a glow in the coldest
yard; and as for being locked up in the dark
together at night, their only trouble is that the
plaguy schoolmaster sleeps in the next room,
and has a knack of appearing in his nightgown
directly a comfortable pillow fight begins. This
is the boys' view, and if field-labour or other
out-of-door work could be substituted for this
nasty schooling, which never did anybody good
yet, and never will, why they would, they think,
be tolerably satisfied with their lot. The sacred
board-room, with firm-looking chairs, which
suggest equal firmness in their users, and a general
air of formality judiciously calculated to awe the
pauper mind; a board-room, the sole ornament
of which is the black harness decorating a corner,
and some framed regulations, signed "Courtenay,"
for the Poor Law Board, is shown next.
This harness hasn't been used yet, and is waiting
for the guardians to approve it. "You see,
what we had was rather worn when we put it
along with such a 'earse"—the master, whose talk
is not otherwise cocknified, persists in speaking
of the gloomy caravan as if it were the dialect
of the Gaels—" such a 'earse as ours is: it
looked downright shabby; and so our guardians
agreed to have new, for, as I said before, they're
kind men, and like to bury their paupers well."

Laundries, admirably arranged, are shown,
with hot and cold water laid on to each
washing tank. In one, an imbecile female
dwarf of sixty is rubbing her brown and wizened
bust with soapsuds with a slow deliberate
motion, as if trying to remodel it a better colour.
She responds to the " Now then, Sally, look
sharp!" of the master, by making the most
grotesquely hideous grimace it has been our
fortune to see save in a gurgoyle or a pantomime.

The lavatories are copiously supplied with
water and clean towels. We see a bakery
next, in which excellent loaves have just
left the oven and their tins, and are being
ranged in warm brown rows on racks, by
a shrewd baker, whose face and clothes are
pervaded, like Mr. Tulliver's, with a general
mealiness. We see the old women's day-
rooms, with the infirm inmates dotted about like
bundles of old clothes, some gibbering affably
to the air, and others self-complacent and
gossiping, as dowagers at a five o'clock tea. A
table, and the means of sitting down to it,
comprise the comforts and amusements provided
here for old age. The old women have,
however, these advantages over their brethren—the
windows of their room look out upon the
country, instead of a prison-yard, and they
are not turned out of it to mope in the damp
between meal-times. The tank at the top
of the house, immediately under the latticed
lanthorn window which is so conspicuous an
object from the road, and a loft in which the
scent from pauper-grown and pauper-gathered
onions strongly asserts its equality with onions
differently circumstanced, claim our notice next;
and we gradually beat back to the room in which
we first found the master. Then came a delicate
duty—the duty of making our entry in
the visitors' book.

Great people—a living duchess and a dead
lord, a duke, and an earl's son; philanthropic
people—notably a gentleman from Ireland,
whose entry was methodically enthusiastic, and
who iterated every item of approval like an
inspired appraiser; official people—the guardians
and the representative of the Poor Law Board—
had all concurred in recording their intense
admiration of this workhouse and its arrangements.
Her grace's comments are mildly
rapturous, with an undercurrent of implied feeling
that if a harsh fate had not compelled her
to be a duchess, she would.choose the Elysian
life led by the paupers here. The inspector
has not a word to say upon the palpable