Notes to follow up...
- I believe JCB's account has never been discussed in relation to studies of the Drouet case... may not have been recognised as such
- JCB's deep feelings about bastardy - the "mark of Cain" etc - may reflect his own experience ...
- date? Centre of scandal Jan 1849
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I had just settled down to work when I was informed that my services were required for a week or two to assist the Poor Law inspector in the examination of a large pauper school a few miles from town.
My first impression was that institutions of this kind should be under a special department of the Government, and not left to guardians and contractors in flesh and blood. I took
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an early opportunity of visiting the place and seeing what sort of children had to be examined, and as I should be engaged for three or four weeks, I thought the first thing was to secure decent lodgings. A little distance from the asylum was a quaint, old-fashioned country inn, very attractive outside, and, as far as I could judge, clean and comfortable inside. It was kept by a widow and her two daughters, who at first were most attentive, but in a few days avoided me. If we met on the staircase they ran back. I said, "I am afraid you will find me a poor lodger, as I never drink intoxicating drinks, but in consideration of this I will pay a trifle more for my lodgings."
I now called on the head of the infant pauper asylum. He appeared to me as a very fine portly English farmer, about fifty years of age. He received me with generous hospitality he sorrowed over the loss of his wife, whom he described as his right hand. She looked after the girls better than the nurses, some of whom were not infected with any love for total abstinence. I looked over the visitors' book, and
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found the names of bishops, lords, baronets, members of Parliament, clergy, and the guardians from twelve unions who at different times had visited the establishment and expressed in terms of the highest approval their admiration for everything they saw.
But the truth is often to be found in what we don't see.
The master wanted me to sign my name in the visitors' book, but I declined (a rather ungracious thing to do after a good luncheon) until I had seen over the place. He sent for a man to show me over. I politely but firmly declined his services, because I knew what showing you over a public institution meant. I said, "You must allow me to go about by myself."
The first thing I saw was an open stinking sewer ditch into which the filth and sewage of 1,400 persons filtered, and this ran parallel with the dormitories and schools. I saw the bedrooms were without fireplaces, and that windows could not be opened, that floors were rotten with constant washing, and the quantity of air was quite inadequate to the wants of the children. The dietary was chiefly
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of bread, pea soups, potatoes, and suet-puddings [??] not a very complete dietary for growing children. Although it was the middle of winter not one of the children wore flannel, and they went about in cotton pinafores shivering with cold. With all this their faces looked fairly plump, but their arms and legs were like drumsticks, and their bodies emaciated. There was one nurse to twenty-five or thirty children; they were of the old style and aged. They each had a bottle of medicine for the children, and most of them had a bottle of something else for themselves.
Nearly everything was contract children clothed, fed, and educated at 4s. 6d. a week; medicine and attendance on 1,400 children for 70 [??] a-year. I had really nothing to do with these matters, but as it was reported to the world in all the papers as a wonderful and successful experiment by which the infant pauper problem was solved, I was curious to know everything. My business was to find out if these children, whose ages varied from one to fourteen, were being properly educated and instructed in the principles of the Church of
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England.
I now looked through the schools indeed, I was to visit officially the following week and here the odour was sickening, but those inside appeared quite unconscious of anything unpleasant, and were rather surprised at my observation about the air. They had no windows open, because they were not intended to open and expose the children to draughts. I saw a number of them had sore eyes, others had boils and open sores on the neck; but, taken in the mass, there was nothing to impress you with the idea that the children were not cared for, but when naked they all had enlarged stomachs. I saw two girls vomiting, and when I called the attention of the teacher to it, she replied they had eaten something which disagreed with them.
The buildings were old, the chief one was comfortable and substantial, but this was occupied by the master of the establishment and the head officials. The remainder of the buildings were the out-buildings of an old manor-house, but the others were temporary wooden barracks, easily extended with every new importation-
[253] of children. The girls appeared heavy, sullen, and helpless, frightened if you spoke to them ever so kindly; they seemed destitute of all love or affection; they had no dolls to nurse, which is so natural to young girls. The boys worked on the land, about forty acres, but were not properly taught any trade, and I was told that many of the elder boys had low, debased habits, and used foul and obscene language to the girls.
I returned to my lodgings and began to think I had undertaken a rather unpleasant business.
When at breakfast on the Monday I was to begin work, the news came that there was a sudden outbreak of cholera among the children, and twenty-five had died within an hour. The medical officer from the Board of Health called, and assured me I need not alarm myself, as the outbreak was no more contagious than chilblains. I accompanied him to the asylum, and I shall never forget the scene women crying and shrieking for their children, some of them drunk a mixed; mob outside and inside, running about without knowing what to do or where to go. Medical
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men and guardians from the different unions arrived in batches, until the place looked like the opening of a medical congress. Some of the children cried piteously for water, but there was none fit to drink. They then passed into a deep sleep, from which they never awoke.
Some fell down and died in the yard, others were removed to beds saturated with the vomits or excretions of previous occupants, and for several days and nights the scene was sorrowful beyond description. In four days 150 died and were buried in less than twenty-four hours after death in boxes, each box holding from four to six bodies, without any identification or inquest. The unions were ordered to immediately remove their children, but many of them had no place to remove them to numbers were taken to infirmaries and; hospitals, where the total deaths reached 352.
Covered vans and omnibuses passed through the streets at night laden with the waste refuse of our humanity.
There was a strong public feeling that cholera would be spread through London by their removal, but no case occurred except
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among these children.
A coroner's inquest brought in a verdict of manslaughter against this contractor in the flesh and blood of poor children. He was acquitted, of course, but he died soon after the strain was too much for; him. When I first saw him, a few months before, he was a hale, hearty man, with dark hair and florid complexion he now stood in the; dock a wreck of his former self, with hair and beard as white as snow. What had brought about this change? The four-and-sixpenny greed, the desire to make money out of the flesh and blood of poor children, who were underfed, insufficiently clothed during a severe winter in fustian and calico, because it was cheaper than flannel; condemned to breathe an atmosphere saturated with poisonous germs, which their imperfectly nourished bodies were unable to resist, when death in its most repulsive form came early to their relief.
I remained about three weeks, until only thirteen children were left, whom no one owned.
When the children had left a detachment of navvies arrived to clear out the ditches and open sewers when there was no one to die.
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I had no opportunity of judging the educational attainments of these children. I have no; doubt they corresponded with their physical condition. The teachers were a poor lot, but quite equal to their salaries. If they had failed in everything else they would probably have passed excellently well in the Catechism.
I was sitting in the office one evening, trying to solve the puzzles and contradictory orders almost daily issued by the Board of Health to the guardians, when I was told two ladies wished to see me. The place, once all life and excitement, now began to assume the gloomy dulness of the grave.
The two ladies for they were becomingly dressed as ladies had come to inquire about their children. I could not understand how women apparently in their positions could have children at a pauper asylum. None of the children left belonged to them, and I could find no trace of them; they were probably resting, with others, in the churchyard. The women were very sorrowful; they shed tears, which appeared to involuntarily run down their cheeks without
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stint. Sorrow is contagious [??] I have seen and experienced a good deal of it, but I never remember being so touched with the sorrows of others. I tried to comfort them with the usual platitudes about their children having escaped the trials and sorrows of this life, which, under its most favourable conditions, was not always a blessing to be desired, but remarks of this kind afford no comfort to the heart of a loving woman sorrowing for her children when the shadow of those we; love has passed away the vision still haunts us. I invited them to have tea, but they at first refused, but after another invitation consented.
In a short time we grew more friendly and confidential. I assured them that what they said would be strictly private between us, and I was in full sympathy with the sorrow which had overtaken them. The elder of these ladies was, and had been for years, house-keeper to a Cabinet Minister. She had been unfortunate a few years before with one of the men-servants, who promised her marriage and then deserted her. She had to practice all sorts of deceit to hide her misfortune and 18
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keep her situation, and this she succeeded in doing through the help of a married sister, who took the child when it was three weeks old. In a few months it was admitted to the pauper asylum in the name of the married sister, who was regarded as the official mother of the child. She made all the payments, and occasionally visited the child; the child was to have a bed to itself and have other little attentions as regards food for extra payment of one shilling a week, which I fear it never had.
Thirty years after, by the accident of losing my train, I met this woman again she had married a well-to-do farmer; on the estate, and appeared very happy. She had forgotten my name, but when her husband went out to chain up the dog she said, "You will not forget the promise you made me many years ago." I replied, "It is sacred " as the confessional but as she had no; children, and all the parties are now dead, there is no harm in referring to it.
The other case was in some respects more sad. This young woman was a lady's-maid, and had been led away by the son of her
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mistress, who promised to marry her, but after her trouble cared nothing about her, and the family refused to see her or have anything to do with her. But the wretch who had brought this sorrowful ruin on the woman could sit at the same table every day with elegantly dressed ladies and drink champagne and talk about the vice and profligacy of the poor.
The mother, who took charge of the child, eventually passed it into the pauper asylum in a feigned name, and so long as the child lived it was visited once a week and cared for as well as it could be in such a place.
A period of much secret sorrow and trouble followed. She was advised a lawsuit, but her lawyer told her the corroborative evidence was not sufficient, and failure would only deepen her sorrow. The lady could not think of giving a low, common, deceitful woman a character, and but for the kindness of her mother, who was able to help her, there was nothing for this poor creature but the street. There is no organised trades union among lady's-maids, but they know each other, and where friendships spring up are ready to help each
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other. After a time, through the influence of a lady's-maid who knew all the trouble she had passed through, this young woman became lady's-maid to the daughters of a baronet, where she remained for years.
Two or three women would sometimes come drunk and inquire for their dear little bastards; these were shown the door. But who knew their history or cared to know it? The sorrow, the degradation belong to the woman she; loses caste among her friends and neighbours, but the man, who ought to be avoided as a social leper unless he marries the woman he has wronged, loses nothing. He is admitted into what is called Society, and his mother and sisters speak of it as an unfortunate liaison.
The condemnation falls on the woman, as if she alone were the guilty party. It may be very well for old women who never felt the passion of love, who were never young, to lift up their pious hands and condemn the feebleness which yields to the most powerful temptations of human nature, and which, at times, some appear helpless to resist. We know nothing of the circumstances or surroundings
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which helped to the downfall of these women, who ought rather to be objects of sorrow before we pass sentence on their sin. Nature does not compel persons to marry, but she does influence them by feelings and desires which they are not always able to resist. The sin is not against nature, but against society, which is wantonly cruel to the woman.
More than two hundred and thirty children in the asylum were by our laws illegitimate, bearing the name of the mother. How could these children help their birth. Yet through life they must carry with them the mark of Cain! I returned to the Institution and resumed my work, but the thought of this infant pauper asylum haunted me by day and night.
When I called to mind these poor children and saw the brutal cruelty, sanctioned by law, which one man could inflict on defenceless children who came into this world from no will of their own, but because they were fatherless and motherless had greater claims on humanity and entitled to more kindly consideration, cast on the world, drifted about to perish like autumn leaves, I began to doubt
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and at that time it was my first serious doubt if the laws of man were not at variance with the laws of God, and whether there was any operative force in this world superior to the cruelty of man, or why should this sorrow and suffering exist?
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