The Uncommercial Traveller

dle manner of Tippoo-Sahib and Charles Lamb, and had got past my little wooden midshipman, after affectionately patting him on one leg of his knee-shorts for old acquaintance’ sake, and had got past A

e Commercial Road. Pleasantly wallowing in the abundant mud of that thoroughfare, and greatly enjoying the huge piles of building belonging to the sugar refiners, the little masts and vanes in small back gardens in back streets, the neighbouring canals and docks, the Indi

going to Wapping, because an Eastern police magistrate had said, through the morning papers, that there was no classification at the Wapping workhouse for women, and that it was a disgrace and a shame, and divers other hard names, and because I wished to see how the fact really stood. For, that Eastern police magistrates are not always the wisest men of the East, may be inferred from their course of procedure respecting

e. When I had ceased for an hour or so to take any trouble about the matter, I found myself on a swing-bridge looking down at some dark locks in some dirty water. Over against me, stood a creature remotely in the likeness of a young man, with a p

ce? Unto which, it replied, with a ghastly gri

aker’s

n, I deeply considered the meaning of this speech, while I eyed the apparition—then engaged in hugging and sucking a horizont

uicide,’ said I, look

sucked the iron between each name; ‘and all the bileing. Ketches off their bonnets or shorls, take

t hour of the mor

!’ Here the apparition rested his profile on the bar, and gurgled in a sarcastic manner. ‘There must be somebody

as myself a General Cove, or member of the miscell

aken out, are the

bjected to that word; ‘they’re carried into the werkiss and put into a ’ot bath, and br

d with a twist of its matted head, was close at hand. So I left Mr. Baker’s terrible trap (baited with a scum that was like the

y request to see the House. I began to doubt whether the police magistrate was quite rig

see the worst first. He was welcome to see e

nd spacious main body of the workhouse. They were in a building most monstrously behind the time—a mere series of garrets or lofts, with every inconvenient and objectionable

k on this world for ever; the uninterested face at once lead-coloured and yellow, looking passively upward from the pillow; the haggard mouth a little dropped, the hand outside the coverlet, so dull and indifferent, so light, and yet so heavy; these were on every pallet; but when I stopped beside a bed, and said ever so slight a word to the figure lying there, the ghost of the old character came into the face, and made the Foul war

ch was surely the very last and lowest reduction of self-complacency to be found in this wonderful humanity of ours. They were evidently jealous of each other, and passed their whole time (as some people do, whose fires are not grated) in mentally disparaging each other, and contemptuously watching their neighbours. One of these parodies on provincial gentlewomen was extremely talkative, and expressed a strong desire to attend the service on Sunday

lip, and an air of repressing and saving her strength, as she stood with her hands folded before her, and her eyes slowly rolling, biding her time for catching or holding somebody. This civil personage (in whom I regretted to identify a reduced member of my honourable friend Mrs. Gamp’s family) said, ‘They

d. There was nothing repellent either in her face or head. Many, apparently worse, varieties of epilepsy and hysteria were about her, but she was said to

summer season, ever thinks that somewhere there are trees and flowers, even mountains and the great sea? Whether, not to go so far, this young woman ever has any dim revelation of that young woman—that young woman who is not here and never will come here; who is courted,

hat the weary world was not all aweary, and was ever renewing itself; but, this young woman was a child not long ago, and a child not long hence might be such as she. Howbei

red to the contrary in their soft faces, Princes Imperial, and Princesses Royal. I had the pleasure of giving a poetical commission to the baker’s man to make a cake with all despatch and toss it into the oven for one red-headed young pauper and myself, and felt much the better

was, say twenty; youngest Refractory, say sixteen. I have never yet ascertained in the course of my uncommercial travels, why a Refractory habit should affect the tonsils and uvula; but,

the Refractories, keeping time to herself with her head and chin. ‘More than eno

be increased. It certainly was not heavy then, for one Refractory had already done her day’

t?’ said Refractory Two, ‘where a plees

ief, tugging at her oakum as if it were the matron’s hair. ‘But

ded arms—who originated nothing, but who was in co

brisk guide, in the calmest manner, ‘it is a

her pull at her oakum, and a very expressive look at the

he skirmishers again, s

warn’t fit for me—there! And where the family warn’t ’spectable characters—there! And where I fortunately or hunfort’nately, found that the people

again made a diversion with the s

supposed Chief Refractory and Number One, to be the tw

at a pleeseman an’t ’ad in now, and we took off agen.

y uvularly), and the sk

at the Uncommercial, ‘if I could be got into a place, or got abr

So would be, and so was, Oakum Head.

gentleman in want of a likely young domestic of retiring manners, would be tempted into the engag

eing nothink else h

thought it migh

in’t,’ said

f good,’ sai

kful to be got into a place, o

id Number Two. ‘Truly

broad. And, as if she had then said, ‘Chorus, ladies!’ all the Skirmishers struck up to the same purpose. We left them, thereupon, and began a long walk among the women who were simply old and infirm; but whenever, in the cour

e, or a hale old age. In ten minutes, all the lights of womankind seemed to have been blown out,

ere was no obligation whatever upon them to range themselves in this way; it was their manner of ‘receiving.’ As a rule, they made no attempt to talk to one another, or to look at the visitor, or to look at anything, but sat silently working their mouths, like a sort of poor old Cows. In some of these wards, it was good to see a few g

encouraged with hope of recovery; on the whole, I should say, it was considered rather a distinction to have a complication of disorders, and to be in a worse w

d, with sundry nods and motions of her forefinger, pointed out the woman in question. The elder of this pair, ninety-three, seated before an illustrated newspaper (but not reading it), was a bright-eyed old soul, really not deaf, wonderfully preserved, and amazingly conversational. She had not long lost her husband, and had been in that place little more than a year. At Boston, in the State of Massachusetts, this poor creature would have been individually ad

how me. As I shook hands with her at the gate, I told her that I thought justice

endurance. One poor parish in this very Union is rated to the amount of Five and Sixpence in the pound, at the very same time when the rich parish of Saint George’s, Hanover-square, is rated at about Sevenpence in the pound, Paddington at about Fourpence, Saint James’s, Westminster, at about Tenpence! It is only through the equalisation of Poor Rates that what is left undone in this wise, can be done. Much more is left undone, or is ill-done, than I

ollateral harm that obstinate vanity and folly can do. ‘This was the Hall where those old paupers, male and female, whom I had just seen, met for the Church service, was it?’—‘Yes.’—‘Did they sing the Psalms to any instrument?’—‘They would like to, very much; they would have an extraordinary interest in doing so.’—‘And could none be got?’—‘Well, a piano could even have been got for nothing

this way, man, and see what waits to be done!’ So I decoyed myself into another train of thought to ease my heart. But, I don’t know that I did it,

confidential manner, on another occasion, ta

y sorry t

mplaint to make a

here, I assure yo

ys, sir. The master and myself are both masons, sir, and I make him the sign continually