LAST WEEK.
The Last Week of Last Year is at an end, and yet another bead has slipped through the fingers of Time. As far as this nation is concerned, the year 1860 has not been marked by any very noteworthy events; and happily so, for these are generally calamities. The notches which the historian cuts on his tally-sticks mean the Great Fire, the Great Panic, the Great Frost, the Great Plague, the Great War. His skill fails him when he is called upon to describe a period of peace and prosperity. Last year there has been no Indian mutiny, no foreign war worthy of the name, no domestic agitation, no scourge of sickness; no Crimea, no Reform riot, no Cawnpore, no cholera. As we look back to the chronicles of the weeks in which the pulsations of English life are recorded, it would seem as though the year 1860 might most aptly be described as the year of rain. The clouds were in our debt—indeed they were some five years in arrear, and as they were honest clouds, and not Directors of Joint-Stock concerns, they have met their liabilities to the last shower. Oh! that Colonel Waugh, and the pragmatic gentlemen who preside over banking concerns in Glasgow and Aberdeen, would take a lesson from these conscientious vapours, and descend in the form of refreshing Dividends upon the parched hearts of their shareholders! There was a time, however, during the last year, when the rain had well-nigh drowned our crops—the hay crop in particular was in imminent danger. In various parts of the country the younglings of the flocks perished in great numbers, and we were looking forward to the occurrence of a national calamity such as would have “adorned the pages” of the future historian. The sun peeped out at this critical moment, and the hearts of our farmers and our photographers were glad. Still, even as it is, the price of forage and fodder stands at a very inconvenient height. Corn, too, is sold at rates which might have given occasion to intestine broils in this country, when cold Julys and watery Augusts voted with the majority in the House of Commons. Human fatuity has ceased, in this country at least, to be an element in short crops. A few more words about the weather. Our meteorologists are in a state of astonishment at the intensity of the cold towards the conclusion of last year.
Mr. E. J. Lowe wrote on Christmas Day to the Editor of the “Times,” and forwarded to him the results of his observations. It appeared that on the previous day, December 24th, there was the most extraordinary cold ever known in England. On the morning of that day the temperature at four feet above the ground was 8 degrees below zero of Fahrenheit; and on the grass, 13.8 degrees below zero, or 45.8 of frost. The writer adds that the Trent was full of ice, and in a few hours would be fast frozen over. He mentions, as a whimsical illustration of the intensity of the frost, that he had just seen a horse passing with icicles at his nose three inches in length, and as thick as three fingers. Last Week the Thames was frozen as we have not seen it since the terrible winter of 1854-55. On Christmas morning there were floating crystals in the air. It stands on record that, during the retreat from Moscow, crystals such as these added severely to the sufferings of the struggling, perishing soldiers as they staggered gloomily onwards in the direction of their French homes which they were never to see again. Sir Robert Wilson makes very particular mention of this fact.
This is the season at which every one amongst us who has fire and candle, food, shelter, and clothing, should give a thought—and more than one—to the sufferings of the Poor. Is it not astonishing that, although by the law of England means are provided for affording shelter, and a certain rough sustenance to wholly destitute persons, and although private charity has also contributed so largely, and to so many institutions for the relief of suffering humanity, the poor of London have suffered such extremities of misery Last Week? Logic and sentiment, political economy, and a far diviner science have equally broken down; and the sufferings of the poor in London have been extreme. In many of the Unions the Workhouse test indiscriminately applied is more for the purpose of checking solicitation, than for the detection of imposture. “Come into the House, or starve!” The wretched creatures are so blind to the political necessities of the case, and so dogged in their misery, that they take the “Relieving Officers” at their word,—retire to their garrets or cellars, throw a ragged rug over their children who lie shivering on a heap of shavings, and in innumerable instances suffer everything short of death—in some cases death itself—rather than enter ‘the House.’
These facts are perfectly well known to those who have inquired into the true history of the back-lanes and blind-alleys of London. Are we therefore to give up the principle of the Poor Law, and to return to a system which would in the course of a few years have reduced the nation to beggary? Surely not. But, on the other hand, there are exceptional cases, in which great severity of weather is combined with great depression in particular trades, in which the sternness of the principle might be relaxed with advantage, until the pinch is passed. The consequence of our consistency is that in London persons of any degree of human feeling pay their poor rates twice over without any guarantee that the money disbursed for the second payment is distributed in a proper manner. Those memorable lists in the “Times,” which record the donations to this or that Refuge or Home, are the rider to the Poor Law. The thing is of course in practice an impossibility, but can any one doubt for a moment that if the enormous sums contributed annually to the support of charitable institutions were lumped in with the sums raised under the Poor Law, and judiciously and honestly disbursed amongst the poor, we need never more feel a chill come over us as we sit by our cheerful firesides, and think of our poor fellow-countrymen who are cheerless and cold. The endeavour to carry out such a theory in practice would of course be a mere delusion. It is only suggested to illustrate the working of the Poor Law when too sternly carried out. It may be added that if we could succeed in breaking down that feeling of self-respect and independence which induces the poor to keep out