a system that has been for more than twenty years on trial; for, however carefully it may have been framed, it cannot be unreasonable now to look at its results more closely than we have ever done before. Up to this time the whole matter may be said to have been carried on "with closed doors;" and but little was known of the proceedings within, save by the poor inmates themselves, whom few thought of listening to, and the guardians and officials, who reserved to themselves the entire management, under the impression that whatever influence was forced upon them from without, was an interference with their rights and liberties, and productive of evil rather than of good.
It is true that there were dawnings of an interest in the subject, as long ago as the publication of Dickens's tale of the sorrows and sufferings of poor "Oliver Twist," the workhouse boy. But the instances of workhouse management, or rather mis-management, given there, fitted on to no one's experience; no one knew how much of it to believe, and it was deemed at all events a highly-coloured picture. There was, however, much truth for a foundation, and though we may hope that few, if any, exactly resemble Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, they might be considered as types of the class they represented. We cannot have forgotten the outcry of indignation that was raised at the discovery of the iniquities practised upon the pauper children at Tooting not many years ago, and more recently there have been the revelations of proceedings at the St. Pancras and Marylebone workhouses, which have perhaps done more than anything else to bring the whole matter forward into light. Up to that time there was no general interest awakened on the subject, and only a few persons here and there thought of the existence of the thousands who were shut up within the walls of buildings close to their own doors; in old workhouses, dim and dreary looking, still retained for their original purpose, or in new ones, grand and pompous castles or palaces, as repulsive, perhaps, to the humble dwellers in cottages or single rooms, the one as the other. But the subject was already working far down below the surface, and in due time the thoughts germinating there sprung up into the light of day. One of the first publications concerning workhouses, was a pamphlet inquiring " Why our Union Workhouses should not be Houses of Mercy," considering they were intended for the poor of a Christian land. Few persons took notice of this solitary voice raised in behalf of an apparently hopeless subject, and the publishers told me that hardly any copies were sold; but it was the first thing that directed my attention to it, and it probably did some good. In 1849, Dr. Sieveking wrote a pamphlet on the subject of training nurses from the inmates of workhouses, a point which seems to be again attracting some public notice at the present time, after an interval of eight years.
