| Saturday Review 28 October 1865: Stephen>
| <Paupers and Public Opinion>
| It is tolerably evident that a pitched battle is to be fought 
| this winter between the London Boards of Guardians on 
| the one side, and the Poor Law Board, the Acts of 
| Parliament, and the whole enlightened opinion of the 
| country on the other. Nobody but those who are utterly 
| inexperienced in such contests, or those who have an 
| idiotic confidence that self-government is invariably 
| synonymous with upright and efficient administration, will 
| be likely to feel at all sanguine that what is apparently the 
| stronger array will come off victorious. The army of 
| Bumbles  is small in numbers, but it is of a rare and heroic 
| audacity, and derives an invincible spirit of perseverance 
| from its inveterate selfishness, its lofty contempt for 
| adversaries, and its long career of victory. It always fights 
| most vigorously under the very circumstances which would 
| most fatally discomfit a more sensitive force. To have the 
| sun in their eyes ~~ in other words, to have all 
| considerations of public duty and human charity beating 
| dead against them ~~ only instigates these remarkable 
| troops of Bumbledom to a more furious and indiscriminate 
| valour. The undaunted courage with which, in the defence 
| of their sacred cause, they are ready to defy what is plainly 
| the human law, and to outrage what is commonly taken for 
| divine law, to trample on all public opinion, to temper 
| injustice with cruelty and impudence, is a spectacle which 
| hero-worshippers ought to find truly refreshing. And what is 
| there to cope with this inspired band? A body of officials 
| who only fight from ten to four, whose pockets are not 
| concerned like those of the Guardians, and whose position 
| and means of subsistence are not at stake like those of the 
| beadle and the workhouse-master. Besides the officials, 
| there is the vague and intangible force of public opinion. 
| We are always flattering ourselves that this is in itself 
| mighty enough to vanquish anybody who should venture to 
| withstand it. In a certain elevated sphere, it is true, we find 
| it to be tolerably omnipotent. A Minister or a member of 
| Parliament is unable to set it at defiance. But we seem to 
| argue from this that in every department of social life the 
| mere expression of public opinion is sure in the long run to 
| remove any abuse or calamity that may afflict mankind. 
| The common language heard on every side, when a given 
| nuisance has reached a pitch at which silence is no longer 
| possible, simply concludes in the stolid conviction that the 
| nuisance must be left to the gradual operation of public 
| opinion. Beggars, strikes, labourers’ hovels, the <hi> 
| Record, </hi> even the cholera ~~ all are sure to vanish 
| into thin air as soon as you get this mysterious force fairly 
| to bear upon them. 
| The worst of it is, that you never can get it to bear upon 
| some of the most intolerable of nuisances, or anywhere 
| near them. The Bermondsey Guardians, for example, 
| distinctly refused to obey the Houseless Poor Act until Mr. 
| Farnall applied something a little stronger than moral 
| pressure to their insolent obstinacy. If ever there was a 
| measure urgently demanded by public opinion, this was 
| emphatically such, But, then, what is public opinion to a 
| local board? Simply and solely the opinion of the 
| Bermondsey ratepayers, or even of the still more narrow 
| circle to whom the affairs of the Bermondsey Union are 
| entrusted. The members of the local board do not care one 
| atom for the opinion of people whom they never see and 
| never have anything to do with. Why should they? The 
| large conception of public duty is as preposterous, or 
| rather as utterly unintelligible, to men of this sort as 
| Aristotle’s conception of the Magnanimous Man. So long 
| as their obstinate disregard of the law is approved among 
| themselves, the fulminations of leading journals, and the 
| mild objurgations of Mr. Furnall, are simply taken for what 
| they are worth. If the people of Bermondsey don’t object to 
| have crowds of starving wretches wandering in rags 
| through Bermondsey streets all through the winter nights, 
| why should Mr. Villiers or the Houses of Parliament 
| interfere and make a fuss? True, we suppose that even in 
| Bermondsey they have heard of humanity and Christian 
| charity. But, then, what ha humanity to do with rates? 
| Business is business; and the one end and aim of a 
| Guardian is to save the rates. The saving of the rates may 
| cost a few dozen lives every winter, and may cause an 
| amount of sheer animal misery, in those who are so 
| unfortunate as to go on living, which even a Bermondsey 
| Guardian does not feel quite happy in contemplating. But 
| this is only an uncomfortable kind of accident, which does 
| not at all impair the satisfactoriness of the general policy. 
| Bermondsey has at last, it seems, in a sort of way, 
| declared its readiness to adopt <p> “temporary” </p> 
| measures for carrying out the law; but it was only in 
| deference to something more than remonstrances on Mr. 
| Farnall’s part that the Guardians made their tardy and 
| reluctant submission to authority. We are certainly doing 
| them no wrong in assuming that they will need very close 
| watching to keep them to their duties.
| The officials of the East London Union are apparently as 
| doughty antagonists of public opinion and moral forces, 
| and all the other fashionable simulacra, as those of 
| Bermondsey. The case of Sarah Trusty is one of those 
| wholesome correctives to national vanity and stolid 
| complacency which it is most desirable to read after a 
| leading article on our unrivalled wealth and our 
| ever-increasing exports and imports. Sarah Trusty is <p> “a 
| ragged forlorn-looking woman,” </p> evidently <p> “wasted 
| by disease,” </p> at present an inmate of the Homerton 
| workhouse. Fro some reason or other she is not allowed to 
| go into the infirmary, so she cannot lie in bed all day; but 
| when too exhausted to stand or sit, she has to throw 
| herself on the floor and rest her head against a bench. One 
| day of her history is wroth noticing. She left Eltham, which 
| is some eight miles from London Bridge, at daybreak, 
| having a little bread by way of breakfast. By half-past 
| eleven she reached Bishopsgate and the person jocosely 
| called the relieving officer. Here, for some reason or other, 
| she was turned out of the office without any ado. The 
| officer said she used bad language. She says she did not. 
| Let us take his word for it. What if she did use bad 
| language? We make bold to say that there is not a country 
| clergyman or a member of Parliament who would not have 
| used bad language if, when he had walked some hours 
| with only a bit of bread in his stomach ~~ and <p> “wasted 
| with disease,” </p> moreover ~~ he had been told by the 
| person whose business it was to relieve him that nothing 
| could be done till inquiries had been made at Eltham; that 
| is, for some twenty-four or forty-eight hours to come. What 
| a storm would have greeted the officer if Sarah Trusty had 
| been Mr. Disraeli, or Mr. Bright, or the Pope. Bad language 
| is not a thing to be admired, but it is certainly not an 
| offence to be punished by a sentence of starvation to death. 
| However, the Lord Mayor interfered, and the woman got an 
| order for Homerton. She had to walk to Homerton, a 
| distance of three miles, and it was half-past six before she 
| had any tea. That is to say, this miserable creature, wasted 
| with disease, and her two children, the eldest of whom is 
| only eleven, had not a morsel of food from daybreak till the 
| time they reached Homerton, and they had walked a 
| distance of not less than twelve miles. Why does not 
| somebody summon the relieving officer for cruelty to 
| animals? Put aside all considerations about the Poor-laws, 
| and forget that Sarah Trusty is a human being. Elevate her 
| for the moment to the position of a dog or an ass. if a 
| costermonger made his donkey, with a raw on its ribs, 
| trudge about from morning to night without food, he would 
| probably get imprisoned. It would really be an immense 
| reform, until the poor-law authorities awake to their duties, 
| to put paupers on a level with brutes. When the 
| Commissioner blamed the officer for never offering her any 
| food, this admirable personage replied that she never 
| asked for any. The Commissioner’s answer tells the whole 
| story: ~~ <q> </q> Or perhaps this is not quite the whole 
| story; for the officer, when compelled to give the woman 
| her order, had the impudence to endorse it with the words, 
| <q> </q> Because, we presume, she had used bad 
| language to an official who was effectually contributing to 
| cause her speedy death of starvation and exhaustion. yet 
| this is only a modest sample of the kind of case with which, 
| in the absence of energetic official action, we may expect 
| to be sickened and exasperated for months to come. It is 
| the kind of case which gives such a fillip to the evil practice 
| of promiscuous almsgiving as undoes the effect of a year’s 
| economic preaching on the other side. What is the use of 
| Mr. Villiers and Mr. Farnall, and all the rest of the central 
| officers, if they cannot temper in the slightest degree the 
| spirit of the local officers? It is to be hoped that the result of 
| all this inquiry, and of the consequent pressure of public 
| opinion, will be something more than a mild reprimand from 
| the Central Board, which the Guardians will communicate 
| to the officer, and for which the officer will care not a straw, 
| knowing that the local authorities ~~ that is, all the public 
| opinion which really affects him ~~ are fully on his side.
| Then, on the other hand, are we to go on for ever reading 
| the cases of those sturdy ruffians who tear their clothes in 
| the work-house, and insist on being brought before the 
| magistrate in the severe simplicity of a shirt, a pair of boots, 
| and a hat? It has been found from ample experience that 
| slight terms of imprisonment are not of the least use in 
| repressing this atrocious practice. Are we then to sit 
| placidly by, and let strong young men tear their clothes as 
| much as they will, and bite the workhouse master when he 
| tries to dress them? It appears so. Yet is it possible to think 
| of an offence for which a sound whipping would be a more 
| suitable punishment, or one more likely to have a strongly 
| deterrent effect? The gratuitous wickedness of the offence 
| cannot be extenuated by the most sentimental of 
| philanthropists. Surely it would be worth while to try the 
| lash for ruffians of this sort. Perhaps public opinion, we hall 
| be told, is all against such a punishment. The function of 
| public opinion seems to be always of this negative kind. It 
| never does anything itself, and it stands in the way of 
| everything like vigour and efficiency in those who would do 
| something.