Nothing More Common In
Bethnal Green Than Broken Looms, And Consequent Disaster.
There you had the ready-made job for the reinstated
carpenter; and good could be done in a small way, at very
little cost.
Of coarse much discretion is needed; still, the
Scripture readers or the relieving officers would know the
characters of the destitute, and the visitor himself would
soon learn to discriminate.
A system similar to this was the basis of the aid rendered by
the Royal Society for the Assistance of Discharged Prisoners,
which was started by my friend, Mr. Whitbread, the present
owner of Southill, and which I joined in its early days at
his instigation. The earnings of the prisoner were handed
over by the gaols to the Society, and the Society employed
them for his advantage - always, in the case of an artisan,
by supplying him with the needful implements of his trade.
But relief in which the pauper has no productive share, of
which he is but a mere consumer, is of no avail.
One cannot but think that if instead of the selfish
principles which govern our trades-unions, and which are
driving their industries out of the country, trade-schools
could be provided - such, for instance, as the cheap carving
schools to be met with in many parts of Germany and the Tyrol
- much might be done to help the bread-earners. Why could
not schools be organised for the instruction of shoemakers,
tailors, carpenters, smiths of all kinds, and the scores of
other trades which in former days were learnt by compulsory
apprenticeship?
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