We went together to the pawnbroker's, then to the rag-market,
and the little man trotted home with an armful of old boots
and shoes, some without soles, some without uppers; all, as I
should have thought, picked out of dust-bins and rubbish
heaps, his sunken eyes sparkling with eagerness and renovated
hope. I looked in upon him about three weeks later. The
family were sitting round a well provided tea-table, close to
a glowing fire, the cheeks of the children smeared with jam,
and the little cobbler hammering away at his last, too busy
to partake of the bowl of hot tea which his wife had placed
beside him.
The same sort of treatment was sometimes very successful with
a skilful workman - like a carpenter, for instance. Here a
double purpose might be served. 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? Under our present system of education the
greater part of what the poor man's children learn is clean
forgotten in a few years; and if not, serves mainly to create
and foster discontent, which vents itself in a passion for
mass-meetings and the fuliginous oratory of our Hyde Parks.
The emigration scheme for poor-law children as advocated by
Mrs. Close is the most promising, in its way, yet brought
before the public, and is deserving of every support.
In the absence of any such projects as these, the
hopelessness of the task, and the depressing effect of the
contact with much wretchedness, wore me out. I had a nursery
of my own, and was not justified in risking infectious
diseases. A saint would have been more heroic, and could
besides have promised that sweetest of consolations to
suffering millions - the compensation of Eternal Happiness.
I could not give them even hope, for I had none to spare.
The root-evil I felt to be the overcrowding due to the
reckless intercourse of the sexes; and what had Providence to
do with a law of Nature, obedience to which entailed
unspeakable misery?
CHAPTER XLVI
IN the autumn following the end of the Franco-German war, Dr.
Bird and I visited all the principal battlefields. In
England the impression was that the bloodiest battle was
fought at Gravelotte. The error was due, I believe, to our
having no war correspondent on the spot. Compared with that
on the plains between St. Marie and St. Privat, Gravelotte
was but a cavalry skirmish. We were fortunate enough to meet
a German artillery officer at St. Marie who had been in the
action, and who kindly explained the distribution of the
forces. Large square mounds were scattered about the plain
where the German dead were buried, little wooden crosses
being stuck into them to denote the regiment they had
belonged to. At Gravelotte we saw the dogs unearthing the
bodies from the shallow graves. The officer told us he did
not think there was a family in Germany unrepresented in the
plains of St. Privat.
It was interesting so soon after the event, to sit quietly in
the little summer-house of the Chateau de Bellevue,
commanding a view of Sedan, where Bismarck and Moltke and
General de Wimpfen held their memorable Council. 'Un
terrible homme,' says the story of the 'Debacle,' 'ce general
de Moltke, qui gagnait des batailles du fond de son cabinet a
coups d'algebre.'
We afterwards made a walking tour through the Tyrol, and down
to Venice. On our way home, while staying at Lucerne, we
went up the Rigi. Soon after leaving the Kulm, on our
descent to the railway, which was then uncompleted, we lost
each other in the mist. I did not get to Vitznau till late
at night, but luckily found a steamer just starting for
Lucerne. The cabin was crammed with German students, each
one smoking his pipe and roaring choruses to alternate
singers. All of a sudden, those who were on their legs were
knocked off them. The panic was instantaneous, for every one
of us knew it was a collision. But the immediate peril was
in the rush for the deck. Violent with terror, rough by
nature, and full of beer, these wild young savages were
formidable to themselves and others.
