From Workhouse to Westminster Part 14

In 1894 the Master and Matron resigned. Gradually the old school of workhouse officials who had run the place as they liked were weeded out.

A more intelligent, more sympathetic, better disciplined staff grew up in their place. b.u.mbledom was dethroned. The sick were nursed better.

The inmates were clothed better. All, both old and young, were fed better.

The tell-tale pauper's garb disappeared altogether. When the old people walked out they were no longer branded by their dress. They wore simple, homely garments. They all rejoiced in the change save a few like the old woman Crooks came across one afternoon on her day out. She was looking clean and comfortable, and he asked how she liked the new clothes.

"Not at all, Mr. Crooks. n.o.body thinks you come from the workhouse now, so they don't give you anything."

His greatest reform had reference to the food. "Skilly" went the way of "greasy water." Good plain wholesome meals appeared on the tables.

"And became more expensive," say the critics.

"Yes," Crooks retorts; "but to economise on the stomachs of the poor is false economy. If it's only cheapness you want, why don't you set up the lethal chamber for the old people? That would be the cheapest thing of all."

Let us see what he actually gave these people to eat, since for feeding the poor he was afterwards called to the bar of public opinion.

First he developed the system of bread-baking in the workhouse, in order to get better and cheaper bread than was being supplied under contract from outside. Under the direction of one or two skilled bakers, the work provided many of the inmates with pleasant and useful occupation. They made all the bread required in the workhouse for both officers and inmates, all the bread required in the children's schools, all the loaves given away as out-relief.

Instead of being likened to india-rubber, as it used to be in the old days, the bread now came to be described by the _Daily Mail_ as equal to what could be obtained in the best restaurants in the West-End. Yet they were making this bread in the workhouse cheaper than it was possible to buy ordinary bread outside.

And then, for the benefit of the infirm old folk, Crooks persuaded the Guardians to subst.i.tute b.u.t.ter for margarine, and fresh meat for the cheap stale stuff so often supplied. He held out for milk that had not been skimmed, and for tea and coffee that had not been adulterated. He even risked his reputation by allowing the aged women to put sugar in their tea themselves, and the old men to smoke an occasional pipe of tobacco.

Rumours of this new way of feeding the workhouse poor reached the austere Local Government Board. First it sent down its inspectors, and then the President himself appeared in person. And Mr. Chaplin saw that it was good, and told other Boards to do likewise. He issued a circular to the Guardians of the country recommending all that Poplar had introduced. More, he proposed that for deserving old people over sixty-four years of age "the supply of tobacco, dry tea, and sugar be made compulsory."

This humane order of things, you may be sure, did not commend itself to all Guardian Boards; and when later there came further instructions from headquarters that ailing inmates might be allowed "medical comforts,"

the revolt materialised. A deputation of Guardians went to Whitehall to try to argue the President into a harder heart. Crooks and Lansbury were there to uphold the new system. Mr. Walter Long had succeeded Mr.

Chaplin then. He listened patiently to ingenious speeches in which honourable gentlemen tried to show that it was from no lack of love for the poor they had not carried out the new dietary scale, but----

"Gentlemen," Mr. Long interrupted at last, "am I to understand you do not desire to feed your poor people properly?"

Then all with one accord began to make excuse. It was the difficulty of book-keeping, they said. It appeared they were prepared to stint the poor rather than add to the book-keeping.

From that day an improved dietary scale was introduced into our workhouses. The man who fed the poor in Poplar saw the workhouse poor of the kingdom better fed in consequence.

What kind of food was it that Poplar dared to give to the poor? Those "luxuries for paupers" down at Poplar, about which the world was to hear so much, what were they? A working-man had appeared, and after years of unwearied well-doing had got rid of "skilly" and "greasy water,"

subst.i.tuting, with the approval of two Presidents of the Local Government Board, the following simple articles of food.

Observe the list carefully, for the kinds and quant.i.ties of food here set out were precisely those supplied to the able-bodied inmates during the outcry that arose over "paupers' luxuries" at the time of the Local Government Board Inquiry in 1906. The list is the official return of the food supplied in one week to each inmate.

A MAN'S DIET FOR A WEEK.

(COST, 4s. 2d.)

Breakfasts Bread 3 lbs.

b.u.t.ter 3 ozs.

Coffee 7 pints.

Dinners Mutton 13 ozs.

Beef 4 ozs.

Bacon 3 ozs.

Irish stew 1 pint.

Boiled pork 4 ozs.

Bread 14 ozs.

Potatoes and greens 4 lbs.

Suppers Bread 3 lbs.

b.u.t.ter 3 ozs.

Tea 7 pints.

A WOMAN'S DIET FOR A WEEK.

(COST, 4s.)

Breakfasts Bread 2-5/8 lbs.

b.u.t.ter 3 ozs.

Coffee 7 pints.

Dinners Mutton 12 ozs.

Beef 4 ozs.

Bacon 3 ozs.

Irish stew 1 pint.

Boiled pork 4 ozs.

Bread 1 lbs.

Potatoes and greens 3 lbs.

Suppers Bread 2-5/8 lbs.

b.u.t.ter 3 ozs.

Tea 7 pints.

When you read down that list and think of the scare headlines that appeared in London daily papers during the Inquiry--"Splendid Paupers,"

"Luxuries for Paupers," "A Pauper's Paradise"--you may well ask, Are we living in bountiful England? Or have we fallen upon an England of meagre diet and mean men, an England that whines like a miser when called upon to feed on homely fare its broken-down veterans of industry?

d.i.c.kens is dead, else would he have shown us b.u.mble reincarnated in the editors of certain London newspapers.

CHAPTER XV

TURNING WORKHOUSE CHILDREN INTO USEFUL CITIZENS

A Home for Little "Ins-and-Outs"--Technical Education for Workhouse Children--A Good Report for the Forest Gate Schools--Trophies won by Scholars--The Children's Pat-a-Cakes.

After he had fed the old people and clothed the old people, and in other ways brought into their darkened lives a little good cheer, Crooks turned his care upon the workhouse children.

The Guardians' school at Forest Gate lay four miles from the Union buildings at Poplar. With five or six hundred children always under training in the school there still remained varying batches of neglected little people in the workhouse. The greater number of these belonged to parents who came into the House for short periods only.

These little "ins-and-outs" were getting no schooling and no training save the training that fitted them for pauperism. What to do with them had long been a perplexing problem. If they were sent to Forest Gate one day their parents in the workhouse could demand them back the next day and take their discharge, even though they and their children turned up at the gates for re-admission within the next twenty-four hours.