light as well as rain, and could be looked out of
by the people inside. Here, they are
ingeniously arranged to admit the minimum of
light, and to make looking out impossible.
The other arrangements are to match. The
sick men die unnursed, or with such nursing
as a shambling invalid pauper thinks
proper to supply. This man cannot read,
and, though one in whom our friend the master
"has great confidence, or he wouldn't be
allowed to be here," is as painfully unfit for
duty as ignorant, shiftless incompetence can
make him.

Take this room, with, its melancholy
semicircle of white-smocked aged figures, crouching
round the fire. They sit, each in his chair,
motionless and silent, and blinking at the hot
coals as if to learn from them the mystery of
their drudging, cheerless lives. "Old age,
gentlemen, old age and infirmities are what they're
suffering from; and they've been good labourers
in their day." They are all under medical
treatment, as the row of bottles on the shelf
opposite the fire testifies; and their beaten, worn
look, their bovine, placid endurance of evil, as
they moved their poor mouths helplessly to and fro,
gave to the scriptural quotation in illuminated
characters over the doorway, "Rest in the Lord,
wait patiently for Him," a rather bitter significance.
Illuminated writing, garish lettering,
mock mediæval scroll-work—all told their own
story of gratified taste, and seemed terribly
out of place here. "Given by one of the ladies
who visits the house," explained the master, in
his hearty quarter-deck manner; and the
contrast between the drawing-room look of the text
and the demeanour of the poor wretches it was
meant to guide, was not the less striking for
this fact. These old men were clean, and were
mercifully permitted to wait by the fire in-doors,
and not huddled into potato-shed or yard, as in
the workhouse described last week. But they
were so obviously waiting for death, so removed
in their utter indifference or ignorance from all
sense of our presence, so oblivious of everything
but the fire, that for sheer pity's sake we spoke
to none of them. There they sat, each with
the same distinctiveness of feature as a close
observer may discover in a flock of sheep, to
which in their uniform smocks they bore a strong
generic resemblance. There is something awe-
inspiring in humanity from which the spirit seems
to be already winging its flight; and to rouse
any of these poor creatures from their torpid
trance with questions as to diet or treatment,
was felt to be impossible. A semicircle
of clay figures whose breathing arrangements
continued somehow after life had fled, but who,
for all rational purposes of existence, for
comprehension of their own identity, or the identity
of those formerly dearest to them; for feeling
aught higher than a confused consciousness that
the fire gave comfort and warmth; for hope, or
love, or regrets; for any of the complex feelings
which go to make up sentient humanity,
seemed as dead as the oldest mummy or the
earliest pre-Adamite.

We ask in low tones of the master as to their
several ailments. "Mostly old age, of course,"
that ostentatiously able-bodied person replies,
adding, with increased cheerfulness, "but here
are their bottles, if you'd like to examine them,
gentlemen." These are embrocations, to swallow
which would be certain death; harmless
mixtures, to be taken by spoonfuls every few hours;
liniments and potions; drugs to act powerfully
in one way upon the human system, and drugs
having equal power in a precisely opposite
direction—all labelled and ranged upon the
shelf. We ask whose duty it is to see that
these helpless people take the drugs prescribed
for them, and are told the wardsman. This
is the shambling broken-down fellow in dirty
fustian, who fumbles at his greasy cap, and
bows and smiles, and is blandly confident. "Oh
yes, gentlemen, I'm very particular, very
particular indeed, that they have their medicines at
the right time. I allers gives it out to them
myself, gentlemen—allers, and I'm never late
with it, no, never. Here the medicine is, and
there the inmates are, and they all has every
drop the doctor sends—every drop." Here, as
elsewhere, there is an eagerness to repudiate
all desire to appropriate the medicines prescribed
for others, as if not to drink off nauseous
medicines surreptitiously were in itself a highly
meritorious act of self-denial. The master supports
the wardsman with unabated heartiness. "A
respectable man, this; he wouldn't say
anything but what's true, or do anything but
what's right, and you surely take what he says,
gentlemen—you may take what he says." At
this time the canvas bundle nearest the fire
gives a feeble bleat, as if for help; but on looking
round we find the old pauper composing it
to be still, moving his mouth to and fro like
the rest, and to be blinking stolidly as ever at
the fire. So our conversation is resumed, not
without a nervous dread that "something may
happen," as the phrase goes; that the last
remnant of some life may slip away before we
leave. "What is this medicine, and how often
is it used?" asked my medical companion, holding
up a bottle containing some five ounces of
diluted sugar of lead. "Well, sir, I can't read,
so I can't say what it is; but they all know
their own bottles, sir, and that prevents mistake!"
This is the guarantee formed by ratepayers,
guardians, and the Poor Law Board! This the
fitness of the "respectable man" for the most
delicate and responsible of duties! It was
impossible to suppress all tokens of the horror we
felt; and the master, who became healthier and
more vigorous every moment, added breezily,
"But I'm generally about myself, you know,
gentlemen—generally about; for I'm always at
it, and nothing takes place without my knowing."
The group, nodding, blinking, dozing,
and silently chewing the cud at the fire, seemed
so incapable of choice or thought; their
chrysalis state was so utterly opposed to the exercise
of any reasoning faculty—even to the
comprehension of where they were, or what their life
had been—that to suppose them, capable of