choice of medicine, or of doing aught than
swallow mechanically whatever was put
before them, seemed little short of madness.
Useless, defenceless, impotent, and with
nothing their own but the power of choice
between them and the death which the drugs
at their elbow would provide, the sacred
injunction, "Rest in the Lord," and wait
for death, in its ornamental lettering and semi-
ecclesiastical dress, seemed little better than a
mockery.

A few paces and we are in another ward, with
a man dying of cancer in one corner, and two
other patients in beds opposite him. It would
be improper to detail in these columns the
worst of the evils rampant here. It is sufficient
to say these patients were untended, save
by the shambling pauper who could not read,
and that the evidence of neglect was more
palpable than among the clean old people in
the adjoining room. One of the men was up,
and partly dressed; another gazed at us with
fierce eyes from his bed; while the third, and
cancerous one, neither spoke nor moved, but
groaned heavily, as if in his acute pain. "They
say I'm well, and I'm to go," said the man in
the bed furthest from the door—a man with
hollow cheeks and hungry eyes, which followed
us irritably wherever we went—"but I'm fit
for nought, and I can't stand for weakness.
Complaints? I don't know what yer means by
complaints. Complaining won't give me work,
or make me fit for working, I reckon.
Complaints? Come to lie where I do, with a man
like that in the corner, sleeping in the same
room with yer, and ye'll perhaps know what
complaining means. Have I enough to eat?
Am I well taken care of? Do I enjoy my
food? Yes, yes, well enough—well enough.
It isn't for the like of me to make a fuss. Lie
here—lie here, that's all I ask yer, and yer
won't want a book or a compass to teach yer
how to be unhappy. What's the use of talking?
Here I am, and here I've been, and here I've
got to quit next Tuesday, thank God; though
I know no more what's to become of me than
a child unborn. Bin in this parish all my life,
and my father before me; know my duty, and
know it ain't for me to find particular fault.
Lie here on yer back for three weeks—lie here
on yer back, and then ye'll know more than
yer'll get by poking about with a pencil and a
little book, and asking questions about winders."
A coarse man, in a high state of nervous
irritability, this pauper resented the presence of
strangers, and fidgeted dreadfully under the
master's eye. The invalid in the chair could
not stand up, and upon those two devolved all
care of the dying man, save when the "respectable
man," who could not read, came in. In
other words, each man lived or died without
nursing or attendance. The paid nurse from
Netley Hospital had her three or four women
patients to look after in the other building,
and spent her time in comparative idleness,
while the men passed away in hospital
lingeringly, if no accidents occurred, speedily
when the knowledge of "their own bottles"
failed them, and the shambling pauper's
incompetence fulfilled itself. The windows of
these sick wards, as well as those all over
the house, were so contrived as to admit the
light without enabling those inside to look
out—an ingenious contrivance for increasing
the dismalness and misery of pauper
sickness meriting special notice. We hint that
the room would be more cheerful if the
windows came within reach of the eye, and
are at once snuffed out by the master's superior
knowledge and beaming health. "Couldn't look
out of window; bless you, sir, if the windows
was made ever so low those men couldn't, sir,"
with a convincing smile. "I don't see the use
of altering it myself. The old men had rather
look into the fire, and these are confined to
their beds or chairs, so no windows would be
of much value, would they? Besides, if you
once began altering you might go through the
house, for all the windows are alike, as was the
fashion for workhouses when this was built
—about thirty years old, gentlemen, more or
less; and there's very few windows you can
see out of. It was considered a beauty in
those days, and I'm not sure it would be wise
to alter even now. There's no object in paupers
looking out of window, that I can see. Light
and cheerfulness? Oh! I assure you there's
light enough for work, and my people ain't up
to much work, either." "But for those who
are past work," we plead. "You say, yourself,
it would be 'a treat to see an able-bodied
pauper' in your workhouse; would it not be
proper, then, to give the old and worn-out such
comfort as they might derive from changing
their abode from a prison to an asylum?"
Our master's rubicund face is puzzled as if
with an insoluble problem, and his head
shakes to and fro meditatively, as if suffering
from too much beef on the brain. But
the uniform kindness and consideration of
the guardians consoles him, and he says,
with the air of a man delivering a knock-
down argument, "Our gentlemen haven't
thought so, however, or I'm certain it would
have been done."

Does it need any consideration, we ask,
whether darkness should be preferred to light?
But we address the wind, for the master has
discovered a spot upon the white wall, and is
busy removing it with his pocket-handkerchief
as tenderly as if the coarse size and whitewash
were a child. I could fancy a clean hard-working
labourer, who conformed to rules, obeyed
the master, and kept down the work, having
better times under our friend than he would
be likely to know outside the workhouse walls.
Labour, hard coarse labour, and keeping the
place clean, are his passions. His notion of "a
treat" is to catch some able-bodied paupers
instead of the imbecile and helplessly infirm,
who persist in drifting through the gates, and
to turn them to active scrubbing and cleansing
uses. His great plaint is that he can't keep
the work under, and the house and its discipline