I
know the people well. The greatest number of them would starve
themselves to that degree that they would not be of much more
physical use in this world, before they would condescend to beg. But
starving to death is hard work. What will winter bring to them when
severe weather begins to tell upon constitutions lowered in tone by
a starvation diet--a diet so different to what they have been used
to when in work? What will the 1s. 6d. a-head weekly do for them in
that hard time? If something more than this is not done for them,
when more food, clothing, and fire are necessary to everybody,
calamities may arise which will cost England a hundred times more
than a sufficient relief--a relief worthy of those who are
suffering, and of the nation they belong to--would have cost. In the
meantime the cold wings of winter already begin to overshadow the
land; and every day lost involves the lives, or the future
usefulness, of thousands of our best population.
CHAPTER XXIII.
WANDERING MINSTRELS; OR, WAILS OF THE WORKLESS POOR.
"For whom the heart of man shuts out,
Straightway the heart of God takes in,
And fences them all round about
With silence, 'mid the world's loud din.
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