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The facts were before his eyes, if the generalisation was hasty and crude. He held, on the other hand, that indiscriminate charity, and still more the establishment by poor-laws of a legal right to support, was stimulating the evil. The poor-law had worked incalculable mischiefs in England, and he struggled vigorously, though unavailingly, to resist its introduction into Scotland.
I am one of the Committee appointed by this House to inquire into the working of the Irish poor-law, and on that Committee I was one of the majority the large majority by which the resolution for a rate in aid was affirmed. In the division which took place on the same proposition in the House, I also voted in the majority.
That's a lively hopeful prospect for a Christian man! 'But, said Lancelot, 'I thought this New Poor-law was to stir them up to independence? 'Oh, sir, the old law has bit too deep: it made them slaves and beggars at heart. It taught them not to be ashamed of parish pay to demand it as a right. 'And so it is their right, said Lancelot.
It seems to be his impression that things look better, however, of late for law and order. On Monday of last week at Ennis an example was made of a local official, which, he thinks, will do good. This was a Poor-Law Guardian named Grogan. He was bound over on Monday last to keep the peace for twelve months towards one George Pilkington.
Crowdey was 'awful mean, at the same time pulling out a sample of bad ship oats, that he had got from a neighbouring ostler, to show the 'stuff' their 'osses' were a eatin' of. The fact was, Jog's beer was nothing like so strong as Mr. Puffington's; added to which, Mr. Crowdey carried the principles of the poor-law union into his own establishment, and dieted his servants upon certain rules.
I have seen a good deal of the working of the English Poor-law, and have learned to have some decisive opinions about it It has always seemed to me, since I had any acquaintance with it at all, that it might have been constructed on purpose to restrict the free action of honest labour and to set a premium on idle vagabondage.
How the farmers swore and the labourers chuckled when he took all the cottages into his own hands and rebuilt them, set up a first-rate industrial school, gave every man a pig and a garden, and broke up all the commons 'to thin the labour-market. Oh, how the labourers swore and the farmers chuckled, when he put up steam-engines on all his farms, refused to give away a farthing in alms, and enforced the new Poor-law to the very letter.
The commandment to the modern woman is now not simply "Thou shalt bear," but rather, "Thou shalt not bear in excess of thy power to rear and train satisfactorily;" and the woman who should today appear at the door of a workhouse or the tribunal of the poor-law guardians followed by her twelve infants, demanding honourable sustenance for them and herself in return for the labour she had undergone in producing them, would meet with but short shrift.
It has to be considered, for instance, whether men vote best in areas where they keep up habits of political action in connection with parliamentary as well as municipal contests; and whether an election involving other points besides poor-law administration is more likely to create interest among the electorate.
I could not, would not, go under the poor-law and accept you, with the lash of a broken pledge in your hand, as my guardian. So that's why I left, and that's why I stay here, and that's why I'm going to stay here, Mona."
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