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    WORKHOUSE VISITING SOCIETY. 187

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    The It Is Objects Proposed Of The At Thi...

    in . almost every workhouse , to tlie utter destruction of all moral tone and feeling-and which can only be detected by those who really

    know the inmates , ? In one workhouse , a poor old woman above seventy could not get her bed made for her without paying a penny

    to some one moxe capable of doing it than herself , though she was known to be utterly destitute and friendless ; how then could she

    obtain the means without some system of bartering and deception ? In another , a poor cripple who had rejoiced in the introduction of

    daily prayers into her ward by order of a new matron , had soon to lament the entire cessation of the practice , because the _nuise was

    changed and her successor would not read them . And I say that none of these things are known to the " authorities , " who alone

    have the power of altering them . In another , a dying woxnan was desirous of receiving the communion , but was deterred from doing

    so because she could not persuade herself to partake of it with those ( one of them an official ) whose characters she knew too well . In

    another , some poor degraded women ( as they were called ) were excited to rebellion and violence by the indignity , as they considered

    it , and felt it too , of the master coming into their ward before they were dressed in the morning .

    Perhaps guardians do not wish to know these things ; I knownot that wonder Poor-Law at it inspectors for it is essentiall tell me y they " ivo cannot mari s work see them . " No . inspection And I do

    by gentlemen , not , even the most kind-hearted of those employed by the Poor-Law Board , can discover or remedy all these things and

    many others which I cannot speak of here ; but which I am tempted to tell when I hear that members of parliament and guardians have

    been going through our workhouses and proclaim all to be satisfactory and in order . Many years ago the conviction was forced

    upon me that till women in some way or other shared more largely in the management and supervision of our workhouses , no effectual

    remedies would be found . The salaries paid to the matrons , so far below those of mastersare inadequate to procure competent persons

    for an office fully as important , in such a household as that of master . Every year , almost every week , strengthens the conviction that

    Poor-Law inspectors , guardians , masters , and task-masters alone , cannot and direct these institutions as they ought to be

    managed manage ; and it is to ignore the most obvious arrangements of God ' s providence to suppose that they can in such a work as this dispense

    with the help of the better educated class of women .

    Workhouse Visiting Society. 187

    WORKHOUSE VISITING SOCIETY . 187

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1859, page 187, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111859/page/43/