The Village Paupers and Other Poems (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Village Paupers and Other Poems

A man applies for work, and cannot obtain it or he is too much enfeebled by sickness or priva tion for any labour that comes within his reach. He has, we will say, a wife and two children, which is far below the average number. It is admitted that these four individuals must, in a climate like this, have a shelter over their heads, and some covering for their bodies, and certainly they must have food to eat. To kee p a house, even the poorest cottage, is out of the question, unless they find a landlord who allows the poor to live rent-free on his estate: and such a landlord would rarely have a vacant tenement at his disposal. We will therefore conclude that the poor man has already given up his cottage and sold whatever disposable article he had, and has sheltered his little party in a single room, at the lowest possi ble rent ever asked for such accommodation; and that they never taste meat, butter, tea, or sugar, but eat the coarsest bread, sometimes softened in a little skimmed milk, sometimes dry, or with a cup of water, and now and then a hot potatoe, if they are plentiful, and sufficient fuel can be procured to boil them: we ask, supposing these four persons could thus live on one shilling per week each, how are those four shil lings to be procured, or one fourth of the four The man goes to a farmer, or tradesman, and asks to be employed for whatever he may be pleased to give; they have the full number of hands already at work, and cannot pay supernumeraries: the woman is will ing to wash, to scour, to nurse, to perform any menial otfice even for her equals, on the same miserable terms, but for one who can afford a penny in remuneration.

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