s now; their
hope of deliverance as yet small. In workhouses, pleasantly so
named, because work cannot be done in them. Twelve hundred
thousand workers in England alone; their cunning right-hand
lamed, lying idle in their sorrowful bosom; their hopes,
outlooks, share of this fair world, shut in by narrow walls.
They sit there, pent up, as in a kind of horrid enchantment;
glad to be imprisoned and enchanted, that they may not perish
starved. The picturesque Tourist, in a sunny autumn day,
through this bounteous realm of England, describes the Union
Workhouse on his path. 'Passing by the Workhouse of St. Ives
in Huntingdonshire, on a bright day last autumn,' says the
picturesque Tourist, 'I saw sitting on wooden benches, in front
of their Bastille and within their ringwall and its railings,
some half-hundred or more of these men. Tall robust figures,
young mostly or of middle age; of honest countenance, many of
them thoughtful and even intelligent-looking men. They sat
there, near by one another; but in a kind of torpor, especially
in a silence, which was very striking. In silence: for, alas,
what word was to be said? An Earth all lying round, crying, Come
and till me, come and reap me;--yet we here sit enchanted! In
the eyes and brows of these men hung the gloomiest expression,
not of anger, but of grief and shame and manifold inarticulate
distress and weariness; they returned my glance with a glance
that seemed to say, "Do not look at us. We sit enchanted here,
we know not why. The Sun shines and the Earth calls; and, by
the governing Powers and Impotences of this England, we are
forbidden to obey. It is impossible, they tell us!" There was
something that reminded me of Dante's Hell in the look of all
this; and I rode swiftly away.

---------
* The Return of Paupers for England and Wales, at Ladyday, 1842,
is, "In-door 221,687, Out-door 1,207,402, Total 1,429,089."--
(_Official Report_)
---------

So many hundred thousands sit in workhouses: and other hundred
thousands have not yet got even workhouses; and in thrifty
Scotland itself, in Glasgow or Edinburgh City, in their
dark lanes, hidden from all but the eye of God, and of rare
Benevolence the minister of God, there are scenes of woe and
destitution and desolation, such as, one may hope, the Sun never
saw before in the most barbarous regions where men dwelt.
Competent witnesses, the brave and humane Dr. Alison, who speaks
what he knows,