oth nearly lost their eyesight. Witness now had a
film over his eyes. Five years ago deceased applied to the parish for
aid. The relieving officer gave him a 4-lb. loaf, and told him if he
came again he should 'get the stones.'[15] That disgusted deceased,
and he would have nothing to do with them since. They got worse and
worse until last Friday week, when they had not even a halfpenny to buy
a candle. Deceased then lay down on the straw, and said he could not
live till morning.--A juror: 'You are dying of starvation yourself, and
you ought to go into the house until the summer.' Witness: 'If we went
in we should die. When we come out in the summer we should be like
people dropped from the sky. No one would know us, and we would not
have even a room. I could work now if I had food, for my sight would
get better.' Dr. G. P. Walker said deceased died from syncope, from
exhaustion, from want of food. The deceased had had no bed-clothes.
For four months he had had nothing but bread to eat. There was not a
particle of fat in the body. There was no disease, but if there had
been medical attendance, he might have survived the synope or fainting.
The coroner having remarked upon the painful nature of the case, the
jury returned the following verdict: 'That deceased died from
exhaustion, from want of food and the common necessaries of life; also
through want of medical aid.'"

37. "Why would witness not go into the workhouse?" you ask. Well, the
poor seem to have a prejudice against the workhouse which the rich have
not; for, of course, every one who takes a pension from Government goes
into the workhouse on a grand scale;[16] only the workhouses for the
rich do not involve the idea of work, and should be called play-houses.
But the poor like to die independently, it appears; perhaps if we made
the play-houses for them pretty and pleasant enough, or gave them their
pensions at home, and allowed them a little introductory peculation
with the public money, their minds might be reconciled to the
conditions. Meantime, here are the facts: we make our relief either so
insulting to them, or so painful, that they rather die than take it at
our hands; or, for third alternative, we leave them so untaught and
foolish that they starve like brute creatures, wild and dumb, not
knowing what to do, or what to ask. I say, you despise compassion; if
you did not, such a newspaper paragraph would be as impossible in a
Christian c