daughter of
Britain. The other demands on my time allowed me to spend but twenty
minutes in this receptacle of the helpless and unfortunate; yet what a
volume of feelings and reflections were excited in that short period!
We have had a #Howard#, I exclaimed, who visited our gaols and
alleviated the condition of those who are forced to drink the dregs of
the cup of misery, from the iron-hearted and unsparing hands of
lawyers, whose practices are sometimes countenanced by the
incorrigible character of criminals! We have a #Webb#, who vainly
assaults the giant Penury on the King's highway, but whose frightful
strides outstrip his generous speed!--We want then some #ANGEL#, in
the form of man, who, uniting the courage and perseverance of a
#Howard# with the liberality of a #Webb#, will visit and report on the
condition of our Workhouses. But, if, as every parish contains its
workhouse, and every county but one gaol, the task in consequence is
too great for one life, though actuated by the godlike zeal of a
#Wesley#; then it is a task worthy of parish committees, composed of
groupes of Angels, in the form of benignant Women, who will find, that
the best-spent and the happiest morning of every month would be passed
in a visit to the workhouse; where, with slender alms, kind advice,
and fostering care, they would be able to soothe the sorrows of the
aged widow,--to comfort the sick and helpless,--to pour balm into the
mental wounds of those who are reduced from affluence by
misfortune,--to raise from hopeless indigence modest merit, which
never found a friend,--and to protect orphan children, who need advice
and pilotage in their outset in life. No pampered minion of fortune
need complain of _ennui_, or be anxious for new amusements, in whose
parish there exists a workhouse. It is a Stage on which Dramas,
serious or tragical, are every day performed; the interest of which is
created by no tricks of the author or machinist, but in which the
performers play their parts according to nature, always touching the
most sensitive chords of the heart. No spectator ever came away from
one of these houses without having his feelings wrought up by actors
of all ages, who far outstrip our Siddonses, Kembles, Bettys, Youngs,
or Keans, and whose petit dramas excel those of Shakespeare, Rowe, or
Otway, in the degree in which suffering and unsophisticated Nature is
superior to the trappings and blandishments of Art.

Wandsworth having engage