jail. For the workhouse is a jail too; he who does not finish his task
gets nothing to eat; he who wishes to go out must ask permission, which
is granted or not, according to his behaviour or the inspector's whim,
tobacco is forbidden, also the receipt of gifts from relatives or friends
outside the house; the paupers wear a workhouse uniform, and are handed
over, helpless and without redress, to the caprice of the inspectors. To
prevent their labour from competing with that of outside concerns, they
are set to rather useless tasks: the men break stones, "as much as a
strong man can accomplish with effort in a day;" the women, children, and
aged men pick oakum, for I know not what insignificant use. To prevent
the "superfluous" from multiplying, and "demoralised" parents from
influencing their children, families are broken up, the husband is placed
in one wing, the wife in another, the children in a third, and they are
permitted to see one another only at stated times after long intervals,
and then only when they have, in the opinion of the officials, behaved
well. And in order to shut off the external world from contamination by
pauperism within these bastilles, the inmates are permitted to receive
visits only with the consent of the officials, and in the
reception-rooms; to communicate in general with the world outside only by
leave and under supervision.

Yet the food is supposed to be wholesome and the treatment humane with
all this. But the intent of the law is too loudly outspoken for this
requirement to be in any wise fulfilled. The Poor Law Commissioners and
the whole English bourgeoisie deceive themselves if they believe the
administration of the law possible without these results. The treatment,
which the letter of the law prescribes, is in direct contradiction of its
spirit. If the law in its essence proclaims the poor criminals, the
workhouses prisons, their inmates beyond the pale of the law, beyond the
pale of humanity, objects of disgust and repulsion, then all commands to
the contrary are unavailing. In practice, the spirit and not the letter
of the law is followed in the treatment of the poor, as in the following
few examples:

"In the workhouse at Greenwich, in the summer of 1843, a boy five years
old was punished by being shut into the dead-room, where he had to sleep
upon the lids of the coffins. In the workhouse at Herne, the same
punishment was inflicted upon a little girl for wetting th