Tracks of a Rolling Stone [138]
little cost. Of coarse much discretion is needed; still, the Scripture readers or the relieving officers would know the characters of the destitute, and the visitor himself would soon learn to discriminate.
A system similar to this was the basis of the aid rendered by the Royal Society for the Assistance of Discharged Prisoners, which was started by my friend, Mr. Whitbread, the present owner of Southill, and which I joined in its early days at his instigation. The earnings of the prisoner were handed over by the gaols to the Society, and the Society employed them for his advantage - always, in the case of an artisan, by supplying him with the needful implements of his trade. But relief in which the pauper has no productive share, of which he is but a mere consumer, is of no avail.
One cannot but think that if instead of the selfish principles which govern our trades-unions, and which are driving their industries out of the country, trade-schools could be provided - such, for instance, as the cheap carving schools to be met with in many parts of Germany and the Tyrol - much might be done to help the bread-earners. Why could not schools be organised for the instruction of shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, smiths of all kinds, and the scores of other trades which in former days were learnt by compulsory apprenticeship? Under our present system of education the greater part of what the poor man's children learn is clean forgotten in a few years; and if not, serves mainly to create and foster discontent, which vents itself in a passion for mass-meetings and the fuliginous oratory of our Hyde Parks.
The emigration scheme for poor-law children as advocated by Mrs. Close is the most promising, in its way, yet brought before the public, and is deserving of every support.
In the absence of any such projects as these, the hopelessness of the task, and the depressing effect of the contact with much wretchedness, wore me out. I had a nursery of my own, and was not justified in risking infectious diseases. A saint would have been more heroic, and could besides have promised that sweetest of consolations to suffering millions - the compensation of Eternal Happiness. I could not give them even hope, for I had none to spare. The root-evil I felt to be the overcrowding due to the reckless intercourse of the sexes; and what had Providence to do with a law of Nature, obedience to which entailed unspeakable misery?
CHAPTER XLVI
IN the autumn following the end of the Franco-German war, Dr. Bird and I visited all the principal battlefields. In England the impression was that the bloodiest battle was fought at Gravelotte. The error was due, I believe, to our having no war correspondent on the spot. Compared with that on the plains between St. Marie and St. Privat, Gravelotte was but a cavalry skirmish. We were fortunate enough to meet a German artillery officer at St. Marie who had been in the action, and who kindly explained the distribution of the forces. Large square mounds were scattered about the plain where the German dead were buried, little wooden crosses being stuck into them to denote the regiment they had belonged to. At Gravelotte we saw the dogs unearthing the bodies from the shallow graves. The officer told us he did not think there was a family in Germany unrepresented in the plains of St. Privat.
It was interesting so soon after the event, to sit quietly in the little summer-house of the Chateau de Bellevue, commanding a view of Sedan, where Bismarck and Moltke and General de Wimpfen held their memorable Council. 'Un terrible homme,' says the story of the 'Debacle,' 'ce general de Moltke, qui gagnait des batailles du fond de son cabinet a coups d'algebre.'
We afterwards made a walking tour through the Tyrol, and down to Venice. On our way home, while staying at Lucerne, we went up the Rigi. Soon after leaving the Kulm, on our descent to the railway, which was then uncompleted, we lost each other in the mist. I did
A system similar to this was the basis of the aid rendered by the Royal Society for the Assistance of Discharged Prisoners, which was started by my friend, Mr. Whitbread, the present owner of Southill, and which I joined in its early days at his instigation. The earnings of the prisoner were handed over by the gaols to the Society, and the Society employed them for his advantage - always, in the case of an artisan, by supplying him with the needful implements of his trade. But relief in which the pauper has no productive share, of which he is but a mere consumer, is of no avail.
One cannot but think that if instead of the selfish principles which govern our trades-unions, and which are driving their industries out of the country, trade-schools could be provided - such, for instance, as the cheap carving schools to be met with in many parts of Germany and the Tyrol - much might be done to help the bread-earners. Why could not schools be organised for the instruction of shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, smiths of all kinds, and the scores of other trades which in former days were learnt by compulsory apprenticeship? Under our present system of education the greater part of what the poor man's children learn is clean forgotten in a few years; and if not, serves mainly to create and foster discontent, which vents itself in a passion for mass-meetings and the fuliginous oratory of our Hyde Parks.
The emigration scheme for poor-law children as advocated by Mrs. Close is the most promising, in its way, yet brought before the public, and is deserving of every support.
In the absence of any such projects as these, the hopelessness of the task, and the depressing effect of the contact with much wretchedness, wore me out. I had a nursery of my own, and was not justified in risking infectious diseases. A saint would have been more heroic, and could besides have promised that sweetest of consolations to suffering millions - the compensation of Eternal Happiness. I could not give them even hope, for I had none to spare. The root-evil I felt to be the overcrowding due to the reckless intercourse of the sexes; and what had Providence to do with a law of Nature, obedience to which entailed unspeakable misery?
CHAPTER XLVI
IN the autumn following the end of the Franco-German war, Dr. Bird and I visited all the principal battlefields. In England the impression was that the bloodiest battle was fought at Gravelotte. The error was due, I believe, to our having no war correspondent on the spot. Compared with that on the plains between St. Marie and St. Privat, Gravelotte was but a cavalry skirmish. We were fortunate enough to meet a German artillery officer at St. Marie who had been in the action, and who kindly explained the distribution of the forces. Large square mounds were scattered about the plain where the German dead were buried, little wooden crosses being stuck into them to denote the regiment they had belonged to. At Gravelotte we saw the dogs unearthing the bodies from the shallow graves. The officer told us he did not think there was a family in Germany unrepresented in the plains of St. Privat.
It was interesting so soon after the event, to sit quietly in the little summer-house of the Chateau de Bellevue, commanding a view of Sedan, where Bismarck and Moltke and General de Wimpfen held their memorable Council. 'Un terrible homme,' says the story of the 'Debacle,' 'ce general de Moltke, qui gagnait des batailles du fond de son cabinet a coups d'algebre.'
We afterwards made a walking tour through the Tyrol, and down to Venice. On our way home, while staying at Lucerne, we went up the Rigi. Soon after leaving the Kulm, on our descent to the railway, which was then uncompleted, we lost each other in the mist. I did