Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 345, July, 1844

But by far the greatest cause of the mass of crime of the manufacturing and mining districts of the country, is to be found in the prodigious number of persons, especially in infancy, who are reduced to a state of destitution, and precipitated into the very lowest stations of life, in consequence of the numerous ills to which all flesh—but especially all flesh in manufacturing communities—is heir. Our limits preclude the possibility of entering into all the branches of this immense subject; we shall content ourselves, therefore, with referring to one, which seems of itself perfectly sufficient to explain the increase of crime, which at first sight appears so alarming. This is the immense proportion of destitute widows with families, who in such circumstances find themselves immovably fixed in places where they can neither bring up their children decently, nor get away to other and less peopled localities.

From the admirable statistical returns of the condition of the labouring poor in France, prepared for the Bureau de l'Intérieure, it appears that the number of widows in that country amounts to the enormous number of 1,738,000.⁷ This, out of a population now of about 34,000,000, is as nearly as possible one in twenty of the entire population! Population is advancing much more rapidly in Great Britain than France; for in the former country it is doubling in about 60 years, in the latter in 106. It is certain, therefore, that the proportion of widows must be greater in this country than in France, especially in the manufacturing districts, where early marriages, from the ready employment for young children, are so frequent; and early deaths, from the unhealthiness of employment or contagious disorders, are so common. But call the proportion the same: let it be taken at a twentieth part of the existing population. At this rate, the two millions of strangers who, during the last forty years, have been thrown into the four northern counties of Lancaster, York, Stafford, and Warwick, must contain at this moment a hundred thousand widows. The usual average of a family is two and a half children—call it two only. There will thus be found to be 200,000 children belonging to these 100,000 widows. It is hardly necessary to say, that the great majority, probably four-fifths of this immense body, must be in a state of destitution. We know in what state the fatherless and widows are in their affliction, and who has commanded us to visit them. On the most moderate calculation, 250,000, or an eighth of the whole population, must be in a state of poverty and privation. And in Scotland, where, during the same period of forty years, 350,000 strangers have been suddenly huddled together on the banks of the Clyde, the proportion may be presumed to be the same; or, in other words, thirty thousand widows and orphans are constantly there in a state deserving of pity, and requiring support, hardly any of whom receive more from the parish funds than a shilling a-week, even for the maintenance of a whole family.

The proportion of widows and orphans to the entire population, though without doubt in some degree aggravated by the early marriages and unhealthy employments incident to manufacturing districts, may be supposed to be not materially different in one age, or part of the country, from another. The widow and the orphan, as well as the poor, will be always with us; but the peculiar circumstance which renders their condition so deplorable in the dense and suddenly peopled manufacturing districts is, that the poor have been brought together in such prodigious numbers that all the ordinary means of providing for the relief of such casualties fails; while the causes of mortality among them are periodically so fearful, as to produce a vast and sudden increase of the most destitute classes altogether outstripping all possible means of local or voluntary relief. During the late typhus fever in Glasgow, in the years 1836 and 1837, above 30,000 of the poor took the epidemic, of whom 3300 died.⁸ In the first eight months of 1843 alone, 32,000 persons in Glasgow were seized with fever.⁹ Out of 1000 families, at a subsequent period, visited by the police, in conjunction with the visitors for the distribution of the great fund raised by subscription in 1841, 680 were found to be widows, who, with their families, amounted to above 2000 persons all in the most abject state of wretchedness and want.¹⁰ On so vast a scale do the causes of human destruction and demoralization act, when men are torn up from their native seats by the irresistible magnet of commercial wealth, and congregated together in masses, resembling rather the armies of Timour and Napoleon than any thing else ever witnessed in the transactions of men.

Here, then, is the great source of demoralization, destitution, and crime in the manufacturing districts. It arises from the sudden congregation of human beings in such fearful multitudes together, that all the usual alleviations of human suffering, or modes of providing for human indigence, entirely fail. We wonder at the rapid increase of crime in the manufacturing districts, forgetting that a squalid mass of two or three hundred thousand human beings are constantly precipitated to the bottom of society in a few counties, in such circumstances of destitution that recklessness and crime arise naturally, it may almost be said unavoidably, amongst them. And it is in the midst of such gigantic causes of evil—of causes arising from the extraordinary and unparalleled influx of mankind into the manufacturing districts during the last forty years, which can bear a comparison to nothing but the collection of the host with which Napoleon invaded Russia, or Timour and Genghis Khan desolated Asia—that we are gravely told that it is to be arrested by education and moral training; by infant schools and shortened hours of labour; by multiplication of ministers and solitary imprisonment! All these are very good things; each in its way is calculated to do a certain amount of good; and their united action upon the whole will doubtless, in process of time, produce some impression upon the aspect of society, even in the densely peopled manufacturing districts. As to their producing any immediate effect, or in any sensible degree arresting the prodigious amount of misery, destitution, and crime which pervades them, you might as well have tried, by the schoolmaster, to arrest the horrors of the Moscow retreat.

That the causes which have now been mentioned are the true sources of the rapid progress of crime and general demoralization of our manufacturing and mining districts, must be evident to all from this circumstance, well known to all who are practically conversant with the subject, but to a great degree unattended to by the majority of men, and that is,—that the prodigious stream of depravity and corruption which prevails, is far from being equally and generally diffused through society, even in the densely peopled districts where it is most alarming, but is in a great degree confined to the very lowest class. It is from that lowest class that nine-tenths of the crime, and nearly all the professional crime, which is felt as so great an evil in society, flows. Doubtless in all classes there are some wicked, many selfish and inhumane men; and a beneficent Deity, in the final allotment of rewards and punishments, will take largely into account both the opportunities of doing well which the better classes have abused, and the almost invincible causes which so often chain, as it were, the destitute to recklessness and crime. But still, in examining the classes of society on which the greater part of the crime comes, it will be found that at least three-fourths, probably nine-tenths, comes from the very lowest and the most destitute. It is incorrect to say crime is common among them; in truth, among the young at least, a tendency to it is there all but universal. If we examine who it is that compose this dismal substratum, this hideous black band of society, we shall find that it is not made up of any one class more than another—not of factory workers more than labourers, carters, or miners—but is formed by an aggregate of the most unfortunate or improvident of all classes, who, variously struck down from better ways by disease, vice, or sensuality, are now of necessity huddled together by tens of thousands in the dens of poverty, and held by the firm bond of necessity in the precincts of contagion and crime. Society in such circumstances resembles the successive bands of which the imagination of Dante has framed the infernal regions, which contain one concentric circle of horrors and punishments within another, until, when you arrive at the bottom, you find one uniform mass of crime, blasphemy and suffering. We are persuaded there is no person practically acquainted with the causes of immorality and crime in the manufacturing districts, who will not admit that these are the true ones; and that the others, about which so much is said by theorists and philanthropists, though not without influence, are nevertheless trifling in the balance. And what we particularly call the public attention to is this—Suppose all the remedies which theoretical writers or practical legislators have put forth and recommended, as singly adequate to remove the evils of the manufacturing classes, were to be in united operation, they would still leave these gigantic causes of evil untouched. Let Lord Ashley obtain from a reluctant legislature his ten-hours' bill, and Dr Chalmers have a clergyman established for every 700 inhabitants; let church extension be pushed till there is a chapel in every village, and education till there is a school in every street; let the separate system be universal in prisons, and every criminal be entirely secluded from vicious contamination; still the great fountains of evil will remain unclosed; still 300,000 widows and orphans will exist in a few counties of England amidst a newly collected and strange population, steeped in misery themselves, and of necessity breeding up their children in habits of destitution and depravity; still the poor will be deprived, from the suddenness of their collection, and the density of their numbers, of any effective control, either from private character or the opinion of neighbourhood; still individual passion will be inflamed, and individual responsibility lost amidst multitudes; still strikes will spread their compulsory idleness amidst tens of thousands, and periodically array the whole working classes under the banners of sedition, despotism, and murder; still precocious female labour will at once tempt parents into idleness in middle life, and disqualify children, in youth, for household or domestic duties. We wish well to the philanthropists: we are far from undervaluing either the importance or the utility of their labours; but as we have hitherto seen no diminution of crime whatever from their efforts, so we anticipate a very slow and almost imperceptible improvement in society from their exertions.

Strong, and in many respects just, pictures of the state of the working classes in the manufacturing districts, have been lately put forth, and the Perils of the Nation have, with reason, been thought to be seriously increased by them. Those writers, however, how observant and benevolent soever, give a partial, and in many respects fallacious view, of the general aspect of society. After reading their doleful accounts of the general wretchedness, profligacy, and licentiousness of the working classes, the stranger is astonished, on travelling through England, to behold green fields and smiling cottages on all sides; to see in every village signs of increasing comfort, in every town marks of augmented wealth, and the aspect of poverty almost banished from the land. Nay, what is still more gratifying, the returns of the sanatary condition of the whole population, though still exhibiting a painful difference between the health and chances of life in the rural and manufacturing districts, present unequivocal proof of a general amelioration of the chances of life, and, consequently, of the general wellbeing of the whole community.

How are these opposite statements and appearances to be reconciled? Both are true—the reconciliation is easy. The misery, recklessness, and vice exist chiefly in one class—the industry, sobriety, and comfort in another. Each observer tells truly what he sees in his own circle of attention; he does not tell what, nevertheless, exists, and exercises a powerful influence on society, of the good which exists in the other classes. If the evils detailed in Lord Ashley's speeches, and painted with so much force in the Perils of the Nation, were universal, or even general, society could not hold together for a week. But though these evils are great, sometimes overwhelming in particular districts, they are far from being general. Nothing effectual has yet been done to arrest them in the localities or communities where they arise; but they do not spread much beyond them. The person engaged in the factories are stated by Lord Ashley to be between four and five hundred thousand: the population of the British islands is above 27,000,000. It is in the steadiness, industry, and good conduct of a large proportion of this immense majority that the security is to be found. Observe that industrious and well-doing majority; you would suppose there is no danger:—observe the profligate and squalid minority; you would suppose there is no hope.

At present about 60,000 persons are annually committed, in the British islands, for serious offences¹¹ worthy of deliberate trial, and above double that number for summary or police offences. A hundred and eighty thousand persons annually fall under the lash of the criminal law, and are committed for longer or shorter periods to places of confinement for punishment. The number is prodigious—it is frightful. Yet it is in all only about 1 in 120 of the population; and from the great number who are repeatedly committed during the same year, the individuals punished are not 1 in 200. Such as they are, it may safely be affirmed that four-fifths of this 180,000 comes out of two or three millions of the community. We are quite sure that 150,000 come from 3,000,000 of the lowest and most squalid of the empire, and not 30,000 from the remaining 24,000,000 who live in comparative comfort. This consideration is fitted both to encourage hope and awaken shame—hope, as showing from how small a class in society the greater part of the crime comes, and to how limited a sphere the remedies require to be applied; shame, as demonstrating how disgraceful has been the apathy, selfishness, and supineness in the other more numerous and better classes, around whom the evil has arisen, but who seldom interfere, except to RESIST all measures calculated for its removal.

It is to this subject—the ease with which the extraordinary and unprecedented increase of crime in the empire might be arrested by proper means and the total inefficiency of all the remedies hitherto attempted, from the want of practical knowledge on the part of those at the head of affairs, and an entirely false view of human nature in society generally, that we shall direct the attention of our readers in a future Number.

THE HEART OF THE BRUCE

A BALLAD

 
It was upon an April morn
While yet the frost lay hoar,
We heard Lord James's bugle-horn
Sound by the rocky shore.
 
 
Then down we went, a hundred knights,
All in our dark array,
And flung our armour in the ships
That rode within the bay.
 
 
We spoke not as the shore grew less,
But gazed in silence back,
Where the long billows swept away
The foam behind our track.
 
 
And aye the purple hues decay'd
Upon the fading hill,
And but one heart in all that ship
Was tranquil, cold, and still.
 
 
The good Earl Douglas walk'd the deck,
And oh, his brow was wan!
Unlike the flush it used to wear
When in the battle van.—
 
 
"Come hither, come hither, my trusty knight,
Sir Simon of the Lee;
There is a freit lies near my soul
I fain would tell to thee.
 
 
"Thou knowest the words King Robert spoke
Upon his dying day,
How he bade me take his noble heart
And carry it far away:
 
 
"And lay it in the holy soil
Where once the Saviour trod,
Since he might not bear the blessed Cross,
Nor strike one blow for God.
 
 
"Last night as in my bed I lay,
I dream'd a dreary dream:—
Methought I saw a Pilgrim stand
In the moonlight's quivering beam.
 
 
"His robe was of the azure dye,
Snow-white his scatter'd hairs,
And even such a cross he bore
As good Saint Andrew bears.
 
 
"'Why go ye forth, Lord James,' he said,
'With spear and belted brand?
Why do ye take its dearest pledge
From this our Scottish land?
 
 
"'The sultry breeze of Galilee
Creeps through its groves of palm,
The olives on the Holy Mount
Stand glittering in the calm.
 
 
"'But 'tis not there that Scotland's heart
Shall rest by God's decree,
Till the great angel calls the dead
To rise from earth and sea!
 
 
"'Lord James of Douglas, mark my rede
That heart shall pass once more
In fiery fight against the foe,
As it was wont of yore.
 
 
"'And it shall pass beneath the Cross,
And save King Robert's vow,
But other hands shall bear it back,
Not, James of Douglas, thou!'
 
 
"Now, by thy knightly faith, I pray,
Sir Simon of the Lee—
For truer friend had never man
Than thou hast been to me—
 
 
"If ne'er upon the Holy Land
'Tis mine in life to tread,
Bear thou to Scotland's kindly earth
The relics of her dead."
 
 
The tear was in Sir Simon's eye
As he wrung the warrior's hand—
"Betide me weal, betide me woe,
I'll hold by thy command.
 
 
"But if in battle front, Lord James,
'Tis ours once more to ride,
Nor force of man, nor craft of fiend,
Shall cleave me from thy side!"
 
 
And aye we sail'd, and aye we sail'd,
Across the weary sea,
Until one morn the coast of Spain
Rose grimly on our lee.
 
 
And as we rounded to the port,
Beneath the watch-tower's wall,
We heard the clash of the atabals,
And the trumpet's wavering call.
 
 
"Why sounds yon Eastern music here
So wantonly and long,
And whose the crowd of armed men
That round yon standard throng?'
 
 
"The Moors have come from Africa
To spoil and waste and slay,
And Pedro, King of Arragon,
Must fight with them to-day."
 
 
"Now shame it were," cried good Lord James,
"Shall never be said of me,
That I and mine have turn'd aside,
From the Cross in jeopardie!
 
 
"Have down, have down my merry men all—
Have down unto the plain;
We'll let the Scottish lion loose
Within the fields of Spain!"—
 
 
"Now welcome to me, noble lord,
Thou and thy stalwart power;
Dear is the sight of a Christian knight
Who comes in such an hour!
 
 
"Is it for bond or faith ye come,
Or yet for golden fee?
Or bring ye France's lilies here,
Or the flower of Burgundie?'
 
 
"God greet thee well, thou valiant King,
Thee and thy belted peers—
Sir James of Douglas am I call'd,
And these are Scottish spears.
 
 
"We do not fight for bond or plight,
Nor yet for golden fee;
But for the sake of our blessed Lord,
That died Upon the tree.
 
 
"We bring our great King Robert's heart
Across the weltering wave,
To lay it in the holy soil
Hard by the Saviour's grave.
 
 
"True pilgrims we, by land or sea,
Where danger bars the way;
And therefore are we here, Lord King,
To ride with thee this day!"
 
 
The King has bent his stately head,
And the tears were in his eyne—
"God's blessing on thee, noble knight,
For this brave thought of thine!
 
 
"I know thy name full well, Lord James,
And honour'd may I be,
That those who fought beside the Bruce
Should fight this day for me!
 
 
"Take thou the leading of the van,
And charge the Moors amain;
There is not such a lance as thine
In all the host of Spain!"
 
 
The Douglas turned towards us then,
Oh, but his glance was high!—
"There is not one of all my men
But is as bold as I.
 
 
"There is not one of all my knights
But bears as true a spear—
Then onwards! Scottish gentlemen,
And think—King Robert's here!"
 
 
The trumpets blew, the cross-bolts flew,
The arrows flash'd like flame,
As spur in side, and spear in rest,
Against the foe we came.
 
 
And many a bearded Saracen
Went down, both horse and man;
For through their ranks we rode like corn,
So furiously we ran!
 
 
But in behind our path they closed,
Though fain to let us through,
For they were forty thousand men,
And we were wondrous few.
 
 
We might not see a lance's length,
So dense was their array,
But the long fell sweep of the Scottish blade
Still held them hard at bay.
 
 
"Make in! make in!" Lord Douglas cried,
"Make in, my brethren dear!
Sir William of St Clair is down,
We may not leave him here!"
 
 
But thicker, thicker, grew the swarm,
And sharper shot the rain,
And the horses rear'd amid the press,
But they would not charge again.
 
 
"Now Jesu help thee," said Lord James,
"Thou kind and true St Clair!
An' if I may not bring thee off,
I'll die beside thee there!"
 
 
Then in his stirrups up he stood,
So lionlike and bold,
And held the precious heart aloft
All in its case of gold.
 
 
He flung it from him, far ahead,
And never spake he more,
But—"Pass thee first, thou dauntless heart,
As thou were wont of yore!"
 
 
The roar of fight rose fiercer yet,
And heavier still the stour,
Till the spears of Spain came shivering in
And swept away the Moor.
 
 
"Now praised be God, the day is won!
They fly o'er flood and fell—
Why dost thou draw the rein so hard,
Good knight, that fought so well?"
 
 
"Oh, ride ye on, Lord King!" he said,
"And leave the dead to me,
For I must keep the dreariest watch
That ever I shall dree!
 
 
"There lies beside his master's heart
The Douglas, stark and grim;
And woe is me I should be here,
Not side by side with him!
 
 
"The world grows cold, my arm is old,
And thin my lyart hair,
And all that I loved best on earth
Is stretch'd before me there.
 
 
"O Bothwell banks! that bloom so bright,
Beneath the sun of May,
The heaviest cloud that ever blew
Is bound for you this day.
 
 
"And, Scotland, thou may'st veil thy head
In sorrow and in pain;
The sorest stroke upon thy brow
Hath fallen this day in Spain!
 
 
"We'll bear them back into our ship,
We'll bear them o'er the sea,
And lay them in the hallow'd earth,
Within our own countrie.
 
 
"And be thou strong of heart, Lord King,
For this I tell thee sure,
The sod that drank the Douglas' blood
Shall never bear the Moor!"
 
 
The King he lighted from his horse,
He flung his brand away,
And took the Douglas by the hand,
So stately as he lay.
 
 
"God give thee rest, thou valiant soul,
That fought so well for Spain;
I'd rather half my land were gone,
So thou wert here again!"
 
 
We bore the good Lord James away,
And the priceless heart he bore,
And heavily we steer'd our ship
Towards the Scottish shore.
 
 
No welcome greeted our return,
Nor clang of martial tread,
But all were dumb and hush'd as death
Before the mighty dead.
 
 
We laid the Earl in Douglas Kirk,
The heart in fair Melrose;
And woful men were we that day—
God grant their souls repose!
 

W.E.A.