The sick in workhouses, who they are, and how they should be treated : a paper read at the meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science in Dublin, August, 1861 / by Frances Power Cobbe ; with an appendix by Louisa Twining.

  • Cobbe, Frances Power, 1822-1904.
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sick in workhouses, who they are, and how they should be treated : a paper read at the meeting of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science in Dublin, August, 1861 / by Frances Power Cobbe ; with an appendix by Louisa Twining. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    so arranged the world, that prosperity follows virtue, that health is the result of temperance, wealth of industry, and honour of honesty. The presumption is natural and even pious that we shall never see the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread. But there is another truth deeper still than that of the economist,—the truth, that disease and disaster serve in the Divine education of man the purposes of trial to the best and dearest of God's children. Not only have we no right to conclude that those on whom the tower falls are sinners above all men, but there is even farther a pre- sumption that it is the purest gold which passes through the keenest fire. Only upon some cross of pain or woe God's son may lie, Each soul redeemed from self and sin must know It's Calvary. The first is the secular, the second the spiritual, view of mis- foftune. The present is no occasion for debating the subjects of profound interest which here suggest themselves. I believe it will be conceded by all practical students of social problems that the secular view holds good as a general rule, and the other only in an exceptional (though a numerously exceptional) way- Of one hundred men starting with equal advantages in life, if we assume twenty to become rich and twenty to die in poverty, we shall find among the former the most steady and honest, and among the latter the most idle, dissolute, and disreputable. If these things were not so, men might be almost tempted to question the existence of a just Power overruling all things. And again, if there were no exceptions, if all good people acquired a thousand a year, and all bad people died in the Workhouse, virtue would be reduced to a sum in the rule of three, and the basest of all apophthegms, Honesty is the best policy, would be substituted for the brave motto of aU noble souls, Fais ce que dois, advienne que pomra! Practical experience of the actual inmates of our Workhouses has to me corroborated these views. Perhaps it will assist us to form a clearer idea ou this subject if we reduce the causes of pauperism to five heads, to one or other of which I believe it may always be traced. (1) Vice. It is needless to point out how dissipation, idleness, and dishonesty, lead to ruin by most obvious and easy paths : '* Facile descensus Averni. (2) Incapacity. There is a large and most unhappy class of human beings of whom too little account is made in the usual esti-