TWO WAYS OF VISITING THE POOR [From Dickens' "Blcak House."]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 745, 22 September 1852, Page 4

TWO WAYS OF VISITING THE POO R [From Dickens' " Bleak House."]

Mrs. Pardiggle, leading the way with a great show of moral determination, and talking with much volubility about the untidy habits of the people (though 1 doubted if the best of us could have been tidy in such a place), conducted us into a cottage at the farthest, corner, the groundfloor room of which we nearly filled. Besides ourselves there were in this damp offensive room a woman with a black eye nursing a poor little gasping baby by the fire ; a man, all stained with clay and mud, and. looking very dissipated, lying at full length on the ground, smoking a pipe ; a poweifuUyoung man fastening a collar on a dog ; and a bold girl doing some kind of washing in veiy dirty water. They all looked up at us as we came in, and the woman seemed to turn her face towards the fire as if to hide her bruised eye; nobody gave us any welcome. " Well, my friends," said Mrs. Pardiggle ; but her voice had not a friendly sound I thought; it was much too business like and systematic. " How do you do all of you 1 I told you you could'nt tire me, you know. I enjoy hard work ; and the harder you make mine the better I like it." '* Then make it easy for her !" growled the man upcn the floor. " I wants it done ami over. I wants a end of these liberties took with my place. 1 wants a end of being drawed like a badger. Now you're a going to poll-pry and question according to custom ; I know what you're a going to be up to. Well ! you haven't got no occasion to be up to it ; I'll save you the trouble. . Is my daughter a washin ? Yes, she is a washin. Look at the water. Smell it ! That's wot we drinks. How do you like it, and what do you think of gin instead? Ant my place dirty 1> Yes, it is dirty —it's nat'rally dirty, and it's nat'rally unwholesome ; and we've had five dirty and unwholesome children, as is all dead infants, and so much the better for them, and for us besides. Hare I read the little book wot you left ? No, I ant read the little book wot you left. Thare ant nobody here as knows how. to read it ; and if there wos it would'nt be suitable to me. It's a book fit for a babby, and I'm not a babby. , If you was to leave mo a doll I shouldn't nuss it. How have I been conducting myself ? Why, I've been drunk for three days ; and I'd a been drunk four if I'd a had the money. Don't I never mean for to go to church 1 No, 1 don't never mean for to go to church. I shouldn't be expected there if I did ; the beadle's too gen-teel for me. And how did my wife get that black eye ? Why, I giv' it her, and if she says I didn't she's a lie !"

He had spoiled his pipe out of his mouth to say all this", and he now turned over on his other side and smoked again. Mrs. Pardiggle, who had been regarding him through her spectacles with a forcible composure, calculated, I could not help thinking, to increase his antagonism, pulled out a good book, as if it were a'constable's staff, and took the whole family into custody. I mean into religious custody of course ; but sh° really d.id it as if she were an inexorable policeman carrying them all off to a station-house. Ada and I were very uncomfortable. We both felt intrusive and, out of place ; and we both thought that Mrs. Pardiggle would have got on ! infinitely better if she had not had such a mechanical way of taking possession of people. The children sulked and stared ; the family took no notice of us whatever, except when the young man made the dog bark, which he usually did when Mrs. Pardiggle was most emphatic. We both felt painfully sensible that between us and these people there was an iron barrier, which i could not be removed by our new friend. By whom or how it coulrl be removed we did not know : but we knew that even what she read and said semed to us to be ill chosen for such auditors, if it bad been imparjted ever so modestly and with ever so much tact.' As to the little, book to which the man on the floor had referred we acquired a kuowledge of it afterwards ; and Mr. Jarndy.ce said he doubted if Robinson Crusoe could have read it though lie had had no other on his desolate island. We were much lelieved under these circumstances, when Mrß. Pardiggle left off. The man on the floor then turning his head round again, said morosely, " Well ! You've done, have you ?" i " For to-day, I have, my friend. But lam I never fatigued. I shall come to you again, in your regular order," returned Mrs. Pardiggle with demonstrative cheerfulness. "So long as you goes now," said he, folding his arms and shutting his eyes with an oath, " you may do wot you like ! Mrs. Pardiggle accordingly rose, and made a little vortex in the confined room from which the pipe itself very narrowly escaped. Taking one of her young family in each hand, and telling the others to follow closely, and expressing her hope that the brickraaker and all his bouse would be improved when she saw them next, she then proceeded to another cottage. I hope it is not unkind in me to say that she certainly did make in this, as in everything else, a show that was not conciliatory of doing charity by wholesale, and of dealing in it to a large extent. She supposed that we were following her 4 but as soon as the space was left clear, we approached the woman sitting by the fire to ask if the baby were ill. She only looked as it lay on her lap. We had observed that when she looked at it she covered her discoloured eye with her ha-nd, as though she wished to separate any association with noise, and violence, and ill-treatment, from the poor little child. Ada, whose gentle heart was moved by its appearaoce, bent down lo touch its little face. As she did so, I saw what happened and drew her back. The child died. "Q Esther !" ciied Ada, siukingon her knees beside it. " Look here ! O Esther, my love, the little thing ! The suffering, quiet, pretty little thing I lam so sorry for the mother. I never saw a sight so beautiful as this before I O baby, baby !" Such compassion, such gentleness, as that with which she bent down weeping, and put her hand upon the mothei's, might have softened aoy mother's heart that ever beat. The woman at first gazed at Ler in astonishment, and then burst into tears. Presently I took the light burden from her lap ; did what I could to make the baby's rest the prettier and gentler ; laid it on a shelf, and covered it with my own handkerchief. We tried to comfort the mother, and we whispered to her what our Saviour said of children. She answered nothing, but sat weeping — weeping very much. When I turned, I found that the young man had taken out the dog, and was standing at the door looking in upon us, with dry eyes, but quiet. The girl was quiet too, and sat in a corner looking on the ground. The man had risen. He still smoked his pipe with an air of defiance, but he was silent. An ugly woman, very poorly clothed, huriied in while 1 was glancing at them, and coming straight up to the mother, said " Jenny ! Jenny !" The mother rose on being so addressed, and fell upon the woman's neck. She also had upon her face and arms the marks of ill-uiage. She bad no kind of grace about her but the grace of sympathy •, but when she condoled with the woman, and her own tears fell, she wanted no beauty. I say condoled, but her only words were " Jenny ! Jenny ! " All the rest was in the tone in which she -said them. I thought it very touching to see these two 1 women, coarse and shabby and beaten, so united; to see what they could be to one another; to see how they felt for one another 5 bow the heart of each to each was softened by the bard trials of their lives. I think the best side of such people is almost bidden from us. What the poor are to 1 the poor is little known, excepting to themselves j and God.