PALACES AND PAUPERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIX, Issue 8139, 14 May 1906, Page 7

PALACES AND PAUPERS.

. + Mr P. A. Mackenzie has contributed four artiolea on London workhonsea to the Daily Mail, which we are not surprised to learn have caused considerable stir. The palatial style in which indoor relief is administered by the London Guardians is simply staggering. Paapers are now lodged in palaces. "The old simple style of workhouses,* writes Mr Maokenzie, "has given place to elaborate stonefaced structures, with WIDE OAKRIAGE DRIVES, and at times with great lawns and shrubberies hround their lofty apartments." Great baildiags mean corresponding contractors 1 bills. In St. Olave's a new workhouse cost nearly close upon £3OO for each inmate, or enuugh to house six or eight peopla in two cottages suoh us those shown in last years exhibition. "How many workimz men ratepayers, askß Mr Mackenzie, "live in a house costing. £IBOO for a family of six? It is only fair to say that THE GUARDIANS seem to have got value for their money. Tne baths are of porcelain. The nandbasins are fitted with hot and cold water pipes. The floors are of parquetry. The kitchens are lined with white tiles. The kitchen ranges are heated by steam and the ovens by gas. The wards are warmed by hot water, with the additions of open fireplaces for the SAKE OP CHEERFULNESS andß ventilation. Naturally, when the pauners are lodged on this soale the rooms in which the guardians transaot business are not forgotten. Consequently we are not surprised fco'learn that in one workhouse the Board room chairs cost from £4 17s 6d to £9 10s each. A guardian ia too precious to have an article to have his portly person " SUPPORTED BY ANYTHING less costly than mahogany and Spanish leather. In short, from first to last the pauper is treated as an Imperial functionary, who must be aept in sueh a way as to reflect glory on the ratepayers, who have to feed this monstrous cuckoo. It is no matter for astonishment that workhouses built in this fashion are found highly attractive. Mere external splendour MIGHT BE WASTED

on the olaaa by which they are chiefly filled. Bat the food supply is on a corresponding scale. At the Poplar Workhouse the oontraots are for the supply of the best English wether mutton, and for the prime outs, of bacon of the most esteemed brandß. There—and we dare say that in this respect other LONDON WORKHOUSES are not behind Poplar—no pauper is insulted by being asked to eat Australian mutton or New Zealand lamb, or to put up with any part of the pig save that which furnishes those "streaky" rashers so dear to connoisseurs. It is by these means that the London Guardians secure the presence in their, workhouses of "over 5000 healthy me and women in the prime of life, a large proportion of whom are living in [COMPARATIVE IDLENESS. v to the permanent destruction of their power or will to work." And this does not include the casuals. The really wonderful thing is that, under the system which the guardians of the poor in'Londor. have set up, and which the Local Government Board has hitherto, whether from fear of unpopularity or from easy good nature, been content to tolerate, any man or woman who has not ample private means should prefer paying rates to living on them.