XIV
The English rich do not give so spectacularly as our rich do--
that is, by handfuls of millions, but then the whole community
gives more, I think, than our community does, and when it does
not give, the necessary succor is taxed out of its incomes and
legacies. I do not mean that there is no destitution, but only
that the better off seem to have the worse off more universally
and perpetually in mind than with us. All this is believed to be
very demoralizing to the poor, and doubtless the certainty of
soup and flannel is bad for the soul of an old woman whose body
is doubled up with rheumatism. The Church seems to blame for much
of the evil that ensues from giving something to people who have
nothing; but I dare say the Dissenters are also guilty.
Just how much is wanted to stay the stomach of a healthy pauper,
it would be hard to say; but now and then the wayfarer gets some
hint of the frequency if not the amount of feeding among the poor
who are able to feed themselves. One day, in the outskirts--they
were very tattered and draggled--of Liverpool, we stopped at a
pastry-shop, where the kind woman "thought she could accommodate"
us with a cup of tea, though she was terribly pressed with custom
from all sorts of minute maids and small boys coming in for
"penn'orths" of that frightful variety of tart and cake which
dismays the beholder from innumerable shop windows in England.
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