However, light seems dawning through the darkness, and I think many Poor Law Guardians will rest better in their beds knowing that old-age pensions seem to have come into the sphere of practical politics.
On January 1st the receipt of Poor Law relief ceases to be a disqualification for old-age pensions, and some interesting statistics have been compiled by the _Daily Mail_ which show that only about 17 per cent. of old people in the workhouses are applying for their 5s. per week. These are the figures for England and Wales. In the Metropolitan area, where rents are high, and the smallest room cannot be had under two shillings or half a crown a week, the proportion will be lower still.
At first sight these figures are very disappointing, and it seems to some of us who have counted so much on this reform as if we cannot escape from the evils of the workhouse system. But a little thought will show how impossible it is for this generation of old folk to take advantage of the change; the wished-for has come too late; they have burnt their ships, or rather their beds, sold up "the little 'ome"; they have neither bag nor baggage, bed nor clothing. They are like snails with broken shells. There is no protection against the rude world, and once having made the sacrifice, few people over seventy have the pluck to start life afresh. It is hardly worth while; for them the bitterness of death is past.
A committee of our Board has held three special sessions for the purpose of interviewing these old people, and the answer has come with wearying monotony, "No, thank you, five shillings would be no good to me. I have nowhere to go." Some have sons and daughters, but "heavy families" and crowded rooms dry up filial piety. There is no place for the aged father or mother in our rack-rented city, and the old people accept their fate with the quiet philosophy of the poor. The long string of human wreckage files past us, some bowed and bent with the weight of years, others upright and active, some with the hoary heads of the traditional prophets, others black-haired and keen-eyed still, for the "high living" of the workhouse, as is often remarked, preserves youth in a miraculous way. Some are crippled and half-blind, others suffer with deafness--an ailment of poverty, which very naturally grows worse under inquisitive questioning--and nearly all have rheumatism. A curate once told me that he was summoned to a sick parishioner who was "troubled in mind," and wanted to make his peace with Heaven, but the only sin he could remember was "the rheumatics." The disease seems to be a national sin.