Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 377, March 1847
But some may exclaim, what an expense! Possibly! It remains, however, to be seen whether the weight is not felt because the pressure is unequal. A guardian of an ancient parish and borough, in an agricultural district, observed the other day, “This new removal act is a serious matter to us, – as the cottars in the out-parishes die off, the cottages are pulled down, and this impoverished borough will have to support the children, because they reside here.” Of course, while the inducement to such proceedings exists, and the poor are compelled to support the poor, every attempt at permanent improvement will meet with either active opposition or passive resistance. Then, again, it is said, that as the manufacturing system has created a weak and dangerous population, and one likely to be suddenly impoverished by the vicissitudes of the system, they should be compelled to relieve it when those adverse periods arrive. Does the rating of the manufacturer bear any proportion to his capital, the extent of his business, or his profits? His poor-rate receipt records an inappreciable item of expenditure. The pressure of the rate is not upon him, but upon the householders of the suburbs where the poor reside. It is not just that the manufacturer who owns a mill, or he who merely owns a warehouse, and employs out-door work-people – that the dealer in money, the discounter, the various large agencies, the merchant who transacts his business in a single office and sends his ship all over the world, and the great carriers, because their business happens not to be rateable according to the law, should bear no greater burden than the shop-keepers in a great London thoroughfare. It is likely that there would be a temporary increase of expenditure; but then justice would be done to the aged, the infirm, and the sick. In this respect the expenditure would increase; but as regards the able-bodied there would be a reduction, and in this way: If a man is thrown out of work, and his habits being known, he is relieved; he is thereby sustained, and when work begins to abound he starts fairly. If he is compelled to sink, the chances are he will never rise. Every guardian in the kingdom knows, from personal observation, how difficult it is to dispose of a family which has been forced into the union-house, and has lost a home. It is confidently expected, if out-door relief, accompanied by labour, be given only to those able-bodied applicants who are known, from the facts of their history as officially reported, to be idle, dissolute, and intemperate; – if the labour required to be done be public work; if it be apportioned and tasked by judiciously chosen task-masters, and given to each individual at a low rate of prices, lower than those of ordinary labour, and paid in food, or even in lodging when specially applied for and deemed necessary, – then, as regards the able-bodied applicants, the nearest approach will have been made to a perfect system. And if the system here sketched, or rather if the hints which have been dropped from time to time in the progress of this article, be collected and arranged, it is believed, that inasmuch as they have reference to the moral principles of our nature, as well as to the physical condition of the pauper, they will operate beneficially upon the poor of England. And if it should appear, from the statistics officially reported by a minister in the regular exercise of his duty in parliament, that the number of poor receiving relief who belong to the first three classes have slightly increased, that report should be considered as highly satisfactory, and not as a disclosure injurious to national honour. It is not a matter of which Englishmen ought to be ashamed, or a subject to be bewailed, that the aged, the infirm, and the sick among the very poor, are not allowed either to perish, or to have their cherished habits and associations destroyed. Then, as regards the class of widows, if it should appear that the numbers do not go on increasing in the ratio of deaths, but continue nearly stationary, the report would be still satisfactory; because the inference from it would be, that, as new cases have been added, old ones must have discontinued. And the report respecting the two great divisions of the able-bodied – those who are not set to do work, and those who are – would be pregnant with information. And lastly, that part of the report which discloses the number of cases which have not been distributed in the several classes, would be of great value, as indicating the quarter where the inspectors under the orders of Government might most advantageously make their inquiries.
The classes and orders of poor that ordinarily become chargeable to parishes have been commented upon; and a few of the peculiar traits have been sketched of that motley group, which cannot be classified in any other way, than as persons who, from their admitted idleness, ought to be set to labour; or as persons to whom the exaction of labour in return for relief would be detrimental, – and not only detrimental to their personal interests, but to those of society. We have also stirred up and exposed the dregs of society: an operation neither pleasant nor useful under ordinary circumstances. But our inquiries have been pathological. And it is the duty of the physician or surgeon to probe the wound, and examine minutely the abscess, and then to institute inquiries equally minute and more general into the habits and constitution of the patient. Then the physician may have occasion to comment, in the lecture-room, upon this class of diseases; and he would then show how many circumstances must be considered and estimated before the true mode of treatment can be known. And as quacks thrive upon ignorance and credulity, he might gratify the curious student by an exposition upon the facility with which imaginary cures might be effected. He might show that by the employment of quack medicines the diseased part might be made to assume the appearance of health. The abscess can be closed; but the corruption, of which the open wound was only the outlet, will still circulate through the system, deteriorate the blood, and at last seriously derange the vital organs. The reader will apply these remedies in the proper quarter. And then, as in the consideration of the first series of classes we had occasion to dwell mainly upon those characteristics of the poor which attract regard and sympathy, it became necessary, in order that the general idea might be in accordance with the general bearing of the facts, to conduct the reader into strange scenes, and among classes of human beings, which might otherwise have been disregarded or unknown. The reader now sees distinctly that which the clamour and clash of rigourists and universal-benevolence-men might have led him to overlook, viz. —that pauperism includes in its legions the most virtuous, the most vicious, the most industrious, and the most idle; and refers to decent, honest poverty as well as to squalid destitution. We may conclude by averring, that the tendency of an extended system of out-door relief, administered in the manner, and according to the principles laid down, would be, to raise one class from the state of pauperism, – to confront distresses which the complexity of civilised society, and the extension of the manufacturing systems have occasioned, boldly, firmly, and humanely, – to distinguish between the honest industrious poor, and the lazy vagabond – to give one a fair chance of obtaining employment, and to remove inducements from the other to prowl about and live upon the public. And if this can be in any degree attained, it will so far stand out in bold contrast to the doctrines of The Edinburgh Review, and the practice of the Poor-Law Commissioners, which have reference only to the health of the animal fibre, and not to the soul which gives it life.
THE POACHER;
OR, JUTLAND A HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS SINCE
From the Danish
I. – THE DEER-RIDER
The Danish isles have such a pleasant, friendly, peaceful aspect, that, when carried by our imagination back to their origin, the idea of any violent shock of nature never enters into our thoughts. They seem neither to have been cast up by an earthquake, nor to have been formed by a flood, but rather to have gradually appeared from amid the subsiding ocean. Their plains are level and extensive, their hills few, small, and gently rounded. No steep precipices, no deep hollows remind one of the throes at Nature’s birth; the woods do not hang in savage grandeur on cloud-capt ridges, but stretch themselves, like living fences, around the fruitful fields. The brooks do not rush down in foaming cataracts, through deep and dark clefts, but glide, still and clear, among sedge and underwood. When, from the delightful Fyen, we pass over to Jutland, we seem, at first, only to have crossed a river, and can hardly be convinced that we are on the continent, so closely resembling and near akin with the islands is the aspect of the peninsula. But the further we penetrate, the greater is the change in the appearance of the country. The valleys are deeper, the hills steeper; the woods appear older and more decayed; many a rush-grown marsh, many a spot of earth covered with stunted heath, huge stones on the ridgy lands – every thing, in short, bears testimony to inferior culture, and scantier population. Narrow roads with deep wheel-ruts, and a high rising in the middle, indicate less traffic and intercourse among the inhabitants, whose dwellings towards the west appear more and more miserable, lower and lower, as if they crouched before the west wind’s violent assault. In proportion as the heaths appear more frequent and more extensive, the churches and villages are fewer and farther from each other. In the farm-yards, instead of wood, are to be seen stacks of turf; and instead of neat gardens, we find only kale-yards. Vast heath-covered marshes, neglected and turned to no account, tell us in intelligible language that there is a superabundance of them.
No boundaries, no rows of willows, mark the division of one man’s land from another’s. It appears as if all were still held in common. If, at length, we approach the hilly range of Jutland, vast flat heaths lie spread before us, at first literally strewn with barrows of the dead; but the number of which gradually decreases, so that it may reasonably be supposed that this tract had never, in former times, been cultivated. This high ridge of land, it is thought, and not improbably, was the part of the peninsula that first made its appearance, rising from the ocean and casting it on either side, where the waves, rolling down, washed up the hills and hollowed out the valleys. On the east side of this heath, appear, here, and there, some patches of stunted oaks, which may serve a compass to travellers, the tops of the trees being all bent towards the east. On the large heath-covered hills but little verdure is to be seen, – a solitary grass-plot, or a young asp, of which one asks, with surprise, how it came here? If a brook or river runs through the heath, no meadow, no bush indicates its presence: deep down between hollowed-out hills, it winds its lonely course, and with a speed as if it were hurrying out of the desert.
Across such a stream rode, one beautiful autumn-day, a young well-dressed man, towards a small field of rye, which the distant owner had manured by scraping off the surface, and burning it to ashes. He and his people were just in the act of reaping it, when the horseman approached them, and inquired the road to the manor-house of Ansbjerg. The farmer, having first requited his question with another, – to wit, where did the traveller come from? – told him what he knew already, that he had missed his way; and then calling a boy who was binding the sheaves, ordered him to set the stranger in the right road. Before, however, the boy could begin to put this order in execution, a sight presented itself which, for a moment, drew all the attention both of the traveller and the harvest people. From the nearest heath-covered hill there came directly towards them, at full speed, a deer with a man on his back. The latter, a tall stout figure, clad in brown from head to foot, sat jammed in between the antlers of the crown-deer, which had cast them back, as these animals are wont to do when running. This extraordinary rider had apparently lost his hat in his progress, as his long dark hair flowed back from his head, like the mane of a horse in full gallop. His hand was in incessant motion, from his attempt to plunge a knife it held into the neck of the deer, but which the violent springs of the animal prevented him from hitting. When the deer-rider approached near enough to the astonished spectators, which was almost instantaneously, the farmer, at once recognising him, cried, “Hallo, Mads! where are you going to?”
“That you must ask the deer or the devil!” answered Mads; but before the answer could be completely uttered, he was already so far away, that the last words scarcely reached the ears of the inquirer. In a few seconds both man and deer vanished from the sight of the gazers.
“Who was that?” inquired the stranger, without turning his eyes from the direction in which the centaur had disappeared.
“It is a wild fellow called Mads Hansen, or Black Mads: he has a little hut on the other side of the brook. Times are hard with him: he has many children, I believe, and so he manages as he can. He comes sometimes on this side and takes a deer; but to-day it would seem that the deer had taken him: that is,” added he, thoughtfully, “if it really be a deer. God deliver us from all that is evil! but Mads is certainly a dare-devil fellow, though I know nothing but what is honourable and good of him. He shoots a head of deer now and then; but what matters that? there’s enough of them; far too many, indeed. There, you may see yourself how they have cropped the ears of my rye. But here have we Niels the game-keeper. Yes; you are tracking Black Mads. To-day he is better mounted than you are.”
While he was saying this, a hunter appeared in sight, coming towards them at a quick trot from the side where they had first seen the deer-rider. “Have you seen Black Mads?” cried he, before he came near them.
“We saw one, sure enough, riding on a deer, but can’t say whether he was black or white, or who it was; for he was away in such haste that we could hardly follow him with our eyes,” said the farmer.
“The fiend fetch him!” cried the huntsman, stopping his horse to let him take breath; “I saw him yonder in the Haverdal, where he was skulking about, watching after a deer. I placed myself behind a small rising, that I might not interrupt him. He fired, and a deer fell. Mads ran up, leaped across him to give him the death-blow, when the animal, on feeling the knife, rose suddenly up, squeezed Mads between his antlers – and hallo! I have got his gun, but would rather get himself.” With these words he put his horse into a trot, and hastened after the deer-stealer, with one gun before him on his saddle-bow, and another slung at his back.
The traveller, who was going in nearly the same direction, now set off with his guide, as fast as the latter could go at a jog-trot, after having thrown off his wooden shoes. They had proceeded little more than a mile, and had reached the summit of a hill, which sloped down towards a small river, when they got sight of the two riders. The first had arrived at the end of his fugitive course: the deer had fallen dead in the rivulet, at a spot where there was much shallow water. Its slayer, who had been standing across it, and struggling to free himself from its antlers, which had worked themselves into his clothes, had just finished his labour and sprung on land, when the huntsman, who at first had taken a wrong direction, came riding past our traveller with the rein in one hand and the gun in the other. At a few yards’ distance from the unlucky deer-rider he stopped his horse, and with the comforting words, “Now, dog! thou shalt die,” deliberately took aim at him. “Hold! hold!” cried the delinquent, “don’t be too hasty, Niels! you are not hunting now; we can talk matters to rights.”
“No more prating,” answered the exasperated keeper, “thou shalt perish in thy misdeeds!”
“Niels, Niels!” cried Mads, “here are witnesses; you have now got me safe enough, I cannot go from you; why not take me to the manor-house, and let the owner do as he likes with me, and you will get good drink-money into the bargain.”
At this moment the traveller rode up, and cried out to the keeper, “For heaven’s sake, friend, do not commit a crime, but hear what the man has to say.”
“The man is a great offender,” said the keeper, uncocking his gun, and laying it across the pommel of his saddle, “but as the strange gentleman intercedes for him, I will give him his life. But thou art mad, Mads! for now thou wilt come to drive a barrow before thee7 for the rest of thy life. If thou hadst let me shoot thee, all would now have been over.” Thereupon he put his horse into a trot, and the traveller, who was also going to Ansbjerg, kept them company.
They proceeded a considerable way without uttering a word, except that the keeper, from time to time, broke silence with an abusive term, or an oath. At length the deer-stealer began a new conversation, to which Niels made no answer, but whistled a tune, at the same time taking from his pocket a tobacco-pouch and pipe. Having filled his pipe, he endeavoured to strike a light, but the tinder would not catch.
“Let me help you,” said Mads, and without getting or waiting for an answer, struck fire in his own tinder, blew on it, and handed it to the keeper; but while the latter was in the act of taking it, he grasped the stock of the gun which lay across the pommel, dragged it with a powerful tug out of the strap, and sprang three steps backwards into the heather. All this was done with a rapidity beyond what could have been expected from the broad-shouldered, stout and somewhat elderly deer-stealer.
The poor gamekeeper, pale and trembling, roared with rage at his adversary, without the power of uttering a syllable.
“Light thy pipe,” said Mads, “the tinder will else be all burned out; perhaps it is no good exchange thou hast made; this is certainly better, – ”here he patted the gun, – “but thou shalt have it again when thou givest me my own back.”
Niels instantly took the other from behind him, held it out to the deer-stealer with one hand, at the same time stretching forth the other to receive his own piece.
“Wait a moment,” said Mads, “thou shalt first promise me – but it is no matter, it is not very likely you’d keep it – though should you now and then hear a pop in the heather, don’t be so hasty, but think of to-day and of Mike Foxtail.” Turning then towards the traveller, “Does your horse stand fire?” said he, “Fire away,” exclaimed the latter. Mads held out the keeper’s gun with one hand, like a pistol, and fired it off; thereupon he took the flint from the cock, and returned the piece to his adversary, saying, “There, take your pop-gun; at any rate it shall do no more harm just yet. Farewell, and thanks for to-day.” With these words he slung his own piece over his shoulder, and went towards the spot where he had left the deer.
The keeper, whose tongue had hitherto been bound by a power like magic, now gave vent to his long-repressed indignation, in a volley of oaths and curses.
The traveller, whose sympathy had transferred itself from the escaped deer-stealer to the almost despairing game-keeper, endeavoured to comfort him as far as lay in his power. “You have in reality lost nothing,” said he, “except the miserable satisfaction of rendering a man and all his family unhappy.”
“Lost nothing!” exclaimed the huntsman, “you don’t understand the matter. Lost nothing! The rascal has spoiled my good gun.”
“Load it, and put in another flint,” said the traveller.
“Pshaw!” answered Niels, “it will never more shoot hart or hare. It is bewitched, that I will swear; and if one remedy does not succeed – aha! there lies one licking the sunshine in the wheel-rut; he shall eat no young larks to-day.” Saying this, he stopped his horse, hastily put a flint in his gun, loaded it, and dismounted. The stranger, who was uninitiated in the craft of venery, and equally ignorant of its terminology and magic, also stopped to see what his companion was about to perform; while the latter, leading his horse, walked a few steps forward, and with the barrel of his piece poked about something that lay in his way, which the stranger now perceived to be an adder.
“Will you get in?” said the keeper, all the while thrusting with his gun at the serpent. At length, having got its head into the barrel, he held his piece up, and shook it until the adder was completely in. He then fired it off with its extraordinary loading, of which not an atom was more to be seen, and said, “If that won’t do, there is no one but Mads or Mike Foxtail who can set it to rights.”
The traveller smiled a little incredulously, as well at the witchcraft as at the singular way of dissolving it; but having already become acquainted with one of the sorcerers just named, he felt desirous to know a little about the other, who bore so uncommon and significant a name. In answer to his inquiry, the keeper, at the same time reloading his piece, related what follows: – “Mikkel, or Mike Foxtail, as they call him, because he entices all the foxes to him that are in the country, is a ten times worse character than even Black Mads. He can make himself hard.8 Neither lead nor silver buttons make the slightest impression on him. I and master found him one day down in the dell yonder, with a deer he had just shot, and was in the act of flaying. We rode on till within twenty paces of him before he perceived us. Was Mike afraid, think you? He just turned round, and looked at us, and went on flaying the deer. ‘Pepper his hide, Niels,’ said master, ‘I will be answerable.’ I aimed a charge of deer-shot point-blank at his broad back, but he no more minded it than if I had shot at him with an alder pop-gun. The fellow only turned his face towards us for a moment, and again went on flaying. Master himself then shot; that had some effect; it just grazed the skin of his head: and then only, having first wrapped something round it, he took up his little rifle that lay on the ground, turned towards us, and said, ‘Now, my turn is come, and if you do not see about taking yourselves away, I shall try to make a hole in one of you.’ Such for a chap is Mike Foxtail.”