And thus it was at the funeral of the deceased Baronet. All the clergy round had come to do him honour, and all the county families had come to put in an appearance – or, at any rate, sent their empty carriages to follow in the procession, which is supposed to be the same as attending one’s self. A fashionable undertaker from town had been retained for the occasion, and never did men wear so mournful an expression as he and his many men. I had almost written ‘merry’ men, for none were merrier when the dismal farce was over and they were back to town – refreshed by stimulants, with which they had been plentifully supplied.
There was a great crowd in the church – a great crowd in the churchyard, and a great crowd all the way from the Hall. The heir, the deceased’s brother, naturally came in for a good deal of criticism, and he was quite equal to the occasion – apparently mourning for the deceased as if he had loved him as much as everyone was aware he had done the reverse. Relatives from all parts were there, hoping against hope that they might find their names put down for something in the will. The tenantry made a decent show, for to many of them the deceased was a man after their own hearts – fond of sport, of racing, of good cheer, of fast living. All the world loves a gay spendthrift more than a sober and careful man who tries to live within his means and to save a little money. The enlightened British workman has, as a rule, an intense hatred for the capitalist, who is, after all, his best friend.
The peasantry were there in great force, glad to have a show of any kind to relieve the dull monotony of their lives – though feeling that it would make little difference to them who reigned at the Hall, and expecting little: as it had gone forth that the new Baronet was somewhat of a skinflint, and that little was to be expected from the mother and daughters who were in future to take up their residence at the old Hall. It is needless to add that the tradesmen of the town were present in great numbers. They knew on which side their bread was buttered. Tradesmen generally do. At any rate there was show enough and funereal pomp to give occasion for the county paper of the following Saturday to devote considerable space to the affair, which – so the reporter wrote, with a touch of imagination which did him credit – had saddened the county and made everyone deplore the sudden and untimely decease of one of its most distinguished men.
The deceased Baronet had been the great man of the district – a leading magistrate, with power to ameliorate the condition of the poor – a power that he had never used. The workhouse was old and unhealthy, yet he had opposed every effort to build a better one; the relieving-officers were drunkards, and generally unable to keep their accounts correctly. The selection of such officers was, in fact, a job in order to make provision for some aged, feeble, drunken bankrupt, a boon companion of the farmers; nor were the medical officers much better. The outdoor paupers were victims of the grossest abuses. The aged were set to eke out their miserable existence by breaking stones on the road, and thus these poor creatures, half-clad, ill-fed, and suffering from rheumatism, had to work on the bleak roadside, exposed to the inclemency of the weather, till they ceased to be a parochial charge at all; and, as a rule, their homes were unfit for human habitation. The vagrants suffered from the grossest ill-usage. One quarter of the workhouse, ill or scarcely provided with bedding accommodation, was appropriated to a class consisting of honest seekers for work, tramps, vagabonds, and thieves of all ages, huddled indiscriminately together, using or listening to the vilest language, initiated in the mysteries of vice and crime, quarrelling and fighting. There were no vagrant wards, and any attempt to introduce them was strenuously resisted, and thus, in spite of the Reformed Poor Law, as it was called, the state of the poor grew more wretched every day.
Sir Watkin knew all this. A word from him would have inaugurated a better state of things, but he never spoke that word. He was far too busy in his pursuit of pleasure to think of the poor on his estate, or to plead their cause, and the guardians were content to let things slide.
Dr. Chalmers maintained that the one main drawback to the effectual working of the new Poor Law would be the defective attendance at the boards of the landlords, and, as far as Sloville was concerned, the doctor was right. Had the deceased Baronet discharged the duties of his position, and concerned himself about the welfare of the poor, he might have been a blessing to the district. As it was, he was very much the reverse. In his time, as in that of the old Hebrew Psalmist, it might truly be said: ‘The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor.’
A few days and the astonishment of the town was over, and the sun was gay, and the earth as fair as ever. Nature takes no heed of death; it keeps on all the same its eternal way. The common people had their talk of old scandals, and the lodge-keeper became quite an oracle as he hinted at the appearance of an old woman at the gate, and expressed his wonder at what had become of her. He went so far as to hint at the possession of mysterious knowledge, of which the presumptive heir would be glad to avail himself; but gradually even that form of mild excitement passed away. The public soon got over the event, as it generally does.
In the gay world, of which Sir Watkin had been a leading figure so recently, things went on much as usual. The old captain in the club, it is true, felt the loss of a man younger than himself, and on whom he had, to a certain extent, leaned. The manager of the Diamond Theatre was inconsolable, as his bills were many in the hands of the Jews, and he looked to the Baronet to take them up as they fell due. A little regret and wonder was expressed that the deceased Baronet did not cut up quite so well as was expected. Well, of course, he was a gentleman, and you can’t expect a gentleman to be a good man of business. But a good many who lost by the deceased were not quite so easily consoled. It is pleasant to be able to pay twenty shillings in the pound, but that is not the whole duty of man, nevertheless. If Shakespeare had been unfortunate in business, if Milton had had to make an arrangement with his creditors, we should have thought just as well of them; nor does one think a penny the worse of De Foe, that he was in pecuniary difficulties, or of Dick Steele that he could not make both ends meet, or of Goldsmith that he left two thousand pounds of debt behind him. In the case of Sir Watkin Strahan the estate was strictly settled, and only his debts of honour got paid. As it was, there was little left for the new Baronet to start with.
And this state of things is the consequence of the law of primogeniture, says the ignorant reformer. It is not so. Our laws of settlement are to be blamed as unfair and unjust. The main causes of agricultural depression, and of continued wrongdoing on the part of landed proprietors, are the laws which allow the owners to make deeds and wills which for many years, and often long after the owners’ deaths, prevent the land from being sold, or the estate from being divided, no matter how expedient it may be that it should he sold, or no matter how foolish or extravagant the owner may be. Mr. Kay illustrates this in a case in which he had acted as trustee. This estate, about fifty or sixty years ago, came into the hands of a young nobleman, whom he calls Lord A., when he was twenty-one. He married when he was twenty-two, and the marriage-deed gave him only a life interest in the estate, and settled the property on his children. He had one child, and as soon as that child was twenty-one another deed was made, giving that child only a life interest in the estate, and settling it after his death on the children he might leave in succession. Lord A. was an extravagant and reckless man. He hunted the county; he kept open house; he lived as if his estate were ten times as great as it really was. He gambled and lost heavily. He raised money on his life interest. He finally fled from England deeply in debt, and lived abroad. The remainder of the life interest was sold to a Jew, who knew that he would lose all when Lord A. died, and found his only profit in thinning the woods. That state of things lasted forty years. The farmers had no leases or any security for expenditure. The Jew would not spend a penny, nor would the gentleman who took the mansion, because he could not tell when he might be turned out; and the tenantry were prevented from doing fairly to the land or to themselves. There was no one to support the schools or the church, or to look after the labourers on the estate. The farm-buildings fell into decay; the land was not properly drained or cultivated; the plantations were injured, and the mansion was dilapidated. And all this vast extent of mischief was the result of the deeds which the law had allowed the lord and his heir to execute. Nor are such cases isolated. Nor is it possible to over-estimate the wretchedness and poverty they create in rural England. Perhaps, in time, Englishmen will demand the abolition of laws which entail such bitter wrong on the community at large.
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