By the side of most railways out of London, one may see Alms-Houses and Retreats
(generally with a Wing or a Centre wanting, and ambitious of being much bigger than
they are), some of which are newly-founded Institutions, and some old establishments
transplanted. There is a tendency in these pieces of architecture to shoot upward
unexpectedly, like Jack's bean-stalk, and to be ornate in spires of Chapels and lanterns of
Halls, which might lead to the embellishment of the air with many castles of questionable
beauty but for the restraining consideration of expense. However, the manners, being
always of a sanguine temperament, comfort themselves with plans and elevations of
Loomings in the future, and are influenced in the present by philanthropy towards the
railway passengers. For, the question how prosperous and promising the buildings can be
made to look in their eyes, usually supersedes the lesser question how they can be turned
to the best account for the inmates.
Why none of the people who reside in these places ever look out of window, or take an
airing in the piece of ground which is going to be a garden by-and-by, is one of the
wonders I have added to my always-lengthening list of the wonders of the world. I have
got it into my mind that they live in a state of chronic injury and resentment, and on that
account refuse to decorate the building with a human interest. As I have known legatees
deeply injured by a bequest of five hundred pounds because it was not five thousand, and
as I was once acquainted with a pensioner on the Public to the extent of two hundred a
year, who perpetually anathematised his Country because he was not in the receipt of
four, having no claim whatever to sixpence: so perhaps it usually happens, within certain
limits, that to get a little help is to get a notion of being defrauded of more. 'How do they
pass their lives in this beautiful and peaceful place!' was the subject of my speculation
with a visitor who once accompanied me to a charming rustic retreat for old men and
women: a quaint ancient foundation in a pleasant English country, behind a picturesque
church and among rich old convent gardens. There were but some dozen or so of houses,
and we agreed that we would talk with the inhabitants, as they sat in their groined rooms
between the light of their fires and the light shining in at their latticed windows, and
would find out. They passed their lives in considering themselves mulcted of certain
ounces of tea by a deaf old steward who lived among them in the quadrangle. There was
no reason to suppose that any such ounces of tea had ever been in existence, or that the
old steward so much as knew what was the matter; - he passed HIS life in considering
himself periodically defrauded of a birch-broom by the beadle.
But it is neither to old Alms-Houses in the country, nor to new Alms-Houses by the
railroad, that these present Uncommercial notes relate. They refer back to journeys made
among those common-place, smoky-fronted London Alms-Houses, with a little paved
court-yard in front enclosed by iron railings, which have got snowed up, as it were, by
bricks and mortar; which were once in a suburb, but are now in the densely populated
town; gaps in the busy life around them, parentheses in the close and blotted texts of the
streets.
