rather it buried half a hundred hatchets than buried one subject
demanding attention.
CHAPTER XXIX – TITBULL’S ALMS-HOUSES
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
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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.
Sometimes, these Alms-Houses belong to a Company or Society.
Sometimes, they were established by individuals, and are maintained
out of private funds bequeathed in perpetuity long ago. My
favourite among them is Titbull’s, which establishment is a picture
of many. Of Titbull I know no more than that he deceased in 1723,
that his Christian name was Sampson, and his social designation
Esquire, and that he founded these Alms-Houses as Dwellings for
Nine Poor Women and Six Poor Men by his Will and Testament. I
should not know even this much, but for its being inscribed on a