Part 15 (1/2)

[6] It would seem, from the following advertis.e.m.e.nt, that Fielding's inexhaustible pen published, about this time, a sixpenny pamphlet on 'a late Act of Parliament'; but all trace of it has been lost:--”A speech made in the Censorial Court of Alexander Drawcansir, Monday, 6th June, 1752, concerning a late Act of Parliament. Printed for the Author. Price 6d.” _The General Advertiser_, June 27, 1752.

[7] The _General Advertiser_ March 4. 1752.

[8] The _General Advertiser_, April 15, 1752.

CHAPTER XVI

POOR LAW REFORM

”... surely there is some Praise due to the bare Design of doing a Service to the Public.”--Dedication of the _Enquiry_.

It is evident that the beginning of the year 1753 found Fielding fully conscious that now he could only antic.i.p.ate a 'short remainder of life.'

But neither that consciousness, nor the increasing burden of ill-health, availed to dull the energies of these last years. Scarcely had that indomitable knight, General Sir Alexander Drawcansir retired from the active public service of conducting the _Covent Garden Journal_ when his creator reappeared with an astonis.h.i.+ngly comprehensive and detailed plan of poor-law reform; a plan adapted to the whole kingdom, and which according to a legal comment involved ”nothing less than the repeal of the Act of Elizabeth and an entire reconstruction of the Poor Laws.” [1]

Poor-law reform was at this time occupying the attention of the nation, and apparently also of the legislature. And we know, from the _Enquiry into the Increase of Robberies_, that the question of lessening both the sufferings and the criminality of the poor had for years occupied Fielding's warm heart and active intellect. But the extent to which he devoted these last months of his life to the cause of the poorest and most degraded deserves more than a pa.s.sing recognition. He tells us, in the _Introduction_ to the pamphlet embodying his great scheme, that he has applied himself long and constantly to this subject; that he has ”read over and considered all the Laws, in anywise relating to the Poor, with the utmost Care and Attention,” in the execution of which, moreover, he has been for ”many Years very particularly concerned”; and that in addition to this exhaustive study of the laws themselves, he has added ”a careful Perusal of everything which I could find that hath been written on this Subject, from the Original Inst.i.tution in the 43d. of _Elizabeth_ to this Day.” Such was the laborious preparation, extending presumably over many months, which the author of _Tom Jones_, and the first wit of his day, devoted to solving this vast problem of social reform.

Fielding was far too well skilled in the art of effective construction to present the public with undigested note-books from his voluminous reading.

His scheme, based on all the laws, and upon all the comments on all the laws, regarding the poor, enacted and made for two hundred years, is a marvel of conciseness and practical detail; and, together with an _Introduction_ and an _Epilogue_, does but occupy the ninety pages of a two-s.h.i.+lling pamphlet.

The pamphlet was published at the end of January 1753, with the t.i.tle _A Proposal for making an effectual Provision for the Poor, for amending their Morals, and for rendering them useful Members of the Society. To which is added a Plan of the Buildings proposed, with proper Elevations ... By Henry Fielding, Esq.; Barrister-at-Law, and one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the County of Middles.e.x_. The dedication, dated January 19, is to Henry Pelham, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and from it we learn that Fielding had personally mentioned his scheme to this Minister. The Introduction presents an eloquent appeal for some effectual remedy for the intolerably diseased state of the body politic as regarded the distresses and vices of the poor, their unseen sufferings no less than their frequent misdeeds. Fielding protests against the popular ignorance of these sufferings in words that might have been spoken by some pleader for the East End 'Settlements' of to-day. ”If we were,” he declares, ”to make a Progress through the Outskirts of this Town, and look into the Habitations of the Poor, we should there behold such Pictures of human Misery as must move the Compa.s.sion of every Heart that deserves the Name of human. What indeed must be his Composition who could see whole Families in Want of every Necessary of Life, oppressed with Hunger, Cold, Nakedness, and Filth, and with Diseases, the certain Consequence of all these; what, I say, must be his Composition, who could look into such a Scene as this, and be affected only in his Nostrils?” As an instance of Fielding's personal knowledge of the London slums of his day, a reference made by Mr Saunders Welch to their joint work is of interest. Writing in the same year, 1753, he mentions a.s.sisting ”Mr Henry Fielding in taking from under one roof upwards of seventy lodgers of both s.e.xes.” [2]

To this little known misery of the poor, who ”starve and freeze and rot among themselves,” was added the problem of streets swarming with beggars during the day, and with thieves at night. And the nation groaned under yet a third burden, that of the heavy taxes levied for the poor, by which says Fielding ”as woeful experience hath taught us, neither the poor themselves nor the public are relieved.” To attack such a three-headed monster as this was an adventure better fitted, it might seem, for that club which ”Captain Hercules Vinegar” had wielded thirteen years before, when in the full tide of his strength, than for the pen of a man in shattered health, and already serving the public in the daily labours of a princ.i.p.al magistrate. But nothing could restrain the ardour of Fielding's spirit, how frail so ever had become its containing 'crust of clay,' when great abuses and great misery made their call on his powers; or countervail against the hope, with which the _Introduction_ to his plan concludes. If that plan fails, he shall indeed, he declares have ”lost much Time, and misemployed much Pains; and what is above all, shall miss the Pleasure of thinking that in the Decline of my Health and Life, I have conferred a great and lasting Benefit on my Country.”

The _Plan_ is that of the erection of a vast combined county workhouse, prison, and infirmary; where the unemployed should find, not only work but _skilled instruction_, the poor relief, and the sick a hospital; where discipline and good order should be stringently enforced; and where two chaplains should labour at that 'correction and amendment' of the mind which ”in real truth religion is alone capable of effectually executing.”

The entire scheme is worked out with extraordinary detail, in fifty-nine clauses; and is preceded by an elaborate architectural plan of the proposed inst.i.tution (which was to house no less than five thousand six hundred persons) with its workshops, its men's quarters rigorously divided from those for the women, its recreation ground, its provision shops, its cells for the refractory and for prisoners, and its whipping post. And the pamphlet concludes by lengthy arguments in favour of the various clauses; and by a personal protest concerning the disinterestedness of proposals which ”some few enemies” might a.s.sert to show signs of a design for private profit. Fielding touchingly disavows any thought of occupying, officially, the great house raised by his imagination. To a man in his state of health such a project would, he says, be to fly in the face of the advice of his 'Master,' Horace; ”it would be indeed _struere dotnos immemor sepulchri_.” And, he adds, those who know him will hardly be so deceived ”by that Chearfulness which was always natural to me; and which, I thank G.o.d, my Conscience doth not reprove me for, to imagine that I am not sensible of my declining Const.i.tution.” The concluding words of this, Fielding's last legislative effort, betray a like calm a.s.surance that his day's work was drawing to its close. He has now, he tells us, ”no farther Design than to pa.s.s my short Remainder of Life in some Degree of Ease, and barely to preserve my Family from being the Objects of any such Laws as I have here proposed.”

It is wholly in keeping with the genius of Henry Fielding that almost the last endeavour of his intellect should have been devoted to relieving the wretchedness and lessening the vices of the poorest and most miserable of his countrymen. The _Proposal for ... the Poor_ is written by the hand of the accomplished lawyer and indefatigable magistrate; but the energy that accomplished so great a labour, in spite of broken health and among a thousand interruptions, sprang from the heart which had already immortalised the ragged postilion of _Joseph Andrews_ and the starving highwayman of _Tom Jones_.

This last January but one of Fielding's life was not only occupied by the publication of proposals for an 'entire reconstruction of the Poor Laws.'

In 1753 a London magistrate, or at least Mr Justice Fielding, was at the service of the public on Sunday no less than during the week; and on the first Sunday of the New Year the Bow Street room echoed to threats that read strangely enough when we think of the unknown petty thief, threatening sudden death to 'our immortal Fielding.' ”Yesterday,” says the _General Advertiser_ for Monday, January 8, ”John Simpson and James Ellys were commited to Newgate by Henry Fielding Esq., for shop-lifting.” The charge was one of stealing five silk handkerchiefs, and when the two men ”were brought before the Justice they behaved in a very impudent saucy manner, and one of them said hewished he had a Pistol about him, he would blow the Justice's Brains out; upon which a Party of the Guards was sent for who conducted them safe to Newgate.” The Bow Street house, moreover, must have been full not only of prisoners and witnesses brought before the Justice, but also of victims of all manner of theft. For two comprehensive notices appear in the _Advertiser_ for this month, repeating the previous invitation accorded to such sufferers in the _Covent Garden Journal_. On January 1, all persons cognizant of any burglary robbery or theft are desired to communicate immediately with Mr Brogden, clerk to Justice Fielding, ”at his office at the said Justice's in Bow Street.” And again, towards the end of the month, ”All Persons that have been robbed on the Highway in the County of Middles.e.x within this three months last past, are desired to apply to Mr Brogden, at Mr Justice Fielding's in Bow Street, Covent Garden.” And here, too, came the solicitors that sought counsel's opinion on their client's behalf, with their fees; the magistrate of this period being under no disability in regard to his private practice.

It was to his reputation as an advising barrister, and perhaps a little to the kindness of heart that must have been familiar to all who knew him, that Fielding owed his connection with that extraordinary popular excitement of 1753, the mysterious case of the servant girl Elizabeth Canning. On the 29th of January 'Betty Canning' presented herself, after a month's disappearance, at the door of her mother's house in London, in a deplorable state of weakness and distress, and declared that she had been kidnapped by two men on New Year's night, taken to a house on the Hertford road, and there confined by an old gipsy woman for twenty-eight days, in a hay loft, with a pitcher of water and a few pieces of bread for sole sustenance. On the twenty ninth day, according to her own account, she escaped through a window and made her way back to her home. Her neighbours, fired with pity for her sufferings, subscribed means for a prosecution; and, says Fielding, in the pamphlet which he published two months after these events, ”Mr. _Salt_, the Attorney who hath been employed in this Cause, ... upon this Occasion, as he hath done upon many others, ... fixed upon me as the Council to be advised with.” Then we have the following little domestic sketch, the only picture left to us of Henry Fielding as a practising barrister: ”Accordingly, upon the _6th of February_, as I was sitting in my Room, Counsellor _Maden_ being then with me, my Clerk delivered me a Case, which was thus, as I remember, indorsed at the Top, The Case of Elizabeth Canning _for_ Mr Fielding's _opinion_, and at the Bottom, _Salt_, Solr. Upon the Receipt of this Case, with my Fee, I bid my Clerk give my Service to Mr. _Salt_ and tell him, that I would take the Case with me into the Country, whither I intended to go the next Day, and desired he would call for it the _Friday_ Morning afterwards; after which, without looking into it, I delivered it to my Wife, who was then drinking Tea with us, and who laid it by.”

Mr Brogden however presently returned upstairs, bringing the solicitor with him, who earnestly desired his counsel not only to read the case at once but also to undertake in his capacity of magistrate an examination of the injured girl, and of a supposed confederate of the gipsy. This task Fielding at first declined, princ.i.p.ally on the ground that he had been ”almost fatigued to death with several tedious examinations” at that time, and had intended to refresh himself with a day or two's interval in the country, where he had not been ”unless on a Sunday, for a long time.” The persuasions of the solicitor, curiosity as to the extrordinary nature of the case, and ”a great compa.s.sion for the dreadful condition of the girl,”

however induced him to yield; and the next day the eighteen year old heroine of a story that was soon to set all London quarrelling, was brought in a chair to Bow Street, and then led upstairs, supported by two friends, into the presence of the Justice. An issue of warrants followed upon her examination, and a further examination of a suspected confederate of the gipsy; the gipsy herself and her chief abettor having already been arrested by another magistrate. Some days later, Fielding being then out of town, ”several n.o.ble Lords” sent to his house, desiring to be present while he examined the gipsy woman; and the matter being arranged, ”Lord Montfort,” says Fielding, ”together with several gentlemen of fas.h.i.+on came at the appointed time.” The company being in the Justice's room, the prisoners and witnesses were brought up; and apparently some charge was afterwards brought against Fielding as to the manner of his examination, for he here takes occasion to declare, what all who knew him must have known to be the truth, ”I can truly say, that my Memory doth not charge me with having ever insulted the lowest Wretch that hath been brought before me.” Public opinion became hotly divided as to whether Betty Canning had indeed suffered all she declared at the hands of the gipsy, Mary Squires, or had maliciously endeavoured to perjure away the old woman's life. The Lord Mayor, Sir Crisp Gascoyne, and Fielding's old antagonist the despicable Dr Hill ardently supported the gipsy; Fielding, in the pamphlet already quoted, and which was published in March, as warmly espoused the cause of the maid servant whom he calls ”a poor, honest, innocent, simple Girl, and the most unhappy and most injured of all human Beings.” The excitement of the Town over this melodramatic mystery is reflected in the fact that a second edition of Fielding's pamphlet (ent.i.tled _A clear state of the Case of Elizabeth Canning_) was advertised within a few days of its first publication. [3] And, also, in the appearance of the sixpenny print, here for the first time reproduced, in which occurs the only representation of Henry Fielding known to have been drawn during his life time. This print, which bears the inscription ”drawn from the life by the Right Honourable the Lady Fa--y K--w,” shows Fielding's tall figure, his legs bandaged for gout, the sword of Justice in his hand and her scales hanging out of his pocket, speaking on behalf of his trembling client Elizabeth Canning; while opposed to him are my Lord Mayor, the notorious Dr Hill, and the old gipsy. The background is adorned with pictures of the newly built Mansion House, and of the College of Surgeons. [4]

But for the glimpses it affords us of Fielding as a barrister, and for his characteristic champions.h.i.+p of what he was convinced was the cause of innocence oppressed, this once famous case might have been left undisturbed in the dust of the _State Trials_, had it not incidentally been the means of preserving two of the extremely rare letters of the novelist. These letters, [5] hitherto unpublished, are addressed by Fielding to the Duke of Newcastle, and were both written in the month following the publication of his pamphlet. The fact that both letters are dated from Ealing shows that his connection with what was then a pleasant country village was earlier than has been supposed; and the acute suggestions in the second letter seem to indicate a suspicion of some of Betty Canning's supporters, if his conviction in the girl's own innocence still remained unshaken.

”My Lord Duke

”I received an order from my Lord Chancellor immediately after the breaking up of the Council to lay before your Grace all the Affidavits I had taken since the Gipsey's Trial which related to that Affair. I then told the Messenger that I had taken none, as indeed the fact is the Affidavits of which I gave my Lord Chancellor an Abstract having been all sworn before Justices of the Peace in the Neighbourhood of Endfield, and remain I believe in the Possession of an Attorney in the City.

However in Consequence of the Commands with which your Grace was pleased to honour me yesterday, I sent my Clerk immediately to the Attorney to acquaint him with these Commands, which I doubt not he will instantly obey. This I did from my great Duty to your Grace for I have long had no Concern in this Affair, nor have I seen any of the Parties lately unless once when I was desired to send for the Girl (Canning) to my House that a great Number of n.o.blemen and Gentleman might see her and ask her what Questions they pleased. I am, with the highest Duty,

”My Lord, ”Your Graces most obedient ”and most humble servant ”Henry Ffielding.