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WORKHOUSE CHARACTERS

[Illustration: Logo]




_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

IN THE WORKHOUSE

A PLAY IN ONE ACT

The International Suffrage Shop, John St., Strand, W.C.2 (6d.)


Press Notices

"Dull talk none the less offensive because it may have been
life-like."--_Daily Mail._

"The piece though mere talk is strong talk."--_Morning Advertiser._

"The play is clean and cold and humorous. The main value of the piece is
that it is a superb genre picture. One or two of the flashes from this
strange, generally unknown world are positive sparks of
life."--_Sheffield Daily Telegraph._

"I found it interesting and convincing; but then I am prepared to
believe that our laws always will be rotten till lawyers are
disqualified from sitting in Parliament."--_Reynolds'._

"The masculine portion of the audience walked with heads abashed in the
_entr'acte_; such things had been said upon the stage that they were
suffused with blushes."--_Standard._

"Delicate matters were discussed with much knowledge and some
tact."--_Morning Post._

"'In the Workhouse' reminds us forcibly of certain works of M. Brieux,
which plead for reform by painting a terrible, and perhaps overcharged,
picture of things as they are.... The presence of the idiot girl helps
to point another moral in Mrs. Nevinson's arraignment, and is therefore
artistically justifiable; and the more terrible it appears the better
have the author and the actress done their work.... Such is the power of
the dramatic pamphlet, sincerely written and sincerely acted. There is
nothing to approach it in directness and force. It sweeps all mere
prettiness into oblivion."--_Pall Mall Gazette._

"It is one of the strongest indictments of our antiquated laws relating
to married women. A man seated behind the present writer called the play
immoral! and as Mrs. Nevinson says in her preface to the published
edition, the only apology she makes for its realism is that it is
true."--_Christian Commonwealth._

"The whole thing left an unpleasant taste."--_Academy._


NOTE.--Two years after this piece was given by the _Pioneer Players_ the
law was altered.




WORKHOUSE CHARACTERS

AND OTHER SKETCHES OF THE LIFE OF THE POOR

BY

MARGARET WYNNE NEVINSON

L.L.A.


     The depth and dream of my desire,
     The bitter paths wherein I stray.
     Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire,
     Thou knowest Who hast made the Clay.

     One stone the more swings to her place
     In that dread Temple of Thy Worth--
     It is enough that through Thy grace
     I saw naught common on Thy earth.

     RUDYARD KIPLING.


LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C.1


     Almost the whole of these sketches have appeared in the
     _Westminster Gazette_; the last two were published in the _Daily
     News_, and "Widows Indeed" and "The Runaway" in the _Herald_. It is
     by the courtesy of the Editors of the above papers that they are
     reproduced in book form.

     _First published in 1918_

     _(All rights reserved.)_


TO MY SON

C. R. W. NEVINSON




PREFACE


These sketches have been published in various papers during the last
thirteen years. Many of the characters are life portraits, and the wit
and wisdom of the common people have been faithfully recorded in a true
Boswellian spirit; others are _Wahrheit und Dichtung_ (if one may still
quote Goethe), but all have been suggested by actual fact and
experience.

During the last ten years great reforms have been taking place in the
country. In 1908 the Old Age Pensions Act came into force, and the
weekly miracle of 5s. a week (now 7s. 6d.) changed the world for the
aged, giving them the liberty and independence, which ought to be the
right of every decent citizen in the evening of life.

The order by which a pauper husband had the right to detain his wife in
the workhouse by "his marital authority" is now repealed. A case some
years ago of this abominable breach of the law of Habeas Corpus startled
the country, especially the ratepayers, and even the House of Commons
were amazed at their own laws. The order was withdrawn in 1913 on the
precedent of the judgment given in the case of the Queen _v._ Jackson
(1891), when it was decided "that the husband has no right, where his
wife refuses to live with him, to take her person