is always productive of illness of some kind, chiefly
of course diarrhoea, with its attendant weakness.
In fact, in a big prison astringent medicines are
served out regularly by the warders as a matter of
course. In the case of a child, the child is, as a
rule, incapable of eating the food at all. Any one
who knows anything about children knows how
easily a child s digestion is upset by a fit of crying,
or trouble and mental distress of any kind. A child
who has been crying all day long, and perhaps half
the night, in a lonely dim-lit cell, and is preyed
upon by terror, simply cannot eat food of this
coarse, horrible kind. In the case of the little child
to whom warden Martin gave the biscuits, the child
was crying with hunger on Tuesday morning, and
utterly unable to eat the bread and water served to
it for its breakfast. Martin went out after the
breakfasts had been served and bought the few
sweet biscuits for the child rather than see it starv
ing. It was a beautiful action on his part, and was
so recognized by the child, who, utterly unconscious
of the regulations of the Prison Board, told one of
the senior wardens how kind this junior warden had
been to him. The result was, of course, a report
and a dismissal."

Robert Blatchford compares the workhouse
pauper s daily diet with the soldier s, which, when
he was a soldier, was not considered liberal enough,
and yet is twice as liberal as the pauper s.

[[293]]

p292 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p293w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p294

v?