cruel, being laid on their backs, and held down by one of the nurses,
while another forces into the mouth the bread and milk which is their
allotted food. This revolting practice is adopted to save time, for
it was proved on oath that patients, thus treated, ate their meals by
themselves, if allowed sufficient leisure. The imbecile patients,
instead of being bathed with decency, as humanity and health demands,
are thrown on the stone-floor, in a state of nudity, and there mopped
by the nurses. Such things would seem incredible, if they had not
been proved on oath. Some who were not incurable, having been treated
in this manner, exposed these atrocities, after their recovery; and
the result was an investigation, which led to the discovery of the
abominable manner in which this vast charity has been administered."

These things are a necessary consequence of an universal trading
spirit. For the first time in the annals of the world it has been
proclaimed in England that the paramount object of desire with the
people of a great and Christian nation is to buy cheaply and sell
dearly; and when men find themselves, in self-defence, compelled to
beat down the poor sewing-woman to a penny for making a shirt, or the
poor flower-girl to a scale of wages so low that she must resort to
prostitution for the purpose of supporting life, they can neither be
expected to be charitable themselves, nor to tolerate much charity in
the public officers charged with the expenditure of their
contributions. There is consequently everywhere to be seen a degree of
harshness in the treatment of those who have the misfortune to be
poor, and a degree of contempt in the mode of speech adopted in
relation to them, totally incompatible with the idea of advance in
_real_ civilization.

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