What a wonderful woman Eleanor Clift was and how wise and how right about how the world worked (works). Her exhortations have lost none of their power or relevance:
Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest, how the great folks support themselves in extravagance to excess, out of the public money, drawn from the poor, weak, ignorant, and honest people!
She ran away with the Lord Chancellor’s bag. She had chutzpah in spades.
I also like the rather surreal conversation about the Bastille, where the magistrate is surely feigning ignorance. It is clear that Ms. Clift was literate and well-informed.
The Observer, 30 May 1818
THE POLITICAL OLD WOMAN
Yesterday, the Overseers of the parish of Newington were summoned to Queen-square Office, to shew cause why they refused to receive Eleanor Clift into their workhouse.1
This woman is the same who has so repeatedly intruded herself into the House of Commons, the Courts of Law, &c. to obtain (as she professed) a redress of grievances. Our readers will recollect that a short time ago, she ran away with the Lord Chancellor’s bag2, containing the insignia of his office, which she took for the crown, and was with difficulty compelled to relinquish it. No danger seemed to great for this woman – she has by some extraordinary means found her way even to the seat of Royalty itself, and had nearly eluded the vigilance of the guards to rush into the presence of the Queen. Into the House of Commons she finds her way with the same ease & facility as into her own lodgings. Of late the honourable members of that House have been much astonished to see papers, of the most extraordinary nature, posted up in all the passages, and the gallery, no one knowing how they came there. At length the prisoner in the act of pasting them up, and behaved so very outrageously, that, by order of Mr. Sturges3, she was brought to this office by Mr. Lee, the high constable of Westminster. A quantity of letters of the most absurd tenure, together with other papers, were found in her possession. The following is a copy of a bill which she posted up in the House of Commons:
“To the public, the great folks, and the way of the world! — Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest, how the great folks support themselves in extravagance to excess, out of the public money, drawn from the poor, weak, ignorant, and honest people! Observe the wheel of fortune: the poor do help the rich, the weak do help the strong, ignorance do uphold artfulness, and honesty do support roguery! Thus it is brought at last that the lower class of all cannot procure themselves a living by their labour; and those that are destitute and unprotected, that would wish to be decent, have but one remedy, and that is, to starve! Whilst the great folks are spending the public money in extravagancy, they are the first to recommend economy in the public papers. What can any rational person call this, but wrong-headed policy! —God save the King!”
The magistrate said, that under all the circumstances, it was necessary something should be done for the woman; “for” added he, “we must protect the gentlemen of the House of Commons from her, as well as other persons; and as she has slept in your parish, you must remove her to your settlement.”
Overseer: Why, Sir, she does not belong to us. We might as well be called on to provide for all the paupers that attend at a Palace-yard meeting.
Magistrate: I am sorry that I am driven to the necessity of making the observation, but more paupers are driven about the streets from the neglect of the overseers, than by any other means.
Overseer: The pass-masters, Sir, do not do their duty; it is well known, that they put the vagrants down half way on their journey, and then leave them to their fate.
Magistrate: It’s too true, Sir. I am sure nothing would be more agreeable to the legislature than if some plan was proposed to alter the system.
—Here the prisoner was brought up.
Magistrate: Well, how do you like Tothill-fields prison?4
Prisoner: Why I think it’s a second Bastille.
Magistrate: Indeed! Pray which is the first Bastille?
Prisoner: Why the Bastille, Sir, was the state prison in France, supported by villainy and corruption.
Magistrate: I did not know that there is such a prison in France. Well; do you know which is the third?
Prisoner: I do not.
Magistrate: Not Giltspur-street compter5, is it? You have been there you know.
Prisoner: No, that is not it.
Magistrate: But prisons you know are not made for accommodation. They are not that nice comfortable place that would indure people to go there again. We want them the very reverse of that. (To the overseers.) Why there are prisons in London so well conducted, and so comfortable, that thieves have purposely committed an offence to be sent there; and when I have refused their request, they have said, ‘no matter, to-morrow I will commit an offence for which you must send me;’ and I declare to you on my honour, that they have done it; yet those are the prisons that your reforming gentlemen complain about as being badly conducted.
Prisoner: Well, I hope your Worship will set me at liberty?
Magistrate: Indeed, I don’t think I shall — I have no inclination to do it, for you have before deceived me.
Prisoner: Life, Sir, is the gift of God, and liberty is the greatest blessing.
Magistrate: Yes, but those that talk so much about liberty want to keep it all to themselves, and nobody else to have any.
The overseers having undertaken to take the woman to their parish, till her settlement could be discovered, the Magistrate ordered her to be taken away.
Prisoner: Before I go, let me have my property and my papers which were taken from me?
Magistrate: What papers?
Officer: Why, Sir, I found on her the book of Moll Brown. (Laughter.)
Prisoner: Yes; and some printed papers, besides the letters. The puzzle and book which you took from me, you may keep to yourselves. (Loud laughter.)
Magistrate: The letters, I shall take the liberty of keeping to myself.
Bly, the officer, was ordered to take the woman to the workhouse.
- See The Workhouse website. Charlie Chaplin stayed at the Newington workhouse many years after this story, when it had long since been rebuilt. These days, the remnant of a once-vast complex houses sprauncy new flats and the Cinema Museum, which I recommend highly.
- The Lord Chancellor was Lord Eldon. That’s him in the image, with his bag.
- Probably William Sturges.
- See my story on the prisoner who died of starvation in Tothill Fields.
- The London Historians have a good post on compters (counters)
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