A STORY OF THRIFT.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 2712, 23 January 1892, Page 3 (Supplement)

A STORY OF THRIFT.

fHE Rev. Canon Blackley, in * ‘ Good Words,”

I remember that for many years there was a blind man in Basingstoke Workhouse, whom, for the purposes of my story, I will . call Willy Brown * I believe he had been there nearly all his life, and when I first came to know him I should suppose him to have been nearly 50 years of ago. The workhouse of Basingstoke is situated nearly a mile from the town, and for a number of years Willy had been provided with regular daily exercise by being sent to the post-office to call for the afternoon letters, and execute any little commissions for the master or the inmates. He was always accompanied by one of the young boys from the workhouse, who led him from place to place. His figure was well known, as he ana the boy in their white “round frocks” made their way backwards and forwards on their daily journey, and everyone almost who met him had a kind word for poor Willy, who learned, as blind folk do, to recognise the voice and footstep of nearly everyone he met on his walk. Blind men, thanks to a merciful Providence, are generally cheerful; but blind Willy was exceptionally so. He was always bright, almost joyous, in tone and manner, and, indeed, I often referred to him and his cheerful bearing of his burden of blindness as an example to parishioners of my own, who made infinitely more complaint under their trifling passing ailments and troubles, than Willy ever seemed to do under his permanent affliction. Well, one day, poor, bright, genial, blind Willy was found hanging by a rope from a beam in a cartshed at the workhouse. He had put an end to his life in a most determined way. An inquest was held upon his body, and a verdict returned of suicide while of unsound mind. But the strangest part of this story, and what to my mind affords the only explanation of his death, is, that in the pocket of his corduroy trousers was found a bag containing nearly 50 sovereigns ! Now here was a man who had spent his whole life in a workhouse; who had never earned a day’s full wages; who had not a relative in foe wide world to leave or give him money ; who had no one but paupers to rob, and who yet became possessed of so large an amount ef gold. His possession of foe money, however, is capable of explanation. He had for many years been the daily messenger between ‘‘the House” and the town, and had executed little commissions for his fellow-inmates, probably nearly every day. And most probably he made them a regular charge, say of a half-penny or a penny, for doing their business. For it is true enough to be worthy of passing notice, that there is no class of people in this world more thoroughly imbued with the principle of “nothing for nothing” than the English peasantry. I have known daughters expect to be paid for sitting up a night or two to attend to their own sick mothers, and children unwilling to change a neighbour’s book at a village library, to which they were going in any case on their own account, without being paid a half-penny each week, or twice the amount of the actual subscription, for their trouble. Now this little half-penny messenger’s fee, frequently chargeable by a daily messenger, blind Willy would soon find amount to a sixpence, for which he would exchange his coppers, and sixpences for a shilling, shillings for half-sovereigns, and probably half-sovereigns in time, when multiplied, into sovereigns ; and sovereigns formed the mass of his hoard, which, as he had no means of spending, or inducement to spend, since he could not bring back any considerable purchase on his own account to foe workhouse without exciting suspicion, he was fain to keep in foe only bank available for him viz., his breeches pocket, while it grew from year to year to the amount I have named. How many a time the poor creature, as his hoard rolled up, must, in addition to foe burden of his secret and the anxiety for its safety, have suffered trouble at the constant thought of foe difficulty of spending what he had so laboriously and perseveringly laid up. Had he made known the fact of his wealth, he could not have been treated as a destitute pauper and retained iu the workhouse ; and he knew too well, having no other home in the world, how badly he would fare, and how soon he would be impoverished, were he obliged, in his blind and helpless state, to throw himself on the doubtful honesty of total strangers, and begin life again in a. new dwelling, separated from all his old and only associations. Besides, he must have known that foe discovery of his hoard would have compelled the parish authorities, in the interest of the ratepayers, to deduct from his store a considerable amount in repayment of his maintenance, which was only accorded on the presumption of his destitution. And this, as we may well conceive, was an intolerable thought to a man whose sole interest in life had been its accumulation. I believe myself that it was the dread of loeing, and the impossibility of enjoying, any part of his savings, added, very likely, to an unhappy sense of wrongdoing in defrauding the rates, and to the constant dread of discovery and exposure, which poisoned the poor man's only pleasure, and that, under the continual mental pressure thus endured, his reason at length gave way, and led him to foe rash and otherwise unaccountable act which ended his dark existence.