THE CITY INQUEST FOR THE POOR.

I keep a shop in the City, and open it every morning as Bow Church bells are ringing out eight o’clock.  I pay a very heavy rent, as well as Queen’s taxes and poor’s-rates; and I could do neither, to say nothing of maintaining my family, if I did not mind my business, and work hard.  But by the help of constant attention and industry, I am happy to say, I am able to make my shop keep me and my family too, which it does comfortably, and lifts me, in some sort, above the world, and enables me to bear the character, which I should always like to retain, of a respectable man.

We dwellers in London City proper are supposed to entertain a very high regard for respectability, and so we do; and I am going now to detail the operations of what, I suppose, must be called an institution altogether peculiar to the City, of which the world out of the City knows very little, and which has been in being I don’t know how many centuries—­before there were any poor-laws, or any ’good Queen Bess;’ and which must have been a respectable affair—­if I am any judge of what that means—­from the very first, whenever that was.  It is a good thing to relieve necessity in any shape, and a better thing to help it to help itself; but to dispense charity without doing a mischief in some way or other, either by rewarding imposture, encouraging idleness, or repressing the springs of self-reliance or self-exertion, is about the hardest business I have ever had to do with, and I have had some knotty affairs to get through in my time.  Now, the various wards of the City do every year, I think, manage this difficult matter very carefully and efficiently, though not without a good deal of trouble; and as I think their mode of doing it sets a good example, I have made up my mind to let the public know something about the Inquest for the Poor, which comes off in December every year.  I believe it will be a novelty to most people out of the City limits, and to not a few within them as well.  What I know about it, I have derived from experience:  that, indeed, is all I have to relate; and when I have told my tale, the reader will be as wise as I am, in this respect at least.

About the middle of last December, I received a citation to attend a wardmote, to be held in the schoolroom of my parish.  I was in expectation of this summons, as, the parishioners being called upon in rotation, I knew that my turn would come on upon this occasion.  The number of tradesmen, who must be all of respectable character, summoned to the first meeting, is always greater than the number required to serve on the inquest, because many find it very inconvenient, and others find it impossible, to give their services.  Valid excuses are admitted in plea against the performance of the duty; but a frivolous excuse is not allowed; and a tradesman, whose turn it is to serve, if he can prefer no good reason for not serving, must serve or pay the fine.  Six guineas is the heavy penalty inflicted upon a recusant who declines service altogether.  This preliminary meeting is called merely to insure a sufficient company to be in attendance in the vestry of ——­ Church, at the general wardmote held on St Thomas’s Day.