Dr. Chase Fennell said death was due to blood-poisoning from
bed-sores, due to self-neglect and filthy surroundings, and the jury
returned a verdict to that effect.
The most startling thing about this little incident of a woman's death is
the smug complacency with which the officials looked upon it and rendered
judgment. That an old woman of seventy-seven years of age should die of
SELF-NEGLECT is the most optimistic way possible of looking at it. It
was the old dead woman's fault that she died, and having located the
responsibility, society goes contentedly on about its own affairs.
Of the "submerged tenth" Mr. Pigou has said: "Either through lack of
bodily strength, or of intelligence, or of fibre, or of all three, they
are inefficient or unwilling workers, and consequently unable to support
themselves . . . They are often so degraded in intellect as to be
incapable of distinguishing their right from their left hand, or of
recognising the numbers of their own houses; their bodies are feeble and
without stamina, their affections are warped, and they scarcely know what
family life means."
Four hundred and fifty thousand is a whole lot of people. The young
fireman was only one, and it took him some time to say his little say.
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