“Orphans and the illegitimate children of the poor could be sold into apprenticeships that offered meagre prospects; young boys were used to sweep chimneys (by scrambling up as ‘climbing-boys’); prostitution and dire housing conditions were continuing problems. Some philanthropic initiatives attempted to address these issues, but asylums and charity schools were often linked to the exploitative apprenticeship system. In 1788 David Porter tried to initiate legislation to protect apprentices, but the resultant bill was drastically diluted by the House of Lords. The cause was taken up by others, including the Society for the Bettering of the Condition of the Poor. Such moves were accompanied by a new drive to improve the education of the lower orders, initiated in the 1780s by the Sunday School movement. But even as these reforming movements gathered pace, children were beginning to be sent from London workhouses to labour in northern cotton mills.” (Andrew Lincoln” “William Blake’s radical politics”)
Auguries of Innocence by Richard Blake
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill'd with doves & Pigeons
Shudders Hell thro' all its regions.
A dog starv'd at his Master's Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
(a fragment)
If extreme poverty and hunger in themselves mark children for the rest of their lives, what can we say about those Robin Reds in a cage staring at the dogs at their masters gates.... is all heaven in a rage or just the few "poetas locos" who might also be jailed or silenced for singing about cruelty, cruelty.....
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