A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator', 25 September /869— Our paupers are really taking a high-handed line with their superiors in the workhouse. They are beginning to claim, it seems, the right to excommunicate the master of the workhouse if, in their judgment. his private conduct is not that which entitles him to read prayers without hypocrisy. An inmate of the Hertford Union, named Bourchier.—the son of a clergyman,— has refused to attend the Union prayers. not because he felt any conscientious objection to the prayers. but because he felt a conscientious objection to countenance such a man as the master in reading them. He insisted that the master was not a Christian. and that he could not and would not attend prayers when read by such a man. This is really claiming a little too much. Did it not almost amount to the publication of a libel on the master of the workhouse? But apart from that, what harm does it cause to a saint to pray even with a lost soul;
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