Beneath the Banner Part 19

The effect this had upon the youth was so great that he resolved to devote his life to helping the poor and friendless.

There was plenty of work for him to do. Children in factories and mines required to be protected from the cruelties to which they were subjected; chimney sweeps needed to be guarded from the dangers to which they were exposed; the hours of labour in factories were excessive; thieves required to be shown a way of escape from their wretched life; ragged schools and other inst.i.tutions needed support.

These and numerous other matters kept Lord Shaftesbury hard at work during the entire of his long life, and by his help many wise alterations were made in the laws of the country.

"Do what is right and trust to Providence for the rest," was his motto; and he stuck to it always.

Lord Shaftesbury brought before Parliament a scheme for a.s.sisting young thieves to emigrate; and the grown-up burglars and vagabonds, seeing how much in earnest he was, invited him to a meeting. To this he went without a moment's hesitation.

The door was guarded by a detachment of thieves, who watched to see that none but those of their cla.s.s went in.

Lord Shaftesbury was in the chair, and the meeting commenced with prayer. There were present over two hundred burglars and criminals of the worst kind, besides a great number of other bad characters.

First of all the chairman gave an address; then some of the thieves followed, telling quite plainly and simply how they spent their lives.

When Lord Shaftesbury urged them to give up their old lives of sin one of them said, "We must steal or we shall die".

The city missionary, who was present, urged them to pray, as G.o.d could help them.

"But," said one of the men, "my Lord and gentlemen of the jury (!), prayer is very good, but it won't fill an empty stomach."

It was, indeed, a difficult problem how best to aid the poor fellows; but Lord Shaftesbury solved it. As a result of the conference three hundred thieves went abroad to Canada to begin life anew, or were put into the way of earning an honest living.

One of the subjects which occupied a great deal of Lord Shaftesbury's attention was the condition of the young in coal mines and factories.

At that date children began to work in mines at the age of four or five, and large numbers of girls and boys were labouring in the pits by the time they were eight. For twelve or fourteen hours a day these poor little toilers had to sit in the mines, opening and shutting trap doors as the coal was pushed along in barrows. All alone, with no one to speak to, sitting in a damp, stifling atmosphere, the poor children had to stay day after day; and if they went to sleep they got well beaten. Rats and mice were their only companions, and Sunday was the only day on which they were gladdened by the daylight.

It was a shocking state of existence, nor did it grow better as the children got older.

Then they had to drag heavy loads along the floors of the mine. When the pa.s.sages were narrow the boys and girls had a girdle fastened round their waists, a chain was fixed to this, and pa.s.sed between their legs and hooked to the carriage. Then, crawling on hands and knees through the filth and mire, they pulled these trucks as cattle would drag them, whilst their backs were bruised and wounded by knocking against the low roof.

Girls and women were made to carry heavy weights of coal. Children stood ankle deep in water, pumping hour after hour, and their work was sometimes prolonged for thirty-six hours continuously; so that it was no wonder the children died early, that they suffered much from disease, and led cheerless, wretched lives.

Against such cruelties Lord Shaftesbury was constantly warring; and his warfare was not in vain.

Quite as badly off were the little chimney sweeps. Boys were kidnapped, and sold to cruel masters, who forced them to climb high chimneys filled with soot and smoke. If they refused, a fire was perhaps lighted below, and they would thus be forced to ascend. The consequence was that many terrible accidents happened, resulting in the deaths of these poor little fellows, whilst numbers died early from disease.

Lord Shaftesbury roused the country to a sense of the wrong that was being done to the chimney sweeps, and Bills were pa.s.sed in Parliament for their protection.

Not only children, but men and women also, needed to be defended from wrong and overwork.

Lord Shaftesbury visited the factories to see how the labourers were actually treated; and this is one of the things that came under his notice.

A young woman whilst working in a mill at Stockport was caught by the machinery and badly injured. When the accident happened she had not completed her week's work, so eighteenpence was deducted from her wages!

Horrified at such treatment Lord Shaftesbury brought an action against the owners of the factory, and obtained 100 for the woman.

For shorter hours and better treatment of factory hands the earl struggled in and out of Parliament; and, though the battle was long and fierce, it ended in victory.

Such labour took up much time, and brought many expenses to the good earl. It brought him, too, plenty of enemies; for most of his life was devoted to striving to make the rich and selfish do justice to the poor and downcast.

He not only gave his time, but his money too; and oftentimes, though the eldest son of an earl, and later an earl himself, he hardly knew where to turn for the means to keep his schemes going.

One day a lady called on him, and, telling a piteous tale of a Polish refugee, asked him for help. Lord Shaftesbury had to confess he had no money he could give; then he suddenly remembered he had five pounds in the library: he fetched the bank note, which formed his nest egg, and presented it to her.

One of Lord Shaftesbury's greatest works was the promotion of ragged schools.

To these schools, established in the poorest neighbourhoods of the metropolis, came the street arabs, the poor and abandoned, and received kindness and teaching, which comforted and civilised them.

The outcasts who slept in doorways, under arches, and in all kinds of horrible and unhealthy places, were the objects of this good man's care; and ways were found of benefiting and starting afresh hundreds of lads who would otherwise have become thieves or vagabonds in the great city.

When he was over eighty years old he was still striving for the good of others. So much was his heart in the work that he remarked on one occasion: "When I feel age creeping on me, and know I must soon die--I hope it is not wrong to say it--but I cannot bear to leave the world with all the misery in it".

The dawn came for him in October, 1885, when in his eighty-fifth year this veteran leader was called to his rest.

For convenience I have spoken of him throughout as Lord Shaftesbury; but it may be well to mention that till he was fifty years old he was known as Lord Ashley. Through the death of his father he became Earl of Shaftesbury in 1851.

A STATESMAN WHO HAD NO ENEMIES.

THE STORY OF W.H. SMITH.

It is always well to remember that the man who serves his country as a good citizen, as a soldier, as a statesman, or in any other walk of life, deserves our admiration as much as the missionary or the minister of the Gospel--each and all such are servants of the great King.

By far the greater portion of our lives is spent at the desk or the counter, in the office, shop, or field; so that it is of the first importance we should keep the strictest watch on our actions in our work as well as in our leisure moments.

One of the most successful men in commerce and politics of the century was Mr. W.H. Smith. Strange to say, the desires of his early days were entirely opposed to business life. At the age of sixteen he greatly desired to proceed to one of the universities, and prepare for becoming a clergyman, but his parents being opposed to such a step he gave up the idea in deference to their wishes.

It was a great disappointment to him to do this--yet he was able to write, "It is my duty to acknowledge an overruling and directing Providence in all the very minutest things, by being in whatever state I am therewith content. My conclusion is, then, that I am at present pursuing the path of duty, however imperfectly; wherever it may lead, or what it may become, I know not."

Thus did William Henry Smith see the door of the Church closed upon him with no vain regrets, but in a spirit of submission to his father's wishes. Writing of these days many years later, when as a Minister of the Crown he was in attendance upon her Majesty at Balmoral, he says: "I thought my life was aimless, purposeless, and I wanted something else to do; but events compelled me to what promised to be a dull life and a useless one: the result is that few men have had more interesting work to do".

In his earlier years W.H. Smith made a list of subjects for daily prayer, embracing repentance, faith, love, grace to help, grat.i.tude, power to pray, constant direction in all things, a right understanding of the Bible, deliverance from besetting sin, constancy in G.o.d's service, relatives and friends, missionaries, pardon for all ignorance and sin in prayer, etc., etc.; and it was one of the characteristics of his nature that he felt prayer both in youth and age to be _a necessity_.

It was a busy life in which Smith was launched at the commencement of his career.

His father had already laid the foundation of the newsagency business which is now of world-wide fame. Every week-day morning, summer and winter, throughout the year, sunshine or rain, fog or snow, father and son left their home for the business house in the Strand, at four o'clock. Sometimes, indeed, the younger man was at his post as early as three o'clock in the morning; and from the time he arrived at the place of business there was constant work to be done. It was difficult and anxious work too, and the constant strain told upon the young man's health.

The collection and distribution of newspapers, which formed then the chief part of the business of W.H. Smith & Son, was one that needed the closest attention and the most untiring energy.

"First on the road" was old Mr. Smith's motto; and he carried it out.

Smith's carts were in attendance at all the great newspaper offices, ready to carry off printed sheets to the Strand house for sorting and packing; and thence they sped swiftly through the streets in the early morning to catch the first trains for the country. Occasionally _The Times_, which was the last printed journal, did not arrive at the station till the final moment. The whistle would have sounded, the doors would have all been locked, the guard would have given his warning signal, when in would come at hurricane speed Smith's cart bearing its load of "Thunderers". Ready hands would seize the papers, and the last packet would perchance be thrown in as the train was already steaming out of the station.

A great deal of the forwarding of newspapers was in those days done by coaches. To catch these with the later papers, Smith had light carts with fast horses. If the coaches had started, Smith's carts would pursue for many miles, till they caught up the coaches at one of their stopping places.