Faces and Places Part 14

It is the congregation rather than the preacher that I remember best in connection with the Ragged Church. Half-past eleven is the hour for the commencement of service, and was fixed upon chiefly to suit the convenience of a portion of the congregation, who, having slept overnight in the casual wards, are considerately detained in them till eleven o'clock, by which time society is supposed to be comfortably seated in its own churches, and is thus saved the shock of suddenly coming upon Rags and Tatters going to church or elsewhither--Rags and Tatters, it being well understood, not always showing themselves proof against the temptation of improving the occasion by begging. At a quarter to eleven there filed into the church threescore little girls, all dressed in wincey dresses, with brown, furry jackets and little brown hats, a monotony of colour that served to bring into fuller contrast the red and black wool scarf each wore tightly tied round her neck. They all looked bright, clean, and happy, and one noted a considerable proportion of pretty-faced and delicately-limbed children.

How they were born, or with what parentage, is in many cases a question to which the records of the inst.i.tution supply no answer. They were simply "found" on a doorstep, or arrested when wandering about the street crying for the mother or the father who had cast them off. This cla.s.s of school-girl is generally distinguished by the fineness of her Christian name, Blanche, and Lily, and Constance, being among the waifs and strays who have found a refuge with the kindly matron of the Field Lane Inst.i.tution. There are others whose history is written plainly enough in the records of the police-courts.

There is one, a prematurely aged little woman in her eleventh year, who, previous to being sent here, pa.s.sed of her own free will night after night in the streets, living through the day on her wits, which are very sharp. Another, about the same age, when taken into custody on something more than suspicion of picking pockets, was found the possessor of no fewer than seven purses. A third, who is understood to be now in her ninth year, earned a handsome livelihood in the Haymarket by frequenting the public houses, and with dramatic gestures singing the more popular concert-hall songs. One of the most determined and head-strong young ladies of the establishment was not privileged to be present at the morning service, being, in fact, in bed, where she was detained with the hope that amid the silence and solitude of the empty chamber she might be brought to see in its true light the heinousness of the offence of wilfully depositing her boots in a pail of water.

Conviction for offences against the law is by no means a general characteristic of the girls. For the most part, dest.i.tution has been the simple ground on which they have obtained admission to the inst.i.tution.

The girls being seated on the front benches to the right of the harmonium, the tramp of many feet was heard, and there entered by the opposite side of the church some sixty boys in corduroys, short jackets, and clean collars. They took up a position on the left of the harmonium, and, with one consent, gravely folded their arms. Their private history is, in its general features, much the same as that of the girls. All are sent hither by order of the police-court magistrate, but many have not committed any crime save the unpardonable one of being absolutely and hopelessly homeless. It is not difficult, stating the broad rule, to pick out from the boys those who have been convicted of crime. As compared with the rest they are generally brighter looking, and gifted with a stronger physique.

The distinction was strongly marked by the conjunction of two boys who sat together on the front form. One who had stolen nothing less than a coalscuttle, observed projecting from an ironmonger's shop in Drury Lane, was a st.u.r.dy, ruddy-cheeked little man, who folded his arms in a composed manner, and listened with an inquiring interest to the words poured forth over his head from the platform. The boy next to him, a pale-faced, inert lad, who stared straight before him with lack-l.u.s.tre eyes, had the saddest of all boys' histories. He was born in a casual ward, his father died in a casual ward, and his mother nightly haunts the streets of London in pursuance of an elaborately devised plan, by which she is able so to time her visits to the various casual wards as never to be turned away from any on the ground that she had slept there too recently.

The foreground of the Ragged Church was bright enough, for whilst there is youth there is hope, and in the present case there is also the knowledge that these children are under guardianship at once kind and wise. Presently the back benches began to fill with a congregation such as no other church in London might show. Crushed-looking women in limp bonnets, scanty shawls, and much-patched dresses crept quietly in. With them, though not in their company, came men of all ages, and of a general level of ragged dest.i.tution--a gaunt, haggard, hungry, and hopeless congregation as ever went to church on a Sunday morning. Some had pa.s.sed the night in the Refuge attached to the inst.i.tution; many had come straight from the casual wards; others had spent the long hours since sundown in the streets; and one, a hale old man who diffused around him an air of respectability and comfort, was a lodger at Clerkenwell Workhouse. His snuff-coloured coat with two bra.s.s b.u.t.tons at the back was the solitary whole garment visible in this section of the congregation.

It was his "Sunday out" and having had his breakfast at the workhouse, he had, by way of distraction, come to spend the morning and eat his lunch at the Field Lane Inst.i.tution.

One man might be forgiven if he slept all through the sermon, for, as he explained, he had "pa.s.sed a very bad night." He had settled himself to sleep on various doorsteps, with the fog for a blanket and the railings for pillow. But there appeared what in his experience was a quite uncommon activity on the part of the police, and he had been "moved on"

from place to place till morning broke, and he had not slept a wink or had half an hour's rest for the sole of his foot.

There were not many of the labouring cla.s.s among the couple of hundred men who made up this miserable company. They were chiefly broken-down people, who, as tradesmen, clerks, or even professional men, had gradually sunk till they came to regard admission to the casual ward at night as the cherished hope that kept them up as they shuffled their way through the day. One man, who over a marvellous costume of rags carried the mark of respectability comprehended in a thin black silk necktie tied around a collarless neck, is the son of a late colonel of artillery, and has a brother at the present time a lieutenant in one of her Majesty's ships. After leading a reckless life, he turned his musical acquirements to account by joining the band of a marching regiment. Unfortunately, the death of his grandfather, two years ago, made him uncontrolled possessor of 500, and now he is dodging his way among the casual wards of London, holding on to respectability and his good connections by this poor black silk necktie.

Among the congregation was a bright-eyed, honest-looking lad bearing the familiar name of John Smith. Three months ago he was earning his living in a Yorkshire coal pit, when a strike among the men threw him out of work. There being no prospect of doing anything in Yorkshire, he set out for London, having, as he said, "heard it was a great place, where work was plenty." With three shillings in his pocket he started from Leeds, and walked to London, doing the journey in nine days. He had neither recommendation nor introduction other than his bright, honest, and intelligent face, and that seems to have served him only to the extent of getting an odd job that occupied him two days.

The service opened with singing, of which there was a plentiful repet.i.tion, the boys and girls in the foreground singing, the melancholy throng behind standing dumb. Hymn-books were supplied to them, and if they could read they might have found on the page from which the first hymn was taken a hymn so curiously infelicitous to the occasion that it is worth quoting a couple of verses. These are the two first:--

Let us gather up the sunbeams Lying all around our path; Let us keep the wheat and roses, Casting out the thorns and chaff; Let us find our sweetest comfort In the blessings of to-day With a patient hand removing All the briars from the way.

Strange we never prize the music Till the sweet-voiced bird has flown, Strange that we should slight the violets Till the lovely flowers are gone; Strange that summer skies and sunshine Never seem one half so fair As when winter's snowy pinions Shake the white down in the air.

After the opening hymns _Sankey's Sacred Song-Book_, in which this rhymed nonsense appears, was abandoned, and the congregation took to the admirable little selection of hymns compiled for the use of the inst.i.tution, containing much less sentiment, and perhaps on the whole more suitable. After prayer and a short address, the boys and girls filed out as they had come in. Then the rest of the congregation rose, and as they pa.s.sed out received a large piece of bread, supplemented by the distribution from a room on a lower storey of a cup of hot cocoa.

Stretching all down the long flight of stone steps, they drank their cocoa and greedily munched the bread, and when it was done pa.s.sed out into the sabbath noon, to slouch about the great city till the doors of the casual wards were open.

They had "gathered up all the sunbeams lying around their path" as far as the day had advanced, and there was no more for them till, at eight o'clock in the evening, the bread and tea should be set out before them under the workhouse roof.