In Darkest England and the Way Out Part 18

Occasionally he will put forth frantic efforts to deliver himself, but only to fall again in the presence of the opportunity.

The insatiable crave controls him. He cannot get away from it.

It compels him to drink, whether he will or not, and, unless delivered by an Almighty hand, he will drink himself into a drunkard's grave and a drunkard's h.e.l.l.

Our annals team with successful rescues effected from the ranks of the drunken army. The following will not only be examples of this, but will tend to ill.u.s.trate the strength and madness of the pa.s.sion which masters the slave to strong drink.

Barbara.--She had sunk about as low as any woman could when we found her. From the age of eighteen, when her parents had forced her to throw over her sailor sweetheart and marry a man with "good prospects,"

she had been going steadily down.

She did not love her husband, and soon sought comfort from the little public-house only a few steps from her own door. Quarrels in her home quickly gave place to fighting, angry curses, and oaths, and soon her life became one of the most wretched in the place. Her husband made no pretence of caring for her, and when she was ill and unable to earn money by selling fish in the streets, he would go off for a few months, leaving her to keep the house and support herself and babies as best she could. Out of her twenty years of married life, ten were spent in these on-and-off separations. And so she got to live for only one thing--drink. It was life to her; and the mad craving grew to be irresistible. The woman who looked after her at the birth of her child refused to fetch her whisky, so when she had done all she could and left the mother to rest, Barbara crept out of bed and crawled slowly down the stairs over the way to the tap-room, where she sat drinking with the baby, not yet an hour old, in her arms. So things went on, until her life got so unbearable that she determined to have done with it. Taking her two eldest children with her, she went down to the bay, and deliberately threw them both into the water, jumping in herself after them. "Oh, mither, mither, dinna droon me!" wailed her little three-year-old Sarah, but she was determined and held them under the water, till, seeing a boat put out to the rescue she knew that she was discovered. Too late to do it now, she thought, and, holding both children, swam quickly back to the sh.o.r.e. A made-up story about having fallen into the water satisfied the boatman, and Barbara returned home dripping and baffled. But little Sarah did not recover from the shock, and after a few weeks her short life ended, and she was laid in the Cemetery.

Yet another time, goaded to desperation, she tried to take her life by hanging herself, but a neighbour came in and cut her down unconscious, but still living. She became a terror to all the neighbourhood, and her name was the bye-word for daring and desperate actions. But our Open-Air Meetings attracted her, she came to the Barracks, got saved, and was delivered from her love of drink and sin.

From being a dread her home became a sort of house of refuge in the little low street where she lived; other wives as unhappy as herself would come in for advice and help. Anyone knew that Barbie was changed, and loved to do all she could for her neighbours.

A few months ago she came up to the Captain's in great distress over a woman who lived just opposite. She had been cruelly kicked and cursed by her husband, who had finally bolted the door against her, and she had turned to Barbie as the only hope. And of course Barbie took her in, with her rough-and-ready kindness got her to bed, kept out the other women who crowded round to sympathise and declaim against the husband's brutality, was both nurse and doctor for the poor woman till her child was born and laid in the mother's arms. And then, to Barbie's distress, she could do no more, for the woman, not daring to be absent longer, got up as best she could, and crawled on hands and knees down the little steep steps, across the street, and back to her own door. "But, Barbie!" exclaimed the Captain, horrified, "you should have nursed her, and kept her until she was strong enough."

But Barbie answered by reminding the Captain of "John's" fearful temper, and how it might cost the woman her life to be absent from her home more than a couple of hours.

The second is the case of--

Maggie.--She had a home, but seldom was sober enough to reach it at nights. She would fall down on the doorsteps until found by some pa.s.ser-by or a policeman.

In one of her mad freaks a boon-companion happened to offend her.

He was a little hunch-back, and a fellow-drunkard; but without a moment's hesitation, Maggie seized him and pushed him head-foremost down the old-fashioned wide sewer of the Scotch town. Had not some one seen his heel's kicking out and rescued him, he would surley have been suffocated.

One winter's night Maggie had been drinking heavily, fighting, too, as usual, and she staggered only as far, on her way home, as the narrow chain-pier. Here she stumbled and fell, and lay along on the snow, the blood oozing from her cuts, and her hair spread out in a tangled ma.s.s.

At 5 in the morning, some factory girls, crossing the bridge to their work, came upon her, lying stiff and stark amidst the snow and darkness.

To rouse her from her drunken sleep was hard, but to raise her from the ground was still harder. The matted hair and blood had frozen fast to the earth, and Maggie was a prisoner. After trying to free her in different ways, and receiving as a reward volleys of abuse and bad language, one of the girl's ran for a kettle of boiling water, and by pouring it all around her, they succeeded by degrees in melting her on to her feet again! But she came to our Barracks, and got soundly converted, and the Captain was rewarded for nights and days of toil by seeing her a saved and sober woman.

All went right till a friend asked her to his house, to drink his health, and that of his newly-married wife. "I wouldn't ask you to take anything strong," he said. "Drink to me with this lemonade."

And Maggie, nothing suspecting, drank, and as she drank tasted in the gla.s.s her old enemy, whisky! The man laughed at her dismay, but a friend rushed off to tell the Captain. "I may be in time, she has not really gone back"; and the Captain ran to the house, tying her bonnet strings as she ran. "It's no good--keep awa'--I don't want to see'er, Captain," wailed Maggie "let me have some more--oh, I'm on fire inside." But the Captain was firm, and taking her to her home, she locked herself in with the woman, and sat with the key in her pocket, while Maggie, half mad with craving, paced the floor like a caged animal, threatening and entreating by terms. "Never while I live,"

was all the answer she could get; so she turned to the door, and busied herself there a moment or two. A clinking noise. The Captain started up--to see the door open and Maggie rush through it! Accustomed to stealing and all its "dodges," she had taken the lock off the door, and was away to the nearest public-house.

Down the stairs, Captain after her, into the gin palace; but before the astonished publican could give her the drink she was clamouring for, the "bonnet" was by her side, "If you dare to serve her, I'll break the gla.s.s before it reaches her lips. She shall not have any!" and so Maggie was coaxed away, and shielded till the pa.s.sion was over, and she was Herself once more.

But the man who gave her the whisky durst not leave his house for weeks. The roughs got to know of the trap he had laid for her, and would have lynched him could they have got hold of him.

The third is the case of Rose.

Rose was ruined, deserted, and left to the streets when only a girl of thirteen, by a once well-to-do man, who is now, we believe, closing his days in a workhouse in the North of England.

Fatherless, motherless, and you might almost say friendless, Rose trod the broad way to destruction, with all its misery and shame, for twelve long years. Her wild, pa.s.sionate nature, writhing under the wrong suffered, sought forgetfulness in the intoxicating cup, and she soon became a notorious drunkard. Seventy-four times during her career she was dragged before the magistrates, and seventy-four times, with one exception, she was punished, but the seventy-fourth time she was as far off reformation as ever. The one exception happened on the Queen's Jubilee Day. On seeing her well-known face again before him, the magistrate enquired, "How many times has this woman been here before?"

The Police Superintendent answered, "Fifty times." The magistrate remarked, in somewhat grim humour, "Then this is her Jubilee," and, moved by the coincidence, he let her go free. So Rose spent her jubilee out of prison.

It is a wonder that the dreadful, drunken, reckless, dissipated life she lived did not hurry her to an early grave; it did affect her reason, and for three weeks she was locked up in Lancaster Lunatic Asylum, having really gone mad through drink and sin.

In evidence of her reckless nature, it is said that after her second imprisonment she vowed she would never again walk to the police station; consequently, when in her wild orgies the police found it necessary to arrest her, they had to get her to the police station as best they could, sometimes by requisitioning a wheelbarrow or a cart, or the use of a stretcher, and sometimes they had to carry her right out. On one occasion, towards the close of her career, when driven to the last-named method, four policemen were carrying her to the station, and she was extra violent, screaming, plunging and biting, when, either by accident or design, one of the policemen let go of her head, and it came in contact with the curbstone, causing the blood to pour forth in a stream. As soon as they placed her in the cell the poor creature caught the blood in her hands, and literally washed her face with it.

On the following morning she presented a pitiable sight, and before taking her into the court the police wanted to wash her, but she declared she would draw any man's blood who attempted to put a finger upon her; they had spilt her blood, and she would carry it into the court as a witness against them. On coming out of gaol for the last time, she met with a few Salvationists beating the drum and singing "Oh! the Lamb, the bleeding Lamb; He was found worthy." Rose, struck with the song, and impressed with the very faces of the people, followed them, saying to herself, "I never before heard anything like that, or seen such happy looking people." She came into the Barracks; her heart was broken; she found her way to the Penitent Form, and Christ, with His own precious blood, washed her sins away. She arose from her knees and said to the Captain, "It is all right now."

Three months after her conversion a great meeting was held in the largest hall in the town, where she was known to almost every inhabitant.

There were about three thousand people present. Rose was called upon to give her testimony to the power of G.o.d to save. A more enthusiastic wave of sympathy never greeted any speaker than that which met her from that crowd, every one of whom was familiar with her past history.

After a few broken words, in which she spoke of the wonderful change that had taken place, a cousin, who, like herself, had lived a notoriously evil life, came to the Cross.

Rose is now War Cry sergeant. She goes into the brothels and gin palaces and other haunts of vice, from which she was rescued, and sells more papers than any other Soldier.

The Superintendent of Police, soon after her conversion, told the Captain at the Corps that in rescuing Rose a more wonderful work had been done than he had seen in all the years gone by.

S. was a native of Lancashire, the son of poor, but pious, parents.

He was saved when sixteen years of age. He was first an Evangelist, then a City Missionary for five or six years, and afterwards a Baptist Minister. He then fell under the influence of drink, resigned, and became a commercial traveller, but lost his berth through drink.

He was then an insurance agent, and rose to be superintendent, but was again dismissed through drink. During his drunken career he had delirium tremens four times, attempted suicide three times, sold up six homes, was in the workhouse with his wife and family three times.

His last contrivance for getting drink was to preach mock sermons, and offer mock prayers in the tap-rooms.

After one of these blasphemous performances in a public-house, on the words, "Are you Saved?" he was challenged to go to the Salvation Barracks. He went, and the Captain, who knew him well, at once made for him, to plead for his soul, but S. knocked him down, and rushed back to the public-house for more drink. He was, however, so moved by what he had heard that he was unable to raise the liquor to his mouth, although he made three attempts. He again returned to the meeting, and again quitted it for the public-house. He could not rest, and for the third time he returned to the Barracks. As he entered the last time the Soldiers were singing: --

"Depth of mercy, can there be Mercy still reserved for me?

Can my G.o.d his wrath forbear?

Me, the chief of Sinners, spare?

This song impressed him still further; he wept, and remained in the Barracks under deep conviction until midnight. He was drunk all the next day, vainly trying to drown his convictions. The Captain visited him at night, but was quickly thrust out of the house. He was there again next morning, and prayed and talked with S. for nearly two hours.

Poor S. was in despair. He persisted that there was no mercy for him.

After a long struggle, however, hope sprung up, he fell upon his knees, confessed his sins, and obtained forgiveness.

When this happened, his furniture consisted of a soap-box for a table, and starch boxes for chairs. His wife, himself, and three children, had not slept in a bed for three years. He has now a happy family, a comfortable home, and has been the means of leading numbers of other slaves of sin to the Saviour, and to a truly happy life.

Similar cases, describing the deliverance of drunkards from the bondage of strong drink, could be produced indefinitely. There are Officers marching in our ranks to-day, who where once gripped by this fiendish fascination, who have had their fetters broken, and are now free men in the Army. Still the mighty torrent of Alcohol, fed by ten thousand manufactories, sweeps on, bearing with it, I have no hesitation in saying, the foulest, bloodiest tide that ever flowed from earth to eternity. The Church of the living G.o.d ought not--and to say nothing about religion, the people who have any humanity ought not, to rest without doing something desperate to rescue this half of a million who are in the eddying maelstrom. We purpose, therefore, the taking away of the people from the temptation which they cannot resist. We would to G.o.d that the temptation could be taken away from them, that every house licensed to send forth the black streams of bitter death were closed, and closed for ever. But this will not be, we fear, for the present at least.

While in one case drunkenness may be resolved into a habit, in another it must be accounted a disease. What is wanted in the one case, therefore, is some method of removing the man out of the sphere of the temptation, and in the other for treating the pa.s.sion as a disease, as we should any other physical affection, bringing to bear upon it every agency, hygienic and otherwise, calculated to effect a cure.

The Dalrymple Homes, in which, on the order of a magistrate and by their own consent, Inebriates can be confined for a time, have been a partial success in dealing with this cla.s.s in both these respects; but they are admittedly too expensive to be of any service to the poor.

It could never be hoped that working people of themselves, or with the a.s.sistance of their friends, would be able to pay two pounds a week for the privilege of being removed away from the licensed temptations to drink which surround them at every step. Moreover, could they obtain admission they would feel themselves anything but at ease amongst the cla.s.s who avail themselves of these inst.i.tutions. We propose to establish Homes which will contemplate the deliverance, not of ones and twos, but of mult.i.tudes, and which will be accessible to the poor, or to persons of any cla.s.s choosing to use them. This is our national vice, and it demands nothing short of a national remedy--anyway, one of proportions large enough to be counted national.

1. To begin with, there will be City Homes, into which a man can be taken, watched over, kept out of the way of temptation, and if possible delivered from the power of this dreadful habit.

In some cases persons would be taken in who are engaged in business in the City in the day, being accompanied by an attendant to and from the Home. In this case, of course, adequate remuneration for this extra care would be required.

2. Country Homes, which we shall conduct on the Dalrymple principle; that is, taking persons for compulsory confinement, they binding themselves by a bond confirmed by a magistrate that they would remain for a certain period. The general regulations for both establishments would be something as follows: --

(1). There would be only one cla.s.s in each establishment. If it was found that the rich and the poor did not work comfortably together, separate inst.i.tutions must be provided.

(2). All would alike have to engage in some remunerative form of employment. Outdoor work would be preferred, but indoor employment would be arranged for those for whom it was most suitable, and in such weather and at such times of the year when garden work was impracticable.

(3). A charge of 10s. per week would be made. This could be remitted when there was no ability to pay it.

The usefulness of such Homes is too evident to need any discussion.

There is one cla.s.s of unfortunate creatures who must be objects of pity to all who have any knowledge of their existence, and that is, those men and women who are being continually dragged before the magistrates, of whom we are constantly reading in the police reports, whose lives are spent in and out of prison, at an enormous cost to the country, and without any benefit to themselves.

We should then be able to deal with this cla.s.s. It would be possible for a magistrate, instead of sentencing the poor wrecks of humanity to the sixty-fourth and one hundred and twentieth term of imprisonment, to send them to this Inst.i.tution, by simply remanding them to come up for sentence when called for. How much cheaper such an arrangement would be for the country!

SECTION 5.--A NEW WAY OF ESCAPE FOR LOST WOMEN. THE RESCUE HOMES.