In Darkest England and the Way Out Part 19

Perhaps there is no evil more destructive of the best interests of Society, or confessedly more difficult to deal with remedially, than that which is known as the Social Evil. We have already seen something of the extent to which this terrible scourge has grown, and the alarming manner in which it affects our modern civilisation.

We have already made an attempt at grappling with this evil, having about thirteen Homes in Great Britain, accommodating 307 girls under the charge of 132 Officers, together with seventeen Homes abroad, open for the same purpose. The whole, although a small affair compared with the vastness of the necessity, nevertheless const.i.tutes perhaps the largest and most efficient effort of its character in the world.

It is difficult to estimate the results that have been already realised. By our varied operations, apart from these Homes, probably hundreds, if not thousands, have been delivered from lives of shame and misery. We have no exact return of the number who have gone through the Homes abroad, but in connection with the work in this country, about 3,000 have been rescued, and are living lives of virtue.

This success has not only been gratifying on account of the blessing it has brought these young women, the gladness it has introduced to the homes to which they have been restored, and the benefit it has bestowed upon Society, but because it has a.s.sured us that much greater results of the same character may be realised by operations conducted on a larger scale, and under more favourable circ.u.mstances.

With this view we propose to remodel and greatly increase the number of our Homes both in London and the provinces, establishing one in every great centre of this infamous traffic.

To make them very largely Receiving Houses, where the girls will be initiated into the system of reformation, tested as to the reality of their desires for deliverance, and started forward on the highway of truth, virtue, and religion.

From these Homes large numbers, as at present, would be restored to their friends and relatives, while some would be detained in training for domestic service, and others pa.s.sed on to the Farm Colony.

On the Farm they would be engaged in various occupations.

In the Factory, at Bookbinding and Weaving; in the Garden and Gla.s.shouses amongst fruit and flowers; in the Dairy, making b.u.t.ter; in all cases going through a course of House-work which will fit them for domestic service.

At every stage the same process of moral and religious training, on which we specially rely, will be carried forward.

There would probably be a considerable amount of inter-marriage amongst the Colonists, and in this way a number of these girl's would be absorbed into Society.

A large number would be sent abroad as domestic servants. In Canada, the girls are taken out of the Rescue Homes as servants, with no other reference than is gained by a few weeks' residence there, and are paid as much as #3 a month wages. The scarcity of domestic servants in the Australian Colonies, Western States of America, Africa, and elsewhere is well known. And we have no doubt that on all hands our girls with 12 months' character will be welcomed, the question of outfit and pa.s.sage-money being easily arranged for by the persons requiring their services advancing the amount, with an understanding that it is to be deducted out of their first earnings.

Then we have the Colony Over-Sea, which will require the service of a large number. Very few families will go out who will not be very glad to take a young woman with them, not as a menial servant, but as a companion and friend.

By this method we should be able to carry out Rescue work on a much larger scale. At present two difficulties very largely block our way.

One is the costliness of the work. The expense of rescuing a girl on the present plan cannot be much less than #7; that is, if we include the cost of those with whom we fail, and on whom the money is largely thrown away. Seven pounds is certainly not a very large sum for the measure of benefit bestowed upon the girl by bringing her off the streets, and that which is bestowed on Society by removing her from her evil course. Still, when the work runs into thousands of individuals, the amount required becomes considerable. On the plan proposed we calculate that from the date of their reaching the Farm Colony they will earn nearly all that is required for their support.

The next difficulty which hinders our expansion in this department is the want of suitable and permanent situations, Although we have been marvellously successful so far, having at this hour probably 1,200 girls in domestic service alone, still the difficulty in this respect is great. Families are naturally shy at receiving these poor unfortunates when they can secure the help they need combined with unblemished character; and we cannot blame them.

Then, again, it can easily be understood that the monotony of domestic service in this country is not altogether congenial to the tastes of many of these girls, who have been accustomed to a life of excitement and freedom. This can be easily understood. To be shut up seven days a week with little or no intercourse, either with friends or with the outside world, beyond that which comes of the weekly Church service or "night out" with nowhere to go, as many of them are tied off from the Salvation Army Meetings, becomes very monotonous, and in hours of depression it is not to be wondered at if a few break down in their resolutions, and fall back into their old ways.

On the plan we propose there is something to cheer these girls forward.

Life on the farm will be attractive. From there they can go to a new country and begin the world afresh, with the possibility of being married and having a little home of their own some day. With such prospects, we think, they will be much more likely to fight their way through seasons of darkness and temptation than as at present.

This plan will also make the task of rescuing the girls much more agreeable to the Officers engaged in it. They will have this future to dwell upon as an encouragement to persevere with the girls, and will be spared one element at least in the regret they experience, when a girl falls back into old habits, namely, that she earned the princ.i.p.al part of the money that has been expended upon her.

That girls can be rescued and blessedly saved even now, despite all their surroundings, we have many remarkable proofs. Of these take one or two as examples: --

J. W. was brought by our Officers from a neighbourhood which has, by reason of the atrocities perpetrated in it, obtained an unenviable renown, even among similar districts of equally bad character.

She was only nineteen. A country girl. She had begun the struggle for life early as a worker in a large laundry, and at thirteen years of age was led away by an inhuman brute. The first false step taken, her course on the downward road was rapid, and growing restless and anxious for more scope than that afforded in a country town, she came up to London.

For some time she lived the life of extravagance and show, known to many of this cla.s.s for a short time--having plenty of money, fine clothes, and luxurious surroundings until the terrible disease seized her poor body, and she soon found herself deserted, homeless and friendless, an outcast of Society.

When we found her she was hard and impenitent, difficult to reach even with the hand of love; but love won, and since that time she has been in two or three situations, a consistent Soldier of an Army corps, and a champion War Cry seller.

A TICKET-OF-LEAVE WOMAN.

A. B. was the child of respectable working people--Roman Catholics-- but was early left an orphan. She fell in with bad companions, and became addicted to drink, going from bad to worse until drunkenness, robbery, and harlotry brought her to the lowest depths.

She pa.s.sed seven years in prison, and after the last offence was discharged with seven years' police supervision. Failing to report herself, she was brought before the bench.

The magistrate inquired whether she had ever had a chance in a Home of any kind. "She is too old, no one will take her," was the reply, but a Detective present, knowing a little about the Salvation Army, stepped forward and explained to the magistrate th at he did not think the Salvation Army refused any who applied. She was formally handed over to us in a deplorable condition, her clothing the scantiest and dirtiest. For over three years she has given evidence of a genuine reformation, during which time she has industriously earned her own living.

A WILD WOMAN.

In visiting a slum in a town in the North of England, our Officers entered a hole, unfit to be called a human habitation--more like the den of some wild animal--almost the only furniture of which was a filthy iron bedstead, a wooden box to serve for table and chair, while an old tin did duty as a dustbin.

The inhabitant of this wretched den was a poor woman, who fled into the darkest corner of the place as our Officer entered. This poor wretch was the victim of a brutal man, who never allowed her to venture outside the door, keeping her alive by the scantiest allowance of food.

Her only clothing consisted of a sack tied round her body. Her feet were bare, her hair matted and foul, presenting on the whole such an object as one could scarcely imagine living in a civilised country.

She had left a respectable home, forsaken her husband and family, and sunk so low that the man who then claimed her boasted to the Officer that he had bettered her condition by taking her off the streets.

We took the poor creature away, washed and clothed her; and, changed in heart and life, she is one more added to the number of those who rise up to bless the Salvation Army workers.

SECTION 6.--A PREVENTIVE HOME FOR UNFALLEN GIRLS WHEN IN DANGER.

There is a story told likely enough to be true about a young girl who applied one evening for admission to some home established for the purpose of rescuing fallen women. The matron naturally inquired whether she had forfeited her virtue; the girl replied in the negative.

She had been kept from that infamy, but she was poor and friendless, and wanted somewhere to lay her head until she could secure work, and obtain a home. The matron must have pitied her, but she could not help her as she did not belong to the cla.s.s for whose benefit the Inst.i.tution was intended. The girl pleaded, but the matron could not alter the rule, and dare not break it, they were so pressed to find room for their own poor unfortunates, and she could not receive her.

The poor girl left the door reluctantly but returned in a very short time, and said, "I am fallen now, will you take me in?"

I am somewhat slow to credit this incident; anyway it is true in spirit, and ill.u.s.trates the fact that while there are homes to which any poor, ruined, degraded harlot can run for shelter, there is only here and there a corner to which a poor friendless, moneyless, homeless, but unfallen girl can fly for shelter from the storm which bids fair to sweep her away whether she will or no into the deadly vortex of ruin which gapes beneath her.

In London and all our large towns there must be a considerable number of poor girls who from various causes are suddenly plunged into this forlorn condition; a quarrel with the mistress and sudden discharge, a long bout of disease and dismissal penniless from the hospital, a robbery of a purse, having to wait for a situation until the last penny is spent, and many other causes will leave a girl an almost hopeless prey to the linx-eyed villains who are ever watching to take advantage of innocence when in danger. Then, again, what a number there must be in a great city like London who are ever faced with the alternative of being turned out of doors if they refuse to submit themselves to the infamous overtures of those around them.

I understand that the Society for the Protection of Children prosecuted last year a fabulous number of fathers for unnatural sins with their children. If so many were brought to justice, how many were there of whom the world never heard in any shape or form? We have only to imagine how many a poor girl is, faced with the terrible alternative of being driven literally into the streets by employers or relatives or others in whose power she is unfortunately placed.

Now, we want a real home for such--a house to which any girl can fly at any hour of the day or night, and be taken in, cared for, shielded from the enemy, and helped into circ.u.mstances of safety.

The Refuge we propose will be very much on the same principle as the Homes for the Dest.i.tute already described. We should accept any girls, say from fourteen years of age, who were without visible means of support, but who were willing to work, and to conform to discipline.

There would be various forms of labour provided, such as laundry work, sewing, knitting by machines, &c. Every beneficial influence within our power would be brought to bear on the rectification and formation of character. Continued efforts would be made to secure situations according to the adaptation of the girls, to restore wanderers to their homes, and otherwise provide for all. From this, as with the other Homes, there will be a way made to the Farm and to the Colony over the sea. The inst.i.tutions would be multiplied as we had means and found them to be necessary, and made self-supporting as far as possible.

SECTION 7.--ENQUIRY OFFICE FOR LOST PEOPLE.

Perhaps nothing more vividly suggests the varied forms of broken-hearted misery in the great City than the statement that 18,000 people are lost in it every year, of whom 9,000 are never heard of any more, anyway in this world. What is true about London is, we suppose, true in about the same proportion of the rest of the country.

Husbands, sons, daughters, and mothers are continually disappearing, and leaving no trace behind.

In such cases, where the relations are of some importance in the world, they may interest the police authorities sufficiently to make some enquiries in this country, which, however, are not often successful; or where they can afford to spend large sums of money, they can fall back upon the private detective, who will continue these enquiries, not only at home but abroad.

But where the relations of the missing individual are in humble circ.u.mstances, they are absolutely powerless, in nine cases out of ten, to effectually prosecute any search at all that is likely to be successful.

Take, for instance, a cottager in a village, whose daughter leaves for service in a big town or city. Shortly afterwards a letter arrives informing her parents of the satisfactory character of her place.

The mistress is kind, the work easy, and she likes her fellow servants.

She is going to chapel or church, and the family are pleased. Letters continue to arrive of the same purport, but, at length, they suddenly cease. Full of concern, the mother writes to know the reason, but no answer comes back, and after a time the letters are returned with "gone, no address," written on the envelope. The mother writes to the mistress, or the father journeys to the city, but no further information can be obtained beyond the fact that "the girl has conducted herself somewhat mysteriously of late; had ceased to be as careful at her work; had been noticed to be keeping company with some young man; had given notice and disappeared altogether."

Now, what can these poor people do? They apply to the police, but they can do nothing. Perhaps they ask the clergyman of the parish, who is equally helpless, and there is nothing for them but for the father to hang his head and the mother to cry her self to sleep--to long, and wait, and pray for information that perhaps never comes, and to fear the worst.

Now, our Enquiry Department supplies a remedy for this state of things.