abroad where the emigrant's expenses are defrayed, without
railway fares, outfit, together with every kind of information required by an emigrant. 2. From this Bureau any one may obtain all necessary information. 3. Special terms will be arranged with steamships, railway companies, and land agents, of which emigrants using the Bureau will have the advantage. 4. Introductions will be supplied, as far as possible, to agents and friends in the localities to which the emigrant may be proceeding. 5. Intending emigrants, desirous of saving money, can deposit it through this Bureau in the Army Bank for that purpose. 6. It is expected that government contractors and other employers of labour requiring Colonists of reliable character will apply to this Bureau for such, offering favourable terms with respect to passage-money, employment, and other advantages. 7. No emigrant will be sent out in response to any application from abroad where the emigrant's expenses are defrayed, without references as to character, industry, and fitness. This Bureau, we think, will be especially useful to women and young girls. There must be a large number of such in this country living in semi-starvation, anyway, with very poor prospects, who would be very welcome abroad, the expense of whose transfer governments, and masters and mistresses alike would be very glad to defray, or assist in defraying, if they could only be assured on both sides of the beneficial character of the arrangements when made. So widespread now are the operations of the Army, and so extensively will this Bureau multiply its agencies that it will speedily be able to make personal enquiries on both sides, that is in the interest alike of the emigrant and the intended employer in any part of the world. SECTION 3.--THE SALVATION SHIP. When we have selected a party of emigrants whom we believe to be sufficiently prepared to settle on the land which has been got ready for them in the Colony over Sea, it will be no dismal expatriation which will await them. No one who has ever been on the West Coast of Ireland when the emigrants were departing, and has heard the dismal wails which arise from those who are taking leave of each other for the last time on earth, can fail to sympathise with the horror excited in many minds by the very word emigration. But when our party sets out, there will be no violent wrenching of home ties. In our ship we shall export them all--father, mother, and children. The individuals will be grouped in families, and the families will, on the Farm Colony, have been for some months past more or less near neighbours, meeting each other in the field, in the workshops, and in the Religious Services. It will resemble nothing so much as the unmooring of a little piece of England, and towing it across the sea to find a safe anchorage in a sunnier clime. The ship which takes out emigrants will bring back the produce of the farms, and constant travelling to and fro will lead more than ever to the feeling that we and our ocean-sundered brethren are members of one family. No one who has ever crossed the ocean can have failed to be impressed
with the mischief that comes to emigrants when they are on their way to their destination. Many and many a girl has dated her downfall from the temptations which beset her while journeying to a land where she had hoped to find a happier future "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do," and he must have his hands full on board an emigrant ship. Look into the steerage at any time, and you will find boredom inexpressible on every face. The men have nothing to do, and an incident of no more importance than the appearance of a sail upon the distant horizon is an event which makes the whole ship talk. I do not see why this should be so. Of course, in the case of conveying passengers and freight, with the utmost possible expedition, for short distances, it would be idle to expect that either time or energies could be spared for the employment or instruction of the passengers. But the case is different when, instead of going to America, the emigrant turns his face to South Africa or remote Australia. Then, even with the fastest steamers, they must remain some weeks or months upon the high seas. The result is that habits of idleness are contracted, bad acquaintances are formed, and very often the moral and religious work of a lifetime is undone. To avoid these evil consequences, I think we should be compelled to have a ship of our own as soon as possible. A sailing vessel might be found the best adapted for the work. Leaving out the question of time, which would be of very secondary importance with us, the construction of a sailing ship would afford more space for the accommodation of emigrants and for industrial occupation, and would involve considerably less working expenses, besides costing very much less at the onset, even if we did not have one given to us, which I should think would be very probable. All the emigrants would be under the charge of Army Officers, and instead of the voyage being demoralising, it would be made instructive and profitable. From leaving London to landing at their destination, every colonist would be under watchful oversight, could receive instruction in those particulars where they were still needing it, and be subjected to influences that would be beneficial everyway. Then we have seen that one of the great difficulties in the direction of emigration is the cost of transport. The expense of conveying a man from England to Australia, occupying as it does some seven or eight weeks, arises not so much from the expense connected with the working of the vessel which carries him, as the amount of provisions he consumes during the passage. Now, with this plan I think that the emigrants might be made to earn at least a portion of this outlay. There is no reason why a man should not work on board ship any more than on land. Of course, nothing much could be done when the weather was very rough; but the average number of days during which it would be impossible for passengers to employ themselves profitably in the time spent between the Channel and Cape Town or Australia would be comparatively few. When the ship was pitching or rolling, work would be difficult; but even then, when the Colonists get their sea-legs, and are free from the qualmishness which overtakes landsmen when first getting afloat, I cannot see why they should not engage in some form of industrial work far more profitable than yawning and lounging about the deck, to say nothing of the fact that by so doing they would lighten the expense of their transit. The sailors, firemen, engineers, and everybody else connected with a vessel have to work, and there is no reason why our
Colonists should not work also. Of course, this method would require special arrangements in the fitting up of the vessel, which, if it were our own, it would not be difficult to make. At first sight it may seem difficult to find employments on board ship which could be engaged in to advantage, and it might not be found possible to fix up every individual right away; but I think there would be very few of the class and character of people we should take out, with the prior instructions they would have received, who would not have fitted themselves into some useful labour before the voyage ended. To begin with, there would be a large amount of the ordinary ship's work that the Colonists could perform, such as the preparation of food, serving it out, cleaning the decks and fittings of the ship generally, together with the loading and unloading of cargo. All these operations could be readily done under the direction of permanent hands. Then shoemaking, knitting, sewing, tailoring, and other kindred occupations could be engaged in. I should think sewing-machines could be worked, and, one way or another, any amount of garments could be manufactured, which would find ready and profitable sale on landing, either among the Colonists themselves, or with the people round about. Not only would the ship thus be a perfect hive of industry, it would also be a floating temple. The Captain, Officers, and every member of the crew would be Salvationists, and all, therefore, alike interested in the enterprise. Moreover, the probabilities are that we should obtain the service of the ship's officers and crew in the most inexpensive manner, in harmony with the usages of the Army everywhere else, men serving from love and not as a mere business. The effect produced by our ship cruising slowly southwards testifying to the reality of a Salvation for both worlds, calling at all convenient ports, would constitute a new kind of mission work, and drawing out everywhere a large amount of warm practical sympathy. At present the influence of those who go down to the sea in ships is not always in favour of raising the morals and religion of the dwellers in the places where they come. Here, however, would be one ship at least whose appearance foretold no disorder, gave rise to no debauchery, and from whose capacious hull would stream forth an Army of men, who, instead of thronging the grog-shops and other haunts of licentious indulgence, would occupy themselves with explaining and proclaiming the religion of the Love of God and the Brotherhood of Man.
CHAPTER 5. MORE CRUSADES. I have now sketched out briefly the leading features of the threefold Scheme by which I think a way can be opened out of "Darkest England," by which its forlorn denizens can escape into the light and freedom of a new life. But it is not enough to make a clear broad road out of the heart of this dense and matted jungle forest; its inhabitants are in many cases so degraded, so hopeless, so utterly desperate that we shall have to do something more than make roads. As we read in the parable, it is often not enough that the feast be prepared, and the guests be bidden; we must needs go into the highways and byways and compel them to come in. So it is not enough to provide our City Colony and our Farm Colony, and then rest on our oars as if we had done our work. That kind of thing will not save the Lost. It is necessary to organise rescue expeditions to free the miserable wanderers from their captivity, and bring them out into the larger liberty and the fuller life. Talk about Stanley and Emin! There is not one of us but has an Emin somewhere or other in the heart of Darkest England, whom he ought to sally forth to rescue. Our Emins have the Devil for their Mahdi, and when we get to them we find that it is their friends and neighbours who hold them back, and they are, oh, so irresolute! It needs each of us to be as indomitable as Stanley, to burst through all obstacles, to force our way right to the centre of things, and then to labour with the poor prisoner of vice and crime with all our might. But had not the Expeditionary Committee furnished the financial means whereby a road was opened to the sea, both Stanley and Emin would probably have been in the heart of Darkest Africa to this day. This Scheme is our Stanley Expedition. The analogy is very close. I propose to make a road clear down to the sea. But alas our poor Emin! Even when the road is open, he halts and lingers and doubts. First he will, and then he won't, and nothing less than the irresistible pressure of a friendly and stronger purpose will constrain him to take the road which has been opened for him at such a cost of blood and treasure. I now, therefore, proceed to sketch some of the methods by which we shall attempt to save the lost and to rescue those who are perishing in the midst of "Darkest England." SECTION 1.--A SLUM CRUSADE.--OUR SLUM SISTERS. When Professor Huxley lived as a medical officer in the East of London he acquired a knowledge of the actual condition of the life of many of its populace which led him long afterwards to declare that the surroundings of the savages of New Guinea were much more conducive to the leading of a decent human existence than those in which many of the East-Enders live. Alas, it is not only in London that such lairs exist in which the savages of civilisation lurk and breed. All the great towns in both the Old World and the New have their slums, in which huddle together, in festering and verminous filth, men, women, and children. They correspond to the lepers who thronged the lazar houses of the Middle Ages.
As in those days St. Francis of Assissi and the heroic band of saints who gathered under his orders were wont to go and lodge with the lepers at the city gates, so the devoted souls who have enlisted in the Salvation Army take up their quarters in the heart of the worst slums. But whereas the Friars were men, our Slum Brigade is composed of women. I have a hundred of them under my orders, young women for the most part, quartered all of them in outposts in the heart of the Devil's country. Most of them are the children of the poor who have known hardship from their youth up. Some are ladies born and bred, who have not been afraid to exchange the comfort of a West End drawing-room for service among the vilest of the vile, and a residence in small and fetid rooms whose walls were infested with vermin. They live the life of the Crucified for the sake of the men and women for whom He lived and died. They form one of the branches of the activity of the Army upon which I dwell with deepest sympathy. They are at the front; they are at close quarters with the enemy. To the dwellers in decent homes who occupy cushioned pews in fashionable churches there is something strange and quaint in the language they hear read from the Bible, language which habitually refers to the Devil as an actual personality, and to the struggle against sin and uncleanness as if it were a hand to hand death wrestle with the legions of Hell. To our little sisters who dwell in an atmosphere heavy with curses, among people sodden with drink, in quarters where sin and uncleanness are universal, all these Biblical sayings are as real as the quotations of yesterday's price of Consols are to a City man. They dwell in the midst of Hell, and in their daily warfare with a hundred devils it seems incredible to them that anyone can doubt the existence of either one or the other. The Slum Sister is what her name implies, the Sister of the Slum. They go forth in Apostolic fashion, two-and-two living in a couple of the same kind of dens or rooms as are occupied by the people themselves, differing only in the cleanliness and order, and the few articles of furniture which they contain. Here they live all the year round, visiting the sick, looking after the children, showing the women how to keep themselves and their homes decent, often discharging the sick mother's duties themselves; cultivating peace, advocating temperance, counselling in temporalities, and ceaselessly preaching the religion of Jesus Christ to the Outcasts of Society. I do not like to speak of their work. Words fail me, and what I say is so unworthy the theme. I prefer to quote two descriptions by Journalists who have seen these girls at work in the field. The first is taken from a long article which Julia Hayes Percy contributed to the New York World, describing a visit paid by her to the slum quarters of the Salvation Army in Cherry Hill Alleys, in the Whitechapel of New York. Twenty-four hours in the slums--just a night and a day-- yet into them were crowded such revelations of misery, depravity, and degradation as having once been gazed upon life can never be the same afterwards. Around and above his blighted neighbourhood flows the tide of active, prosperous life. Men and women travel past in street cars by the Elevated Railroad and across the bridge, and take no thought of its wretchedness, of the criminals bred there, and of the disease engendered by its foulness. It is a fearful menace to the public health, both moral and physical, yet the multitude is as heedless of danger as the peasant who makes his house and plants green vineyards and olives above Vesuvian fires. We are almost as careless and quite as unknowing as we pass the bridge in the late afternoon. Our immediate destination is the Salvation Army Barracks in Washington Street, and we are going finally to the Salvation Officers--two young
women--who have been dwelling and doing a noble mission work for months in one of the worst corners of New York's most wretched quarter. These Officers are not living under the aegis of the Army, however. The blue bordered flag is furled out of sight, the uniforms and poke bonnets are laid away, and there are no drums or tambourines. "The banner over them is love" of their fellow-creatures among whom they dwell upon an equal plane of poverty, wearing no better clothes than the rest, eating coarse and scanty food, and sleeping upon hard cots or upon the floor. Their lives are consecrated to God's service among the poor of the earth. One is a woman in the early prime of vigorous life, the other a girl of eighteen. The elder of these devoted women is awaiting us at the barracks to be our guide to Slumdom. She is tall, slender, and clad in a coarse brown gown, mended with patches. A big gingham apron, artistically rent in several places, is tied about her waist. She wears on old plaid woollen shawl and an ancient brown straw hat. Her dress indicates extreme poverty, her face denotes perfect peace. "This is Em," says Mrs. Ballington Booth, and after this introduction we sally forth. More and more wretched grows the district as we penetrate further Em pauses before a dirty, broken, smoke-dimmed window, through which in a dingy room are seen a party of roughs, dark-looking men, drinking and squabbling at a table. "They are our neighbours in the front." We enter the hall-way and proceed to the rear room. It is tiny, but clean and warm. A fire burns on the little cracked stove, which stands up bravely on three legs, with a brick eking out its support at the fourth corner. A tin lamp stands on the table, half-a-dozen chairs, one of which has arms, but must have renounced its rockers long ago, and a packing box, upon which we deposit our shawls, constitute the furniture. Opening from this is a small dark bedroom, with one cot made up and another folded against the wall. Against a door, which must communicate with the front room, in which we saw the disagreeable-looking men sitting, is a wooden table for the hand-basin. A small trunk and a barrel of clothing complete the inventory. Em's sister in the slum work gives us a sweet shy welcome. She is a Swedish girl, with the fair complexion and crisp, bright hair peculiar to the Scandinavian blonde-type. Her head reminds me of a Grenze that hangs in the Louvre, with its low knot of rippling hair, which fluffs out from her brow and frames a dear little face with soft childish outlines, a nez retrousse, a tiny mouth, like a crushed pink rose, and wistful blue eyes. This girl has been a Salvationist for two years. During that time she has learned to speak, read, and write English, while she has constantly laboured among the poor and wretched. The house where we find ourselves was formerly notorious as one of the worst in the Cherry Hill district. It has been the scene of some memorable crimes, and among them that of the Chinaman who slew his Irish wife, after the manner of "Jack the Ripper," on the staircase leading to the second floor. A notable change has taken place in the tenement since Mattie and Em have lived there, and their gentle influence is making itself felt in the neighbouring houses as well. It is nearly eight o'clock when we sally forth. Each of us carries a handful of printed slips bearing a text of Scripture and a few words of warning to lead the better life. "These furnish an excuse for entering places where otherwise we could not go," explains Em. After arranging a rendezvous, we separate. Mattie and Liz go off in one direction, and Em and I in another. From this our progress seems like a descent into Tartarus. Em pauses before a miserable-looking
saloon, pushes open the low, swinging door, and we go in. It is a low-ceiled room, dingy with dirt, dim with the smoke, nauseating with the fumes of sour beer and vile liquor. A sloppy bar extends along one side, and opposite is a long table, with indescribable viands littered over it, interspersed with empty glasses, battered hats, and cigar stumps. A motley crowd of men and women jostle in the narrow space. Em speaks to the soberest looking of the lot. He listens to her words, others crowd about. Many accept the slips we offer, and gradually as the throng separates to make way, we gain the further end of the apartment. Em's serious, sweet, saint-like face I follow like a star. All sense of fear slips from me, and a great pity fills my soul as I look upon the various types of wretchedness. As the night wears on, the whole apartment seems to wake up. Every house is alight; the narrow sidewalks and filthy streets are full of people. Miserable little children, with sin-stamped faces, dart about like rats; little ones who ought to be in their cribs shift for themselves, and sleep on cellar doors and areas, and under carts; a few vendors are abroad with their wares, but the most of the traffic going on is of a different description. Along Water Street are women conspicuously dressed in gaudy colours. Their heavily-painted faces are bloated or pinched; they shiver in the raw night air. Liz speaks to one, who replies that she would like to talk, but dare not, and as she says this an old hag comes to the door and cries: "Get along; don't hinder her work! During the evening a man to whom Em has been talking has told her: --"You ought to join the Salvation Army; they are the only good women who, bother us down here. I don't want to lead that sort of life; but I must go where it is light and warm and clean after working all day, and there isn't any place but this to come to" exclaimed the man. "You will appreciate the plea to-morrow when you see how the people live," Em says, as we turn our steps toward the tenement room, which seems like an oasis of peace and purity after the howling desert we have been wandering in. Em and Mattie brew some oatmeal gruel, and being chilled and faint we enjoyed a cup of it. Liz and I share a cot in the outer room. We are just going to sleep when agonised cries ring out through the night; then the tones of a woman's voice pleading pitifully reach our ears. We are unable to distinguish her words, but the sound is heart-rending. It comes from one of those dreadful Water Street houses, and we all feel that a tragedy is taking place. There is a sound of crashing blows and then silence. It is customary in the slums to leave the house door open perpetually, which is convenient for tramps, who creep into the hall-ways to sleep at night, thereby saving the few pence it costs to occupy a "spot" in the cheap lodging houses. Em and Mat keep the corridor without their room beautifully clean, and so it has become an especial favourite stamping ground for these vagrants. We were told this when Mattie locked and bolted the door and then tied the keys and the door-handle together. So we understand why there are shuffling steps along the corridor, bumping against the panels of the door, and heavily breathing without during the long hours of the night. All day Em and Mat have been toiling among their neighbours, and the night before last they sat up with a dying woman. They are worn out and sleep heavily. Liz and I lie awake and wait for the coming of the morning; we are too oppressed by what we have seen and heard to talk. In the morning Liz and I peep over into the rear houses where we heard those dreadful shrieks in the night. There is no sign of life,
but we discover enough filth to breed diphtheria and typhoid throughout a large section. In the area below our window there are several inches of stagnant water, in which is heaped a mass of old shoes, cabbage heads, garbage, rotten wood, bones, rags and refuse, and a few dead rats. We understand now why Em keeps her room full of disinfectants. She tells us that she dare not make any appeal to the sanitary authorities, either on behalf of their own or any other dwelling, for fear of antagonizing the people, who consider such officials as their natural enemies. The first visit we pay is up a number of eccentric little flights of shaky steps interspersed with twists of passageway. The floor is full of holes. The stairs have been patched here and there, but look perilous and sway beneath the feet, A low door on the landing is opened by a bundle of rags and filth, out of which issues a woman's voice in husky tones, bidding us enter. She has La grippe. We have to stand very close together, for the room is small, and already contains three women, a man, a baby, a bedstead, a stove, and indescribable dirt. The atmosphere is rank with impurity. The man is evidently dying. Seven weeks ago he was "gripped." He is now in the last stages of pneumonia. Em has tried to induce him to be removed to the hospital, and he gasps out his desire "to die in comfort in my own bed." Comfort! The "bed' is a rack heaped with rags. Sheets, pillow-cases, and night-clothes are not in vogue in the slums. A woman lies asleep on the dirty floor with her head under the table. Another woman, who has been sharing the night watch with the invalid's wife, is finishing her morning meal, in which roast oysters on the half shell are conspicuous. A child that appears never to have been washed toddles about the floor and tumbles over the sleeping woman's form. Em gives it some gruel, and ascertains that its name is "Christine." The dirt, crowding, and smells in the first place are characteristic of half a dozen others we visited. We penetrate to garrets and descend into cellars. The "rear houses" are particularly dreadful. Everywhere there is decaying garbage lying about, and the dead cats and rats are evidence that there are mighty hunters among the gamins of the Fourth Ward. We find a number ill from the grip and consequent maladies. None of the sufferers will entertain the thought of seeking a hospital. One probably voices the opinion of the majority when he declares that "they'll wash you to death there." For these people a bath possesses more terror than the gallows or the grave. In one room, with a wee window, lies a women dying of consumption; wasted wan, and wretched, lying on rags and swarming with vermin. Her little son, a boy of eight years, nestles beside her. His cheeks are scarlet, his eyes feverishly bright, and he has a hard cough. "It's the chills, mum," says the little chap. Six beds stand close together in another room; one is empty. Three days ago a woman died there and the body has just been taken away. It hasn't disturbed the rest of the inmates to have death present there. A woman is lying on the wrecks of a bedstead, slats and posts sticking out in every direction from the rags on which she reposes. "It broke under me in the night," she explains. A woman is sick and wants Liz to say a prayer. We kneel on the filthy floor. Soon all my faculties are absorbed in speculating which will arrive first, the "Amen" or the "B flat" which is wending its way to wards me. This time the bug does not get there, and I enjoy grinding him under the sole of my Slum shoe when the prayer is ended.
In another room we find what looks like a corpse. It is a woman in an opium stupor. Drunken men are brawling around her. Returning to our tenement, Em and Liz meet us, and we return to our experience. The minor details vary slightly, but the story is the same piteous tale of woe everywhere, and crime abounding, conditions which only change to a prison, a plunge in the river, or the Potter's field. The Dark Continent can show no lower depth of degradation than that sounded by the dwellers of the dark alleys in Cherry Hill. There isn't a vice missing in that quarter. Every sin in the Decalogue flourishes in that feeder of penitentiaries and prisons. And even as its moral foulness permeates and poisons the veins of our social life so the malarial filth with which the locality reeks must sooner or later spread disease and death. An awful picture, truly, but one which is to me irradiated with the love-light which shone in the eyes of "Em's serious, sweet, saintlike face." Here is my second. It was written by a Journalist who had just witnessed the scene in Whitechapel. He writes: -- I had just passed Mr. Barnett's church when I was stopped by a small crowd at a street corner. There were about thirty or forty men, women, and children standing loosely together, some others were lounging on the opposite side of the street round the door of a public-house. In the centre of the crowd was a plain-looking little woman in Salvation Army uniform, with her eyes closed, praying the "dear Lord that he would bless these dear people, and save them, save them now!" Moved by curiosity, I pressed through the outer fringe of the crowd, and in doing so, I noticed a woman of another kind, also invoking Heaven, but in an altogether different fashion. Two dirty tramp-like men were listening to the prayer, standing the while smoking their short cutty pipes. For some reason or other they had offended the woman, and she was giving them a piece of her mind. They stood stolidly silent while she went at them like a fiend. She had been good-looking once, but was now horribly bloated with drink, and excited by passion. I heard both voices at the same time. What a contrast! The prayer was over now, and a pleading earnest address was being delivered. "You are wrong," said the voice in the centre "you know you are; all this misery and poverty is a proof of it. You are prodigals. You have got away from your Father's house, and you are rebelling against Him every day Can you wonder that there is so much hunger, and oppression, and wretchedness allowed to come upon you? In the midst of it all your Father loves you He wants you to return to Him; to turn your backs upon your sins; abandon your evil doings; give up the drink and the service of the devil. He has given His Son Jesus Christ to die for you. He wants to save you. Come to His feet. He is waiting. His arms are open. I know the devil has got fast hold of you; but Jesus will give you grace to conquer him. He will help you to master your wicked habits and your love of drink. But come to Him now. God is love. He loves me. He loves you. He loves us all. He wants to save us all." Clear and strong the voice, eloquent with the fervour of intense feeling, rang through the little crowd, past which streamed the ever-flowing tide of East End life. And at the same time that I heard this pure and passionate invocation to love God and be true to man I heard a voice on the outskirts, and it said this: "You ---- swine!
I'll knock the vitals out of yer. None of your ---- impudence to me. ---- your ---- eyes, what do you mean by telling me that? You know what you ha' done, and now you are going to the Salvation Army. I'll let them know you, you dirty rascal." The man shifted his pipe. "What's the matter?" "Matter!" screamed the virago hoarsely." ---- yer life, don't you know what's the matter? I'll matter ye, you ---- hound. By God! I will, as sure as I'm alive. Matter! you know what's the matter." And so she went on, the men standing silently smoking until at last she took herself off her mouth full of oaths and cursing, to the public-house. It seemed as though the presence, and spirit, and words of the Officer, who still went on with the message of mercy, had some strange effect upon them, which made these poor wretches impervious to the taunting, bitter sarcasms of this brazen, blatant virago. "God is love." Was it not, then, the accents of God's voice that sounded there above the din of the street and the swearing of the slums? Yea, verily, and that voice ceases not and will not cease, so long as the Slum Sisters fight under the banner of the Salvation Army. To form an idea of the immense amount of good, temporal and spiritual, which the Slum Sister is doing; you need to follow them into the kennels where they live, preaching the Gospel with the mop and the scrubbing brush, and driving out the devil with soap and water. In one of our Slum posts, where the Officer's rooms were on the ground floor, about fourteen other families lived in the same house. One little water-closet in the back yard had to do service for the whole place. As for the dirt, one Officer writes, "It is impossible to scrub the Homes; some of them are in such a filthy condition. When they have a fire the ashes are left to accumulate for days. The table is very seldom, if ever, properly cleaned, dirty cups and saucers lie about it, together with bits of bread, and if they have bloaters the bones and heads are left on the table, Sometimes there are pieces of onions mixed up with the rest. The floors are in a very much worse condition than the street pavements, and when they are supposed to clean them they do it with about a pint of dirty water. When they wash, which is rarely, for washing to them seems an unnecessary work, they do it in a quart or two of water, and sometimes boil the things in some old saucepan in which they cook their food. They do this simply because they have no larger vessel to wash in. The vermin fall off the walls and ceiling on you while you are standing in the rooms. Some of the walls are covered with marks where they have killed them. Many people in the summer sit on the door steps all night, the reason for this being, that their rooms are so close from the heat and so unendurable from the vermin that they prefer staying out in the cool night air. But as they cannot stay anywhere long without drinking, they send for beer from the neighbouring public--alas! never far away --and pass it from one doorway to another, the result being singing, shouting and fighting up till three and four o'clock in the morning." I could fill volumes with stories of the war against vermin, which is part of this campaign in the slums, but the subject is too revolting to those who are often indifferent to the agonies their fellow creatures suffer, so long as their sensitive ears are not shocked by the mention of so painful a subject. Here, for instance, is a sample of the kind of region in which the Slum Sisters spend themselves: "In an apparently respectable street near Oxford street, the Officers where visiting one day when they saw a very dark staircase leading into a cellar, and thinking it possible that someone might be there they
attempted to go down, and yet the staircase was so dark they thought it impossible for anyone to be there. However, they tried again and groped their way along in the dark for some time until at last they found the door and entered the room. At first they could not discern anything because of the darkness. But after they got used to it they saw a filthy room. There was no fire in the grate, but the fire-place was heaped up with ashes, an accumulation of several weeks at least. At one end of the room there was an old sack of rags and bones partly emptied upon the floor, from which there came a most unpleasant odour. At the other end lay an old man very ill. The apology for a bed on which he lay was filthy and had neither sheets nor blankets. His covering consisted of old rags. His poor wife, who attended on him, appeared to be a stranger to soap and water. These Slum Sisters nursed the old people, and on one occasion undertook to do their washing, and they brought it home to their copper for this purpose, but it was so infested with vermin that they did not know how to wash it. Their landlady, who happened to see them, forbade them ever to bring such stuff there any more. The old man, when well enough, worked at his trade, which was tailoring. They had two shillings and sixpence per week from the parish." Here is a report from the headquarters of our Slum Brigade as to the work which the Slum Sisters have done. It is almost four years since the Slum Work was started in London. The principal work done by our first Officers was that of visiting the sick, cleansing the homes of the Slummers, and of feeding the hungry. The following are a few of the cases of those who have gained temporally, as well as spiritually, through our work: -- Mrs. W.--Of Haggerston Slum. Heavy drinker, wrecked home, husband a drunkard, place dirty and filthy, terribly poor. Saved now over two years, home A1., plenty of employment at cane-chair bottoming; husband now saved also. Mrs. R.--Drury Lane Slum. Husband and wife, drunkards; husband very lazy, only worked when starved in to it. We found them both out of work, home furnitureless, in debt. She got saved, and our lasses prayed for him to get work. He did so, and went to it. He fell out again a few weeks after, and beat his wife. She sought employment at charing and office cleaning, got it, and has been regularly at work since. He too got work. He is now a teetotaler. The home is very comfortable now, and they are putting money in the bank. A.M. in the Dials. Was a great drunkard, thriftless, did not go to the trouble of seeking work. Was in a Slum meeting, heard the Captain speak on "Seek first the Kingdom of God!" called out and said, "Do you mean that if I ask God for work, He will give it me?" Of course she said, "Yes." He was converted that night, found work, and is now employed in the Gas Works, Old Kent Road. Jimmy is a soldier in the Boro' Slum! Was starving when he got converted through being out of work. Through joining the Army, he was turned out of his home. He found work, and now owns a coffee-stall in Billingsgate Market, and is doing well. Sergeant R.--Of Marylebone Slum. Used to drink, lived in a wretched place in the famous Charles Street, had work at two places, at one of which he got 5s. a week and the other 10s., when he got saved; this was starvation wages, on which to keep himself, his wife, and four children. At the 10s. a week work he had to deliver drink for a spirit merchant; feeling condemned over it, he gave it up, and was
out of work for weeks. The brokers were put in, but the Lord rescued him just in time. The 5s. a week employer took him afterwards at 18s., and he is now earning 22s., and has left the ground-floor slum tenement for a better house. H.--Nine Elms Slum. Was saved on Easter Monday, out of work several weeks before, is a labourer, seems very earnest, in terrible distress. We allow his wife 2s. 6d. a week for cleaning the hall (to help them). In addition to that, she gets another 2s. 6d. for nursing, and on that husband, wife, and a couple of children pay the rent of 2s. a week and drag out an existence. I have tried to get work for this man, but have failed. T.--Of Rotherhithe Slum. Was a great drunkard, is a carpenter; saved about nine months ago, but, having to work in a public-house on a Sunday, he gave it up; he has not been able to get another job, and has nothing but what we have given him for making seats. Emma Y.--Now a Soldier of the Marylebone Slum Post, was a wild young Slummer when we opened in the Boro'; could be generally seen in the streets, wretchedly clad, her sleeves turned up, idle, only worked occasionally, got saved two years ago, had terrible persecution in her home. We got her a situation, where she has been for nearly eighteen months, and is now a good servant. Lodging-House Frank.--At twenty-one came into the possession of #750, but, through drink and gambling, lost it all in six or eight months, and for over seven years he has tramped about from Portsmouth, through the South of England, and South Wales, from one lodging-house to another, often starving, drinking when he could get any money; thriftless, idle, no heart for work. We found him in a lodging-house six months ago, living with a fallen girl; got them both saved and married; five weeks after he got work as a carpenter at 30s. a week. He has a home of his own now, and promises well to make an officer. The Officer who furnishes the above reports goes on to say: -- I can't call the wretched dwelling home, to which drink had brought Brother and Sister X. From a life of luxury, they drifted down by degrees to one room in a Slum tenement, surrounded by drunkards and the vilest characters. Their lovely half-starved children were compelled to listen to the foulest language, and hear fighting and quarrelling, and alas, alas, not only to hear it in the adjoining rooms, but witness it within their own. For over two years they have been delivered from the power of the cursed drink. The old rookery is gone, and now they have a comfortably-furnished home. Their children give evidence of being truly converted, and have a lively gratitude for their father's salvation. One boy of eight said, last Christmas Day, "I remember when we had only dry bread for Christmas; but to-day we had a goose and two plum-puddings." Brother X. was dismissed in disgrace from his situation as commercial traveller before his conversion; to-day he is chief man, next to his employer, in a large business house. He says: -- I and perfectly satisfied that very few of the lowest strata of Society are unwilling to work if they could get it. The wretched hand-to-mouth existence many of them have to live disheartens them, and makes life with them either a feast or a famine, and drives those who have brains enough to crime.
The results of our work in the Slums may be put down as: -- 1st. A marked improvement in the cleanliness of the homes and children; disappearance of vermin, and a considerable lessening of drunkenness. 2nd. A greater respect for true religion, and especially that of the Salvation Army. 3rd. A much larger amount of work is being done now than before our going there. 4th. The rescue of many fallen girls. 5th. The Shelter work seems to us a development of the Slum work. In connection with our Scheme, we propose to immediately increase the numbers of these Slum Sisters, and to add to their usefulness by directly connecting their operations with the Colony, enabling them thereby to help the poor people to conditions of life more favourable to health, morals, and religion. This would be accomplished by getting some of them employment in the City, which must necessarily result in better homes and surroundings, or in the opening up for others of a straight course from the Slums to the Farm Colony. SECTION 2.--THE TRAVELLING HOSPITAL. Of course, there is only one real remedy for this state of things, and that is to take the people away from the wretched hovels in which they sicken, suffer, and die, with less comfort and consideration than the cattle in the stalls and styes of many a country Squire. And this is certainly our ultimate ambition, but for the present distress something might be done on the lines of district nursing, which is only in very imperfect operation. I have been thinking that if a little Van, drawn by a pony, could be fitted up with what is ordinarily required by the sick and dying, and trot round amongst these abodes of desolation, with a couple of nurses trained for the business, it might be of immense service, without being very costly. They could have a few simple instruments, so as to draw a tooth or lance an abscess, and what was absolutely requisite for simple surgical operations. A little oil-stove for hot water to prepare a poultice, or a hot foment, or a soap wash, and a number of other necessaries for nursing, could be carried with ease. The need for this will only be appreciated by those who know how utterly bereft of all the comforts and conveniences for attending to the smallest matters in sickness which prevails in these abodes of wretchedness. It may be suggested, why don't the people when they are ill go to the hospital? To which we simply reply that they won't. They cling to their own bits of rooms and to the companionship of the members of their own families, brutal as they often are, and would rather stay and suffer, and die in the midst of all the filth and squalor that surrounds them in their own dens, than go to the big house, which, to them, looks very like a prison. The sufferings of the wretched occupants of the Slums that we have been describing, when sick and unable to help themselves, makes the organisation of some system of nursing them in their own homes a Christian duty. Here are a handful of cases, gleaned almost at random
from the reports of our Slum Sisters, which will show the value of the agency above described: -- Many of those who are sick have often only one room, and often several children. The Officers come across many cases where, with no one to look after them, they have to lie for hours without food or nourishment of any kind. Sometimes the neighbours will take them in a cup of tea. It is really a mystery how they live. A poor woman in Drury Lane was paralyzed. She had no one to attend to her; she lay on the floor, on a stuffed sack, and an old piece of cloth to cover her. Although it was winter, she very seldom had any fire. She had no garments to wear, and but very little to eat. Another poor woman, who was very ill, was allowed a little money by her daughter to pay her rent and get her food; but very frequently she had not the strength to light a fire or to get herself food. She was parted from her husband because of his cruelty. Often she lay for hours without a soul to visit or help her. Adjutant McClellan found a man lying on a straw mattress in a very bad condition. The room was filthy; the smell made the Officer feel ill. The man had been lying for days without having anything done for him. A cup of water was by his side. The Officers vomited from the terrible smells of this place. Frequently sick people are found who need the continual application of hot poultices, but who are left with a cold one for hours. In Marylebone the Officers visited a poor old woman who was very ill. She lived in an underground back kitchen, with hardly a ray of light and never a ray of sunshine. Her bed was made up on some egg boxes. She had no one to look after her, except a drunken daughter, who very often, when drunk, used to knock the poor old woman about very badly. The Officers frequently found that she had not eaten any food up to twelve o'clock, not even a cup of tea to drink. The only furniture in the room was a small table, an old fender, and a box. The vermin seemed to be innumerable. A poor woman was taken very ill, but, having a small family, she felt she must get up and wash them. While she was washing the baby she fell down and was unable to move. Fortunately a neighbour came in soon after to ask some question, and saw her lying there. She at once ran and fetched another neighbour. Thinking the poor woman was dead, they got her into bed and sent for a doctor. He said she was in consumption and required quiet and nourishment. This the poor woman could not get, on account of her children. She got up a few hours afterwards. As she was going downstairs she fell down again. The neighbour picked her up and put her back to bed, where for a long time she lay thoroughly prostrated. The Officers took her case in hand, fed, and nursed her, cleaned her room and generally looked after her. In another dark slum the Officers found a poor old woman in an underground back kitchen. She was suffering with some complaint. When they knocked at the door she was terrified for fear it was the landlord. The room was in a most filthy condition, never having been cleaned. She had a penny paraffin lamp which filled the room with smoke. The old woman was at times totally unable to do anything for herself. The Officers looked after her. SECTION 3.
REGENERATlON OF OUR CRIMINALS.--THE PRISON GATE BRIGADE Our Prisons ought to be reforming institutions, which should turn men out better than when they entered their doors. As a matter of fact they are often quite the reverse. There are few persons in this world more to be pitied than the poor fellow who has served his first term of imprisonment or finds himself outside the gaol doors without a character, and often without a friend in the world. Here, again, the process of centralization, gone on apace of late years, however desirable it maybe in the interests of administration, tells with disastrous effects on the poor wretches who are its victims. In the old times, when a man was sent to prison, the gaol stood within a stone's throw of his home. When he came out he was at any rate close to his old friends and relations, who would take him in and give him a helping hand to start once more a new life. But what has happened owing to the desire of the Government to do away with as many local gaols as possible? The prisoners, when convicted, are sent long distances by rail to the central prisons, and on coming out find themselves cursed with the brand of the gaol bird, so far from home, character gone, and with no one to fall back upon for counsel, or to give them a helping hand. No wonder it is reported that vagrancy has much increased in some large towns on account of discharged prisoners taking to begging, having no other resource. In the competition for work no employer is likely to take a man who is fresh from gaol; nor are mistresses likely to engage a servant whose last character was her discharge from one of Her Majesty's prisons. It is incredible how much mischief is often done by well-meaning persons, who, in struggling towards the attainment of an excellent end --such, for instance, as that of economy and efficiency in prison administration--forget entirely the bearing which their reforms may have upon the prisoners themselves. The Salvation Army has at least one great qualification for dealing with this question I believe I am in the proud position of being at the head of the only religious body which has always some of its members in gaol for conscience' sake. We are also one of the few religious bodies which can boast that many of those who are in our ranks have gone through terms of penal servitude. We, therefore, know the prison at both ends. Some men go to gaol because they are better than their neighbours, most men because they are worse. Martyrs, patriots, reformers of all kinds belong to the first category. No great cause has ever achieved a triumph before it has furnished a certain quota to the prison population. The repeal of an unjust law is seldom carried until a certain number of those who are labouring for the reform have experienced in their own persons the hardships of fine and imprisonment. Christianity itself would never have triumphed over the Paganism of ancient Rome had the early Christians not been enabled to testify from the dungeon and the arena as to the sincerity and serenity of soul with which they could confront their persecutors, and from that time down to the successful struggles of our people for the right of public meeting at Whitchurch and elsewhere, the Christian religion and the liberties of men have never failed to demand their quota of martyrs for the faith. When a man has been to prison in the best of causes he learns to look at the question of prison discipline with a much more sympathetic eye for those who are sent there, even for the worst offences, than judges and legislators who only look at the prison from the outside. "A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind," and it is an immense