REBECCA JARRETT.
BY
JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of
mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of
the law, judgment, mercy, and faith.”—MATTHEW xxiii. 23.
“And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This Man receiveth
sinners, and eateth with them.”—LUKE xv. 2.
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REBECCA JARRETT.
The trial is over. Our tongues are now loosed; and we can speak. And we
_will_ speak. The whole nation will speak, I doubt not, for William
Stead, about whose noble sacrifice of himself there is only one opinion.
It is not needful for me to add my mite of testimony to the character of
that man, whom I am proud to have called my friend for many years.
What I have to do is to speak of REBECCA JARRETT. I am prompted to do so
by my love and pity for her; and also in response to multitudes of
letters pouring in upon me, from men and women alike, expressing an
opinion of her differing very much from that given in all the “leaders”
of the London Press on the morning after the verdict.
And now I am about to speak the exact truth. I shall not attempt to
clear her from the blame which attaches to her on account of her
wavering in regard to truth under the cross-examination, nor for the
distinct falsehood which she uttered when pressed about her past life.
All I wish to do is to present the exact truth about her, in justice to
herself, and to Mr. Stead, for whom she acted; and also to give some
incidents of personal history, which may tend not only to palliate these
departures from truth of which she was guilty, but to show that the
situation in which she was placed was pathetic—even tragic—and one from
which there was, humanly speaking, no escape.
I accept gladly such an amount of contempt, or half-scornful pity, as
has been publicly expressed for myself on account of my having been
duped, as is supposed, by this poor woman. While sitting in the Court
during the Judge’s summing up, and observing how for the moment all
alike—the good, bad, and indifferent—who were present, as well as the
outside world, had for the time rounded upon this poor woman; and how
she was made, so to speak, the residuary legatee of all the errors and
mistakes committed by the other prisoners in the dock; and observing
that this poor creature—the “fallen woman”—was made the scapegoat, the
convenient burden-bearer, upon whose shoulders execration, and blame,
and contempt might be heaped _ad libitum_ without protest from any—I
thought, What a picture this is of the condition of the world at large!
Down all the ages, since that hour when Christ and the outcast woman
were face to face in the Temple, and every man in the surrounding crowd
was pointing the finger of scorn at her, the world has continually been
pointing the finger at this typical figure of woe, as the scapegoat upon
whom, justly or unjustly, the sins and miseries of society must be
heaped. The question has always been, “What shall we do with her?” Never
till this last “new era” has dawned upon us, has it been asked, “What
shall we do with _him_?”—him, her companion in sin. And now at last this
woeful figure stands forth, perhaps for the first time in the world’s
history, as a fellow-worker in a great and noble cause for the
emancipation of women from galling slavery to vice and to the hard
judgment of men.
My thoughts were many and deep: but a great calm pervaded my soul; for
above all the scorn and contempt expressed for that woman, in which I
was glad to be to some extent included—above all the wrangling and
injustice of that Court—I saw, as on a throne of light, the figure of
_her_ Saviour and _mine_; and I recalled that scene when He, sitting at
the dinner-table of Simon the Pharisee, was judged with the same
worldly-wise pity and scorn which was now falling upon Rebecca and me.
Simon, the gentleman, the man of the world, the righteous man, said,
“This man (Christ), if he were a prophet (or even if he were a man of
any common sense or knowledge of the world), would have known who and
what manner of woman this is that toucheth Him; for she is a sinner.” I
heard the whispers near me, “If Mrs. Butler had not been such a fool,
she would have known what kind of woman this is, and would never have
trusted her.” And I was _well content_.
It is very probable that if that poor woman of the city, who was a
sinner, who washed the feet of Jesus with her tears, had been called a
few weeks later into a Court of Law in Jerusalem, and been placed for
one long day and-a-half face to face with a sharp and clever
Attorney-General, to answer concerning her past life, she also might
have stumbled and wavered, in order to save other poor sinners like
herself, whom she would have necessarily involved in any full revelation
of her past. And yet all the time she loved God; and her sins, which
were many, were forgiven her.
I shall give a brief sketch of the life of REBECCA JARRETT, without
entering into the details of its darkest incidents, which have been
already sufficiently dragged to light at the Old Bailey. I think that,
after reading it, any impartial person, knowing anything of our poor
human nature, will say that, if she misled Mr. Stead, as the verdict of
the Jury declares, she did not mislead him intentionally. She was put in
an exceptionally difficult position for a person of her poor education
and miserable antecedents. Her head ached and her brain reeled under
those long hours of cross-examination, and her memory (never a good one)
often failed her; but I, who knew her most intimately, here record my
profound and unshaken conviction that throughout her heart was true—true
to the cause which she had learned to love as we do—true to me, and true
to Mr. Stead, whom she had heartily desired to help in the work which
she had learned to see to be necessary.
The public has not had a fair chance of judging of the whole case, the
newspaper reports having been imperfect, and in many cases one-sided. It
is no pleasure to me or to my fellow-workers to speak ill of Mrs.
Armstrong and Mrs. Broughton; but in justice to Rebecca, the
extraordinary nature of their evidence ought to be recalled. Mrs.
Armstrong stated, under cross-examination, “If I said that, then, at Bow
Street, I told a lie.”[1] She accused her little daughter of having told
a lie; she accused Mrs. Broughton of having told a lie.
Footnote 1:
With regard to failure of memory, it will be remembered that the
newspaper reports stated that Mrs. Armstrong, when under
cross-examination, contradicted her own previous evidence six times,
besides contradicting her husband, her daughter, and Jane Farrer.
Mr. Stead cross-examined Mrs. Armstrong somewhat closely as to what
specific statements, or allusions, or clue of any kind, there were in
the “Lily” paragraph of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ article, which first
kindled her suspicions, and led her to conclude that her child was the
victim referred to. Stead’s avowed object in this was to show the Jury
that unless Armstrong had really sold her child, and had therefore _a
guilty conscience_, it was strange for her to alight on the “Lily”
paragraph as referring to herself and her daughter.
Thereupon the Judge stopped Stead with this remark:—“I suppose you
will contend by and by that this child was sold, and that, knowing
that, you took it to rescue it from evil. I suppose that is the story
that will be told; but _it does not appear to me that the question of
what passages caused her to identify ‘Lily’ as her daughter will help
the defence you must by and by set up_.”
Now, it must be obvious to every impartial person that if Stead could
have shown by the witnesses’ evidence that there was not sufficient in
the article to justify her in assuming “Lily” was her daughter _unless
she had a guilty knowledge of the transaction described_, he would
have rebutted one of the charges brought against him. And yet the
Judge checked the examination!
The Judge waited until this point had been further pressed upon
Armstrong by Stead, and then remarked to Stead:—“I think you have got
_enough_ now to enable you to urge upon the Jury that the conduct of
Mrs. Armstrong was not consistent with that of an honest and
affectionate mother.”
All this seemed to have slipped out of the memory of the Judge when he
pleaded so tenderly for these witnesses, saying that there were
certainly some discrepancies in their evidence; but what could they
expect from poor ignorant women under severe cross-examination? The same
leniency was not asked for by the Judge in the case of Rebecca, whose
“discrepancies” were of a somewhat different nature from those of the
witnesses above named.
Now, regarding that terrible falsehood of which so much has been
said—and which, as Rebecca said, was forced out of her by the
Prosecution, in order to discredit the whole of her evidence—I must give
a few words of explanation, such as they are. The motive for that lie
was one which I have heard several good men say almost forces one to
respect the poor woman. It will be recollected that certain companions
of her former life—men—had come down to Winchester, and during a period,
from a fortnight to three weeks, had haunted our neighbourhood and
shaken Rebecca’s nerves and feelings exceedingly by their threats. These
were her former friends and companions of many years past, bound to her,
as she was to them, by ties of natural affection, which are often
exceedingly strong among the most criminal classes. The very fact that
they are themselves the pariahs of society sometimes increases that
strong affection. In Rebecca that affection resembles almost the fierce
love of the tigress for those whom her natural instinct leads her to
defend.
The following are the facts, which contrast curiously with the
hypothesis of the Attorney-General, distinctly stated in Court, that
“the man Sullivan was a myth.” The man Sullivan, with others, believing
Rebecca to be in a good position, probably making money—and fearful that
her breach with them, which she had declared to them must be final,
would lead to inconvenient consequences to themselves—used threats
which, doubtless, they might have carried out had they had the
opportunity. After a time I reluctantly appealed for protection to the
Winchester police, who acted most kindly towards us, watching these men,
and keeping a kind of guard over Rebecca.
The annoyance continued, however, for some time; and she became sad and
troubled in appearance. She came to us one day and said, “I have made up
my mind; I can bear it no longer. They are my old friends, and I am
grieved for them; I want them to turn over a new leaf and be good men.
Will you let me send all my girls from the cottage for the forenoon to
the House of Rest, so as to leave me quietly alone in the cottage? I
will then ask my old friends in, and have it out with them.”
I agreed, though not without some fear, for I had learned to understand
the conflicting motives which worked in poor Rebecca’s mind—the intense
love for her old friends and relatives, opposed by the inward vow never
to return to them, and to break with all her past sinful life and
companionships.
She carried out her plan, however. The men came in, and sat on chairs
placed for them opposite to her. She spoke to them long and earnestly.
She pleaded with them for their own souls’ sake; she told them of what
God had done for her; she showed them in the cottage the proofs of the
kind of life she was now living, and of the mission she was carrying
out, under our auspices. They could not mistake the character of that
little home of peace and love—the Bibles and hymn-books lying about, the
texts on the walls, the neatness, the evidences of industry, the cheap
contrivances to make the poverty of the place even tasteful and
attractive. The men were touched for the moment. They saw the reality of
what she had stated to them concerning her change of life. They left her
quietly, but not before she had renewed to them her solemn promise never
to bring them into trouble; and this time the promise was made, not as
formerly, but in the name of the God whom she had learned to love, and
as a Christian and a changed woman. The men were understood to receive
her assurance as a proof of the sincerity of her change of heart, their
natural feelings being, “Oh, now that you have turned a good woman, of
course you will show us up.” It must be apparent how solemn were the
feelings in Rebecca’s heart of the obligation never to harm them by any
revelation made by her or step taken by her.
They afterwards went back from their better state of mind, and renewed
their persecution: and this it was that decided us to send Rebecca away
for a time from Winchester. A proof of my confidence in her may be seen
in this—that I refused to give up the mission work and the cottage so
long as there was a hope of her returning to it. I kept a place open for
her; and it was not true, as Inspector Borner endeavoured to represent
it in Court, that she had fled from fear of discovery, and that the
cottage had been hastily closed. It was not given up for some three or
four weeks later; and Rebecca herself wrote a letter from Jersey giving
detailed advice as to what she thought we had better do, namely, to send
“Katie” to one situation, “Emily” to another, and so on: and then, as
she said, “Shut up the cottage until better times.”
Bearing in mind Rebecca’s solemn promise, made as a reformed woman and a
Christian, and then following her to the witness-box on the first day of
cross-examination, we can see how terrible was the position in which she
was placed. She was ignorant of the old and well-known method of
prosecuting Counsel, to take a poor man or woman whose life has been a
bad one, all through the past years, and drag out of him or her
confessions which the questioner knows well how to use.
The questioner knows perfectly well that there are points at which the
wretched witness will hesitate, and that he has probably grave reasons
for concealing certain facts about which he is asked; and so possibly a
falsehood is forced out, and then the prosecutor, in a tone of high and
outraged virtue, points out that not one single word of all that that
perjured witness says can now be believed.
We, Rebecca’s friends, saw the device in advance; we saw the fatal snare
laid for her: but she, poor soul! did not. She answered truly as far as
she could, until it came to the giving of an address which would have
involved _others_ in trouble. Then there flashed across her the promise
made in her evil days, and the promise made later from better motives,
under her new character. There rose afresh in her mind the desire that
those to whom she had given her promise should see that a reclaimed
woman would not break her word. She was standing between two oaths—the
first, made to her old friends; the second, made in the witness-box, to
speak “nothing but the truth.”
Reader, were you ever in such a position?—between two solemn promises,
both of which you desired to keep, but which were opposed the one to the
other? If you ever were, you can feel for this weak young convert to
truth, and you can pity her weakness. Yes, she told a lie. She looked
across the Court at me with an expression on her pale face which I shall
never forget.
That night, on returning to her lodgings, she spent several hours on her
knees, weeping as if her heart would break; no word of consolation
availed for her. It was in vain to try to comfort her. She cried, and
screamed to God, “O God, I have told a lie; I have perjured myself in
the witness-box; I have lied before the world; I have ruined this cause,
and I have got all my kind friends into trouble! And yet, O God, Thou
knowest _why_ I did it—oh, Thou knowest _why_ I did it. Look into my
heart; Thou knowest why I did it!”
She was very stupid—very blundering. What she ought to have done was, on
the first day of cross-examination to refuse, as she did on the second
day, to give any evidence at all concerning years long passed, which had
nothing whatever to do with the case of Eliza Armstrong. She was not
sharp enough to see that. Meanwhile, Inspector Borner had been sent down
by the Government to the places mentioned, and came back with the
triumphant news that she had given a false address.
In the witness-box, on the second day, poor Rebecca, seeing the snare
into which she had fallen, in a voice full of pain, said to the
Attorney-General:
“You forced that lie out of me; you make people tell lies.”
Then she took up the attitude which she ought to have assumed at first,
of a distinct refusal to say one other word concerning her past life.
“If you want to know about that,” she said, “you have got to find it out
for yourself.”
During the whole of that day she was cross-examined; she suffering in
health, her head aching, and her brain reeling. Any one who has ever
been, for only a quarter of an hour, under the ruthless
cross-examination of a Government Prosecutor, knows something of what it
is. With all the desire in the world to speak the exact truth, one feels
one may be any moment tripped up, especially by the repeated demand to
answer, “Yes or No;” a demand which sometimes cannot possibly be obeyed
consistently with truth.
I do not attempt to deal in detail with the discrepancies between the
evidence given by Rebecca, concerning her account given to Mr. Stead of
her transaction in Charles Street, and Mr. Stead’s own account of that
given in the _Pall Mall Gazette_. I must say that those discrepancies do
not seem to me so very extraordinary as the Judge or the
Attorney-General appeared to believe them to be. Let us recall the
circumstances.
I saw Mr. Stead frequently during the time of his “descent into hell.” I
say now, as I have said before, that that man combines the deepest
tenderness of a compassionate woman with the manly indignation and wrath
of a man—a father, whose feelings are outraged by crimes committed
against innocent maidens, the helpless, and the young. At the time that
he was making his investigations, those who saw him were sometimes
almost afraid for his reason. He scarcely slept. We know what his nights
were, when he, a pure-minded man, nurtured in the most refined and
sternly Christian home, was going through the agony of visiting the
infamous houses of the West End, where the leaders of the conspiracy of
gold and lust reign triumphant. He was night after night seeing sights
which made his brain reel and his heart bleed. At times he was tempted
to give up all faith in God, in justice, in the atoning sacrifice, and
the love of Christ.
“It is a sham,” he would cry, “a horrible sham, the whole of our
professed Christianity and civilization.”
He felt as a man walking on the thin crust of a burning volcano, which
might at any moment break under the feet of our people and let them down
into the gulf beneath. His eyes were like burning coals within his
brain. He had to pass rapidly from one part of his work to another with
scarcely any interval of rest. He himself has confessed he did not take
notes at the time of his conversation with Rebecca. An interval of some
weeks passed before he wrote the story, which he, however, confidently
believed he was writing truly as from Rebecca’s lips.
Rebecca herself, true as steel at her heart, was, as Mr. Stead has said,
“muddled and confused in brain.” The troubles and long illnesses of her
past life have not left her with the best of memories or the clearest
power of expression. Between those two there arose some confusion in the
recital of certain facts; but to me it appears that these facts were not
vital to the case. She distinguished between the terms “brothel” and
“bad house,” and Mr. Stead did not. Mr. Stead stated that she told him a
certain house was a brothel. In the witness-box she said, “No, it was
not; but it was a ‘bad house.’” The one term in her mind represented a
house where immoral persons reside for immoral purposes; the other more
of the character known in France as a house of assignation.
But the lines between the two expressions were not to her so distinct as
they might seem to the learned Judge; nor, indeed, are they at all
clearly defined by the police in their occasional raids upon the vices
of the poor, and their more than occasional overlooking of the houses of
ill-fame to which rich and high-placed profligates resort. The police
apply these terms with remarkable freedom, in accordance with certain
principles which guide them in their official action.
While Rebecca was speaking, in answer to the Judge, of her old friend
Broughton, she had, I believe, before her mind the promise she told us
had been made to “Nancy,” that she would not get her into trouble. This
accounts for her evidence against Nancy having been softened down in the
Court, and thus not wholly agreeing with the description of her former
friend which she had given to Mr. Stead. Here, again, the motive of
regard enters for her former friends and companions whom she desired to
spare. No one can say, who saw her under that fearful day of
cross-examination, that Rebecca tried to shelter _herself_. She was
forced in the most cruel manner to speak of her past life, and of
incidents and shameful things in it which had no bearing whatever on the
present case. But she did not shrink from what affected herself. Her
wavering began and ended where loyalty to her old friends came in.
In the month of May, while talking to Rebecca of the way in which God
had drawn her out of her wretched life, I asked her several questions,
and she replied, “I will write some day for you a little history of my
life in my poor way.” “This is just for yourself,” she said. She did so;
and turning over my papers to-day I find an old copy-book in which there
is the following record in her own handwriting, and with her own poor
defective spelling and grammar. I give it as it is:—
“THE HISTORY OF A RESCUED WOMAN.
“ISAIAH lix. 1.—‘Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it
cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear.’
“ISAIAH liv. 7, 8.—‘For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with
great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from
thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on
thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.’
“Rebecca Jarrett was born of respectable parents, her father being a
good tradesman; but through his excessive drinking brought on failure of
business, and early death of the father, the mother having to struggle
hard with seven children. Rebecca being the youngest, and the only
daughter, as would be expected, the mother lavished a good share of her
love and care on her. This daughter lived at home with her mother till
the age of fifteen, being brought up in a private school; but the chief
thing was neglected in the bringing up of this daughter—the name of
Jesus was never mentioned, nor a prayer thought of by this loving mother
for her family. So Rebecca was brought up in ignorance of her Redeemer
and Saviour.
“At the age of fifteen she entered into service, but only stopped one
month in her first place, remaining at home again for seven weeks. Then
she was taken into a good family as housemaid, being tall of stature;
and after living there for five months (she was then a little over
fifteen) she came in contact with one of the gentlemen visitors, who by
flattery and presents led her to meet him in the evening unknown to her
mistress.
“On a Good Friday she went for a day’s holiday to her home. After having
tea with her mother and brothers, she left that home, not to enter it
again for some years; for that evening, as she was returning home to her
master’s house, she was met by this deceiver and led away from the path
of virtue. By making some excuses for her absence she was taken back to
her place, but still carrying on this sin till she could hide her state
no longer. She was bound to leave her place. From there she went to
Southampton, where she was met by this gentleman, who accompanied her to
St. Helier’s, Jersey, where she was left alone by him to get over her
trouble under the care of a Frenchwoman.
“In January a little girl was born. She was then taken to Fairfield, in
Derbyshire, with her child, where she lived for two years with this man
as his mistress, till another child was born. He then took her to
Manchester and placed her in a house of ill-fame to get a living for
herself and her two children, which she did for twelve months, carrying
on a sinful career and giving way to drink and all kinds of vice.
“She afterwards met with an accident from a fall, by which she sustained
the injury to her hip which lamed her for life. She was laid up for a
considerable time in an infirmary. On leaving the infirmary, she found
that her two children had been taken away from her; the father claimed
one, and the other died. This loss of her children broke that young
woman’s heart. The one was put away in some school which she could not
trace. They kept it from her, as they said she was leading a bad life,
and was, therefore, not a fit mother to have the charge of her children.
About that time she was advised to go into a Home; but her heart was
turned to bitterness on finding herself scorned by all who knew her, and
the one thing she had been longing for and living for, she had been
deprived of—to hear the voice of her children. One fond word from them
would have woke up her mother’s heart within her, and made her try to do
better. To feel their little arms around her neck once again, and to
hear them call her ‘mother’ once again! Though they were the children of
sin, yet she had a mother’s love for them; but they were gone from her
for ever.
“Some kind hands were put out to help her then, but she refused all
help, and returned with her mother to London, where she drowned her
sorrow in drink. She afterwards made several attempts to begin again a
respectable life, but fell from one sin to another. She then met with a
man who took her about as his wife. He was a commercial traveller, but
he could not give her the peace and rest which her heart was longing
for; and from this time she entered still further into sin by taking
four more of her poor sisters, to join her in her sinful career of life.
Oh, my kind friends, where was God during all this time not to awaken
her up? Why was her heart so hardened not only for herself, but to lead
her younger sisters into sin?
“It would have been well if her sins were ended here; but they did not.
For after awhile a larger house was taken, and more poor girls were
taken in. What horror to think that she was the cause of many of those
poor girls being introduced into a life of sin and vice; some of them
leaving their homes—father and mother, perhaps, far away in the country;
some led away by false deceivers, who, to gain their purpose, bring them
to these houses.
“The girls thus brought in are led to believe they are being taken to
some of their friends, and when they enter they find the house filled
with poor unfortunates; and then with drink they are soon overpowered,
and the seducer gains his purpose. After this the poor girls mostly feel
there is no rise for them now; they dare not let their friends know what
has happened; so they stop where they are, and give themselves up to an
evil life. The great condemnation is for that landlady to encourage such
sin. Such is the history of Rebecca Jarrett.
“Once a poor girl came from Exeter, and having lost her situation, came
to Rebecca to live where she was. She afterwards caught cold; but no
notice was taken of it, till at last the doctor was sent for.
Inflammation of the lungs was pronounced to be very bad, till she found
she could not get over it. She then thought of her Sunday-school and her
aged parents. She asked Rebecca to pray; but no one in that house knew
how to pray, and could not do so. Her parents were sent for from Exeter;
but she was dead when they came. She died the same morning, and with no
prayer offered up for her. Rebecca cannot now bear to think of the day
when that father and mother came to witness that loved daughter dead in
that house.
“You can guess what were the feelings of Rebecca, who had led her into
sin, when she saw the look of that father and mother, who knew that she
had helped their daughter to her sinful career. What sharp remorse, and
what despair she felt! Will God ever forgive her? For that one soul did
she not deserve to be cast down in her sins? But she did not listen to
the voice of God even then, her heart was so hardened; she still went on
in her sins.
“I fancy I can hear you say, ‘It was time she was cut down,’ but Jesus
Christ did not think so. She was taken from London to Northampton by a
man, leaving her house in the care of her mother and brothers, who had
come to live with her. She had been a week at Northampton, when she was
down ill of bronchitis. The doctor came and ordered her to keep her
room. She was left a great deal alone at that time. And now it was that
God began to awaken her from the sleep of death in which she had been
for thirteen long years, ‘having her understanding darkened, being
alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that was in her,
because of the blindness of her heart; who, being past feeling, had
given herself over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with
greediness’ (Eph. iv. 18). ‘Behold, these three years I come seeking
fruit on this fig tree, and find none: cut it down; why cumbereth it the
ground? Lord, let it alone this year also’ (Luke xiii. 7).
“Rebecca was very ill, and no one to look to her, except the landlady of
the lodging, who belonged to the Salvation Army; and by her speaking to
the Captain of the Northampton Corps, unknown to Rebecca, she came to
visit her. Rebecca was extremely rude to her at her first and second
visits, but in consequence of her loving care and attention to her while
she was so ill, she allowed her to come often; but she would not listen
to the message of salvation which the Captain wished to give her.
“Still this noble woman would not be daunted in the work for her Master.
She got Rebecca to go and live with her in her own house, and as she
found that talking was of no use, she just lived her life of a good
Christian before Rebecca, which made a great impression on her; so that
at last she consented to come up to London to Mrs. Bramwell Booth’s
Refuge.
“She got very unsettled again, and longed to go back to her old home;
but dear Mrs. Booth prevailed with her, though it sometimes took many
hours’ pleading and praying for her: and even then she was not saved.
But the great conflict had begun. She was rescued the 21st December. In
the following January, while at Mrs. Booth’s, she came across some of
her old companions, who pressed her to go home, with the excuse that her
mother was ill and the house going out of order.
“On the 14th January they noticed her packing her box, and began to
question her about the meaning of it; and she told them she was going
back home again. Mrs. Bramwell Booth spent the whole of the morning, and
the next day, pleading with her; but it seemed of no use. In the
afternoon the kind friends still would not give her up. Dear Mrs. Booth,
Miss Sapsworth, and all of them, kneeled around her as a last resource.
They gave her into God’s hands, and asked Him not to let her go, for the
sake of her own soul, and for the sake of the poor girls whom she had
kept in her house.
“The conflict was great, for Rebecca had to give up her home and
relatives, and to cast herself, entirely dependent, on the hands of
strangers. But God was strong to deliver, and He helped the kind
friends; for at five o’clock that day, after seven hours of prayer and
pleading, God gave the victory, and Rebecca fell down at the feet of
Christ Jesus and acknowledged her misery and sin. And He who had watched
over her during all these years of sin took her that night and washed
her in his own precious blood from every stain.
“After this Rebecca was taken ill, and had to go to hospital. Mrs. Booth
thought it was best for her to leave London, as she had a bad hip, and
they sent her to Mrs. Butler’s hospital Home at Winchester to rest for a
time, and get her away from all her friends in London; as her own mother
and brothers would be looking to her for support, and the man she had
lived with, and others, were doing all they could to get her to come
back. This made her new course of life very difficult. She was more than
two months in the hospital (House of Rest), but was often wavering and
unsettled in mind.”
Rebecca goes on to tell of a deepening of the work of grace in her own
soul; especially speaking of a day in April, when, after many hours of
inward conflict, she rose from her knees with a beaming face. She then
continues:—
“Till then Rebecca had always had the idea when she prayed that she was
speaking to God, but that He was far away from her; but on this day in
April it was different. She felt as if she had that day met with Jesus,
and she has kept closer to Him since that day. ‘God be thanked, that ye
were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of
doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye
became the servants of righteousness’ (Rom. vi. 17).
“After staying awhile longer in the Winchester House of Rest, God put it
into Miss Humbert’s heart to go out into the streets at night and seek
those poor fallen girls. So on the first Saturday night after this Miss
Humbert took Rebecca with her to try and undo some of the evil she had
done, by speaking to her poor lost sisters in the streets and in the
public-houses. (Rebecca, who had been very lame from hip disease,
recovered the power of walking somewhat suddenly during a time of
earnest prayer that God would heal her completely; and after this she
walked without fatigue for many hours a day in her mission work.) Twelve
of those girls were spoken to on the first night of the mission, and on
the following Monday were visited in their homes; and from that time
Rebecca went on working for her poor sisters.
“A cottage, to which we gave the name of ‘Hope Cottage,’ was got for
her, so that Rebecca could take her poor sisters home with her when she
rescued them; and, thank God, one was rescued from a bad house after two
years of a sinful life, even before they had got the furniture into the
cottage. A week later another was brought in who had been leading a
sinful life fourteen years. She was broken down in body; but God called
her at the eleventh hour to give up all sin, and give herself to Him.
Another and another was got in; and then some of these rescued ones went
down to Portsmouth and visited over forty houses of ill-fame. They got
their poor sisters to come home with them to their lodging, and gave
them tea, and afterwards spoke to them about God. They might have got
some of these poor girls to have stopped altogether if they had only had
a place to bring them to. Some under the age of fourteen were carrying
on the life of prostitution, sometimes in company with men over forty
years of age—old enough to be their grandfathers.
“You, dear friends, who read this history will hardly realize it is
true; but you have a living witness of the truth of it. This is not
written in order to speak of the sinful past; but to encourage Christian
friends to help the poor rescued ones on their new life—for the struggle
is hard. No one knows but those who have gone through it.
“I would like to say it was not the being shut up in a Home for a length
of time that won Rebecca, or brought her to God. It was the love and
kindness of those around her. If love and kindness will not bring them
to God, no locking up in a Home will. Often on our visits we hear the
girls tell us they have been in such and such a Home; and when they get
out they have again sunk as deep in sin. Dear friends, speak to these
poor creatures, and tell them you love them, and let them see that you
love them; and then they will believe in God’s love. I write this from
my own experience; this is how I was won for Jesus by my friends in
Winchester and London: not by preaching to, but by their love for me—a
poor, miserable sinner, scorned by all men.”
To this account of herself I must add—what Rebecca cannot so well
tell—some details of the work she did in Winchester. It was from my
observation of her, and her influence amongst the most degraded of men
and women, that I conceived the idea of a little Mission School of
reclaimed women, who might be trained to go forth to seek and save the
lost of their own sex. So far as we were able to carry out this idea, we
found it wonderfully fruitful; and I do not mean to lose sight of it on
account of a temporary check.
Rebecca’s influence here was something extraordinary. Her love and pity
for the worst sinners were genuine and unbounded. She shrank from
nothing that might have been repulsive or difficult to a more refined or
less loving nature. She went straight into the worst and lowest dens of
infamy, choosing frequently for her most arduous work the Saturday
night, when drunkenness most prevails. She would stand in the midst of a
den full of men and women of the lowest type, get them down on their
knees, pray with them and for them, and teach them to pray; and when
other persuasions failed, she related to them what she herself had been,
and what God had done for her.
The reality of what she thus recorded struck home; many faces turned to
her in wonder, and the fact that she had been one of themselves and now
ardently desired their salvation, seemed to have a power to win their
hearts and to overcome their incredulity, beyond any power which the
words of a more blameless person might have had. Her influence was great
with those low drunken men who abound in towns where the Contagious
Diseases Acts have been in force; lazy scoundrels who disdain work, and
live upon the prostitution of those poor creatures (formerly Government
prostitutes), whom they tyrannize over, and often treat most cruelly.
One of these, who afterwards attended our meetings like a man “clothed,
and in his right mind,” came lately, on hearing of her visit to
Winchester, to express his gratitude to her for what she had done for
him.
A man and his wife, who had kept a notorious house of ill-fame for a
great number of years in Winchester, were persuaded by her to give up
their house, and induced even to co-operate with her in helping some of
the inmates to a better life; and they themselves, yielding to her
persuasion, took rooms near her, not far from the cottage. Their evil
house was closed, and remains closed to this day. This place had
withstood the repeated efforts of the police and of philanthropists; and
at last succumbed to the simple persuasions and strong love of this poor
woman—the same who during the recent weeks has been made the object of
the fullest vocabulary of scorn, hatred, and contempt.
The man and his wife, above referred to, hearing that Rebecca was with
us for a few days in the interval between the hearing at Bow Street and
the trial at the Old Bailey, came to us begging that they might “just
see her here for one moment to say, ‘God bless you,’” and added, “for
what should we have been but for her?”
I must again mention Mary ——, to whom I recently referred in speaking at
Exeter Hall. She was a handsome woman, of superior intelligence and
nature, who had lived in great sin, and was bound in that life by
affection to a man who, though not worthy of it, seemed to exercise a
strange spell over her. Week after week, Rebecca pleaded with her in the
streets, with tears and most earnest entreaties; and at last she
prevailed. The poor woman came, suffering and ill, to Hope Cottage, too
ill indeed to be properly received there; but Rebecca welcomed her, and
she was put into an upper room, and nursed with the utmost tenderness
and unwearying love by Rebecca, in circumstances which to most people
would have been almost intolerable. It was one of those cases in which
the sufferer becomes a mass of corruption before death. The inhabitants
of the neighbouring cottages were so annoyed that they made a formal
complaint: in consequence of which it became necessary at last to remove
her to the pest-house of the Union, where she died. But during her
sojourn with Rebecca, this poor Mary —— thought she was “in heaven.” The
love of the woman who did everything for her with her own hands,
although faint from the sickening odour of the wounds she had to dress,
won that poor soul. She saw what the Saviour of sinners was, through the
faint likeness of Him reflected in this poor Rebecca. She accepted the
message of salvation which Rebecca brought to her.
We were obliged to take precautions, and remove other inmates from the
house. Rebecca felt constantly sick, but never uttered the slightest
expression of disgust; and if her task was spoken of to her as a
sacrifice, she repudiated the idea, and said, “Oh no, I would do
anything for her; I love her so much.”
When these things passed before my mind in the Law Court, during the
five long hours of summing up, in the course of which the most
dishonourable epithets were applied to this “disgusting and abominable
woman,” I again recalled that scene in the Temple, where a sinful woman
stood in the midst of a crowd of accusers; and I thought, If the Lord
Jesus Christ had entered that Court of Law, and standing in the midst,
had said to all present, from the highest to the lowest, “Let him that
is without sin among you cast the first stone at her”—would any have
moved? How many would have left the Court? How many would have remained?
Rebecca Jarrett’s vindication has yet to come. _But it will come._ I
wondered if such an act of self-sacrificing love could ever come even
within the range of the imagination of many in that Court; and I
remembered that there is a God in heaven, who, while man’s condemnation
was falling so crushingly on her, was not and will not be unmindful of
“her labour of love.”
The success of the mission on which I sent Rebecca to Portsmouth,
accompanied by two of her rescued friends, who were being trained in the
Cottage, has been testified to by others resident there, who continued
to write urging us to allow her to come again. I take a few extracts
from the little Journal which she kept at that time at my request. It is
headed by the words, “Is not the Lord gone out before thee?”
“May 4th.—Took lodgings in Portsmouth. Went to a Salvation Army meeting.
Asked God for fresh courage for the work.
“May 5th.—A wet day. Plenty of work for us. Visited in —— ——, No. 27,
Mrs. S—— and three girls; Mrs. P——, No. 28; Mrs. T——, No. 29, a Roman
Catholic, and three girls. Spoke to two; one promised to come to us.
Visited Nos. 31, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42. No. 44, full of girls.
“May 6th.—Went visiting the ‘bad houses’ three hours in the afternoon.
Katie and Mrs. S—— spoke to five; and I and Katie went for three hours
at night to Queen Street. Stopped about nine girls. Spoke and prayed in
the evening meeting of the Salvation Army.”
The same kind of report follows of May 7th, giving addresses of ten
houses visited.
Similar reports for following days.
At the end of the mission, when they left Portsmouth—where they were
most lovingly helped by Salvation Army friends—some of these poor girls
followed them to the station with grateful offerings of humble bouquets
of flowers, wishing them God-speed. They quickly recognized those who
really loved them.
My own relations with Rebecca are illustrated by the following letter,
written by me to her at Portsmouth. I find it among her little treasures
left behind with me:—
“THE CLOSE,
“_May_.
“MY DEAREST REBECCA,—We have read with deep interest all your letters;
and our hearts are following you with love and earnest prayer. I know
the state of Portsmouth must make your heart sick with sorrow to see
vice reigning unrebuked, and souls perishing unrescued. The town is so
large; ‘the fields are white to the harvest, but the labourers are few.’
Don’t let yourself run short of _needful_ money, my dear, so long as you
think you can usefully remain where you are; for I am sure our God will
supply _me_ with the needful funds. I deeply sympathize with your wish
to go and preach Jesus to your former acquaintances in London; but you
must come back here first, dear Rebecca. The Cottage and the work do not
seem at all the same thing when you are away. Give my dear love to
Katie. I am so happy in thinking of you. Every blessing be with you.
“J. E. BUTLER.”
The following is an extract from one of her letters to my friend and
secretary, Miss Humbert, about the same time:—
“My heart is set upon the Winchester work. You have led me on
wonderfully in God’s service, which I never could have done without your
help. We shall be at Winchester at 3.42. I have two girls, I think,
coming; one a little girl of 14.[2] We are taking her from one of the
worst streets here. There are three sisters. We have begged the mother
to let them come home with us; but they will only let this one come. All
three are living in sin. And we have another, I think, of 20 years of
age. We believe we shall not come home empty-handed. Last night one of
the poor girls brought me two lovely bunches of flowers and a nice
geranium in a pot, and she says she will come to Winchester to me; but
she has got to sell her house. I have a lot to tell you when I come
home.”
Footnote 2:
In future Rescue Work of this kind, we must, _if Mr. Justice Lopes
rightly interprets the law_, be on our guard to obtain the formal
consent of the _father_ before any child is taken out of the life of
sin. We have always believed the mother’s consent was enough.
As the summer went on, Rebecca expressed the feeling sometimes that some
severe discipline was in store for her. She wrote in July to Miss
Humbert:—
“I feel there is some trouble coming. I could wish now I had never left
my home and undertaken this other affair. I love you all very much. Do
you think it would be best to shut up the Cottage for a time? I have
left them no money; for I had only 5s. If you will look at my books, I
only owe the baker for the bread; he never brought his book. I wish I
had you with me this afternoon to hear your loving words.
“Your grateful, rescued,
“REBECCA.”
The Attorney-General made much of the idea he had conceived, which
indeed has no foundation in fact—that Rebecca undertook the work she did
for Mr. Stead, because she knew that her whole future depended on her
doing it. “She knew,” declared the Attorney-General, “that she would
lose her position with Mrs. Butler;” her future with Mr. Stead would be
damaged; her whole prospects in life ruined—unless she did this thing.
In this, as in many other assertions, Sir R. E. Webster is absolutely
wrong. Rebecca had nothing either to gain or to lose by undertaking the
work of Mr. Stead. The pressure put upon her was far from being what the
Attorney-General asserted it to be. I said in my evidence in the Court
(but it was not reported in any newspaper) that Rebecca had lived
sufficiently long with me to have learned to share my convictions and
wishes concerning the mass of criminal vice existing in London and other
places.
Many a conversation have we had together in my own room or elsewhere on
this subject; and in our prayers together we have asked God to let in
the light upon this mass of wickedness, hitherto carefully shrouded by
the conspirators of greed and lust. She had wept before me over the
sufferings of the children; and when it was told her that Mr. Stead was
about to take some desperate action to draw the veil aside and overcome
the worst obstacle we had found opposed to us in the last fifteen
years—namely, the incredulity of good people as to the existence of
these crimes—she was ready to do her little best to help in the great
work. We were as sisters together, not “employer and employed”—as
reiterated by the Attorney-General and the Judge. She never received one
penny of pay from me, nor from any one here, nor from Mr. Stead. I
placed her here in the humble cottage, and gave her work to do; when her
boots or her gown were worn out I may have supplied her with some of my
own old clothing, as she always wished to have a neat appearance: and I
can testify to the fact that the comforts and adornments of the cottage
were of a very humble description; the food was very plain, and the
economy exercised by Rebecca was severe. I have all her little
account-books before me as I write; and it is touching to me to mark her
strict conscientiousness over every penny spent, and her plans for
saving, even perhaps to the disadvantage of herself and her girls, as
much as possible.