which proved to be too hard for her. I had her with me for several hours
previous to her going to London, and we talked the matter fully over: we
asked God to guide us; and to this hour I believe He did guide us, in
spite of our mistakes. If Rebecca had said, on leaving the room that
day, “Mrs. Butler, I cannot undertake this work,” I should have replied,
“All right, dear Rebecca, don’t attempt it. Go back to your work at the
Cottage.” She would not have incurred one moment’s displeasure from me;
and she knew it.
I here interpose a remark. It may be asked, What induced me to unite
with Mr. Stead in making use of so poor an instrument, so young a
convert, and one with so terrible a past history, for the difficult work
for which we engaged her? To this I reply that Mr. Stead needed for his
purpose an “ex-brothel-keeper:” that was the character he told me he
must have. He had tried several, who professed more or less of
sincerity. They each at the very outset got drunk, and made off with the
needful money he gave them to carry out his directions. Supposing that
you who ask the question wanted for an end—which certainly was a holy,
though a desperate one—such a character as this, where would you turn?
Is such a person easy to find for such a work? Is it usual to find one
who would have combined anything like a wish to serve a good cause with
the experience of a disreputable past? It must be obvious to you how
difficult it was to find the person wanted.
I do not wish to make any excuse for my own share in the hardihood and
imprudence to which I am ready to confess, and of which I was guilty in
asking Rebecca to undertake this difficult work; but in an exceptional
enterprise we were forced to use exceptional means; and I can echo the
words of Mr. Stead, that even our mistakes and want of wisdom have been,
and will be, overruled for the success of the great cause we have at
heart.
Supposing we had seen a house in flames, and we knew that in that house
were shut up a number of little children who must perish unless the
doors were broken open. The doors are barred: no entrance can be
effected except by a violent blow. We seize the first instrument we find
to our hand in the attempt to break open the door; but the instrument is
too feeble, and breaks in our hands. Will you blame us because of that
fact?—or will you not rather remember that one thought alone was present
to our minds; and that was the horrible fate that awaited those
children, and that our hearts were filled with the one absorbing desire
to save them?
Rebecca continued her Mission work in Winchester with success, after the
incident of the procuring of Eliza Armstrong, up to the 11th July, when
she left Winchester.
Much was said in the Court about the letter written by Rebecca to
Broughton on the 10th of June. It seems to have perplexed many people:
to me it was quite clear. My own friends at least will accept, as worthy
of credit, what I have to say concerning this; though I expect nothing
but derision from the cynics who posed during the Trial in pretended
astonishment over the hypocrisy of the woman who professed a desire for
the real good of a person who had sold her child.
I had followed Rebecca’s inmost thoughts and mind during all this
period. She felt that in acting the part imposed upon her, she had,
perhaps, done an unkind thing. Day after day her yearning after little
Eliza became more intense. I said to her on one occasion, “You seem to
have an extraordinary love for that child; how is it?”
She replied, “The child and I have gone through so much together—through
such strange scenes: and I do long to have her with me, to act straight
towards her and her poor mother, and to show them what I really am, and
what I feel towards them.”
I can attest that, beyond all doubt, poor Rebecca dwelt night and day
upon the thought of making the whole story “end well.” She built a sort
of castle in the air, in which she continually dwelt. Her plan—her
dream—was as follows: To get the child from Paris; to have her with us
here to train and teach her; then a little later to take her herself to
Charles Street, London, to present her to her mother and father, and to
Mrs. Broughton, and to make use of her own position towards her—as well
as the child’s well-being—to convince these poor people that she
(Rebecca) was indeed a changed character; and try to show them that, low
and sinful as she knew them to be, the same Saviour who had changed her
could change them, and enable them to live new lives.
We spoke together of a plan of inviting Mrs. Armstrong to come and stay
a few days at the Cottage. We would, Rebecca hoped, induce her to give
up the drink; and we would show her the happy life of those who had
really turned from their sins, and were serving God.
The end in view, in writing this letter and the subsequent postcards,
was the _conversion_ of these poor souls. Yes, in spite of all that the
Judge, the Attorney-General, the London Press, and ten thousand cynics
may say, this was the real and true feeling and purpose of Rebecca’s
heart. There are others, besides myself, who can testify to it.
The Attorney-General suggested that I am a weak and amiable person, who
could be made to believe anything by any poor wretch who chooses to
“pose” before me as a “Magdalen.” I have had a life-long experience of
the most unhappy of my own sex; compared with which the experience of
the gentlemen in the Court—even the most advanced in life—is that of
mere children. I cannot therefore be surprised at their crude judgments
in the matter. Some of them expressed wonder at Rebecca having a single
kindly thought toward Mrs. Armstrong. How little do they know of human
nature, in its conflicts, and wrestlings to free itself from sin, in its
flashes of generosity and high feeling, even in its worst estate! Men of
the world are wise, no doubt, in their generation; but often blind to
much which concerns the spiritual world and the deepest life of the
human soul. My astonishment was great, as I sat in that Court, at their
own confession of their deep ignorance of human nature.
That letter of the 10th June, then, clumsily (for Rebecca is clumsy in
all her ways and words) expressed the desire of the writer to prepare
the way for the interview with Mrs. Armstrong and Mrs. Broughton, which
was to be the beginning of a new chapter in the story; and the
beginning, she hoped, of blessing to their souls. No opportunity was
given me in the Court of throwing any light on this part—or any part—of
her actions, although I was known to be her most intimate friend; and we
were told, _ad nauseam_, that the question of “motive” could not be in
any way admitted.
What I here state is confirmed by the letters written later by Rebecca
to Mrs. Bramwell Booth, in which were the following expressions:—“Her
conscience reproached her,” she said, “for leaving the child alone among
a lot of foreigners.” “I am a mother myself, and have a mother’s heart.
I loved this little one as a mother does.” And the little one loved her;
and would have been well cared for if she had been left in Rebecca’s
hands.
I do not here enter into the details of the alleged “abduction” process,
of which we have heard enough and more than enough of contradictory
statements and conflicting views.
Among the incidents connected with the Old Bailey, I will just mention,
however, a conversation I had with Mrs. Bramwell Booth at the close of
one of the most painful days in Court. I quote only from memory: her
words were true and wise words.
Leaning sadly against a window, looking out on the Court, she said to
me: “Oh, Mrs. Butler, how little do these men know of the lives of the
_very poor_! How little do they understand what it is for a poor
creature to free himself or herself from vicious surroundings and the
wretched past! and how little do they know of God’s patient dealing with
such souls struggling out of darkness to light!”
“Our heathen in England,” I replied, “are in the position of the heathen
converts to whom St. Paul wrote as ‘dearly beloved in the Lord,’ and
‘called to be saints.’ Yet shortly afterwards he has to instruct these
same people in the first principles of morality. ‘Let him that stole
steal no more.’ Men must be honest, and work, and not live by rapine. He
has to rebuke them both for vices and crimes, such as incest, and for
drunkenness while partaking of the sacrament.”
“No,” she answered: “our highly-placed, worldly-wise gentlemen have no
real experience of the ignorant, wretched populations of heathen
England; else they would know that even when the heart of one of these
is thoroughly turned to God, perfectly sincere, and meaning to lead a
new life, the conscience still is for long enough covered with the rust
of past evil habits. They are strangers—absolute strangers—to the ethics
of Christianity in which we, more happily placed, have been carefully
trained from childhood. The conscience, even after conversion, has to be
trained and polished, so to speak. To us a lie, or even the approach to
prevarication, is a thing which we carefully avoid and condemn in
ourselves. To them, accustomed to lie, cheat, swear, etc., during their
whole lives, it is not so easy—even after the poor soul has come out
into the light, and is filled with the joy of salvation—to shake off the
habits of falsehood and prevarication. It is in vain to expect the full
education of a trained Christian in such converts drawn from the slums.”
Mrs. Booth continued:—“I think they would judge differently of the
sincerity of Rebecca, if they could have seen her as I have seen her in
the first weeks after her rescue. I have stood over her and wiped the
great drops of perspiration from her forehead, when for hours she has
wrestled in a kind of death-grip with her old temptation—the love of
strong drink. Once she had obtained a glass of spirits after some hours
of depressing faintness and exhaustion through her self-imposed
abstinence. With this standing before her, she prayed in an agony; I
watched her, prayed with her, and pleaded for her; and she conquered,
and thrust it from her. This may seem a little thing to persons who have
never been slaves to drink; but it is not a small thing; it is a test of
a real and desperate sincerity in one who has been a subject of that
raging passion.”
The following little note was written to me by Rebecca in the Old
Bailey, and passed along to me:—
“THE DOCK,
“_November 7th._
“DEAR MRS. BUTLER,—I do thank you very much for your love and kindness
to me during all this time of trouble; and more especially for your
confidence in me after all the terrible things you have heard said of me
by the Prosecution in this Court. I am not at all flinching from the
punishment which will be put upon me. God will be with me in prison, and
with all of us. What we did was done for a good end; and God will stand
by us all. But think of me; pray for me. You know how unwilling I was to
do all that; but I do not mind what people think of me. God knows all
about it. Remember me very kindly to Canon Butler, and to all I know at
Winchester—Miss Humbert, Mrs. Hillier, Mrs. Jones. My love and deepest
gratitude to yourself and your sister, Mrs. Meuricoffre. God bless you.
“From your REBECCA.”
Canon Butler, to whom she alludes with affection, has often testified to
his good opinion of her. He writes of her thus, in response to an
application from a friend:—
“THE CLOSE, WINCHESTER,
“_November, 1885_.
“I hear that Rebecca Jarrett is likely to suffer from prison treatment.
I cannot refrain from expressing a hope that she maybe treated with all
possible leniency during her imprisonment, for the following reasons:—
“(1.) She has suffered for some time from a weak hip, which frequently
troubled her when she was at the House of Rest.
“(2.) Because, when she was at Winchester, her conduct was excellent,
both as matron of a small cottage with several girls under her charge,
and as an active agent in rescue work.
“(3.) Because, whatever may have been her faults, I believe her to be a
sincere convert, and capable of being usefully employed for Christian
work.
“GEORGE BUTLER, D.D.,
“_Canon of Winchester_.”
I brought Rebecca home with me on the night of the 7th, after the
verdict. On Sunday, the 8th, we had a crowded meeting in our House of
Rest, to express sympathy with her. Canon Butler spoke on Paul and Silas
in prison, singing praises to God at the midnight hour. Rebecca said,
after the meeting:
“Don’t trouble about me, kind friends; I don’t mind the prison. This is
how I take it. I have been a great sinner in the past; and I take this
going to prison as a chastisement for my past, and not for what I did
for Mr. Stead, which I did with a good motive.”
When talking privately to Miss Humbert, she said, “I have been so tired
and knocked about. I do feel I would like to be alone with God in the
prison, even if it was for a year.”
I cannot help alluding, with gratitude, to the kindness and loyalty of
several of the barristers in the Court—for the most part young men—and
to their personal courtesy to us; to Mr. Read, who has twice been bail
for Rebecca; and to other friends whom I might mention. I am sure that
fortnight in the Old Bailey was an educating time to many.
Numerous great questions have been focussed in this bitter struggle;
amongst others, the question of the gradual slipping away of some of our
constitutional liberties, over which many of us have mourned for years.
I made my protest publicly, seven years ago, against the withdrawal of
the prisons of the country from local control, and the centralization of
their management in the Home Office. I foresaw the tyranny which might
henceforth be practised without hope of redress; for now, when an abuse
arises, or a prisoner is cruelly treated, we can only appeal from the
wrong-doer to the wrong-doer, from the tyrant to the tyrant; and we know
by experience how little hope of justice we have when we appeal to the
Government against the wrong-doing of its own officials.
Again, I protested publicly against the institution of the Public
Prosecutor. I know that it is pleaded that there are occasions when such
an institution is indispensable. It may be so; but I have observed for
many years past on the Continent—and now the same observation is
beginning to hold for England—that in cases where any question affecting
morality or the action of reformers of abuses is involved, the
Government, through its Public Prosecutor, almost invariably sides with
the vicious against the virtuous—almost invariably acts in the interests
of that portion of society which seeks to hide abuses by a conspiracy of
silence, by which all hope of reform is barred. We cherish the hope
that, in spite of the encroachment of principles foreign to the English
sense of freedom, the sacred institution of Jury-trial will continue in
its integrity, and that English Judges will continue to be impartial and
just, as in our past history they have for the most part been.
I can scarcely exaggerate the shock it was to my feelings, as a humble
watcher for many years for my poor country’s good, to hear that summing
up of Mr. Justice Lopes on Saturday, Nov. 7th, and the tone in which he
repeatedly impressed on the Jury that they had no alternative but to
find a verdict of guilty against two of the accused. He had previously
ruled out any question of the mother’s authority in disposing of her
child, and based the question entirely on that of the father; and then,
again and again, he reminded the Jury, that this being the case, and it
being clear that the father’s consent had not been obtained, they, the
Jury, could consequently pronounce but one verdict. Surely the country
will be on its guard in future as to what may be expected whenever a
Government prosecution is heard of in connection with any question of
this nature vital to the moral life of the people.
I was also surprised to hear the Judge say more than once that he did
not understand, and was astonished at, the interest which this case had
excited in the country. It is no defect of intellect which prevents the
appreciation by the Judge of the deep interest taken in this case by the
thousands in our land who appreciate the vital principles involved in
it. It is the habit of men of the world to look at all things from the
point of view of the conventional standard of society in which they
move—a society which seems to be becoming yearly more corrupt.
I am much mistaken in my reading of physiognomy if the majority of those
Jurymen were not themselves surprised at the Judge’s summing up. I
believe them to be honest men, who intended to be thoroughly just; but
they were placed in a difficult position, the ground having been so
narrowed on which they were to pronounce their verdict, and having been
forced to eliminate from their considerations all question of motive.
It is as true of human law as of Divine law, that “the letter killeth,
but the spirit giveth life.” It is equally true that, by a blind
adherence to technical formalities, administrators may find themselves
acting in direct opposition to the spirit of the law, while carrying it
out in the letter.
Mr. Auberon Herbert justly remarks that the time for free discussion of
the attitude of our judicial tribunals has come, when the lay sense of
justice and the legal sense of justice diverge. We are a law-abiding
people: hence it is all the more easy for a Judge, by basing his
decisions upon a merely technical idea of justice, to overawe and unduly
influence for a time the good and moral portion of the community, so as
to produce a temporary verdict outside the Law Courts which agrees with
that inside in condemning those who have rendered the highest service to
the nation by labouring to make the law more “honourable.” But that
verdict is only temporary. The real, well-considered verdict of the
nation is yet to come. Present events are educating the people in regard
to their own share of responsibility for the personal character and acts
of our judges and magistrates, as well as of our representatives in
Parliament.
William Stead, worn out and ill, has written in a moment of depression
words which I regret in his farewell leader in the _Pall Mall Gazette_.
He speaks of having had a fair trial; compliments the prosecution;
confesses himself to have been to blame; hopes that nothing will be done
to reverse the sentence. Against some of these expressions the country
will loyally protest, though we shall readily forgive our brave and
beloved friend for having fallen momentarily into such a tone.
Perhaps Mr. Stead may think that he himself was courteously treated; but
what of the courtesy or even decent fairness shown in regard to Rebecca,
upon whom the utmost of vituperation permissible in a Court of Law was
vented?
In conclusion, I think I scarcely need to say any word to those who have
been my fellow-workers in the cause of Purity for many years. They, I am
sure, rejoice, as I do, in the midst of all our trouble, that this
question has come fairly to the front, and that it can never be thrust
back again into darkness. God is using the blindness of our Government,
of the Press, and their supporters, to bring about some great revolution
for good which could not be born without agonizing birth-pangs. No great
thing has ever been done except through suffering. The Salvation Army
are not wrong in taking for their device the words—“Blood and Fire.”
Revolutionists for God and for purity must be ready to go through blood
and fire.
Though for the moment hearts may fail, and the wicked seem to triumph
and sin to have the victory, already we have our reward in many ways—in
the passing of a better law, and in the partial check given to the great
machinery of criminal vice, even without the action of the law, by the
publicity given to the machinations of the evildoers. Surely every one
who can move, speak, write, or pray, will now haste to the rescue. No
reticence on the part of the Public Press, or any other power, will ever
succeed in drawing the veil again over the horrors which have been once
exposed, nor in stifling the cry of the poor victims.
A young girl spoke to me a day or two ago, having heard of the result of
this trial. With despair in her eye, and bitter scorn on her lips, she
spoke in a low, muffled tone, and said:
“I am sure God _doesn’t care a bit for girls_. Whenever there is a
chance of something being done for us, and of these wicked men being
punished, then the Government comes and stops it all; and the good
people are punished and frightened, and all the work is put an end to;
and girls are as badly treated as ever. God lets off the bad rich men so
easily, and doesn’t care for us girls a bit.”
I said to her: “Stop, child; have a little patience, and you will see.”
But she only answered in the same low, bitter, scornful tone: “But we
have waited so long—so long!” Do not let this poor child’s expression of
despair be forgotten. It is typical of what thousands are realizing,
more or less consciously to themselves. But that God does not care is
not true: and we shall prove it! If justice and judgment linger, it is
only that their triumph may be the more complete.
Thousands of hearts and consciences will respond to the following words
of Rev. HUGH PRICE HUGHES:—
“While our Government is squandering thousands in an attempt to ruin the
one man to whom we owe a revolutionary improvement in the law, they are
doing practically nothing to stop the real evil. The police of our great
provincial towns are already effecting unprecedented moral improvements
under Mr. Stead’s Act. But the 10,000 Metropolitan policemen, under the
direction of the Government, have done nothing except allow Mrs.
Jeffries to escape, rebuke Minahan, and prosecute Mr. Stead. All the
journals which for fifteen years have never broken their conspiracy of
silence, except to advocate the obscene and iniquitous Contagious
Diseases Acts, are now howling against Mr. Stead. To each of them, as to
Judas Iscariot of old, it must be said: ‘That thou doest, do quickly.’
‘This is the hour and power of darkness.’ Now is the time to betray the
cause of virtue. Stab away with your malignant and mendacious articles
at the quivering hearts of pure women and good men. Hasten to fill up
the measure of your iniquity. Jesus of Nazareth, the Friend of sinners,
the Protector of children, has heard our prayers. The night is far
spent. The long-expected day of Purity and Justice and Brotherhood is at
hand.”
[Illustration: [Logo]]
London: MORGAN & SCOTT, 12, Paternoster Buildings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
REBECCA JARRETT.
BY
JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER.
PRESS COMMENTS.
“This little book is one which should be read by all who desire to
know the truth about the recent trial at the Old Bailey. Feelings of
respect and sympathy cannot fail to be called forth towards one so
earnest-hearted and devoted as the writer.”—_British Women’s
Temperance Journal._
“All fair-minded persons ought to welcome the account of Rebecca
Jarrett’s life, just prepared by Mrs. Josephine Butler. We venture to
think that the perusal of this pathetic sketch will modify those hard
and bitter feelings towards this woman, which some good and sincere
people think themselves justified in cherishing.”—_The Christian._
“We beg our readers to purchase at once the little book which Mrs.
Josephine Butler has just issued, entitled ‘REBECCA JARRETT.’ It is
published at sixpence by Morgan and Scott. It places Rebecca Jarrett
in quite a new light, and brings out the real character of the recent
trial more clearly and fully than it has been brought out by anybody
else.”—REV. HUGH PRICE HUGHES in _The Methodist Times_.
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
NOW READY. FOURTH EDITION.
_Handsomely Bound._ _Price Six Shillings._
CATHARINE OF SIENA:
A BIOGRAPHY.
By JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER,
_Author of the “Memoir of John Grey of Dilston,” &c._
WITH A PORTRAIT ENGRAVED ON STEEL.
EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS.