that the Salvation Army manages its emigration work with extraordinary
success and business skill. Those whom it sends from these shores for
their own benefit are invariably accepted, at any rate in Canada, and
provided with work on their arrival in the chosen Colony. That the
selection is sound and careful is shown, also, by the fact that the
Army recovers from those emigrants to whom it gives assistance a
considerable percentage of the sums advanced to enable them to start
life in a new land.
THE WOMEN'S SOCIAL WORK IN LONDON
At the commencement of my investigation of this branch of the
Salvation Army activities in England, I discussed its general aspects
with Mrs. Bramwell Booth, who has it in her charge. She pointed out to
me that this Women's Social Work is a much larger business than it was
believed to be even by those who had some acquaintance with the
Salvation Army, and that it deals with many matters of great
importance in their bearing on the complex problems of our
civilization.
Among them, to take some that she mentioned, which recur to my mind,
are the questions of illegitimacy and prostitution, of maternity homes
for poor girls who have fallen into trouble, of women thieves, of what
is known as the White Slave traffic, of female children who have been
exposed to awful treatment, of women who are drunkards or drug-takers,
of aged and destitute women, of intractable or vicious-minded girls,
and, lastly, of the training of young persons to enable them to deal
scientifically with all these evils, or under the name of Slum
Sisters, to wait upon the poor in their homes, and nurse them through
the trials of maternity.
How practical and efficient this training is, no one can know who has
not, like myself, visited and inquired into the various Institutions
and Refuges of the Army in different cities of the land. It is a
wonderful thing, as has happened to me again and again, to see some
quiet, middle-aged lady, often so shy that it is difficult to extract
from her the information required, ruling with the most perfect
success a number of young women, who, a few weeks or months before,
were the vilest of the vile, and what is stranger still, reforming as
she rules. These ladies exercise no severity; the punishment, which,
perhaps necessarily, is a leading feature in some of our Government
Institutions, is unknown to their system. I am told that no one is
ever struck, no one is imprisoned, no one is restricted in diet for
any offence. As an Officer said to me:--
'If we cannot manage a girl by love, we recognize that the case is
beyond us, and ask her to go away. This, however, very seldom
happens.'
As a matter of fact, that case which is beyond the regenerating powers
of the Army must be very bad indeed, at any rate where young people
are concerned. In the vast majority of instances a cure is effected,
and apparently a permanent cure. In every one of these Homes there is
a room reserved for the accommodation of those who have passed through
it and gone out into the world again, should they care to return there
in their holidays or other intervals of leisure. That room is always
in great demand, and I can imagine no more eloquent testimony to the
manner of the treatment of its occupants while they dwelt in these
Homes as 'cases.'
In truth, a study of the female Officers of the Salvation Army is
calculated to convert the observer not only to a belief in the right
of women to the suffrage, but also to that of their fitness to rule
among, or even over men. Only I never heard that any of these ladies
ever sought such privileges; moreover, few of the sex would care to
win them at the price of the training, self-denial, and stern
experience which it is their lot to undergo.
Mrs. Bramwell Booth pointed out to me that although the actual work of
the Army on these women's questions is 'more than just a little,' it
had, as it were, only touched their fringe. Yet even this 'fringe' has
many threads, seeing that over 44,000 of these women's cases have been
helped in one way or another since this branch of the home work began
about twenty years ago.
She added that scarcely a month goes by in which the Army does not
break out in a new direction, open a new Institution, or attempt to
attack a new problem; and this, be it remembered, not only in these
islands but over the face of half the earth. At present its sphere of
influence is limited by the lack of funds. Give it enough money, she
said, and there is little that it would not dare to try. Everywhere
the harvest is plentiful, and if the workers remain comparatively few,
it is because material means are lacking for their support. Given the
money and the workers would be found. Nor will they ask much for
maintenance or salary, enough to provide the necessary buildings, and
to keep body and soul together, that is all.[4]
What are these women doing? In London they run more than a score of
Homes and Agencies, including a Maternity Hospital, which I will
describe later, where hundreds of poor deceived girls are taken in
during their trouble. I believe it is almost the only one of the sort,
at any rate on the same scale, in that great city.
Also they manage various Homes for drunken women. It has always been
supposed to be a practical impossibility to effect a cure in such
cases, but the lady Officers of the Salvation Army succeed in turning
about 50 per cent of their patients into perfectly sober persons. At
least they remain sober for three years from the date of their
discharge, after which they are often followed no further.
Another of their objects is to find out the fathers of illegitimate
children, and persuade them to sign a form of agreement which has been
carefully drawn by Counsel, binding themselves to contribute towards
the cost of the maintenance of the child. Or failing this, should the
evidence be sufficient, they try to obtain affiliation orders against
such fathers in a Magistrates' Court. Here I may state that the amount
of affiliation money collected in England by the Army in 1909 was
£1,217, of which £208 was for new cases. Further, £671 was collected
and paid over for maintenance to deserted wives. Little or none of
this money would have been forthcoming but for its exertions.
Mrs. Bramwell Booth informed me that there exists a class of young
men, most of them in the employ of tradesfolk, who habitually amuse
themselves by getting servant girls into trouble, often under a
promise of marriage. Then, if the usual results follow, it is common
for these men to move away to another town, taking their references
with them and, sometimes under a new name, to repeat the process
there. She was of opinion that the age of consent ought to be raised
to eighteen at least, a course for which there is much to be said.
Also she thought, and this is more controversial, that when any young
girl has been seduced under promise of marriage, the seducer should be
liable to punishment under the criminal law. Of course, one of the
difficulties here would be to prove the promise of marriage beyond all
reasonable doubt.
Also to bring such matters within the cognizance of the criminal law
would be a new and, indeed, a dangerous departure not altogether easy
to justify, especially as old magistrates like myself, who have
considerable experience of such cases must know, it is not always the
man who is to blame. Personally, I incline to the view that if the age
of consent were raised, and the contribution exacted from the putative
father of an illegitimate child made proportionate to his means, and
not limited, as it is now, to a maximum of 5s. a week, the criminal
law might well be left out of the question. It must be remembered
further, as Mrs. Booth pointed out herself, that there is another
remedy, namely, that of a better home-training of girls who should be
prepared by their mothers or friends to face the dangers of the world,
a duty which these too often neglect. The result is that many young
women who feel lonely and desire to get married, overstep the limits
of prudence on receipt of a promise that thus they may attain their
end, with the result that generally they find themselves ruined and
deserted.
Mrs. Bramwell Booth said that the Army is doing its utmost to mitigate
the horrors of what is known as the White Slave traffic, both here and
in many other countries. With this object it has a Bill before
Parliament at the present time, of which one of the aims is to prevent
children from being sent out of this country to France under
circumstances that practically ensure their moral destruction. It
seems that the state of things in Paris in this connexion is, in her
own words, 'most abominable, too horrible for words.' Children are
procured from certain theatre dancing schools, and their birth
certificates sometimes falsified to make it appear that they are over
fourteen, although often they may be as young as twelve or even ten.
Then they are conveyed to vile places in Paris where their doom is
sure.
Let us hope that in due course this Bill will become law, for if girls
are protected up to sixteen in this country, surely they should not be
sent out of it in doubtful circumstances under that age.
Needless to say abominations of this nature are not unknown in London.
Thus a while ago the Army received a telegram from a German girl
asking, 'Can you help?' Two of its people went at once to the address
given, and, contriving to get into the house, discovered there a young
woman who, imagining that she had been engaged in Germany as a servant
in an English family, found herself in a London brothel. Fortunately,
being a girl of some character and resource, she held her own, and,
having heard of the Salvation Army in her own land, persuaded a
milkman to take the telegram that brought about her delivery from this
den of wickedness.
Unfortunately it proved impossible to discover the woman who had hired
her abroad, as the victim of the plot really knew nothing about that
procuress. This girl was restored to her home in Germany none the
worse for her terrific adventure, and a few weeks later refunded her
travelling expenses. But how many must there be who have never heard
of the Salvation Army, and can find no milkman to help them out of
their vile prisons, for such places are no less.
Another branch of the Army women's work is that of the rescue of
prostitutes from the streets, which is known as the 'Midnight Work.'
For the purpose of this endeavour it hires a flat in Great Titchfield
Street, of which, and of the mission that centres round it, I will
speak later in this book.
The Women's Social Work of the Salvation Army began in London, in the
year 1884, at the cottage of a woman-soldier of the Army who lived in
Whitechapel. This lady, who was interested in girls without character,
took some of them into her home. Eventually she left the place which
came into the hands of the Army, whereon Mrs. Bramwell Booth was sent
to take charge of the twelve inmates whom it would accommodate. The
seed that was thus sown in 1884 has now multiplied itself into
fifty-nine Homes and Agencies for women in Great Britain alone, to say
nothing of others abroad and in the Colonies. But this is only a
beginning.
'We look forward,' said Mrs. Bramwell Booth to me, 'to a great
increase of this side of our work at home. No year has passed without
the opening of a new Women's Home of some kind, and we hope that this
will continue. Thus I want to build a very big Maternity Hospital if I
can get the money. We have about £20,000 in hand for this purpose; but
the lesser of the two schemes before us will cost £35,000.'
Will not some rich and charitable person provide the £15,000 that are
lacking?
THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE WOMEN'S SOCIAL WORK
LOWER CLAPTON ROAD
The Women's Social Headquarters of the Salvation Army in England is
situated at Clapton. It is a property of nearly three acres, on which
stand four houses that will be rebuilt whenever funds are forthcoming
for the erection of the Maternity Hospital and Training Institution
for nurses and midwives which I have already mentioned. At present
about forty Officers are employed here, most of whom are women, under
the command of Commissioner Cox, one of the foremost of the 600
women-Officers of the Salvation Army in the United Kingdom who give
their services to the women's social work.
It is almost needless for me to add that Commissioner Cox is a lady of
very great ability, who is entirely devoted to the cause to which she
has dedicated her life. One of the reasons of the great success of the
Salvation Army is that only able people exactly suited to the
particular work in view are put in authority over that work. Here
there are no sinecures, no bought advowsons, and no freehold livings.
Moreover, the policy of the Army, as a general rule, is not to allow
any one to remain too long in any one office, lest he or she should
become fossilized or subject to local influences.
I remember when I was in America hearing of a case in which a very
leading Officer of the Army, who chanced to be a near relative of
General Booth, declined to obey an order to change his command for
another in a totally different part of the world. The order was
repeated once or twice, and as often disobeyed. Resignation followed
and an attempt to found a rival Organization. I only mention this
matter to show that discipline is enforced in this Society without
fear, favour, or prejudice, which is, perhaps, a principal reason of
its efficiency.
HILLSBOROUGH HOUSE INEBRIATES' HOME
Under the guidance of Commissioner Cox I inspected a number of the
London Women's Institutions of the Army, first visiting the
Hillsborough House Inebriates' Home. This Home, a beautifully clean
and well-kept place, has accommodation for thirty patients,
twenty-nine beds being occupied on the day of my visit. The lady in
charge informed me that these patients are expected to contribute 10s.
per week towards the cost of their maintenance; but that, as a matter
of fact, they seldom pay so much. Generally the sum recovered varies
from 7s. to 3s. per week, while a good many give nothing at all.
The work the patients do in this Home is sold and produces something
towards the cost of upkeep. The actual expense of the maintenance of
the inmates averages about 12s. 6d. a week per head, which sum
includes an allowance for rent. Most of the cases stay in the Home for
twelve months, although some remain for a shorter period. When the
cure is completed, if they are married, the patients return to their
husbands. The unmarried are sent out to positions as governesses,
nurses, or servants, that is, if the authorities of the Home are able
to give them satisfactory characters.
As the reader who knows anything of such matters will be aware, it is
generally supposed to be rather more easy to pass a camel through the
eye of a needle than to reclaim a confirmed female drunkard. Yet, as I
have already said, the Salvation Army, on a three years' test in each
case, has shown that it deals successfully with about 50 per cent of
those women who come into its hands for treatment as inebriates or
drug-takers. How is this done? Largely, of course, by effecting
through religious means a change of heart and nature, as the Army
often seems to have the power to do, and by the exercise of gentle
personal influences.
But there remains another aid which is physical.
With the shrewdness that distinguishes them, the Officers of the Army
have discovered that the practice of vegetarianism is a wonderful
enemy to the practice of alcoholism. The vegetarian, it seems,
conceives a bodily distaste to spirituous liquors. If they can
persuade a patient to become a vegetarian, then the chances of her
cure are enormously increased. Therefore, in this and in the other
female Inebriate Homes no meat is served. The breakfast, which is
eaten at 7.30, consists of tea, brown and white bread and butter,
porridge and fresh milk, or stewed fruit. A sample dinner at one
o'clock includes macaroni cheese, greens, potatoes, fruit pudding or
plain boiled puddings with stewed figs. On one day a week, however,
baked or boiled fish is served with pease pudding, potatoes, and
boiled currant pudding, and on another, brown gravy is given with
onions in batter. Tea, which is served at six o'clock, consists--to
take a couple of samples--of tea, white and brown bread and butter,
and cheese sandwiches with salad; or of tea, white and brown bread and
butter, savoury rolls, and apples or oranges.
It will be observed that this diet is as simple as it well can be; but
I think it right to add, after personal inspection, that the inmates
appear to thrive on it extremely well. Certainly all whom I saw looked
well nourished and healthy.
A book is kept in the Home in which the details of each case are
carefully entered, together with its record for two years after
discharge. Here are the particulars of three cases taken by me at
hazard from this book which will serve to indicate the class of
patient that is treated at this Home. Of course, I omit the names:--
_A.B._ Aged thirty-one. Her mother, who was a drunkard and
gave A.B. drink in her childhood, died some time ago. A.B.
drove her father, who was in good circumstances, having a
large business, to madness by her inebriety. Indeed, he
tried to commit suicide by hanging himself, but, oddly
enough, it was A.B. who cut him down, and he was sent to an
asylum. A.B. had fallen very low since her mother's death;
but I do not give these details. All the members of her
family drank, except, strange to say, the father, who at the
date of my visit was in the asylum. A.B. had been in the
Home some time, and was giving every satisfaction. It was
hoped that she will be quite cured.
_C.D._ Aged thirty. C.D.'s father, a farmer, was a moderate
drinker, her mother was a temperance woman. Her parents
discovered her craving for drink about ten years ago. She
was unable to keep any situation on account of this failing.
Four years ago C.D. was sent to an Inebriate Home for twelve
months, but no cure was effected. Afterwards she
disappeared, having been dismissed from her place, and was
found again for the mother by the Salvation Army. At the
time of my visit she had been six months in the Home, and
was doing well.
_E.F._ Aged forty-eight; was the widow of a professional
man, whom she married as his second wife, and by whom she
had two children, one of whom survives. She began to drink
before her husband's death, and this tendency was increased
by family troubles that arose over his will. She mismanaged
his business and lost everything, drank heavily and
despaired. She tried to keep a boarding house, but her
furniture was seized and she came absolutely to the end of
her resources, her own daughter being sent away to her
relatives. E.F. was nine months in the Hillsborough Home,
and had gone as cook and housekeeper to a situation, where
she also was giving every satisfaction.
THE MATERNITY NURSING HOME
LORNE HOUSE, STOKE NEWINGTON
Her Royal Highness Princes Louise, the Duchess of Argyll, defrayed the
cost of the purchase of the leasehold of this charming Home. The
lady-Officer in charge informed me that the object of the
establishment is to take in women who have or are about to have
illegitimate children. It is not, however, a lying-in Home, the
mothers being sent to the Ivy House Hospital for their confinements.
After these are over they are kept for four or sometimes for six
months at Lorne House. At the expiration of this period situations are
found for most of them, and the babies are put out to nurse in the
houses of carefully selected women with whom the mothers can keep in
touch. These women are visited from time to time by Salvation Army
Officers who make sure that the infants are well treated in every way.
All the cases in this Home are those of girls who have fallen into
trouble for the first time. They belong to a better class than do
those who are received in many of the Army Homes. The charge for their
maintenance is supposed to be £1 a week, but some pay only 5s., and
some nothing at all. As a matter of fact, out of the twelve cases
which the Home will hold, at the time of my visit half were making no
payment. If the Army averages a contribution of 7s. a week from them,
it thinks itself fortunate.
I saw a number of the babies in cradles placed in an old greenhouse in
the garden to protect them from the rain that was falling at the time.
When it is at all fine they are kept as much as possible in the open
air, and the results seem to justify this treatment, for it would be
difficult to find healthier infants.
Five or six of the inmates sleep together in a room; for those with
children a cot is provided beside each bed. I saw several of these
young women, who all seemed to be as happy and contented as was
possible under their somewhat depressing circumstances.
THE MATERNITY RECEIVING HOME
BRENT HOUSE, HACKNEY
This Home serves a somewhat similar purpose as that at Lorne House,
but the young women taken in here while awaiting their confinement are
not, as a rule, of so high a class.
In the garden at the back of the house about forty girls were seated
in a kind of shelter which protected them from the rain, some of them
working and some talking together, while others remained apart
depressed and silent. Most of these young women were shortly expecting
to become mothers. Certain of them, however, already had their
infants, as there were seventeen babies in the Home who had been
crowded out of the Central Maternity Hospital. Among these were some
very sad cases, several of them being girls of gentle birth, taken in
here because they could pay nothing. One, I remember, was a foreign
young lady, whose sad history I will not relate. She was found running
about the streets of a seaport town in a half-crazed condition and
brought to this place by the Officers of the Salvation Army.
In this house there is a room where ex-patients who are in service can
bring their infants upon their holidays. Two or three of these women
were here upon the occasion of my visit, and it was a pathetic sight
to see them dandling the babies from whom they had been separated and
giving them their food.
It is the custom in this and other Salvation Army Maternity Homes to
set apart a night in every month for what is called a Social Evening.
On these occasions fifty or more of the former inmates will arrive
with their children, whom they have brought from the various places
where they are at nurse, and for a few hours enjoy their society,
after which they take them back to the nurses and return to their
work, whatever it may be. By means of this kindly arrangement these
poor mothers are enabled from time to time to see something of their
offspring, which, needless to say, is a boon they greatly prize.
THE MATERNITY HOSPITAL
IVY HOUSE, HACKNEY
This Hospital is one for the accommodation of young mothers on the
occasion of the birth of their illegitimate children. It is a humble
building, containing twenty-five beds, although I think a few more can
be arranged. That it serves its purpose well, until the large
Maternity Hospital of which I have already spoken can be built, is
shown by the fact that 286 babies (of whom only twenty-five were not
illegitimate) were born here in 1900 without the loss of a single
mother. Thirty babies died, however, which the lady-Officer in charge
thought rather a high proportion, but one accounted for by the fact
that during this particular year a large number of the births were
premature. In 1908, 270 children were born, of whom twelve died, six
of these being premature.
The cases are drawn from London and other towns where the Salvation
Army is at work. Generally they, or their relatives and friends, or
perhaps the father of the child, apply to the Army to help them in
their trouble, thereby, no doubt, preventing many child-murders and
some suicides. The charge made by the Institution for these lying-in
cases is in proportion to the ability of the patient to pay. Many
contribute nothing at all. From those who do pay, the average sum
received is 10_s_. a week, in return for which they are furnished with
medical attendance, food, nursing, and all other things needful to
their state.
I went over the Hospital, and saw these unfortunate mothers lying in
bed, each of them with her infant in a cot beside her. Although their
immediate trial was over, these poor girls looked very sad.