Perhaps there is no evil more destructive of the best interests of
Society, or confessedly more difficult to deal with remedially,
than that which is known as the Social Evil. We have already seen
something of the extent to which this terrible scourge has grown,
and the alarming manner in which it affects our modern civilisation.
We have already made an attempt at grappling with this evil, having
about thirteen Homes in Great Britain, accommodating 307 girls under
the charge of 132 Officers, together with seventeen Homes abroad,
open for the same purpose. The whole, although a small affair compared
with the vastness of the necessity, nevertheless constitutes perhaps
the largest and most efficient effort of its character in the world.
It is difficult to estimate the results that have been already
realised. By our varied operations, apart from these Homes, probably
hundreds, if not thousands, have been delivered from lives of shame and
misery. We have no exact return of the number who have gone through
the Homes abroad, but in connection with the work in this country,
about 3,000 have been rescued, and are living lives of virtue.
This success has not only been gratifying on account of the blessing it
has brought these young women, the gladness it has introduced to the
homes to which they have been restored, and the benefit it has bestowed
upon Society, but because it has assured us that much greater results
of the same character may be realised by operations conducted on a
larger scale, and under more favourable circumstances.
With this view we propose to remodel and greatly increase the number of
our Homes both in London and the provinces, establishing one in every
great centre of this infamous traffic.
To make them very largely Receiving Houses, where the girls will be
initiated into the system of reformation, tested as to the reality of
their desires for deliverance, and started forward on the highway of
truth, virtue, and religion.
From these Homes large numbers, as at present, would be restored to
their friends and relatives, while some would be detained in training
for domestic service, and others passed on to the Farm Colony.
On the Farm they would be engaged in various occupations.
In the Factory, at Bookbinding and Weaving; in the Garden and
Glasshouses amongst fruit and flowers; in the Dairy, making butter;
in all cases going through a course of House-work which will fit them
for domestic service.
At every stage the same process of moral and religious training,
on which we specially rely, will be carried forward.
There would probably be a considerable amount of inter-marriage amongst
the Colonists, and in this way a number of these girl's would be
absorbed into Society.
A large number would be sent abroad as domestic servants. In Canada,
the girls are taken out of the Rescue Homes as servants, with no other
reference than is gained by a few weeks' residence there, and are paid
as much as #3 a month wages. The scarcity of domestic servants in the
Australian Colonies, Western States of America, Africa, and elsewhere
is well known. And we have no doubt that on all hands our girls with
12 months' character will be welcomed, the question of outfit and
passage-money being easily arranged for by the persons requiring their
services advancing the amount, with an understanding that it is to be
deducted out of their first earnings.
Then we have the Colony Over-Sea, which will require the service of a
large number. Very few families will go out who will not be very glad
to take a young woman with them, not as a menial servant, but as a
companion and friend.
By this method we should be able to carry out Rescue work on a much
larger scale. At present two difficulties very largely block our way.
One is the costliness of the work. The expense of rescuing a girl on
the present plan cannot be much less than #7; that is, if we include
the cost of those with whom we fail, and on whom the money is largely
thrown away. Seven pounds is certainly not a very large sum for the
measure of benefit bestowed upon the girl by bringing her off the
streets, and that which is bestowed on Society by removing her from her
evil course. Still, when the work runs into thousands of individuals,
the amount required becomes considerable. On the plan proposed we
calculate that from the date of their reaching the Farm Colony they
will earn nearly all that is required for their support.
The next difficulty which hinders our expansion in this department is
the want of suitable and permanent situations, Although we have been
marvellously successful so far, having at this hour probably 1,200
girls in domestic service alone, still the difficulty in this respect
is great. Families are naturally shy at receiving these poor
unfortunates when they can secure the help they need combined with
unblemished character; and we cannot blame them.
Then, again, it can easily be understood that the monotony of domestic
service in this country is not altogether congenial to the tastes of
many of these girls, who have been accustomed to a life of excitement
and freedom. This can be easily understood. To be shut up seven days
a week with little or no intercourse, either with friends or with the
outside world, beyond that which comes of the weekly Church service or
"night out" with nowhere to go, as many of them are tied off from the
Salvation Army Meetings, becomes very monotonous, and in hours of
depression it is not to be wondered at if a few break down in their
resolutions, and fall back into their old ways.
On the plan we propose there is something to cheer these girls forward.
Life on the farm will be attractive. From there they can go to a new
country and begin the world afresh, with the possibility of being
married and having a little home of their own some day. With such
prospects, we think, they will be much more likely to fight their way
through seasons of darkness and temptation than as at present.
This plan will also make the task of rescuing the girls much more
agreeable to the Officers engaged in it. They will have this future to
dwell upon as an encouragement to persevere with the girls, and will be
spared one element at least in the regret they experience, when a girl
falls back into old habits, namely, that she earned the principal part
of the money that has been expended upon her.
That girls can be rescued and blessedly saved even now, despite all
their surroundings, we have many remarkable proofs. Of these take one
or two as examples: --
J. W. was brought by our Officers from a neighbourhood which has,
by reason of the atrocities perpetrated in it, obtained an unenviable
renown, even among similar districts of equally bad character.
She was only nineteen. A country girl. She had begun the struggle for
life early as a worker in a large laundry, and at thirteen years of age
was led away by an inhuman brute. The first false step taken,
her course on the downward road was rapid, and growing restless and
anxious for more scope than that afforded in a country town, she came
up to London.
For some time she lived the life of extravagance and show, known to
many of this class for a short time--having plenty of money,
fine clothes, and luxurious surroundings until the terrible disease
seized her poor body, and she soon found herself deserted, homeless and
friendless, an outcast of Society.
When we found her she was hard and impenitent, difficult to reach even
with the hand of love; but love won, and since that time she has been
in two or three situations, a consistent Soldier of an Army corps,
and a champion War Cry seller.
A TICKET-OF-LEAVE WOMAN.
A. B. was the child of respectable working people--Roman Catholics--
but was early left an orphan. She fell in with bad companions,
and became addicted to drink, going from bad to worse until
drunkenness, robbery, and harlotry brought her to the lowest depths.
She passed seven years in prison, and after the last offence was
discharged with seven years' police supervision. Failing to report
herself, she was brought before the bench.
The magistrate inquired whether she had ever had a chance in a Home of
any kind. "She is too old, no one will take her," was the reply,
but a Detective present, knowing a little about the Salvation Army,
stepped forward and explained to the magistrate th at he did not think
the Salvation Army refused any who applied. She was formally handed
over to us in a deplorable condition, her clothing the scantiest and
dirtiest. For over three years she has given evidence of a genuine
reformation, during which time she has industriously earned her own
living.
A WILD WOMAN.
In visiting a slum in a town in the North of England, our Officers
entered a hole, unfit to be called a human habitation--more like the
den of some wild animal--almost the only furniture of which was a
filthy iron bedstead, a wooden box to serve for table and chair,
while an old tin did duty as a dustbin.
The inhabitant of this wretched den was a poor woman, who fled into the
darkest corner of the place as our Officer entered. This poor wretch
was the victim of a brutal man, who never allowed her to venture
outside the door, keeping her alive by the scantiest allowance of food.
Her only clothing consisted of a sack tied round her body. Her feet
were bare, her hair matted and foul, presenting on the whole such an
object as one could scarcely imagine living in a civilised country.
She had left a respectable home, forsaken her husband and family,
and sunk so low that the man who then claimed her boasted to the
Officer that he had bettered her condition by taking her off the
streets.
We took the poor creature away, washed and clothed her; and, changed in
heart and life, she is one more added to the number of those who rise
up to bless the Salvation Army workers.