For the waifs and strays of the streets of London much commiseration is
expressed, and far more pity is deserved than is bestowed. We have no
direct purpose of entering on a crusade on their behalf, apart from our
attempt at changing the hearts and lives and improving the
circumstances of their parents.
Our main hope for these wild, youthful, outcasts lies in this
direction. If we can reach and benefit their guardians, morally and
materially, we shall take the most effectual road to benefit the
children themselves.
Still, a number of them will unavoidably be forced upon us; and we
shall be quite prepared to accept the responsibility of dealing with
them, calculating that our organisation will enable us to do so,
not only with facility and efficiency, but with trifling cost to the
public
To begin with, Children's Creches or Children's Day Homes would be
established in the centres of every poor population, where for a small
charge babies and young children can be taken care of in the day while
the mothers are at work, instead of being left to the dangers of the
thoroughfares or the almost greater peril of being burnt to death in
their own miserable homes.
By this plan we shall not only be able to benefit the poor children,
if in no other direction than that of soap and water and a little
wholesome food, but exercise some humanising influence upon the mothers
themselves.
On the Farm Colony, we should be able to deal with the infants from the
Unions and other quarters. Our Cottage mothers, with two or three
children of their own, would readily take in an extra one on the usual
terms of boarding out children, and nothing would be more simple or
easy for us than to set apart some trustworthy experienced dame to make
a constant inspection as to whether the children placed out were
enjoying the necessary conditions of health and general well-being.
Here would be a Baby Farm carried on with the most favourable
surroundings.