SECTION 10.--ASYLUMS FOR MORAL LUNATICS.

There will remain, after all has been said and done, one problem that

has yet to be faced. You may minimise the difficulty every way,

and it is your duty to do so, but no amount of hopefulness can make us

blink the fact that when all has been done and every chance has been

offered, when you have forgiven your brother not only seven times but

seventy times seven, when you have fished him up from the mire and put

him on firm ground only to see him relapse and again relapse until you

have no strength left to pull him out once more, there will still

remain a residuum of men and women who have, whether from heredity or

custom, or hopeless demoralisation, become reprobates. After a certain

time, some men of science hold that persistence in habits tends to

convert a man from a being with freedom of action and will into a mere

automaton. There are some cases within our knowledge which seem to

confirm the somewhat dreadful verdict by which a man appears to be a

lost soul on this side of the grave.

There are men so incorrigibly lazy that no inducement that you can

offer will tempt them to work; so eaten up by vice that virtue is

abhorrent to them, and so inveterately dishonest that theft is to them

a master passion. When a human being has reached that stage, there is

only one course that can be rationally pursued. Sorrowfully, but

remorselessly, it must be recognised that he has become lunatic,

morally demented, incapable of self-government, and that upon him,

therefore, must be passed the sentence of permanent seclusion from a

world in which he is not fit to be at large. The ultimate destiny of

these poor wretches should be a penal settlement where they could be

confined during Her Majesty's pleasure as are the criminal lunatics at

Broadmoor. It is a crime against the race to allow those who are so

inveterately depraved the freedom to wander abroad, infect their

fellows, prey upon Society, and to multiply their kind. Whatever else

Society may do, and suffer to be done, this thing it ought not to

allow, any more than it should allow the free perambulation of a mad

dog. But before we come to this I would have every possible means

tried to effect their reclamation. Let Justice punish them, and Mercy

put her arms around them; let them be appealed to by penalty and by

reason, and by every influence, human and Divine, that can possibly be

brought to bear upon them. Then, if all alike failed, their ability to

further curse their fellows and themselves should be stayed.

They will still remain objects worthy of infinite compassion.

They should lead as human a life as is possible to those who have

fallen under so terrible a judgment. They should have their own little

cottages in their own little gardens, under the blue sky, and, if

possible, amid the green fields. I would deny them none of the

advantages, moral, mental, and religious which might minister to their

diseased minds, and tend to restore them to a better state. Not until

the breath leaves their bodies should we cease to labour and wrestle

for their salvation. But when they have reached a certain point access

to their fellow men should be forbidden. Between them and the wide

world there should be reared an impassable barrier, which once passed

should be recrossed no more for ever. Such a course must be wiser than

allowing them to go in and out among their fellows, carrying with them

the contagion of moral leprosy, and multiplying a progeny doomed before

its birth to inherit the vices and diseased cravings of their unhappy

parents. To these proposals three leading objections will probably be

raised

1. It may be said that to shut out men and women from that liberty

which is their universal birthright would be cruel.

To this it might be sufficient to reply that this is already done;

twenty years' immurement is a very common sentence passed upon

wrong-doers, and in some cases the law goes as far as to inflict penal

servitude for life. But we say further that it would be far more

merciful treatment than that which is dealt out to them at present,

and it would be far more likely to secure a pleasant existence.

Knowing their fate they would soon become resigned to it.

Habits of industry, sobriety, and kindness with them would create a

restfulness of spirit which goes far on in the direction of happiness,

and if religion were added it would make that happiness complete.

There might be set continually before them a large measure of freedom

and more frequent intercourse with the world in the shape of

correspondence, newspapers, and even occasional interviews with

relatives, as rewards for well-doing. And in sickness and old age

their latter days might be closed in comfort. In fact, so far as this

class of people were concerned, we can see that they would be far

better circumstanced for happiness in this life and in the life to come

than in their present liberty--if a life spent alternatively in

drunkenness, debauchery, and crime, on the one hand, or the prison on

the other, can be called liberty.

2. It may be said that the carrying out of such a suggestion would be

too expensive.

To this we reply that it would have to be very costly to exceed the

expense in which all such characters involve the nation under the

present regulations of vice and crime. But there is no need for any

great expense, seeing that after the first outlay the inmates of such

an institution, if it were fixed upon the land, would readily earn all

that would be required for their support.

3. But it may be said that this is impossible.

It would certainly be impossible other than as a State regulation.

But it would surely be a very simple matter to enact a law which should

decree that after an individual had suffered a certain number of

convictions for crime, drunkenness, or vagrancy, he should forfeit his

freedom to roam abroad and curse his fellows. When I include vagrancy

in this list, I do it on the supposition that the opportunity and

ability for work are present. Otherwise it seems to me most heartless

to punish a hungry man who begs for food because he can in no other way

obtain it. But with the opportunity and ability for work I would count

the solicitation of charity a crime, and punish it as such. Anyway, if

a man would not work of his own free will I would compel him.

CHAPTER 6. ASSISTANCE IN GENERAL.

There are many who are not lost, who need help. A little assistance

given to-day will perhaps prevent the need of having to save them

to-morrow. There are some, who, after they have been rescued,

will still need a friendly hand. The very service which we have

rendered them at starting makes it obligatory upon us to finish the

good work. Hitherto it may be objected that the Scheme has dealt

almost exclusively with those who are more or less disreputable and

desperate. This was inevitable. We obey our Divine Master and seek to

save those who are lost. But because, as I said at the beginning,

urgency is claimed rightly for those who have no helper, we do not,

therefore, forget the needs and the aspirations of the decent working

people who are poor indeed, but who keep their feet, who have not

fallen, and who help themselves and help each other. They constitute

the bulk of the nation. There is an uppercrust and a submerged tenth.

But the hardworking poor people, who earn a pound a week or less,

constitute in every land the majority of the population. We cannot

forget them, for we are at home with them. We belong to them and many

thousands of them belong to us. We are always studying how to help

them, and we think this can be done in many ways, some of which I

proceed to describe.

SECTION 1.--IMPROVED LODGINGS.

The necessity for a superior class of lodgings for the poor men rescued

at our Shelters has been forcing itself already upon our notice,

and demanding attention. One of the first things that happens when a

man, lifted out of the gutter, has obtained a situation, and is earning

a decent livelihood, is for him to want some better accommodation than

that afforded at the Shelters. We have some hundreds on our hands now

who can afford to pay for greater comfort and seclusion.

These are continually saying to us something like the following: --

The Shelters are all very well when a man is down in his luck.

They have been a good thing for us; in fact, had it not been for them,

we would still have been without a friend, sleeping on the Embankment,

getting our living dishonestly, or not getting a living at all.

We have now got work, and want a bed to sleep on, and a room to

ourselves, and a box, or something where we can stow away our bits of

things. Cannot you do something for us?" We have replied that there

were Lodging-houses elsewhere, which, now that they were in work,

they could afford to pay for, where they would obtain the comfort they

desired. To this they answer, "That is all very well. We know there

are these places, and that we could go to them. But then," they said,

"you see, here in the Shelters are our mates, who think as we do.

And there is the prayer, and the meeting, and kind influence every

night, that helps to keep us straight. We would like a better place,

but if you cannot find us one we would rather stop in the Shelter and

sleep on the floor, as we have been doing, than go to something more

complete, get into bad company, and so fall back again to where we were

before."

But this, although natural, is not desirable; for, if the process went

on, in course of time the whole of the Shelter Depots would be taken up

by persons who had risen above the class for whom they were originally

destined. I propose, therefore, to draft those who get on, but wish to

continue in connection with the Army, into a superior lodging-house, a

sort of POOR MAN'S METROPOLE, managed on the same principles, but with

better accommodation in every way, which, I anticipate, would be

self-supporting from the first. In these homes there would be separate

dormitories, good sitting-rooms, cooking conveniences, baths, a hall

for meetings, and many other comforts, of which all would have the

benefit at as low a figure above cost price as will not only pay

interest on the original outlay, but secure us against any shrinkage of

capital.

Something superior in this direction will also be required for the

women. Having begun, we must go on. Hitherto I have proposed to deal

only with single men and single women, but one of the consequences of

getting hold of these men very soon makes itself felt. Your ragged,

hungry, destitute Out-of-Work in almost every case is married.

When he comes to us he comes as single and is dealt with as such,

but after you rouse in him aspirations for better things he remembers

the wife whom he has probably enough deserted, or left from sheer

inability to provide her anything to eat. As soon as such a man finds

himself under good influence and fairly employed his first thought is

to go and look after the "Missis." There is very little reality about

any change of heart in a married man who does not thus turn in sympathy

and longing towards his wife, and the more successful we are in dealing

with these people the more inevitable it is that we shall be confronted

with married couple's who in turn demand that we should provide for

them lodgings. This we propose to do also on a commercial footing.

I see greater developments in this direction, one of which will be

described in the chapter relating to Suburban Cottages.

The Model-lodging House for Married People is, however, one of

those things that must be provided as an adjunct of the Food and

Shelter Depots.

SECTION 2.--MODEL SUBURBAN VILLAGES.

As I have repeatedly stated already, but will state once more, for it

is important enough to bear endless repetition, one of the first steps

which must inevitably be taken in the reformation of this class, is to

make for them decent, healthy, pleasant homes, or help them to make

them for themselves, which, if possible, is far better. I do not regard

the institution of any first, second, or third-class lodging-houses as

affording anything but palliatives of the existing distress.

To substitute life in a boarding-house for life in the streets is,

no doubt, an immense advance, but it is by no means the ultimatum.

Life in a boarding-house is better than the worst, but it is far from

being the best form of human existence. Hence, the object I constantly

keep in view is how to pilot those persons who have been set on their

feet again by means of the Food and Shelter Depots, and who have

obtained employment in the City, into the possession of homes of their

own.

Neither can I regard the one, or at most two, rooms in which the large

majority of the inhabitants of our great cities are compelled to spend

their days, as a solution of the question. The overcrowding which fills

every separate room of a tenement with a human litter, and compels

family life from the cradle to the grave to be lived within the four

walls of a single apartment, must go on reproducing in endless

succession all the terrible evils which such a state of things must

inevitably create.

Neither can I be satisfied with the vast, unsightly piles of

barrack-like buildings, which are only a slight advance upon the

Union Bastille--dubbed Model Industrial Dwellings--so much in

fashion at present, as being a satisfactory settlement of the burning

question of the housing of the poor. As a contribution to this

question, I propose the establishment of a series of Industrial

Settlements or Suburban Villages, lying out in the country, within a

reasonable distance of all our great cities, composed of cottages of

suitable size and construction, and with all needful comfort and

accommodation for the families of working-men, the rent of which,

together with the railway fare, and other economic conveniences,

should be within the reach of a family of moderate income.

This proposal lies slightly apart from the scope of this book,

otherwise I should be disposed to elaborate the project at greater

length. I may say, however, that what I here propose has been carefully

thought out, and is of a perfectly practical character.

In the planning of it I have received some valuable assistance from a

friend who has had considerable experience in the building trade,

and he stakes his professional reputation on its feasibility.

The following, however, may be taken as a rough outline: --

The Village should not be more than twelve miles from town; should be

in a dry and healthy situation, and on a line of railway. It is not

absolutely necessary that it should be near a station, seeing that the

company would, for their own interests, immediately erect one.

The Cottages should be built of the best material and workmanship.

This would be effected most satisfactorily by securing a contract for

the labour only, the projectors of the Scheme purchasing the materials

and supplying them direct from the manufacturers to the builders.

The cottages would consist of three or four rooms, with a scullery,

and out-building in the garden. The cottages should be built in

terraces, each having a good garden attached. Arrangements should be

made for the erection of from one thousand to two thousand houses at

the onset. In the Village a Co-operative Goods Store should be

established, supplying everything that was really necessary for the

villagers at the most economic prices. The sale of intoxicating drink

should be strictly forbidden on the Estate, and, if possible,

the landowner from whom the land is obtained should be tied off from

allowing any licences to be held on any other portion of the adjoining

land. It is thought that the Railway Company, in consideration of the

inconvenience and suffering they have inflicted on the poor,

and in their own interests, might be induced to make the following

advantageous arrangements: --

(1) The conveyance of each member actually living in the village to and

from London at the rate of sixpence per week. Each pass should

have on it the portrait of the owner, and be fastened to some

article of the dress, and be available only by Workmen's Trains

running early and late and during certain hours of the day, when

the trains are almost empty.

(2) The conveyance of goods and parcels should be at half the ordinary

rates. It is reasonable to suppose that large landowners would

gladly give one hundred acres of land in view of the immensely

advanced values of the surrounding property which would immediately

follow, seeing that the erection of one thousand or two thousand

cottages would constitute the nucleus of a much larger Settlement.

Lastly, the rent of a four-roomed cottage must not exceed 3s. per week.

Add to this the sixpenny ticket to and from London, and you have 3s. 6d.

and if the company should insist on 1s., it will make 4s., for which

there would be all the advantages of a comfortable cottage--of which

it would be possible for the tenant to become the owner--a good garden,

pleasant surroundings, and other influences promotive of the health

and happiness of the family. It is hardly necessary to remark that

in connection with this Village there will be perfect freedom of

opinion on all matters. A glance at the ordinary homes of the poor

people of this great City will at once assure us that such a village

would be a veritable Paradise to them, and that were four, five,

or six settlements provided at once they would not contain a tithe of

the people who would throng to occupy them.

SECTION 3.--THE POOR MAN'S BANK.

If the love of money is the root of all evil, the want of money is the

cause of an immensity of evil and trouble. The moment you begin

practically to alleviate the miseries of the people, you discover that

the eternal want of pence is one of their greatest difficulties.

In my most sanguine moments I have never dreamed of smoothing this

difficulty out of the lot of man, but it is surely no unattainable

ideal to establish a Poor Man's Bank, which will extend to the lower

middle class and the working population the advantages of the credit

system, which is the very foundation of our boasted commerce.

It might be better that there should be no such thing as credit,

that no one should lend money, and that everyone should be compelled to

rely solely upon whatever ready money he may possess from day to day.

But if so, let us apply the principle all round; do not let us glory in

our world-wide commerce and boast ourselves in our riches, obtained,

in so many cases, by the ignoring of this principle. If it is right

for a great merchant to have dealings with his banker, if it is

indispensable for the due carrying on of the business of the rich men

that they should have at their elbow a credit system which will from

time to time accommodate them with needful advances and enable them to

stand up against the pressure of sudden demands, which otherwise would

wreck them, then surely the case is still stronger for providing a

similar resource for the smaller men, the weaker men. At present

Society is organised far too much on the principle of giving to him who

hath so that he shall have more abundantly, and taking away from him

who hath not even that which he hath.

If we are to really benefit the poor, we can only do so by practical

measures. We have merely to look round and see the kind of advantages

which wealthy men find indispensable for the due management of their

business, and ask ourselves whether poor men cannot be supplied with

the same opportunities. The reason why they are not is obvious.

To supply the needs of the rich is a means of making yourself rich;

to supply the needs of the poor will involve you in trouble so out of

proportion to the profit that the game may not be worth the candle.

Men go into banking and other businesses for the sake of obtaining what

the American humourist said was the chief end of man in these modern

times, namely, "ten per cent." To obtain a ten per cent. what will not

men do? They will penetrate the bowels of the earth, explore the depths

of the sea, ascend the snow-capped mountain's highest peak, or navigate

the air, if they can be guaranteed a ten per cent. I do not venture to

suggest that the business of a Poor Man's Bank would yield ten per cent.,

or even five, but I think it might be made to pay its expenses,

and the resulting gain to the community would be enormous.

Ask any merchant in your acquaintance where his business would be if

he had no banker, and then, when you have his answer, ask yourself

whether it would not be an object worth taking some trouble to secure,

to furnish the great mass of our fellow countrymen, on sound business

principles with the advantages of the credit system, which is found to

work so beneficially for the "well-to-do" few.

Some day I hope the State may be sufficiently enlightened to take up

this business itself; at present it is left in the hands of the

pawnbroker and the loan agency, and a set of sharks, who cruelly prey

upon the interests of the poor. The establishment of land banks,

where the poor man is almost always a peasant, has been one of the

features of modern legislation in Russia, Germany, and elsewhere.

The institution of a Poor Man's Bank will be, I hope, before long,

one of the recognised objects of our own government.

Pending that I venture to throw out a suggestion, without in any way

pledging myself to add this branch of activity to the already gigantic

range of operations foreshadowed in this book--Would it not be

possible for some philanthropists with capital to establish on clearly

defined principles a Poor Man's Bank for the making of small loans on

good security, or making advances to those who are in danger of being

overwhelmed by sudden financial pressure--in fact, for doing for the

"little man" what all the banks do for the "big man"? Meanwhile,

should it enter into the heart of some benevolently disposed possessor

of wealth to give the price of a racehorse, or of an "old master,"

to form the nucleus of the necessary capital, I will certainly

experiment in this direction.

I can anticipate the sneer of the cynic who scoffs at what he calls my

glorified pawnshop. I am indifferent to his sneers. A Mont de Piete--

the very name (Mount of Piety) shows that the Poor Man's Bank is

regarded as anything but an objectionable institution across the

Channel--might be an excellent institution in England. Owing,

however, to the vested interests of the existing traders it might be

impossible for the State to establish it, excepting at a ruinous

expense. There would be no difficulty, however, of instituting a

private Mont de Piete, which would confer an incalculable boon upon the

struggling poor.

Further, I am by no means indisposed to recognise the necessity of

dealing with this subject in connection with the Labour Bureau,

provided that one clearly recognised principle can be acted upon.

That principle is that a man shall be free to bind himself as security

for the repayment of a loan, that is to pledge himself to work for his

rations until such time as he has repaid capital and interest.

An illustration or two will explain what I mean. Here is a carpenter

who comes to our Labour shed; he is an honest, decent man, who has by

sickness or some other calamity been reduced to destitution. He has by

degrees pawned one article after another to keep body and soul

together, until at last he has been compelled to pawn his tools.

We register him, and an employer comes along who wants a carpenter whom

we can recommend. We at once suggest this man, but then arises this

difficulty. He has no tools; what are we to do? As things are at

present, the man loses the job and continues on our hands. Obviously

it is most desirable in the interest of the community that the man

should get his tools out of pawn; but who is to take the responsibility

of advancing the money to redeem them? This difficulty might be met,

I think, by the man entering into a legal undertaking to make over his

wages to us, or such proportion of them as would be convenient to his

circumstances, we in return undertaking to find him in food and shelter

until such time as he has repaid the advance made. That obligation it

would be the truest kindness to enforce with Rhadamantine severity.

Until the man is out of debt he is not his own master. All that he can

make over his actual rations and Shelter money should belong to his

creditor. Of course such an arrangement might be varied indefinitely

by private agreement; the repayment of instalments could be spread ever

a longer or shorter time, but the mainstay of the whole principle would

be the execution of a legal agreement by which the man makes over the

whole product of his labour to the Bank until he has repaid, his debt.

Take another instance. A clerk who has been many years in a situation

and has a large family, which he has brought up respectably and

educated. He has every prospect of retiring in a few years upon a

superannuating allowance, but is suddenly confronted by a claim often

through no fault of his own, of a sum of fifty or a hundred pounds,

which is quite beyond his means. He has been a careful saving man,

who has never borrowed a penny in his life, and does not know where to

turn in his emergency. If he can not raise this money he will be sold

up, his family will be scattered, his situation and his prospective

pension will be lost, and blank ruin will stare him in the face.

Now, were he in receipt of an income of ten times the amount, he would

probably have a banking account, and, in consequence, be able to secure

an advance of all he needed from his banker. Why should he not be able

to pledge his salary, or a portion of it, to an Institution which would

enable him to pay off his debt, on terms that, while sufficiently

remunerative to the bank, would not unduly embarrass him?

At present what does the poor wretch do? He consults his friends, who,

it is quite possible, are as hard up as himself, or he applies to some

loan agency, and as likely as not falls into the hands of sharpers,

who indeed, let him have the money, but at interest altogether out of

proportion to the risk which they run, and use the advantage which

their position gives them to extort every penny he has. A great black

book written within and without in letters of lamentation, mourning,

and woe might be written on the dealings of these usurers with their

victims in every land.

It is of little service denouncing these extortioners. They have always

existed, and probably always will; but what we can do is to

circumscribe the range of their operations and the number of their

victims. This can only be done by a legitimate and merciful provision

for these poor creatures in their hours of desperate need, so as to

prevent their falling into the hands of these remorseless wretches,

who have wrecked the fortunes of thousands, and driven many a decent

man to suicide or a premature grave.

There are endless ramifications of this principle, which do not need to

be described here, but before leaving the subject I may allude to an

evil which is a cruel reality, alas! to a multitude of unfortunate men

and women. I refer to the working of the Hire System. The decent poor

man or woman who is anxious to earn an honest penny by the use of,

it may be a mangle, or a sewing-machine, a lathe, or some other

indispensable instrument, and is without the few pounds necessary to

buy it, must take it on the Hire System--that is to say, for the

accommodation of being allowed to pay for the machine by instalments--

he is charged, in addition to the full market value of his purchase,

ten or twenty times the amount of what would be a fair rate of

interest, and more than this if he should at any time, through

misfortune, fail in his payment, the total amount already paid will be

confiscated, the machine seized, and the money lost.

Here again we fall back on our analogy of what goes on in a small

community where neighbours know each other. Take, for instance, when a

lad who is recognised as bright, promising, honest, and industrious,

who wants to make a start in life which requires some little outlay,

his better-to-do neighbour will often assist him by providing the

capital necessary to enable him to make a way for himself in the world.

The neighbour does this because he knows the lad, because the family is

at least related by ties of neighbourhood, and the honour of the lad's

family is a security upon which a man may safely advance a small sum.

All this would equally apply to a destitute widow, an artizan suddenly

thrown out of work, an orphan family, or the like. In the large City

all this kindly helpfulness disappears, and with it go all those small

acts of service which are, as it were, the buffers which save men from

being crushed to death against the iron walls of circumstances. We must

try to replace them in some way or other if we are to get back, not to

the Garden of Eden, but to the ordinary conditions of life, as they

exist in a healthy, small community. No institution, it is true,

can ever replace the magic bond of personal friendship, but if we have

the whole mass of Society permeated in every direction by brotherly

associations established for the purpose of mutual help and

sympathising counsel, it is not an impossible thing to believe that we

shall be able to do something to restore the missing element in modern

civilisation.

SECTION 4.--THE POOR MAN'S LAWYER.

The moment you set about dealing with the wants of the people,

you discover that many of their difficulties are not material,

but moral. There never was a greater mistake than to imagine that you

have only to fill a man's stomach, and clothe his back in order to

secure his happiness. Man is, much more than a digestive apparatus,

liable to get out of order. Hence, while it is important to remember

that man has a stomach, it is also necessary to bear in mind that he

has a heart, and a mind that is frequently sorely troubled by

difficulties which, if he lived in a friendly world, would often

disappear. A man, and still more a woman, stands often quite as much

in need of a trusted adviser as he or she does of a dinner or a dress.

Many a poor soul is miserable all the day long, and gets dragged down

deeper and deeper into the depths of sin and sorrow and despair for

want of a sympathising friend, who can give her advice, and make her

feel that somebody in the world cares for her, and will help her if

they can.

If we are to bring back the sense of brotherhood to the world,

we must confront this difficulty. God, it was said in old time,

setteth the desolate in families; but somehow, in our time,

the desolate wander alone in the midst of a careless and unsympathising

world. "There is no-one who cares for my soul. There is no creature

loves me, and if I die no one will pity me," is surely one of the

bitterest cries that can burst from a breaking heart. One of the

secrets of the success of the Salvation Army is, that the friendless of

the world find friends in it. There is not one sinner in the world--

no matter how degraded and dirty he may be--whom my people will not

rejoice to take by the hand and pray with, and labour for, if thereby

they can but snatch him as a brand from the burning. Now, we want to

make more use of this, to make the Salvation Army the nucleus of a

great agency for bringing comfort and counsel to those who are at their

wits' end, feeling as if in the whole world there was no one to whom

they could go.

What we want to do is to exemplify to the world the family idea.

"Our Father" is the keynote. One is Our Father, then all we are

brethren. But in a family, if anyone is troubled in mind or

conscience, there is no difficulty. The daughter goes to her father,

or the son to his mother, and pour out their soul's troubles, and are

relieved. If there is any serious difficulty a family council is held,

and all unite their will and their resources to get matters put

straight. This is what we mean to try to get done in the New

Organisation of Society for which we are labouring. We cannot know

better than God Almighty what will do good to man. We are content to

follow on His lines, and to mend the world we shall seek to restore

something of the family idea to the many hundreds of thousands--ay,

millions--who have no one wiser or more experienced than themselves,

to whom they can take their sorrows, or consult in their difficulties.

Of course we can do this but imperfectly. Only God can create a mother.

But Society needs a great deal of mothering, much more than it gets.

And as a child needs a mother to run to in its difficulties and troubles,

to whom it can let out its little heart in confidence, so men and

women, weary and worn in the battles of life, need someone to whom they

can go when pressed down with a sense of wrongs suffered or done,

knowing that their confidence will be preserved inviolate, and that

their statements will be received with sympathy. I propose to attempt

to meet this want. I shall establish a department, over which I shall

place the wisest, the pitifullest, and the most sagacious men and women

whom I can find on my staff, to whom all those in trouble and

perplexity shall be invited to address themselves. It is no use saying

that we love our fellow men unless we try to help them, and it is no

use pretending to sympathise with the heavy burdens which darken their

lives unless we try to ease them and to lighten their existence.

Insomuch as we have more practical experience of life than other men,

by so much are we bound to help their inexperience, and share our

talents with them. But if we believe they are our brothers, and that

One is our Father, even the God who will come to judge us hereafter for

all the deeds that we have done in the body, then must we constitute,

in some such imperfect way as is open to us, the parental office.

We must be willing to receive the outpourings of our struggling fellow

men, to listen to the long-buried secret that has troubled the human

heart, and to welcome instead of repelling those who would obey the

Apostolic precept: "To confess their sins one to another." Let not

that word confession scandalise any. Confession of the most open sort;

confession on the public platform before the presence of all the man's

former associates in sin has long been one of the most potent weapons

by which the Salvation Army has won its victories. That confession we

have long imposed on all our converts, and it is the only confession

which seems to us to be a condition of Salvation. But this suggestion

is of a different kind. It is not imposed as a means of grace.

It is not put forward as a preliminary to the absolution which no one

can pronounce but our Lord Himself. It is merely a response on our

part to one of the deepest needs and secret longings of the actual men

and women who are meeting us daily in our work. Why should they be

left to brood in misery over their secret sin, when a plain

straightforward talk with a man or woman selected for his or her

sympathetic common-sense and spiritual experience might take the weight

off their shoulders which is crushing them into dull despair?

Not for absolution, but for sympathy and direction, do I propose to

establish my Advice Bureau in definite form, for in practice it has

been in existence for some time, and wonderful things have been done

in the direction on which I contemplate it working. I have no pleasure

in inventing these departments. They all entail hard work and no end

of anxiety. But if we are to represent the love of God to men, we must

minister to all the wants and needs of the human heart. Nor is it only

in affairs of the heart that this Advice Bureau will be of service. It

will be quite as useful in affairs of the head. As I conceive it, the

Advice Bureau will be THE POOR MANS LAWYER AND THE POOR MANS TRIBUNE.

There are no means in London, so far as my knowledge goes, by which the

poor and needy can obtain any legal assistance in the varied

oppressions and difficulties from which they must, in consequence of

their poverty and associations, be continually suffering.

While the "well-to-do" classes can fall back upon skilful friends for

direction, or avail themselves of the learning and experience of the

legal profession, the poor man has literally no one qualified to

counsel him on such matters. In cases of sickness he can apply to the

parish doctor or the great hospital, and receive an odd word or two of

advice, with a bottle of physic which may or may not be of service.

But if his circumstances are sick, out of order, in danger of carrying

him to utter destitution, or to prison, or to the Union, he has no one

to appeal to who has the willingness or the ability to help him.

Now, we want to create a Court of Counsel or Appeal, to which anyone

suffering from imposition having to do with person, liberty, or

property, or anything else of sufficient importance, can apply,

and obtain not only advice, but practical assistance.

Among others for whom this Court would be devised is the

shamefully-neglected class of Widows, of whom in the East of London

there are 6,000, mostly in very destitute circumstances. In the whole

of London there cannot be less than 20,000, and in England and Wales it

is estimated there are 100,000, fifty thousand of whom are probably

poor and friendless.

The treatment these poor people by the nation is a crying scandal.

Take the case of the average widow, even when left in comfortable

circumstances. She will often be launched into a sea of perplexity,

although able to avail herself of the best advice. But think of the

multitudes of poor women, who, when they close their husbands' eyes,

lose the only friend who knows anything; about their circumstances.

There may be a trifle of money or a struggling business or a little

income connected with property or some other possession, all needing

immediate attention, and that of a skilful sort, in order to enable the

poor creature to weather the storm and avoid the vortex of utter

destitution.

All we have said applies equally to orphans and friendless people

generally. Nothing, however, short of a national institution could

meet the necessities of all such cases. But we can do something, and

in matters already referred to, such as involve loss of property,

malicious prosecution, criminal and otherwise, we can render

substantial assistance.

In carrying out this purpose it will be no part of our plan to

encourage legal proceedings in others, or to have recourse to them

ourselves. All resort to law would be avoided either in counsel or

practice, unless absolutely necessary. But where manifest injustice

and wrong are perpetrated, and every other method of obtaining

reparation fails, we shall avail ourselves of the assistance the Law

affords.

Our great hope of usefulness, however, in this Department lies in

prevention, The knowledge that the oppressed poor have in us a friend

able to speak for them will often prevent the injustice which cowardly

and avaricious persons might otherwise inflict, and the same

considerations may induce them to accord without compulsion the right

of the weak and friendless.

I also calculate upon a wide sphere of usefulness in the direction of

friendly arbitration and intervention. There will be at least one

disinterested tribunal, however humble, to which business, domestic,

or any other questions of a contentious and litigious nature can be

referred without involving any serious costs.

The following incidents have been gathered from operations already

undertaken in this direction, and will explain and illustrate the kind

of work we contemplate, and some of the benefits that may be expected

to follow from it.

About four years ago a young and delicate girl, the daughter of a

pilot, came to us in great distress. Her story was that of thousands

of others. She had been betrayed by a man in a good position in the

West End, and was now the mother of an infant child.

Just before her confinement her seducer had taken her to his solicitors

and made her sign and swear an affidavit to the effect that he was not

the father of the then expected child. Upon this he gave her a few

pounds in settlement of all claims upon him. The poor thing was in

great poverty and distress. Through our solicitors, we immediately

opened communications with the man, and after negotiations, he, to

avoid further proceedings, was compelled to secure by a deed a proper

allowance to his unfortunate victim for the maintenance of her child.

SHADOWED AND CAUGHT.

A-- was induced to leave a comfortable home to become the governess of

the motherless children of Mr. G--, whom she found to be a kind and

considerate employer. After she had been in his service some little

time he proposed that she should take a trip to London. To this she

very gladly consented, all the more so when he offered to take her

himself to a good appointment he had secured for her. In London he

seduced her, and kept her as his mistress until, tired of her,

he told her to go and do as "other women did."

Instead of descending to this infamy, she procured work, and so

supported herself and child in some degree of comfort, when he sought

her out and again dragged her down. Another child was born, and a

second time he threw her up and left her to starve. It was then she

applied to our people. We hunted up the man, followed him to the

country, threatened him with public exposure, and forced from him the

payment to his victim of #60 down, an allowance of #1 a week, and an

Insurance Policy on his life for #450 in her favour.

#60 FROM ITALY.

C. was seduced by a young Italian of good position in society,

who promised to marry her, but a short time before the day fixed for

the ceremony he told her urgent business called him abroad. He assured

her he would return in two years and make her his wife. He wrote

occasionally, and at last broke her heart by sending the news of his

marriage to another, adding insult to injury by suggesting that she

should come and live with his wife as her maid, offering at the same

time to pay for the maintenance of the child till it was old enough to

be placed in charge of the captain of one of the vessels belonging to

his firm.

None of these promises were fulfilled, and C., with her mother's

assistance, for a time managed to support herself and child; but the

mother, worn out by age and trouble, could help her no longer,

and the poor girl was driven to despair. Her case was brought before

us, and we at once set to work to assist her. The Consul of the town

where the seducer lived in style was communicated with. Approaches

were made to the young man's father, who, to save the dishonour that

would follow exposure, paid over #60. This helps to maintain the

child; and the girl is in domestic service and doing well.

THE HIRE SYSTEM.

The most cruel wrongs are frequently inflicted on the very poorest

persons, in connection with this method of obtaining Furniture, Sewing

Machines, Mangles, or other articles. Caught by the lure of misleading

advertisements, the poor are induced to purchase articles to be paid

for by weekly or monthly instalments. They struggle through half the

amount perhaps, at all manner of sacrifice, when some delay in the

payment is made the occasion not only for seizing the goods, which they

have come to regard as their own, and on which their very existence

depends, but by availing themselves of some technical clause in the

agreement, for robbing them in addition. In such circumstances the

poor things, being utterly friendless, have to submit to these infamous

extortions without remedy. Our Bureau will be open to all such.

TALLYMEN, MONEY LENDERS, AND BILLS-OF-SALEMONGERS.

Here again we have a class who prey upon the poverty of the people,

inducing them to purchase things for which they have often no immediate

use--anyway for which there is no real necessity--by all manner of

specious promises as to easy terms of repayment. And once having got

their dupes into their power they drag them down to misery, and very

often utter temporal ruin; once in their net escape is exceedingly

difficult, if not impossible. We propose to help the poor victims by

this Scheme, as far as possible.

Our Bureau, we expect will be of immense service to Clergymen Ministers

of all denominations, District Visitors, Missionaries, and others who

freely mix among the poor, seeing that they must be frequently appealed

to for legal advice, which they are quite unable to give, and equally

at a loss to obtain. We shall always be very glad to assist such.

THE DEFENCE OF UNDEFENDED PERSONS.

The conviction is gradually fixing itself upon the public mind that a

not inconsiderable number of innocent persons are from time to time

convicted of crimes and offences, the reason for which often is the

mere inability to secure an efficient defence. Although there are

several societies in London and the country dealing with the criminal

classes, and more particularly with discharged prisoners, yet there

does not appear to be one for the purpose of assisting unconvicted

prisoners. This work we propose boldly to take up.

By this and many other ways we shall help those charged with criminal

offences, who, on a most careful enquiry, might reasonably be supposed

to be innocent, but who, through want of means, are unable to obtain

the legal assistance, and produce the evidence necessary for an

efficient defence.

We shall not pretend authoritatively to judge as to who is innocent or

who is guilty, but if after full explanation and enquiry the person

charged may reasonably be supposed to be innocent, and is not in a

position to defend himself, then we should feel free to advise such a

case, hoping thereby to save such person and his family and friends

from much misery, and possibly from utter ruin. Mr. Justice Field

recently remarked: --

"For a man to assist another man who was under a criminal charge was a

highly laudable and praiseworthy act. If a man was without friends,

and an Englishman came forward and legitimately, and for the purpose of

honestly assisting him with means to put before the Court his case,

that was a highly laudable and praiseworthy act, and he should be the

last man in the country to complain of any man for so doing."

These remarks are endorsed by most Judges and Magistrates, and our

Advice Bureau will give practical effect to them.

In every case an attempt will be made to secure, not only the outward

reformation, but the actual regeneration of all whom we assist.

Special attention, as has been described under the "Criminal Reform

Department," will be paid to first offenders.

We shall endeavour also to assist, as far as we have ability, the Wives

and Children of persons who are undergoing sentences, by endeavouring

to obtain for them employment, or otherwise rendering them help.

Hundreds of this class fall into the deepest distress and

demoralisation through want of friendly aid in the forlorn

circumstances in which they find themselves on the conviction of

relatives on whom they have been dependent for a livelihood,

or for protection and direction in the ordinary affairs of life.

This Department will also be responsible for gathering intelligence,

spreading information, and the general prosecution of such measures as

are likely to lead to the much-needed beneficial changes in our Prison

Management. In short, it will seek to become the true friend and

saviour of the Criminal Classes in general, and in doing so we shall

desire to act in harmony with the societies at present in existence,

who may be seeking for objects kindred to the Advice Bureau.

We pen the following list to give some idea of the topics on which the

Advice Bureau may be consulted: --

Accidents, Claim for

Administration of Estates

Adulteration of Food and Drugs

Agency, Questions of

Agreements, Disputed

Affiliation Cases

Animals, Cruelty to

Arrest, Wrongful

Assault

Bankruptcies

Bills of Exchange

Bills of Sale

Bonds, Forfeited

Breach of Promise

Children, Cruelty to

Children, Custody of

Compensation for Injuries

Compensation for Accident

Compensation for Defamation

Compensation for Loss of Employment, &c., &c.

Confiscation by Landlords

Contracts, Breach of

Copyright, Infringement of

County Court Cases

Debts

Distress, Illegal

Divorce

Ejectment Cases

Employers Liability Act

Executors, Duties of

Factory Act, Breach of

Fraud, Attempted

Goodwill, Sale of

Guarantee, Forfeited

Heir-at-Law

Husbands and Wives, Disputes of

Imprisonment, False

Infants, Custody of

Intestacy, Cases of

Judgment Summonses

Landlord and Tenant Cases

Leases, Lapses and Renewals of

Legacies, Disputed

Libel Cases

Licences

Marriage Law, Question of the

Masters' and Servants' Acts

Meeting, Right of Public

Mortgages

Negligence, Alleged

Next of Kill Wanted

Nuisances, Alleged

Partnership, The Law of

Patents, Registration and Infringement of

Pawnbrokers and their Pledges

Police Cases

Probate

Rates and Taxes

Reversionary Interests

Seduction, Cases of

Servants' Wrongful Dismissal

Sheriffs

Sureties Estreated

Tenancies, Disputed

Trade Marks, Infringement of

Trespass, Cases of

Trustees and Trusts

Wages Kept Back

Wills, Disputed and Unproved

Women, Cruelty to

Workmen, Grievances of &c.,&c.

The Advice Bureau will therefore be, first of all, a place where men

and women in trouble can come when they please to communicate in

confidence the cause of their anxiety, with a certainty that they will

receive a sympathetic hearing and the best advice.

Secondly, it will be a Poor Man's Lawyer, giving the best legal counsel

as to the course to be pursued in the various circumstances with which

the poor find themselves confronted.

Thirdly, it will act as a Poor Man's Tribune, and will undertake the

defence of friendless prisoners supposed to be innocent, together with

the resistance of illegal extortions, and the prosecution of offenders

who refuse legal satisfaction for the wrongs they have committed.

Fourthly, it will act wherever it is called upon as a Court of

Arbitration between litigants, where the decision will be according to

equity, and the costs cut down to the lowest possible figure.

Such a Department cannot be improvised; but it is already in a fair way

of development, and it can hardly fail to do great good.

SECTION 5.--OUR INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT.

An indispensable adjunct of this Scheme will be the institution of what

may be called an Intelligence Department at Headquarters. Power, it

has been said, belongs to the best informed, and if we are effectually

to deal with the forces of social evil, we must have ready at our

fingers' ends the accumulated experience and information of the whole

world on this subject. The collection of facts and the systematic

record of them would be invaluable, rendering the result of the

experiments of previous generations available for the information of

our own.

At the present there is no central institution, either governmental or

otherwise, in this country or any other, which charges itself with the

duty of collecting and collating the ideas and conclusions on Social

Economy, so far as they are likely to help the solution of the problem

we have in hand. The British Home Office has only begun to index its

own papers. The Local Government Board is in a similar condition, and,

although each particular Blue Book may be admirably indexed, there is

no classified index of the whole series. If this is the case with the

Government, it is not likely that the innumerable private organisations

which are pecking here and there at the social question should possess

any systematised method for the purpose of comparing notes and storing

information. This Intelligence Department, which I propose to found on

a small scale at first, will have in it the germ of vast extension

which will, if adequately supported become a kind of University,

in which the accumulated experiences of the human race will be massed,

digested, and rendered available to the humblest toiler in the great

work of social reform. At the present moment, who is there that can

produce in any of our museums and universities as much as a classified

index of publications relating to one of the many heads under which I

have dealt with this subject? Who is there among all our wise men and

social reformers that can send me a list of all the best tracts upon--

say, the establishment of agricultural colonies or the experiments that

have been made in dealing with inebriates; or the best plans for the

construction of a working man's cottage?

For the development of this Scheme I want an Office to begin with, in

which, under the head of the varied subjects treated of in this volume,

I may have arranged the condensed essence of all the best books that

have been written, and the names and addresses of those whose opinions

are worth having upon them, together with a note of what those opinions

are, and the results of experiments which have been made in relation to

them. I want to establish a system which will enable me to use,

not only the eyes and hands of Salvation Officers, but of sympathetic

friends in all parts of the world, for purposes of noticing and

reporting at once every social experiment of importance, any words of

wisdom on the social question, whether it may be the breeding of

rabbits, the organisation of an emigration service, the best method of

conducting a Cottage Farm, or the best way of cooking potatoes.

There is nothing in the whole range of our operations upon which we

should not be accumulating and recording the results of human

experience. What I want is to get the essence of wisdom which the

wisest have gathered from the widest experience, rendered instantly

available for the humblest worker in the Salvation Factory or Farm

Colony, and for any other toiler in similar fields of social progress.

It can be done, and in the service of the people it ought to be done.

I look for helpers in this department among those who hitherto may not

have cared for the Salvation Army, but who in the seclusion of their

studies and libraries will assist in the compiling of this great Index

of Sociological Experiments, and who would be willing, in this form,

to help in this Scheme, as Associates, for the ameliorating of the

condition of the people, if in nothing else than in using their eyes

and ears, and giving me the benefit of their brains as to where

knowledge lies, and how it can best be utilised. I propose to make a

beginning by putting two capable men and a boy in an office, with

instructions to cut out, preserve, and verify all contemporary records

in the daily and weekly press that have a bearing upon any branch of

our departments. Round these two men and a boy will grow up,

I confidently believe, a vast organisation of zealous unpaid workers,

who will co-operate in making our Intelligence Department a great

storehouse of information--a universal library where any man may

learn what is the sum of human knowledge upon any branch of the subject

which we have taken in hand.

SECTION 6.--CO-OPERATION IN GENERAL.

If anyone asked me to state in one word what seemed likely to be the

key of the solution of the Social Problem I should answer

unhesitatingly Co-operation. It being always understood that it is

Co-operation conducted on righteous principles, and for wise and

benevolent ends; otherwise Association cannot be expected to bear any

more profitable fruit than Individualism. Co-operation is applied

association--association for the purpose of production and

distribution. Co-operation implies the voluntary combination of

individuals to the attaining an object by mutual help, mutual counsel,

and mutual effort. There is a great deal of idle talk in the world

just now about capital, as if capital were the enemy of labour.

It is quite true that there are capitalists not a few who may be

regarded as the enemies, not only of labour, but of the human race;

but capital itself, so far from being a natural enemy of labour,

is the great object which the labourer has constantly in view.

However much an agitator may denounce capital, his one great grievance

is that he has not enough of it for himself. Capital, therefore, is

not an evil in itself; on the contrary, it is good--so good that one

of the great aims of the social reformer ought to be to facilitate its

widest possible distribution among his fellow-men. It is the

congestion of capital that is evil, and the labour question will never

be finally solved until every labourer is his own capitalist.

All this is trite enough, and has been said a thousand times already,

but, unfortunately, with the saying of it the matter ends.

Co-operation has been brought into practice in relation to distribution

with considerable success, but co-operation, as a means of production,

has not achieved anything like the success that was anticipated.

Again and again enterprises have been begun on co-operative principles

which bid fair, in the opinion of the promoters, to succeed; but after

one, two, three, or ten years, the enterprise which was started with

such high hopes has dwindled away into either total or partial failure.

At present, many co-operative undertakings are nothing more or less

than huge Joint Stock Limited Liability concerns, shares of which are

held largely by working people, but not necessarily, and sometimes not

at all by those who are actually employed in the so-called co-operative

business. Now, why is this? Why do co-operative firms, co-operative

factories, and co-operative Utopias so very often come to grief?

I believe the cause is an open secret, and can be discerned by anyone

who will look at the subject with an open eye.

The success of industrial concerns is largely a question of management.

Management signifies government, and government implies authority,

and authority is the last thing which co-operators of the Utopian order

are willing to recognise as an element essential to the success of

their Schemes. The co-operative institution which is governed on

Parliamentary principles, with unlimited right of debate and right of

obstruction, will never be able to compete successfully with

institutions which are directed by a single brain wielding the united

resources of a disciplined and obedient army of workers. Hence, to

make co-operation a success you must superadd to the principle of

consent the principle of authority; you must invest in those to whom

you entrust the management of your co-operative establishment the same

liberty of action that is possessed by the owner of works on the other

side of the repudiation of the rotten and effete regime of the

Bourbons, the French peasants and workmen imagined that they were

inaugurating the millennium when they scrawled Liberty, Equality, and

Fraternity across all the churches in every city of France.

They carried their principles of freedom and license to the logical

ultimate, and attempted to manage their army on Parliamentary

principles. It did not work; their undisciplined levies were driven

back; disorder reigned in the Republican camp; and the French

Revolution would have been stifled in its cradle had not the instinct

of the nation discerned in time the weak point in its armour.

Menaced by foreign wars and intestine revolt, the Republic established

an iron discipline in its army, and enforced obedience by the summary

process of military execution. The liberty and the enthusiasm

developed by the outburst of the long pent-up revolutionary forces

supplied the motive power, but it was the discipline of the

revolutionary armies, the stern, unbending obedience which was enforced

in all ranks from the highest to the lowest, which created for Napoleon

the admirable military instrument by which he shattered every throne in

Europe and swept in triumph from Paris to Moscow.

In industrial affairs we are very much like the French Republic before

it tempered its doctrine of the rights of man by the duty of obedience

on the part of the soldier. We have got to introduce discipline into

the industrial army, we have to superadd the principle of authority to

the principle of co-operation, and so to enable the worker to profit to

the full by the increased productiveness of the willing labour of men

who are employed in their own workshops and on their own property.

There is no need to clamour for great schemes of State Socialism.

The whole thing can be done simply, economically, and speedily if only

the workers will practice as much self-denial for the sake of

establishing themselves as capitalists, as the Soldiers of the

Salvation Army practice every year in Self Denial Week. What is the

sense of never making a levy except during a strike? Instead of calling

for a shilling, or two shillings, a week in order to maintain men who

are starving in idleness because of a dispute with their masters,

why should there not be a levy kept up for weeks or months, by the

workers, for the purpose of setting themselves up in business as

masters? There would then be no longer a capitalist owner face to face

with the masses of the proletariat, but all the means of production,

the plant, and all the accumulated resources of capital would really be

at the disposal of labour. This will never be done, however, as long

as co-operative experiments are carried on in the present archaic

fashion.

Believing in co-operation as the ultimate solution, if to co-operation

you can add subordination, I am disposed to attempt something in this

direction in my new Social Scheme. I shall endeavour to start a

Co-operative Farm on the principles of Ralahine, and base the whole of

my Farm Colony on a Co-operative foundation.

In starting this little Co-operative Commonwealth, I am reminded by

those who are always at a man's elbow to fill him with forebodings of

ill, to look at the failures, which I have just referred to, which make

up the history of the attempt to realise ideal commonwealths in this

practical workaday world. Now, I have read the history of the many

attempts at co-operation that have been made to form communistic

settlements in the United States, and am perfectly familiar with the

sorrowful fate with which nearly all have been overtaken; but the story

of their failures does not deter me in the least, for I regard them as

nothing more than warnings to avoid certain mistakes, beacons to

illustrate the need of proceeding on a different tack.

Broadly speaking, your experimental communities fail because your

Utopias all start upon the system of equality and government by vote of

the majority, and, as a necessary and unavoidable consequence,

your Utopians get to loggerheads, and Utopia goes to smash, I shall

avoid that rock. The Farm Colony, like all the other departments of

the Scheme, will be governed, not on the principle of counting noses,

but on the exactly opposite principle of admitting no noses into the

concern that are not willing to be guided by the directing brain.

It will be managed on principles which assert that the fittest ought to

rule, and it will provide for the fittest being selected, and having

got them at the top, will insist on universal and unquestioning

obedience from those at the bottom. If anyone does not like to work

for his rations and submit to the orders of his superior Officers he

can leave. There is no compulsion on him to stay. The world is wide,

and outside the confines of our Colony and the operations of our Corps

my authority does not extend. But judging from our brief experience it

is not from revolt against authority that the Scheme is destined to

fail.

There cannot be a greater mistake in this world than to imagine that

men object to be governed. They like to be governed, provided that the

governor has his "head screwed on right" and that he is prompt to hear

and ready to see and recognise all that is vital to the interests of

the commonwealth. So far from there being an innate objection on the

part of mankind to being governed, the instinct to obey is so universal

that even when governments have gone blind, and deaf, and paralytic,

rotten with corruption, and hopelessly behind the times, they still

contrive to live on. Against a capable Government no people ever

rebel, only when stupidity and incapacity have taken possession of the

seat of power do insurrections break out.

SECTION 7.--A MATRIMONIAL BUREAU.

There is another direction in which something ought to be done to

restore the natural advantages enjoyed by every rural community which

have been destroyed by the increasing tendency of mankind to come

together in huge masses. I refer to that which is after all one of the

most important elements in every human life, that of marrying and

giving in marriage. In the natural life of a country village all the

lads and lasses grow up together, they meet together in religious

associations, in daily employments, and in their amusements on the

village green. They have learned their A, B, C and pothooks together,

and when the time comes for pairing off they have had excellent

opportunities of knowing the qualities and the defects of those whom

they select as their partners in life. Everything in such a community

lends itself naturally to the indispensable preliminaries of

love-making, and courtships, which, however much they may be laughed at,

contribute more than most things to the happiness or life. But in a

great city all this is destroyed. In London at the present moment how

many hundreds, nay thousands, of young men and young women, who are

living in lodgings, are practically without any opportunity of making

the acquaintance of each other, or of any one of the other sex!

The street is no doubt the city substitute for the village green,

and what a substitute it is!

It has been bitterly said by one who knew well what he was talking

about, "There are thousands of young men to-day who have no right to

call any woman by her Christian name, except the girls they meet plying

their dreadful trade in our public thoroughfares." As long as that is

the case, vice has an enormous advantage over virtue; such an abnormal

social arrangement interdicts morality and places a vast premium upon

prostitution. We must get back to nature if we have to cope with this

ghastly evil. There ought to be more opportunities afforded for

healthy human intercourse between young men and young women, nor can

Society rid itself of a great responsibility for all the wrecks of

manhood and womanhood with which our streets are strewn, unless it does

make some attempt to bridge this hideous chasm which yawns between the

two halves of humanity. The older I grow the more absolutely am I

opposed to anything that violates the fundamental law of the family.

Humanity is composed of two sexes, and woe be to those who attempt to

separate them into distinct bodies, making of each half one whole!

It has been tried in monasteries and convents with but poor success,

yet what our fervent Protestants do not seem to see is that we are

reconstructing a similar false system for our young people without the

safeguards and the restraints of convent walls or the sanctifying

influence of religious conviction. The conditions of City life,

the absence of the enforced companionship of the village and small

town, the difficulty of young people finding harmless opportunities of

friendly intercourse, all tends to create classes of celibates who are

not chaste, and whose irregular and lawless indulgence of a universal

instinct is one of the most melancholy features of the present state of

society. Nay, so generally is this recognised, that one of the terms

by which one of the consequences of this unnatural state of things is

popularly known is "the social evil," as if all other social evils were

comparatively unworthy of notice in comparison to this.

While I have been busily occupied in working out my Scheme for the

registration of labour, it has occurred to me more than once, why could

not something like the same plan be adopted in relation to men who want

wives and women who want husbands? Marriage is with most people largely

a matter or opportunity. Many a man and many a woman, who would,

if they had come together, have formed a happy household, are leading

at this moment miserable and solitary lives, suffering in body and in

soul, in consequence of their exclusion from the natural state of

matrimony. Of course, the registration of the unmarried who wish to

marry would be a matter of much greater delicacy than the registration

of the joiners and stone-masons who wish to obtain work. But the thing

is not impossible. I have repeatedly found in my experience that many

a man and many a woman would only be too glad to have a friendly hint

as to where they might prosecute their attentions or from which they

might receive proposals. In connection with such an agency, if it were

established--for I am mot engaging to undertake this task--

I am only throwing out a possible suggestion as to the development in

the direction of meeting a much needed want, there might be added

training homes for matrimony. My heart bleeds for many a young couple

whom I see launching out into the sea of matrimony with no housewifery

experience. The young girls who leave our public elementary schools

and go out into factories have never been trained to home duties, and

yet, when taken to wife, are unreasonably expected to fill worthily the

difficult positions of the head of a household and the mother of a

family. A month spent before marriage in a training home of

housewifery would conduce much more to the happiness of the married

life than the honeymoon which immediately follows it.

Especially is this the case with those who marry to go abroad and

settle in a distant country. I often marvel when I think of the utter

helplessness of the modern woman, compared with the handiness of her

grandmother. How many of our girls can even bake a loaf? The baker has

killed out one of our fundamental domestic arts. But if you are in the

Backwoods or in the Prairie or in the Bush, no baker's cart comes round

every morning with the new-made bread, and I have often thought with

sorrow of the kind of stuff which this poor wife must serve up to her

hungry husband. As it is with baking, so it is with washing, with

milking, with spinning, with all the arts and sciences of the

household, which were formerly taught, as a matter of course, to all

the daughters who were born in the world. Talk about woman's rights,

one of the first of woman's rights is to be trained to her trade, to be

queen of her household, and mother of her children.

Speaking of colonists leads me to the suggestion whether something

could not be done to supply, on a well-organised system, the thousands

of bachelor miners or the vast host of unmarried males who are

struggling with the wilderness on the outskirts of civilisation,

with capable wives from the overplus of marriageable females who abound

in our great towns. Woman supplied in adequate quantities is the great

moraliser of Society, but woman doled out as she is in the Far West and

the Australian bush, in the proportion of one woman to about a dozen

men, is a fertile source of vice and crime. Here again we must get

back to nature, whose fundamental laws our social arrangements have

rudely set on one side with consequences which as usual she does not

fail to exact with remorseless severity. There have always been born

into the world and continue to be born boys and girls in fairly equal

proportions, but with colonising and soldiering our men go away,

leaving behind them a continually growing surplus of marriageable but

unmarried spinsters, who cannot spin, and who are utterly unable to

find themselves husbands. This is a wide field on the discussion of

which I must not enter. I merely indicate it as one of those

departments in which an intelligent philanthropy might find a great

sphere for its endeavours; but it would be better not to touch it at

all than to deal with it with light-hearted precipitancy and without

due consideration of all the difficulties and dangers connected

therewith. Obstacles, however, exist to be overcome and converted into

victories. There is even a certain fascination about the difficult and

dangerous, which appeals very strongly to all who know that it is the

apparently insolvable difficulty which contains within its bosom the

key to the problem which you are seeking to solve.

SECTION 8.--WHITECHAPEL-BY-THE-SEA.

In considering the various means by which some substantial improvement

can be made in the condition of the toiling masses, recreation cannot

be omitted. I have repeatedly had forced upon me the desirability of

making it possible for them to spend a few hours occasionally by the

seaside, or even at times three or four days. Notwithstanding the

cheapened rates and frequent excursions, there are multitudes of the

poor who, year in and out, never get beyond the crowded city, with the

exception of dragging themselves and their children now and then to the

parks on holidays or hot summer evenings. The majority, especially the

inhabitants of the East of London, never get away from the sunless

alleys and grimy streets in which they exist from year to year.

It is true that a few here and there of the adult population, and a

good many of the children, have a sort of annual charity excursion to

Epping Forest, Hampton Court, or perhaps to the sea. But it is only

the minority. The vast number, while possessed of a passionate love of

the sea, which only those who have mixed with them can conceive,

pass their whole lives without having once looked over its blue waters,

or watched its waves breaking at their feet.

Now I am not so foolish as to dream that it is possible to make any

such change in Society as will enable the poor man to take his wife and

children for a fortnight's sojourn, during the oppressive summer days,

to brace them up for their winter's task, although this might be as

desirable in their case as in that of their more highly favoured

fellow-creatures. But I would make it possible for every man;

woman and child, to get, now and then, a day's refreshing change by a

visit to that never-failing source of interest. In the carrying out of

this plan, we are met at the onset with a difficulty of some little

magnitude, and that is the necessity of a vastly reduced charge in the

cost of the journey. To do anything effective we must be able to get a

man from Whitechapel or Stratford to the sea-side and back for a

shilling.

Unfortunately, London is sixty miles from the sea. Suppose we take it

at seventy miles. This would involve a journey of one hundred and

forty miles for the small sum of 1s. Can this be done? I think it can,

and done to pay the railway companies; otherwise there is no ground to

hope for this part of my Scheme ever being realised. But I think that

this great boon can be granted to the poor people without the dividends

being sensibly affected. I am told that the cost of haulage for an

ordinary passenger train, carrying from five hundred to a thousand

persons, is 2s. 7d. per mile; a railway company could take six

hundred passengers seventy miles there, and bring them seventy miles

back, at a cost of #18 1s. 8d. Six hundred passengers at a shilling is

#30, so that there would be a clear profit to the company of nearly #12

on the haulage, towards the payment of interest on the capital, wear

and tear of line, &c. But I reckon, at a very moderate computation,

that two hundred thousand persons would travel to and fro every season.

An addition of #10,000 to the exchequer of a railway company is not to

be despised and this would be a mere bagatelle to the indirect profits

which would follow the establishment of a settlement which must in due

course necessarily become very speedily a large and active community.

This it would be necessary to bring home to the railway companies, and

for the execution of this part of my Scheme I must wait till I get some

manager sufficiently public-spirited to try the experiment. When such a

man is found, I purpose to set at once about my Sea-Side Establishment.

This will present the following special advantages, which I am quite

certain will be duly appreciated by the very poorest of the London

population: --

An estate of some three hundred acres would be purchased on which

buildings would be erected, calculated to meet the wants of this class

of excursionists.

Refreshments would be provided at rates very similar to those charged

at our London Food Depots. There would, of course, be greater

facilities in the way of rooms and accommodation generally.

Lodgings for invalids, children, and those requiring to make a short

stay in the place would be supplied at the lowest prices. Beds for

single men and single women could be charged at the low rate of

sixpence a night, and children in proportion, while accommodation of a

suitable character, on very moderate terms, could be arranged for

married people.

No public-houses would be allowed within the precincts of the

settlement.

A park, playground, music, boats, covered conveniences for bathing,

without the expense of hiring a machine, and other arrangements for the

comfort and enjoyment of the people would be provided.

The estate would form one of the Colonies of the general enterprise,

and on it would be grown fruit, vegetables, flowers, and other produce

for the use of the visitors, and sold at the lowest remunerative rates.

One of the first provisions for the comfort of the excursionists would

be the erection of a large hall, affording ample shelter in case of

unfavourable weather, and in this and other parts of the place there

would be the fullest opportunity for ministers of all denominations to

hold religious services in connection with any excursionists they might

bring with them.

There would be shops for tradesmen, houses for residets, a museum with

a panorama and stuffed whale; boats would be let out at moderate

prices, and a steamer to carry people so many miles out to sea,

and so many miles back for a penny, with a possible bout of sickness,

for which no extra charge would be made.

In fact the railway fares and refreshment arrangements would be on such

a scale, that a husband and wife could have a 70-mile ride through the

green fields, the new-mown hay, the waving grain or fruit laden

orchards; could wander for hours on the seashore, have comforting and

nourishing refreshment, and be landed back at home sober, cheered and

invigorated for the small sum of 3s. A couple of children under 12

might be added at 1s. 6d.--nay, a whole family, husband, wife and

four children, supposing one is in arms, could have a day at the

seaside, without obligation or charity, for 5s.

The gaunt, hungry inhabitants of the Slums would save up their

halfpence, and come by thousands; clergymen would find it possible to

bring half the poor and needy occupants of their parishes; schools,

mothers' meetings, and philanthropic societies of all descriptions

would come down wholesale; in short, what Brighton is to the West End

and middle classes, this place would be to the East End poor, nay, to

the poor of the Metropolis generally, a Whitechapel-by-the-Sea.

Now this ought to be done apart from my Scheme altogether. The rich

corporations which have the charge of the affairs of this great City,

and the millionaires, who would never have amassed their fortunes but

by the assistance of the masses, ought to say it shall be done.

Suppose the Railway Companies refused to lend the great highways of

which they have become the monopolists for such an undertaking without

a subvention, then the necessary subvention should be forthcoming.

If it could be made possible for the joyless toilers to come out of the

sweater's den, or the stifling factory; if the seamstress could leave

her needle, and the mother get away from the weary round of babydom and

household drudgery for a day now and then, to the cooling,

invigorating, heart-stirring influences of the sea, it should be done,

even if it did cost a few paltry thousands. Let the men and women who

spend a little fortune every year in Continental tours, Alpine

climbings, yacht excursions, and many another form of luxurious

wanderings, come forward and say that it shall be possible for these

crowds of their less fortunate brethren to have the opportunity of

spending one day at least in the year by the sea.

CHAPTER VII.

CAN IT BE DONE, AND HOW?

SECTION 1.--THE CREDENTIALS OF THE SALVATION ARMY.

Can this great work be done? I believe it can. And I believe that it

can be done by the Salvation Army, because it has ready to hand an

organisation of men and women, numerous enough and zealous enough to

grapple with the enormous undertaking. The work may prove beyond our

powers. But this is not so manifest as to preclude us from wishing to

make the attempt. That in itself is a qualification which is shared by

no other organisation--at present. If we can do it we have the field

entirely to ourselves. The wealthy churches show no inclination to

compete for the onerous privilege of making the experiment in this

definite and practical form. Whether we have the power or not,

we have, at least, the will, the ambition to do this great thing for

the sake of our brethren, and therein lies our first credential for

being entrusted with the enterprise.

The second credential is the fact that, while using all material means,

our reliance is on the co-working power of God. We keep our powder

dry, but we trust in Jehovah. We go not forth in our own strength to

this battle, our dependence is upon Him who can influence the heart of

man. There is no doubt that the most satisfactory method of raising a

man must be to effect such a change in his views and feelings that he

shall voluntarily abandon his evil ways, give himself to industry and

goodness in the midst of the very temptations and companionships that

before led him astray, and live a Christian life, an example in himself

of what can be done by the power of God in the very face of the most

impossible circumstances.

But herein lies the great difficulty again and again referred to,

men have not that force of character which will constrain them to avail

themselves of the methods of deliverance. Now our Scheme is based on

the necessity of helping such.

Our third credential is the fact that we have already out of

practically nothing achieved so great a measure of success that we

think we may reasonably be entrusted with this further duty.

The ordinary operations of the Army have already effected most

wonderful changes in the conditions of the poorest and worst.

Multitudes of slaves of vice in every form have been delivered not only

from these habits, but from the destitution and misery which they even

produce. Instances have been given. Any number more can be produced.

Our experience, which has been almost world-wide, has ever shown that

not only does the criminal become honest, the drunkard sober,

the harlot chaste, but that poverty of the most abject and helpless

type vanishes away. Our fourth credential is that our Organisation

alone of England's religious bodies is founded upon the principle of

implicit obedience.

For Discipline I can answer. The Salvation Army, largely recruited

from among the poorest of the poor, is often reproached by its enemies

on account of the severity of its rule. It is the only religious body

founded in our time that is based upon the principle of voluntary

subjection to an absolute authority. No one is bound to remain in the

Army a day longer than he pleases. While he remains there he is bound

by the conditions of the Service. The first condition of that Service

is implicit, unquestioning obedience. The Salvationist is taught to

obey as is the soldier on the field of battle.

From the time when the Salvation Army began to acquire strength and to

grow from the grain of mustard seed until now, when its branches

overshadow the whole earth, we have been constantly warned against the

evils which this autocratic system would entail. Especially were we

told that in a democratic age the people would never stand the

establishment of what was described as a spiritual despotism.

It was contrary to the spirit of the times, it would be a stone of

stumbling and a rock of offence to the masses to whom we appeal,

and so forth and so forth.

But what has been the answer of accomplished facts to these predictions

of theorists? Despite the alleged unpopularity of our discipline,

perhaps because of the rigour of military authority upon which we have

insisted, the Salvation Army has grown from year to year with a

rapidity to which nothing in modern Christendom affords any parallel.

It is only twenty-five years since it was born. It is now the largest

Home and Foreign Missionary Society in the Protestant world. We have

nearly 10,000 officers under our orders, a number increasing every day,

every one of whom has taken service on the express condition that he or

she will obey without questioning or gainsaying the orders from

Headquarters. Of these, 4,600 are in Great Britain. The greatest

number outside these islands, in any one country, are in the American

Republic, where we have 1,018 officers, and democratic Australia,

where we have 800.

Nor is the submission to our discipline a mere paper loyalty.

These officers are in the field, constantly exposed to privation

and ill-treatment of all kinds. A telegram from me will send any of

them to the uttermost parts of the earth, will transfer them from the

Slums of London to San Francisco, or despatch them to assist in opening

missions in Holland, Zululand, Sweden, or South America. So far from

resenting the exercise of authority, the Salvation Army rejoices to

recognise it as one great secret of its success, a pillar of strength

upon which all its soldiers can rely, a principle which stamps it as

being different from all other religious organisations founded in our

day.