SIR,—Fortunate mistakes are by no means uncommon. In your number
seventeen you fall into an error in reference to the Westminster Ragged
Dormitory; in the correction of which I have the good fortune to be able
to give you some interesting information. You stated that the particular
institution there alluded to was founded by Mr. Walker, the city
missionary—that was the error. The credit is due, and should have been
given to Mr. C. Nash, who was formerly a schoolmaster, employed by Mr.
Walker to teach a ragged school which that gentleman had established
before “Ragged Schools” had received their appropriate designation and
wide popularity.
The tact, management, and energy displayed by Mr. Nash in forming and
establishing the St. Ann Street dormitory deserve every praise; but the
ground was in some measure prepared for him by his former principal. The
manner in which this was done shows “the power of small beginnings,”
even in a stronger light than was exhibited in your article with that
title.[3]
Footnote 3:
At page 407.
In the year 1840 it became my duty to enquire into the condition of what
are but too literally the outcasts of society; and for that purpose
obtained introductions to several city missionaries—adequate description
of the scenes of harrowing want, disease, and crime into which those
gentlemen introduced me, it would be impossible to pen. They alone
seemed able to penetrate the dark moral atmosphere. They were always
welcomed even by the poorest and the worst.
As one specimen of the efforts made by the Westminster missionaries, I
was introduced to a dilapidated shed in New Pye Street. Here I found
several young children of both sexes, in rags, and some nearly naked.
The scene was most grotesque; the clotted hair, the mud-covered hands
and faces, and the haggard countenances, at once told a tale which would
have pierced the coldest heart. They were being taught reading and
needlework. They were not particularly orderly and some showed a quaint,
pantomimic, half-witted disposition to be funny, which pained rather
than amused the spectator. Most of them were the sons and daughters of
thieves. The small beginning which gave rise to the general idea of
Ragged Dormitories took rise in an event for which I can vouch.
The missionary who had formed this school was standing one day, in 1846,
at its door, when two adult thieves appealed to him in behalf of a
wretched boy who had, they said, been cruelly maltreated and kicked out
of doors by his mother, because his day’s prowl for the purpose of
thieving had been unsuccessful. “Why do you not take pity on him
yourselves?”—asked the missionary. “Why!”—one of them answered,—“why, if
you knew what a thief’s life is as well as we do; you would not train a
dog to thieving.” It must have been, thought the missionary, a desperate
case which could have so forcibly excited the sympathies of two hardened
depredators; and he determined to see into it. He soon found the boy;
and his condition was too debased for any description which would not
excite loathing. Having made the lad decent, he took him to the model
lodging-house in Great Peter Street, benevolently commenced and mainly
supported by Lord Kinnaird. The boy was kept there for four months;
supported three out of the four solely out of the missionary’s slender
private funds.
This circumstance forced on his attention the necessity of providing
shelter for such juvenile outcasts, and he drew up an appeal to certain
benevolent persons to that effect. The secretary of the Ragged School
Union immediately promised that if the missionary would find house room,
he would find funds. A house was taken in Old Pye Street, which was soon
afterwards opened as the Westminster Juvenile Refuge and School of
Industry. This establishment was afterwards removed to Duck Lane, where
it now flourishes, under a roof which formerly covered a Thieves’
public-house. The transformation is thus described by the gentleman who
made it, in a pamphlet now before me:—
“Indulge me for a moment,” he says, “with a glance at the old
public-house, (now The Refuge!) Let us look in at the upper room—(now
the girls’ school). Here were fifty youths met around their master (as
able a one in his calling as England could produce), listening with
undivided attention to his instructions on the ‘map,’—(a pair of
trowsers suspended from the ceiling)—on the subject of ‘fob-ology,’ or
pocket-picking. After this course of tuition, the next was the mock
trial—an imitation of the Old Bailey Court, with a _fac-simile_ of its
functionaries and ordeal, done with very great taste, and calculated to
make the young rascal not only expert in extracting from the fob or
pocket, but clever in defence. To train the young novice in his first
essay, he was supplied with a glass, below in the tap—(now the
dining-room of the children). If successful, then he returned for the
purpose of reporting his success, and having a game at skittles in the
skittle ground—(now the boys’ school-room.)”
A concise calculation of the respective expenses entailed on the
country, in the same house, under its former and present destiny, may
here be made. When it was a finishing-school for thieves, each, on
conviction and transportation, cost the community not less than one
hundred and fifty pounds. Comparing fifty thieves in the upper room with
the fifty pupils now in the lower room, we find that, for the first
fifty the cost was five thousand five hundred pounds; for the present
fifty, two hundred and fifty pounds. Had the five thousand five hundred
pounds been used for the preventing instead of the punishing of crime,
what would not have been accomplished for these neglected mortals? It
would have educated eleven hundred youths, many of whom would not only
have been rescued from vice and crime, but have become a blessing
instead of a curse to society.
What I have described, then, is the true origin of the class of
institutions to which that founded by Mr. Nash belongs.
The Duck Lane Ragged School and Dormitory averages at present a daily
attendance of two hundred and twenty children of both sexes, forty have
no fathers, twenty eight have no mothers, eighteen are orphans, six of
the fathers have been transported. Provision is made for ten who are
totally destitute; they are fed and lodged on the premises; twenty-four
thieves and vagrants have been admitted during the year, and many more
refused for want of support; eleven have emigrated, three have been
provided with situations in this country; some of those have spent
three, five, seven, and ten years in a course of crime; who have gone
forth from this Institution after a moral and an industrial training,
and are now doing well.
Three of the emigrants have given an account of themselves in the
following joint epistle to Mr. Walker, their benefactor. It is so
characteristic that we print it almost literally:—
“_B——, July 18th 1850._
“Mr. Walker,
“Dear Sir,—You may wonder how it is that you have not heard from us
before, but as they that came from Mr. Nash, was going to write, they
promised Mr. Cain that they would acquaint you of our safe arrival. We
left Gravesend on the Sunday morning, and sailed out for the great
depths of the Atlantic, which gave us some _great shakes_ before we
got to our journey’s end. The vessel proved to be in but a sorry
condition for passengers, there being hardly any dry berths on board,
and ours the worst of the whole lot, Mr. Cain and Churn got another
berth aft, and Fred and me had to take to the sails room aft where we
stopt during the remainder of the voyage. We had four deaths on board,
two babies, one old lady, and one of the poor sailors who fell from
the fore top across the windlass, which killed him instantly. We made
the passage in about five weeks and five days, as we arrived at New
York on the 17th of May. We found it to be a place quite different to
our likeing, and so we left it and proceeded up the country without
anything in our pockets, for we were determined not to be discouraged,
though in a strange land, for we knew that we had the same eye
watching over us here as we had in England so we pushed on, on board
of a canal boat that was going to Buffalo, but stopping about 2½ Miles
from the Town of B—— on account of a breakage in the canal, we took
the opportunity to look round the Town for work and was fortunate
enough to fall into work, the three of us. Fred is learning the
harness making, as he did not much care about learning the shoemaking
over again, as me and Churn has to do, for the work here is as
different to what we had been accustomed to as light from darkness. I
do scarcely anything but upper leathers, with now and then a pair or
two of Boy’s Boots which I make here in about three hours, being all
pegged work, as for closing you must not take a day to close one pair,
but must do 16 or 18 pair a day, and 6 or 8 pair of what you call
Wellingtons. So you will see by this that it is no use coming over
unless you mean to work in downright ernest, for they think of nothing
but of making money, up at ½ past 4 four in the morning, begin work at
five and keep on till seven in the evening, and no time allowed for
your meals but eat away as fast as you like and then back again to
work, our breakfast here beats all the dinners in England, for theres
roast and boil meats, pies, puddings, cakes, salids, tea, coffee,
bread and butter which latter article comes on at all meals. We had
grand doings here on the fourth of July, in anniversary of their
Independence fireworks, Bonfires, Circus, shows, firemen going round
all the City with the engines decorated out with flowers which look
very pretty. The President of the united States died at Washington on
the tenth of this month of Billious Diarrhoæ, he is to be buried on
Friday the 12th. Twenty years ago this Town was nothing but a low
swampy mass of Land, with but one house on it, now it is a flourishing
place with twenty thousand inhabitants, its rise is owing to a salt
spring about 2 miles off where they make vast quantities of salt,
indeed it is one of the chief trades here it employs about three
thousand hands all the summer, but they do not work at it in the
winter, their weekly earnings are from 4 to 5 Dollars that is 1 pound
English. It is very hard work I can tell you, in this country were the
thermometer is never much less than 100 during the summer, where they
have got to stand over large Furnaces, attending to the boiling of the
salt. I do not think that I shall rest contended over here longer than
a few years, for a man earns not a fraction more here than he does in
England, the only difference is, that he works more hours here than he
does there and consequently he is glad to get home to rest himself,
instead of fooling his money away at the pothouse, and then some of
the things are rather cheaper here, and as I told you before they only
think of getting money. I shall write and let you know more about it
when I have been over some time longer, I shall then I guess know more
about the place. You can tell the others if they come over that I
should advise them to push up a little higher in the country than stop
in New York as it is far better, and tell them that they need not mind
having any money for they will not starve over here for we found the
people very kind to us here not like they are in England. You must
excuse this funny letter, as it is the work of several evenings, and
therefore it may read curious, for I have felt rather unsettled as yet
being among strangers, but I will write you another shortly, when I
feel more at home, and will give you a further description of the
place, so you must excuse all faults. Timothy Case left his place in
New York, for what reason I do not know further than that he said he
only was going there till we came that he might go with us, as he felt
sure when I saw New York that I should not stop in it, and that if we
would not go with him, he should then have gone by himself. I felt
very vexed with him at leaving, and tried to persuade to stop but it
was no use, so Fred and me took him under our care and got our boss to
take him where he is now learning the harness making. I guess he will
get about 20 Dollars a year he being hardly an inch taller than he was
at home. When you return an answer direct to me at Mr. Apples Boot and
Shoe Store 8 Empire Block B—— Onoydaga County State of New York. They
don’t say streets, but call them Blocks, and they _guess_ they don’t
_think_ here so I suppose that I shall get a regular Yankee in time.
It is tremendous hot here now, and I feel it so when at work very
much. Tell Mr. Slade that I will write him a letter _soon_. I get
2_s._ 6_d._ english money a week or 30 Dollars a year of this, board
lodging and washing which is pretty fair wages here for boys, learning
pegged work, the general pay being 15 or 18 dollars a year, but as we
had learned the other work our boss gave us thirty, (boss here is what
they call the Master in England) Fred and Churn gets the same wages,
as me, you must give all our best loves and wishes to all the School
children, and we hope that they will all value their learning, which
they will find will be a blessing and comfort to them hereafter. You
can tell them that I often think of them when I sit at work and that I
almost fancy that I am in the old shop once more hearing their voices
as they say their lessons showing how strong fancy leads us back again
to old familiar scenes, I hope that God will bless and prosper them
all in this life, and that he will take them to his everlasting home
is the fervent prayer of John Jones. Give our love to all kind friends
at home, for so I am bound to call it, and receive the same yourself
with Mrs. W—— and Harriet.
“From yours ever affectionate pupils,
“J. J., J. H. C., and F. J.”
Before reception into the Duck Lane School, all these boys had been
thieves. J. J. had lived by plunder for seven years; J. H. C. had been a
thief from early childhood; and F. J. from the age of five years.
* * * * *
_On the 20th inst. will be published, price 5s. 6d., neatly bound in
Cloth_,
THE FIRST VOLUME
OF
“HOUSEHOLD WORDS,”
_Containing Numbers 1 to 26_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------