enough, perhaps--had very little about it to encourage the affections,
or to appeal to the loving confidence of a child--but it was less
barbarous than the code which at that time found its maxim in the
saying, "Spare the rod, spoil the child." Only very flagrant
disobedience, persistent lying and swearing, were punished with public
whipping. But even in the case of ordinary falsehood, a child was placed
with his face to the wall at meal-time, with a paper pinned to his back
with the word "Lyar" written on it, till he was sufficiently penitent to
say, in the presence of all the rest of the children, "I have sinned in
telling a lie. I will take more care. I hope God will forgive me."
The name, "Working School," was then interpreted so strictly, that there
was comparatively little margin for education. Arithmetic appears to
have been regarded with peculiar jealousy by the founders of this
institution, who, being perhaps bankers, accountants, and capitalists,
looked upon such instruction as calculated to give the poor little boys
and girls notions beyond their station.
For ten years the teaching of figures was altogether ignored; and it was
only when some of the children, having heard that there was a science
called "summing" known to the outer world, begged to be taught, that a
solemn meeting of the Governors was called to consider the question,
when it was conceded, after great deliberation, and no little opposition
from the anti-educational part of the Committee, that arithmetic should
be permitted to be taught, as far as addition.
Thus, to their few and rigidly ordered recreations, their hours of
manual labour in making nets, list-carpets, slippers, and other cheap
commodities, to their instruction in plain reading, and to their times
for partaking of plain and even coarse food, served in not too tempting
a way, was added the art of writing, and of the first two rules of
arithmetic.
This was the condition of the orphans in 1775; but still the charity
grew--grew out of house-room; and as the funds grew also, it was
determined that it should have a building of its own, on a plot of
ground in the City Road, where, improvements having set in, the grand
old charity moved with the march of modern improvement. Life became less
hard, and instruction more extended. The influences of modern thought
and education had superseded the old severity, and new Governors
succeeded the bewigged and powdered founders, who had, after all, so
well ordered their work, that it increased with the growth of
intelligence.
During the seventy-two years from 1775 to 1847, the institution had
received 1,124 orphans; and again the dimensions of the house were
unequal to the demands of the inmates; while the house itself, and the
ground on which it stood, had become so valuable, that it was determined
to buy a plot of land at Haverstock Hill, and there to found a truly
representative Home for 240 orphan boys and girls--a number which has
now increased (as the building itself has been extended) till 400
orphans are taught, fed, and clothed in one of the most truly
representative charities in all great London.
The obvious distress and suffering of those who are destitute, and whose
claims are constantly before us, may lead us to forget the frequent
needs of a large number of people who represent uncomplaining poverty.
There is a tendency to identify general appeals to benevolence with
efforts for the relief of that extreme necessity which demands immediate
and almost undiscriminating aid, and requires the prompt distribution of
alms or the provision of a meal, warmth, and shelter. Doubtless, the
actually homeless and destitute claim our first attention--especially in
the case of deserted and neglected children--and I have tried to show
what is being done for those little ones, whose presence in the streets
of this great wilderness of brick and stone should of itself be an
appeal strong enough to move the heart of humanity in their behalf.
There is, however, another class of poverty, which makes no sign, and
bears distress dumbly. There is a need, which, without being that of
actual destitution, requires a constant struggle to prevent its
representing the want of nearly all the luxuries, and some of those
things which most of us regard as the necessaries of life.
We find this among that large section of the middle class represented by
persons holding inferior clerkships, small official appointments, and
situations where the salaries are only sufficient to yield a bare
subsistence, and there is little or no probability of their improvement,
because, among the number of candidates who are eager to fill such
positions, there exists a degree of distress not easily estimated, even
by the appearance of those who are the sufferers. Of course, relief
cannot reach such people through the poor-law, or by any direct
legislation. They are far above the reach of almsgiving, or even of
societies for distributing bread and coals. They have a just pride in
maintaining a position of independence; and though they may sometimes
look with a feeling too near to envy at the more prosperous mechanic or
the skilled artisan, who can earn "good wages," dress in fustian or
corduroy, send his children to the Board School, and regulate working
hours and weekly pay by the rules of a Trade Union, they mostly keep
bravely on, hoping that as the children grow up, they may get the boys
"into something," and find some friend to help them to place the girls
in situations where they may partly earn their own living.
With rent and taxes often absorbing a fourth part of his entire income,
with market cliques combining against him to keep up the prices of food,
with dear bread, dear potatoes, boots and shoes always wearing out, and
respectability demanding cloth clothes, even though they be made of
"shoddy," how is the clerk, the employé, the small tradesman, the
struggling professional man, to follow the prudent counsel which
wealthier people are always ready to bestow upon him--and "lay by for a
rainy day?" Rainy day! why his social climate may be said to represent a
continual downpour, so far as the necessity for pecuniary provision. He
lives (so to speak) with an umbrella always up, and it is only a poor
shift of a gingham after all. The half-crown which is in his pocket
to-night is already bespoken for to-morrow's dinner. As he listens to
the account of the week's marketing, and knows that his wife and
children have been living for three days out of seven upon little better
than bread and dripping, he feels like an ogre as he thinks of the
sevenpenny plate of meat that he consumed at one o'clock, because it was
only "a makeshift" at home.
How is he to pay even the smallest premium to insure his life, when he
is obliged to meet ordinary emergencies by a visit to the pawnbroker
after dark?
Insure his life! Ah, the time may come when the hand of the bread-winner
is still, when the little money left in the house is scarcely sufficient
to pay for the "respectable funeral" which is the last effort of genteel
poverty, when the red-eyed widow gathers her fatherless children about
her, and wonders amidst her stupor of grief what is to become of the
younger ones who yet so need her care that she will not be able to go
forth to seek the means of living. To what evil influences may they be
exposed while she is absent striving to earn their daily food?--the
temptations of the streets for the boys: the certainty that the elder
girls must either starve at home to mind the little ones, or must become
drudges before they have learnt more than the mere rudiments of what
they should be taught. It is then she feels that dread of degradation,
which is amongst the sharpest pangs of the poverty which would fain hide
itself from the world.
It may be that the children are left a parentless little flock, huddling
together in the first dread and sorrow of the presence of death, and the
sense of utter bereavement, and awaiting the intervention of those who
are sent by the Father of the fatherless. Then, indeed, prompt and
certain help is needed--help efficient and permanent--and such aid can
seldom be secured except by organised institutions.
But let us see to what that Orphan Working School, established in 1758,
has developed in 1874. We have but to take a short journey to the foot
of Haverstock Hill, and there, in that pleasant locality named Maitland
Park, part of which is the property of the Institution, we shall see the
successor of the old house in Hogsden Fields, while its plain but large
and lofty committee room is the modern representative of the parlour of
the George Inn, Ironmonger Lane, where plans were first laid for the
maintenance of forty orphan children.
This wide and lofty building, with its handsome front entrance and its
less imposing side gate in the wing, is the home for nearly three
hundred boys, and nearly two hundred girls, when its funds are
sufficient to keep each of the long rows of neat beds in the great airy
wards appropriated to a little sleeper.
I mention the dormitories first, because both on the girls' and on the
boys' side of the building these are illustrative of the complete
orderliness and excellent management of the Institution--illustrative of
what should always be the first consideration, namely, to bring comfort
to the child's nature, to join to necessary discipline a sense of real
freedom and happy youthful confidence without dread of repression and
the constant looking for of punishment.
As to the appliances that belong to the building, they are such as might
almost raise a doubt in some prejudiced minds whether we are not doing
too much for children in the present day, and thinking too constantly of
their comfort. But, alas! it needs many compensations to make up for the
loss of parents; and in any such an Institution where, 400 children form
the great family, the arrangements must be on a large scale, so that it
is only a matter of experienced forethought to combine a generous
liberality with the truest economy. Thus, there are baths, and long
well-ordered lavatories, to each wing, even to a large plunge bath for
each side; and there is a great laundry, where the girls are taught to
wash, clear-starch, and iron, not in the regular patent steam-heated
troughs only, but in genuine homely tubs. There is a great handsome
dining-hall, with a painted ceiling, wherein the vast troop of quiet,
orderly, and happy-faced children sit down to well-cooked wholesome
meals of meat and pudding. There are two great school-rooms, one divided
into class-rooms for the girls, and another wherein the boys assemble to
be taught, not in the narrow spirit of the first directors of the old
building in the City Road, but with a full appreciation of the duty of
giving these young minds and hearts full opportunity to expand. Next to
the admirable evidences of _family_ comfort, and bright _domestic_
influences, which pervade this place, we may regard the efficient
education of the children as the truest sign of its liberal and
enlightened management. Not only the three R's to the extent of
practised elocution, caligraphy worthy of the old minute books of the
first scrivening secretaries, and the lower mathematics,--but history,
geography, the elements of physical science, French, drawing, and vocal
music, are among the subjects thoroughly studied. It only needs a
perusal of the reports of the educational inspectors and examiners to
see that the work of this great hive goes on healthily. The boys have
already achieved a great position in taking Government prizes for
drawing at South Kensington; and the girls are celebrated for their
beautiful needlework. There is but little time to walk through all the
departments of this great home--the kitchens with their spacious
larders, and store-rooms, and mighty cooking apparatus; the great airy
playgrounds; the large and handsome room used as a chapel (for those who
do not go out to evening service), and containing its convenient reading
desk, and sweet-toned organ. Let us not forget, however, that many of
the things which add so vastly to the beauty and completeness of the
building and its various departments are themselves gifts from loving
and appreciative supporters of the Institution.
But we are due at that Lilliput village on the brow of Hornsey
Rise--that series of cottage homes, where, on each lower and upper
storey, with their exquisitely clean nursery cots and cradles, and their
tiny furniture, a neat nurse is to be seen like a fairy godmother, with
a family of chubby babies, or a more advanced charge of infants able to
run like squirrels round the covered playground or to spend the
regulation hours in that great glorious school-room, where learning is
turned into recreation, and lessons are made vocal, gymnastic,
zoological, picturesque, or even fictional, as the times and
circumstances may dictate. "The Alexandra Orphanage for Infants" has
become so well-known amidst the numerous institutions which have been
established for the care of the orphans and the fatherless, that one
might think it would be full of eager admirers who on visiting days go
to see the two or three hundred. Why are not all the cottages full, and
each little toy bedstead complete with its rosy, tiny sleeper, who, from
earliest infancy to the maturer age of eight years form the assembly for
which Mr. Soul set himself to provide by public appeal?
These, then, are the two institutions to which that modest little
convalescent home in Harold Street, Margate, is a worthy appanage, and
they may well find support among those whose maxim it is to do with all
their might what their hands find wants doing.
_WITH THEM THAT FAINT BY THE WAY._
There are perhaps few conditions demanding greater sympathy and more
ready aid than that of poor women who, from temporary sickness or the
weariness that comes of hope deferred, are unable to follow the
employments, often precarious and yielding a bare subsistence, by which
they strive to be independent of charitable aid. It is only those who
know to what extremities of need they will submit for shame of making
their poverty known, and what mental suffering they will endure as they
find their scanty savings dwindling day by day, and their few household
goods, or even their clothing, and the little family mementoes, which
they can only part with as a last resource, going piece by piece, who
can fully realise all that is meant by the genteel phrase, "very reduced
circumstances," as applied to women of refined feelings, and frequently
of gentle nurture, who find themselves without the means of obtaining
necessary food and medical care when health and strength give way, and
they can no longer work at those few callings by which they can earn
enough to enable them to avoid a dreaded "application to friends."
Quite lately, the subject of some kind of provision for poor governesses
who are sick, or have to subsist during long holidays on the small
balance of their quarterly wages, has occupied public attention, and it
would be well indeed if means could be found for giving the healthy
temporary employment, and the weakly a quiet home where their strength
might be restored without the sacrifice of independence.
There are others, however, for which such help is equally needed--the
dressmaker, or the shop-woman, on whom long hours of tedious and often
of exhausting toil in an unhealthy atmosphere, has begun to tell too
severely; the servant of good character and respectable habits, who is
not so ill as to be admitted to a hospital, and yet is breaking down in
strength, and regards with dread the necessity for going into some
obscure lodging, where her surplusage of wages will barely pay for rent
and food during two or three weeks enforced idleness; the girl who has
learnt some ill-paid business, which affords her no more than a mere
contribution to the family funds, and leaves no margin for extra food or
medicine, or the fresh air that is as important as either.
Any careful observer standing at the door of a general hospital, and
watching the throng of out-patients waiting wearily to see the doctor,
will be able to distinguish a score of cases for which a temporary rest
with wholesome food and the sympathy and loving-kindness that refresh
the soul would bring true healing.
No large establishment in the nature of a hospital or a refuge affords
the kind of help for such distress as theirs. They cannot be dealt with
as occupants of wards; for they have either recovered from the actual
crisis of some serious disorder, or are pining in a depressed condition
to which no definite name can be given to classify it for admission to
any public establishment for the cure of disease. To many of them the
idea of entering a large charitable refuge--and I know of none in London
adapted to such needs as theirs--would be repulsive, as suggesting that
horror with which persons even of a lower grade regard the union
workhouse; what they need is a temporary home, and if ever the time
should come when a well-supported scheme for such a provision should be
adopted, it will have to take the form of what is now known as the
"cottage system." Indeed, in hospitals, as well as in other large
charitable institutions, the defects of the old plan of maintaining a
great number of adult persons in one vast building have been recognised.
The immense ward with its long rows of beds, the divided and necessarily
confusing duties of attendants, the ill-served meals at a great
dinner-table where there is no possibility of escaping from a too rigid
routine, the depressing, not to say degrading, influence, resulting from
the loss of individuality, would make any vast institution for
convalescents or invalids far less effectual in its operation. I make
this reference only with regard to the probable inauguration of homes
for invalid women in or near London, and because I have just visited
one, which, although it is not on the cottage system, but is established
in a rare old mansion of the period of Queen Anne, has yet the happy
characteristic of being a family whose scanty means is largely increased
by loving gifts, instead of an institution every corner of which bears a
reminder that it is "supported by charity."
In the pleasant airy High Street of Stoke Newington, and within a
stone's throw of the famous Cedar Walk of Abney Park--that locality made
famous by the prolonged visit of Dr. Watts, who went to spend a week
with Sir Thomas Abney, and remained for the rest of his long blameless
life the honoured guest of the family--is the house I speak of, "The
Invalid Asylum for Respectable Females in London and its Vicinity,"
superintended by a ladies' committee, and with weekly visitors, and a
matron to carry on the practical work of the executive.
There is nothing remarkably picturesque, nothing very striking about
this home for thirty respectable invalid women employed in dependent
situations, to whom it affords a temporary asylum, widely differing from
the crowded receptacles for the sick in the metropolis. One of its
peculiarities is, that the purity of the family circle is maintained, by
the fact that no patient is admitted without a certificate of conduct
signed by two housekeepers or by an employer, while her case is also
recommended by an annual subscriber or life governor; and there is a
sense of repose and quiet confidence about the inmates which is
particularly suggestive of the care taken to recognise their individual
claims, and the interest which is manifested in them during the time of
their sojourn.
This very quietude and sense of rest, and gradual renewal of health and
strength in a serene retreat is, in fact, the feature which attracts my
attention. It is not too much to say that I am ready to attribute much
of such influences to the fact that the institution was originally
established by ladies representing the unobtrusive beneficent work of
the "Society of Friends," and that the order and peace which is its
delightful characteristic, may in a great measure be traced to that
foundation. At any rate, these qualifications so identify it that I feel
justified in regarding it to some extent as a worthy example of the
method to be adopted in any institution, which, without being altogether
a free "charity," takes only such a small sum from the patient or her
friends as suffices to keep away the degrading feeling of pauperism, or
of utter dependence on the bounty of strangers. It is true that the
principal life-governorships include the privilege of sending entirely
gratuitous patients, but in ordinary cases the annual subscriber of a
guinea recommends the case, and when the patient is admitted, the sum of
twenty shillings is received for the month's medical attendance,
lodging, and full board, "including tea and sugar," for a time not
exeeding one month, after which, should the case require a longer stay,
the ticket must be renewed by the same or another subscriber, on the
further payment of twenty shillings. If the patient be in the employment
of the subscriber, the payment of this sum will suffice, without the
renewal ticket, an arrangement which should commend the institution to
every benevolent employer of female labour.
It need hardly be said that no cases of infectious disease are admitted,
and that every applicant is examined by the medical attendant. No
patient is admitted who is not above ten years of age; and neither
"private cookery," nor the introduction of spirituous liquors by
visitors, is permitted, any more than gratuities to servants of the
Institution.
It may be remarked that though a large number of cases are received
during each year, the very fact of contributions being made by the
patients themselves, who are thus relieved from the sense of utter
dependence, appears to have prevented the Institution from receiving as
large a degree of public support as it might command if it were an
ordinary charity. This is to be lamented, for the Institution is, after
all, less a hospital than a temporary home, and it appeals on behalf of
a peculiar form of distress, the claims of which are of a specific and
none the less of a very urgent character. But in order to realise the
kind of work that is most needed, and is here being accomplished, let us
pay a visit to the house itself. We have been hitherto standing on the
broad flight of steps inside the tall iron gates, and have hesitated to
sully their hearthstone purity, for it is Saturday, and we may well have
an inconvenient sense that the short hand of the clock is already close
to the dinner-time of the institution.
With a long experience of paying unexpected visits, I am prepared to
encounter remonstrance, even though it only take the form of a critical
glance at my boots as a means of possible maculation of the
newly-cleaned hall and passages. Conscious of having judiciously
employed a member of the shoe-black brigade, I can endure this scrutiny,
and, with a few words of explanation, am conducted, by the matron
herself, over the grand old house, whose broad staircase and elaborately
carved balusters of black oak at once attest not only its antiquity but
also its aristocracy. I have already said that there is nothing here on
which to found a "picturesque description," and yet the air of repose,
the sense of almost spotless cleanliness, the freshness of the large
lofty rooms containing from three to five or six comfortable beds with
their snowy counterpanes, the general order and pleasant seclusion, are
remarkably suggestive of the intention of the place. Two of the
patients, to whom I make my respects, are not yet sufficiently recovered
to join the daily dinner-party in the neat dining-room. One of them, an
elderly lady, who has only just been brought here, is slowly recovering
from very severe illness, and cannot even sit up in the bed, whence she
regards me with an expression which seems to intimate that she has
reached a haven of rest. Her companion, a young woman--also in bed in
the same room--is sitting very upright, cheerfully engaged in some
problem of needlework, and responds with a hopeful smile to the
declaration of the matron, that they "mean to make a woman of her if she
is good."