been extended since then in a locality where a model lodging-house,
which has been erected, has stood for years almost unoccupied, because
like all model lodging-houses in such neighbourhoods, neither the
provisions nor the rentals are adapted to meet the wants and the means
of the poorest, of whom, as I have already said, a whole family cannot
afford to pay more than the rental for a single room, or two rooms at
the utmost.
But we are wandering away from the work that we came to see. Look at
that wistful young native, standing there quite close to the mouth of
Chequer Alley. Ask him what is that sound of children's voices from a
casually-opened doorway, and he will tell you "It's our school; yer kin
go in, sir, if yer like--anybody kin." As the name of the institution is
"Hope Schools for All," his invitation is doubtless authorised, and we
may well feel that we have made a mistake in thinking of the Italian
poet's hopeless line, for out of the doorway there comes a sound of
singing, and inside the doorway is a room containing fifty or sixty
"infants," seated on low forms, and many of them such bright, rosy--yes,
rosy--clean--yes, comparatively, if not superlatively clean--little
creatures, that hope itself springs to fresh life in their presence. It
is thirty-four years since Miss Macarthy, with an earnest desire to
initiate some work of charity and mercy, resolved to become a
distributor of tracts, and the district she chose was this same foul
tangle to which I have asked you to accompany me. Bad as the whole
neighbourhood is now, it was worse then. It was never what is called a
thief-quarter, but many juvenile thieves haunted it; and the men were as
ruffianly and abusive, the women as violent and evil-tongued as any who
could be found in all London. Instead of being paved, and partially and
insufficiently drained, it was a fœtid swamp, with here and there a
pool where ducks swam, while the foul odours of the place were
suffocating. No constable dare enter far into the maze without a
companion. But the tract distributor ventured. In the midst of an
epidemic of typhus, or what is known as "poverty" fever, she went about
among the people, and strove to fix their attention on the message that
she carried. The religious services commenced in a rat-catcher's "front
parlour," and at first the congregation broke into the hymns with scraps
and choruses of songs. The crowd which collected outside not only
interrupted the proceedings, but threatened those who conducted them
with personal violence, and even assaulted them, and heaped insult upon
them; but the lady who had put her hand to the plough would not turn
back. In the midst of her patient and difficult work she herself was
stricken down with fever. She had visited and tended those who were
suffering. When the question was asked what had become of her, the
barbarous people learnt that she was like to die. Perhaps this touched
the hearts of some of them, for she had begun to live down the brutal
opposition of those who could not believe in unselfish endeavours to
benefit them. She recovered, however; and supported by others, who gave
both money and personal effort, the beneficent work went on.
In this large room where the children are singing we have an example of
what has been effected. Some of the little creatures are pale, and have
that wistful look that goes to the heart; but there are few of them that
have not clean faces, and who do not show in the scanty little dresses
some attempt at decent preparation for meeting "the guv'ness."
There is a school for elder children also; and in the ramshackle old
house where the classes are held there are appliances which mark the
wide application of the beneficent effort that has grown slowly but
surely, not only in scope, but in its quiet influence upon the people
amidst whom it was inaugurated. Yonder, in a kind of covered yard, is a
huge copper, the honoured source of those "penny dinners," and those
quarts and gallons of soup which have been such a boon to the
neighbourhood, where food is scarce, and dear. Then there was the
Christmas dinner, at which some hundreds of little guests were supplied
with roast meat and pudding, evidences of how much may be effected
within a very small space. Indeed, this Hope School, with its two or
three rooms, is at work day and night; for not only are the children
taught--children not eligible for those Board schools which, unless the
board itself mitigates its technical demands, will shut up this and
similar institutions before any provision is made for transferring the
children to the care of a Government department--but there are "mothers'
meetings," sewing classes, where poor women can obtain materials at cost
price, and be taught to make them into articles of clothing. There are
also adult classes, and Sunday evening services for those who would
never appear at church or chapel but for such an easy transition from
their poor homes to the plain neighbourly congregation assembled there.
There are evenings, too, when lectures, dissolving views, social teas,
and pleasant friendly meetings bring the people together with humanising
influences. It becomes a very serious question for the London School
Board to consider whether, by demanding that ragged schools such as this
shall be closed if they do not show a certain technical standard of
teaching, the means of partially feeding and clothing, which are in such
cases inseparable from instructing, shall be destroyed.
But here is a youthful guide--a shambling, shock-headed lad, with only
three-quarters of a pair of shoes, and without a cap, who is to be our
guide to another great work, on the Golden Lane side of this great
zigzag, to the "Costermongers' Mission," in fact. You may follow him
with confidence, for he is a Hope School-boy--and that means something,
even in Chequer Alley.
Still threading our way through those dim alleys, where each one looks
like a _cul-de-sac_, but yet may be the devious entrance to another more
foul and forbidding, we leave the "Hope-for-All" Mission Room resounding
with infant voices, all murmuring the simple lessons of the day. That
room is seldom empty, because of the evening school where a large class
of older pupils are taught, reading, writing, and arithmetic; the adult
class, and the "mothers' meeting," to which poor women are invited that
they may be assisted to make garments for themselves and their children
from materials furnished for them at a cheap rate in such quantities as
their poor savings can purchase. The visiting "Bible woman" is the chief
agent in these works of mercy, since she brings parents and children to
the school, and reports cases of severe distress to be relieved when
there are funds for the purpose. Not only by teaching and sewing,
however, are the hopeful influences of the place supported, for, as I
have said already, in this big room the people of the district are
invited to assemble to listen to lectures, readings, and music, to see
dissolving views; and in the summer, when fields are in their beauty and
the hedge-rows are full of glory, there is an excursion into the country
for the poor, little, pallid children, while, strangest sight of all, a
real "flower show" is, or was, held in Chequer Alley. One could almost
pity the flowers, if we had any pity to spare from the stunted buds and
blossoms of humanity who grow pale and sicken and so often die in this
foul neighbourhood.
But we have strange sights yet to see, so let us continue our excursion
in and out, and round and round, not without some feeling of giddiness
and sickness of heart, through the "Pigeons"--a tavern, the passage of
which is itself a connecting link between two suspicious-looking
courts--round by beershops all blank and beetling, and silent; past
low-browed doorways and dim-curtained windows of tramps' kitchens, and
the abodes of more poverty, misery, and it may be crime, than you will
find within a similar space in any neighbourhood in London, or out of
it, except perhaps in about five streets "down East," or in certain dens
of Liverpool and Manchester.
One moment. You see where a great sudden gap appears to have been made
on one side of Golden Lane. That gap represents houses pulled down to
erect great blocks of building for warehouses or factories, and it also
represents the space in which above 4,000 people lived when the
population of this square quarter of mile of poverty and dirt was 22,000
souls. This will give you some idea of the consequences of making what
are called "clean sweeps," by demolishing whole neighbourhoods before
other dwellings are provided for the evicted tenants. One result of this
method of improving the dwellings of the poor is that the people crowd
closer, either in their own or in some adjacent neighbourhood, where
rents are low and landlords are not particular how many inmates lodge in
a single room. Remember that whole families can only earn just enough to
keep them from starving, and cannot afford to pay more than half-a-crown
or three-and-sixpence a week for rent. They must live near their work,
or they lose time, and time means pence, and pence represent the
difference between eating and fasting.
"The model lodging-house!" See, there is one, and it is nearly empty.
How should it be otherwise? The proprietors of such places, whether they
be philanthropists or speculators--and they are not likely to be the
latter--can never see a return of any profitable percentage on their
outlay while they enforce necessary sanitary laws. The top-rooms are
half-a-crown a week each, and the lower "sets" range from about six
shillings for two to eight-and-sixpence for three rooms. The consequence
is that the few tenants in this particular building are frequently
changing their quarters. Some of them try it, and fall into arrear, and
are ejected, or want to introduce whole families into a single room, as
they do in these surrounding courts and alleys, and this, of course, is
not permitted. Imagine one vast building crowded at the same rate as
some of these two-storeyed houses are! Ask the missionary, whose duty
takes her up scores of creaking staircases, to places where eight or ten
human beings eat, drink, sleep, and even work, in one small room--where
father, mother, children, and sometimes also a brother or sister-in-law,
herd together, that they may live on the common earnings; places where
children are born, and men, women, and children die; and the new-born
babe must be clothed by the aid of the "maternity box," and the dead
must be buried by the help of money advanced to pay for the plainest
decent funeral.
I do not propose to take you to any of these sights. You could do little
good unless you became familiar with them, and entered into the work of
visitation. Even in the published reports of the organisation to which
we are now going, the "cases" are not dwelt upon, only one or two are
given from the experiences of the missionary, and she speaks of them
simply as examples of the kind of destitution which characterises a
district where deplorable poverty is the result sometimes of drink, or
what, for want of a word applicable to the saving of pence, is termed
improvidence; but frequently also, because of sickness, and the want
even of poorly-paid employment. "In such cases," says the report,
"almost everything is parted with to procure food and shelter _outside_
the workhouse."
One of the two "ordinary" cases referred to was that of a poor woman who
was "found lying on a sack of shavings on the floor, with an infant two
days old; also a child lying dead from fever, and two other children
crying for food. None had more than a solitary garment on. The smell of
the room was such that the missionary was quite overcome until she had
opened the window. Clean linen was obtained, and their temporal and
spiritual wants at once looked after." This was in the Report of above a
year ago; but cases only just less distressing occur daily still. This
foul and neglected district, which lies like an ulcer upon the great
opulent city, the centre of civilization and benevolence, seems to be as
far from us as though it were a part of some savage or semi-heathen land
under British influence. Indeed, in the latter case, there would be a
probability of more earnest effort on behalf of the benighted people, on
whose behalf meetings would perhaps be held, and a committee of inquiry
and distribution appointed. Still, let us be thankful that something is
done. Twenty-nine poor mothers have had the benefit of the maternity
fund and clothing, the Report tells us. "They are very grateful for this
assistance in their terrible need. Frequently the distress is so great
that two changes of clothing are given to mother and babe, or they would
be almost entirely denuded when the time arrived for returning the
boxes. Our lady subscribers at a distance may be glad to know that
blankets, sheets, flannel petticoats, warm shawls, and babies' clothing
will always be acceptable." Thus writes Mrs. Orsman on the subject, for
the mission is known as the Golden Lane Mission, and more popularly as
"Mr. Orsman's Mission to the Costermongers." Perhaps these words
scarcely denote the scope of the work; but costermongers must be taken
as a representative term in a district where, in an area of a square
quarter of a mile, there are, or recently were, eighty public-houses and
beershops, and a dense mass of inhabitants, including street-traders or
hucksters, labourers, charwomen, road-sweepers, drovers, French
polishers, artificial flower-makers, toy-makers, with what is now a
compact and really representative body of costermongers, working
earnestly enough to keep to the right way, and, as they always did,
forming a somewhat distinctive part of the population.
Sixteen years ago, Mr. Orsman began the work of endeavouring to carry
the gospel to the rough-and-ready savages of this benighted field for
missionary enterprise. He held an official appointment, and this was his
business "after office hours." About the results of his own labour he
and his Reports are modestly reticent, but at all events it began to
bear fruit. Others joined in it; a regular mission was established, and,
with vigorous growth, shot out several branches, so wisely uniting what
may be called the secular or temporal with the spiritual and religious
interest, that the Bread of Life was not altogether separated from that
need for the bread which perishes. These branches are full of sap
to-day, and one of them is also full of promising buds and blossoms, if
we are to judge of the rows of ragged--but not unhappy--urchins who fill
this large room or hall of the Mission-house.
It is only the first-floor of two ordinary houses knocked into one, but
a great work is going on. The parochial school was once held here, and
now the room is full of children who might still be untaught but for the
effort which made the Ragged School a first consideration in an
endeavour to redeem the whole social life of the district. Wisely
enough, the School Board accepted the aid which this free day-school for
ragged and nearly destitute children affords to a class which the
Education Act has not yet taught us how to teach.
In four years, out of ninety-five boys and girls who entered situations
from this school, only one was dismissed for dishonesty, and it was
afterwards found that he was the dupe of the foreman of the place at
which he worked.
Well may Mr. Harwood, the school superintendent, be glad in the labour
that he has learnt to love in spite of all the sordid surroundings.
There is life in the midst of these dim courts--a ragged-school and a
church, which is poor, but not, strictly speaking, ragged. In fact, "the
patching class" for ragged boys, which meets on Thursdays, from five to
seven in the afternoon, remedies even the tattered garments of the poor
little fellows, who, having only one suit, must take off their
habiliments in order to mend them. Occasional gifts of second-hand
clothes are amongst the most useful stock of the schoolmaster, as
anybody may believe who sees the long rows of children, many of them,
like our juvenile guide, with two odd boots, which are mere flaps of
leather, and attire which it would be exaggeration to call a jacket and
trousers.
The school-room is also the church and the lecture-hall. It will hold
300 people; and the Sunday-evening congregation fills it thoroughly,
while, on week-nights, special services, and frequently lectures,
entertainments, and attractive social gatherings bring the costers and
their friends in great force.
The chief of the costermongers is the Earl of Shaftesbury; and here,
standing as it were at livery in a quiet corner of a shanty close to the
coal-shed, is the earl's barrow, emblazoned with his crest. This
remarkable vehicle, and a donkey complimentarily named the "Earl," which
took a prize at a Golden Lane donkey show, designate his lordship as
president of the "Barrow Club," a flourishing institution, intended to
supersede the usurious barrow-lenders, who once let out these necessary
adjuncts to the costermongering business at a tremendous hire. Now the
proprietors of the barrows, going on the hire and ultimate
purchase-system, are prospering greatly. There are free evening classes,
mothers' meetings, a free lending library, a free singing class, a penny
savings bank, dinners to destitute children, numbering more than 10,000
a year, a soup-kitchen, tea-meetings, and other agencies, all of which
are kept going morning, noon, and night, within the narrow limits of
these two houses made into one. It is here, too, that the annual meeting
is held, an account of which every year filters through the newspapers
to the outer world--"The Costermongers' Annual Tea-Party." The records
of this united and earnest assembly have been so recently given to the
public, that I need not repeat them to you as we stand here in the lower
rooms, whence the big cakes, the basins of tea, the huge sandwiches of
bread and beef, were conveyed to the 200 guests. But as we depart, after
shaking Mr. Harwood by the hand, let me remind you that it has been by
the hearty, human, living influence of religion that these results have
been effected. The stones of scientific or secular controversy have not
been offered instead of food spiritual and temporal. The mission-hall
has been made the centre; and from it has spread various healing,
purifying, ameliorating influences. From this we may well take a lesson
for the benefit of another organised effort which appeals to us for
help--that of the London City Mission. This institution is trying to
effect for various districts and several classes of the poor and
ignorant in and about London that introduction of religious teaching
which Mr. Orsman began with amongst the costermongers and others in the
benighted locality where now a clear light has begun to shine.
At a recent meeting of the promoters of the City Mission work, held at
the Mansion House, it was stated that the 427 missionaries then employed
by the society were chosen without distinction, except that of fitness
for the office, from Churchmen, Presbyterians, Congregationalists,
Wesleyans, and Baptists, while the examining and appointing committee
were composed of thirteen clergymen of the Established Church and
thirteen Dissenting ministers.
Anybody who is accustomed to visit the worst neighbourhoods of London
will know that these missionaries go where the regular clergy cannot
easily penetrate, and where even the parish doctor seldom lingers. Every
missionary visits once a month about 500 families, or 2,000 persons.
They read the Scriptures, exhort their listeners, hold prayer and Bible
meetings, distribute copies of the Scriptures, see that children go to
school, address the poor in rooms when they cannot persuade them to go
to church, visit and pray with the dying, lend books, hold open-air
services, endeavour to reclaim drunkards (1,546 were so restored during
the last year), admonish and frequently reclaim the vicious, raise the
fallen, and place them in asylums or induce them to return to their
homes, and work constantly for the great harvest of God to which they
are appointed.
Then there are special missionaries appointed to visit bakers, cabmen,
drovers, omnibus men, soldiers, sailors, and foreigners of various
countries. They also go to tanneries, the docks, workhouses, hospitals,
and other places; and there is a vast harvest yet, without a sickle to
reap even a single sheaf. When will the time come, that, to the means
for carrying the sustaining comfort of the Word to men's souls, will be
added some means of helping them to realise it by such temporal aid as
will raise them from the want which paralyses and the degradation which
benumbs?
_GIVING THE FEEBLE STRENGTH._
I have had occasion lately to take you with me to some of the worst
"parts of London." The phrase has become so common, that there is some
difficulty in deciding what it means; and we are obliged to come to the
conclusion, that in every quarter of this great metropolis, large and
lofty buildings, splendid mansions, gorgeous shops, and even stately
palaces, are but symbols of the partial and imperfect development of
true national greatness, and can scarcely be regarded as complete
evidences of genuine civilisation, if by that word we are to mean more
than was expressed by it in heathen times, and amidst pagan people.
Perhaps there is no more terrible reflection, amidst all the pomp and
magnificence, the vast commercial enterprise and constantly accumulating
wealth of this mighty city, than that here we may also find the extremes
of want and misery, of vice and poverty, of ignorance and suffering.
Side by side with all that makes material greatness--riches, learning,
luxury, extravagance--are examples of the deepest necessity and
degradation. "The rich and the poor" do indeed "meet together" in a very
sad sense. It would be well if the former would complete the text for
themselves, and take its meaning deep into their hearts.
There is reason for devout thankfulness, however, that here and there
amidst the abodes of rich and poor alike, some building with special
characteristics may be seen; that not only the church but the charity
which represents practical religion does make vigorous protest against
the merely selfish heaping-up of riches without regard to the cry of the
poor. There are few neighbourhoods in which a Refuge for the homeless, a
soup-kitchen, a ragged-school, a "servants home," an orphanage, a
hospital or some asylum for the sick and suffering, does not relieve
that sense of neglect and indifference which is the first painful
impression of the thoughtful visitor to those "worst quarters," which
yet lie close behind the grand thoroughfares and splendid edifices that
distinguish aristocratic and commercial London.
I have said enough for the present about those poverty-haunted districts
of Shoreditch, Spitalfields, and Bethnal Green, to warrant me in taking
you through them without further comment than suffices to call your
attention to the poorly-paid industries, the want and suffering, and the
too frequent neglect of the means of health and cleanliness which
unhappily distinguish them and the surrounding neighbourhoods lying
eastward. The weaver's colony can now scarcely be said to survive the
changes wrought by the removal of an entire industry from Spitalfields
to provincial manufactories, and the vast importations of foreign silks,
and yet there is in this part of London a great population of workers at
callings which are scarcely better paid than silk weaving had come to
be, previous to its comparative disappearance.