Essex rises in a low hill facing the Thames estuary and overlooking an
island which has been reclaimed from the mud, there lies a large farm,
which is unlike any other farm in the country. It is, in fact, the
colony of the Salvation Army. Here they bring men whom they have dragged
out of the mire and the depths. They bring here the clerk who has ruined
himself by a loose life, the working-man who has fallen by reason of
drink, the weak creature who has habitually taken the Easy Way, the
criminal from the prison, the sturdy rogue, the slouching thief—they are
all brought here and they are turned on to the farm. There are between
two and three hundred of them. When they come here they are for the most
part unable to do a day’s work; they are unable to lift a spade or to
wield a hoe. They are set to light work until they recover a little
strength and muscle—there is work of all kinds on a farm. On this farm
they grow fruit and vegetables; they have dairies, and make butter and
cheese; they have cattle and sheep and pigs and poultry. And they have a
very large brick-making industry. The men live in small detached
barracks; there are not many rules of conduct; they are paid by the
piece, and they buy their own food, which is sold at prices as low as
will pay for the cost; they may smoke in the evening if they please;
they may read; they may go to bed when they please; they are not
perpetually exhorted to religion, but they are made to feel that the
house rests on a religious foundation.
[Illustration: “The Bridge of Hope,” a Well-known East End Night
Refuge.]
How does the farm get on as a commercial venture? Does it pay its way?
To begin with, it belongs to the Salvation Army; there is consequently
no rent to pay; against this advantage must be set the fact that the
men, when they are first sent down, are practically useless, and that it
takes three or four months before their strength returns to them. The
farm, however, pays its way, or very nearly. If it did not, it would
still, with certain limits, be an economical concern. For, if we
consider, every one of these men, if left to himself and his own
promptings, would cost the country, including his maintenance, without
counting the loss of his labor and including the expenses of prisons and
police to take care of him, at least £100 a year. We have, therefore, a
very simple sum. How much can the colony afford to lose every year, and
yet remain an economical gain to the country? On a roll of 250 there is
the gain to the community of £25,000 a year. If, therefore, the colony
shows a deficit of £3000 a year the country is still a gainer of
£22,000. Any one may carry on this little calculation. Suppose, for
instance, that even fifty per cent. of the cases prove failures; the
remaining fifty save the country £12,500 a year. And, what is much more,
they, being honest themselves, bring up their children to ways of
honesty—their children and their grandchildren for generation after
generation, and who can calculate the gain in a single century?
I do not speak here of other branches of the Salvation Army’s social
work. To receive the discharged prisoner, to find him work, to train
lads to steady work, to give back to the soil the wastrels who were
devouring and spoiling honest men’s goods in the cities, to restore to a
man his pride and his self-respect, to give him back his manhood, to
fill him with new hopes and a new purpose—this is surely a great and a
noble work.
On more than one occasion I have publicly testified to my own belief in
the efficacy of the social work of the Salvation Army. There is one
point on which it contrasts with every other effort either of
philanthropy or of religion. The work is carried on by a vast multitude
of eleven thousand officers, men and women, young men and maidens. They
are bound by no vows; but they might, if they chose, wear the rope with
the triple knots of the Franciscans. For they follow, without vows, the
three Franciscan virtues of obedience, poverty, and chastity. Add to
these, if it is a virtue, total abstinence from strong drink. They go
where they are sent, they do what they are ordered to do, they carry out
the military duties of obedience, they draw pay barely enough for the
most modest standard of living, and their lives are blameless on the
score of purity. So long as these virtues remain with them, so long will
they prevail. If, as happened with the Franciscans, the praise of the
world, which certainly is coming to the Army as well, turns their heads
and corrupts their zeal, if they take money and make money by their
work, then the social side of the Salvation Army will, like so many
human systems, fall to the ground and be trampled in the dust. At
present they are all poor together; poor and not dissatisfied; not a man
or woman among the whole eleven thousand has a bank account of his own;
they all live from hand to mouth, and when the word comes from
headquarters that there is to be a week of self-denial they live for
that week as they can, without any pay. And if we are fain to confess
that their work is good for the unfortunates, whom they chiefly
befriend, what are we to say or to think of the good which their work
confers upon themselves? Surely, the Helping Hand raises its owner as
well as those whom it lifts. The twopenny doss-house, the refuge, the
home, the rescue, the colony—do they not also raise and rescue and
strengthen the people who administer and direct them?
Matthew Arnold once visited East London in verse:
“I met a preacher whom I knew and said:
‘Ill and o’erworked, how fare you in this scene?’
‘Bravely!’ said he; ‘for I of late have been
Much cheered with thoughts of Christ, the living bread.’
O human soul! as long as thou canst so
Set up a mark of everlasting light,
Above the howling senses’ ebb and flow,
To cheer thee and to right thee if thou roam—
Not with lost toil thou laborest through the night!
Thou mak’st the heaven thou hop’st indeed thy home.”
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INDEX
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INDEX
Abney, Lady, 274
Abney, Sir Thomas, 274
Aguilar, Grace, 276
Aikin, Dr., 275
Aliens in London, 187
Anarchists, 206
Appeals for day in country, 307
August holiday, 303
Bad building, bribery of inspectors, 220
Bancroft almshouses, 341
Barbauld, Mrs., 275
Barking, 104, 111
Barnardo’s homes, 339
Barrack Life, 223, 224;
and Salvation Army, 224
Beating the bounds, 60
Beds hired out, 212
Bethnal Green crowded district, 221
Bicycle round London, 310
Billingsgate, 52, 54, 55
Bishop’s Manor, 4;
Palace, 7
Blackwall Basin, 95
Booth, General, 225
Boundaries of East London, 4
Bow Creek, 99
Bradwell, 109
Breathing places, 302
Bridge, first London, 53
Casual ward, stupidity of, 249
Census, Religious, 37
Centenarian, The, 201
Chapels on the wall, 110
Chapels on bridges and walls, 110
Charity Organisation Society, 343
Charter House, 280
Chaucer, 47, 55
Children’s Day in country, 307
Chinese in London, 204
Church of England, 331
City, 257
Clapton, 267
Club of factory girls, 142;
of the baser sort, 315
Colet, Dean, 7
Continuation Schools, 333
Coopers’ Company, 82
Cromwell, Major, 273
Cromwell, Oliver, 271
Crowded part of Bethnal Green, 221
Custom House, 55
Dagenham, 111;
white-bait dinner, 111
Dancing, none in East London, 313
Day in country for children, 307
Defoe, 47, 274
Discharged prisoners, 241
Disraeli, Benjamin, 275;
Isaac, 275
Docks, St. Katherine, 62;
London, 68;
West India, 95;
Blackwall, 95;
Millwall, 95;
attractions for boys, 96
Dogs, Isle of, 91
Drury Lane, Barracks in, 222
Dutch in Spitalfields, 192;
Church, 192
East End Parks, 304
East Ham, 7, 213
East London, history mostly a blank, 3;
boundaries of, 4;
nature of ground, 4;
collection of villages, 8;
no center, 8;
not a city, 8;
no newspapers, 8;
no people of fashion, 8;
filled with working class, 8;
population of, 8;
no hotels, 9;
New Zealander in, 9;
no restaurants, 9;
rapid rise, 10;
a manufacturing city, 10;
not a trading city, 10;
resembles Old London, 10;
no book shops, 13;
no literary power, 14;
no garrison, 14;
no recruiting, 14;
monotony, 15;
meanness, 15;
streets all alike, 15;
no old buildings, 16;
an unlovely city, 16;
fine roads, 17;
life not monotonous, 16, 17;
city of many crafts, 21;
distribution of trades, 22;
factories in, 23;
proportion of professions to crafts, 24;
the curse of labor, 27;
division of labor, 28;
demand for skilled labor, 29;
wages in, 30;
sweating, 30;
co-operative labor, 33;
an experiment, 33;
not a slum, 38;
a hive of workers, 116;
Huxley on, 127;
ministering ladies, 128;
fringe of, 255;
Matthew Arnold on, 358
Easter Monday, 290, 291, 295
Eighteenth century, 325
Emigrés, 189
Epping Forest, 256
Epping Hunt, 291, 301
Excursion trains, 303
Excursion Dock, 78;
escape of a man, 78
Factory girl, Chapter V.
Fairy lights, 239
Fight near Tower, 326
Fleetwood, Cromwell’s son-in-law, 271
Flower Girls’ Society, 342
Foreshore, rescue of, 110
Fraternities, 337
French Revolution, 188
French in Spitalfields, 188
Fringe of East London, 255
Future—the man who looks forward, 56
Gambling, Chinese, 205
Gardens in London, 304
George’s, St., in the East, 72, 73
German clerks, 191;
Jews, 190, 192
Ground, lie of, 4
Hackney churchyard, 263;
Old Town, 263;
18th-century houses, 264;
Barber’s barn, 272;
Darnley, 272;
Captain Woodcock, 273;
Major Cromwell, 273;
Hartopp, Sir John, 274;
John Howard, 276;
André, 277;
Princess Elizabeth, 279;
Sir Walter Raleigh, 279;
Sir Thomas More, 279;
Thomas Sutton, 280;
John Ward, 281;
Lucas, 281
Ham, West, 7
Hampstead Heath, 292;
on Easter Monday, 295
Hangman’s Acre, 79
Heckford, Dr., 85, 86
Helping Hand, the, Chapter XII.;
history of, 319;
and the beggar, 320;
and St. Martin, 321;
new developments, 321
Henry, Matthew, 275
Hewling, Benjamin, 273
Holidays, 289
Homerton, High Street, 267
Hopping, 308
Hospitals, 337
Housing of the people, 212;
and London County Council, 225
Huguenots in London, 188, 192
Hunting rights, 7
Huxley on East London, 127
Idlers on London Bridge, 42
Immigration, 190
Increase of population, 213
Industrial villages, 225
Irish colony, 36
Isle of Dogs, 91;
origin of name, 92
Italians, 191, 203
Jack the Painter, 283
Jay, Osborne, the Rev., 329
Jewish quarter, 193
Jews, alleged superiority, 194;
trained intellect, 194;
unpopularity of, 195;
Sunday morning with, 196;
salesmen, 196;
physical degeneration, 199;
oriental note, 200;
the, old man, 201;
the Synagogue, 202
Journalism and the gaol bird, 242
Judenhetze, 195
Key of the street, 155
Key, price of the, 211
Laboratories at People’s Palace, 334
Labor aristocracy, 119
Ladies in East London, 128
Lads in the country, 307
Lawlessness in 18th century, 325
Lea River, 7
Libraries, free, 338
Liz, the baby, 119
London Street, 119, 120;
home, 120;
furniture of home, 120;
hardening the baby, 122;
parents of, 122;
food of, 121, 122, 123;
beer, 123;
the school, 124;
washing of, 124;
leaves school, 127;
forgets her teaching, 127;
appearance of, 128;
character of, 129;
ignorance of, 129, 130;
conversation and ideas, 130;
interests of place, 130;
sailor cousin, 133;
Christmas feast, 133;
goes to work, 134;
in a jam factory, 135;
goes a-hopping, 136;
a day at factory, 137;
breakfast, 137;
dinner, 137, 138;
on strike, 141;
independence of, 143;
ladies’ club, 143;
bank holiday, 144;
at seventeen, 147;
on Sunday, 147;
her sweetheart, 148;
marriage of, 150;
a wife and a mother, 151
London, the old families, 34;
devours her children, 34;
vanishing of old families of, 35;
influx of new blood, 36;
the port of, 41, 42;
docks, 68;
street, 119, 120;
a city of refuge, 187;
and the alien, 187,
County Council, 225;
School Board, 332
Long hours of idleness, 289
Lord Mayor’s fund, 343
Lowe, Bob, 141
Lucas, 281
Man, two varieties of, 56
Manor of Bishop of London, 4
Match tax, 141
May-day, 290
Medland Hall, 248
M.A.B.Y.S., 337
Memories of the past, Chapter X.
Millwall Dock, 95
More, Sir Thomas, 7, 279, 280
Morley, Samuel, 276
Music halls, 322
Nantes, Edict of, 188
New docker, the, 52
Okey, John, 271
Opium den, 205
Organized robbery, 48
Osborne, Jay, the Rev., 329;
work of, 330;
the boxing class, 330;
the doss-house, 331
Overcrowding, 213, 214;
a million affected, 218;
case of A. B., 218;
vitiation of air, 217
Palace of bishop, 7
Palatines, the, 188, 278
Parish work, 327;
unpaid assistants, 328
Past, the man who loves the, 54
People, housing of, 221
People’s Palace, 297, 312, 313, 334
Pepys, 91
Persian scholar in East London, 204
Peter, St., ad Vincula, 60
Polish Jews, 192
Polytechnics, 333
Poor, generosity of, 121
Popular recreation ground, 304
Population of East London, 8;
proportion of those born, 36;
rapid increase, 213
Port of Billingsgate, ancient, 52
Port of London, A.D. 1400, 46;
increase of trade, 48;
Riverside people, 48;
A.D. 1700, 48;
lightermen formerly organized plunderers, 51
Prisoners, wreck of manhood, 351;
welcomed
in the Salvation Army, 247, 353
Prisons, 352, 353, 357
Raines Charity, 68, 71
Ratcliffe, 81;
highway, 71;
stairs, 81, 85;
cross, 82;
shipwrights’ company, 82;
the Italian ghost, 87
Refuge, the city of, 187
Religion, indifference, not hatred, 37
Rent, increase of, 211
Rescue of Foreshore, 110
Revolution, French, 181
River Lea, 309
Riverside, 48
Riverwall, 103, 104, 105, 107, 109, 112
Rowe, Owen, 271
St. Austin’s Church, 192
St. Katharine’s by the Tower, 65;
dock, 62;
liberty of, 65;
destruction of, 66;
Regent’s Park, 66
Salvation Army barracks, 224;
shelters of the, 248;
the farm, 353;
social work, 350;
lodging houses, 350;
work shops, 350;
prisoners, 247, 353;
does it pay? 354;
the modern friars, 357;
a company of self-denying workers, 357
Sandwich man, the, 240
Scholarships, 334;
possibilities of, 335
School children, 332;
humanizing influence of, 332
Settlement, the, and lads, 307;
origin of, 344;
working of, 345;
what it is, 346, 348
Shacklewell Green, 280;
and Sir Thomas More, 280;
Shadwell, 79
Shakspere, 47
Shopkeepers, no amusement for the smaller sort, 311
Shipwrights’ Company, 82
Sick, care of, 337
Slums, 323;
exaggeration of novelists, 324
Smith, Dr. William, 274
South London, barracks in, 222
Spitalfields and French, 188
Sports and Pastimes, Chapter XI.;
in the street, 310
Stepney, 7
Stoke Newington, Dr. Aikin, 275;
Mrs. Barbauld, 275;
Church Street, 269;
Thomas Day, 276;
Defoe, 274;
Isaac Disraeli, 275;
Fleetwood House, 273;
nonconformity in, 270;
Puritan leaders in, 271;
John Okey, 271;
Palatines, 278;
E. Allan Poe, 277;
Owen Rowe, 271
Stow, 59, 67
Stratford Langthorne, 111
Strype, 67
Submerged, of all classes, 229;
where found, 230;
of the eighteenth century, 232;
inoffensive, 233;
causes of wreck, 233;
in police court, 234;
the case of A. A., 237;
in the Sixpenny Hotel, 238;
in Oxford Street, 239;
of various trades, 240;
the odd job, 241;
pennyworths, 241;
the sandwich man, 244;
ten thousand of them, 251;
a lower depth still, 250
Suburban life changing, 261;
destruction of city social life, 257;
dullness of, 258;
clubs and amusements, 261;
awakening of society, 261;
theatres in, 261
Suburbs, growth of, 67
Sunday lectures, 339
Sutton, Thomas, 280
Swedish Church, 73
Technical Education Board, 333
The lad of the street, 156;
at school, 159;
leaves school, 160;
prospects, 160;
what he knows, 161;
his temptations, 162;
the barges left in the mud, 165;
his pair of hands, 165;
city boys, 166;
railway for, 166;
factories for, 167;
van and horse, 167;
beer boy, 167;
meals, 168;
porter’s work, 168;
degeneration of, 171;
long evenings, 171;
boys’ clubs, 172;
classes, 172;
music halls, 173, 181;
mimicry of, 174;
casual hand, 177;
street amusements, 177;
at Epsom, 177;
Hooligans, 177;
street fights, 177;
the Reformatory, 178;
gamblers, 178;
reading, 181;
keeps company, 181;
ordeal of street, 182;
loafers, 183
Theatre regarded with horror, 258
Thousands driven out homeless, 222
Tower Hill, 55, 56;
terrace on, 55, 56, 59, 61;
of London, 59;
bridge, 61, 62;
liberties, 66
Toynbee Hall, lectures at, 311
Tramps and rogues, 250
Trinity almshouses, 341
Turpin, Dick, 282
Wall by river, 103
Wapping, school and churchyard, 73, 74;
old stairs, 77;
recreation ground, 304
Ward, John, 281
Wat Tyler, 7
Watts, Dr. Isaac, 268, 273
West Ham, 7, 214
West India Dock Road, 203
West India Docks, 95
Whit Monday, 298
Whitechapel picture exhibition, 296
Whittington, 47
Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 85
Winter amusements, 310
Woodcock, Captain, 272
Workhouse, the, 349
Working class, better sort, 119
Yarmouth Church, why closed, 303
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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).