Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes_, not so
much, however, in the transformations and improvement of buildings
effected under its own immediate control, which are rather designed to
serve as models to those desirous of carrying out these principles of
reform, as by drawing public attention to one of the most interesting
and painful subjects that can occupy the mind of the philanthropist,
viz., the inadequate provision of decent, and proper house
accommodation for the industrial classes, which is now universally
admitted to be productive of the worst social disorders.
The important provisions of the Common Lodging-Houses Act, passed
in 1851, under the auspices of Lord Shaftesbury, and the system
of registration thus enforced, have also been attended with great
benefits, and have conduced not a little to the promotion of
social and sanatory reform, by bringing legal enactments to bear
upon the disorders, indecencies, and impurities of low and crowded
lodging-houses.
There is no class of preventive agencies in the metropolis, which on
every principle of justice and humanity have stronger claims on the
sympathy of the benevolent than such as interpose their friendly
shelter and kind offices, to rescue those who are suddenly reduced to
positions of great extremity and temptation. It is doubtless an act of
mercy to rescue a drowning man, and such charitable deeds are performed
by those who labour for the reformation of the criminal; but it is a
higher act of charity, and a wiser and more Christian course to prevent
his falling into the stream; experience, however, proves that it is
easier to enlist sympathy on behalf of one who is already being swept
away by the current of crime, than to rescue one who is bordering on
destruction, and perhaps bravely battling with temptation. This is
perhaps only natural; our perception of danger in the one case is far
greater than in the other, and our commiseration is awakened at sight
of the death agony of the drowning wretch, but is hardly stirred on
behalf of him who walks on the slippery brink.[4]
It is unhappily a fact too well authenticated to need further
demonstration, that owing perhaps to sudden reverses of fortune, to the
removal of natural protectors, or to the force of some overwhelming
temptation, many persons are unwillingly, and almost unavoidably,
pressed into the ranks of crime, who but for the extremity in which
they were placed, would have continued to walk erect in the path of
honour and virtue. Let none then who move in the calm sunlight of
prosperity, presume to judge those who stumble in the dark night of
trial.
“The path of a man, even of a man on the highway to heaven, is never
one of perfect safety. There are many dangerous passes in the journey
of life. The very next turn, for anything we know, may bring us on one.
Turn that projecting point, which hides the path before you, and you
are suddenly in circumstances which demand that reason be strong, and
conscience be tender, and hope be bright, and faith be vigorous.”
Happily there are persons whose qualities of head and heart have
enabled them by precautionary measures to provide against the weakness
of human nature, and to offer assistance to those who are placed in
such critical positions.
There is no class more essential to the well-being and comfort of
society, and none, it is to be feared, more exposed to dangers and
temptations, than domestic servants. It is calculated that in London
alone there are upwards of one hundred thousand females engaged in
domestic service, and that ten thousand of these are continually
in a transition state, and therefore out of employment. When it is
borne in mind that vast numbers of these young women have migrated,
at an early age, from various parts of the country in search of a
livelihood, that many of them are orphans and friendless, or at least
wholly destitute of friends and resources in London, that they are
moreover inexperienced, unsuspecting, and ignorant of the snares and
temptations that surround them, it cannot be a matter of surprise that
the reports of all the London penitentiaries should bear witness to the
fact, that a large majority of the fallen women who are received into
these institutions came originally from the ranks of domestic service.
It would be superfluous to attempt to prove the value of associations
formed to counteract these evils, by offering advice, shelter, and
protection to servants who are out of situations or seeking employment.
One of the oldest and best organizations of this kind is the _Female
Servants’ Home Society_,[5] which has now been in active operation
four-and-twenty years. Its objects are to provide a safe _home_ for
respectable female servants when out of place, or for those seeking
situations. The Homes, four in number, are under the control of
experienced and pious matrons, who establish a kind and motherly
influence over the inmates, and are indefatigable in endeavouring to
promote their welfare. The Homes are regularly visited by Christian
ladies, and a service is conducted every week by the chaplain. A
registry, free to the servants, is attached to each Home, where for
a trifling fee of half-a-crown, or by an annual subscription of one
guinea, every facility is afforded to employers of procuring efficient
and trustworthy servants.
Since the formation of the Society, upwards of 7,000 servants have been
received into the Homes, and 37,000 have availed themselves of the
registry provided, while in numberless instances young and friendless
girls have been rescued from positions of extreme and imminent danger.
A kindred institution to the above is _The Female Aid Society_,
established in 1836. Its objects, which are threefold, are thus
defined:--
1st. “It provides a home for female servants, where they may
reside with comfort, respectability, and economy, while seeking
for situations;” and in connexion with which is a register for the
convenience of servants and employers.
2nd. “It receives into a home, for purposes of protection and
instruction, young girls to be trained for service and other
employments, who, from circumstances of poverty, orphanage, or sinful
conduct in those who should preserve them from evil, are exposed to
great temptations, and are in want of a home where there is proper
guardianship and example.”
3rd. “A home and rescue is offered to women who, weary of sin, are
desirous of leaving a life of awful depravity and misery;” and no
depth of past degradation, provided there is any sign of amendment,
presents a barrier to their reception, shelter being freely offered to
the very outcast among the outcasts, to inmates of refractory wards,
of workhouses, and to women freshly discharged from prison. Since the
formation of the Society 4,116 servants have been admitted into the
Home, and 7,622 placed in service; 2,008 young women have enjoyed the
protection of the Friendless’ Home, and 2,205 have been received as
penitents. Want of funds, however, has obliged the Society to curtail
its operations.
_The Girls’ Laundry and Training Institution for Young Servants_ is
an industrial home, affording shelter, protection, and instruction in
household duties to forty young girls, who are thus carefully trained
and prepared for domestic service.
Other institutions for the accommodation, temporary relief, and
permanent benefit of servants are, _The National Guardian Institution_,
_The Marylebone Philanthropic Servants’ Institution and Pension
Society_, _The Provisional Protection Society_, _The General Domestic
Servants’ Benevolent Institution_, and _The Servants’ Provident and
Benevolent Society_.
Among the London preventive agencies must be classed the various homes,
refuges, and asylums for the relief of the utterly destitute and
friendless of good character, and which severally offer food, shelter,
and protection to those needing their assistance.
_The Field Lane Night Refuges_ provide accommodation nightly for 200
men and women; and by this instrumentality many are rescued from death
and crime, and are enabled to regain their positions in life, or to
maintain themselves in respectability. During the past year 31,747
lodgings were afforded to persons of both sexes. Many of those thus
assisted were poor needlewomen, who, during an inclement winter, had
been, together with their families, turned into the street, having been
stript of everything for rent.
_The Dudley Stuart Night Refuge_, founded by Lord Dudley Stuart in
1852, provides for the reception of the utterly destitute during the
winter months. Accommodation is offered to 95 persons in two warm,
spacious, and well-ventilated apartments. The relief afforded consists
of a night’s lodging, bread night and morning, and medical attendance,
if required. This charity has, since its foundation, alleviated a vast
amount of suffering. It admits those against whom every other door is
closed, and requires no recommendation beyond the utter destitution of
the applicants. Upwards of 8,000 men, women, and children were admitted
and relieved during last winter.
_The Houseless Poor Asylum_ is the oldest night-refuge in London, and
was opened to “afford nightly shelter and sustenance to the absolutely
destitute working classes, who are suddenly thrown out of employment
during the inclement winter months.” Accommodation is provided for 700;
and since the opening of the Asylum 1,449,047 nights’ lodgings and
3,515,951 rations of bread have been supplied.
_The House of Charity_ provides for the reception of distressed persons
of good character, who, from various accidental causes, require a
temporary home, protection, and food. Nearly 3000 persons of both sexes
have been thus accommodated for an average period of a month or five
weeks.
_The Foundling Hospital_, first opened in 1741, for the reception
of illegitimate children, has undergone considerable changes and
improvements, and now shelters, maintains, and educates 460 children,
who, at the age of fifteen, are apprenticed or otherwise provided
for, and are thus humanely rescued from the early and contaminating
influence of vicious associations. No child is eligible for this
charity unless there is satisfactory proof of the mother’s previous
good character and present necessity, of desertion by the father, and
that the reception of the child will, in all probability, be the means
of replacing the mother in the course of virtue, and the way of an
honest livelihood.
_The Society for the Suppression of Mendicity_ was instituted in 1818,
“for the purpose of checking the practice of public mendicity, with all
its baneful and demoralizing consequences; by putting the laws in force
against imposters who adopt it as a trade, and by affording prompt
and effectual assistance to those whom sudden calamity or unaffected
distress may cast in want and misery upon the public attention.”
A just discrimination between cases of real and fictitious distress,
and a judicious adaptation of relief to deserving cases, is a
necessary, but very difficult, part of true benevolence. The frauds
which are successfully practised by systematic sharpers upon a
charitable, but over-credulous public, and the existence of an immense
amount of genuine and unrelieved suffering, are sufficient proofs of
the value and importance of any agency designed to counteract these
abuses, and to accord a just measure of benevolence.
By means of printed tickets supplied to subscribers, beggars can
be directed to the Society’s offices, where their cases are fully
investigated, and treated according to desert, a sure provision being
thus made against imposture.
Since the formation of the Society 51,016 registered cases have been
disposed of, and food, money, and clothing dispensed to deserving
applicants, while employment has been provided for such as were found
able to work.
_The Association for Promoting the Relief of Destitution in the
Metropolis_ is likewise a safe channel for the exercise of public
benevolence. It is carried on under the direction of the bishop
and clergy, and the efforts of the Association are directed to
the origination and support of local undertakings, thus forming a
connection and a centre of union between the various parochial visiting
societies.
The present condition of that large class of female workers in London,
comprehended under the terms milliners and dressmakers, is one of
the saddest reproaches upon a country whose benevolent objects are
so numerous, and so extensive, and one of the severest comments upon
the heartlessness and artificialism of that society, which takes no
cognizance of those who are most largely concerned in administering to
its necessities. The miseries of this shamefully under-paid and cruelly
over-worked class of white slaves have been too often eloquently
animadverted upon, to need any further denunciations of the system,
under which they are hopelessly and unfeelingly condemned to labour.
The impossibility of supporting life on the wretched pittance accorded
to their labours, is the oft-heard, and the unanswerably extenuating
plea for their recourse to criminal avocations.
While, however, the State shrinks from the task of ameliorating their
condition by any legislative interference, it is satisfactory to know
that public benevolence in this wide field is not wholly unrepresented.
_The Association for the Aid and Benefit of Dressmakers and Milliners_
is a noble breakwater against the inroads of oppression, and a valuable
counteracting agency to the force of temptation.
Its objects, briefly stated, are to obtain some remission of labour and
other concessions from employers, and to afford pecuniary and medical
assistance in cases of temporary distress or illness. A registry and
provident fund are provided in connexion with the association.
Actuated by the same humane intention, although different in object, is
the _Needlewomen’s Institution_, established in 1850, “with the twofold
view of affording those who had suffered under the oppression of middle
men and slop-sellers, the opportunity of maintaining themselves, by
supplying them with regular employment at remunerative prices, in airy
work-rooms, and if desired, lodging at a moderate charge.”
Another institution of very recent origin directed to the religious and
social improvement of the same unhappy class, is the _Young Women’s
Christian Association and West London Home_, for young women engaged in
houses of business. Its objects are twofold, 1st, “to supply a place
where young women so employed, can profitably spend their _Sundays
and week-day evenings_,” thus counteracting the evil influence of
badly conducted houses of business; and 2nd, “the home is intended to
provide a residence for young people coming from the country to seek
employment, and for those who are changing their situations, or who
from over-work and failing health require rest for a time.” The rooms
of the Association are open every evening from seven until ten o’clock,
when educational and religious classes are held for the benefit of
those attending.
Thus, “where occasional spasms of sympathy, the well-merited
castigations of the press, and the voice of popular opinion had
unitedly failed to shake the throne of the god of Mammon, erected on
skeletons, and cemented with the blood of women and children, it was
reserved for a Christian lady to strike out a plan which has already
been productive of an immensity of good, and has commended itself to
the approval of all who are labouring to promote the welfare of this
oppressed and neglected class. The better to appreciate the importance
of this noble and truly womanly enterprise, only let the solemn and
fearful fact be borne in mind, that in London _alone_ 1,000 poor girls
are yearly crushed out of life from over-toil and grinding oppression,
while 15,000 are living in a state of semi-starvation. Ah! who can
wonder that our streets swarm with the fallen and the lost, when SIN
OR STARVE is the dire alternative! Who cannot track the _via doloroso_
between the 15,000 starving and the thrice that number living by sin as
a trade!
“Here, then, is an Institution that meets the wants of the case.
It not only catches them before they go over the precipice, and
lovingly shelters them from the fierce blasts of temptation, beating
remorselessly on many a young and shrinking heart, but ensures them a
‘_Home_,’ where soul and body alike may find rest and peace.”[6]
The _Society for Promoting the Employment of Women_ has lately been
called into existence, by the emergencies of the present age, the
object of which is to develop and extend the hitherto restricted field
of female labour, by the establishment of industrial schools and
workshops, where girls may be taught those trades and occupations which
are at present exclusively monopolised by men. Those “educated in this
school will be capable of becoming clerks, cashiers, railway-ticket
sellers, printers,” &c.
These and similar measures which tend to open up resources to women
in search of a livelihood, will have the happiest effect in diverting
numbers into paths of honest industry, who now labour under strong
temptations to abandon themselves to a life of criminal ease and
self-indulgence.
The remaining agencies indirectly tending to the prevention of crime,
are the _Metropolitan Early Closing Association_, for abridging
the hours of business, so as to afford to assistants time for
recreation, and for physical, intellectual, and moral improvement; the
_Metropolitan Evening Classes for Young Men_, for furnishing the means
of instruction and self-improvement; and the _Young Men’s Christian
Association_, for promoting the spiritual and mental improvement of
young men, “by means of devotional meetings, classes for Biblical
instruction, and for literary improvement, the delivery of lectures,
the diffusion of Christian literature, and a library for reference
and circulation.” This last instrumentality has been widely blessed,
and its beneficial influence is now extended, by means of branch
associations, to most of the provincial towns.
3. _Repressive and Punitive Agencies._
The various instrumentalities falling under this head appear deserving
of separate consideration, and cannot therefore be appropriately
included under either of the previous divisions, being neither curative
in their character, nor preventive to any appreciable extent. They
evidently presuppose the existence of crime, and merely seek to
diminish its influence, or curtail its power by the application of
legal provisions and compulsory measures, intended on the one hand to
indemnify society against the infraction of its rights, and on the
other to intimidate or restrain the criminal offender. The absolute
reformation of the viciously disposed can hardly be expected to result
from the use of such means, and belongs properly to another class
of agencies. It may indeed be achieved by punitive measures, but in
this case reformation of character is rather a startling accident
than an essential property of the system pursued. Experience has
abundantly established the utility of legal provisions as a “terror
to evil doers;” but the statistics of our police-courts will by no
means warrant the assumption that penal measures have _per se_ been
successful in reclaiming the offender. It is not intended, however,
while speaking of repressive and punitive agencies, to include in this
category the strictly legal efforts employed by the State to deter and
correct the criminal who renders himself amenable to justice. This
subject will be found fully and distinctly treated by Mr. Mayhew, in
a work now in the press, entitled “Prisons of London, and Scenes of
Prison Life.”
The inquiry pursued in the course of this Essay is not designed to
comprehend such constitutional measures as are employed by either
Church or State, for the suppression of vice and crime; but rather to
draw from their obscurity, and to give prominence to those resources
and expedients which society itself adopts, for the defence and
preservation of its own interests.
_The Society for the Suppression of Vice_, which was established
in 1802, has for its objects the repression of attempts “to spread
infidelity and blasphemy by means of public lectures, and printed
publications.” The operations of the Society have also been
directed to the suppression of disorderly houses, the punishment of
fortune-tellers, and other important objects. “It is represented that
by means of this Society many convictions have taken place, and persons
have been sentenced to imprisonment for selling obscene publications
and prints,” while their works have been either seized or destroyed.
With such admirable intentions and useful objects, to commend it to
benevolent support, and with the entire voice of public opinion in its
favour, the only wonder is that this Society does not carry on its
operations with greater publicity, vigilance, and efficiency. Unhappily
the loathsome traffic in Holywell Street literature is still carried
on with bold and unblushing effrontery, and its existence, although
greatly diminished in the country, is too notorious and too patent, in
certain portions of the metropolis, to need any extraordinary efforts
to promote exposure and punishment.
The demoralizing influence of low theatres, and the licentious
corruptions of the Coal Hole, and Posés Plastiques, might surely afford
scope for vigorous prosecutions under the Society’s auspices; and yet
these dens, in which the vilest passions of mankind are stimulated, and
every sentiment of religion, virtue, and decency grossly outraged, or
publicly caricatured, are allowed to emit their virulent poison upon
all ranks of society without the slightest let or hindrance! Only let a
man smitten by the plague or with any other infectious disease, obtrude
himself by unnecessary contact upon the public, and his right to free
agency would be summarily disposed of, by speedy incarceration within
the walls of a hospital; but provided only the disorder be a moral
one--and therefore far more to be dreaded, in its pestiferous influence
and baneful effects upon society--it is forsooth to be tolerated as a
necessary evil! _Proh tempora et mores!_
_The Associate Institution_, formed in 1844, has been in active
operation fifteen years, and has been instrumental in effecting a large
amount of good, by improving and enforcing the laws for the protection
of women. It has maintained a strenuous crusade against houses of
ill-fame, and has since its establishment conducted upwards of 300
prosecutions, in most of which it has been successful in bringing
condign punishment upon the heads of those, who have committed criminal
assaults upon women and children, or who have decoyed them away for
immoral purposes.
Important as these results have been, a larger amount of good has
probably been achieved by means of lectures and meetings held in
various parts of the country by Mr. J. Harding, the Society’s
travelling secretary, whose faithful and stirring appeals and bold
denunciations of vice have contributed not a little to the spread
of sounder and more wholesome views on social questions, and to the
removal of that ignorance of profligate wiles and artifices, which, in
so many cases, proves fatal to the unsuspecting and unwary.