EAST LONDON ARABS.
Notwithstanding my previous experiences among the Western tribes of
Bedouins whose locale is the Desert of the Seven Dials, I must confess
to considerable strangeness when first I penetrated the wilderness of
Bethnal Green. Not only was it utterly terra incognita to me, but, with
their manifold features in common, the want and squalor of the East have
traits distinct from those of the West. I had but the name of one
Bethnal Green parish and of one lady--Miss Macpherson--and with these
slender data I proceeded to my work, the results of which I again
chronicle seriatim.
Passing from the Moorgate Street Station I made for the Eastern Counties
Terminus at Shoreditch, and soon after passing it struck off to my right
in the Bethnal Green Road. Here, amid a pervading atmosphere of
bird-fanciers and vendors of live pets in general, I found a Mission
Hall, belonging to I know not what denomination, and, aided by a
vigorous policeman, kicked--in the absence of knocker or bell--at all
the doors, without result. Nobody was there. I went on to the Bethnal
Green parish which had been named to me as the resort of nomade tribes,
and found the incumbent absent in the country for a week or so, and the
Scripture-reader afraid, in his absence, to give much information. He
ventured, however, to show me the industrial school, where some forty
children were employed in making match-boxes for Messrs. Bryant and May.
However, as I was told that the incumbent in question objected very
decidedly to refuges and ragged schools, and thought it much better for
the poor to strain a point and send their little ones to school, I felt
that was hardly the regimen to suit my Arabian friends, who were
evidently teeming in that locality. I was even returning home with the
view of getting further geographical particulars of this Eastern Arabia
Petræa, when, as a last resource, I was directed to a refuge in
Commercial Street. I rang here, and found myself in the presence of the
veritable Miss Macpherson herself, with whom I passed two pleasant and
instructive hours.
At starting, Miss Macpherson rather objected to being made the subject
of an article--first of all, for the very comprehensible reason that
such publicity would draw down upon her a host of visitors; and when I
suggested that visitors probably meant funds, she added a second, and
not quite so comprehensible an objection--that these funds themselves
might alloy the element of Faith in which the work had been so far
carried on. She had thoroughly imbibed the spirit of Müller, whose Home
at Bristol was professedly the outcome of Faith and Prayer alone.
However, on my promise to publish only such particulars--name, locality,
&c.--as she might approve, this lady gave me the details of her truly
wonderful work. The building in which I found her had been erected to
serve as large warehouses, and here 110 of the most veritable Arabs were
housed, fed, taught, and converted into Christians, when so convertible.
Should they prove impressionable, Miss Macpherson then contemplates
their emigration to Canada. Many had already been sent out; and her idea
was to extend her operations in this respect: not, be it observed, to
cast hundreds of the scum of the East End of London upon Canada--a
proceeding to which the Canadians would very naturally object--but to
form a Home on that side to be fed from the Homes on this, and so to
remove from the old scenes of vice and temptation those who had been
previously trained in the refuges here. She has it in contemplation to
take a large hotel in Canada, and convert it into an institution of this
kind; and I fancy it was the possibility that publicity might aid this
larger scheme which eventually induced the good lady to let the world so
far know what she is doing. At all events, she gave me carte blanche to
publish the results of my observations.
In selecting and dealing with the inmates of her refuges, Miss
Macpherson avails herself of the science of phrenology, in which she
believes, and she advances good reason for so doing. I presume my
phrenological development must have been satisfactory, since she not
only laid aside her objection to publicity, but even allowed me to carry
off with me her MS. "casebooks," from which I cull one or two of several
hundred:--
"1. T. S., aged ten (March 5, 1869).--An orphan. Mother died in St.
George's Workhouse. Father killed by coming in contact with a diseased
sheep, being a slaughterman. A seller of boxes in the street. Slept last
in a bed before Christmas. Slept in hay-carts, under a tarpaulin. Says
the prayers his mother 'teached him.'"
"2. J. H., aged twelve (March 5).--No home but the streets. Father
killed by an engine-strap, being an engineer. Mother died of a broken
heart. Went into ---- Workhouse; but ran away through ill-treatment last
December. Slept in ruins near Eastern Counties Railway. _Can't remember_
when he last lay in a bed."
"3. A. R., aged eleven (March 5).--Mother and father left him and two
brothers in an empty room in H---- Street. Policeman, hearing them
crying, broke open the door and took them to the workhouse. His two
brothers died. Was moved from workhouse by grandmother, and she, unable
to support him, turned him out on the streets. Slept in railway ruins;
lived by begging. July 24, sent to Home No. 1 as a reward for good
conduct."
Besides thus rescuing hundreds of homeless ones, Miss Macpherson has in
many instances been the means of restoring runaway children of
respectable parents. Here is an instance:--
"Feb. 25th.--S. W. T., aged fourteen, brought into Refuge by one of the
night teachers, who noticed him in a lodging-house respectably dressed.
Had walked up to London from N----, in company with two sailors
(disreputable men, whom the lodging-house keeper declined to take in).
Had been reading sensational books. Wrote to address at N----. Father
telegraphed to keep him. Uncle came for him with fresh clothes and took
him home. He had begun to pawn his clothes for his night's lodging. His
father had been for a fortnight in communication with the police."
The constables in the neighbourhood all know Miss Macpherson's Refuge,
and her readiness to take boys in at any time; so that many little
vagrants are brought thither by them and reclaimed, instead of being
locked up and sent to prison, to go from bad to worse. Besides this
receptacle for boys, Miss Macpherson has also a Home at Hackney, where
girls of the same class are housed. The plan she adopts is to get a
friend to be responsible for one child. The cost she reckons at _6l.
10s._ per annum for those under ten years, and _10l._ for those above.
But this excellent lady's good works are by no means catalogued yet.
Besides the children being fed and taught in these Homes, the parents
and children are constantly gathered for sewing classes, tea meetings,
&c. at the Refuge. Above 400 children are thus influenced; and Miss
Macpherson, with her coadjutors, systematically visits the wretched dens
and lodging-houses into which no well-dressed person, unless favourably
known like her for her work among the children, would dare to set foot.
I was also present when a hearty meal of excellent soup and a large lump
of bread were given to between three and four hundred men, chiefly dock
labourers out of employ. It was a touching sight to notice the stolid
apathy depicted on most of the countenances, which looked unpleasantly
like despair. One of the men assured me that for every package that had
to be unladen from the docks there were ten pair of hands ready to do
the work, where only one could be employed. Many of the men, he assured
me, went for two, sometimes three, days without food; and with the large
majority of those assembled the meal they were then taking would
represent the whole of their subsistence for the twenty-four-hours.
After supper a hymn was sung, and a few words spoken to them by Miss
Macpherson on the allegory of the Birds and Flowers in the Sermon on the
Mount; and so they sallied forth into the darkness of Arabia Petræa. I
mounted to the little boys' bedroom, where the tiniest Arabs of all
were enjoying the luxury of a game, with bare feet, before retiring.
Miss Macpherson dragged a mattress off one of the beds and threw it down
in the centre for them to tumble head-over-tail; and, as she truly said,
it was difficult to recognise in those merry shouts and happy faces any
remains of the veriest reprobates of the London streets.
Let us hear Miss Macpherson herself speak. In a published pamphlet, "Our
Perishing Little Ones," she says: "As to the present state of the
mission, we simply say 'Come and see.' It is impossible by words to give
an idea of the mass of 120,000 precious souls who live on this one
square mile.... My longing is to send forth, so soon as the ice breaks,
500 of our poor street boys, waifs and strays that have been gathered
in, to the warm-hearted Canadian farmers. In the meantime, who will help
us to make outfits, and collect _5l._ for each little Arab, that there
be no hindrance to the complement being made up when the spring time is
come?... Ladies who are householders can aid us much in endeavours to
educate these homeless wanderers to habits of industry by sending orders
for their firewood--_4s._ per hundred bundles, sent free eight miles
from the City." And, again, in Miss Macpherson's book called "The Little
Matchmakers," she says: "In this work of faith and labour of love among
the very lowest in our beloved country, let us press on, looking for
great things. Preventing sin and crime is a much greater work than
curing it. There are still many things on my heart requiring more
pennies. As they come, we will go forward."
Miss Macpherson's motto is, "The Word first in all things; afterwards
bread for this body." There are some of us who would be inclined to
reverse this process--to feed the body and educate the mind--not
altogether neglecting spiritual culture, even at the earliest stage, but
leaving anything like definite religious schooling until the poor mind
and body were, so to say, acclimatized. It is, of course, much easier to
sit still and theorize and criticise than to do what these excellent
people have done and are doing to diminish this gigantic evil. "By their
fruits ye shall know them" is a criterion based on authority that we are
none of us inclined to dispute. Miss Macpherson boasts--and a very
proper subject for boasting it is--that she belongs to no _ism_. It is
significant, however, that the Refuge bears, or bore, the name of the
"Revival" Refuge, and the paper which contained the earliest accounts of
its working was called the _Revivalist_, though now baptized with the
broader title of the _Christian_. Amid such real work it would be a pity
to have the semblance of unreality, and I dreaded to think of the
possibility of its existing, when little grimy hands were held out by
boys volunteering to say a text for my behoof. By far the most
favourite one was "Jesus wept;" next came "God is love"--each most
appropriate; but the sharp boy, a few years older, won approval by a
longer and more doctrinal quotation, whilst several of these held out
hands again when asked whether, in the course of the day, they had felt
the efficacy of the text given on the previous evening, "Set a watch, O
Lord, before my mouth; keep Thou the door of my lips." Such an
experience would be a sign of advanced spirituality in an adult. Is it
ungenerous to ask whether its manifestation in an Arab child must not be
an anticipation of what might be the normal result of a few years'
training? May not this kind of _forcing_ explain the cases I saw quoted
in the books--of one boy who "felt like a fish out of water, and left
the same day of his own accord;" another who "climbed out of a
three-floor window and escaped?"
However, here is the good work being done. Let us not carp at the
details, but help it on, unless we can do better ourselves. One thing
has been preeminently forced in upon me during this brief examination of
our London Arabs--namely, that individuals work better than communities
amongst these people. The work done by the great establishments, whether
of England, Rome, or Protestant Dissent, is insignificant compared with
that carried out by persons labouring like Mr. Hutton in Seven Dials and
Miss Macpherson in Whitechapel, untrammelled by any particular system.
The want, and sorrow, and suffering are individual, and need individual
care, just as the Master of old worked Himself, and sent His scripless
missionaries singly forth to labour for Him, as--on however
incommensurate a scale--they are still labouring, East and West, amongst
our London Arabs.