HOW I HEARD OF OLD NEIGHBOURS.
In the afternoon a gentleman entered the building, whose noble and
commanding appearance struck me. After a short examination of the
captives in their cages, he sat down to rest himself nearly opposite the
place where I was hidden.
He was almost directly joined by a bright-haired boy, in whose cheeks
health was glowing, and whose blue eyes sparkled with intelligence and
enjoyment.
"Papa-- please-- I want more money to buy buns for the animals!"
"My dear boy," replied the gentleman, in an expostulating tone, "you
have had a whole dozen already; I do not think it right to spend more on
pampering well-fed animals, when so many of our fellow-creatures are
suffering from hunger."
"Oh, papa! do you think there are many?"
"I believe that in this city of London alone there are thousands,-- yes,
tens of thousands, who know not, when they rise in the morning, where
they shall find a morsel of food during the day. I did not tell you what
happened to me when I was in the city, Neddy."
"Do tell me now," cried the boy, seating himself by his father, "while
we rest a little quietly here."
"I was walking along a narrow gloomy lane on my way to the
shipping-office, when suddenly I felt a hand at my pocket. Mine was
instantly down upon it, and I captured a little thief who appeared to be
about your own age."
"The little rogue!" exclaimed Neddy, indignantly. "And what did you do
with him, papa? Did you give him over to the police, or thrash him
soundly with your stick?"
"I grieved to see one so young already plunging into crime."
"Yes, that is the worst of it," said Neddy. "If he is so bad as a boy,
what will he be when he is a man! He will be sure to end on the gallows!
I hope you punished him well, papa."
I pricked up my ears on hearing this conversation; I could not help
connecting it with what Bob had told his lame little brother;
I therefore listened with peculiar interest. Not that, as a rat, I could
understand the word _crime_, or know why human beings feel it wrong to
seize anything that they want and can get. It was evident to me that
they are governed by laws and principles quite incomprehensible to my
race. For as man has no scruple in taking from rats their lives and
their skins, so rats, on the other hand, have no manner of scruple in
taking all they require from man.
But to return to the gentleman and his son.
"No, Neddy, I did not punish the child," replied the former gravely.
"I looked at his meagre form clothed in rags, his wasted countenance
prematurely old in its expression of sorrow and care, his hollow eyes,
his sunken cheeks,-- and I thought of you, my son!" the gentleman added,
with a sigh.
"Well," said Neddy, "I hope there's a precious deal of difference
between me and a beggarly thief!"
"What has made that difference?" said the gentleman, laying his hand on
the shoulder of his beautiful boy. "I questioned that unhappy child.
I found him ignorant of the first principles of virtue. His mother is
dead, his father in jail; if he has learnt anything from those around
him it is only a knowledge of vice. Pinched by hunger, homeless,
friendless, ignorant even that he has a soul, it would be a miracle
indeed if he followed the straight path of which he has not so much as
heard! What can we expect him to be but a thief,-- what would you have
been in his place?"
Neddy looked thoughtful and was silent. Then raising his blue eyes to
his father's face he said, "And what did you do to the boy?"
"I first tried to relieve a little his pressing bodily wants; to take
from him, at least for one day, the temptation to commit a theft. But I
knew that the temptation would recur again, and as long as he continued
in blind ignorance, there could be small hope that he would even wish to
resist it. I remembered that my watchmaker had given me the direction of
a Ragged School at which his daughter taught; spending her time and
energies as so many do now, in this noblest labour of love. This school
was not very far off, and I resolved to take this opportunity of paying
it a long-intended visit. I took the poor little fellow with me, and
spoke to the superintendent, who readily agreed to receive him. He will
there learn some way to earn his bread honestly; he will be taught to
know right from wrong; he will hear, perhaps for the first time, the
voice of kindness; and he may yet live to be respectable, useful, and
happy."
"Oh! papa, do you think that after once being a thief he is ever likely
to turn out good for anything!"
"The experiment has been tried over and over again, Neddy, and many
times it has been mercifully attended with success. The idle _have_
become industrious, the thieves honest, the vicious been reclaimed, the
lost found and saved! I will tell you a striking occurrence which really
took place in a reformatory for thieves. Not one of the inmates there
but had broken the laws of his country, and committed the crime of
theft. But mercy was giving them a chance to redeem the characters which
they had lost, and they were learning various trades, by which to
support themselves in honest independence. A subscription, as you may
remember, was raised at the time of the war with Russia, to help the
widows and orphans of our gallant soldiers. From the Sovereign on her
throne, to the labourer in the field, from rich and poor, high and low,
contributions to the Patriotic Fund poured in.
"The thieves in the reformatory heard of the subscription; they longed
to aid it, but what could they do? they had no money, they owed their
very bread to charity, for they had not yet acquired sufficient skill in
the trades which they were learning, to pay even their necessary
expenses."
"They could not give what they had not got, papa, if they wished to be
generous ever so much."
"Where there is a will there is a way, Neddy. These poor fellows were so
anxious to help the widow and the orphan, that they asked and obtained
leave to go a whole day without food, that the money so saved upon them
might be paid into the Patriotic Fund."
"And did they really starve a whole day?-- have neither breakfast, nor
dinner, nor supper,-- and all go hungry to bed?"
"They did, Neddy, _all_ the thieves in that reformatory* did; and I
doubt if amongst the hundreds of thousands of subscriptions to the
Patriotic Fund, any showed so much real generosity and self-denial as
the contribution of the reformed thieves!"
"Oh! there was hope for such men indeed!" exclaimed Neddy, the moisture
rising into his eyes. "There must have been good in them, papa, and I
should not wonder if some of them turned out really fine fellows."
"I have no doubt of it," said his father with a smile.
"And that poor boy-- yes, I hope that he may amend. Shall we hear
anything more of him, papa?"
"You know that we go out of town to-morrow. On my return I shall make
inquiries regarding him at the Ragged School, and if I find that he is
improving under the instruction which he will receive, I shall try to do
something for him."
"May I go with you?" said Neddy eagerly, "I should like to visit the
school."
"I think that I shall take you with me," replied his father.
"What a glorious thing it is," exclaimed the boy after a pause, "to
raise ragged schools and reformatories, to give the poor, the ignorant,
and the wicked, a chance of becoming honest and happy! How I should like
to build one myself!"
"It would be more practicable for you," observed the gentleman, smiling
as he rose from his seat, "to support those which are built already."**
"But, papa, I can do so little!"
"Every little helps, my son; the vast ocean is made up of drops. You may
do something yourself, and try to interest others in the cause of the
desolate poor. Were all the children of the middle classes in England to
give each but one penny a-week, no wretched boy need wander about
desolate in London, to perish both here and hereafter because no one
cared for his soul!"
[* The Reformatory in Great Smith Street, Westminster.]
[** The office of the "Ragged School Union" is at 1 Exeter Hall,
London. By this admirable society twenty-two thousand poor
children have received instruction during the past year, while
five hundred of the most destitute have been provided with homes
in refuges and reformatories. To show the habits of prudence
inculcated in the schools, it is only necessary to state that in
the same year ragged scholars placed in saving-banks a sum of no
less than three thousand four hundred and thirty-nine pounds!
Seventy of those who now teach in the schools, were once ragged
scholars themselves, thus imparting to others the benefits which
they had received when poor ignorant children.
But the funds of the society are by no means sufficient for the
work before it, though many of its teachers are unpaid, seeking no
reward upon earth. There are numbers of ragged children in London,
as desolate as those whom I have described, who have never known
the blessing of a ragged school, and who, if they implored the
shelter of a refuge, must implore in vain, for they would find no
room.]