Israels’ ‘Day before the Departure,’ lent by Mr. J. S. Forbes, was
described thus: ‘The widow, utterly sad, has shut her Bible and seems
heartbroken and hopeless. The child does not understand everything,
but she knows her mother is sorry; the toy is forgotten, while she
nestles close in her desire to comfort. Her love may be the light which
will brighten the future,’ often reduced the beholders to sympathetic
silence; while warm was the praise given to Salentin’s ‘Foundling,’
a pretty picture of an old yeoman giving the forsaken babe into the
arms of his kindly daughters. The bright evening sky, the tender
spring-time, the interest of the farm-boy, and the curiosity of the
sheep, all hopefully express that the little one’s short, troublous day
is over, and that its happier spring-time has dawned.
‘Our Father’s House,’ by Wilfrid Lawson: the little, ragged girl
peeping wistfully round the church pillar at the fashionably dressed
congregation, who too often monopolise ‘Our Father’s House,’ had always
around it some quiet and earnest students. It aroused in them, perhaps,
the sleeping sense, now so often forgotten that it is almost ignored,
that the church is the people’s possession, and, maybe, it awakened the
hope, deep down (if sometimes visionary) in every breast, of the coming
of the ‘good time’ when all class and unworthy distinctions will be
lost in the Father’s presence.
Israels’ works, of which in the last Exhibition there were five, were
duly appreciated, not perhaps by the mass, but by the more thoughtful
of the spectators. ‘The Canal Boat, a picture full of sadness; the man
and woman look weary and worked. Nature is in tune with their hard
life; still there is progress,’ said the catalogue. I overheard one man
say, ‘Ah! poor chap, he’s got into a wrong current, but he’ll get out
all right. Pull away.’ The picture, sketchy as it was, had taught in
Israels’ style the lesson he loves to give--the pain and dreariness of
life interlaced with the bright thread of hope--
Which is out of sight:
That thread of all-sustaining beauty,
Which runs through all and doth all unite.
Mr. Walter Crane’s picture of ‘Ormuzd and Ahriman,’ which he kindly
lent, awoke much interest. The people read, or had read to them, the
description which told that the Persians believed in two gods--the
god of good, Ormuzd; the god of evil, Ahriman--and how the picture
expressed the fight between the two; a fight going on in every nation
and every heart, all nature being represented as standing still
during the conflict; while the river of time wound gently on past the
ruins of the Memnons, the Acropolis, the Grove, the Altar, and the
Abbey--the symbols of the world’s great religions. ‘I expect that’s
true, but we don’t seem to see much of the _fight_ about here,’ was one
cogent remark. Most frequently, though, a picture will draw forth no
expression--for with the unlettered all expression is difficult, and we
know how, in the presence of death, of a grand sunset, or of anything
deeply moving, silence seems most fitting.
Sometimes, though, one overhears talks which reveal much. Mr. Schmalz’s
picture of ‘Forever’ had one evening been beautifully explained, the
room being crowded by some of the humblest people, who received the
explanation with interest, but in silence. The picture represented a
dying girl to whom her lover has been playing his lute, until, dropping
it, he seemed to be telling her with impassioned words that his love is
stronger than death, and that, in spite of the grave and separation,
he will love her _forever_. I was standing outside the Exhibition in
the half-darkness, when two girls, hatless, with one shawl between them
thrown round both their shoulders, came out. They might not be living
the worst life; but, if not, they were low down enough to be familiar
with it and to see in that only the relation between men and women.
The idea of love lasting beyond this life, making eternity real, a
spiritual bond between man and woman, had not occurred to them until
the picture with the simple story was shown them. ‘Real beautiful,
ain’t it all?’ said one. ‘Ay, fine, but that “Forever,” I did take on
with that,’ was the answer. Could anything be more touching? What work
is there nobler than that of the artist who, by his art, shows the
degraded the lesson that Christ Himself lived to teach?
The landscapes were, perhaps, the pictures least cared for; and this
is not to be wondered at, considering how little the poorer denizens
of our large towns can know of the country, or of nature’s varied and
peculiar garbs, which artists delight to illustrate. ‘How far is it
to that place?’ was eagerly asked before a picture of Venice, by R.
M. Chevalier, a picture of which the description told how the Grand
Canal was the ‘Whitechapel Road’ of Venice, and further explained the
relationship of gondolas to omnibuses and cabs--a relationship not
understood at once by the untravelled world. ‘Would it cost much money
to go and see that?’ was often provoked by such pictures as Elijah
Walton’s picture of ‘Crevasses in the Mer de Glace,’ kindly lent by Mr.
H. Evill, or Mr. Croft’s ‘Matterhorn,’ lent by Mr. T. L. Devitt, and
described: ‘A peak in the Alps too steep for snow, and until lately
too steep for mountaineers. Chains have now been placed at the most
difficult places, and several English ladies have reached the top. The
artist shows the loneliness of greatness:--
The solemn peaks but to the stars are known,
But to the stars, and to the cold lunar beams;
Alone the sun rises, and alone
Spring the great streams.--MATTHEW ARNOLD.’
With the knowledge of the indifference, because of the unhelped and
inevitable ignorance of the town poor in respect to landscape art,
special pains were taken with the descriptions, endeavours being
made to connect the landscape with some idea with which they were
already familiar, or to connect it with some moral association which
would attract notice to its qualities; for instance, Mr. John Brett’s
‘Philory, King of the Cliffs,’ was brought nearer to the spectators by
the suggestion that ‘the coast of England was, like its people, cool
and strong, and not to be hurt by a storm’; and Mr. W. Luker’s picture
of ‘Burnham Beeches,’ lent by Mr. S. Winkworth, gained in interest
because the catalogue said it was ‘A forest near Slough, about eighteen
miles from London, bought by the City of London, and made the property
of the people.’
Mr. W. S. Wyllie’s ‘Antwerp,’ a grey, flat picture, had its idea partly
embodied in ‘Sea and land seemed to end in the cathedral spire’; while
the familiar proverb, ‘It is an ill wind that blows nobody good,’ drew
attention to Mr. W. C. Nakkens’s ‘Harvesting in Holland’; and the
suggestion that ‘the horses are enjoying the wind which is blowing up
the rain, the farmer’s enemy in harvest,’ showed the standpoint from
which the picture could be looked at.
Not that the catalogue was intended to contain exhaustive explanations
of the pictures, but only indications of the lines along which the
people could make their own discoveries. Full, however, as some of the
descriptions were, they were not full enough to prevent misconceptions.
A little copy of Tintoretto, lent by Mr. E. Bale, depicting the visit
and embrace of the Virgin Mary and Elisabeth, simply entered in the
catalogue as the ‘Meeting of Mary and Elisabeth,’ was mistaken for
an interview between Mary, Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth, and
produced the reflection, ‘I suppose that was before they quarrelled,
then’--a sign that historical had, in this instance, made more mark
than Bible instruction.
Information about Darwin, concerning whose work the catalogue was
silent, was finally volunteered by one of a little group who pronounced
him to be ‘the Monkey Man’; and another knew no more about Gladstone
than that ‘he was the chap that followed Lord Beaconsfield.’
‘Lesbia,’ by Mr. J. Bertrand, explained as ‘A Roman girl musing over
the loss of her pet bird,’ was commented on by, ‘Sorrow for her bird,
is it? I was thinking it was drink that was in her’--a grim indication
of the opinion of the working classes of their ‘betters’; though
another remark on the same picture, ‘Well, I hope she will never
have a worse trouble,’ showed a kindlier spirit and perhaps a sadder
experience.
But the catalogue once studied, it was clung to with almost comical
persistency. A picture by Jacob Maris, lent by Mr. J. S. Forbes, of
a ‘Street in Amsterdam,’ was next in the catalogue, though not in
the room, to one of Mr. F. F. Dicksee’s of ‘Christ walking on the
Water.’ The Amsterdam picture was one in Maris’s best style--a row of
quaint, irregular houses, boats by the wharf, still cold water from
the midst of which a post protruded, catching the light. ‘No doubt
a fine picture,’ commented a spectator, ‘but it requires a deal of
imagination.’ ‘Why? I don’t see that; it’s plain enough: there are the
ships, houses, wharf,’ explained a friendly neighbour. ‘Yes, I see all
them; but it’s the rest of it that wants the imagination.’ Further
pause, and then, ‘Oh! I see; I’ve got the wrong number; I thought it
was “Christ walking on the Water”--that’s what I was looking for.’
The historical or domestic pictures, such as J. B. Burgess’s
‘Presentation,’ the English ladies visiting the house of a Moor
who is presenting his children to them; or Edwin Long’s ‘Question
of Propriety,’ the priests watching the dancing-girl to decide if
the dance was proper or not, perhaps attracted the most immediate
attention, just in proportion as they told their own tale; but, aided
by catalogue or talk, the pictures embodying the highest spiritual
truths became the most popular.
The sentiment pervading J. F. Millet’s ‘Angelus’ which makes
prayer--the communion with the ‘Besetting God’--at evening time,
‘Earth’s natural vesper hour,’ seem right and fitting was an unspoken
sermon beyond their comprehension as art critics, but within their
reach as men and women capable of communion with the highest. And,
at present, when ordinary religious influences appear to make so
sadly little impression, shall we not use such pictures also as
stepping-stones towards the truer life?
Some amount of fine art is now lost to the world because the
construction of most modern houses puts narrow limits to the size of
pictures. ‘We are often unable to express our best ideas for want
of room,’ I was told by a living artist whom this or any age would,
I think, call great; and another painter has had what he considers
his finest picture left on his hands because it is too big for any
drawing-room and most galleries.
Is there not a double work here for the rich to do? Might they not,
by buying such pictures, encourage the artists to paint their best
thoughts, whatever size they require, thus making the world richer by
enabling it to possess a little more of the knowledge gained by those
who ‘hang on to the sunskirts of the Most High’? Might they not put
them as gifts or loans on the walls of churches or hospitals, making
bare walls speak great truths, not the less audible because of the
murmur of the people’s thanks, real, if unheard by the donors?
Pictures will not do everything. They will not save souls, for ‘it
takes a life to save a life’; but shall such works be kept only for
the amusement or passing interest of the rich? Shall not we, who care
that the people should have life and fuller life, press them into the
service of teaching? Words, mere words, fall flat on the ears of those
whose imaginations are withered and dead; but art, in itself beautiful,
in ideas rich, they cannot choose but understand, if it be brought
within their reach.
Art may do much to keep alive a nation’s fading higher life when other
influences fail adequately to nourish it; and how shall we neglect it
in these hard times of spiritual starvation? In Mrs. Browning’s words
‘The artist keeps up open roads between the seen and the unseen.
Art is the witness of what _is_ behind the show.’
HENRIETTA O. BARNETT.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
VIII.
_THE YOUNG WOMEN IN OUR WORKHOUSES._[1]
[1] Reprinted, by permission, from _Macmillan’s Magazine_, August 1879.
Those of us who have ever entered a workhouse will not easily forget
some of the sad impressions then made upon the mind. We remember the
large, dreary wards--
The walls so blank,
That my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there--
the cleanliness which is oppressive, the order which tells of control
in every detail. But, gloomy as these things are, they are but the
necessary surroundings of many of the people who come to end their
days amid them. On their faces is written failure; having been proved
useless to the world, they are cast away out of sight, and too often
out of mind, on to this sad rubbish-heap of humanity.
A closer inspection of this rubbish-heap, however, shows that it is not
all worthless. Besides the many whom dissolute, improvident, or vicious
courses bring to the workhouse, there are some who are more sinned
against than sinful; some who are merely unfortunate, and who by a
little wise help, wisely given, may become useful members of society.
It is of the young, single women that I would specially speak. Those
whom one finds in the workhouse are usually there for one of three
reasons. First, in order to seek shelter when about to become mothers;
secondly, because they are driven thither by the evil results of
profligacy; thirdly, because having failed in life they choose to enter
there rather than to sin or to starve. It is of the first and third
classes that I now write, for the second class is being dealt with, if
not efficiently, at least earnestly, by many societies founded for that
purpose.
From June 1877 to June 1878 in the seven unions of East London alone
there have been no less than 253 young girl-mothers who have entered
the infirmaries.
Some enter a few months before their confinement, driven to that
inhospitable shelter from the sense of the value of their remaining
character. And here a word is required as to the neglect of any proper
method of classification. There should be in all our workhouses
accommodation which would allow of the separation of characters among
classes; and power and encouragement should be given to the master and
matron to carry this plan into effectual working. The more respectable
of the young women might be placed under the supervision of one of the
staff, so that the time which necessarily elapses before they can be
again sent out should be to them a time of instruction in what is good
and desirable, instead of, as it now too often is, a time when they are
corrupted by the evil influence of others worse than themselves.
But these 253--what becomes of them? On their recovery they cannot
remain in the infirmary, and must be sent to the able-bodied house,
there to live on prison fare and to associate with the criminal and
wilfully idle. Rather than do this many a young woman prefers to go
out, taking her three-weeks-old babe with her, resolved to ‘get on’
as best she can. That ‘best’ is often the ‘worst.’ With her character
gone, with two mouths to feed instead of one, and with the loss of
self-respect rapidly following the loss of the respect of others, the
unfortunate mother too often falls into hopeless vice; or, perhaps, the
giant temptation presents itself of sacrificing the little wailing life
which stands between her and respectability. Unhelped, unencouraged as
they are, who can wonder that such mothers, so sorely tried, sometimes
fall, and that the crime of infanticide is horribly rife?
But, frequent as such results are, the end is not always thus tragic;
the ruined girl often returns to her father’s house and to the same
conditions of life as before she fell. But this course, though not so
apparently bad, is yet often very harmful. Her presence familiarises
the younger members with vice, an unadvisable familiarity; for vice,
while it gains much attractive power, gains also more deterrent force
by its mystery in the minds of the young.
Sometimes the unwedded mother, on leaving the workhouse, honestly
tries to get work at sack-making, factory-work, anything which will
enable her to keep her little one near her; but it is a hard, an almost
impossible task. The care of the child impedes the work, and thus it
has to be put out to daily nurse. The ignorance, if not the apathy,
of its badly paid nurse and the unsuitability of its food too often
combine to extinguish the little flame which was burning to guide its
mother back to virtue by the paths of love and self-control.
These, briefly, are some of the present evils which beset the lives of
the young women who become mothers in our workhouses.
It was to cure some of such evils that a few ladies associated
themselves together in the spring of 1876. We bound ourselves by
no rules or bye-laws, for the work is one which is entirely of an
individual nature. Strong personal influence has to be brought to
bear on each applicant, with a distinct and definite object in view,
suggested by the character of the woman and the circumstances of the
case. There have been, unfortunately, changes in our workers, but we
have continued to visit, with fair regularity, both the infirmary
and able-bodied house of our Union. When work is necessarily left
so largely to individual initiative, depending on the character of
the worker, each lady must, naturally, adopt her own method of doing
it. Some feel that they can do more _for_ the girls by changing the
circumstances of their lives, while others can do more _with_ them by
arousing their dormant moral natures and filling them with enthusiasm
for good. But all ways of doing the work are needed, the more diverse
the means the larger the number of women likely to be reached. The very
diversity of the means makes it difficult, however, to write about the
work as it is done by all the co-operators. It is, therefore, well that
I should speak only of my own plan and experiences.
I visit about once a week, and see alone in a room, which the matron
kindly lends for the purpose, each girl who has expressed a wish to
lead a good life. After talking to her and learning of her antecedents,
her statements are sent to the Charity Organisation Society to be
verified. I try to learn something of her character, of the ideal she
has of her own life, of the plans she has made for the future, of
the kind and manner of good which appears to her most attractive and
desirable. On receipt of the Report of the Charity Organisation Society
each girl is dealt with in accordance with her past life; she who has
suffered from the allurements and excitements of the town is sent into
the country, being placed where the monotony and peace will protect her
from herself; she who has for long lived a lawless and undisciplined
life is induced to enter a Home or Refuge, where order and control will
teach her the unlearnt lessons; while sometimes it is possible to get
for her for whom drink has been too strong a situation with a teetotal
family, who will help her by example as well as principle. For the
woman whose maternal feeling wants frequent contact with her child to
invigorate it a place is got where the mistress, knowing all the facts,
will allow her servant often to see the little one; while the mother,
whose sense of shame is stronger than her love for the child, is sent
to a place far removed from the caretaker of her baby, trusting that
the money which she weekly sends for it will keep in remembrance the
sin of which she has been guilty and the innocent result of it.
It is a common idea that the only way of helping women sunk so low as
these is to send them to Homes. This idea I would like to modify. Homes
are very valuable in giving girls the opportunities of re-earning a
character when, as they themselves say, they have ‘no one to speak for
them.’ Still, in all these cases where the fault which brought them
to the workhouse (serious as it may be) has not undermined the whole
character, it is, perhaps, better to send them at once to service. In
their mistresses’ houses they are, unconsciously, guarded from the
grosser temptations which lone girls have to meet, being guided by
influence rather than rule. The regular, if at times too hard, work of
service demanded by the varying interests and needs of a family is the
greatest help to a healthy tone of mind. In a good home they see family
life in all its beauty, they see the commonplace virtues in a beautiful
and attractive setting, and the kindliness which is engendered between
the served and the server helps the poor stumbling soul along the path
of duty over many a rough and difficult place. ‘Oh! ma’am,’ a girl said
the other day, ‘the missus’s baby is such a dear; he do make me forget
such a lot;’ a forgetfulness which was in her case the first necessary
step towards a fairer future.
It is a good rule to tell every circumstance, however trivial, to
the mistress, so that she can become in her turn the guardian of her
servant against the besetting sin; and all honour be to those many
ladies who have so generously come forward to take these girls into
their own homes, sometimes giving them more wages than their services
warranted, often helping them with clothes both for themselves and
their children, and giving them too that priceless sympathy which
outweighs every other gift. Such help saves more pain and makes more
righteousness than big, barren subscriptions to far-off institutions;
for
The gift without the giver is bare.
If the girl has been a servant before, she can obtain 15_l._ or 16_l._
a year; out of this she can pay 4_s._ or 4_s._ 6_d._ a week, and her
lady friend can assist her by paying 1_s._ or 6_d._ a week towards her
baby’s support. If the girl has never been a servant, it is necessary
that she should enter service at a much lower wage. She must then get
more money assistance, the sum being decided by the rough estimate that
she should pay two-thirds of her money, whatever it is.
The small payment has many advantages; it enables the mother to
disassociate herself from her past corrupting association; it assists
her lady friend to keep up constant communication with her, whereby
she is enabled to advise about her future, her change of place, her
friends; and it also enables a watchful eye to be kept on the little
one. Its nurse coming weekly to receive the money can tell of its
progress, the lady can see if it is well cared for, and can by her
interest encourage the nurse to do her best. As a rule the caretakers
become very fond of their little charges. In one instance the mother
having, alas! again returned to evil ways, the nurse continued to keep
the baby without payment, jealously guarding him against his mother,
‘who might harm him when in drink.’ Another woman came to ask for a
nurse-child because, she said, she had had fourteen children of her
own, and now that they were all out in the world, ‘her old man said
it was so lonesome-like.’ It is important, too, to choose the nurse
carefully, for she has frequently a great influence on the mother, who
will naturally be more inclined to listen to the wise words of one
who is ‘good to her baby’ than to any mere well-wisher. The mother
by this means gains a respectable friend of her own class, in many
cases the first she has ever known. In one instance the nurse did what
others had failed to do. The mother was one of those people to whom
pleasure is as necessary as food and air. Among happier surroundings
her sense of fun and capacity for enjoyment would have been a source
of brightness, and rendered her a general favourite. For those in her
sphere of life joy is an element considered unnecessary, and thus is
a dangerous luxury. She had no desire to do wrong nor to offend, but
pleasure she must have, and not being able to obtain it innocently, she
took it lawlessly. Such conduct mistresses rightly would not allow,
and she reached the workhouse when her boy was about three years old.
There seemed to be no trace of affection for the child, nor any feeling
beyond a sense of irritation at its helplessness and a desire to get it
‘into a home,’ and to be rid of the attendant responsibility. This last
idea it was impossible to entertain, for responsibility might become
her schoolmaster, and lead her up ‘the difficult blue heights.’