Yes,and amidst the mystery of suffering and pain,—the beginning of that discipline which commences very early, and continues, for many of us, during a whole lifetime, at such intervals as may be necessary for the consummation which we can only faintly discern when we begin to see that which is invisible to the eyes of flesh and of human understanding, and is revealed only to the higher reason—the essential perception which is called faith.
I want you to come with me to that eastern district of the great city which has for so long a time been associated with accounts of distress, of precarious earnings, homes without food or fire, scanty clothing, dilapidated houses, dire poverty and the diseases that come of cold and starvation. The place that I shall take you to is quite close to the Stepney Station of the North London Railway. The district is known as Ratcliff; the streets down which we shall pass are strangely destitute of any but small shops, where a front "parlour" window contains small stocks of chandlery or of general cheap odds and ends. The doorways of the houses are mostly open, and are occupied by women and children, of so poor and neglected an appearance, that we needno longer wonder at the constant demands made upon the institution which we are about to visit. Just here the neighbourhood seems to have come to a dreary termination at the brink of the river, and to be only kept from slipping into the dark current by two or three big sheds and wharves, belonging to mast, rope, and block-makers, or others connected with that shipping interest the yards of which are, many of them, deserted, no longer resounding to the noise of hammers. The black spars and yards of vessels alongside seem almost to project into the roadway as we turn the corner and stand in front of a building, scarcely to be distinguished from its neighbours, except for the plain inscription on its front, "East London Hospital for Children and Dispensary for Women," and for a rather more recent appearance of having had the woodwork painted. But for this there would be little more to attract attention than might be seen in any of the sail-makers' dwellings, stores, and lofts in the district; and, in fact, the place itself is—or rather was—a sail-maker's warehouse, with trap-doors in the rough and foot-worn floors, steep and narrow stairs, bulks and baulks of timber here and there in the heavy ceilings and awkward corners, not easily turned to account in any other business. Some of these inconveniences have been remedied, and the trap-doors as well as the awkwardest of the corners and the bulks have been either removed or adapted to present purposes, for the business is to provide a home and careful nursing for sick children, and the long rooms of the upper storeys are turned into wards, wherein stand rows of Lilliputian iron bedsteads, or tiny cribs, where forty boys and girls, some of them not only babes but sucklings, form the present contingent of the hundred andsixty little ones who have been treated during the year. Not a very desirable-looking residence you will say, but there are a good many inmates after all; and the scrupulous cleanliness of the place, as seen from the very passage, is an earnest of that plan of making the best of things which has always been characteristic of this hospital at Ratcliff Cross. Some eight or nine grownup folks, and from thirty to forty children, make a bright, cheerful home (apart from the suffering and death which are inseparable from such a place) in that old sail-maker's warehouse, if brightness and cheerfulness are the accompaniments of good and loving work, as I thoroughly believe they are.
It was during the terrible visitation of cholera, nearly twelve years ago, that this work of mercy was initiated, and the manner of its foundation has about it something so pathetic that it is fitting the story should be known, especially as the earnest, hopeful effort with which the enterprise began seems to have characterised it to the present day. Among the medical men who went about in the neighbourhood of Poplar and Ratcliff during the epidemic, was Mr. Heckford, a young surgeon, who, having recently come from India, was attached to the London Hospital, and who took a constant and active part in the professional duties he had undertaken. In that arduous work, he, as well as others, received valuable and indeed untiring aid from the ready skill and thoughtful care of a few ladies, who, having qualified themselves as nurses, devoted themselves to the labour of love amongst the poor. To one of this charitable sisterhood, who had been his frequent helper in the time of difficulty and danger, the young surgeon became attracted by the force of a sympathy that continuedafter the plague was stayed in the district to which they had given so much care, and when they had time to think of themselves and of each other. They went away together a quietly married couple; both having one special aim and object in relation to the beneficent career upon which they had entered in company. Knowing from hardly-earned experience the dire need of the district, they at once began to consider what they could do to alleviate the sufferings of the women and children, so many of whom were sick and languishing, in hunger and pain, amidst conditions which forbade their recovery. If only they could make a beginning, and do something towards arresting the ravages of those diseases that wait on famine and lurk in foul and fœtid alleys;—if they could establish a dispensary where women—mothers too poor to pay a doctor—could have medicine and careful encouragement; if they could find a place where, beginning with a small family of say half a dozen, they might take a tiny group of infants to their home, and so set up a centre of beneficent action, a protest against the neglect, the indifference, and the preventable misery for which that whole neighbourhood had so long had an evil distinction.
The question was, how to make a beginning: but the young doctor and his wife had been so accustomed to the work of taking help to the very doors of those who needed it, that all they wanted was to find a place in the midst of that down-east district where they could themselves live and work. Out of their own means they bought the only available premises for their purpose—a rough, dilapidated, but substantial, and above all, a ventilable sail-loft with its adjacent house and store-rooms, and there they quietly established themselves as residents,with ten little beds, holding ten poor little patients supported by themselves, in the hope that voluntary aid from some of the benevolent persons who knew what was the sore need of the neighbourhood would enable them in time to add twenty or thirty more, when the big upper storeys should be cleansed and mended and made into wards. That hope was not long in being realised, and on the 28th of January, 1868, after a determined effort to maintain the institution and to devote themselves to its service, a regular committee was formed and commenced its undertakings, the founders still remaining and working with unselfish zeal. From twenty to thirty little ones were received from out that teeming district, where a large hospital with ten times the number of beds would not be adequate to the needs of the infant population, the mothers of which have to work to earn the scanty wages which in many cases alone keep them from absolute starvation. The struggle to maintain the wards in the old sail-lofts was all the harder, from the knowledge that in at least half the number of cases where admission was necessarily refused, from want of space and want of funds, the little applicants were sent away to die, or to become helpless invalids or confirmed cripples, not less from the effects of destitution—the want of food and clothing—than from the nature of the diseases from which they were suffering.
The young doctor and his wife dwelt there, and with cultivated tastes and accomplishments submitted to all the inconveniences of a small room or two, from which they were almost ousted by the increasing need for space. With a bright and cheerful alacrity they adapted those very tastes and accomplishments to supplement professional skill and tender assiduous care:the lady—herself in such delicate health that her husband feared for her life, and friends anxiously advised her to seek rest and change—used books and music to cheer the noble work, and always had a picture on her easel, with which to hide the awkward bulges and projections, or to decorate the bare walls and brighten them with light and colour.
It was at Christmas-tide seven years ago that I first visited the hospital, and there were then very pleasant evidences of the season to be discovered in all kinds of festive ornament in the long wards, and especially in the smaller rooms, where this loving woman had attracted other loving women around her, as nurses to the suffering little ones; and was there and then engaged in the superintendence of a glorious Christmas-tree. But the time came when the hoped-for support having arrived, Mr. and Mrs. Heckford felt that they could leave the family of forty children to the care of those who had taken up the work with heartfelt sympathy. They had laboured worthily and well, but, alas!—the reward came late—late at least for him, who had been anxious to take his wife away to some warmer climate, in an endeavour to restore the strength that had been spent in the long effort to rear a permanent refuge for sick children in that dense neighbourhood. It was he who stood nearest to shadow-land,—he who was soonest to enter into the light and the rest that lay beyond. Mr. Heckford died, I believe, at Margate, after a short period of leisure and travel, which his wife shared with him. His picture, presented by her to the charity which they both founded, is to be seen in the boys' ward. Another portrait of him—a portrait in words written by the late Mr. Charles Dickens, who visited and pathetically describedthe children and their hospital in December, 1868, conveys the real likeness of the man.
"An affecting play was acted in Paris years ago, called the Children's Doctor. As I parted from my Children's Doctor now in question, I saw in his easy black necktie, in his loose-buttoned black frock-coat, in his pensive face, in the flow of his dark hair, in his eyelashes, in the very turn of his moustache, the exact realisation of the Paris artist's ideal as it was presented on the stage. But no romancer that I know of has had the boldness to prefigure the life and home of this young husband and wife, in the Children's Hospital in the East of London."
What the hospital was then, it has remained—but with such improvements as increased funds and a more complete organisation have effected. It is still the ark of refuge for those little ones who, smitten with sudden disease, or slowly fading before the baleful breath of famine or of fever, or ebbing slowly away from life by the fatal influences that sap the constitutions of the young in such neighbourhoods, are taken in that they may be brought back to life, or at worst may be lovingly tended, that the last messenger may be made to bear a smile.
But the hope for the future of this most admirable institution has grown to fill a larger space. It is indeed essential to any really permanent effort in such a district that it should be increased, and the founders looked forward with earnest anticipations of the time when, gathering help from without, they could enter upon a larger building, which will soon be completed, and will be more adequate to the needs of such a teeming population. The area embracing Poplar, Mile End, Whitechapel, St. George's, Limehouse, Ratcliff, Shadwell, and Wapping numbers some 400,000 inhabitants, andstrangely enough—as it will seem to those who have not yet learnt the true characteristics of the really deserving poor—many of the distressed people about that quarter will conceal their poverty, and strive as long as they are able—so that when at last they go to ask for aid the case may be almost hopeless, and the delay in obtaining admission may be fatal. There are already so many more applicants than can be received that it may be imagined what must be the vast amount of alleviable suffering awaiting the opportunity of wider means and a larger building. It would be easy to shock the reader by detailing many of the more distressing diseases from which the poor little patients suffer, but on visiting the wards you are less shocked than saddened, while the evident rest and care which are helping to restore and to sooth the sufferers ease you of the greater pain by the hope that they inspire.
It is Sunday noon as we stand here in the dull street where, but for the sudden opening of a frowsy tavern and the appearance of two or three thirsty but civil customers, who are not only ready but eager to show you the way to the "Childun's 'orsepital," there would be little to distinguish it from a thoroughfare of tenantless houses. Ratcliff is at its dinner at present, but we shall as we go back see the male residents leaning against the doorposts smoking, and the women and children sitting at the doors as at a private box at the theatre, discussing the sordid events of the streets and the small chronicles of their poor daily lives.
But we must leave the cleanly-scrubbed waiting-room and its adjoining large cupboard which does duty as dispenser's room. It is dinnertime here too, or rather it has been, and there are evidences of some very jolly feasting,considering that, after all, the banqueters are mostly in bed and on sick diet, which in many cases means milk, meat, eggs, and as much nourishment as they can safely take. Indeed, food is medicine to those who are turning the corner towards convalescence—food and air—of which latter commodity there is a very excellent supply considering the kind of neighbourhood we are in. Here and there we see a little wan, pinched, wasted face lying on the pillow; a listless, transparent hand upon the counterpane—which are sad tokens that the tiny sufferers are nearing the eternal fold beyond the shadowy threshold where all is dark to us, who note how every breath bespeaks a feebler hold on the world of which they have learnt so little in their tiny lives. There are others who are sitting up with picture-books, or waiting to have their abscesses dressed, and arms bandaged, or eyes laved with cooling lotion. Hip-disease and diseases of the joints are evidence of the causes that bring so many of the little patients here, and there are severe cases of consumption and of affections of the lungs and of the glands; but as the little fellow wakes up from a short nap, or catches the eye of the "lady nurse"—a lively and thoroughly practical Irishwoman, who evidently knows how to manage, and has come here, after special training, for the love of doing good—they show a beaming recognition which is very pleasant to witness. With all the nurses it is the same.
They are young women who, receiving small pay, have come to devote themselves to the work for Christ's sake and the Gospel's—that is to say, for the love of humanity and of the good tidings of great joy that announce the love of Him who gave Himself for us.
In the girls' ward there is the same freshness and cleanliness of the place and all its belongings, the same wonderfulpatience and courageous endurance on the part of the baby inmates, which has been my wonder ever since we went in. Here is a mite of a girl sitting up in bed, holding a moist pad to her eye, her poor little head being all bandaged. She never utters a sound, but the little round face is set with a determined endurance. "What is she sitting up for?" She is "waiting to see muvver." Another little creature, who is suffering from abscesses in the neck, submits to have the painful place poulticed only on the condition that she shall decide, by keeping her hand upon the warm linseed-meal, when it is cool enough to put on. These are scarcely pleasant details, and there are sights here which are very, very sad, and make us shrink—but I honestly declare that they are redeemed from being repulsive because of the evidence of love that is to be witnessed,—the awakening of the tender sympathies and sweet responses of the childlike heart. But for its being Sunday—which involves another reason to be mentioned presently—the beds would be strewed with toys and picture-books, while a rocking-horse, which is a part of the hospital property, and a fit kind of steed to draw the "hospital-carriage," which is represented by a perambulator—would probably be saddled and taken out of the stable on the landing. On the topmost storey we come to the real infants, the little babies, one of whom is even now in the midst of his dinner, which he takes from a feeding-bottle, by the aid of an india-rubber tube conveniently traversing his pillow.
Everywhere there are evidences of the care with which the work is carried on, and as we descend to the waiting-room again we have fresh proofs of the benefits that are being effected in the great district, by the provision made for the little creatures, many of whom would otherwisebe left to linger in pain and want. For the waiting-room is filled—filled with mothers and elder sisters and little brothers, tearfully eager and anxious for the weekly visit to the fifty children upstairs. Here is the secret of the brave little patient faces in the beds and cots above.
It is infinitely touching to think how the prospect of "seeing muvver" sustains that chubby little sufferer,—how the expected visit nerves the stronger ones to endurance, and sends a fresh throb of life through those who are still too weak to do more than faintly smile, and hold out a thin pale hand.
If Mr. Ashby Warner, the Secretary at this Hospital for Sick Children at Ratcliff Cross, could but send some responsive thrill into the hearts of those who, having no children of their own, yet love Christ's little ones all over the world,—or could bring home to the fond fathers and mothers of strong and chubby babes the conviction that to help in this good work is a fitting recognition of their own mercies; nay, if even to sorrowing souls who have been bereaved of their dear ones, and who yet believe that their angels and the angels of these children also, do constantly behold the face of the Father which is in heaven, there would come a keen recognition of the blessedness of doing something for the little ones, as unto Him who declares them to be of His kingdom—there would soon be no lack of funds to finish building that great new hospital at Shadwell, which is to take within its walls and great airy wards so many more little patients, to help and comfort by advice and medicine so many more suffering mothers and sisters than could be received in the old sail-loft and its lower warehouse at Ratcliff Cross. For the hope of the founders and their successors has at last being realised—a larger buildingthan they had at first dared to expect is to be erected on ground which has been purchased, still within the district where the need is greatest—and when the time comes that the last touch of carpenter and mason shall have been given to the new home, and the picture of Mr. Heckford shall be hung upon another wall, there may well be a holiday "down east"—as a day of thanksgiving and of gratitude, to those who may yet help in the work by giving of their abundance.
Ofsuch are the kingdom of heaven;" and "whosoever doeth it unto the least of these little ones, doeth it unto Me." Surely there is no need to comment again on these sayings of Him who, in His infinite childlikeness, knew what must be the characteristics of His subjects, and declared plainly that whosoever should enter into the kingdom must become as a little child. One thing is certain, that those who are within that kingdom, or expect to qualify themselves for it, must learn something of the Divine sympathy with which Christ took the babes in his arms and blessed them. Thank God that there is so much of it in this great suffering city, and that on every hand we see efforts made for the rescue, the relief, and the nurture of sick and destitute children. Would that these efforts could relieve us from the terrible sights that should make us shudder as we pass through its tumultuous streets, and witness the suffering, the depravity, and the want, that comes of neglecting the cry of the little ones, and of those who would bring them to be healed and sanctified.
Only just now I asked you to go with me to Ratcliff to see the forty tiny beds ranged in the roomsof that old sail-maker's warehouse which has been converted into a Hospital for Sick Children. There is something about this neighbourhood of Eastern London that keeps us lingering there yet; something that may well remind us of that star which shone above the manger at Bethlehem where the Babe lay. The glory of the heavenly light has led wise men and women to see how, in reverence for the childlikeness, they may work for the coming of the kingdom, and those who enter upon this labour of love, begin—without observation—to find what that kingdom really is, and to realise more of its meaning in their own hearts.
To the cradle in a manger the wise men of old went to offer gifts. To a cradle I would ask you to go with me to-day; to a whole homeful of cribs; which is known by a word that means crib and manger and cradle all in one—"The Crèche."
There is something, as it seems to me, appropriate in this French word to the broad thoroughfare (so like one of the outer boulevards of Paris) out of which we turn when we have walked a score or two of yards from the Stepney Station, or where some other visitors alight from the big yellow tramway car running from Aldgate to Stepney Causeway. The Causeway itself is a clean, quiet street, and is so well known that the first passer-by can point it out to you, while, if the inhabitants of the district can't quite master thecrunchof the French word, they know well enough what you mean when you ask for the "babies' home," or for "Mrs. Hilton's nursery." The home itself is but a baby institution, for it is only five years old, but it might be a very Methuselah if it were to be judged by the tender, loving care it has developed, and the good it has effected, not only on behalf of theforty sucklings who are lying in their neat little wire cots upstairs, like so many human fledglings in patent safety cages, and for the forty who are sprawling and toddling about in the lower nursery, or for the contingent who are singing a mighty chorus of open vowels on the ground-floor; but also in the hopeful aid and tender sympathy it has conveyed to the toiling mothers who leave their little ones here each morning when they go out to earn their daily bread, and fetch them again at night, knowing that they are fresh and clean, and have been duly nursed and fed, and put to sleep, and had their share of petting and of play.
The sound of the forty singing like one is not perceptible as we approach the house, which, with its large high windows open to the soft, warm air, lies very still and quiet. The wire-blinds to the windows near the street bear the name of the institution, and over the doorway is inscribed the fact that the Princess Christian has become the patroness of this charity, which appeals to all young mothers, and to every woman who acknowledges the true womanly love for children. Each day, from twelve to four o'clock, visitors are welcomed, except on Saturdays, when the closing hour is two o'clock, as, even in some of the factories down east, the half-holiday is observed, and poor women working at bottle-warehouses and other places have the happiness of taking home their little ones, and keeping them to themselves till the following Monday morning. Do you feel inclined to question whether these poor, toil-worn women appreciate this privilege? Are you ready to indulge in a cynical fear that they would rather forego the claim that they are expected to assert? Believe me you are wrong. One of the most hopeful and encouraging results of the tendercare bestowed upon these babes of poverty is that of sustaining maternal love, and beautifying even the few hours of rest and family reunion in the squalid rooms where the child is taken with a sense of hope and pride to lighten the burden of the day. Early each morning the little creatures are brought, often in scanty clothing, sometimes shoeless, mostly with a ready appetite for breakfast. Then the business of matron and nurses begins. But, come, let us go in with the children, and see the very first of it, as women, poorly clad, coarse of feature, and with the lines of care, and too frequently with the marks of dissipation and of blows upon their faces, come in one by one and leave their little living bundles, not without a certain wistful, softened expression and an occasional lingering loving look.
The house—stay, there are actually three houses, knocked into one so as to secure a suite of rooms on each floor—is as clean as the proverbial new pin; and as we ascend the short flights of stairs, there is a sense of lightness and airiness which is quite remarkable in such a place, and is by some strange freak of fancy associated with the notion of a big, pleasant aviary—a notion which is strengthened by our coming suddenly into the nursery on the first-floor, and noting as the most prominent object of ornament a large cage containing some sleek and silken doves, placed on a stand very little above the head of the tiniest toddler there.
There is enough work for the matron, her assistant, and the four or five young nurses who receive these welcome little guests each morning. The rows of large metal basins on the low stands are ready, and the morning's ablutions are about to commence, so we will return presently, as people not very likely to be useful in themidst of so intricate an operation as the skilful washing and dressing of half a hundred babies.
There is plenty to see in the neighbourhood out of doors, but we need not wander far to find something interesting, for on the ground-floor of these three houses which form the Crèche—the babies' home—provision has also been made for babies' fathers, in the shape of "a British Workman," or working-man's reading, coffee, and bagatelle room, with a library of readable books, and liberty to smoke a comfortable pipe.
Of the servants' home, which is another branch of this cluster of charitable institutions, we have no time to speak now, for our visit is intended for the Crèche, and we are already summoned to the upper rooms by the sound of infant voices. Doubt not that you will be welcomed on the very threshold, for here comes an accredited representative of the institution, just able to creep on all fours to the guarded door, thence to be caught up by the gentle-faced young nurse, who at once consigns the excursionist to a kind of square den or pound, formed of stout bars, and with the space of floor which it encloses covered by a firm mattress. There, in complete safety, and with two or three good serviceable and amiably-battered toys, the young athletes who are beginning to practise the difficult feat of walking with something to hold by, are out of harm's way, and may crawl or totter with impunity. They have had their breakfast of bread and milk, and are evidently beginning the day, some of them with a refreshing snooze in the little cribs which stand in a row against a wall, bright, as all the walls are, with coloured pictures, while in spaces, or on low tables here and there, bright-hued flowers and fresh green plants are arranged, so that the room, necessarilybare and unencumbered with much furniture, is so pleasantly light and gay, that we are again reminded of a great bird-cage. Out here in a little ante-room is a connected row of low, wooden arm-chairs, made for the people of Lilliput, and each furnished with a little tray or table, and, drumming expectantly and with a visible interest in the proceeding, sit a line of little creatures, amidst whom a nurse distributes her attentions, by feeding them carefully with a spoon, just as so many young blackbirds might be fed. Already some of the little nurslings are sitting up in their cribs, quietly nodding their round little heads over some cherished specimen of doll or wooden horse. One wee mite of a girl, quite unable to speak, except inarticulately, holds up the figure of a wooden lady of fashion, with a wistful entreaty which we fail to understand, till the quick-eyed lady who accompanies us spies a slip of white tape in the tiny hand, and at once divines that it is to be bound about the fashionable waist, as an appropriate scarf, and at once performs this finishing stroke of the toilet, to the immeasurable satisfaction of everybody concerned. This is in the upper room, the real baby nursery, where the age of some of the inmates is numbered by weeks only, and there is in each swinging cot a sweet, sleepy sense of enjoyment of the bottle which forms the necessary appliance of luncheon-time.
At the heads of several of these cots are inscribed the names of charitable donors, happy parents, bereaved mothers, sympathetic women with babies of their own, either on earth or in heaven, who desire to show gratitude, faith, remembrance, by this token of their love for the childlikeness of those they love and cherish in their deepest memories, their most ardent hopes. In morethan one of the little beds there are signs of the poverty or the sickliness in which the children were born, and the effects of which this home, with its freshness and light and food, is intended to remedy. No cases of actual disease are here, however, since a small infirmary for children suffering from more serious ailments has been added to the institution, and the Sick Children's Hospital is but three street lengths distant.
The first most remarkable experience which meets the visitor unaccustomed to observe closely, is the freshness and beauty of the children in this place. Squalid misery, dirt, neglect, starvation, so disguise and debase even the children in such neighbourhoods, that squeamish sentimentality turns away at the first glance, and is apt to conclude that there are essential differences between the infancy of Tyburnia or Mayfair and the babyhood of Ratcliff and Shadwell. Yet I venture to assert that if Mr. Millais or some other great painter were to select his subjects for a picture from these rooms of the old house in Stepney Causeway, he would leave the galleries of Burlington House echoing with "little dears," and "what a lovely child!" and popular prejudice would conclude that from birth the little rosebud mouths were duly fitted with silver spoons instead of being scant even of the bluntest of wooden ladles.
At this Crèche at Stepney Causeway the reasons of the true childlike freshness, alacrity, and even the engaging impetuosity and loving confidence which characterise these little ones, is not far to seek. As you came up you noticed row after row of blue check bags, hanging in a current of fresh air on the wall of the staircase.
Those bags contain the clothes in which these children are brought to the Home in the morning. They arechanged with the morning's ablutions, and clean garments substituted for them until the mothers come in the evening to fetch away their bairnies, and by that time they have been aired and sweetened. It is noticeable that this has the effect in many instances of inducing the women to make praiseworthy efforts to improve the appearance of the children, and, indeed, the whole tendency of the treatment of the little ones is to develop the tenderness and love which lie deep down in the hearts of the mothers. Even the endearing nicknames almost instinctively bestowed upon the tiny darlings have a share in promoting this feeling, and the pretty rosy plump little creatures, or the quaint expressive bright-eyed babies, who are called "Rosie," "Katie," "Pet," "Little Old Lady," and so on, all have a kind of happy individuality of their own in the regards of the dear lady who founded and still directs the institution, and in those of the nurses who tend them. Sometimes the names arise from some little incident occurring when the children are first brought there, as well as from the engaging looks and manners of the little ones themselves. "The King," is a really fine baby-boy, the recognised monarch of the upper nursery, but his sway is strictly constitutional; while a pretty little wistful, plump lassie, is good-humouredly known as "Water Cresses," and has no reason to be ashamed of the name, for it designates the business by which a hard-working mother and elder sister earn the daily bread for the family.
Did I say that the charge for each child is twopence daily? Nominally it is so; and let those who desire to know something of the real annals of the poor remember that even this small sum—which of course cannot adequately represent anything like the cost—is not easily subtracted from the scanty earnings of poor women engagedin slopwork, or selling dried fish, plants, crockery, and small wares in the streets, or going out to work in warehouses, rope-walks, match-making, box-making, and other poor employments, where the daily wages will not reach to shillings, and sometimes are represented only in the pence column. Let it be remembered, too, that the husbands of these women (those who are not prematurely widows, or whose husbands have not deserted them) are employed as dock labourers, and are often under the terrible curse of drink, or are in prison, while the women struggle on to support the little ones, who but for this institution, would perhaps be left—hungry, naked, and sickly—to the care of children only two or three years older than themselves; or would be locked in wretched rooms without food or fire till the mother could toil homeward, with the temptation of a score of gin-shops in the way.
Each of the bright intelligent little faces now before us has its history, and a very suggestive and pathetic history too.
Look at this little creature, whose pet name of Fairy bespeaks the loving care which her destitute babyhood calls forth; she is only ten months old, and her mother is but nineteen, the widow of a sailor lost at sea two months before the baby was born.
Katie, of the adult age of five years, is the child of a man who works on barges. Rosie, one of the first inmates, has a drunken dock-labourer for a father, and her mother is dead. Dicky represents the children whose father, going out to sea in search of better fortune for wife and children, is no more heard of, and is supposed to be dead. "The King" is fatherless, and his mother works in a bottle-warehouse. The pathetic stories ofthese children is told by Mrs. Hilton herself, in the little simple reports of this most admirable charity. They are so touching, that I cannot hope to reproduce them in any language so likely to go straight to the heart as that in which you may read them for yourself if you will either visit the Crèche, or send ever so small a donation, and ask for a copy of the modest brown-covered little chronicle of these baby-lives. Standing here in the two nurseries, where the dolls and Noah's arks, the pictures and the doves, nay, even the baby-jumpers suspended from the ceilings, are but accessories to the clasp of loving arms and the softly-spoken words of tender womanly kindness, I wonder why all one side of Stepney Causeway has not been demanded by a discriminating public for the extension of such an institution. Loitering in the lower room, where one little bright face is lifted up to mine, as the tiny hands pluck at my coat-skirt, and another chubby fist is busy with my walking-stick, I begin to think of the workhouse ward, where mothers are separated from their children night and day; of a prison, where I have seen a troop of little boys, and a flogging-room provided by a beneficent Government for the recognition by the State of children who had qualified themselves for notice by the commission of what the law called crime.
A pleasant odour of minced beef, gravy, and vegetables, known as "Irish stew," begins to steal upon the air. The wooden benches in one of the rooms are suddenly turned back, and like a conjuring trick, convert themselves into tiny arm-chairs, with convenient trays in front for plates and spoons. The little voices—forty like one—strike up a fresh chant, and a whisper of rice-pudding is heard. So we go out, wondering still, and with awish that from every nursery where children lisp "grace before meat," some gracious message could be brought to aid and strengthen those who believe with me that the most profitable investment of political economy, the most certain effort of philanthropy, is to begin with the men and women of the future, and so abate the fearful threatenings of coming pauperism, and the still more terrible menace of a permanent "criminal class."
The policy of the authorities, says Mrs. Hilton, in her interesting narrative of the Crèche, in stopping outdoor relief to poor widows with children is causing much sorrow. The 2s.6d.or 3s.received from the parish secured their rent, and they managed, with shirt-making or trouser-finishing, to earn a bare subsistence; but now the battle for a mere existence is terrible. Doubtless, the children would be better cared for in the House, but mothers cannot be persuaded to give them up. One such case has just passed under my notice; but the woman shall speak for herself. "'Oh, Mrs. Hilton, they have taken off my relief!—I, with four little ones who cannot even put on their shoes and stockings. They offer me the House; but I never can give up my children. Look at baby; he is ten months old; his father died of small-pox six months before he was born; he was only ill five days.' I told her I was afraid she would not be able to earn enough to keep them all. 'Well,' she said, 'I must try—I will never go into the House.'"
"But these women have very little feeling for their children, they are so low and brutalised." Are they? Let those who think so visit this Cradle Home, and witness the bearing of the mothers who come to take their little ones home, or to nurse the sucklings at intervals snatched from work. Let them hear what suchpoor women will do for childrennottheir own, even to the extent (as recently took place, in one instance, at least) of sharing with their less necessitous babes the natural sustenance that the mother cannot always give.
Sixty-five children received daily and a hundred or more on the books, with space needed for many more than can be admitted; children who, some of them infants as they are, have learned to lisp profane oaths and babble in foul language, and to give way to furious outbursts of passion, the result of neglect and evil example, and the life of the street and the gutter. It is but a short time, however, before this strange dreadful phase of the distorted child mind disappears, and the pet name is bestowed along with the gentle kindness that obliterates the evil mimicry of sin. The baby taken home from this purer atmosphere of love becomes a messenger of grace to many a poor household, as the short annals of the Crèche will tell; and even the pet names themselves are adopted by the mothers in speaking of and to their own children. One short story from the first report sent out by Mrs. Hilton, and we will go our way with a hope that some words of ours may win a fresh interest for these little ones.
"A precious babe died, and the mother, too poor to bury it, sent for a parish coffin. The child was very dear to us, and we had named her our nursery Queen which had degenerated into 'Queenie.' It was a sore trial to us to see the golden curls mingled with sawdust, which is all that was placed in the coffin; and yet we could not spend public funds on the funeral, and feared to do it privately. In a few hours a mother came and said, 'Come and look at your Queenie now.' We wentand saw that loving hands had softened all the harsh outlines. A little bed and pillow had been provided, a frill placed round the edge, and some children had lain fresh-gathered flowers on the darling's breast. The cost had been 9½d., paid for by those mothers, and although so freely and lovingly given, it was the price of more than a meal each."
If every mother in London with a well-stocked larder would give the price of a meal for the sake of a living child—but, there! my duty is not to beg, but to describe.
Onlyquite lately I had to write about the old French colony in Spitalfields, and of the changes that have come over entire neighbourhoods which were once associated with what is now a failing industry, or rather with one which, so far as London is concerned, has nearly died out altogether.
Not that the public has ceased to hear sundry reports of those quarters of the metropolis of which the name of Bethnal Green is an indication as suggesting dire poverty, neglected dwellings, poorly-paid callings, and constant distress. Some few years ago it became quite a fashion for newspaper special reporters (following in the wake of one or two writers who had begun to tell the world something of the truth of what they knew of these sad regions) to make sudden amateur excursions beyond Shoreditch, for the purpose of picking up material for "lurid" articles about foul tenements, fever, hunger, want, and crime. Bethnal Green became quite a by-word, even at the West End, and certain spasmodic efforts in the direction of charitable relief were made by well-meaning people, so that for a time there was danger of a new kind of demoralisation of the "low neighbourhood,"and the price of lodgings, even in the wretched tenements of its notorious streets, were expected to rise in proportion to the demand made by emigrants from other less favoured localities, to which the special correspondent had not at that time penetrated. One good work was effected by the attention of sanitary authorities being called to the fever dens during a time of terrible epidemic, and a certain provision of medical aid, together with purification of drains, whitewashing of rooms, and clearing of sties and dustheaps, was the result. This was but temporary, however; and those who best know the neighbourhood lying between Shoreditch and Bethnal Green, and disclaimed by the local authorities of both because of its misery and dilapidation, are also aware that in various parts of the whole great district from the Hackney Road to Bishopsgate, and so embracing Spitalfields and part of Whitechapel, far away to Mile End and "Twig Folly," there can be discovered more of want, hunger, and disease than could exist in any free city under heaven, if men were not such hypocrites as to defy and disregard the laws which yet they claim to have a hand in framing, and a power to enforce.
Only those who are personally acquainted with such a district can conceive what is the condition of the children of its streets, and yet every ordinary wayfarer of the London thoroughfares may note to what a life some of them are committed. About the outskirts of the markets, round the entrances to railway stations, cowering in the shadows of dark arches, or scrambling and begging by the doors of gin-shops and taverns, the boys—and what is even worse, the girls—are to be seen daily and nightly, uncared for, till they have learnt howto claim the attention of a paternal government by an offence against the law. When once the child, who is a mere unnoted fraction of the population, has so far matriculated in crime as to warrant the interposition of the police, he or she becomes an integer of sufficient importance to be dealt with by a magistrate. Let an infancy of neglect and starvation lead to the reckless pilfering of a scrap of food from a counter, or the abstraction of something eatable or saleable from a market-cart or a porter's sack, and the little unclassified wretch is added as another unit to a body recognised, and in some sense cared for, by the State. As a member of the great "criminal class," the juvenile thief becomes of immediate importance. Even though the few juvenile criminal reformatories be full, the gaol doors are open, and the teachings of evil companionship are consummated by the prison brand. The individual war against society gains strength and purpose, for society itself has acknowledged and resented it. The child has entered on a career, and unless some extra legal interposition shall succeed in changing the course of the juvenile offender by assuming a better guardianship, the boy may become an habitual thief, a full-fledged London ruffian; the girl—?
It was with a deep sense of the terrible significance of this question, that a small party of earnest gentlemen met, twenty-seven years ago, in that foul neighbourhood to which I have referred, to consider what should be done to rescue the deserted and destitute girls, some of whom had already been induced to attend a ragged school, which was held in a dilapidated building that had once been a stable.
These thoughtful workers included among them two men of practical experience; one of them, Mr. H. R. Williams, the treasurer of the present institution, the other the Rev. William Tyler, whose bright genial presence has long been a power among the poor of that district, where even the little ragged children of the streets follow him, and lisp out his name as the faithful shepherd, who both gives and labours in one of the truest "cures of souls" to be found in all great London. To them soon came the present honorary secretary, Mr. J. H. Lloyd, a gentleman already familiar with teaching the poor in a neighbouring district no less wretched and neglected. They were the right men for the business in hand, and therefore they began by moving sluggish boards and commissions to put in force the sanitary laws—and, in spite of the opposition of landlords with vested interests in vile tenements let out to whole families of lodgers from garret to basement, and of the malignant opposition of owners of hovels where every abomination was rife, and pigs littered in the yards, while costermongers shared the cellars with their donkeys—insisted on the surrounding streets being paved and drained, and some of the houses being whitewashed and made weatherproof.
Nothing less could have been done, for the terrible cholera epidemic was already raging in that tangle of courts and alleys. Application was at once made for a share from the Mansion House Relief Fund, and the committee had to use every available shilling in order to supply food and medicine, blankets and clothing, to the wretched families; to visit whom, a regular relief corps was organised, carrying on its beneficent and self-denying work, until the plague began to be stayed. Thenwith scarcely any money, but with unabated hope and fervid faith, this little company of men and women began to consider what they should do to found a Refuge for the children (many of them orphans, and quite friendless) who were everywhere to be seen wandering about, or alone and utterly destitute in the bare rooms that had been their homes. There were already certain institutions to which boys could be sent, for then, as now, the provision for boys was far greater than for girls. This is one of the strange, almost inexplicable conditions of charitable effort, and at that time it was so obvious which was the greater need, that the committee at once determined to commence a building on a waste piece of land which had been purchased close by, and to devote it to the reception of thirty destitute girls, who should be snatched from deadly contamination, and from the association of thieves and depraved companions.
Surely, if slowly, the work went on, the plan of the building being so prepared that it could be extended as the means of meeting the growing need increased. Almost every brick was laid with thoughtful care, and when subscriptions came slowly in, the funds were furnished among the committee themselves rather than the sound of plane and hammer should cease; till at last, when the King Edward Ragged School and Girl's Refuge was completed, a large edifice of three spacious storeys had superseded the old ruinous stable amidst its fœtid yards and sheds, and, what was more, the building was paid for, and a family of children had been gathered within its sheltering walls. At the time of my first visit to the institution no more than twenty had been taken into this Refuge; but every foot of the building was utilised until the money shouldbe forthcoming to add to the dormitories, and enable the committee to fulfil the purpose that it had in view.
In the large square-paved playground forty happy little members of the infant-school were marching to the slow music of a nursery song; and the numbers on the books were 196, in addition to 304 girls who came daily to be instructed in the great school-room, where they were taught to read, and write, and sew. A hundred and twenty boys were also being taught in the Ragged Church opposite, while seventy children over fifteen years of age attended evening classes, forty-two young men and women were in the Bible class, and a penny bank, a library of books, and a benevolent fund for the relief of poor children in the neighbourhood, were branches of the parent institution.
This, however, was seven years ago, and since that time so greatly has the work flourished, that the Ragged and Infant Schools have premises of their own on the other side of the way; and the great building having been completed by the addition of an entire wing, its original purpose is accomplished, and it is "The Girl's Refuge," of the King Edward Certified Industrial and Ragged Schools, Albert Street, Spitalfields.
It is to the receipt of munificent anonymous donations that the committee owe the completion of the building, and in order to extend the usefulness of their Refuge they have certified it under the provisions of the Industrial Schools Act of 1866. That this was in accordance with their ruling principle of making the most of every advantage at their command may be shown by the fact that when the School Board, almost appalled at the need for making immediate use of any existing organization, began to send cases to existing "Homes," only eight ofthese institutions could receive the children, and in these eight no more than forty-four vacancies existed for Protestant girls. The consequence of opening the King Edward Refuge under the Act was that it received nearly all the cases of the year, and that in the twelve months it was certified ninety new inmates after found an asylum within its walls.
If you were to go there with me to-day, you would not wonder that the supporters of this institution were anxious to erect another building in some part of London, where another hundred lambs straying in this great wilderness could be taken to the fold. Passing through the neat dormitories, with their rows of clean white beds; peeping into the big toy cupboard, where the kindly treasurer has recently placed a whole family of eighty dolls, and other attractive inventions to induce children to play, some of whom have never known before what play really meant; looking at the lavatory with its long rows of basins let into slate slabs, and each with its towel and clean bag for brush and comb; noting the quiet "Infirmary," with its two or three beds so seldom needed, and remarking that from topmost floor to the great laundry with its troughs and tubs, a constant supply of hot water provides alike for warmth and cleanliness, I begin to wonder what must be the first sensations of a poor little dazed homeless wanderer on being admitted, washed, fed, and neatly clothed. Why, the two kitchens—that one with the big range, where most of the cooking is done, and the other cosy farmhouse-looking nook, with its air of comfort—must be a revelation to all the senses at once. Then there are the highly-coloured prints on the walls, the singing of the grace before meat; the regular and wholesome food;the discipline (one little rebel is already in bed, whither she has been sent for misconduct, and an elder girl demurely brings up her slice of bread and mug of milk and water on a plate); the provision for recreation; the occasional visits of parents (many of them unworthy of the name) at stated seasons; the outings to the park, the Bethnal Green Museum, and other places; the Christmas treat; the summer presents of great baskets of fruit; the rewards and prizes; the daily instruction in such domestic work as fits them for becoming useful household servants. What a wonderful change must all these things present to the children of the streets, whose short lives have often been less cared for than those of the beasts that perish! Everywhere there are marks of order, from the neat wire baskets at the foot of each bed in which the girls place their folded clothes before retiring to rest, to the wardrobe closets and the great trays of stale bread and butter just ready for tea. Everywhere there are evidences of care and loving kindness, from the invalid wheel-chair—the gift of the treasurer to the infirmary—to the splendid quality of the "long kidney" potatoes in the bucket, where they are awaiting the arrival of to-morrow's roast mutton, three days being meat dinner days, while one is a bread and cheese, and two are farinaceous pudding days.
As we sit here and sip our tea—for I am invited to tea with the committee—and are waited on by three neat and pretty modest little women—one of them, a girl of eight, so full of child-like grace and simplicity, that there would be some danger of her being spoiled if she were not quite used to a little petting—who can help looking at the inmates now assembling quite quietly at the other end of the room, and thinking that in someof those faces "their angels," long invisible because of neglect and wrong, are once more looking through, calm, happy, and with a hope that maketh not ashamed. Do you see that still rather sullen-looking girl of thirteen. She came here an incorrigible young thief—her father, a tanner's labourer, and out at work from five in the morning—her mother bedridden—her home was the streets—her companions a gang of juvenile thieves such as haunt Bermondsey, and make an offshoot of the population of a place till recently called "Little Hell."
That girl, aged ten, was sent out to beg and to sing songs, and was an adept in the art of pretending to have lost money. There is the daughter of a crossing-sweeper, who cut his throat, and yonder a child of nine, driven from home, and charged with stealing, as her sister also is, in another Refuge; and close by are two girls, also sisters, who were found fatherless and destitute, wandering about famishing and homeless, except for a wretched room, with nothing in it but two heaps of foul straw. I need not multiply cases: and but for the known power of love and true human interest, in which the very Divine love is incarnated, you would wonder where some of these children obtained their quiet docile manner, their fearless but modest demeanour, their bright, quiet, sweet faces.
One case only let me mention, and we will go quietly away, to think of what may be done in such a place by the discipline of this love and true Christian interest. Do you see that emaciated little creature—the pale, pinched shadow of a child sitting at a table, where some of her companions tend her very gently? She is the daughter of a woman who is an incorrigible beggar. She has never known a home, and for four out of her eight years of lifehas been dragged about the street an infant mendicant; has slept in common lodging-houses; and in her awful experience could have told of thieves' kitchens, of low taverns, and of the customs of those vile haunts where she had learnt the language of obscenity and depravity. But that has become a hideous, almost forgotten dream, and she is about to awaken to a reality in a world to which the present tenderness with which she is cared for is but the lowest threshold. It is only a question of a month or two perhaps. One more bright sunny holiday with her schoolmates in the pleasant garden of the treasurer, at Highgate—whither they all go for a whole happy day in the summer—and she will be in the very land of light before the next haytime comes round. She wants for nothing—wine and fruit and delicate fare are sent for her by kind sympathetic hands; but she is wearing away, not with pain, but with the exhaustion of vital power, through the privations of the streets. From the Refuge she will go home—a lost lamb found, and carried to the eternal fold.
But another building has been found; a large, old-fashioned mansion in St. Andrew's Road, close to the Canal Bridge at Cambridge Heath, and there the more advanced inmates of this original home in Spitalfields are to be drafted into classes whence they will go to take a worthy part in the work of the world, so soon as the necessary subscriptions enable the committee to increase the number of lambs rescued from the wolves of famine and of crime.