Thememory of the pleasant summer holiday remains with many of us when we have come back again to the duties of the work-a-day world, and it will be good for us all if the gentle thoughts which that time of enjoyment brought with it remain in our hearts, to brighten our daily lives by the influences that suggest a merciful and forbearing temper.
It is perhaps remarkable that few of the charitable institutions at places to which holiday-makers resort are to any commensurate extent benefited by the contributions of those visitors who, while they are engaged in pursuing their own pleasures, seldom give themselves time to think that as they have freely received so they should freely give. Considering that while we are engaged in the absorbing business of money-making, or in the exacting engagements of our daily calling, we can afford little time for the investigation of those claims which are made upon us to help the poor and the needy, it might not altogether detract from the higher enjoyment of a period of leisure if we devoted a few spare hours to inquiring what is being effected for the relief of suffering in any place wherein we take up our temporary abode.
With some such reflection as this I stand to-day onthe spot which to ordinary Londoners is most thoroughly representative of the summer "outing," without which no true Cockney can feel that he is content—a spot, too, which has become, for a large number of English men and women, and notably for a whole host of English children, the synonym for renewed health and strength—the head of Margate jetty.
It is a strange contrast, this moving crowd of people, with their bright dresses and gay ribbons fluttering in the breeze; the smiling faces of girls and women amidst a toss and tangle of sea-blown tresses; the green sparkle of the sea beneath the shining sky; the voices of sailors, the shrill laughter of boys and girls coming from the sands below; the gleam of white sails; the flitting wings of fisher-birds; the gay tumult of the High Street; the traffic of hucksters of shells and toys—a strange contrast to the scene which may be witnessed in and around that large building which we passed only yesterday as the Margate boat stood off from Birchington, and passengers began to collect coats and bags and umbrellas as they saw friends awaiting them on the landing-stage of this very jetty.
It seems a week ago; and just as these few hours seem to have separated us far from yesterday's work, and the routine of daily life, does the short distance along the High Street and past the railway station seem to separate us by an indefinite distance from the sickness and pain that is yet in reality so near. Even as we think of it in this way, the division is less marked, the contrast not so strange, for in that building Faith, Hope, and Charity find expression, and bring a cheerful radiance to those who need the care of skilful hands and the sympathy of loving hearts.
The name of the place is known all over England, for within its walls are assembled patients who are brought from the great towns of different shires, as well as from mighty London itself, that they may be healed of that dread malady, the most potent cure for which is to take them from the close and impure atmosphere of their crowded homes, and exchange the stifled breath of courts and alleys for the boundless æther of the sea.
For the building, to visit which I am here to-day, is the "Royal Sea-Bathing Infirmary, or National Hospital for the Scrofulous Poor, near Margate," and there are at this moment 220 men, women, and children within its sheltering wards. Stay—let me be accurate. I said within its wards; but here, as I pass the gates and the unpretentious house of the resident surgeon to the broad sea front of the building, I note that under the protecting screen of the wall that bounds the wide space of grass-plot and gravel-paths a row of beds are placed, and in each of them a patient lies basking in the warm sunlit air; while a little band of convalescents saunter gently, some of them with the aid of crutch or stick, with the enjoyment of a sense of returning strength. If I mistake not, there are two or three "Bath chairs" crunching the gravel paths a little further on, and down below upon the space marked out and separated from the outer world upon the beach, the two bathing-machines of the establishment are occupied by those for whom convalescence is growing into health.[3]
The full meaning of such a change can only be realised by those who know how terrible a disease scrofula becomes, not only in the deadly insidious form of consumption, but in the various deformities and distortionsof the limbs of which it is the cause; and in those cases where, to the pain and depression of the disorder itself is added some terrible affection of the skin, which the sensitive patient knows can scarcely fail to be repulsive to those who witness it, unless, indeed they have learnt to regard it only as a reason for deeper compassion and for more earnest consolation.
Almost every form of the disorder is to be seen out here in the wide northern area of this inclusive building, which has long ago been bought and paid for, along with the three acres of freehold ground on which it stands.
Of the deep sympathy with which it has been supported by those who early learned to take an interest in its beneficent work, the fountain which has been erected in the centre of the green to the memory of the late Rev. John Hodgson, one of its trustees, is a mute witness. Mr. Hodgson laboured earnestly to secure those casual interests which might be obtained from the vast number of persons who visit Margate every year. In order to make the most of small regular contributions, he appealed for "five shillings a year," and since his death in 1870 this fund has increased, so that in one year nearly 6,000 subscribers had contributed £1,405 7s.4d.Never was holiday charity more appropriately applied, as anybody who will visit the institution itself may witness in those long wards beyond the open passage, to which the card of Dr. Rowe, one of the three visiting surgeons, has directed me.
Since the first establishment of the institution, seventy-seven years ago, when sixteen cases were treated as a beginning, above 29,000 patients, from London and all parts of the country, have received relief; and to-day the number in the institution (taking no account of a contingentof "out-patients") includes 42 men, 50 women, and 120 children, none of whom are local cases, but all from other parts of England, whence they come frequently from a long distance.
In each of the six wards, of which four are on the ground floor, there is a head-nurse and an assistant, with six helpers for the children's, and four for the adult department, beside the night nurses, who sit up in case of any emergency. There is accommodation for 250 sufferers and for the 40 nurses, attendants, and domestics required for the service of the hospital; so the 220 patients there now, represent the approaching period when a new wing will have to be added, even if only the urgent cases are to be admitted.
The year's list of occupants of the 250 beds shows a total of 721 patients, of whom 614 had been discharged in January, 399 being either cured or very greatly benefited, 171 decidedly benefited, and only 44 obviously uncured; a very large amount of actual gain to humanity, when we reflect on the conditions of the disease to remedy which the institution is devoted.
If out of 721 cases 399 are either cured or have received such marked benefit as to render their ultimate cure highly probable, it is an achievement worthy of the earnest work of which it is the result, a contribution to beneficent efforts well worth the £7,966 which has necessarily been expended in the provision, not only of the appliances which give comfort and rest, but of the generous food and drink which, with the glorious air from the sea, is the medicine necessary to build up the feeble frames and renew the impoverished blood of those to whom meal-times come to be welcome events in the day, instead of merely languid observances.
Down in the kitchen, with its great cooking range and its capacious boilers, there are evidences of that "full diet" which is characteristic of the place; and it is difficult to decide which are the most suggestive, the long row of covered japanned jugs which hang conveniently to the dresser-shelf, and are used for the conveyance of "gravy," or the mighty milk-cans standing in a corner, ready to be taken away when the evening supply comes in from the Kentish dairies. Half a pound of cooked meat for dinner is the daily allowance for each man and for every boy over fourteen years of age, while women and girls receive six ounces, and children four ounces. Breakfast consists of coffee and bread-and-butter, varied in the afternoon by tea, and supper of bread and cheese for adults, and bread and butter for children. Roast and boiled meat is served on alternate days, with accompanying vegetables, and there are three "pudding days" for those who can manage this addition to the fare; while every man and woman may have a pint of porter, and each child a pint of table ale, at the discretion of the doctors. This, of course, represents the ordinary diet, in which specific differences are made for special cases where other or daintier food is required. Perhaps I should have said that this is the scale adopted in the refectory, a large airy room, to the long table in which the patients who are able to "get about" are now advancing with a cheerful premonition of dinner. There is no space to spare, and there are at present no funds to spend in additional building, so that this great airy refectory is used as chapel and assembly room. The Bread of Life, as well as the temporal bread, is distributed here; and those who would object to the necessity may either contribute to build another room, or may come and learnhow every meal in such a place, and for such a cause as this, should become a sacrament. Many varieties of the forms taken by scrofulous disease may be seen here; and yet the hopeful looks, the cheerful influence of the bright summer weather, the green glimpses of the sea through doors and windows, and the fresh bracing air, impart to these sufferers an expressive lively briskness, which somehow removes the more painful impressions with which we might expect to witness such an assembly.
It is so perhaps in a still greater measure in these large airy wards, where children sit or lie upon the beds, some of them wholly or partially dressed, where the disease has produced only deformities under surgical treatment, or such forms of skin disease as affect the face. Of the latter there are some very severe and obstinate cases, and from these the unaccustomed visitor can scarcely help turning away, but often only tore-turn, and mark how cheerfully and with what a vivid alacrity the little patients move and play, and look with eager interest on all that is going on. For here—in the boys' ward—there is no repression of youthful spirits, so that they be kept within the bounds of moderate decorum, nor do the patients themselves seem to feel that they are objects of melancholy commiseration. To speak plainly, even the worst cases are not reminded that there are people who may be revolted at their affliction. Indeed I, who am tolerably accustomed to many experiences that might be strange to others, am rather taken aback by one little "case," whose face and limbs, though apparently healed, have been so deeply seamed and grooved by the disorder, which must have claimed him from babyhood, that he has evidently learned to regard himself as an important surgical specimen, and, on my approach to his bed, beginswith deliberate satisfaction to divest himself of his stockings, in order to exhibit his legs. Hip and spinal disease are among the most frequent and often the most fatal forms of scrofula. One boy, with delicate and regular features, his fragile hand only just able to clasp in the fingers the small present I am permitted to offer him, shows the shadow of death upon his face. In his case the disorder has shown itself to be beyond medical, as it has already been beyond surgical aid, and his short hurried breathing denotes that before the summer days have been shortened by the autumn nights, and the leaves are lying brown and sere, he will be in a better and a surer home, and healed for evermore.
It will be a peaceful end, no doubt, and he will yet have strength enough to be taken home to die, where other than strangers' hands will minister to him at the last, but not more tenderly, it may be, than those that smooth his pillow to-day.
As we leave the boys' wards—clean, and bright, and fresh as they are—we encounter a cosy little party of juvenile convalescents, who are comfortably seated on the door-mat, engaged in a stupendous game of draughts.
There is more of beauty than deformity, more of life than of death, more perhaps of living eager interest than of sadness and sorrow to be seen here, after all; and this is particularly remarkable in the large-windowed spacious ward where the girls can look fairly out upon the gleaming sea. Properly enough, the room occupied by these young ladies has been made more ornamental than that of the boys. The walls are gay with coloured prints, and there are flowers, and a remarkably cheerful three-sided stove, which gives the place an air of comfort, though, of course, it has now no fire in it. Then some ofthe girls (with those thoughtful delicate faces and large wistful inquiring eyes which are so often to be observed among lame people) are engaged in fancy needlework as they lie dressed upon the beds to which they are at present mostly confined, because of deformities of the feet or legs requiring surgical treatment. There is a library (which needs replenishing), from which patients are allowed to take books; and those children who are able to leave the wards, and are not suffering from illness, are taught daily by a schoolmaster and a schoolmistress, while a visiting chaplain is of course attached to the hospital.
[3]This was written in the latter part of July, 1874.
[3]This was written in the latter part of July, 1874.
I cannotyet leave that sea-coast where so great a multitude go to find rest and healing. The Divine Narrative may well appeal to us in relation to such a locality, for it was by the sea-shore that the Gospel came to those who went out to seek Jesus of Nazareth; it was there that the poor people heard Him gladly; there that the sick who were brought to Him were made whole: there that He fed the great company who lacked bread.
All the deeds of humanity were recognised by Him who called himself the "Son of Man." The blessing of little children is one of those needs of true human life which the Lord recognised gladly. He recognises it still; and His solemn mingling of warning and of promise with regard to its observance, has an intensity that may well appeal to us all, now that, after eighteen centuries of comparative neglect and indifference, we are discerning that the only hope of social redemption is to be found in that care for children which shall forbid their being left either morally or physically destitute.
There is a house, standing high above the sea, in that great breezy suburb of Margate, known as Cliftonville—to which I want you to pay a visit when the bright,cheerful, airy wards, the light, spacious dining-room, and comfortable, home-like enlivening influences of the place will entitle it to be regarded as the fitting consummation of two other admirable institutions for the nurture and maintenance of orphan and fatherless children.
The modest little building referred to is named "The Convalescent and Sea-side Home for Orphans," Harold Road, Margate. The parent institutions are "The Orphan Working School," at Haverstock Hill, and that most attractive series of pretty cottages on the brow of the hill at Hornsey Rise, which have been more than once spoken of as "Lilliput Village," but the style and title of which is "The Alexandra Orphanage for Infants"—a name, the distinguishing feature of which is that it is immediately associated with its first patroness, the Princess of Wales.
Of the Home at Margate I need not now speak particularly, except to note that it is for the reception of the little convalescents, who—suffering, as many of them do, from constitutional and hereditary weakness, which is yet not actual sickness, and recovering, as many of them are, from the feeble condition which has been to some extent remedied by the careful nurture, good food, and healthy regimen, of the large institutions near London—are not fit patients either for their own or any other infirmary wards, and yet require to be restored to greater strength before they can join the main body of their young companions in the school or the playground.
Enough that it is picturesque and substantially pretty, as becomes a place which is to become the home of thirty children, taken from among nearly six hundred, the parents of nearly half of whom have died of consumption, and so left to their offspring that tendency to a feebleconstitution which can be best remedied by the grand medicine of sea-air, wholesome nutritious food, and a judicious alternation of healthful exercise and rest.
It is to Mr. Joseph Soul—the late indefatigable secretary of the Working School, with which he has been connected for nearly forty years, and the honorary secretary of the Alexandra Orphanage, of which he may be regarded as the virtual founder—that the proposal to establish this Convalescent Home was due, and its affairs are administered at the office of the two charities, at 63, Cheapside.
But it is necessary to tell as briefly as possible the story of the oldest of the two institutions of which this building is to be an accessory—not only the oldest of these two, but probablythe oldestvoluntarily supported orphan asylum in London, since it dates from 116 years ago, when George II. was King, when Louis XV. was scandalising Europe and preparing the Revolution, when Wesleyan Methodism was commencing a vast religious revival, when Doctor Johnson had but just finished writing his dictionary, and when William Hogarth was painting those wonderful pictures which are still the most instructive records of society and fashion as seen in the year 1758.
It was in that year, on the 10th of May, that fourteen periwigged and powdered gentlemen met at the George Inn, in Ironmonger Lane, in order to discuss how they might best found an asylum for forty orphan children—that is to say, for twenty boys and twenty girls.
They soon came to a solemn decision that there was a "sufficient subscription for carrying the scheme into execution," and a record to that effect was soberly entered in the very first clean page of the first minute-book of the Charity, with the additional memoranda that a committeewas chosen, and a treasurer appointed to collect and take care of the money necessary to support the undertaking.
The early minute-books of this charity, by the way, are models of serious penmanship. Grave achievements of caligraphy, with engrossed headings, elaborate flourishes, and stiff formal hedge-rows of legal verbiage, suggestive of the fact that the secretaries were either attorneys or scriveners, and regarded the entries in a minute-book or the opening of a new account as very weighty and important events not to be lightly passed over. In this they were probably right: and, at all events, just so much of the old methodical exactitude has come down to the present day in the history of the institution, that the published accounts of the Orphan Working School have been referred to by theTimesas models of condensation with a clearness of detail, which may be regarded as the best indication of a well-ordered and economical administration.
It might not be too much to say that the old principle of carrying a scheme into execution only when there are sufficient subscriptions still characterises the operations of the institution. At all events, Mr. Soul had secured enough money for the completion of the new building at Margate before the actual work commenced, and his experience told him that funds would be forthcoming to maintain it.
The founders of the original Orphan Working School, however, laid their wigs together to obtain a house ready built, and at last found one adapted to the purpose, in what was then the suburban district known as Hogsden—since gentilised into Hoxton. Like all really good work, the enterprise began to grow—there were so many orphans, and this was still the only general asylum maintainedby subscriptions—so that, as funds came in, two other adjoining houses were rented, and in seventeen years the number of inmates had increased from forty to 165.
Reading the formal and yet most interesting records of this parent institution for the care of the orphan and the fatherless, I fall into a kind of wonder at the enormous change in the method of "nurture and admonition," of teaching and training, which has taken place in the past eighty years. Even in this house at Hoxton, whereof the founders appear to have been kindly old gentlemen, the discipline was enormously suggestive of that stern restriction and unsympathetic treatment which was thought necessary for the due correction of the "Old Adam" in the young heart. We know how great an outcry has quite lately been made at the discovery of the remains of that mode of chastisement which seems to have been abandoned almost everywhere, except by a special revival in gaols, and at two or three of the public schools to which the sons of gentlemen are consigned for their education.
The discipline at the Orphanage at Hogsden was cold and repellent enough, perhaps—had very little about it to encourage the affections, or to appeal to the loving confidence of a child—but it was less barbarous than the code which at that time found its maxim in the saying, "Spare the rod, spoil the child." Only very flagrant disobedience, persistent lying and swearing, were punished with public whipping. But even in the case of ordinary falsehood, a child was placed with his face to the wall at meal-time, with a paper pinned to his back with the word "Lyar" written on it, till he was sufficiently penitent to say, in the presence of all the rest of the children, "Ihave sinned in telling a lie. I will take more care. I hope God will forgive me."
The name, "Working School," was then interpreted so strictly, that there was comparatively little margin for education. Arithmetic appears to have been regarded with peculiar jealousy by the founders of this institution, who, being perhaps bankers, accountants, and capitalists, looked upon such instruction as calculated to give the poor little boys and girls notions beyond their station.
For ten years the teaching of figures was altogether ignored; and it was only when some of the children, having heard that there was a science called "summing" known to the outer world, begged to be taught, that a solemn meeting of the Governors was called to consider the question, when it was conceded, after great deliberation, and no little opposition from the anti-educational part of the Committee, that arithmetic should be permitted to be taught, as far as addition.
Thus, to their few and rigidly ordered recreations, their hours of manual labour in making nets, list-carpets, slippers, and other cheap commodities, to their instruction in plain reading, and to their times for partaking of plain and even coarse food, served in not too tempting a way, was added the art of writing, and of the first two rules of arithmetic.
This was the condition of the orphans in 1775; but still the charity grew—grew out of house-room; and as the funds grew also, it was determined that it should have a building of its own, on a plot of ground in the City Road, where, improvements having set in, the grand old charity moved with the march of modern improvement. Life became less hard, and instruction more extended. The influences of modern thought and education had supersededthe old severity, and new Governors succeeded the bewigged and powdered founders, who had, after all, so well ordered their work, that it increased with the growth of intelligence.
During the seventy-two years from 1775 to 1847, the institution had received 1,124 orphans; and again the dimensions of the house were unequal to the demands of the inmates; while the house itself, and the ground on which it stood, had become so valuable, that it was determined to buy a plot of land at Haverstock Hill, and there to found a truly representative Home for 240 orphan boys and girls—a number which has now increased (as the building itself has been extended) till 400 orphans are taught, fed, and clothed in one of the most truly representative charities in all great London.
The obvious distress and suffering of those who are destitute, and whose claims are constantly before us, may lead us to forget the frequent needs of a large number of people who represent uncomplaining poverty. There is a tendency to identify general appeals to benevolence with efforts for the relief of that extreme necessity which demands immediate and almost undiscriminating aid, and requires the prompt distribution of alms or the provision of a meal, warmth, and shelter. Doubtless, the actually homeless and destitute claim our first attention—especially in the case of deserted and neglected children—and I have tried to show what is being done for those little ones, whose presence in the streets of this great wilderness of brick and stone should of itself be an appeal strong enough to move the heart of humanity in their behalf.
There is, however, another class of poverty, which makes no sign, and bears distress dumbly. There is aneed, which, without being that of actual destitution, requires a constant struggle to prevent its representing the want of nearly all the luxuries, and some of those things which most of us regard as the necessaries of life.
We find this among that large section of the middle class represented by persons holding inferior clerkships, small official appointments, and situations where the salaries are only sufficient to yield a bare subsistence, and there is little or no probability of their improvement, because, among the number of candidates who are eager to fill such positions, there exists a degree of distress not easily estimated, even by the appearance of those who are the sufferers. Of course, relief cannot reach such people through the poor-law, or by any direct legislation. They are far above the reach of almsgiving, or even of societies for distributing bread and coals. They have a just pride in maintaining a position of independence; and though they may sometimes look with a feeling too near to envy at the more prosperous mechanic or the skilled artisan, who can earn "good wages," dress in fustian or corduroy, send his children to the Board School, and regulate working hours and weekly pay by the rules of a Trade Union, they mostly keep bravely on, hoping that as the children grow up, they may get the boys "into something," and find some friend to help them to place the girls in situations where they may partly earn their own living.
With rent and taxes often absorbing a fourth part of his entire income, with market cliques combining against him to keep up the prices of food, with dear bread, dear potatoes, boots and shoes always wearing out, and respectability demanding cloth clothes, even though theybe made of "shoddy," how is the clerk, the employé, the small tradesman, the struggling professional man, to follow the prudent counsel which wealthier people are always ready to bestow upon him—and "lay by for a rainy day?" Rainy day! why his social climate may be said to represent a continual downpour, so far as the necessity for pecuniary provision. He lives (so to speak) with an umbrella always up, and it is only a poor shift of a gingham after all. The half-crown which is in his pocket to-night is already bespoken for to-morrow's dinner. As he listens to the account of the week's marketing, and knows that his wife and children have been living for three days out of seven upon little better than bread and dripping, he feels like an ogre as he thinks of the sevenpenny plate of meat that he consumed at one o'clock, because it was only "a makeshift" at home.
How is he to pay even the smallest premium to insure his life, when he is obliged to meet ordinary emergencies by a visit to the pawnbroker after dark?
Insure his life! Ah, the time may come when the hand of the bread-winner is still, when the little money left in the house is scarcely sufficient to pay for the "respectable funeral" which is the last effort of genteel poverty, when the red-eyed widow gathers her fatherless children about her, and wonders amidst her stupor of grief what is to become of the younger ones who yet so need her care that she will not be able to go forth to seek the means of living. To what evil influences may they be exposed while she is absent striving to earn their daily food?—the temptations of the streets for the boys: the certainty that the elder girls must either starve at home to mind the little ones, or must become drudges before they have learnt more than the mere rudiments of what they shouldbe taught. It is then she feels that dread of degradation, which is amongst the sharpest pangs of the poverty which would fain hide itself from the world.
It may be that the children are left a parentless little flock, huddling together in the first dread and sorrow of the presence of death, and the sense of utter bereavement, and awaiting the intervention of those who are sent by the Father of the fatherless. Then, indeed, prompt and certain help is needed—help efficient and permanent—and such aid can seldom be secured except by organised institutions.
But let us see to what that Orphan Working School, established in 1758, has developed in 1874. We have but to take a short journey to the foot of Haverstock Hill, and there, in that pleasant locality named Maitland Park, part of which is the property of the Institution, we shall see the successor of the old house in Hogsden Fields, while its plain but large and lofty committee room is the modern representative of the parlour of the George Inn, Ironmonger Lane, where plans were first laid for the maintenance of forty orphan children.
This wide and lofty building, with its handsome front entrance and its less imposing side gate in the wing, is the home for nearly three hundred boys, and nearly two hundred girls, when its funds are sufficient to keep each of the long rows of neat beds in the great airy wards appropriated to a little sleeper.
I mention the dormitories first, because both on the girls' and on the boys' side of the building these are illustrative of the complete orderliness and excellent management of the Institution—illustrative of what should always be the first consideration, namely, to bring comfort to the child's nature, to join to necessarydiscipline a sense of real freedom and happy youthful confidence without dread of repression and the constant looking for of punishment.
As to the appliances that belong to the building, they are such as might almost raise a doubt in some prejudiced minds whether we are not doing too much for children in the present day, and thinking too constantly of their comfort. But, alas! it needs many compensations to make up for the loss of parents; and in any such an Institution where, 400 children form the great family, the arrangements must be on a large scale, so that it is only a matter of experienced forethought to combine a generous liberality with the truest economy. Thus, there are baths, and long well-ordered lavatories, to each wing, even to a large plunge bath for each side; and there is a great laundry, where the girls are taught to wash, clear-starch, and iron, not in the regular patent steam-heated troughs only, but in genuine homely tubs. There is a great handsome dining-hall, with a painted ceiling, wherein the vast troop of quiet, orderly, and happy-faced children sit down to well-cooked wholesome meals of meat and pudding. There are two great school-rooms, one divided into class-rooms for the girls, and another wherein the boys assemble to be taught, not in the narrow spirit of the first directors of the old building in the City Road, but with a full appreciation of the duty of giving these young minds and hearts full opportunity to expand. Next to the admirable evidences offamilycomfort, and brightdomesticinfluences, which pervade this place, we may regard the efficient education of the children as the truest sign of its liberal and enlightened management. Not only the three R's to the extent of practised elocution, caligraphy worthy of the old minute books of thefirst scrivening secretaries, and the lower mathematics,—but history, geography, the elements of physical science, French, drawing, and vocal music, are among the subjects thoroughly studied. It only needs a perusal of the reports of the educational inspectors and examiners to see that the work of this great hive goes on healthily. The boys have already achieved a great position in taking Government prizes for drawing at South Kensington; and the girls are celebrated for their beautiful needlework. There is but little time to walk through all the departments of this great home—the kitchens with their spacious larders, and store-rooms, and mighty cooking apparatus; the great airy playgrounds; the large and handsome room used as a chapel (for those who do not go out to evening service), and containing its convenient reading desk, and sweet-toned organ. Let us not forget, however, that many of the things which add so vastly to the beauty and completeness of the building and its various departments are themselves gifts from loving and appreciative supporters of the Institution.
But we are due at that Lilliput village on the brow of Hornsey Rise—that series of cottage homes, where, on each lower and upper storey, with their exquisitely clean nursery cots and cradles, and their tiny furniture, a neat nurse is to be seen like a fairy godmother, with a family of chubby babies, or a more advanced charge of infants able to run like squirrels round the covered playground or to spend the regulation hours in that great glorious school-room, where learning is turned into recreation, and lessons are made vocal, gymnastic, zoological, picturesque, or even fictional, as the times and circumstances may dictate. "The Alexandra Orphanage for Infants" has become so well-known amidst the numerous institutionswhich have been established for the care of the orphans and the fatherless, that one might think it would be full of eager admirers who on visiting days go to see the two or three hundred. Why are not all the cottages full, and each little toy bedstead complete with its rosy, tiny sleeper, who, from earliest infancy to the maturer age of eight years form the assembly for which Mr. Soul set himself to provide by public appeal?
These, then, are the two institutions to which that modest little convalescent home in Harold Street, Margate, is a worthy appanage, and they may well find support among those whose maxim it is to do with all their might what their hands find wants doing.
Thereare perhaps few conditions demanding greater sympathy and more ready aid than that of poor women who, from temporary sickness or the weariness that comes of hope deferred, are unable to follow the employments, often precarious and yielding a bare subsistence, by which they strive to be independent of charitable aid. It is only those who know to what extremities of need they will submit for shame of making their poverty known, and what mental suffering they will endure as they find their scanty savings dwindling day by day, and their few household goods, or even their clothing, and the little family mementoes, which they can only part with as a last resource, going piece by piece, who can fully realise all that is meant by the genteel phrase, "very reduced circumstances," as applied to women of refined feelings, and frequently of gentle nurture, who find themselves without the means of obtaining necessary food and medical care when health and strength give way, and they can no longer work at those few callings by which they can earn enough to enable them to avoid a dreaded "application to friends."
Quite lately, the subject of some kind of provision forpoor governesses who are sick, or have to subsist during long holidays on the small balance of their quarterly wages, has occupied public attention, and it would be well indeed if means could be found for giving the healthy temporary employment, and the weakly a quiet home where their strength might be restored without the sacrifice of independence.
There are others, however, for which such help is equally needed—the dressmaker, or the shop-woman, on whom long hours of tedious and often of exhausting toil in an unhealthy atmosphere, has begun to tell too severely; the servant of good character and respectable habits, who is not so ill as to be admitted to a hospital, and yet is breaking down in strength, and regards with dread the necessity for going into some obscure lodging, where her surplusage of wages will barely pay for rent and food during two or three weeks enforced idleness; the girl who has learnt some ill-paid business, which affords her no more than a mere contribution to the family funds, and leaves no margin for extra food or medicine, or the fresh air that is as important as either.
Any careful observer standing at the door of a general hospital, and watching the throng of out-patients waiting wearily to see the doctor, will be able to distinguish a score of cases for which a temporary rest with wholesome food and the sympathy and loving-kindness that refresh the soul would bring true healing.
No large establishment in the nature of a hospital or a refuge affords the kind of help for such distress as theirs. They cannot be dealt with as occupants of wards; for they have either recovered from the actual crisis of some serious disorder, or are pining in a depressed condition to which no definite name can be given to classify it foradmission to any public establishment for the cure of disease. To many of them the idea of entering a large charitable refuge—and I know of none in London adapted to such needs as theirs—would be repulsive, as suggesting that horror with which persons even of a lower grade regard the union workhouse; what they need is a temporary home, and if ever the time should come when a well-supported scheme for such a provision should be adopted, it will have to take the form of what is now known as the "cottage system." Indeed, in hospitals, as well as in other large charitable institutions, the defects of the old plan of maintaining a great number of adult persons in one vast building have been recognised. The immense ward with its long rows of beds, the divided and necessarily confusing duties of attendants, the ill-served meals at a great dinner-table where there is no possibility of escaping from a too rigid routine, the depressing, not to say degrading, influence, resulting from the loss of individuality, would make any vast institution for convalescents or invalids far less effectual in its operation. I make this reference only with regard to the probable inauguration of homes for invalid women in or near London, and because I have just visited one, which, although it is not on the cottage system, but is established in a rare old mansion of the period of Queen Anne, has yet the happy characteristic of being a family whose scanty means is largely increased by loving gifts, instead of an institution every corner of which bears a reminder that it is "supported by charity."
In the pleasant airy High Street of Stoke Newington, and within a stone's throw of the famous Cedar Walk of Abney Park—that locality made famous by the prolonged visit of Dr. Watts, who went to spend a week with SirThomas Abney, and remained for the rest of his long blameless life the honoured guest of the family—is the house I speak of, "The Invalid Asylum for Respectable Females in London and its Vicinity," superintended by a ladies' committee, and with weekly visitors, and a matron to carry on the practical work of the executive.
There is nothing remarkably picturesque, nothing very striking about this home for thirty respectable invalid women employed in dependent situations, to whom it affords a temporary asylum, widely differing from the crowded receptacles for the sick in the metropolis. One of its peculiarities is, that the purity of the family circle is maintained, by the fact that no patient is admitted without a certificate of conduct signed by two housekeepers or by an employer, while her case is also recommended by an annual subscriber or life governor; and there is a sense of repose and quiet confidence about the inmates which is particularly suggestive of the care taken to recognise their individual claims, and the interest which is manifested in them during the time of their sojourn.
This very quietude and sense of rest, and gradual renewal of health and strength in a serene retreat is, in fact, the feature which attracts my attention. It is not too much to say that I am ready to attribute much of such influences to the fact that the institution was originally established by ladies representing the unobtrusive beneficent work of the "Society of Friends," and that the order and peace which is its delightful characteristic, may in a great measure be traced to that foundation. At any rate, these qualifications so identify it that I feel justified in regarding it to some extent as a worthy example of the method to be adopted in any institution,which, without being altogether a free "charity," takes only such a small sum from the patient or her friends as suffices to keep away the degrading feeling of pauperism, or of utter dependence on the bounty of strangers. It is true that the principal life-governorships include the privilege of sending entirely gratuitous patients, but in ordinary cases the annual subscriber of a guinea recommends the case, and when the patient is admitted, the sum of twenty shillings is received for the month's medical attendance, lodging, and full board, "including tea and sugar," for a time not exeeding one month, after which, should the case require a longer stay, the ticket must be renewed by the same or another subscriber, on the further payment of twenty shillings. If the patient be in the employment of the subscriber, the payment of this sum will suffice, without the renewal ticket, an arrangement which should commend the institution to every benevolent employer of female labour.
It need hardly be said that no cases of infectious disease are admitted, and that every applicant is examined by the medical attendant. No patient is admitted who is not above ten years of age; and neither "private cookery," nor the introduction of spirituous liquors by visitors, is permitted, any more than gratuities to servants of the Institution.
It may be remarked that though a large number of cases are received during each year, the very fact of contributions being made by the patients themselves, who are thus relieved from the sense of utter dependence, appears to have prevented the Institution from receiving as large a degree of public support as it might command if it were an ordinary charity. This is to be lamented, for the Institution is, after all, less a hospitalthan a temporary home, and it appeals on behalf of a peculiar form of distress, the claims of which are of a specific and none the less of a very urgent character. But in order to realise the kind of work that is most needed, and is here being accomplished, let us pay a visit to the house itself. We have been hitherto standing on the broad flight of steps inside the tall iron gates, and have hesitated to sully their hearthstone purity, for it is Saturday, and we may well have an inconvenient sense that the short hand of the clock is already close to the dinner-time of the institution.
With a long experience of paying unexpected visits, I am prepared to encounter remonstrance, even though it only take the form of a critical glance at my boots as a means of possible maculation of the newly-cleaned hall and passages. Conscious of having judiciously employed a member of the shoe-black brigade, I can endure this scrutiny, and, with a few words of explanation, am conducted, by the matron herself, over the grand old house, whose broad staircase and elaborately carved balusters of black oak at once attest not only its antiquity but also its aristocracy. I have already said that there is nothing here on which to found a "picturesque description," and yet the air of repose, the sense of almost spotless cleanliness, the freshness of the large lofty rooms containing from three to five or six comfortable beds with their snowy counterpanes, the general order and pleasant seclusion, are remarkably suggestive of the intention of the place. Two of the patients, to whom I make my respects, are not yet sufficiently recovered to join the daily dinner-party in the neat dining-room. One of them, an elderly lady, who has only just been brought here, is slowly recovering from very severe illness, and cannoteven sit up in the bed, whence she regards me with an expression which seems to intimate that she has reached a haven of rest. Her companion, a young woman—also in bed in the same room—is sitting very upright, cheerfully engaged in some problem of needlework, and responds with a hopeful smile to the declaration of the matron, that they "mean to make a woman of her if she is good."
Close to this room is the neat lavatory with its bath, supplied with hot and cold water, and on the landing I note another bath, on wheels, for use in any part of the house where it may be required. All the accessories are home-like; and in the invalid sitting-room, on an upper storey, where two convalescents, not yet able to get downstairs, greet me from a pair of easy chairs, there is the same pervading influence which distinguishes the house from those large institutions where everything is characterised by a depressing mechanical dead level. The library—a pleasant cheerful room—is in course of refurnishing; and I am glad to learn that our best known periodicals find a place there, while the stock of books, either gifts or loans, are likely soon to be replenished, a matter wherein extra aid would be appreciated, and could readily be afforded by those who have volumes to spare.
Already the cloth is laid in the dining-room, and dinner itself consists of hot meat with the usual accessories every day, except on Sundays, when there is a cold dinner, while, of course, the invalids who are ordered medical diet have fish, custards, or other delicate fare specially provided. Each patient has a pint of ale or beer daily, and wine as a remedial stimulant, according to the doctor's orders.
There is just time before dinner is served to walk through the room into the grand old garden which extends from a pleasant sheltered lawn and flower-garden, with a glorious fig-tree in full leaf and fruit against the sunny wall, to a great kitchen-garden and orchard, with a wealth of fruit and vegetables (and notably a venerable and prolific mulberry tree), and extending in a pleasant vista of autumn leaves. On the other side of the high wall is the Cedar Walk already mentioned; and the whole place is so still and balmy on this autumnal day, that we may go away with a very distinct appreciation of the rest and peace which, with regular nutritious food, rest, and medicine, may bring restoration to the physical health, just as the hopeful ministrations of good and pious women who visit the home daily may bring a sense of peace and comfort to many a weary spirit and burdened heart.