About My Father's Business
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Nor is the revelation of cheerfulness, of light in shadow, less remarkable in the dormitories themselves. But then what rooms they are! Each bed is, as it were, set in an alcove of its own snow-white hangings, relieved by bits of colour which would delight an artist's eye – pieces of embroidery, framed illuminated texts, bright flecks of Berlin woolwork, or glistening designs in beads, or deep glowing knick-knacks wrought in silk and lace. Each little bedside table, though it may hold medicine and diet – drink and requisites for the sick – is decked with flowers and little framed pictures, gaily-bound books, and bright-hued toys and trifles, that make it look like a miniature stand at a fancy fair. In some cases the sense of combined purity and glow of colour is so great, that it is difficult to realise that we are in one or other of a series of sick-rooms. Everything is so spotless, so exquisitely clean and orderly, that nothing less than perfect nursing could explain it – for be it remembered that the place is open to visitors every day – and amidst some of the most terrible afflictions from which humanity can suffer there is nothing revolting. Expressions of pain and of utter prostration and weakness there are, of course; but even these are only alternative with the general placid contentment and thankfulness that is the prevailing characteristic.
Even in two severe cases of cancer the terrible effects of the malady are less notable, because of the surrounding conditions. A sprightly and engaging girl, with features and social life alike marred and obliterated by this dreadful malady, is surely one of the saddest of all the sad sights in such an institution; but here the brightness and genial influence of the place, and of those who are its ministrants, have had their effect, and even the half-obliterated features gain a grateful, loving, cheerful expression; the poor eyes beam with pleasure as the governor starts some reminiscence of that pleasant summer water-party of his, in which one of the two sufferers had to be carried to the boat in his arms, and both of them, deeply veiled, were rowed by those same guarding arms for a glorious voyage on the river, where the summer's sunshine and gladness stole into the hearts of the sufferers, and left a halo of remembrance that is not perhaps so very far from the anticipations of that stream which maketh glad the children of God.
Here are rooms wherein only two or three beds are placed, while few of them contain more than six, but all of them are bright, airy, lofty, full of space, and with the same sense of purity. And from every window some fresh and lovely view of the surrounding landscape, with all its changeful aspects, may be seen – the beds being so placed that every patient has her own special expanse of territory to solace her waking hours, even though she be unable to go down to the assembly-room. Here, in a room particularly bright and cheerful, lies a young woman with a wealth of dark hair on the pillow where her intelligent face beams with a certain courage, although her body and limbs have been for years immovable – only one arm, for an inch or two, and three fingers of the right hand, can be stirred – and yet, as we stand and talk with her, some small simple jest about her own condition causes her to laugh till the bed shakes. She has learnt to write by holding a pencil in her mouth, and inscribes neat and legible letters on paper placed on a rest just in front of her face. She is not only cheerful, but actually hopeful, though she has been for years in this condition; and her relations, great and small, visit her, to find her always heartily determined to look on the bright side. At the foot of her bed, near the window, is a swing looking-glass on a pedestal, and in this she sees reflected the distant prospect of autumn wood and field, extending miles away. Judging from her nobly equable and smiling face, she must be the life of the room of which she has been so long an occupant. In another apartment a poor schoolmistress suffering from hemorrhage of the lungs lies reading for many hours a day, her face bearing a painful expression, her manner eager, her constant craving to work on, by the study of books concerning the problems of this earthly life and the sciences that strive to demonstrate them and yet only bring us to the barrier of the eternal world. She yearns for one more day amidst her classes, and for the opportunity of testing the results of sick-bed thoughts on a method of education which should adapt itself to the individual temperament and mental peculiarity of each child. Amidst a troubled tide of thoughts that are perhaps sometimes too much for the weary brain, she may learn to recognise the rest that comes after hearing the Divine voice say, "Peace! be still;" and so a great spiritual calm may fall upon her, and give her rest.
Yet another visit, and we find a girl who, from an accidental fall, is as immovable as a statue, her dark questioning eyes and mobile face alone excepted. Yet she is sometimes lifted into a wheel-chair that stands stabled by her bedside, and joins the company in the great parlour downstairs. There is another little parlour, with quite a select coterie, under the presidency of an elderly gentlewoman, who is busily knitting at a table, while her friends recline at the windows, on their special couches; and in several of the dormitories patients are sitting up, reading, working, or looking at the fitful aspect of earth and sky on this October afternoon. Sufferers from heart-disease, with that anxious contracted expression so indicative of their malady, are numerous; but the larger number of the patients seem to suffer from rheumatism, or paralysis – among them one lady, with silvered hair, and yet with bright expressive eyes, and still bonny face, who was once a well-known singer in London. She is unable to rise from couch or bed, but the readiness of repartee, the bright inquiring look, the quick appreciation and retort, remain, as do a certain swift expressive action of head and hands, which is marvellously suggestive of dramatic gesture; for, happily, her hands and arms are still capable of movement, and she has several periodicals on the coverlet – among them the latest monthly part of a magazine, in one of the stories in which she is evidently interested. She, with two or three others, are inmates of the hospital at their own charges.
We have but little time to devote to the men's side of this great institution; but its dormitories and furniture, its large day-room, where daughters sit talking in low voice to fathers, sisters to brothers, wives to husbands – its pleasant out-door contingent, who have just returned from slowly perambulating the grounds in wheel-chairs, or sit basking outside in the latest gleam of sunshine – its club in the rustic hut especially appointed for this purpose – all might bear comment. Here is a sturdy youth, who, falling from a tree, and alighting on his heels, incurably injured his spine, and now lies all day, mostly out of doors, and without a coat, frequently engaged in knitting. There is a poor gentleman, who has for sixteen years been almost immovable, from rheumatism, even his jaw being so fixed that he takes food through an aperture in the teeth. He has been through two or three hospitals, and under the care of the most eminent surgeons, and has come here now as to an ark of refuge, where he can read and talk, and be wheeled about the neighbourhood on occasional visits. Only one case of all those that we witness is startling in its melancholy sense of terrible loss and incurability; that rigid, grimly-set face, in the ward where the corner bed in which the grizzled head lies is the only one occupied this afternoon. The body belonging to that face is almost immovable – the ears are deaf, the tongue is mute, the eyes are nearly sealed – not by sudden calamity, but by gradual yielding to decay or disease. He has been an inmate several years, and is the one case here before which we may almost quail in our solemn sense of affliction; and yet, to the touch of certain loving hands that dead face kindles; that mind, seemingly locked in stupor, wakes to life; that intelligence, encased in a casket iron-bound and motionless, can understand the signs that are made upon his own hands or forehead, and interpret them so as to give some kind of grateful answer. It needs the touch of the lady nurse to bring out this strange music from an instrument so unstrung; but that it should be done at all is an evidence of the hold that loving sympathy and some subtle influence almost beyond mere bodily capacity of expression has taken in these dear souls of the sick and the afflicted. That is where the shadow lifts, even in the darkness of the valley; that is how the Spirit of Christ may abound; and the soul, in recognizing the work of the disciple, may recognise the Lord therein, and remember the Living Word – "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."
"WITH THE HALT AND THE LAME."
I suppose there are few people in England, who are at all accustomed to keep Christmas amidst a loving family circle, who have not during the sacred festivities of the season, and all the household sentiments with which they are inseparably associated, made some reference to the "Christmas Carol," that famous story of the great novelist whose presence in the spirit of his books has brightened so many a Christmas hearth, and moved so many gentle hearts to kindly thoughts and words of loving cheer.
Amongst all the well-known characters to which Mr. Dickens introduced thousands of readers – characters who, to many of us, became realities, and were spoken of as though they were living and among our ordinary acquaintances – there have been none, except perhaps little Nell, who have evoked more sympathetic recognition than Tiny Tim, the poor crippled child of Bob Cratchit – the child, the sound of whose little crutch upon the stair was listened for with loving expectation – the shadow of whose vacant chair in the "Vision of Christmas," gave to the humbled usurer as keen a pang as any sight that he saw afterwards in that strange dream of what might come to pass. So completely do we share the anxiety of Scrooge in this respect, that we can all remember giving a sigh of relief when, at the end of the story, we learn that the poor crippled boy remains to bless the fireside where even his afflictions were felt to be a hallowing influence to soften animosities, and to draw close the bonds of family love.
"Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself" (says Bob Cratchit), "and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas-day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see."
If I needed an excuse for so long an allusion to that pathetic story, which has stirred so many hearts throughout England, I might find it in the passage I have just quoted; but I seek none. I refer to the "Christmas Carol," because in it the figure of the crippled boy, occupying so small a space, yet is such a living, touching influence as to be one of the household fancies that associate themselves with our thoughts of Christmas-tide in poor homes; because there are so many little crutches the sounds of which are heard – though fewer than there used to be before orthopædic surgery became a special branch of study, and hospitals were founded for its practice; because, though Tiny Tim may represent so many crippled children who are the helpless members of poor families, where they are tended with as kindly care as working fathers and mothers can find time for – there are hundreds of other deformed or maimed lads whose lot is made the harder because of the want of sympathy and ready aid that would lift them out of utter helplessness, or give them such light labour to perform as would diminish their sense of dependence. Finally, because I desire you to bear me company to one place in London where this last need is recognised, and where forty crippled boys, suffering from various incurable deformities, which yet have left them the use of their hands, are not only taught a trade, but are encouraged, fed, and nurtured for the three years during which they are inmates of the home – "The National Industrial Home for Crippled Boys."
Alighting from the railway carriage which conveys us from Mansion House Station to the pleasant old High Street of Kensington, we are close to the place that we have come to see, for the building itself – a quaint old house, with a central doorway between two projecting deep bay-windowed fronts, and built of the reddest of red brick – stands at the end of Wright's Lane, looking us full in the face as we approach it to read the style and title plainly painted across its upper storey.
The house has good reason for looking the world thus bluffly in the face, for it is an independent building, bought and paid for: hearth-stone, roof tree, and chimney, freehold, and without debt or mortgage. Till this was done, all thought of considerable extension was put aside. The question was how to provide, out of voluntary subscriptions and contributions, for the fifty inmates who could be admitted within those sheltering walls. It must be premised, however, that ten pounds a year has to be paid for each boy who is accepted, during the three years that he remains there, to be taught in the evening school and in the workshop, not only how to read and write and cipher, but to become a good workman at tailoring, carpentering, or die-engraving and colour-stamping.
These are at present the only three trades taught in this truly industrial home, but they appear to be very admirably suited to the cases of those who are deformed or crippled in various ways; and they are taught well, as an inspection of the work accomplished will prove. For the workshops are real workshops, where the boys do not play at work, but are taught their trades in a way that will enable them when they leave the institution to gain a decent livelihood, or even, if they can save a little money, to go into business for themselves.
This has been lately done, in fact, by two youths, who, having thoroughly learnt the relief-stamping process, have contrived to buy a press and the materials for their trade, and are now in partnership in a country town, and earning a respectable maintenance. Of sixteen lads who left during the year, twelve were doing well as journeymen at the industries they had learnt; one had set up in business for himself (the relief-stamping gives the greatest facility for this); and two had returned to their friends because of ill health, while one had not reported himself But during the same period forty of the former inmates had been to visit the old home, and gave a very encouraging account of themselves. Let us add, in a whisper, that amongst these visitors were a "team" of old boys who had come to accept the challenge of a "team" of the new boys, to play a match at cricket. Yes, and that these teams of cripples have, over and over again, carried off their bats against opponents who, if they expected an easy victory, found themselves to have been most amazingly mistaken. I don't think this is mentioned in the Report, but it is well to know it, because it serves to prove how truly beneficent a work is being done here, in removing boys from a too often almost "hopeless" condition to one of useful, intelligent, skilled labour, and to healthy self-forgetfulness and association in the ordinary duties and recreations of their fellows. It must be remembered that every boy there is, in a certain sense, incurable. After having been nominated by the person willing to contribute the annual payment of £10, the medical officers of the institution (or if in the country, some qualified practitioner) examine the candidate, who must be above twelve and less than eighteen years of age, and neither blind, deaf and dumb, nor without the use of his hands. The name of the candidate is then added to the list of those waiting for admission – of whom there are now, unfortunately, above seventy – and when there is a vacancy, and funds are sufficient to maintain the full number of inmates, these candidates are taken in succession, without voting, by order of the Committee of Management, of whom the President is the Earl of Shaftesbury, and the Honorary Secretary Mr. S. H. Bibby, of Green Street, Grosvenor Square. There is also an efficient Ladies' Committee for the household management and for advising as to the education of the boys, the visits of the friends of the inmates, and the domestic affairs of the Home generally. There are some severe cases of deformity here – club-foot, spinal curvature, and various distortions of the legs – and in many cases instruments are worn, but the Institution does not profess to provide these. Frequently they are procured by special contributions, and among the latest gifts of this kind is a serviceable wooden leg or two, which have had the happy effect of relieving their recipients from the necessity of using crutches; but it is distinctly insisted on that the Home is not a hospital, and is only curative in the sense of improving the condition of those who, having been pronounced incurable, are yet capable of greatly increased activity and strength by means of nourishing and regular food, interesting occupation, and healthy exercise with companions who themselves are to be numbered among the halt and the lame, and yet are, in a very certain sense, made to walk and to leap and to praise God. For see, at the very moment that I am speaking, a little figure darts out of the passage yonder and scampers across the large open green space at the back of the house on his way to the new range of workshops that are now nearly completed, and are also paid for. Is it possible to apply the term cripple to such an elf, who is out of reach before one can ask his name? Yes; that very elf-like look is the result of a deformity which stops growth, though it leaves the limbs as active as you see them. But come up-stairs to the first of the present workshops, and you may note among the colour-stampers, sitting on their high stools before the dies and presses, cases of more decided deformity or of crippling by accident. These boys follow an artistic, pretty business, and visitors may do worse than give a small or a large order for notepaper and envelopes, stamped with crest, motto, or quaint design. So well is the work executed, that the Home has orders constantly in hand for the trade, and some of the dies are really beautiful examples of engraving. I think that in this long pleasant upper room, with its high bench running along the window, fitted with the presses and implements for the work, there are more severe cases of deformity than will be seen in either in the tailors' department on the same floor, or the carpenters' shop below. One reflects on the numerous accidents to which the children of the poor are liable, such as falls down flights of stairs; to the inhuman neglect of old women who are paid as "minders" by mothers compelled to go out to work in neighbourhoods where no infant crèche, no babies' cradle home, has yet been established, or in country towns where such institutions have scarcely been heard of. One remembers with pity the scores of poor little creatures who have to nurse and tend children almost as big as themselves, so that they and their charges too often become deformed together, the nurse with lateral curvature of the spine and the baby with vertical curvature or with deformities of the feet or legs. One thinks, in short, of the many perils to healthy life and well-formed limb that beset the children of the poor, and then coming back to the figures of this National Home, which yet, with careful management and due economy, can only receive forty or fifty crippled boys – wonders how long it is to be before the ruddy old house in Wright's Lane will expand its broad bosom and stretch out long arms on either side to embrace three-score more lads, taken from present neglect and want and probable ill-usage, to be fed and taught and nurtured for three years, during which the whole future will be changed for them, and their lives redeemed from the degradation that had threatened them just as their bodies expand with renewed health and strange developments of unsuspected strength, and their souls are lighted with hope and the sympathy of loving words and hearty manly encouragement.
A beginning has been made already; for that munificent anonymous benefactor, whose thousand-pound cheques have helped so many of our deserving charities, showed his usual nice discrimination by taking a walk in the direction of Wright's Lane. The result of this has been the erection of those long workshops which extend across one side of the wide green area, with its ornamental trees, at the back of the building – an area which is a good part of the acre on which the property stands, and forms a capital recreation-ground, without quite leaving out of sight the pleasant kitchen-garden beyond, or the little building in the further corner, which is intended as a cottage infirmary in cases of sickness. There are the workshops, quite ready for another contingent of lads, such as are now busily at work in the tailoring department, where they are sitting on the board in the proper tailor-fashion, sewing away at one or other of the many private orders for gentlemen's clothes, or "juvenile suits," which are the better appreciated because they are hand-sewn, instead of being made with that machine, at the end of the room, to learn the working of which is, however, a necessary part of the modern tailor's trade. Quite ready, also, for our friends the relief-stampers, and for an additional crew of young carpenters to join those who are now busy below amidst a fine odour of fresh deal and the cheery sound of hammer, chisel, and plane. One of our young friends of the wooden legs – a strapping fellow of seventeen – is just deftly finishing off a very attractive chest of drawers, which will only need to be taken to the painting and varnishing rooms that form a part of the new building to be a very capital example of the workmanship of the establishment. For it cannot be too strongly insisted on that the customers of the Industrial Cripples get value for their money, whether it be in ornamental stationery, in plain furniture, packing cases, boxes, and general carpentry, or in "superfine suits" to order, or "own materials made up and repairs neatly executed." It is no sham industrial school, but a real practical working establishment, and when the new buildings are quite completed, and the dwelling-house has that other wing added to it, in order to provide proper dormitories and a school-room, dining-room, and lavatory, at all in proportion to the number of boys who are waiting anxiously for admission —
Ah! but the question is, When shall this be? Not till another £5,000 is added to the funds, I am told – about as much money as is sometimes spent in some public display which lasts three or four hours, and going to look at which probably half a dozen men, women, or children are lamed and crippled in the crowd. Judging from the present arrangements, with very little room to spare, and a not very conveniently-adaptable space, the money would be carefully spent; for there is no tendency to undue luxury, and the present household staff would still be sufficient for providing meals and looking after the family needs of these robust and independent young cripples. That it would be a work all the more beneficial, because of this very independence with which it is associated, it needs few arguments to prove; but, should reasons be asked for, let us take three cases for which the benefits of the Home are earnestly sought, and they will speak in suggestive accents of the need of that extension for which an appeal is being made. I need not tell you the names either of those who nominate the cases or the boys themselves; but be assured that the former would be sufficient guarantee of the need which it is sought to relieve: —
No. 1. – "The father is paralysed, and can do no work. The mother is not a very satisfactory person. Family consist of —
The eldest, a boy of twenty, who does odd jobs.
The cripple.
Boy, works, and gets 5s.,
Boy, sells lights in the City.
There are four little girls at home besides. The cripple is in a very wretched state from want of food, but he has the use of his hands."
No. 2 (Edinburgh). – "Was never at school more than a year in his life, and never attended regularly two months together. He can neither read nor write, and has been neglected and often half-starved by his dissipated parents. His mother pawns everything she can get to buy drink, and the boy has little benefit from the wages he makes, which are about 5s. per week. Their house is miserably dirty, Mrs. – (the mother) being always drunk or incapable on the Saturday and Sunday. The boy works at Mr. B – 's Pottery, P – . He is honest and industrious. He is more miserable at home of late since he is left alone with his mother. It would be a great advantage to the boy if he could be admitted to the Industrial Home at Kensington, where he would be well trained, and where he would be quite beyond his mother's reach."