About My Father's Business

WITH THEM WHO HAVE NOT WHERE TO LAY THEIR HEADS

There is a degree of poverty which, while it is not absolute pauperism, often has deeper needs than those which are alleviated by parochial relief – a destitution which is none the less bitter because those who suffer it cannot stoop to actual mendicancy, and shrink from the degradation of the casual ward and its contaminating influences.

Those of us who at this season of the year are surrounded with comforts, and can meet together to enjoy them, should feel that there is no sadder phase of the life of this great city than that to which our attention is called by the statistics of those same casual wards, and the accompanying certainty that every night there are men, women, and children, who, amidst surrounding luxury and splendour, have not where to lay their heads, and for whom the repellent door of the nearest union workhouse is closed, even if they could summon such courage as comes of desperation, and dared to enter.

Happily, the numbers of those who seek what is called casual relief have diminished in proportion to the general abatement of pauperism; and it is perhaps encouraging to know that the applicants for nightly shelter at Refuges for the homeless and destitute are fewer than they were three or four years ago. This is a fact which should be made public, because some of these Refuges have been accused of offering inducements to casual paupers to seek food and shelter provided by charitable subscriptions, instead of betaking themselves to the night-wards provided for them at metropolitan workhouses. The complaint was made on altogether insufficient grounds, at a time when, during a hard winter, and with a fearful amount of distress among the poorest class of the community, the workhouse night-wards themselves were frequently inadequate to the demands made upon them; while, apart from the persons who were known as casual paupers, there were hundreds of unfortunates suffering from temporary starvation and the want of a place in which to find a night's lodging, who yet were altogether removed from what is known as pauperism, and dreaded the abject hopelessness which they associated with "the Union."

It should not be forgotten, either, that the task which is, and was then, imposed upon the pauper on the morning following his night's lodging and its previous dole of gruel and bread, renders it almost impossible for the recipient to obtain work. Before his job of stone-breaking or oakum-picking is accomplished, the hour for commencing ordinary labour outside the workhouse walls has passed, and his hope of resuming independent employment, and the wages that will provide food and lodging for the next four-and-twenty hours, has passed also. This alone is always sufficient to make a very marked distinction between the regular casual pauper and the temporarily unfortunate man or woman who, having failed to get work, and seeking only the aid that may give rest and strength for a renewed effort, might look in vain for succour but for the existence of places like that admirable Institution to which I wish to take you to-night.

The shameful spectacle of groups, and, in many instances, of crowds, of houseless, starving, and half-naked creatures huddled about the doors of casual wards, to which they had been refused admission in direct defiance of legislation, led to the establishment of Night Refuges. There was then no time to dispute. While boards and committees were squabbling and vilifying each other, the poor were perishing. But even now that a better system prevails, and pauperism has so considerably diminished, there is much necessity for the continuance of these institutions and their adaptation to the relief of that kind of distress which is all the more poignant because it is at present only temporary, but would receive the brand and stamp of permanence if it could find no other mitigation than that secured by an appeal to workhouse officials, the shelter of the casual shed, the union dole, and the daily task required in return.

At the time that Night Refuges were first founded, in consequence of the failure of the Houseless Poor Act, there were one or two institutions which went on the plan of offering no inducement whatever to those who sought shelter within their walls. The provisions were barer, the beds harder, the reception little less cold and unsympathetic than they would receive at any metropolitan union.

Those of my readers who remember the Refuge for the Houseless Poor which once stood in Playhouse Yard, close to that foul tangle of courts that still exists between Barbican and St. Luke's, and is known as "The Chequers," will understand me when I say that there were no alluring inducements for the houseless and the destitute to seek its aid.

I have seldom seen a more painfully suggestive crowd than that which waited outside the blank door of that hideous building on a cold drizzly evening when I paid the place a visit, only a short time before it was finally closed. I cannot deny, however, that the applicants for admission consisted of those persons for whom the institution seemed to be especially designed. The very lowest class of poverty, the representatives of sheer destitution, made up the 350 men and the 150 women who were to occupy the bare wooden bunks in the two departments of the building that night, and to accept, as a stay against starvation, the half-pound of dry bread and the drink of water. What I would call emphatic attention to, is the fact that this place was filled nightly at that time, because the inmates could leave early in the morning to seek a day's work, and so rise out of that depth of destitution which was represented by the nightly return to the casual ward. But let us remember that, though this Institution could scarcely be characterised by the warm name of "charity," it received all applicants who were not suffering from infectious diseases, and therefore its policy was deterrent. In order to separate itself from the idle casual, it made its provisions little short of penal, and, indeed, very far short of those common comforts that are to be found in prison.

But the Refuge in Newport Market was one of those which had been founded on a different principle. It was never intended as a supplement to the casual ward, or as having any relation to poor-law relief; though, during the terrible distress that overtook the houseless in that severe winter when our poor-law arrangements broke down utterly, it was impossible for any place founded in the name of Christian love and charity to be very particular in excluding famishing and frozen men and women on the suspicion that they had already somehow obtained parochial relief the night before.

This "Refuge" was originally established by the influence and the personal exertions of Mrs. Gladstone, and a few ladies and gentlemen who, knowing of the extreme distress that prevailed in all that poverty-stricken neighbourhood about Seven Dials, around the alien-haunted district of Soho, and in the purlieux of Drury Lane, and the courts of Long Acre, set about providing some remedy for the misery that homeless, destitute men, women, and children had to suffer during the bitter nights of winter. First, a regular mission was established in an ordinary room, and, after a time, space was secured to make a Refuge – first for six, then for ten, and afterwards for twenty of the most destitute cases which came under the notice of the mission-woman. This went on till the funds were sufficient to warrant a very earnest desire to obtain larger premises, and at last to make a bid for that queer ramshackle old slaughter-house, which was the rather too indicative feature of the locality. The landlords of this place were fully alive to the value of any property rising in proportion to the anxiety of somebody to become its tenant, and they demanded a high rent accordingly. Still, the work had to be done, and the slaughter-house – cleansed, repaired, whitewashed, and divided into several queer, irregular-shaped wards and rooms, which were reached by strange flights of steps and zig-zag entries – was opened with cheerful confidence and hope, under the earnest superintendence of the Rev. J. Williams, who was at that time incumbent of the parish of St. Mary, Soho. It was at that period that I first made acquaintance with the Institution, and with the quiet, undemonstrative work of charity which was carried on there, and is continued to this day, though it is less arduous now that the neighbourhood itself has felt the influence of such an organization – not so much in the diminution of actual poverty, as in the humanising and constantly suggestive presence of men and women who have brought a gospel to those who were hopeless, and seemed to have none to care for them.

The need to receive numbers every night to the utmost limits of the Institution has passed now, except occasionally during very severe weather; and though the cases admitted are still those where deep, and sometimes apparently almost fatal, misfortune is the claim, there is no longer the urgency which forbade a too discriminating selection, and the regular casual stands no chance under the quick and experienced eye of the superintendent, Mr. Ramsden, whose military tone and manner are, by the way, modulated so as to carry the sense of detection to the pretender, and to support and give courage to the weak and faint-hearted.

The same complete, quiet method of receiving applicants who await admission enables me to repeat the impression which I received during the time that the demands upon the night Refuge were more urgent. The experienced visitor who stands at the gate of this rehabilitated building that was once the old slaughter-house, and who watches the people go in one by one, and listens to their low-voiced pleas for food and shelter, cannot mistake them for casual ward cases. Just as, in some other Institutions, the pain of the spectacle is the degraded poverty of those who seek aid, the most affecting element here is utter destitution, without that accustomed debasement which would find a fitting resource at the workhouse door, leading to the night shed.

These are broken-down men and women; old men beaten in the battle of life, and full of present sorrow; young men who have fought and failed, or who have eaten of the husks, and seek occasion to rise to a better mind; middle-aged men not altogether crushed or hopeless, but in sore want, and needing the sound of a kindly voice, the touch of a friendly hand; women who have lost youth and worldly hope together – women who, more weak than wicked, and without resource, need some stay alike for fainting bodies and for wandering souls; women worn and hungry, because of the lack even of ill-paid work, and asking for rest and food till they can seek employment: some who will go forth in the morning and set out afresh; others who, if they can secure two or three nights' lodging, with a mouthful of food and drink morning and evening, have a good hope of doing better in the future.

To those who know how the demand for certain kinds of labour varies, and frequently slackens towards the winter months, when need is sorest, this latter most merciful provision comes with a sense of truest charity. Tickets of admission are issued to friends and visitors of the Institution (and any one may be a visitor who chooses to ring at the bell of the old slaughter-house), entitling the holder to admission after the regular evening hour of half-past five to six, so that in bestowing one of these the judicious subscriber (not necessarily, but surely from sympathy a subscriber) can be a true benefactor. For these tickets will admit the really deserving nightly for a week, with supper of bread and coffee or cocoa, or occasional savoury soup, and breakfast of bread and coffee. And even this time is occasionally extended, if there be a reasonable prospect of obtaining work. Not only ticket-holders, but every applicant, may have the same privilege, if it can be shown that he or she is really likely to obtain employment. But there is more than this. There are men here – truest of gentlemen, beyond that social stamp of rank which rightfully belongs to them – who, with a real, manly instinct, know how to take poverty by the hand without offensive patronage or untimely preaching. There are ladies who, in their true womanhood, can see the contrition in faces bowed down – the shame that is caused, not by evil doings, but by the feeling of dismay which comes of having to ask for charity – can sympathise with broken fortunes, with gentle nurture – cast upon a hard, relentless world, with that poverty which is "above the common."

More still. Among the supporters and the constant visitors are those who can use special influence for cases that need it most, and obtain for them admission to hospitals and other asylums, or introduce to situations those who by sudden calamity have been deprived of the means of living.

Yes, even in their deepest need, poor, wandering, homeless women may come here and find help, for in that large, lofty, yet warm and well-lighted room, the women's dormitory – one side of which is composed of a series of niches where the comfortable beds are placed – there are to be seen a row of doors, which seem to belong to a series of cabins, as, indeed, they do. Each door opens into a small bed-room – small, but with room for a chair, a tiny table, and the neat bed. They are the lodgings set apart for women, who, in the midst of their poverty and destitution, are looking forward fearfully to the time when children will be born to them, and so to a period of weakness, and of the sad mingling of maternal pity and desponding sorrow. Let me say, in one line from the Report, that last year eight young women were received into the Refuge some time before their confinement, were passed on to Queen Charlotte's Hospital, and were helped until such time as they were able to help themselves.

I think the knowledge of this is so cheerful an instance of the value of this most representative Refuge, that even the sight of the bright, warm, glowing kitchen, with its great boiler of hot coffee, and its noble kettle of soup occupying the jolly range, scarcely imparts an extra beam to the picture; while the long rows of white mugs, the pleasant, clean, fragrant loaves, the big milk-cans, the courteous chef, who has a true and pardonable pride in his surroundings – no, not even the cosy, rug-covered berths and bunks in the dormitories, nor the quaint little corner-room to which I have to climb a crooked staircase to shake hands with the sister who is in charge, nor the equally quaint and cornery, not to say inconvenient, sitting-room of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsden, who have left their tea unfinished to do the honours of the Institution – can suggest to me a better word to say than that which is suggested by the picture of the poor wandering, weary, fainting women, who, almost in despair, not only for a real, but for an expected life, come here to find rest and peace.

Stay; one word more. Who are the class of people for whom the Refuge doors are ordinarily open? Let us see what were the most numerous cases among the inmates who during the year received 6,669 nights' lodgings and 16,889 suppers and breakfasts. Among the men "labourers," of course, are most numerous; then discharged soldiers – poor fellows who have perhaps foolishly snatched at liberty when offered, and foregone the advantages of re-engagement and a pension; next in numerical order come clerks– a very painfully suggestive fact, especially when read by the light of the advertisement-columns of our newspapers, and the sad story of genteel poverty in that great suburban ring which encircles the wealthiest city in the world. Of house-painters there were 24; of servants, 21; of tailors, 13; of seamen, 8; and other callings were represented in remarkable variety, including 1 actor, 6 cooks, 1 schoolmaster, 2 surveyors, and 1 tutor. Among the women, 199 servants – show sadly enough the truth of the old adage, "Service is no inheritance;" while in numerical succession there were, 55 charwomen, 41 laundresses, 37 needlewomen, 31 tailoresses, 27 dressmakers, 26 machinists (alas! how many women still utterly depend on "the needle" for a subsistence!), 24 cooks, 20 ironers, 16 field-labourers. There were 4 governesses, 1 actress, 1 mission-woman, and 1 staymaker, the rest being variously described.

From among these, 94 men and 193 women obtained employment, 77 women having been sent to Penitentiaries and Homes, while 18 were supported in the Refuge or elsewhere by needlework, 13 were sent to their friends, 60 obtained permanent work, and 14 girls of good character were sent to Servants' Homes.

But I have left out one thing now. Among this great representative company of refugees were 60 children, of whom 37 were sent to nurse or to school, while those who were old enough – Well, just listen to that burst of military music in a distant upper-room of the old slaughter-house. I must tell you something about the Newport Market boys in another chapter.

TAKING IN STRANGERS

Yes; listen to that startling clangour of military music coming from an upper room. We are standing, you know, in the cheerful kitchen of that Refuge for the Homeless in the renovated old slaughter-house in Newport Market, and I want you to come with me to see the boys' school, which occupies a very considerable portion of that weatherproof but ramshackle building.

Only those who are acquainted with the poverty and the crime of this great metropolis can estimate the deep and urgent need that still exists for refuges in which homeless, destitute, and neglected children can be received for shelter, food, and clothing. Only the practical student of the effect of our present administration of the Education Act can calculate how vast a necessity is likely to exist for the reception and instruction of the children of the poorest, even when all the machinery of the present School Board is put in motion for vindicating the compulsory clause.

Let that clause be interpreted in the most liberal manner – which would be in effect to provide State education without cost to the parents – and the Act will still leave untouched a vast number of children for whom nothing can be done until their physical necessities are provided for – children who are perishing with cold, starving for want of food. A visit to some of the big buildings recently erected by the London School Board will reveal the fact that there are many such children now in attendance; neglected, barefoot, half-clothed, hungry, and with that wistful eager look, sometimes followed by a kind of stupefaction, which may be observed in the poor little outcasts of the streets. There is no reasonable hope of doing much with these little creatures till the "soup-kitchen" and the "free breakfast" are among the appliances of education, where the necessity is most pressing, and the children perish for lack of bread as well as for lack of knowledge.

As it is – I need not refer again to the escape which is always open from the streets to the prison. The few Government industrial-schools to which magistrates occasionally consign young culprits brought before them are intended only for those who come within the cognisance of the law.

The operations of these reformatory-schools are successful so far as they go. They represent seventy-five per cent. of successful reformatory training as applied to juvenile transgressors committed by magistrates to their supervision.

Perhaps, when we are fully impressed with the meaning of the statistics which are published each year in the Report of the Inspectors of Certified Schools in Great Britain, we shall begin to consider how it will be possible to regard destitute children in relation to the guardianship of the state before they qualify themselves for Government interposition by the expedient of committing what the law calls a crime.

The last Report states distinctly that the sooner criminal children are taken in hand, the more complete is their reformation. There are fewer "criminals" of less than ten years of age than there are hardened offenders of from twelve to sixteen. This is, so far, satisfactory; but when we consider that (including Roman Catholic establishments) there are but fifty-three reformatories in England, and twelve in Scotland (thirty-seven of those in England and eight in Scotland being for boys, and sixteen in England and four in Scotland for girls), and that in 1873, when the Report was issued, the sum-total of children in all these institutions was but 5,622, of whom one-fourth were in the Roman Catholic schools – we cease to wonder at the vast number of homeless, neglected, and destitute children in London alone – a number which, notwithstanding the efforts of philanthropy and the activity of School Board beadles, exceeds the total of all the inmates of the State reformatories throughout the kingdom.