第72章 MORE CRUSADES.(6)

T.--Of Rotherhithe Slum.Was a great drunkard,is a carpenter;saved about nine months ago,but,having to work in a public-house on a Sunday,he gave it up;he has not been able to get another job,and has nothing but what we have given him for making seats.

Emma Y.--Now a Soldier of the Marylebone Slum Post,was a wild young Slummer when we opened in the Boro';could be generally seen in the streets,wretchedly clad,her sleeves turned up,idle,only worked occasionally,got saved two years ago,had terrible persecution in her home.We got her a situation,where she has been for nearly eighteen months,and is now a good servant.

Lodging-House Frank.--At twenty-one came into the possession of #750,but,through drink and gambling,lost it all in six or eight months,and for over seven years he has tramped about from Portsmouth,through the South of England,and South Wales,from one lodging-house to another,often starving,drinking when he could get any money;thriftless,idle,no heart for work.We found him in a lodging-house six months ago,living with a fallen girl;got them both saved and married;five weeks after he got work as a carpenter at 30s.a week.

He has a home of his own now,and promises well to make an officer.

The Officer who furnishes the above reports goes on to say:--I can't call the wretched dwelling home,to which drink had brought Brother and Sister X.From a life of luxury,they drifted down by degrees to one room in a Slum tenement,surrounded by drunkards and the vilest characters.Their lovely half-starved children were compelled to listen to the foulest language,and hear fighting and quarrelling,and alas,alas,not only to hear it in the adjoining rooms,but witness it within their own.For over two years they have been delivered from the power of the cursed drink.The old rookery is gone,and now they have a comfortably-furnished home.Their children give evidence of being truly converted,and have a lively gratitude for their father's salvation.One boy of eight said,last Christmas Day,"I remember when we had only dry bread for Christmas;but to-day we had a goose and two plum-puddings."Brother X.was dismissed in disgrace from his situation as commercial traveller before his conversion;to-day he is chief man,next to his employer,in a large business house.

He says:--

I and perfectly satisfied that very few of the lowest strata of Society are unwilling to work if they could get it.The wretched hand-to-mouth existence many of them have to live disheartens them,and makes life with them either a feast or a famine,and drives those who have brains enough to crime.

The results of our work in the Slums may be put down as:--1st.A marked improvement in the cleanliness of the homes and children;disappearance of vermin,and a considerable lessening of drunkenness.

2nd.A greater respect for true religion,and especially that of the Salvation Army.

3rd.A much larger amount of work is being done now than before our going there.

4th.The rescue of many fallen girls.

5th.The Shelter work seems to us a development of the Slum work.

In connection with our Scheme,we propose to immediately increase the numbers of these Slum Sisters,and to add to their usefulness by directly connecting their operations with the Colony,enabling them thereby to help the poor people to conditions of life more favourable to health,morals,and religion.This would be accomplished by getting some of them employment in the City,which must necessarily result in better homes and surroundings,or in the opening up for others of a straight course from the Slums to the Farm Colony.

SECTION 2.--THE TRAVELLING HOSPITAL.

Of course,there is only one real remedy for this state of things,and that is to take the people away from the wretched hovels in which they sicken,suffer,and die,with less comfort and consideration than the cattle in the stalls and styes of many a country Squire.

And this is certainly our ultimate ambition,but for the present distress something might be done on the lines of district nursing,which is only in very imperfect operation.

I have been thinking that if a little Van,drawn by a pony,could be fitted up with what is ordinarily required by the sick and dying,and trot round amongst these abodes of desolation,with a couple of nurses trained for the business,it might be of immense service,without being very costly.They could have a few simple instruments,so as to draw a tooth or lance an abscess,and what was absolutely requisite for simple surgical operations.A little oil-stove for hot water to prepare a poultice,or a hot foment,or a soap wash,and a number of other necessaries for nursing,could be carried with ease.

The need for this will only be appreciated by those who know how utterly bereft of all the comforts and conveniences for attending to the smallest matters in sickness which prevails in these abodes of wretchedness.It may be suggested,why don't the people when they are ill go to the hospital?To which we simply reply that they won't.

They cling to their own bits of rooms and to the companionship of the members of their own families,brutal as they often are,and would rather stay and suffer,and die in the midst of all the filth and squalor that surrounds them in their own dens,than go to the big house,which,to them,looks very like a prison.

The sufferings of the wretched occupants of the Slums that we have been describing,when sick and unable to help themselves,makes the organisation of some system of nursing them in their own homes a Christian duty.Here are a handful of cases,gleaned almost at random from the reports of our Slum Sisters,which will show the value of the agency above described:--Many of those who are sick have often only one room,and often several children.The Officers come across many cases where,with no one to look after them,they have to lie for hours without food or nourishment of any kind.Sometimes the neighbours will take them in a cup of tea.