In Darkest England, and the Way Out

by William Booth

SECTION 2.—THE INDUSTRIAL VILLAGE.

In describing the operations of the Household Salvage Brigade I have referred to the enormous quantities of good sound food which would be collected from door to door every day of the year. Much of this food would be suitable for human consumption, its waste being next door to sinful. Imagine, for instance, the quantities of soup which might be made from boiling the good fresh meaty bones of the great City! Think of the dainty dishes which a French cook would be able to serve up from the scraps and odds and ends of a single West End kitchen. Good cookery is not an extravagance but an economy, and many a tasty dish is made by our Continental friends out of materials which would be discarded indignantly by the poorest tramp in Whitechapel.

But after all that is done there will remain a mass of food which cannot be eaten by man, but can be converted into food for him by the simple process of passing it through another digestive apparatus. The old bread of London, the soiled, stale crusts can be used in foddering the horses which are employed in collecting the waste. It will help to feed the rabbits, whose hutches will be close by every cottage on the estate, and the hens of the Colony will flourish on the crumbs which fall from the table of Dives. But after the horses and the rabbits and poultry have been served, there will remain a residuum of eatable matter, which can only be profitably disposed of to the voracious and necessary pig. I foresee the rise of a piggery in connection with the new Social Scheme, which will dwarf into insignificance all that exist in Great Britain and Ireland. We have the advantage of the experience of the whole world as to the choice of breeds, the construction of sties, and the rearing of stock. We shall have the major part of our food practically for the cost of collection, and be able to adopt all the latest methods of Chicago for the killing, curing, and disposing of our pork, ham, and bacon.

There are few animals more useful than the pig. He will eat anything, live anywhere, and almost every particle of him, from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail, is capable of being converted into a saleable commodity. Your pig also is a great producer of manure, and agriculture is after all largely a matter of manure. Treat the land well and it will treat you well. With our piggery in connection with our Farm Colony there would be no lack of manure.

With the piggery there would grow up a great bacon factory for curing, and that again would make more work. Then as for sausages they would be produced literally by the mile, and all made of the best meat instead of being manufactured out of the very objectionable ingredients too often stowed away in that poor man's favourite ration.

Food, however, is only one of the materials which will be collected by the Household Salvage Brigade. The barges which float down the river with the tide, laden to the brim with the cast-off waste of half a million homes, will bring down an enormous quantity of material which cannot be eaten even by pigs. There will be, for instance, the old bones. At present it pays speculators to go to the prairies of America and gather up the bleached bones of the dead buffaloes, in order to make manure. It pays manufacturers to bring bones from the end of the earth in order to grind them up for use on our fields. But the waste bones of London; who collects them? I see, as in a vision, barge loads upon barge loads of bones floating down the Thames to the great Bone Factory. Some of the best will yield material for knife handles and buttons, and the numberless articles which will afford ample opportunity in the long winter evenings for the acquisition of skill on the part of our Colonist carvers, while the rest will go straight to the Manure Mill. There will be a constant demand for manure on the part of our ever-increasing nests of new Colonies and our Co-operative Farm, every man in which will be educated in the great doctrine that there is no good agriculture without liberal manuring. And here will be an unfailing source of supply.

Among the material which comes down will be an immense quantity of greasy matter, bits of fat, suet and lard, tallow, strong butter, and all the rancid fat of a great city. For all that we shall have to find use. The best of it will make waggon grease, the rest, after due boiling and straining, will form the nucleus of the raw material which will make our Social Soap a household word throughout the kingdom. After the Manure Works, the Soap Factory will be the natural adjunct of our operations.

The fourth great output of the daily waste of London will be waste paper and rags, which, after being chemically treated, and duly manipulated by machinery, will be re-issued to the world in the shape of paper. The Salvation Army consumes no less than thirty tons of paper every week. Here, therefore, would be one customer for as much paper as the new mill would be able to turn out at the onset; paper on which we could print the glad tidings of great joy, and tell the poor of all nations the news of salvation for earth and Heaven, full, present, and free to all the children of men.

Then comes the tin. It will go hard with us if we cannot find some way of utilizing these tins, whether we make them into flowerpots with a coat of enamel, or convert them into ornaments, or cut them up for toys or some other purpose. My officers have been instructed to make an exhaustive report on the way the refuse collectors of Paris deal with the sardine tins. The industry of making tin toys will be one which can be practised better in the Farm Colony than in the City. If necessary, we shall bring an accomplished workman from France, who will teach our people the way of dealing with the tin.

In connection with all this it is obvious there would be a constant demand for packing cases, for twine, rope, and for boxes of all kinds; for carts and cars; and, in short, we should before long have a complete community practising almost all the trades that are to be found in London, except the keeping of grog shops, the whole being worked upon co-operative principles, but co-operation not for the benefit of the individual co-operator, but for the benefit of the sunken mass that lies behind it.

RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF COLONISTS.

A document containing the Orders and Regulations for the Government of the Colony must be approved and signed by every Colonist before admission. Amongst other things there will be the following: —

1. All Officers must be treated respectfully and implicitly obeyed.

2. The use of intoxicants strictly prohibited, none being allowed within its borders. Any Colonist guilty of violating this Order to be expelled, and that on the first offence.

3. Expulsion for drunkenness, dishonesty, or falsehood will follow the third offence.

4. Profane language strictly forbidden.

5. No cruelty to be practised on man, woman, child, or animal.

6. Serious offenders against the virtue of women, or of children of
either sex, to incur immediate expulsion.

7. After a certain period of probation, and a considerable amount of
patience, all who will not work to be expelled.

8. The decision of the Governor of the Colony, whether in the City,
or the Farm, or Over the Sea, to be binding in all cases.

9. With respect to penalties, the following rules will be acted upon. The chief reliance for the maintenance of order, as has been observed before, will be placed upon the spirit of love which will prevail throughout the community. But as it cannot be expected to be universally successful, certain penalties will have to be provided: —

(a) First offences, except in flagrant cases, will be recorded.
(b) The second offence will be published.
(c) The third offence will incur expulsion or being handed over to the
authorities.

Other regulations will be necessary as the Scheme develops.

There will be no attempt to enforce upon the Colonists the rules and regulations to which Salvation Soldiers are subjected. Those who are soundly saved and who of their own free will desire to become Salvationists will, of course, be subjected to the rules of the Service. But Colonists who are willing to work and obey the orders of the Commanding Officer will only be subject to the foregoing and similar regulations; in all other things they will be left free.

For instance, there will be no objection to field recreations or any outdoor exercises which conduce to the maintenance of health and spirits. A reading room and a library will be provided, together with a hall, in which they can amuse themselves in the long winter nights and in unfavourable weather. These things are not for the Salvation Army Soldiers, who have other work in the world, but for those who are not in the Army these recreations will be permissible. Gambling and anything of an immoral tendency will be repressed like stealing.

There will probably be an Annual Exhibition of fruit and flowers, at which all the Colonists who have a plot of garden of their own will take part. They will exhibit their fruit and vegetables as well as their rabbits, their poultry and all the other live-stock of the farm. Every effort will be made to establish village industries, and I am not without hope but that we may be able to restore some of the domestic occupations which steam has compelled us to confine to the great factories. The more the Colony can be made self-supporting the better. And although the hand loom can never compete with Manchester mills, still an occupation which kept the hands of the goodwife busy in the long winter nights, is not to be despised as an element in the economics of the Settlement. While Manchester and Leeds may be able to manufacture common goods much more cheaply than they can be spun at home, even these emporiums, with all their grand improvements in machinery, would be sorely pressed to-day to compete with the hand-loom in many superior classes of work. For instance, we all know the hand-sewn boot still holds its own against the most perfect article that machinery can turn out.

There would be, in the centre of the Colony, a Public Elementary School at which the children would receive training, and side by side with that an Agricultural Industrial School, as elsewhere described.

The religious welfare of the Colony would be looked after by the Salvation Army, but there will be no compulsion to take part in its services. The Sabbath will be strictly observed; no unnecessary work will be done in the Colony on that day, but beyond interdicted labour, the Colonists will be allowed to spend Sunday as they please. It will be the fault of the Salvation Army if they do not find our Sunday Services sufficiently attractive to command their attendance.