Attached to this Training Institution is a Home for girls of doubtful or bad antecedents, which I also visited. This Rescue Home is linked up with the Training School, so that the Cadets may have the opportunity of acquiring a practical knowledge of the class of work upon which they are to be engaged in after-life. Most of the girls in the Rescue Home have passed through the Police-courts, and been handed over to the care of the Army by magistrates. The object of the Army is to reform them and instruct them in useful work which will enable them to earn an honest living.
Many of these girls have been in the habit of thieving from their mistresses or others, generally in order to enable them to make presents to their lovers. Indeed, it would seem that this mania for making presents is a frequent cause of the fall of young persons with a natural leaning to dishonesty and a desire to appear rich and liberal. The Army succeeds in reclaiming a great number of them; but the thieving instinct is one not easy to eradicate.
All these girls seemed fairly happy. A great deal of knitting is done by them, and I saw a room furnished with a number of knitting machines, where work is turned out to the value of nearly £25 a week. Also I was shown piles of women's and children's underclothing and other articles, the produce of the girls' needles, which are sold to help to defray the expenses of the Home. In the workroom on this Saturday afternoon a number of the young women were engaged in mending their own garments. After their period of probation many of these girls are sent out to situations found for them by the Army.
THE WOMEN'S INDUSTRIAL HOME
HACKNEY
This Home is one of much the same class as that which I have just described. It has accommodation for forty-eight girls, of whom over 1,000 have passed through the Institution, where they are generally kept for a period of six months. Most of the young women in the Home when I visited it had been thieves. One, who was twenty-seven years of age, had stolen ever since she was twelve, and the lady in charge told me that when she came to them everything she had on her, and almost all the articles in her trunk were the property of former mistresses.
In answer to my questions, Commissioner Cox informed me that the result of their work in this Home was so satisfactory that they scarcely liked to announce it. They computed, however, that taken on a three years' test—for the subsequent career of each inmate is followed for that period—90 per cent of the cases prove to be permanent moral cures. This, when the previous history of these young women is considered, may, I think, be accounted a great triumph. No money contribution is asked or expected in this particular Home. Indeed, it would not be forthcoming from the class of girls who are sent or come here to be reformed, many of whom, on entering, are destitute of underclothing and other necessaries, The needlework which they do, however, is sold, and helps to pay for the upkeep of the place.
I asked what was done if any of them refused to work. The answer was that this very rarely happened, as the women-Officers shared in their labours, and the girls could not for shame's sake sit idle while their Officers worked. I visited the room where this sewing was in progress, and observed that Commissioner Cox, who conducted me, was received with hearty, and to all appearance, spontaneous clapping of hands, which seemed to indicate that these poor young women are happy and contented. The hours of labour kept in the Home are those laid down in the Factory Acts.