London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 4

by Henry Mayhew

While, however, agencies of this kind are reformative in their relation to persons, they have also a preventive aspect, when viewed in their bearings upon the entire community; for the reformation of every vicious man is a social boon, inasmuch as it removes one individual from a course of vice, and thus diminishes the aggregate of crime.

As a nucleus of reformatory operations, and a “centre of information and encouragement,” the Reformatory and Refuge Union was established in 1856. It seeks to diffuse information respecting the various agencies at present in existence, and to encourage and facilitate the establishment of new institutions. In connection with the Union is a “Female Mission” for the rescue of the fallen. The Mission maintains a staff of female missionaries, whose business it is to distribute tracts among the fallen women of the metropolis, to converse with them in the streets, and visit them in their houses, in the hospitals, or in the workhouses. These missionaries, “as a rule, leave their homes between eight and nine o’clock at night, remaining out till nearly twelve, and occasionally till one in the morning. They are located in different parts of London, near to the nightly walks and haunts of those they desire to benefit. They have the means of rescuing a large number who have been placed in the Homes or restored to their friends.”

There are upwards of fifty metropolitan institutions for the reception of the destitute and the reformation of the criminal, or those who are exposed to temptation, capable of accommodating collectively about 4,000 persons of both sexes.

Nine of these institutions are designed especially for the reception and training of juvenile criminals, sentenced under the “Youthful Offenders’ Act,” and two for vagrants sentenced to detention under the “Industrial School Act.” Three are exclusively appropriated to the benefit of discharged prisoners, and the rest are chiefly employed in the rescue and reformation of destitute or criminal children.[8]

Most of these institutions, with the exception of such as are certified by Act of Parliament, and aided by Government subsidies, are supported entirely by voluntary contributions and by the earnings of the inmates, who are either admitted free on application, or by payment of a small sum towards the expense of maintenance.

Such is the benevolent machinery now at work within the metropolis for the reformation of our criminal population, and for the preservation of those who are in a fair way of becoming the moral pests and aliens of society.

The results, both in a religious, social, and sanatory point of view, achieved by these different agencies, are beyond all human calculation; and it is mainly to their beneficial and restraining influence that the peace, safety, and well-being of society may be attributed.

The other Reformative Agencies are those adapted to the rescue and reformation of fallen women, or such as have been led astray from the paths of virtue.

There are twenty-one institutions in London devoted to these objects, and unitedly providing accommodation for about 1,200 inmates. Ten of these are in connexion with the Church of England, and in the remaining eleven the religious instruction is unsectarian and evangelical. Three, viz., The Female Temporary Home, The Trinity Home, and The Home of Hope, are designed for the reception of the better educated and higher class of fallen women. One, viz., The London Society for the Protection of Young Females, is limited to girls under fifteen years of age; and another, The Marylebone Female Protection Society, affords shelter exclusively to those who have recently been led astray, and whose previous good character will bear the strictest investigation.

It may be fairly assumed that the objects of all these institutions are substantially the same, viz., the reformation of character, and the restoration of the individual to religious and social privileges. While, however, the end is in most cases one and the same, the methods and subordinate means adopted to insure its attainment, are often strikingly dissimilar, and present distinctive and almost opposite features. Thus one class of institutions, in imitation of our Lord’s merciful forbearance towards the sinner, make their treatment pre-eminently one of love, and seek by means the most gentle and attractive to win back the stubborn wills and depraved natures of those entrusted to their care. Kindness is the only instrument used in laying siege to the hard heart, and in mollifying the seared conscience. Stern discipline, irritating restraints, and rigorous exactions, form no part of a system which is built up on the model prescribed by Him, who “spake as never man spake.”