The actual repeal of this legislation was carried in April, 1886. My husband and I were at the time staying with my sister in Naples. It was a great joy to us to receive a telegram on April 16th, signed by Mr. Stuart and Mr. Stansfeld, saying: “The Royal Assent has this day been given to the Repeal Bill.” I thanked God at that moment that Queen Victoria had washed her hands of a stain which she had unconsciously contracted in the first endorsement of this legislation.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
WINCHESTER.
We again visited Grindelwald (in 1885), where we had the joy of meeting once more the Meuricoffre family. We had magnificent weather, favourable to mountain and glacier excursions. The nights were especially beautiful towards September, when there was a fine display of autumn meteors. It was my turn on this occasion to be obliged to hurry home, leaving my husband for a little longer enjoyment of the mountains. I was called home in order to advise in the matter of the action of our poor protégée, Rebecca Jarrett, who had been engaged by Mr. Stead to help him in his difficult researches. Two years previously we had opened at Winchester, as we had done at Liverpool, a little House of Rest, which served as a shelter for poor girls and young women who were recognised failures, morally and physically. Some were sick, rejected by hospitals as incurable; others friendless, betrayed and ruined, judged for one reason or another not quite suitable for other homes or refuges. We also took into the House of Rest however a few persons of more mature age, not invalids, who had fallen into trouble and misfortune, and who sometimes became excellent helpers in our work. Among these latter was the woman I have mentioned, who had put behind her and abjured her miserable past, and who showed much intelligence and tenderness as our aid in the work of rescue. The task however to which she was invited in London was of a different kind, and too heavy a responsibility for her. Hence the summons I received to come home and support her, and also in part to answer for her conduct, as she had been living with us.
It will be remembered that Mr. Stead and Rebecca Jarrett were tried on a charge of abduction, and sentenced to imprisonment. At the trial this poor woman, being cross-examined about her past life, told an untruth, and this was used by the prosecuting counsel as discrediting her whole evidence, with the result that the case against her and Mr. Stead was greatly damaged. Early in 1886 Josephine Butler published the story of Rebecca Jarrett, in order“to present the exact truth about her in justice to herself, and to Mr. Stead, for whom she acted; and also to give some incidents of personal history, which may tend not only to palliate these departures from truth, of which she was guilty, but to show that the situation in which she was placed was pathetic—even tragic—and one from which there was, humanly speaking, no escape.” She tells how before the trial some old associates, fearing what Rebecca might reveal concerning them, had gone down to her at Winchester, and pursued her with appeals and threats; and how she, after earnestly entreating them to lead a better life, had given them a solemn promise that she would not get them into trouble; and then how, under severe cross-examination in the court——
She answered truly as far as she could, until it came to the giving of an address which would have involved others in trouble. Then there flashed across her the promise made in her evil days, and the promise made later from better motives, under her new character. There rose afresh in her mind the desire that those to whom she had given her promise should see that a reclaimed woman would not break her word. She was standing between two oaths—the first, made to her old friends; the second, made in the witness-box, to speak “nothing but the truth.” Reader, were you ever in such a position—between two solemn promises, both of which you desired to keep, but which were opposed the one to the other? If you ever were, you can feel for this weak young convert to truth, and you can pity her weakness. Yes, she told a lie. She looked across the Court at me with an expression on her pale face which I shall never forget. That night, on returning to her lodgings, she spent several hours on her knees, weeping as if her heart would break; no word of consolation availed for her. It was in vain to try to comfort her. She cried, and screamed to God,“O God, I have told a lie; I have perjured myself in the witness-box; I have lied before the world; I have ruined this cause, and I have got all my kind friends into trouble! And yet, O God, Thou knowest why I did it—oh, Thou knowest why I did it. Look into my heart; Thou knowest why I did it!”
To a friend.
April 10th, 1886.
Last Sunday we had a delightful day at Pozzuoli, where Sir William Armstrong is establishing great ironworks for making ironclads for the Italian Government. He has sent out from England some forty or fifty picked men. They are all Northumbrians, and choice men in every respect for bodily strength and high character. They are also tried and skilled workmen. Mr. Stephen Burrowes, my sister’s helper in her work for the sailors, suggested that a Workmen’s Rest or Home for our English workmen and others should be established at once at Pozzuoli. Our party went in five or six open carriages to Pozzuoli—all the Meuricoffre family and others of the Swiss and Protestant community of Naples. Our dedicatory service presented a curious combination of associations of different centuries and various countries. The spot where we assembled was close to the ruined Temple of Serapis. It was also in the near neighbourhood of the large Roman amphitheatre of the times of Tiberius. Before us was the sea, its gentle waves beating on the shore—the shore, as you know, where St. Paul first landed in Europe, a prisoner, on his way to Rome. Opposite was Baiæ, where Nero held his infernal court—itself lovely and peaceful in appearance—and Capri, the sharp outline of whose steep rock, whence Tiberius used to fling his slaves headlong into the sea as an after-dinner amusement, stood clear against the pure blue sky. This whole neighbourhood has all its old entrancing charm still, and that wonderful beauty which made it of old the last resort of people satiated with every other form of luxury. It was the ideal of a summer Sabbath evening. My husband offered up a dedicatory prayer, invoking the blessing of God on the design which we had come to inaugurate, on every workman who should work there, and on the dear Meuricoffres and all who work with them for the good of the people around them. He alluded in his prayer to the advent in that very place of the great apostle of the Gentiles, charged with the precious gift for Europe—the Gospel of our salvation. Then we sang hymns, some of the old favourites of the English workmen. It was strange to hear those familiar songs, pronounced with the strong Northumbrian guttural, ascending from the ruins of the Temple of Serapis—a blending of associations past and present, heathen and Christian, ancient and modern. When the men found out that my sister and I were Northumbrians they could scarcely suppress their joy; and after that, whenever she or I made a remark, however trivial, they cheered. Most of them came from Blyth and Morpeth. They were chiefly Wesleyans, and politically supporters of Thomas Burt, M.P. Our drive home in the evening was delicious beyond description. It was perfectly calm, with a lovely sunset, the trees already flashing into their summer tints, and the air full of that most delightful scent of the early orange and lemon blossom which comes out while the trees are still covered with their golden fruit. It was a memorable day for us, as a pleasant family gathering and full of Christian hope.
This summer George Butler was very ill for several weeks with rheumatic fever. On his partial recovery, he was advised to try the baths at Homburg, and from thence they travelled to Aix-la-Chapelle and to Switzerland, where he became seriously ill again, and had to remain till December.