The interruptions were a bar to sleep. I think the Bradford plan of letting the women go up to the dormitory at the hour, and not between, was a good one, and would make superintendence easier.
At length, past eleven, all grew sleepy, the little Lieutenant had, I think, given place to a night watcher, who stole quietly in to turn the gas down, and again to admit a late girl to the cubicles, and once or twice during the night, when all were sleeping, to look at her safely-folded sheep, going lovingly round the beds, apparently to notice who was safe "under her wing."
I did not stir, or show I was awake, but I said mentally, "God bless you, sister, and God bless the Army!"
For here, safely folded in peace and comfort were just those whose presence on our streets is a disgrace to our civilisation, and a social danger. It was abundantly evident that they were those who needed a helping hand. Few realise how terribly hard the present conditions of our social system press upon women. If a girl, a woman, or worse—a mother and child—are forced to remain out all night, God pity them.[106] Yet it is terribly hard for a woman, once down in the friendless state, with no one to speak for her, with clothing getting daily more dirty and ragged, to obtain any employment. What can the widow do? What about the deserted wife? The cry of the widow and orphan, the suffering of the friendless is daily before the eyes of the God England professes to serve.
Only one who is daily receiving the stories of the manifold ways in which women drop out or are forced out of homes, can understand the silent disintegration of womanhood that is forced upon many. Sometimes they are carefully reared, with a parent's love as protection, shielded from any real knowledge of life's hardships. But the protector dies and the struggle begins, a hard struggle for daily bread. No one is forced to keep them, save the workhouse. This they shun, or in some cases have extreme difficulty in gaining admission, the relieving officers having to be "begged and prayed," sometimes unsuccessfully, to admit even a starving woman, putting them off on one excuse or another.
Meanwhile, by degrees everything that can be turned into money goes for food. What wonder that the poor soul, desperate at losing all that makes life worth having, easily yields to the man ever ready to "treat" her? Such men are everywhere.
"Come and get a drink," is the usual way of accosting a woman. Yet if a solitary woman once acquires the drink habit, it is nearly impossible to lift her up, the craving is too strong. In the temporary "elevation" of drink she regains her past, forgets the poor bedraggled "low woman" she has become, and dreams of "better days." Suppose she resists drink, at any rate keeping apparently steady, and lives as a "charwoman," it is a most precarious existence, varying with the "times." Such women are taken "on" and sent "off" without compunction. It needs a "good connection" to make a livelihood, at any rate it requires a capacity for continuous hard work, which all do not possess. There are some few trades for destitute women hardly worth calling "trades," yet in some hand-to-mouth fashion thousands of solitary women exist, who are not idle, but try hard to "keep out of the house," so retaining their last possession—liberty! Is it not desirable that these our struggling sisters should live under the conditions that will preserve for them some sort of a "home" feeling?
The "pit" lies just beneath them, that terrible pit, where honour, love, and womanhood are swallowed up. They cling to those who love them, and many of them struggle, oh, so hard! just to keep afloat. God pity them! Every night in this England of ours our sisters are driven by poverty to sin.
"I must get my lodging money and a bit of food," they say. Money, even twopence, is not within the reach of every widow and orphan, and our poor-law conditions are almost prohibitive. Save as a temporary expedient, the casual ward, with its continual "move on," is no refuge. To descend to the common lodging-house is the last stage, just above utter homelessness. There the drink temptations are such that few women can withstand them. In many towns there do not exist lodging-houses for women only.
Yet above all, these women need to be protected, to live under good sanitary conditions, if in poverty. Such a shelter, therefore, as I was sleeping in, is a real social need. It would prevent countless women from drifting into vice if there was somewhere for them to live out of temptation during the night hours. As they grow old especially, their state grows more and more pitiable. They end their days in the workhouse usually, but stave off the evil day as long as they can. I do not believe that even women from the higher ranks can well help drifting to destitution if from any cause friends and foothold are lost. Most people distrust a friendless woman. Yet in many cases it is a matter of clothes!