“This dear man was a housebreaker. All these dear fellows are jailbirds. One dear boy, Curry by name, who is now thoroughly converted, was the worst pickpocket in Whitechapel.” ...
Winch told me his own “experience.” His daughter went out to service in the country and wrote him letters about the “blessed Sundays” she passed, but did not say where she passed them. Then the second daughter went down to the same place and began to write the same sort of letters. About this time he chanced to go to a meeting of the Salvation Army and on coming home said to his wife: “I had rather see my daughter in her coffin than belonging to the Salvation Army.” In spite of what I said, by and by the wife began to look into the work, and she fair fell in love with it. Well, where the women folk go, the men must follow, and it’s three years since I was led to join the Army, and it’s the blessed times I have had. Last Sunday I walked six miles to hold an outdoor meeting, then an indoor meeting, then another outdoor meeting. I led the march. After that six miles’ tramp on foot at the end of a hard week’s work.
The part Winch enjoys the most is the meetings, especially those held out of doors.
“Some of the things we do,” he said, “I can see myself must look ridiculous, like the beating the drum and sich, but if souls are saved, what does it matter?” What, indeed?
We next visited the Elevator, so called because it is planned to elevate the men. On our way we went through a poor Jewish quarter where the children, a crowd of superb, red-haired, brown-haired, black-eyed babies, filled the narrow sidewalks....
It was polling day, the streets were filled with carriages bearing the names of the candidates. The walls everywhere were placarded with the names of the Liberal and Unionist candidates. I asked Sergeant Winch who he had voted for.
“I yielded to a great temptation to-day and voted for the Grand Old Man for the first time in my life.”
In the Hanbury Street Elevator unskilled laborers are set to work chopping wood. The wood is brought in long flat boards. Several men are stationed with a mechanical saw worked by a steam engine that cuts the boards in short lengths. These are given to the men, who sit in little wooden pens, each with a block before him and a hatchet. He takes the small pieces and chops them into tiny ones for kindling. I had always supposed that splitting wood must be desperately hard work till I saw how easily it is done in the Army. Another group sorts the wood into bundles and ties up the bundles with stout twine. Winch was welcomed by all the men. He had lately been in command of this Elevator and had invented the little pens for the wood choppers, to prevent quarreling among them over the amount each man had split. An account of the work is kept, and they are paid in leaden counters stamped two, three, or fourpence. With these counters they buy their food and lodging. The Elevators are only workshops; at night the men march to the Light House where they sleep. We visited the kitchen; neat and nice. The dinner was canned Australian mutton, which looked very good, boiled potatoes, beans and such delicious looking jam puddings! I wish I could have one made so well. When they have fresh roast beef they do not have pudding. Each man has a pint of tea, and all this for fourpence,—as good a dinner as anybody needs. The cook showed me his pantry, made me smell the tea, coffee, and cocoa, and taste the bread which was excellent. For breakfast they can have either tea or coffee with four great hunches of bread and marmalade, or a thick slice of cold meat,—all this for twopence. As a rule they prefer the jam to the meat....
Upstairs we saw the brush factory. They were making hair brushes. The men here were much more cheerful than at the Bridge. In looking from face to face one saw them all clean and intent. The cheeriness of the atmosphere surpassed any workshop I have ever seen. The brushes were some of them beautifully made, others rather roughly put together....
Winch spoke of the dreadful wickedness of the boys, but that they grow out of it so quickly when placed in the right atmosphere, proving that the natural direction of human growth is towards higher things.