To her Mother.
... I suppose Miranda will have told you of the offer of the ticket for the Abbey[[101]] to me. I do not know whether it is the news coming here, so far away; but it has impressed me rather. I cannot think why I, who have done so simply, and at no great cost, just what lay before me, should be singled out in this kind of way. I always feel as if I ought to do, or be, something more, in order to deserve it. What a wonderful state London seems to have been in about the Jubilee! What recollections the Queen must have had crowding on her at the service!
March, 1887.
? To the Secretary of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
Dear Sir,
You were interested about the plan of my taking charge of the houses occupied by the poor on the Southwark Estate of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; and I am anxious you should know how matters stand, as I feel as if the future of the people might be influenced by it. May I therefore tell you the state of affairs?
ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS
I was ready to have taken over all the weekly property in Southwark in the hands of the Commissioners. I was very willing to accept the decision that I should begin with a third or so of it, which I took over on May 5th. I was most anxious to have leased to me the portion of the ground allotted to the permanent housing of the poor, which was then unlet to builders. It would have rendered the personal work that we are doing among the tenants tenfold more useful, because we could have continued our work among them, and kept them together, with some sense of a corporate body, when the time came for the destruction of the present houses, instead of their being either scattered or handed over to the government of an ordinary builder.
The portion of the property handed over to our charge appears to be that most directly doomed to destruction, either by rebuilding by others, or by railways, or owing to its condition or situation. A large part of it, we are told, may be wanted this month. The whole of the land for rebuilding for the poor is now let.
The past cannot be helped. But I wonder if there is anything that you can do, to render our work more permanent, or to let it lead up to anything. I have written to Lord Stanhope and to Mr. Clutton to ask, in another form, the same question. They are both most kind; but I am anxious that you too should know the facts. Their past action makes me a little fear that either they hardly grasp the importance of the point, in their interest and pleasure in the new buildings, or, for some other reason, they may not decide to hand over more to our care....