But these 253—what becomes of them? On their recovery they cannot remain in the infirmary, and must be sent to the able-bodied house, there to live on prison fare and to associate with the criminal and wilfully idle. Rather than do this many a young woman prefers to go out, taking her three-weeks-old babe with her, resolved to ‘get on’ as best she can. That ‘best’ is often the ‘worst.’ With her character gone, with two mouths to feed instead of one, and with the loss of self-respect rapidly following the loss of the respect of others, the unfortunate mother too often falls into hopeless vice; or, perhaps, the giant temptation presents itself of sacrificing the little wailing life which stands between her and respectability. Unhelped, unencouraged as they are, who can wonder that such mothers, so sorely tried, sometimes fall, and that the crime of infanticide is horribly rife?
But, frequent as such results are, the end is not always thus tragic; the ruined girl often returns to her father’s house and to the same conditions of life as before she fell. But this course, though not so apparently bad, is yet often very harmful. Her presence familiarises the younger members with vice, an unadvisable familiarity; for vice, while it gains much attractive power, gains also more deterrent force by its mystery in the minds of the young.
Sometimes the unwedded mother, on leaving the workhouse, honestly tries to get work at sack-making, factory-work, anything which will enable her to keep her little one near her; but it is a hard, an almost impossible task. The care of the child impedes the work, and thus it has to be put out to daily nurse. The ignorance, if not the apathy, of its badly paid nurse and the unsuitability of its food too often combine to extinguish the little flame which was burning to guide its mother back to virtue by the paths of love and self-control.
These, briefly, are some of the present evils which beset the lives of the young women who become mothers in our workhouses.
It was to cure some of such evils that a few ladies associated themselves together in the spring of 1876. We bound ourselves by no rules or bye-laws, for the work is one which is entirely of an individual nature. Strong personal influence has to be brought to bear on each applicant, with a distinct and definite object in view, suggested by the character of the woman and the circumstances of the case. There have been, unfortunately, changes in our workers, but we have continued to visit, with fair regularity, both the infirmary and able-bodied house of our Union. When work is necessarily left so largely to individual initiative, depending on the character of the worker, each lady must, naturally, adopt her own method of doing it. Some feel that they can do more for the girls by changing the circumstances of their lives, while others can do more with them by arousing their dormant moral natures and filling them with enthusiasm for good. But all ways of doing the work are needed, the more diverse the means the larger the number of women likely to be reached. The very diversity of the means makes it difficult, however, to write about the work as it is done by all the co-operators. It is, therefore, well that I should speak only of my own plan and experiences.
I visit about once a week, and see alone in a room, which the matron kindly lends for the purpose, each girl who has expressed a wish to lead a good life. After talking to her and learning of her antecedents, her statements are sent to the Charity Organisation Society to be verified. I try to learn something of her character, of the ideal she has of her own life, of the plans she has made for the future, of the kind and manner of good which appears to her most attractive and desirable. On receipt of the Report of the Charity Organisation Society each girl is dealt with in accordance with her past life; she who has suffered from the allurements and excitements of the town is sent into the country, being placed where the monotony and peace will protect her from herself; she who has for long lived a lawless and undisciplined life is induced to enter a Home or Refuge, where order and control will teach her the unlearnt lessons; while sometimes it is possible to get for her for whom drink has been too strong a situation with a teetotal family, who will help her by example as well as principle. For the woman whose maternal feeling wants frequent contact with her child to invigorate it a place is got where the mistress, knowing all the facts, will allow her servant often to see the little one; while the mother, whose sense of shame is stronger than her love for the child, is sent to a place far removed from the caretaker of her baby, trusting that the money which she weekly sends for it will keep in remembrance the sin of which she has been guilty and the innocent result of it.
It is a common idea that the only way of helping women sunk so low as these is to send them to Homes. This idea I would like to modify. Homes are very valuable in giving girls the opportunities of re-earning a character when, as they themselves say, they have ‘no one to speak for them.’ Still, in all these cases where the fault which brought them to the workhouse (serious as it may be) has not undermined the whole character, it is, perhaps, better to send them at once to service. In their mistresses’ houses they are, unconsciously, guarded from the grosser temptations which lone girls have to meet, being guided by influence rather than rule. The regular, if at times too hard, work of service demanded by the varying interests and needs of a family is the greatest help to a healthy tone of mind. In a good home they see family life in all its beauty, they see the commonplace virtues in a beautiful and attractive setting, and the kindliness which is engendered between the served and the server helps the poor stumbling soul along the path of duty over many a rough and difficult place. ‘Oh! ma’am,’ a girl said the other day, ‘the missus’s baby is such a dear; he do make me forget such a lot;’ a forgetfulness which was in her case the first necessary step towards a fairer future.
It is a good rule to tell every circumstance, however trivial, to the mistress, so that she can become in her turn the guardian of her servant against the besetting sin; and all honour be to those many ladies who have so generously come forward to take these girls into their own homes, sometimes giving them more wages than their services warranted, often helping them with clothes both for themselves and their children, and giving them too that priceless sympathy which outweighs every other gift. Such help saves more pain and makes more righteousness than big, barren subscriptions to far-off institutions; for
The gift without the giver is bare.