Practicable Socialism: Essays on Social Reform

by S. A. Barnett; Mrs. S. A. Barnett

If the girl has been a servant before, she can obtain 15l. or 16l. a year; out of this she can pay 4s. or 4s. 6d. a week, and her lady friend can assist her by paying 1s. or 6d. a week towards her baby’s support. If the girl has never been a servant, it is necessary that she should enter service at a much lower wage. She must then get more money assistance, the sum being decided by the rough estimate that she should pay two-thirds of her money, whatever it is.

The small payment has many advantages; it enables the mother to disassociate herself from her past corrupting association; it assists her lady friend to keep up constant communication with her, whereby she is enabled to advise about her future, her change of place, her friends; and it also enables a watchful eye to be kept on the little one. Its nurse coming weekly to receive the money can tell of its progress, the lady can see if it is well cared for, and can by her interest encourage the nurse to do her best. As a rule the caretakers become very fond of their little charges. In one instance the mother having, alas! again returned to evil ways, the nurse continued to keep the baby without payment, jealously guarding him against his mother, ‘who might harm him when in drink.’ Another woman came to ask for a nurse-child because, she said, she had had fourteen children of her own, and now that they were all out in the world, ‘her old man said it was so lonesome-like.’ It is important, too, to choose the nurse carefully, for she has frequently a great influence on the mother, who will naturally be more inclined to listen to the wise words of one who is ‘good to her baby’ than to any mere well-wisher. The mother by this means gains a respectable friend of her own class, in many cases the first she has ever known. In one instance the nurse did what others had failed to do. The mother was one of those people to whom pleasure is as necessary as food and air. Among happier surroundings her sense of fun and capacity for enjoyment would have been a source of brightness, and rendered her a general favourite. For those in her sphere of life joy is an element considered unnecessary, and thus is a dangerous luxury. She had no desire to do wrong nor to offend, but pleasure she must have, and not being able to obtain it innocently, she took it lawlessly. Such conduct mistresses rightly would not allow, and she reached the workhouse when her boy was about three years old. There seemed to be no trace of affection for the child, nor any feeling beyond a sense of irritation at its helplessness and a desire to get it ‘into a home,’ and to be rid of the attendant responsibility. This last idea it was impossible to entertain, for responsibility might become her schoolmaster, and lead her up ‘the difficult blue heights.’

She was a thorough general servant; hence there was little difficulty in getting her into a place. A home for the boy was found, with a most demonstrative and affectionate nurse, who rarely spoke of him except as a ‘pretty lamb,’ and who loudly and frequently called on all to admire him. Little by little this influenced the young mother, who began to be interested in the much-talked-of and cared-for baby. The deducted wages were more cheerfully rendered for its support, and as love obtained admittance to her heart, and all the many cares which accompanied a child brought interest into her life, there became less need for the outside pleasures. The craving for enjoyment found satisfaction in giving joys to the baby boy.

It would be easy to give many instances of the success of this work, but one or two will suffice. Jane, a motherless girl of sixteen, brought up in a rough, low-class home, and sent to earn her bread before she could well distinguish good from evil—what wonder that she came into the only asylum open to her, harmed by the first man who had ever shown her a kindness? She appeared indifferent to her fate, but she showed such passionate and self-giving devotion to the child that it seemed possible that the mother’s character would be awakened by her feelings. They were accordingly placed in a house where they could be together; the child soon died, and Jane having greatly improved, she was sent to a situation, where she is doing well, and has got again some of the brightness of youth.

Emma, a woman of twenty-six, had for some years lived abroad with a man who promised her ‘English marriage,’ but who, on reaching England, basely deserted her. Characterless and unknown as she was, she tried in vain to get work to support herself and child; and at last, half dead with privation, she entered the ‘House.’ She had not a reference to give, nor a friend to apply to, but she did so thoroughly and well the work which the Matron gave her, and so earnestly pleaded to have a trial, that, trusting in my opinion of her sincerity, a good woman in the country took her as servant, who now, after two years of trial, writes to ask that other servants may be sent to her ‘as good as Emma.’ Her boy is placed in a village a few miles off, and all the holidays, most of the money, and many of the spare moments are given to him, in whom is treasured the one bright memory of her dreary past.

But of each girl that is helped such pleasant stories cannot be told. There are many failures: women whose resolution deserts them before the old temptations, whose promises are as lightly broken as they were earnestly made; girls whose ill companions offer them bright if lawless lives, and who leave the new hard ways for the well-known aimless, careless life.

But, in spite of many failures, the work is hopefully continued in the belief, founded on experience, that the idle can be induced to work and learn through daily labour the gospel which work teaches; that the coarse-minded can yet see the beauty of holiness if it is shown greatly and plainly; that the ignorant can yet be taught if patience be given; that the careless may yet be circumspect if cared for. Failures and disappointments are inevitable when the aim is not to make a temporary improvement, but to raise the ideas and radically change the habits of a class, to help whom there has hitherto been so little effort made.

But there is yet the third class of girls who have been cast by the wave of misfortune into the workhouse. These are not touched by the societies for befriending young servants, for many have never been servants, and some have started on their career before the societies were formed. Some come in because their parents break up their homes and altogether ‘enter the House.’ In such a plight was poor Martha, a sickly girl of eighteen, too crippled to be fit for manual work. Her father was dead; her mother was so drunken that the workhouse was for her the only resort; and thither she came bringing her children with her, and among them the poor weak Martha. The other children were sent to the district schools, but the cripple was too old to go there. There was nothing for her but to drag on a loveless, cheerless life and make her home in that unhomely place. She was a bright willing lassie, but her labour, such as it was, was not needed there, where she was but one of the many useless ones who help to give trouble and swell the rates. She was deft with her fingers and capable, if not of entirely supporting herself, still of adding wealth to the world by her work. A home was soon found for her where she could be taught straw-basket work, and on drawing the attention of the Guardians to her case, they at once consented to pay for the training. We occasionally see her. She has been taught to read and write, and to make bonnets and baskets quickly and well. She is very happy, and, though sighing when speaking of the workhouse, she adds in the same breath, ‘The Matron was real good to me there.’

Some seek the workhouse because, having lost their places and being alone in the world, they know not where else to go. Some having drifted there more than once arouse the contempt and antagonism of the officers; and these, unloving and indifferent because unloved, lose all hope and interest, and grow stubborn and hard. To these girls the lady must show herself their friend, and awaken their interest in life. One girl was sent to me, not yet twenty-one, who had passed through innumerable situations, who had been for six years in and out of the House continually, and who had once been sent to prison for a breach of the necessary discipline. She was pronounced ‘incorrigible’ by the authorities. I confess to having felt powerless to work her reformation when I saw her. Her stubborn set face, her downcast dull eyes, her stolid refusal to speak in reply to whatever was said, her apathy on all subjects made me feel that I had not a chance of touching her. I tried all ways, but at last aroused her by asking her to do something for me. The God-born sense of helpfulness in her awoke her sleeping soul. She felt she cared for the one person in all the world whom she had ever helped, and that affection has been her ‘saving grace.’ She is now earning 12l. a year, more, as she says, than she had ‘earned in two years afore,’ and her face, manners, and character are rapidly improving. She comes to me to help her to choose her new clothes, and I could not but be satisfactorily amused when the ‘incorrigible’ pauper insisted on having a ‘high art’ coloured dress, declaring that none of the others suggested were ‘half so pretty.’ Many such stories could be told, many beginning brightly and ending sadly, some turning out better than their commencement would have justified us in hoping. One poor child, motherless and worse than fatherless, after a short training in a Home, is now in service, and paying towards the support of her younger sister; another has a conscience so awakened as to make her hesitate for long as to her right to be confirmed because of the sin ignorantly committed which brought her to the rates, while tales could be told of women, rough and untutored, who have joyfully taken the hard, self-restraining path which leads to righteousness, and who, having once been given great ideals, receive them as new truths, and patiently (pathetically so among their rude surroundings) endeavour to live up to them.