Enough may have been said to induce other ladies to adopt the work. Taking the figures of the last two years’ work at one workhouse, we have seen 141 women. Of these we have sent out, to service or to work, ninety-five; and out of these only five have again returned to the workhouse. Of many we have lost sight, which is not to be wondered at when the ignorance of the women of this class is considered. A letter is to them a thing to be much pondered, but rarely attempted. Some, after long silences, reappear to ask advice in some temporary difficulty or to tell of progress made. Many remain close friends, coming to call on every holiday or writing long and affectionate letters. One wrote the other day a stilted letter of thanks ‘for having altered her position in the world for one of more sterling worth.’ Her future did look gloomy when first we became acquainted. She was the daughter of a seaside lodging-house keeper, brought up in a cheap (and nasty!) boarding-school, and sent to London, with many false ideas about work, and some true ones about wickedness, to earn her living in any ‘genteel’ employment. Her superficial education did not help her, and she came down lower and lower, till at last, finding herself in a lodging-house of doubtful reputation, she rightly chose the workhouse in preference to remaining there. Her widowed mother, unable to keep her, and fearful that her frivolities would influence badly her younger sisters, refused to receive her home. Her fine-ladyism and ignorance of any sort of household work were an effectual barrier to her taking service, while her sorry education prevented her even trying to teach. Service seemed to be the best opening for her, and the life best calculated to keep her straight. With some difficulty she was persuaded to look at it in this light, and then induced to enter a servants’ training home. She has earned good testimonials there, and is now a happy and useful servant.
The work is in itself simple, and yet has issues important, not only to the individuals helped, but to the community at large, for it tends to lessen pauperism, prostitution, and infanticide. It would be well if every lady of England were to consider how she can take part in it. If she is not herself able to visit the workhouse, she can, perhaps, open her house and heart to one of these girls who so sadly need such protection and care. Or, if that be impossible, she might undertake to befriend one of them.
Around every workhouse a committee of ladies might be formed. The meetings need not, perhaps, be formal nor frequent, but merely friendly gatherings to compare experience and to discuss reports of the work done. The visiting of the workhouse is, perhaps, for reasons which will be appreciated by those who are familiar with official establishment, better left to two or three of the members who, after seeing the girls and learning their histories, should pass one or more to each member of the committee to provide for. Every lady might be a member of such a committee. Every woman can befriend another, and perhaps may be the more moved to do so when she who needs the help is a girl no older than her own daughter in the schoolroom. There are few who cannot help the work of such committees by contributing 1s. a week for the helping of one little baby. Every one can spare a little of that loving care, can give a little of that all-saving friendship which so lavishly surrounds the life of most of us.
The work, too, is one which married ladies with homes, families, and social duties can easily take up. Women in this position are debarred from much work for the poor, because their natural and more sacred duties forbid them to run risks of infection or to take up work which would necessitate the devoting of a regular fixed day. But from both these disadvantages the work now under consideration is quite free. In the workhouse the visitor is safe from infection; the visits can be made at any time, for the women are always there, and there is always somebody waiting to be helped whenever one can go. It is, of course, better to fix a regular day for visiting if possible, so that those girls who have been seen once should be able to anticipate the second visit; but this is not at all essential, and frequently the duties of a mother or mistress do not permit of long absences from home. This work, excepting the periodical visit to the workhouse, can be done almost entirely from the writing-table in one’s own house. It necessitates a good deal of correspondence in order to insure obtaining suitable situations and respectable nurses; but it requires comparatively little absence from home, for when the girl is once placed, the friendly connection can best be established and kept up in the lady’s own house. There she can receive her otherwise friendless visitor; there she can strengthen the gentle bonds already begun in the House; there she can show to the homeless one some of the possibilities of home, and by such simple natural acts sow seed which will bring forth much good and happiness.
It is entirely a homely and personal work done in the home and in the interests of the individual and of the family; one full of elements of difficulty and frequently of disappointment and failure. It requires no costly machinery: wherever there is one woman who cares for other women; wherever there is a home full of the joys of family life; wherever two or three can meet together in common work, there is all the force that is required. If in every union and all its parishes, or even in many unions and some of their parishes, those who think that the work which has been done by a few working together is a useful one will take up their part of the burden as it lies near their door, the work may grow. If it grow naturally and by no enforced development, its results may be larger than can yet be foreseen. New thought may develop new plans, wider interest may bring wider change. Our workhouses may become the means of restoring to joy and self-respect many who now leave their walls sad and degraded. Society may be strengthened by the new link between the envied rich and the unknown pauper, a link of unassailable strength being formed of love and service. And if none of these things come to pass, the effort must still be good which rouses into action a part of that family life which in its rest is so beautiful.
Henrietta O. Barnett.
IX.
A PEOPLE’S CHURCH.[1]
[1] Reprinted, by permission, from the Contemporary Review of November 1884.