The annals of the poor, from which extracts occasionally appear in the newspapers in the accounts of coroners' inquests, prove to what dreadful sufferings many decent but destitute people will submit rather than become recognised paupers; and no system of charitable relief outside the workhouse walls will be effectual or useful which does not recognise and respect this feeling. Who would let the possible accident of some unworthy person getting a gratuitous pint of soup stand in the way of a work such as we see going on here, where one year's beneficent action includes above ten thousand persons relieved?—a large number of whom are temporarily taken into the Hospice, as we shall see presently, while a great contingent is represented by the family tickets, which enable poor working men and women from various districts in London to carry away a gallon of strong nourishing soup, and an apronful of bread to their hungry little ones. You see that great heap of pieces of fine bread—slices, hunches, remnants of big loaves, dry toast, French bread, brown bread, and rolls—all placed in a clean wooden bin, they also come from the two great West End clubs before mentioned, and are so appreciated by the applicants for relief (they being usually good judges of quality) that you may note a look of disappointment if the stock of club bread has been exhausted, and a portion of one of the common loaves bought for the purpose is substituted. The small broken bread in those clean sacks is club bread also—the crumbs from rich men's tables, but clean, and thoroughly good, fit for immediate addition to the soup, which a hungry company of diners consume in a painfully short space of time.
They are not inhabitants of this district, either; comparatively few come from the immediate neighbourhood, though, of course, some poor families of the adjacent streets and alleys, and occasionally foreign workmen—many of them adepts in artistic employments, who are in the land of the stranger and in want—come here and have not only the help of a meal, but the kind inquiry, the further aid that will sustain hope, and enable them to look for work, and find the means of living. Londoners from Kentish Town, Lambeth, Shoreditch, and Chelsea—poor hungry men and women from all parts of the great city—find their way here to obtain a dinner; and it is extremely unlikely that they would leave even the least profitable employment and walk so far for the sake of a basin of soup. Food alone is offered, not money, and there is little probability of imposition when there is so little to be gained by the attempt. But while the great cauldrons are being emptied, let us hear what they do at this "Mont St. Bernard Hospice" at the Christmas season.
Here is a list of good things that were sent at Christmas-tide for a special purpose:—A noble earl sent a sheep, if not more than one, and other generous givers in kind—many of them manufacturers of or dealers in the articles they contributed—forwarded loaves, biscuits, hams, rice, flour, currants, raisins, ale, porter, cocoa, peas, and other comfortable meats and drinks, so that there was a glorious distribution to the poor on Christmas Eve, when 936 families were provided with a Christmas dinner, consisting of 4 lbs. of beef, 3 lbs. of pudding, bread, tea, and sugar, together with such other seasonable and most acceptable gifts as were apportioned to them in accordance with the number of their children and the quantity of miscellaneous eatables and drinkables available for the purpose.
But we have not quite done with it yet, for it is a hospice in fact, as well as in name. Just as in the Newport Market Refuge, the houseless and destitute are received with little question—the homeless and friendless are here taken in after little inquiry, even the subscriber's ticket for admission being occasionally dispensed with, when Mr. Stevens, the superintendent, sees an obviously worthy case among the applicants who come to ask for a meal. It must be remembered, however, that an experienced eye can detect the casual very readily, and that Mr. Stevens, who served with his friend Mr. Ramsden, of Newport Market, when they were both in the army, is as smart a detective as that shrewd and compassionate officer. It is so much the better for those who are really deserving—so much the better even for those who, being ashamed to dig, are not ashamed to beg—the ne'er-do-weels who, even in the degradation of poverty brought about by idleness and dissipation, come down to solicit food and shelter, and find both, together with ready help, if they will mend their ways. There are some such, but not many: more often a man of education, broken by misfortune, and perhaps by the loss of a situation through failure or accident beyond his control, finds himself starving and desolate. Such men have come here, and found, first, food, then a lavatory, then a bed in a good-sized room, where only seven or eight persons are received to sleep, then a confidential talk, advice, the introduction to people willing and able to help them among the committee and subscribers of the Institution.
It may be a French tutor destitute in London, but with his character and ability beyond doubt; it may be, it has been, a young foreign artist; a skilled labourer from the country, who has come to London to find work and finds want instead; a poor school-teacher who, having lost an appointment, and being unable to work at any other calling, is in despair, and knows not where to turn; an honest fellow, ready and willing to turn his hand to anything, but finding nothing to which he can turn his hand without an introduction. Such are the cases which are received at this hospice in Ham Yard, where they are permitted to remain for a day or two, or even for a week or two, till they find work, or till somebody can make inquiries about them and help them to what they seek.
About seven men and eight women can be received within the walls, but there are seldom the full number there, because it is necessary to discriminate carefully. The object is to relieve immediate and painful distress, and to give that timely aid which averts starvation by the gift of food, and prevents the degradation of pauperism by means of advice, assistance, and just so much support as will give the stricken and friendless men or women time to recover from the first stupor of hopelessness or the dread of perishing, and at the same time afford the opportunity of proving that they are ready and willing to begin anew, with the consciousness that they have not been left desolate.
GIVING REST TO THE WEARY.
We have not yet done with this wonderful district of Soho. It is one of those attractive quarters of London, which is interesting alike for its historical associations and for memorable houses that were once inhabited by famous men. In essays, letters, fiction—all through that period which has been called the Augustan age of English literature—we find allusions to it; and after that time it continued to be the favourite resort of artists, men of letters, wealthy merchants, and not a few statesmen and eminent politicians. In Leicester Square, Hogarth laughed, moralised, and painted. The house of Sir Joshua Reynolds stands yet in that now renovated space, and a well-known artist has a studio there to-day. But the tide of fashion has receded since powdered wigs and sedan chairs disappeared. The tall stately houses are many of them dismantled, or are converted into manufactories and workshops. The great iron extinguishers which still adorn the iron railings by the doorsteps have nearly rusted away. It must be a century since the flambeaux carried by running footmen were last thrust into them, when great rumbling, creaking coaches drew up and landed visitors before the dimly-lighted portals. Silence and decay are the characteristics of many a once goodly mansion; and the houses themselves are not unfrequently associated with the relief of that poverty which is everywhere so apparent as to appeal to almost every form of charity. Before one such house we are standing now, its quietly opening door revealing a broad lofty hall, from which a great staircase, with heavy baluster of black oak and panelled walls leads to the spacious rooms above. This mansion is historical, too, in its way, for we are at the corner of Soho Square, in Greek Street, and are about to enter what was once the London residence of the famous Alderman Beckford, and his equally famous son—the man who inherited the mysterious and gorgeously furnished palace at Fonthill, the author of "Vathek," the half-recluse who bought Gibbon's extensive library at Lausanne, that he might have "something to amuse him when he went that way," and afterwards went that way, read himself nearly blind, and then made a friend a present of all the books, sold Fonthill, went abroad, and set about building another mysterious castle in a strange land.