Take, for instance, the prevalence of drink and gambling. A young man came to me one night in East London with a face as pale as death. I had known him as a boy, but he had dropped out of our club system on growing too old for the boys' club, and had got drawn into a drinking set. "Save me!" he cried, as he fell upon his knees and took my hand. He had, he said, been led in the public-house to put his money on horses of which he knew nothing, and had finally spent nine pounds belonging to a shop club, of which he was treasurer. He had to meet his mates next morning; he was only twenty-one, of respectable parents, and engaged to a respectable girl, and with only three months to run out of his apprenticeship. "If you don't help me, sir, I am ruined for life!"
I did lend him the money, to be repaid by instalments, but the story will show the dangers to our young population, and the need of strong and definite work among them from their earliest years. With a public-house at every corner, and a bookmaker's clerk waiting for them during dinner hour, what chance have the poor lads and girls unless someone will go down and live among them and teach them better things? I remember running-in a man who had the insolence to stand outside Oxford House and take money from boys and girls, as well as men and women, during dinner hour, and though he was fined five pounds at once, he had more than twenty pounds on him in coppers and small silver. The fine ought to be raised, as the present maximum—five pounds—is easily paid, and they think nothing of it, and go on again just the same next day.
(Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd.)
THE GREAT HALL AT THE PEOPLE'S PALACE.
It was no doubt the growing necessity of bringing a higher standard of life into the "city of the poor" and bridging over the gulf between rich and poor, establishing counter-attractions to the public-house and the gambling-hell, which led Canon Barnett, some fifteen years ago, to suggest the formation of settlements among the poor. His visit to Oxford in 1884, backed up by Bishop Walsham How and Miss Octavia Hill, led to the establishment of Toynbee Hall in Whitechapel, and later on in the same year of Oxford House in Bethnal Green. Of the former excellent institution, which still owes so much to its founder and present Warden, Canon Barnett, much has been written in past years, and, as space is limited even in The Quiver, I have only room to say a few words more about Oxford House. It was founded on a definite Church basis, and its workers were and are members of the Church of England, but it threw open its clubs and its doors to men of all creeds and all kinds.
When I was myself called to be Head of the House in 1880, it was situated in a back street in Bethnal Green, and consisted of a disused Church school knocked into rooms. As residents increased, we found so small a house quite inadequate, and the present Oxford House was built on a disused site in the next street, and opened by the Duke of Connaught five or six years ago. It has had a full complement of twenty men ever since, and the acquisition of the rectory of Bethnal Green when I became Rector of Bethnal Green in 1895, enabled us for some time to have thirty workers—all laymen with the exception of myself.
(Photo: Cassell and Co., Ltd.)
A VIEW OF BETHNAL GREEN MUSEUM.