"Yes," replied the Doctor, "and buy them, too. I know of several lodging-houses where I could hire a baby from fourpence to a shilling a day. The prettier the child is the better; should it happen to be a cripple, or possessing particularly thin arms and face, it is always worth a shilling. Little girls always demand a higher price than boys. I knew of one woman—her supposed husband sells chickweed and groundsel—who has carried a baby exactly the same size for the last nine or ten years! I myself have, in days gone by, bought children in order to rescue them. Happily, such a step is now not needful, owing to changes in the law, which enable us to get possession of such children by better methods. For one girl I paid 10s. 6d., whilst my very first purchase cost me 7s. 6d. It was for a little boy and girl baby—brother and sister. The latter was tied up in a bundle. The woman—whom I found sitting on a door-step—offered to sell the boy for a trifle, half-a-crown, but not the mite of a girl, as she was 'her living.' However, I rescued them both, for the sum I have mentioned. In another case I got a poor little creature of two years of age—I can see her now, with arms no thicker than my finger—from her drunken 'guardian' for a shilling. When it came to washing the waif—what clothes it had on consisted of nothing but knots and strings; they had not been untied for weeks, perhaps months, and had to be cut off with a pair of scissors—we found something tied round its waist, to which the child constantly stretched out its wasted fingers and endeavoured to raise to its lips. On examination it proved to be an old fish-bone wrapped in a piece of cotton, which must have been at least a month old. Yet you must remember that these 'purchases' are quite exceptional cases, as my children have, for the most part, been obtained by legitimate means."
Yes, these little mites arrive at Stepney somewhat strangely at times. A child was sent from Newcastle in a hamper. It bore a small tablet on the wicker basket which read: "To Dr. Barnardo, London. With care." The little girl arrived quite safe and perfectly sound. But the most remarkable instance of all was that of little Frank. Few children reach Dr. Barnardo whose antecedents cannot be traced and their history recorded in the volumes kept for this purpose. But Frankie remains one of the unknown. Some time ago a carrier delivered what was presumably a box of Swiss milk at the Homes. The porter in charge received it, and was about to place it amongst other packages, when the faintest possible cry escaped through the cracks in the lid. The pliers were hastily brought, the nails flew out, the lid came off, and there lay little Frank in his diminutive baby's robe, peacefully sleeping, with the end of the tube communicating with his bottle of milk still between his lips!
"TO DR. BARNARDO, WITH CARE." From a Photo.
"That is one means of getting rid of children," said Dr. Barnardo, after he had told me the story of Frank, "but there are others which might almost amount to a respectable method. I have received offers of large sums of money from persons who have been desirous of my receiving their children into these Homes without asking any questions. Not so very long ago a lady came to Stepney in her carriage. A child was in it. I granted her an interview, and she laid down five £100 notes, saying they were mine if I would take the child and ask no questions. I did not take the child. Again. A well-known peer of the realm once sent his footman here with £100, asking me to take the footman's son. No. The footman could support his child. Gold and silver will never open my doors unless there is real destitution. It is for the homeless, the actually destitute, that we open our doors day and night, without money and without price. It is a dark night outside, but if you will look up on this building, the words, 'No destitute boy or girl ever refused admission, are large enough to be read on the darkest night and with the weakest eyesight; and that has been true all these seven-and-twenty years.
"On this same pretext of 'asking no questions,' I have been offered £10,000 down, and £900 a year guaranteed during the lifetime of the wealthy man who made the offer, if I would set up a Foundling Institution. A basket was to be placed outside, and no attempt was ever to be made either to see the woman or to discover from whence she came or where she went. This, again, I refused. We must know all we can about the little ones who come here, and every possible means is taken to trace them. A photo is taken of every child when it arrives—even in tatters; it is re-photographed again when it is altogether a different small creature."
Concerning these photographs, a great deal might be said, for the photographic studio at Stepney is an institution in itself. Over 30,000 negatives have been taken, and the photograph of any child can be turned up at a moment's notice. Out of this arrangement romantic incidents sometimes grow.
Here is one of many. A child of three years old, discovered in a village in Lancashire deserted by its parents, was taken to the nearest workhouse. There were no other children in the workhouse at the time, and a lady visitor, struck with the forlornness of the little girl waif, beginning life under the shadow of the workhouse, benevolently wrote to Dr. Barnardo, and after some negotiations the child was admitted to the Homes and its photograph taken. Then it went down to the Girls' Village Home at Ilford, where it grew up in one of the cottage families until eleven years old.
One day a lady called on Dr. Barnardo and told him a sad tale concerning her own child, a little girl, who had been stolen by a servant who owed her a spite, and who was lost sight of years ago. The lady had done all she could at the time to trace her child in vain, and had given up the pursuit; but lately an unconquerable desire to resume her inquiries filled her. Among other places, she applied to the police in London, and the authorities suggested that she should call at Stepney.
Dr. Barnardo could, of course, give her no clue whatever. Eight years had passed since the child had been lost; but one thing he could do—he could turn to his huge photographic album, and show her the faces of all the children who had been received within certain dates. This was done, and in the course of turning over the pages the lady's eye fell on the face of the little girl waif received from a Lancashire workhouse, and with much agitation declared that she was her child. The girl was still at Ilford. In an hour's time she was fetched up, and found to be a well-grown, nice-mannered child of eleven years of age—to be folded immediately in her mother's arms. "There could be no doubt," the Doctor added, "of the parentage; they were so much alike." Of course, inquiries had to be made as to the position of the lady, and assurances given that she was really able to maintain the child, and that it would be well cared for. These being satisfactory, Dorothy changed hands, and is now being brought up under her mother's eye.