(1). There would be only one class in each establishment. If it was
found that the rich and the poor did not work comfortably
together, separate institutions must be provided.
(2). All would alike have to engage in some remunerative form of
employment. Outdoor work would be preferred, but indoor
employment would be arranged for those for whom it was most
suitable, and in such weather and at such times of the year when
garden work was impracticable.
(3). A charge of 10s. per week would be made. This could be
remitted when there was no ability to pay it.
The usefulness of such Homes is too evident to need any discussion. There is one class of unfortunate creatures who must be objects of pity to all who have any knowledge of their existence, and that is, those men and women who are being continually dragged before the magistrates, of whom we are constantly reading in the police reports, whose lives are spent in and out of prison, at an enormous cost to the country, and without any benefit to themselves.
We should then be able to deal with this class. It would be possible for a magistrate, instead of sentencing the poor wrecks of humanity to the sixty-fourth and one hundred and twentieth term of imprisonment, to send them to this Institution, by simply remanding them to come up for sentence when called for. How much cheaper such an arrangement would be for the country!
SECTION 5.—A NEW WAY OF ESCAPE FOR LOST WOMEN. THE RESCUE HOMES.
Perhaps there is no evil more destructive of the best interests of Society, or confessedly more difficult to deal with remedially, than that which is known as the Social Evil. We have already seen something of the extent to which this terrible scourge has grown, and the alarming manner in which it affects our modern civilisation.
We have already made an attempt at grappling with this evil, having about thirteen Homes in Great Britain, accommodating 307 girls under the charge of 132 Officers, together with seventeen Homes abroad, open for the same purpose. The whole, although a small affair compared with the vastness of the necessity, nevertheless constitutes perhaps the largest and most efficient effort of its character in the world.
It is difficult to estimate the results that have been already realised. By our varied operations, apart from these Homes, probably hundreds, if not thousands, have been delivered from lives of shame and misery. We have no exact return of the number who have gone through the Homes abroad, but in connection with the work in this country, about 3,000 have been rescued, and are living lives of virtue.
This success has not only been gratifying on account of the blessing it has brought these young women, the gladness it has introduced to the homes to which they have been restored, and the benefit it has bestowed upon Society, but because it has assured us that much greater results of the same character may be realised by operations conducted on a larger scale, and under more favourable circumstances.
With this view we propose to remodel and greatly increase the number of our Homes both in London and the provinces, establishing one in every great centre of this infamous traffic.
To make them very largely Receiving Houses, where the girls will be initiated into the system of reformation, tested as to the reality of their desires for deliverance, and started forward on the highway of truth, virtue, and religion.