This plan will also make the task of rescuing the girls much more agreeable to the Officers engaged in it. They will have this future to dwell upon as an encouragement to persevere with the girls, and will be spared one element at least in the regret they experience, when a girl falls back into old habits, namely, that she earned the principal part of the money that has been expended upon her.
That girls can be rescued and blessedly saved even now, despite all their surroundings, we have many remarkable proofs. Of these take one or two as examples: —
J. W. was brought by our Officers from a neighbourhood which has, by reason of the atrocities perpetrated in it, obtained an unenviable renown, even among similar districts of equally bad character.
She was only nineteen. A country girl. She had begun the struggle for life early as a worker in a large laundry, and at thirteen years of age was led away by an inhuman brute. The first false step taken, her course on the downward road was rapid, and growing restless and anxious for more scope than that afforded in a country town, she came up to London.
For some time she lived the life of extravagance and show, known to many of this class for a short time—having plenty of money, fine clothes, and luxurious surroundings until the terrible disease seized her poor body, and she soon found herself deserted, homeless and friendless, an outcast of Society.
When we found her she was hard and impenitent, difficult to reach even with the hand of love; but love won, and since that time she has been in two or three situations, a consistent Soldier of an Army corps, and a champion War Cry seller.
A TICKET-OF-LEAVE WOMAN.
A. B. was the child of respectable working people—Roman Catholics— but was early left an orphan. She fell in with bad companions, and became addicted to drink, going from bad to worse until drunkenness, robbery, and harlotry brought her to the lowest depths. She passed seven years in prison, and after the last offence was discharged with seven years' police supervision. Failing to report herself, she was brought before the bench.
The magistrate inquired whether she had ever had a chance in a Home of any kind. "She is too old, no one will take her," was the reply, but a Detective present, knowing a little about the Salvation Army, stepped forward and explained to the magistrate th at he did not think the Salvation Army refused any who applied. She was formally handed over to us in a deplorable condition, her clothing the scantiest and dirtiest. For over three years she has given evidence of a genuine reformation, during which time she has industriously earned her own living.