Regeneration Part 4

Amongst this latter cla.s.s was a young Mormon from Salt Lake City, who earned 4_s._ 6_d._ a week and his board and lodging. He had been in the Elevator about three months, having got drunk in London and missed his s.h.i.+p. Although he attended the Salvation Army meetings, he remained a Mormon.

In these Works all sorts of articles are manufactured to be used by other branches of the Salvation Army. Thus I saw poultry-houses being made for the Boxted Small Holdings; these cost from 4 5_s._ to 4 10_s._ net, and were excellent structures designed to hold about two dozen fowls. Further on large numbers of seats of different patterns were in process of manufacture, some of them for children, and other longer ones, with reversible backs, to be used in the numerous Army halls. Next I visited a room in which mattresses and mattress covers are made for the various Shelters, also the waterproof bunk bedding, which costs 7_s._ 9_d._ per cover. Further on, in a separate compartment, was a flock-tearing machine, at which the Mormon I have mentioned was employed. This is a very dusty job whereat a man does not work for more than one day in ten.

Then there were the painting and polis.h.i.+ng-room, the joinery room, and the room where doors, window frames, and articles of furniture are constructed; also special garden benches, cleverly planned so that the seat can be protected from rain. These were designed by a young lady whom I chance to know in private life, and who, as I now discovered for the first time, is also a member of the Salvation Army.

Such is the Hanbury Street Workshop, where the Army makes the best use it can of rather indifferent human materials, and, as I have said, loses money at the business.

STURGE HOUSE, BOW ROAD

This branch of the Men's Social Work of the Salvation Army is a home for poor and dest.i.tute boys. The house, which once belonged to the late Dr. Barnardo, has been recently hired on a short lease. One of the features of the Army work is the reclamation of lads, of whom about 2,400 have pa.s.sed through its hands in London during the course of the last eight years.

Sturge House has been fitted up for this special purpose, and accommodates about fifty boys. The Officer in charge informed me that some boys apply to them for a.s.sistance when they are out of work, while others come from bad homes, and yet others through the Shelters, which pa.s.s on suitable lads. Each case is strictly investigated when it arrives, with the result that about one-third of their number are restored to their parents, from whom often enough they have run away, sometimes upon the most flimsy pretexts.

Not unfrequently these boys are bad characters, who tell false tales of their past. Thus, recently, two who arrived at the Headquarters at Whitechapel, alleged that they were farm-labourers from Norfolk. As they did not in the least look the part, inquiries were made, when it was found that they had never been nearer to Norfolk than Hampstead, where both of them had been concerned in the stealing of 10 from a business firm. The matter was patched up with the intervention of the Army, and the boys were restored to their parents.

Occasionally, too, lads are brought here by kind folk, who find them starving. They are taken in, kept for a while, taught and fed, and when their characters are re-established--for many of them have none left--put out into the world. Some of them, indeed, work daily at various employments in London, and pay 5s. a week for their board and lodging at the Home. A good proportion of these lads also are sent to the collieries in Wales, where, after a few years, they earn good wages.

In these collieries a man and a boy generally work together. A while ago such a man applied to the Army for a boy, and the applicant, proving respectable, the boy was sent, and turned out extremely well.

In due course he became a collier himself, and, in his turn, sent for a boy. So the thing spread, till up to the present time the Army has supplied fifty or sixty lads to colliers in South Wales, all of whom seem to be satisfactory and prosperous.

As the Manager explained, it is not difficult to place out a lad as soon as his character can be more or less guaranteed. The difficulty comes with a man who is middle-aged or old. He added that this Home does not in any sense compete with those of Dr. Barnardo; in fact, in certain ways they work hand in hand. The Barnardo Homes will not receive lads who are over sixteen, whereas the Army takes them up to eighteen. So it comes about that Barnardo's sometimes send on cases which are over their age limit to Sturge House.

I saw the boys at their dinner, and although many of them had a bad record, certainly they looked very respectable, and likely to make good and useful men. The experience of the Army is that most of them are quite capable of reformation, and that, when once their hearts have been changed, they seldom fall back into the ways of dishonesty.

This Home, like all those managed by the Salvation Army, is spotlessly clean, and the dormitories are very pleasant rooms. Also, there is a garden, and in it I saw a number of pots of flowers, which had just been sent as a present by a boy whom the Army helped three years ago, and who is now, I understand, a gardener.

Sturge House struck me as a most useful Inst.i.tution; and as there is about it none of the depressing air of the adult Shelters, my visit here was a pleasant change. The reclamation or the helping of a lad is a very different business from that of restoring the adult or the old man to a station in life which he seems to have lost for ever.

THE CENTRAL LABOUR BUREAU

This Bureau is established in the Social Headquarters at Whitechapel, a large building acquired as long ago as 1878. Here is to be seen the room in which General Booth used to hold some of his first prayer meetings, and a little chamber where he took counsel with those Officers who were the fathers of the Army. Also there is a place where he could sit unseen and listen to the preaching of his subordinates, so that he might judge of their ability.

The large hall is now part of yet another Shelter, which contains 232 beds and bunks. I inspected this place, but as it differs in no important detail from others, I will not describe it.

The Officer who is in charge of the Labour Bureau informed me that hundreds of men apply there for work every week, of whom a great many are sent into the various Elevators and Shelters. The Army finds it extremely difficult to procure outside employment for these men, for the simple reason that there is very little available. Moreover, now that the Government Labour Bureaux are open, this trouble is not lessened. Of these Bureaux, the Manager said that they are most useful, but fail to find employment for many who apply to them.

Indeed, numbers of men come on from them to the Salvation Army.

The hard fact is that there are more idle hands than there is work for them to do, even where honest and capable folk are concerned. Thus, in the majority of instances, the Army is obliged to rely upon its own Inst.i.tutions and the Hadleigh Land Colony to provide some sort of job for out-of-works. Of course, of such jobs there are not enough to go round, so many poor folk must be sent empty away or supported by charity.

I suggested that it might be worth while to establish a school of chauffeurs, and the Officers present said that they would consider the matter. Unfortunately, however, such an experiment must be costly at the present price of motor-vehicles.

I annex the Labour Bureau Statistics for May, 1910:--

LONDON

Applicants for temporary employment 479 Sent to temporary employment 183 Applicants for Elevators 864 Sent to Elevators 260 Sent to Shelters 32

PROVINCES

Applicants for temporary employment 461 Sent to temporary employment 160 Applicants for Elevators 417 Sent to Elevators 202 Sent to Shelters 20 Sent to permanent situations 35

THE INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT

This is a curious and interesting branch of the work of the Salvation Army. About two thousand times a year it receives letters or personal applications, asking it to find some missing relative or friend of the writer or applicant. In reply, a form is posted or given, which must be filled up with the necessary particulars. Then, if it be a London case, the Officer in charge sends out a skilled man to work up clues.

If, on the other hand, it be a country case, the Officer in charge of the Corps nearest to where it has occurred, is instructed to initiate the inquiry. Also, advertis.e.m.e.nts are inserted in the Army papers, known as 'The War Cry' and 'The Social Gazette,' both in Great Britain and other countries, if the lost person is supposed to be on the Continent or in some distant part of the world.

The result is that a large percentage of the individuals sought for are discovered, alive or dead, for in such work the Salvation Army has advantages denied to any other body, scarcely excepting the Police.

Its representatives are everywhere, and to whatever land they may belong or whatever tongue they may speak, all of them obey an order sent out from Headquarters wholeheartedly and uninfluenced by the question of regard. The usual fee charged for this work is 10_s_.

6_d_.; but when this cannot be paid, a large number of cases are undertaken free. The Army goes to as much trouble in these unpaid cases as in any others, only then it is not able to flood the country with printed bills. Of course, where well-to-do people are concerned, it expects that its out-of-pocket costs will be met.

The cases with which it has to deal are of all kinds. Often those who have disappeared are found to have done so purposely, perhaps leaving behind them manufactured evidence, such as coats or letters on a river-bank, suggesting that they have committed suicide. Generally, these people are involved in some fraud or other trouble. Again, husbands desert their wives, or wives their husbands, and vanish, in which instances they are probably living with somebody else under another name. Or children are kidnapped, or girls are lured away, or individuals emigrate to far lands and neglect to write. Or, perhaps, they simply sink out of all knowledge, and vanish effectually enough into a paupers grave.

But the oddest cases of all are those of a complete loss of memory, a thing that is by no means so infrequent as is generally supposed. The experience of the Army is that the majority of these cases happen among those who lead a studious life. The victim goes out in his usual health and suddenly forgets everything. His mind becomes a total blank. Yet certain instincts remain, such as that of earning a living.

Thus, to take a single recent example, the son of a large bookseller in a country town left the house one day, saying that he would not be away for long, and disappeared. At the invitation of his father, the Army took up the case, and ultimately found that the man had been working in its Spa Road Elevator under another name. Afterwards he went away, became dest.i.tute, and sold matches in the streets.

Ultimately he was found in a Church Army Home. He recovered his memory, and subsequently lost it again to the extent that he could recall nothing which happened to him during the period of its first lapse. All that time vanished into total darkness.

This business of the hunting out of the missing through the agency of the Salvation Army is one which increases every day. It is not unusual for the Army to discover individuals who have been missing for thirty years and upwards.

THE EMIGRATION DEPARTMENT

Some years ago I was present one night in the Board-room at Euston Station and addressed a s.h.i.+pload of emigrants who were departing to Canada under the auspices of the Salvation Army. I forget their exact number, but I think it was not less than 500. What I do not forget, however, is the sorrow that I felt at seeing so many men in the prime of life leaving the sh.o.r.es of their country for ever, especially as most of them were not married. This meant, amongst other things, that an equal number of women who remained behind were deprived of the possibility of obtaining a husband in a country in which the females already outnumber the males by more than a million. I said as much in the little speech I made on this occasion, and I think that some one answered me with the pertinent remark that if there was no work at home, it must be sought abroad.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INMATES OF A MEN'S INDUSTRIAL HOME.]

There lies the whole problem in a nutsh.e.l.l--men must live. As for the aged and the incompetent and the sick and the unattached women, these are left behind for the community to support, while young and active men of energy move off to endow new lands with their capacities and strength. The results of this movement, carried out upon a great scale, can be seen in the remoter parts of Ireland, which, as the visitor will observe, appear to be largely populated by very young children and by persons getting on in years. Whether or no this is a satisfactory state of affairs is not for me to say, although the matter, too large to discuss here, is one upon which I may have my own opinion.

Colonel Lamb, the head of the Salvation Army Emigration Department, informed me that during the past seven years the Army has emigrated about 50,000 souls, of whom 10,000 were a.s.sisted out of its funds, the rest paying their own way or being paid for from one source or another. From 8,000 to 10,000 people have been sent during the present year, 1910, most of them to Canada, which is the Mecca of the Salvation Army Emigration policy. So carefully have all these people been selected, that not 1 per cent have ever been returned to this country by the Canadian Authorities as undesirable. The truth is that those Authorities have the greatest confidence in the discretion of the Army, and in its ability to handle this matter to the advantage of all concerned.

That this is true I know from personal experience, since when, some years ago, I was a Commissioner from the British Government and had authority to formulate a scheme of Colonial land-settlement, the Prime Minister of Canada, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, told me so himself in the plainest language. Indeed, he did more, formally offering a huge block of territory to be selected anywhere I might choose in the Dominion, with the aid of its Officers, for the purposes of settlement by poor folk and their children under the auspices of the Salvation Army.

Also, he added the promise of as much more land as might be required in the future for the same purpose.[3]