Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

In this big room, which is neither dining-room, nor kitchen, nor refectory, but a homely combination of all three, there is no ornament, no sign of luxury, or of unnecessary expenditure-plain deal forms or stools at plain deal tables, on which are arranged a regiment of full-sized mugs of good sound tea, and plates, each containing a substantial half-pound slice of bread from a homely two-pound loaf, spread with butter or dripping. For breakfast the same quantity is provided, with the substitution of coffee for tea; and dinner consists of a half-pound of roast or boiled meat, with plenty of vegetables, and dumplings, pies, or puddings; while bread and cheese, or bread and butter, is served for supper. For it must be remembered that these are working lads, and that they require to be substantially, and, from the nature of their bodily affliction, even generously fed, so that these supplies of pure plain diet are not by any means excessive; and they are such as one very ordinary kitchen can supply--a kitchen, by the bye, which will probably be superseded by a more convenient one when the new wing shall be finished. Yet there is something in these unadorned, bare, almost too plainly appointed places, which brings with it a reassuring conviction that the institution has never been pampered. The dining-room, which has to do duty for a school-room also--the play-room, which is a rather dim kind of retreat on this November evening--and the plain, rather bare, but still clean and airy dormitories (especially those in the big bay-windowed front rooms of the old red brick house), are evidences that the place does not belie its name; that it is really a home, but essentially an industrial home, where work goes on as part of each day's blessing, and the title to play freely and with a light heart is thereby ensured.

_WITH THEM WHO HAVE NOT WHERE TO LAY THEIR HEADS._

There is a degree of poverty which, while it is not absolute pauperism, often has deeper needs than those which are alleviated by parochial relief--a destitution which is none the less bitter because those who suffer it cannot stoop to actual mendicancy, and shrink from the degradation of the casual ward and its contaminating influences.

Those of us who at this season of the year are surrounded with comforts, and can meet together to enjoy them, should feel that there is no sadder phase of the life of this great city than that to which our attention is called by the statistics of those same casual wards, and the accompanying certainty that every night there are men, women, and children, who, amidst surrounding luxury and splendour, have not where to lay their heads, and for whom the repellent door of the nearest union workhouse is closed, even if they could summon such courage as comes of desperation, and dared to enter.

Happily, the numbers of those who seek what is called casual relief have diminished in proportion to the general abatement of pauperism; and it is perhaps encouraging to know that the applicants for nightly shelter at Refuges for the homeless and destitute are fewer than they were three or four years ago. This is a fact which should be made public, because some of these Refuges have been accused of offering inducements to casual paupers to seek food and shelter provided by charitable subscriptions, instead of betaking themselves to the night-wards provided for them at metropolitan workhouses. The complaint was made on altogether insufficient grounds, at a time when, during a hard winter, and with a fearful amount of distress among the poorest class of the community, the workhouse night-wards themselves were frequently inadequate to the demands made upon them; while, apart from the persons who were known as casual paupers, there were hundreds of unfortunates suffering from temporary starvation and the want of a place in which to find a night's lodging, who yet were altogether removed from what is known as pauperism, and dreaded the abject hopelessness which they associated with "the Union."

It should not be forgotten, either, that the task which is, and was then, imposed upon the pauper on the morning following his night's lodging and its previous dole of gruel and bread, renders it almost impossible for the recipient to obtain work. Before his job of stone-breaking or oakum-picking is accomplished, the hour for commencing ordinary labour outside the workhouse walls has passed, and his hope of resuming independent employment, and the wages that will provide food and lodging for the next four-and-twenty hours, has passed also. This alone is always sufficient to make a very marked distinction between the regular casual pauper and the temporarily unfortunate man or woman who, having failed to get work, and seeking only the aid that may give rest and strength for a renewed effort, might look in vain for succour but for the existence of places like that admirable Institution to which I wish to take you to-night.

The shameful spectacle of groups, and, in many instances, of crowds, of houseless, starving, and half-naked creatures huddled about the doors of casual wards, to which they had been refused admission in direct defiance of legislation, led to the establishment of Night Refuges. There was then no time to dispute. While boards and committees were squabbling and vilifying each other, the poor were perishing. But even now that a better system prevails, and pauperism has so considerably diminished, there is much necessity for the continuance of these institutions and their adaptation to the relief of that kind of distress which is all the more poignant because it is at present only temporary, but would receive the brand and stamp of permanence if it could find no other mitigation than that secured by an appeal to workhouse officials, the shelter of the casual shed, the union dole, and the daily task required in return.

At the time that Night Refuges were first founded, in consequence of the failure of the Houseless Poor Act, there were one or two institutions which went on the plan of offering no inducement whatever to those who sought shelter within their walls. The provisions were barer, the beds harder, the reception little less cold and unsympathetic than they would receive at any metropolitan union.

Those of my readers who remember the Refuge for the Houseless Poor which once stood in Playhouse Yard, close to that foul tangle of courts that still exists between Barbican and St. Luke's, and is known as "The Chequers," will understand me when I say that there were no alluring inducements for the houseless and the destitute to seek its aid.

I have seldom seen a more painfully suggestive crowd than that which waited outside the blank door of that hideous building on a cold drizzly evening when I paid the place a visit, only a short time before it was finally closed. I cannot deny, however, that the applicants for admission consisted of those persons for whom the institution seemed to be especially designed. The very lowest class of poverty, the representatives of sheer destitution, made up the 350 men and the 150 women who were to occupy the bare wooden bunks in the two departments of the building that night, and to accept, as a stay against starvation, the half-pound of dry bread and the drink of water. What I would call emphatic attention to, is the fact that this place was filled nightly at that time, because the inmates could leave early in the morning to seek a day's work, and so rise out of that depth of destitution which was represented by the nightly return to the casual ward. But let us remember that, though this Institution could scarcely be characterised by the warm name of "charity," it received all applicants who were not suffering from infectious diseases, and therefore its policy was deterrent. In order to separate itself from the idle casual, it made its provisions little short of penal, and, indeed, very far short of those common comforts that are to be found in prison.

But the Refuge in Newport Market was one of those which had been founded on a different principle. It was never intended as a supplement to the casual ward, or as having any relation to poor-law relief; though, during the terrible distress that overtook the houseless in that severe winter when our poor-law arrangements broke down utterly, it was impossible for any place founded in the name of Christian love and charity to be very particular in excluding famishing and frozen men and women on the suspicion that they had already somehow obtained parochial relief the night before.

This "Refuge" was originally established by the influence and the personal exertions of Mrs. Gladstone, and a few ladies and gentlemen who, knowing of the extreme distress that prevailed in all that poverty-stricken neighbourhood about Seven Dials, around the alien-haunted district of Soho, and in the purlieux of Drury Lane, and the courts of Long Acre, set about providing some remedy for the misery that homeless, destitute men, women, and children had to suffer during the bitter nights of winter. First, a regular mission was established in an ordinary room, and, after a time, space was secured to make a Refuge--first for six, then for ten, and afterwards for twenty of the most destitute cases which came under the notice of the mission-woman. This went on till the funds were sufficient to warrant a very earnest desire to obtain larger premises, and at last to make a bid for that queer ramshackle old slaughter-house, which was the rather too indicative feature of the locality. The landlords of this place were fully alive to the value of any property rising in proportion to the anxiety of somebody to become its tenant, and they demanded a high rent accordingly. Still, the work had to be done, and the slaughter-house--cleansed, repaired, whitewashed, and divided into several queer, irregular-shaped wards and rooms, which were reached by strange flights of steps and zig-zag entries--was opened with cheerful confidence and hope, under the earnest superintendence of the Rev. J. Williams, who was at that time incumbent of the parish of St. Mary, Soho. It was at that period that I first made acquaintance with the Institution, and with the quiet, undemonstrative work of charity which was carried on there, and is continued to this day, though it is less arduous now that the neighbourhood itself has felt the influence of such an organization--not so much in the diminution of actual poverty, as in the humanising and constantly suggestive presence of men and women who have brought a gospel to those who were hopeless, and seemed to have none to care for them.

The need to receive numbers every night to the utmost limits of the Institution has passed now, except occasionally during very severe weather; and though the cases admitted are still those where deep, and sometimes apparently almost fatal, misfortune is the claim, there is no longer the urgency which forbade a too discriminating selection, and the regular casual stands no chance under the quick and experienced eye of the superintendent, Mr. Ramsden, whose military tone and manner are, by the way, modulated so as to carry the sense of detection to the pretender, and to support and give courage to the weak and faint-hearted.

The same complete, quiet method of receiving applicants who await admission enables me to repeat the impression which I received during the time that the demands upon the night Refuge were more urgent. The experienced visitor who stands at the gate of this rehabilitated building that was once the old slaughter-house, and who watches the people go in one by one, and listens to their low-voiced pleas for food and shelter, cannot mistake them for casual ward cases. Just as, in some other Institutions, the pain of the spectacle is the degraded poverty of those who seek aid, the most affecting element here is utter destitution, without that _accustomed_ debasement which would find a fitting resource at the workhouse door, leading to the night shed.

These are broken-down men and women; old men beaten in the battle of life, and full of present sorrow; young men who have fought and failed, or who have eaten of the husks, and seek occasion to rise to a better mind; middle-aged men not altogether crushed or hopeless, but in sore want, and needing the sound of a kindly voice, the touch of a friendly hand; women who have lost youth and worldly hope together--women who, more weak than wicked, and without resource, need some stay alike for fainting bodies and for wandering souls; women worn and hungry, because of the lack even of ill-paid work, and asking for rest and food till they can seek employment: some who will go forth in the morning and set out afresh; others who, if they can secure two or three nights' lodging, with a mouthful of food and drink morning and evening, have a good hope of doing better in the future.

To those who know how the demand for certain kinds of labour varies, and frequently slackens towards the winter months, when need is sorest, this latter most merciful provision comes with a sense of truest charity. Tickets of admission are issued to friends and visitors of the Institution (and any one may be a visitor who chooses to ring at the bell of the old slaughter-house), entitling the holder to admission after the regular evening hour of half-past five to six, so that in bestowing one of these the judicious subscriber (not necessarily, but surely from sympathy a subscriber) can be a true benefactor. For these tickets will admit the really deserving nightly for a week, with supper of bread and coffee or cocoa, or occasional savoury soup, and breakfast of bread and coffee. And even this time is occasionally extended, if there be a reasonable prospect of obtaining work. Not only ticket-holders, but every applicant, may have the same privilege, if it can be shown that he or she is really likely to obtain employment. But there is more than this. There are men here--truest of gentlemen, beyond that social stamp of rank which rightfully belongs to them--who, with a real, manly instinct, know how to take poverty by the hand without offensive patronage or untimely preaching. There are ladies who, in their true womanhood, can see the contrition in faces bowed down--the shame that is caused, not by evil doings, but by the feeling of dismay which comes of having to ask for charity--can sympathise with broken fortunes, with gentle nurture--cast upon a hard, relentless world, with that poverty which is "above the common."

More still. Among the supporters and the constant visitors are those who can use special influence for cases that need it most, and obtain for them admission to hospitals and other asylums, or introduce to situations those who by sudden calamity have been deprived of the means of living.

Yes, even in their deepest need, poor, wandering, homeless women may come here and find help, for in that large, lofty, yet warm and well-lighted room, the women's dormitory--one side of which is composed of a series of niches where the comfortable beds are placed--there are to be seen a row of doors, which seem to belong to a series of cabins, as, indeed, they do. Each door opens into a small bed-room--small, but with room for a chair, a tiny table, and the neat bed. They are the lodgings set apart for women, who, in the midst of their poverty and destitution, are looking forward fearfully to the time when children will be born to them, and so to a period of weakness, and of the sad mingling of maternal pity and desponding sorrow. Let me say, in one line from the Report, that last year eight young women were received into the Refuge some time before their confinement, were passed on to Queen Charlotte's Hospital, and were helped until such time as they were able to help themselves.

I think the knowledge of this is so cheerful an instance of the value of this most representative Refuge, that even the sight of the bright, warm, glowing kitchen, with its great boiler of hot coffee, and its noble kettle of soup occupying the jolly range, scarcely imparts an extra beam to the picture; while the long rows of white mugs, the pleasant, clean, fragrant loaves, the big milk-cans, the courteous _chef_, who has a true and pardonable pride in his surroundings--no, not even the cosy, rug-covered berths and bunks in the dormitories, nor the quaint little corner-room to which I have to climb a crooked staircase to shake hands with the sister who is in charge, nor the equally quaint and cornery, not to say inconvenient, sitting-room of Mr. and Mrs. Ramsden, who have left their tea unfinished to do the honours of the Institution--can suggest to me a better word to say than that which is suggested by the picture of the poor wandering, weary, fainting women, who, almost in despair, not only for a real, but for an expected life, come here to find rest and peace.

Stay; one word more. Who are the class of people for whom the Refuge doors are ordinarily open? Let us see what were the most numerous cases among the inmates who during the year received 6,669 nights' lodgings and 16,889 suppers and breakfasts. Among the men "labourers," of course, are most numerous; then discharged soldiers--poor fellows who have perhaps foolishly snatched at liberty when offered, and foregone the advantages of re-engagement and a pension; next in numerical order come _clerks_--a very painfully suggestive fact, especially when read by the light of the advertisement-columns of our newspapers, and the sad story of genteel poverty in that great suburban ring which encircles the wealthiest city in the world. Of house-painters there were 24; of servants, 21; of tailors, 13; of seamen, 8; and other callings were represented in remarkable variety, including 1 actor, 6 cooks, 1 schoolmaster, 2 surveyors, and 1 tutor. Among the women, 199 servants--show sadly enough the truth of the old adage, "Service is no inheritance;" while in numerical succession there were, 55 charwomen, 41 laundresses, 37 needlewomen, 31 tailoresses, 27 dressmakers, 26 machinists (alas! how many women still utterly depend on "the needle" for a subsistence!), 24 cooks, 20 ironers, 16 field-labourers. There were 4 governesses, 1 actress, 1 mission-woman, and 1 staymaker, the rest being variously described.

From among these, 94 men and 193 women obtained employment, 77 women having been sent to Penitentiaries and Homes, while 18 were supported in the Refuge or elsewhere by needlework, 13 were sent to their friends, 60 obtained permanent work, and 14 girls of good character were sent to Servants' Homes.

But I have left out one thing now. Among this great representative company of refugees were 60 children, of whom 37 were sent to nurse or to school, while those who were old enough---- Well, just listen to that burst of military music in a distant upper-room of the old slaughter-house. I must tell you something about the Newport Market boys in another chapter.

_TAKING IN STRANGERS._

Yes; listen to that startling clangour of military music coming from an upper room. We are standing, you know, in the cheerful kitchen of that Refuge for the Homeless in the renovated old slaughter-house in Newport Market, and I want you to come with me to see the boys' school, which occupies a very considerable portion of that weatherproof but ramshackle building.

Only those who are acquainted with the poverty and the crime of this great metropolis can estimate the deep and urgent need that still exists for refuges in which homeless, destitute, and neglected children can be received for shelter, food, and clothing. Only the practical student of the effect of our present administration of the Education Act can calculate how vast a necessity is likely to exist for the reception and instruction of the children of the poorest, even when all the machinery of the present School Board is put in motion for vindicating the compulsory clause.

Let that clause be interpreted in the most liberal manner--which would be in effect to provide State education without cost to the parents--and the Act will still leave untouched a vast number of children for whom nothing can be done until their physical necessities are provided for--children who are perishing with cold, starving for want of food. A visit to some of the big buildings recently erected by the London School Board will reveal the fact that there are many such children now in attendance; neglected, barefoot, half-clothed, hungry, and with that wistful eager look, sometimes followed by a kind of stupefaction, which may be observed in the poor little outcasts of the streets. There is no reasonable hope of doing much with these little creatures till the "soup-kitchen" and the "free breakfast" are among the appliances of education, where the necessity is most pressing, and the children perish for lack of bread as well as for lack of knowledge.

As it is--I need not refer again to the escape which is always open from the streets to the prison. The few Government industrial-schools to which magistrates occasionally consign young culprits brought before them are intended only for those who come within the cognisance of the law.

The operations of these reformatory-schools are successful so far as they go. They represent seventy-five per cent. of successful reformatory training as applied to juvenile transgressors committed by magistrates to their supervision.

Perhaps, when we are fully impressed with the meaning of the statistics which are published each year in the Report of the Inspectors of Certified Schools in Great Britain, we shall begin to consider how it will be possible to regard destitute children in relation to the guardianship of the state _before_ they qualify themselves for Government interposition by the expedient of committing what the law calls a crime.

The last Report states distinctly that the sooner criminal children are taken in hand, the more complete is their reformation. There are fewer "criminals" of less than ten years of age than there are hardened offenders of from twelve to sixteen. This is, so far, satisfactory; but when we consider that (including Roman Catholic establishments) there are but fifty-three reformatories in England, and twelve in Scotland (thirty-seven of those in England and eight in Scotland being for boys, and sixteen in England and four in Scotland for girls), and that in 1873, when the Report was issued, the sum-total of children in all these institutions was but 5,622, of whom one-fourth were in the Roman Catholic schools--we cease to wonder at the vast number of homeless, neglected, and destitute children in London alone--a number which, notwithstanding the efforts of philanthropy and the activity of School Board beadles, exceeds the total of all the inmates of the State reformatories throughout the kingdom.

This refuge at Newport Market had included destitute and starving boys among those who were brought to its shelter from the cruel streets, the dark arches of railways and of bridges, and the miserable corners where the houseless huddle together at night, long before its supporters could make provision for maintaining any of the poor little fellows in an industrial-school. But the work grew, and the means were found, first for retaining some of the juvenile lodgers who came only for a night's food, and warmth, and shelter, and afterwards for receiving them as inmates.

Some of these are sent to the Refuge by persons who are furnished with printed forms of application, or by mothers who can afford evident testimony that they can scarcely live on the few shillings they are able to earn by casual work as charwomen, or by the no less casual employments where the wages are totally inadequate to support a family; while a few lads have themselves applied for admission because they were orphans, or utterly destitute and abandoned by those on whom they might be supposed to have a claim.

A portion of the old building, which has been adapted to the purpose, and has been added as the need for increased space became pressing, is now devoted to the dormitories, play-room, and school-room of some fifty to sixty of this contingent of the great army of friendless children; and at the time of the last Report fourteen had but just left to be enlisted in military bands; two had become military tailors; situations had been found for others; while one had been regularly apprenticed to a tailor in London.

There are frequently several boys ready for such apprenticeship, for tailoring is the only regular trade taught, the time of the lads being occupied in learning to read, write, and cipher, to acquire the outlines of history and geography, and to take a place in the military band which is at this moment making the cranky old building resound with its performance on clarinets, hautboys, cornets, "deep bassoons," and all kinds of wind instruments, under the direction of an able bandmaster, who keeps the music up to the mark with a spirit which bespeaks confidence in the intelligence of his pupils.

This confidence is not misplaced, for during the past year eleven youthful recruits have been drafted from among these boys into the bands of various regiments, while there are above ninety applications still on the books for more musicians who have chosen this branch of the military service. It is a matter of choice, of course; and there are some who prefer to become sailors, or to go into situations and learn the trade of tailoring, that their instructors may be able to recommend them to respectable masters as apprentices.

But let us walk through the kitchen, and ascend the short zig-zag stairs which lead us by a passage to the school-room, where most of the boys are at work with their slates. Very few of the little fellows are more than thirteen years old, and some of them have been but a short time at school; but even those who came here totally uninstructed have made admirable progress, and some of the writing-books containing lessons from dictation are well worth looking at for their clean and excellent penmanship and fair spelling; while in arithmetic the boys who have been longest under tuition have advanced as far as "practice." There is nothing superfluous in school-room, work-room, or play-room--indeed, one might almost say that they are unfurnished, except for desks and forms and plain deal tables. The play-room is a lower portion of the old slaughter-house, with a high ceiling, to a beam in which is fixed a pair of ropes terminating in two large wooden rings by which the youthful gymnasts swing and perform all kinds of evolutions, while a set of parallel bars are among the few accessories.

It is evident that nothing is spent in mere ornament, and that the expenditure is carefully considered, though recreation, and healthy recreation too, is a part of the daily duty, which is regulated in a fashion befitting the rather military associations of the place. Even now, as the cheery superintendent, Mr. Ramsden, who was lately quartermaster-sergeant of the 16th Regiment, calls "Attention!" every boy is quickly on his feet and ready to greet us; and what is more, the boys seem to like this kind of discipline, for it is kind in its prompt demand for obedience, and the regularity and order includes a kind of self-reliance, which is a very essential part of education for lads who must necessarily be taught what they have to learn in a comparatively short time, and are then sent out where order and promptitude are of the utmost service to them. Economy is studied, but the recollection of the cheery kitchen suggests that there is no griping hard endeavour to curtail the rations necessary to support health and strength. In fact, the boys are sufficiently fed, warmly clothed, and are encouraged both to work and play heartily. Breakfast consists of bread and coffee; dinner of meat and vegetables three days in the week, fish on one day (Wednesday), pudding on Monday, soup on Friday, meat and cheese on Saturday; tea or coffee with bread and dripping, while on Sundays butter is an additional luxury both at breakfast and tea; and on Thursdays and Sundays tea is substituted for coffee at the evening meal. All the boys are decently and warmly clothed, and though only some of their number "take to music" as a profession, and choose to go into the military bands, they all receive instruction. They are taught to keep their own bunks and dormitories neat, and, in fact, do their own household work; while, morning and afternoon, personal trimness is promoted by the military "inspection" which is part of the discipline. There is half an hour's play after breakfast, another quarter of hour before dinner, three-quarters of an hour for "washing and play" after dinner, a quarter of an hour before tea, and from an hour and a half to two hours for boot-cleaning and play before bed-time, besides out-door exercise daily, except in wet weather, when drill and gymnastics take its place. They also go to Primrose Hill on Tuesday and Saturday afternoons, there to run in the fresh air and disport themselves in cricket, or such games as they can find the toys for, by the kindness of the committee or generous visitors. Even with these recreations, however, they find time to go through a very respectable amount of work in the fourteen hours between rising and bed-time; and the letters received from lads who have left the school are an evidence that they remember with pleasure and with gratitude the Refuge that became a home, and to which they attribute their ability to take a place which would have been denied to them without the aid which grew out of pity for their neglected childhood.

Here is a short epistle from one of the juvenile band, at Shorncliffe Camp, written a year or two ago:--

"I now take the pleasure of writing these few lines and I hope all the boys are all well, and all in the school and please Mr. Ramsden will you send me the parcel up that I took into the school it was laying in the bookcase in the school-room and I hope that all the boys are all getting on with their instruments and the snips with their work and I should like you to read it to the boys and I wish that you would let ---- answer it and I am getting on with my instrument very well, and I will be able to come and see you on Cristamas season."

This is a characteristic schoolboy letter, which shows how much boys are alike in all grades. The following is another letter from Shorncliffe:--

"Dear Sir,

"I received your kind and welcome letter along with mothers, and I wrote back to tell you we have all been enlisted and sworn in, and we expect to get our clothes next week and we all feel it our duty to express our deeply felt gratitude to you Mr. Dust and the Committee, and we are all very happy at present please give our respects to Mrs. Ramsden Sister Zillah Mr. McDerby Mr. Mason Mr. Goodwin Miss Cheesman and please remember us to all the boys. Leary is on sick furlough since the 15th of Decr. and has not returned yet and Brenan, Lloyd Graham McCarthy Henderson and all the others are very jolly at present and been out all the afternoon amongst the snow. So I conclude with kind thanks to one and all and believe me to be Dear Sir

"Your late pupil ----

"Band ---- Regt."

The following will show how the memory of the old slaughter-house and the school in Newport Market remains after the boys have left and have entered on a career. It is addressed from Warley Barracks:--

"Dear Sir

"I now take the opportunity of writing to you hoping you and all the rest of the school and the sister also. It is a long time since I left the school now and I dont suppose you would know me if I was to come and see you I was apprenticed out off the school along of J---- R---- to Mr W---- in 1869 I think it was as a Tailor. I should like you to write and tell me if you know what rigment J---- H---- belong to his school number was 34 and mine was 35 me and him was great friends when we were in the school and I should like to know very much were he is. When I left the School Mr. L---- was Supperintendant and I dont suppose I should know you sir if I was to see you I shall try to come down and see the School if I can on Christmas for I shall be on pass to London for seven days and I should like to know where J---- H---- is so as I should be able to see him. I have a few more words to say that is the school was the making of me and I am very thankful to the school for it so with kind love to you all

"I remain your humble servant, "Band ---- Regiment, "Warley Barracks, Essex.

"J---- H---- number was 34 and mine was 35.

"Excuse me addressing this Letter to you as I dont know anything about you sir."

There is something pleasant indeed in letters like these; and I for one am not surprised that the boys should go to their musical practice with a will.

They are just preparing to play something for our especial delight now, and so burst out, in a grand triumphant blast, with "Let the Hills Resound," after which we will take our leave, and, we hope, not without melody in our hearts. Just one word as we go through this kitchen again. Two West End clubs supply the Newport Market Refuge with the remnants of their well-stocked larders. Did it ever occur to you how many hungry children and poor men and women could be fed on the actual waste that goes on in hotels, clubs, inns, dining-rooms, and large and ordinary households every day? M. Alexis Soyer used to say that he could feed ten thousand people with the food that was wasted in London every day; and I am inclined to think he was not far wrong. At all events, an enormous salvage of humanity might be effected if only the one meal daily which might be made of "refuse" pieces of meat and bread, bones, cuttings of vegetables, cold potatoes, and general pieces--was secured to the thousands to whom "enough" would often indeed be "as good as a feast." To people who know how much that is really good for food--not the plate-scrapings and leavings, but sound and useful reversions of meat and bread and vegetables, bones, and unsightly corners of joints--is either suffered to spoil or is thrown at once into the waste-tub, both in hotels and private houses, the additional knowledge that there are hungry children in every district in London to whom a bowl of nourishing soup or a plate of minced meat and vegetables would be a boon, may easily be a pain, because of the inability to suggest how to organise the means of utilising what one is tempted to call undeserved plenty.

_FEEDING THE MULTITUDE._

I suppose there are people still to be found who have but a vague notion of what it is to be really hungry. They may be conscious of possessing a good appetite now and then, and having the means of obtaining food, and to a certain extent of choosing what they will eat, regard being rather "sharp set" as a luxury which gives additional zest to a dinner, enabling them to take off the edge of their craving with a plate of warm soup, and to consider what they would like "to follow."

Of course we most of us read in the papers of the distress of the poor during the winter, of the number of children for whom appeals are made that they may have a meal of meat and vegetables once or twice a week, of the aggregate of casual paupers during a given period, and of cases where "death accelerated by want and exposure" is the verdict of a coroner's jury; but we do not very easily realise what it is to be famished; have perhaps never experienced that stage beyond hunger--beyond even the faintness and giddiness that makes us doubt whether we could swallow anything solid, and would cause us to turn hopelessly from dry bread. There is no need here to detail the sufferings that come of starvation. They are dreadful enough; but if our charity needs the stimulus of such descriptions we are in a bad way, and are ourselves in danger of perishing for want of moral sustenance.

Those who need assurance of the hunger of hundreds of their poor neighbours need not go very far to obtain it. A quarter of an hour at the window of any common cook-shop in a "low neighbourhood," at about seven o'clock in the evening, when the steam of unctuous puddings is blurring the glass, and the odour of leg-of-beef soup and pease-pudding comes in gusts to the chilly street, should suffice. There is pretty sure to be a group of poor little eager-eyed pinch-nosed boys and girls peering wistfully in to watch the fortunate possessor of two-pence who comes out with something smoking hot on a cabbage-leaf, and begins to bite at it furtively before he crosses the threshold.

Of course, according to modern social political economy, it would be encouraging mendicity, and sapping the foundations of an independent character, to distribute sixpenny pieces amongst the juvenile committee of taste who are muttering what they would buy if only somebody could be found to advance "a copper." But it is to be hoped or feared (which?) that a good many people yet live who would instinctively feel in their pockets for a stray coin to expend on a warm greasy slab of baked or boiled, or on half a dozen squares of that peculiarly dense pie-crust which is sold in ha'porths. This is a vulgar detail; but somehow poverty and hunger _are_ vulgar, and we should find it difficult to get away from them if we tried ever so hard. Even School Boards, peeping out upon the children perishing for lack of knowledge, find themselves in a difficulty, because there is no provision under the compulsory or any other clause for the children who are also perishing for lack of food. The Board beadle does not at present go about with soup-tickets in his pockets; and for the poor shivering shoeless urchins who are mustered in the big brick-built room where they assemble according to law there is no free breakfast-class.

It must one day become a question how they are to learn till they are filled. Grown people find it hard enough to fix their attention on the best advice or the most saving doctrine while they suffer involuntary hunger. The multitude must mostly be fed before they are taught. Even disciples have had a revelation of the Bread of Life in the breaking of bread that perishes. Do we still need a miracle to teach us that?

Happily, efforts are made to give meat to the hungry. During the winter weather food is distributed in various ways amidst some of those poverty-stricken neighbourhoods to which I am obliged to take you during our excursions; but the demand far exceeds the supply, and people suffer hunger at all seasons, though most of all in the time of bleak winds and searching cold.

I want you to come to-day to a kitchen which is open all the year round--the only kitchen of the kind in London which does not close its doors even when the spring-tide brings buds of promise on the shrubs in Leicester Square, and the London sparrow comes out from roofs and eaves, and preens his dingy plumage in the summer sun, as though Great Windmill Street had something in common with its name, and sweet country odours came from the region of the Haymarket.

For, you know, we are still in the district of Soho. I have but just now brought you out of Newport Market, and now we are in a very curious part of this vast strange city. The streets are dim and dingy, but not so squalid as you might have imagined. They are still and silent, too, as of a neighbourhood that has seen better days, and even in its poverty has a sense of gentility which is neither boisterous nor obtrusive.

You will remember that I referred to this neighbourhood of Soho when I spoke of those old French refugees who came and made industrial colonies in London after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. This is the only really foreign quarter of London which has lasted until to-day; but that is to be accounted for by the fact that it became representative of no particular industry, and that, probably from the fact of many of the patrons of literature and art having then town houses about Leicester and Soho Squares, the more artistic refugees took up their abode in the adjacent streets.

From the time when William Hogarth painted his picture of the Calais Gate till only a short time ago, when refugees fled from besieged Paris to find some poor and wretched lodging in the purlieus of Cranbourne Street, where they might live in peace and hear their native tongue, this has been the resort of poor foreigners in London. It almost reminds one of some of the smaller streets of a continental city; and as we look at the queer shabby restaurants, and the shops with strange names painted above them in long yellow letters, we almost expect to find the pavement change to cobble-stones, and to see some queer wooden sign dangle overhead, so like is the place to the small _bourgeois_ quarter that in our earlier days lay behind the Madeleine and the Porte St. Denis.

For here is an actual _crêmerie_--a queer compound of cook-shop and milkseller's--with a couple of bright dairy cans outside the door, and a long loaf or two amidst the cups and plates and sausages in the dingy window. Over the way you see "_Blanchisseuse_" in large letters; and next door is a _laiterie_, which differs from a _crêmerie_ as a _café_ alone differs from a _café restaurant_ with its "_commerce de vins_" painted in big capitals in front of a long row of sour-looking bottles and a green calico curtain. It is a quaint jumble, all the way to Dean Street, and till we reach the edge of the Haymarket--a jumble of Brown and Lebrun, of Jones and Jean, of Robin (_fils_) and Robinson; but for all the little musty-smelling _cafés_, the blank bare-windowed _restaurants_, the _crêmeries_, and the _boulangeries_, there is nothing of a well fed look about the district, especially just at this corner, leading as it seems to a stable-yard or the entrance to a range of packers' warehouses. There is one open front here--is it a farrier's or a blacksmith's shop?--where they appear to be doing a stroke of business, however, for there is a clinking, and a fire, and a steam; but the steam has a fragrant odour of vegetables--of celery and turnips, of haricots and gravy--the clink is that of basins and spoons getting ready, and the fire is that of the boiler which simmers two mighty cauldrons.

Step to the front, and you will see in big white letters right across the house, "Mont St. Bernard Hospice." You may well rub your eyes, for you are in the heart of London, and stand in Ham Yard, Leicester Square, before the soup-kitchen that is open all the year.

There is something very appetising in the steam that arises from both these huge cauldrons, one of which is the stock-pot, containing bones, remnants of joints (_not_ plate-clearings), and reversions of cold meat, &c., from two West End clubs. To this are added vegetables--celery, haricot beans, or barley--making it a fresh palatable stock, not remarkable for meatiness, but still excellent in flavour, as you may find for yourself if you join me in a luncheon here. But the real strengthening gravy has yet to be added, and the cauldron on the left hand is full of it--real, genuine gravy soup, made from raw meat and bones purchased for this purpose. As soon as this has simmered till it is thoroughly ready, the contents of the two cauldrons are mixed, and the result is a delicious stew, which is ready to be turned out into these yellow pint basins, for the hungry applicants, who will sit down at one of these two deal tables, each of which has its rough clean form, or to be dispensed to those who bring jugs, bowls, cans, saucepans, kettles, pipkins--any and almost every receptacle in which they can carry it steaming away to their families.

Let us stand here and see them come in. Here is a poor famishing fellow, who looks with eager eyes at the savoury mess. He has evidently seen better days. There is an unmistakable air of education about him, and as he sits down with his basin and spoon, and the handful of broken bread, which is added to the soup from one of a series of clean sacks emptied for the purpose, the superintendent, Mr. Stevens, scans him with a quick eye, and will probably speak to him before he leaves. There is a foreigner--an Italian, by the look of his oval olive face--who takes his place very quietly, and as quietly begins to eat; and yonder a famished-looking, rough fellow, who has already devoured the basinful with his eyes, and is evidently in sore need. Men, women, and children, or, at all events, boys and girls, come and present their tickets, and receive this immediate relief, against which surely not the most rigorous opponent to mendicancy can protest. The cadger and the professional beggar do not go to the soup-kitchen where nothing is charged, for they do not need food, and will only see a ticket where it is likely to be accompanied by the penny which will buy a quart. Be sure that there are few cases here which are not so necessitous that they are not far from starvation; and many of them represent actually desperate want.

The tickets for obtaining this prompt relief--often only just in time to save some poor creature from utter destitution and crime, and as often administered when a family is without food, and yet clings to the hope of finding work to prevent that separation which they must submit to by becoming paupers--are placed in the hands of clergymen, doctors, district visitors, Bible-women, and those who know the poor, and can feel for them when in hard times they pawn furniture, tools, and clothes, and suffer the extremity of want, before they will apply for parochial relief, and have offered to them the alternative of "going into the house."

The annals of the poor, from which extracts occasionally appear in the newspapers in the accounts of coroners' inquests, prove to what dreadful sufferings many decent but destitute people will submit rather than become recognised paupers; and no system of charitable relief outside the workhouse walls will be effectual or useful which does not recognise and respect this feeling. Who would let the possible accident of some unworthy person getting a gratuitous pint of soup stand in the way of a work such as we see going on here, where one year's beneficent action includes above ten thousand persons relieved?--a large number of whom are temporarily taken into the Hospice, as we shall see presently, while a great contingent is represented by the family tickets, which enable poor working men and women from various districts in London to carry away a gallon of strong nourishing soup, and an apronful of bread to their hungry little ones. You see that great heap of pieces of fine bread--slices, hunches, remnants of big loaves, dry toast, French bread, brown bread, and rolls--all placed in a clean wooden bin, they also come from the two great West End clubs before mentioned, and are so appreciated by the applicants for relief (they being usually good judges of quality) that you may note a look of disappointment if the stock of club bread has been exhausted, and a portion of one of the common loaves bought for the purpose is substituted. The small broken bread in those clean sacks is club bread also--the crumbs from rich men's tables, but clean, and thoroughly good, fit for immediate addition to the soup, which a hungry company of diners consume in a painfully short space of time.

They are not inhabitants of this district, either; comparatively few come from the immediate neighbourhood, though, of course, some poor families of the adjacent streets and alleys, and occasionally foreign workmen--many of them adepts in artistic employments, who are in the land of the stranger and in want--come here and have not only the help of a meal, but the kind inquiry, the further aid that will sustain hope, and enable them to look for work, and find the means of living. Londoners from Kentish Town, Lambeth, Shoreditch, and Chelsea--poor hungry men and women from all parts of the great city--find their way here to obtain a dinner; and it is extremely unlikely that they would leave even the least profitable employment and walk so far for the sake of a basin of soup. Food alone is offered, not money, and there is little probability of imposition when there is so little to be gained by the attempt. But while the great cauldrons are being emptied, let us hear what they do at this "Mont St. Bernard Hospice" at the Christmas season.

Here is a list of good things that were sent at Christmas-tide for a special purpose:--A noble earl sent a sheep, if not more than one, and other generous givers in kind--many of them manufacturers of or dealers in the articles they contributed--forwarded loaves, biscuits, hams, rice, flour, currants, raisins, ale, porter, cocoa, peas, and other comfortable meats and drinks, so that there was a glorious distribution to the poor on Christmas Eve, when 936 families were provided with a Christmas dinner, consisting of 4 lbs. of beef, 3 lbs. of pudding, bread, tea, and sugar, together with such other seasonable and most acceptable gifts as were apportioned to them in accordance with the number of their children and the quantity of miscellaneous eatables and drinkables available for the purpose.

But we have not quite done with it yet, for it is a hospice in fact, as well as in name. Just as in the Newport Market Refuge, the houseless and destitute are received with little question--the homeless and friendless are here taken in after little inquiry, even the subscriber's ticket for admission being occasionally dispensed with, when Mr. Stevens, the superintendent, sees an obviously worthy case among the applicants who come to ask for a meal. It must be remembered, however, that an experienced eye can detect the casual very readily, and that Mr. Stevens, who served with his friend Mr. Ramsden, of Newport Market, when they were both in the army, is as smart a detective as that shrewd and compassionate officer. It is so much the better for those who are really deserving--so much the better even for those who, being ashamed to dig, are not ashamed to beg--the ne'er-do-weels who, even in the degradation of poverty brought about by idleness and dissipation, come down to solicit food and shelter, and find both, together with ready help, if they will mend their ways. There are some such, but not many: more often a man of education, broken by misfortune, and perhaps by the loss of a situation through failure or accident beyond his control, finds himself starving and desolate. Such men have come here, and found, first, food, then a lavatory, then a bed in a good-sized room, where only seven or eight persons are received to sleep, then a confidential talk, advice, the introduction to people willing and able to help them among the committee and subscribers of the Institution.

It may be a French tutor destitute in London, but with his character and ability beyond doubt; it may be, it _has_ been, a young foreign artist; a skilled labourer from the country, who has come to London to find work and finds want instead; a poor school-teacher who, having lost an appointment, and being unable to work at any other calling, is in despair, and knows not where to turn; an honest fellow, ready and willing to turn his hand to anything, but finding nothing to which he can turn his hand without an introduction. Such are the cases which are received at this hospice in Ham Yard, where they are permitted to remain for a day or two, or even for a week or two, till they find work, or till somebody can make inquiries about them and help them to what they seek.