Here is an incident which, pathetic enough, has yet its humorous side. Here is a boy of eight years old in petticoats, a big, strong, healthy lad. His father is a dock labourer, and this is how he was brought forward as a candidate for some cast-off clothing which a director of the East and West India Dock Company was generously distributing. The dock labourers are a distinct class among the East-End poor, and I hope at some future time to give the reader a glimpse of life among them. How hard their struggle is may be gathered from the fact that their boys have to go till eight and nine years old in petticoats because the parents cannot afford to buy them knickerbockers or trousers. CHAPTER IX. |These pages would be incomplete without at least a passing reference to some of the many efforts which have already been made to deal with the evils arising from the condition of things it has been my desire to expose. The mere charitable work going on I have not space to deal with. There are night refuges, missions, and many excellent institutions due to public and private enterprise in all the poorer quarters, all of which in a manner more or less satisfactory afford relief to the inhabitants. One good work, however, which I do not care to leave hiding its light under a bushel is the home for factory-girls, managed by the Sisters of St. John the Baptist, Clewer, and situated in Southwark. Here, girls employed in the many factories of the neighbourhood during the day can, if they are willing to submit to the rules, find a real home for a small weekly payment, and escape the wretched and too often vicious surroundings of the places in which their parents live. With a full knowledge of all the temptation which besets the work-girls who have to spend their leisure in these slums, none can doubt the good work such institutions may do. On the night of our visit we were conducted from basement to roof by one of the Sisters; we saw the girls and heard their histories from their own lips, and learnt how terrible was the sin and misery which had forced them to look upon their vile homes with loathing, and how fierce the temptation which beset them when left to themselves. These girls are of the class which most deserve help; they work hard at dangerous trades for their living, and they pay for their food and board. What the charity does is to throw a certain home influence around them, give them cleanliness and godliness, and preserve them to some extent from the contamination of the streets--streets which are here thronged at night with the worst types of humanity the great city can show.