How the Poor Live; and, Horrible London: 1889Sims, George R. (George Robert)
History
How the Poor Live; and, Horrible London: 1889
Sims, George R. (George Robert)
Poor -- England -- London -- History -- 19th century; Public housing -- England -- London
The story of the Mission is romantic. A lady, Mrs. Hun, was left a
young widow. After less than two years of married life her husband died
suddenly. She devoted herself to her only daughter, who grew up into
a beautiful girl. The morning after her first ball the young lady was
found dead in her bed. To assuage her grief and keep from breaking down
utterly, the bereaved mother determined to devote herself to charity.
The fearful condition of the young girls in this neighbourhood was
brought to her attention, and with her fortune and that of her dead
daughter she devoted herself to establishing a home for factory-girls.
Such is the short and simple story of how this excellent institution was
founded. How it is carried out, how the girls cling to the Home, and how
thoroughly they appreciate its comforts, any lady can see who cares to
take a trip as far as Union Street, Borough, and ring the bell of the
All Hallows' Mission-House.
The work which these girls have to do in return for a small wage is
generally of a dangerous character. Many of them literally snatch their
food from the jaws of death.
One girl in the Home was white and ill and weak, and her story may be
taken as a sample. She worked at the 'bronzing,' that is, a branch of
the chromo-lithography business, and it consists in applying a fluid,
which gives off a poisonous exhalation, to certain work. Bronzing enters
largely into the composition of those Christmas pictures which delight
us so much at the festive season, and which adorn the nursery of many a
happy, rosy-cheeked English child.
The law, recognising the dangerous nature of the work, says that the
girls doing it shall be allowed a pint of milk per day, the milk in some
way counteracting the effect of the poison the girls inhale. It will
hardly be believed that some of the best firms refuse to comply with the
regulation, and if the girls complain they are at once discharged.
Now, the wages paid are seven shillings per week. To keep at their
employment it is necessary that the workers take castor-oil daily, and
drink at least a pint of milk. They must either pay for these luxuries
out of their scanty earnings or go without, and eventually find their
way to the hospital.
Take another trade--the fur-pulling. The women and girls employed at
this are in some shops locked in the room with their work, and have to
eat their food there.
If you had ever seen a room crowded with girls pulling the fluff from
cats, rabbits, rats, and goodness knows what other animals, you would
appreciate the situation better. The fluff, the down, and the small
hairs smother everything, and are necessarily swallowed by the occupants
of the room, with pernicious effect. Yet it is the custom of some of
the men in the trade to force their employés to eat under such
circumstances--that is, to swallow their food thickly coated with the
hairs from which nothing can preserve it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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