Agricultural colonies; Poor -- Great Britain; Salvation Army; Unemployed -- Great Britain
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.
A WILD WOMAN.
In visiting a slum in a town in the North of England, our Officers
entered a hole, unfit to be called a human habitation--more like the
den of some wild animal--almost the only furniture of which was a
filthy iron bedstead, a wooden box to serve for table and chair,
while an old tin did duty as a dustbin.
The inhabitant of this wretched den was a poor woman, who fled into the
darkest corner of the place as our Officer entered. This poor wretch
was the victim of a brutal man, who never allowed her to venture
outside the door, keeping her alive by the scantiest allowance of food.
Her only clothing consisted of a sack tied round her body. Her feet
were bare, her hair matted and foul, presenting on the whole such an
object as one could scarcely imagine living in a civilised country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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