Agricultural colonies; Poor -- Great Britain; Salvation Army; Unemployed -- Great Britain
In considering the various means by which some substantial improvement
can be made in the condition of the toiling masses, recreation cannot
be omitted. I have repeatedly had forced upon me the desirability of
making it possible for them to spend a few hours occasionally by the
seaside, or even at times three or four days. Notwithstanding the
cheapened rates and frequent excursions, there are multitudes of the
poor who, year in and out, never get beyond the crowded city, with the
exception of dragging themselves and their children now and then to the
parks on holidays or hot summer evenings. The majority, especially the
inhabitants of the East of London, never get away from the sunless
alleys and grimy streets in which they exist from year to year.
It is true that a few here and there of the adult population, and a
good many of the children, have a sort of annual charity excursion to
Epping Forest, Hampton Court, or perhaps to the sea. But it is only
the minority. The vast number, while possessed of a passionate love of
the sea, which only those who have mixed with them can conceive,
pass their whole lives without having once looked over its blue waters,
or watched its waves breaking at their feet.
Now I am not so foolish as to dream that it is possible to make any
such change in Society as will enable the poor man to take his wife and
children for a fortnight's sojourn, during the oppressive summer days,
to brace them up for their winter's task, although this might be as
desirable in their case as in that of their more highly favoured
fellow-creatures. But I would make it possible for every man;
woman and child, to get, now and then, a day's refreshing change by a
visit to that never-failing source of interest. In the carrying out of
this plan, we are met at the onset with a difficulty of some little
magnitude, and that is the necessity of a vastly reduced charge in the
cost of the journey. To do anything effective we must be able to get a
man from Whitechapel or Stratford to the sea-side and back for a
shilling.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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