Agricultural colonies; Poor -- Great Britain; Salvation Army; Unemployed -- Great Britain
Of the severity of the punishment there can be no question. If the
premium is high at the beginning, the penalty is terrible at the close.
And this penalty is exacted equally from those who have deliberately
said, "Evil, be thou my Good," and for those who have been decoyed,
snared, trapped into the life which is a living death. When you see a
girl on the street you can never say without enquiry whether she is one
of the most-to-be condemned, or the most-to-be pitied of her sex.
Many of them find themselves where they are because of a too trusting
disposition, confidence born of innocence being often the unsuspecting
ally of the procuress and seducer. Others are as much the innocent
victims of crime as if they had been stabbed or maimed by the dagger of
the assassin. The records of our Rescue Homes abound with
life-stories, some of which we have been able to verify to the letter
--which prove only too conclusively the existence of numbers of
innocent victims whose entry upon this dismal life can in no way be
attributed to any act of their own will. Many are orphans or the
children of depraved mothers, whose one idea of a daughter is to make
money out of her prostitution. Here are a few cases on our register: --
E. C., aged 18, a soldier's child, born on the sea. Her father died,
and her mother, a thoroughly depraved woman, assisted to secure her
daughter's prostitution.
P. S., aged 20, illegitimate child. Went to consult a doctor one time
about some ailment. The doctor abused his position and took advantage
of his patient, and when she complained, gave her #4 as compensation.
When that was spent, having lost her character, she came on the town.
We looked the doctor up, and he fled.
E. A., aged 17, was left an orphan very early in life, and adopted by
her godfather, who himself was the means of her ruin at the age of 10.
A girl in her teens lived with her mother in the "Dusthole," the lowest
part of Woolwich. This woman forced her out upon the streets, and
profited by her prostitution up to the very night of her confinement.
The mother had all the time been the receiver of the gains.
E., neither father nor mother, was taken care of by a grandmother till,
at an early age, accounted old enough. Married a soldier; but shortly
before the birth of her first child, found that her deceiver had a wife
and family in a distant part of the country, and she was soon left
friendless and alone. She sought an asylum in the Workhouse for a few
weeks' after which she vainly tried to get honest employment. Failing
that, and being on the very verge of starvation, she entered a
lodging-house in Westminster and "did as other girls." Here our
lieutenant found and persuaded her to leave and enter one of our Homes,
where she soon gave abundant proof of her conversion by a thoroughly
changed life. She is now a faithful and trusted servant in a
clergyman's family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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