Ragged homes and how to mend themBayly, Mrs. (Mary)
History
Ragged homes and how to mend them
Bayly, Mrs. (Mary)
Charities -- Great Britain; Poor -- England -- London
There are so many points of difference between the child reared in the
mansions of the wealthy, and the uncared-for, friendless infant picked
out of the streets and alleys, that it is not strange if they should have
few thoughts in common. It is true there is in some hearts, as in that
of Elizabeth Fry, a sympathy strong enough to extend itself to everything
with which it comes in contact. The moral power of such natures is very
great: they are one of God’s best gifts to this fallen world, yet not the
most common. In devising schemes of improvement, we cannot therefore
rely upon the powerful assistance which they give; nor must we take it
for granted that our plans will be worked out by their aid. Probably,
the best suggestion that has been offered hitherto, is made by the writer
of “The Book and its Mission,” who proposes that some of the best of the
poor women, superintended by ladies, should be employed as missionaries;
and that each missionary should be the mistress of a house, into which a
number of homeless girls might be received on payment of a small weekly
sum. Here, under motherly training, they might be fitted for their
future duties.
The Marian above alluded to, soon after the commencement of her work in
St Giles’s, says:—“I long to lift poor young girls, from twelve to
eighteen years of age, out of the horrors of those overcrowded rooms; and
how glad I should be to take a house and make a dormitory for them by
themselves! I know forty who would come to me at once, and pay
threepence a night each: they could well afford it, and it would take the
money from those dancing-rooms and casinos to which they flock to their
ruin. What new thoughts I might put into their minds in the evening!
How I might read the Bible with them! and some of them might help me in
my other work. There is no provision of the sort for the class I mean;
and they are those who most want it. Such a change would be to them the
beginning of a new life; and there are perhaps five thousand of those
girls always growing up in St Giles’s.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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