Regeneration: Being an Account of the Social Work of The Salvation Army in Great BritainHaggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Religion
Regeneration: Being an Account of the Social Work of The Salvation Army in Great Britain
Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider)
Great Britain -- Social conditions; Salvation Army
As the reader who knows anything of such matters will be aware, it is
generally supposed to be rather more easy to pass a camel through the
eye of a needle than to reclaim a confirmed female drunkard. Yet, as I
have already said, the Salvation Army, on a three years' test in each
case, has shown that it deals successfully with about 50 per cent of
those women who come into its hands for treatment as inebriates or
drug-takers. How is this done? Largely, of course, by effecting
through religious means a change of heart and nature, as the Army
often seems to have the power to do, and by the exercise of gentle
personal influences.
But there remains another aid which is physical.
With the shrewdness that distinguishes them, the Officers of the Army
have discovered that the practice of vegetarianism is a wonderful
enemy to the practice of alcoholism. The vegetarian, it seems,
conceives a bodily distaste to spirituous liquors. If they can
persuade a patient to become a vegetarian, then the chances of her
cure are enormously increased. Therefore, in this and in the other
female Inebriate Homes no meat is served. The breakfast, which is
eaten at 7.30, consists of tea, brown and white bread and butter,
porridge and fresh milk, or stewed fruit. A sample dinner at one
o'clock includes macaroni cheese, greens, potatoes, fruit pudding or
plain boiled puddings with stewed figs. On one day a week, however,
baked or boiled fish is served with pease pudding, potatoes, and
boiled currant pudding, and on another, brown gravy is given with
onions in batter. Tea, which is served at six o'clock, consists--to
take a couple of samples--of tea, white and brown bread and butter,
and cheese sandwiches with salad; or of tea, white and brown bread and
butter, savoury rolls, and apples or oranges.
It will be observed that this diet is as simple as it well can be; but
I think it right to add, after personal inspection, that the inmates
appear to thrive on it extremely well. Certainly all whom I saw looked
well nourished and healthy.
A book is kept in the Home in which the details of each case are
carefully entered, together with its record for two years after
discharge. Here are the particulars of three cases taken by me at
hazard from this book which will serve to indicate the class of
patient that is treated at this Home. Of course, I omit the names:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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