weeks before, is a labourer, seems very earnest, in terrible distress.
We allow his wife 2s. 6d. a week for cleaning the hall (to help them).
In addition to that, she gets another 2s. 6d. for nursing, and on that
husband, wife, and a couple of children pay the rent of 2s. a week and
drag out an existence.  I have tried to get work for this man, but have
failed.

T.--Of Rotherhithe Slum.  Was a great drunkard, is a carpenter;
saved about nine months ago, but, having to work in a public-house on a
Sunday, he gave it up; he has not been able to get another job, and has
nothing but what we have given him for making seats.

Emma Y.--Now a Soldier of the Marylebone Slum Post, was a wild young
Slummer when we opened in the Boro'; could be generally seen in the
streets, wretchedly clad, her sleeves turned up, idle, only worked
occasionally, got saved two years ago, had terrible persecution in her
home.  We got her a situation, where she has been for nearly eighteen
months, and is now a good servant.

Lodging-House Frank.--At twenty-one came into the possession of
#750, but, through drink and gambling, lost it all in six or eight
months, and for over seven years he has tramped about from Portsmouth,
through the South of England, and South Wales, from one lodging-house
to another, often starving, drinking when he could get any money;
thriftless, idle, no heart for work.  We found him in a lodging-house
six months ago, living with a fallen girl; got them both saved and
married; five weeks after he got work as a carpenter at 30s. a week.
He has a home of his own now, and promises well to make an officer.

The Officer who furnishes the above reports goes on to say: --

I can't call the wretched dwelling home, to which drink had brought
Brother and Sister X.  From a life of luxury, they drifted down by
degrees to one room in a Slum tenement, surrounded by drunkards and the
vilest characters.  Their lovely half-starved children were compelled
to listen to the foulest language, and hear fighting and quarrelling,
and alas, alas, not only to hear it in the adjoining rooms, but witness
it within their own.  For over two years they have been delivered from
the power of the cursed drink.  The old rookery is gone, and now they
have a comfortably-furnished home.  Their children give evidence of
being truly converted, and have a lively gratitude for their father's
salvation.  One boy of eight said, last Christmas Day, "I remember when
we had only dry bread for Christmas; but to-day we had a goose and two
plum-puddings."  Brother X. was dismissed in disgrace from his
situation as commercial traveller before his conversion; to-day he is
chief man, next to his employer, in a large business house.

He says: --

I and perfectly satisfied that very few of the lowest strata of Society
are unwilling to work if they could get it.  The wretched hand-to-mouth
existence many of them have to live disheartens them, and makes life
with them either a feast or a famine, and drives those who have brains
enough to crime.

The results of our work in the Slums may be put down as: --

1st.  A marked improvement in the cleanliness of the homes and
      children; disappearance of vermin, and a considerable lessening
      of drunkenness.

2nd.  A greater respect for true religion, and especially that of the
      Salvation Army.

3rd.  A much larger amount of work is being done now than before our
      going there.

4th.  The rescue of many fallen girls.

5th.  The Shelter work seems to us a development of the Slum work.

In connection with our Scheme, we propose to immediately increase the
numbers of these Slum Sisters, and to add to their usefulness by
directly connecting their operations with the Colony, enabling them
thereby to help the poor people to conditions of life more favourable
to health, morals, and religion.  This would be accomplished by getting
some of them employment in the City, which must necessarily result in
better homes and surroundings, or in the opening up for others of a
straight course from the Slums to the Farm Colony.

SECTION 2.--THE TRAVELLING HOSPITAL.

Of course, there is only one real remedy for this state of things,
and that is to take the people away from the wretched hovels in which
they sicken, suffer, and die, with less comfort and consideration than
the cattle in the stalls and styes of many a country Squire.
And this is certainly our ultimate ambition, but for the present
distress something might be done on the lines of district nursing,
which is only in very imperfect operation.

I have been thinking that if a little Van, drawn by a pony, could be
fitted up with what is ordinarily required by the sick and dying, and
trot round amongst these abodes of desolation, with a couple of nurses
trained for the business, it might be of immense service, without being
very costly.  They could have a few simple instruments, so as to draw a
tooth or lance an abscess, and what was absolutely requisite for simple
surgical operations.  A little oil-stove for hot water to prepare a
poultice, or a hot foment, or a soap wash, and a number of other
necessaries for nursing, could be carried with ease.

The need for this will only be appreciated by those who know how
utterly bereft of all the comforts and conveniences for attending to
the smallest matters in sickness which prevails in these abodes of
wretchedness.  It may be suggested, why don't the people when they
are ill go to the hospital?  To which we simply reply that they won't.
They cling to their own bits of rooms and to the companionship of
the members of their own families, brutal as they often are,
and would rather stay and suffer, and die in the midst of all the
filth and squalor that surrounds them in their own dens, than go to
the big house, which, to them, looks very like a prison.

The sufferings of the wretched occupants of the Slums that we have been
describing, when sick and unable to help themselves, makes the
organisation of some system of nursing them in their own homes a
Christian duty.  Here are a handful of cases, gleaned almost at random
from the reports of our Slum Sisters, which will show the value of the
agency above described: --

Many of those who are sick have often only one room, and often several
children.  The Officers come across many cases where, with no one to
look after them, they have to lie for hours without food or nourishment
of any kind.  Sometimes the neighbours will take them in a cup of tea.
It is really a mystery how they live.

A poor woman in Drury Lane was paralyzed.  She had no one to attend to
her; she lay on the floor, on a stuffed sack, and an old piece of cloth
to cover her.  Although it was winter, she very seldom had any fire.
She had no garments to wear, and but very little to eat.

Another poor woman, who was very ill, was allowed a little money by her
daughter to pay her rent and get her food; but very frequently she had
not the strength to light a fire or to get herself food.  She was
parted from her husband because of his cruelty.  Often she lay for
hours without a soul to visit or help her.

Adjutant McClellan found a man lying on a straw mattress in a very bad
condition.  The room was filthy; the smell made the Officer feel ill.
The man had been lying for days without having anything done for him.
A cup of water was by his side.  The Officers vomited from the terrible
smells of this place.  Frequently sick people are found who need the
continual application of hot poultices, but who are left with a cold
one for hours.

In Marylebone the Officers visited a poor old woman who was very ill.
She lived in an underground back kitchen, with hardly a ray of light
and never a ray of sunshine.  Her bed was made up on some egg boxes.
She had no one to look after her, except a drunken daughter, who very
often, when drunk, used to knock the poor old woman about very badly.
The Officers frequently found that she had not eaten any food up to
twelve o'clock, not even a cup of tea to drink.  The only furniture in
the room was a small table, an old fender, and a box.  The vermin
seemed to be innumerable.

A poor woman was taken very ill, but, having a small family, she felt
she must get up and wash them.  While she was washing the baby she fell
down and was unable to move.  Fortunately a neighbour came in soon
after to ask some question, and saw her lying there.  She at once ran
and fetched another neighbour.  Thinking the poor woman was dead, they
got her into bed and sent for a doctor.  He said she was in consumption
and required quiet and nourishment.  This the poor woman could not get,
on account of her children.  She got up a few hours afterwards.  As she
was going downstairs she fell down again.  The neighbour picked her up
and put her back to bed, where for a long time she lay thoroughly
prostrated.  The Officers took her case in hand, fed, and nursed her,
cleaned her room and generally looked after her.

In another dark slum the Officers found a poor old woman in an
underground back kitchen.  She was suffering with some complaint.
When they knocked at the door she was terrified for fear it was the
landlord.  The room was in a most filthy condition, never having
been cleaned.  She had a penny paraffin lamp which filled the room
with smoke.  The old woman was at times totally unable to do anything
for herself.  The Officers looked after her.

SECTION 3. REGENERATlON OF OUR CRIMINALS.--THE PRISON GATE BRIGADE

Our Prisons ought to be reforming institutions, which should turn men
out better than when they entered their doors.  As a matter of fact
they are often quite the reverse.  There are few persons in this world
more to be pitied than the poor fellow who has served his first term of
imprisonment or finds himself outside the gaol doors without a
character, and often without a friend in the world.  Here, again,
the process of centralization, gone on apace of late years, however
desirable it maybe in the interests of administration, tells with
disastrous effects on the poor wretches who are its victims.

In the old times, when a man was sent to prison, the gaol stood within
a stone's throw of his home.  When he came out he was at any rate close
to his old friends and relations, who would take him in and give him a
helping hand to start once more a new life.  But what has happened
owing to the desire of the Government to do away with as many local
gaols as possible?  The prisoners, when convicted, are sent long
distances by rail to the central prisons, and on coming out find
themselves cursed with the brand of the gaol bird, so far from home,
character gone, and with no one to fall back upon for counsel, or to
give them a helping hand.  No wonder it is reported that vagrancy has
much increased in some large towns on account of discharged prisoners
taking to begging, having no other resource.

In the competition for work no employer is likely to take a man who is
fresh from gaol; nor are mistresses likely to engage a servant whose
last character was her discharge from one of Her Majesty's prisons.
It is incredible how much mischief is often done by well-meaning
persons, who, in struggling towards the attainment of an excellent end
--such, for instance, as that of economy and efficiency in prison
administration--forget entirely the bearing which their reforms may
have upon the prisoners themselves.

The Salvation Army has at least one great qualification for dealing
with this question I believe I am in the proud position of being at the
head of the only religious body which has always some of its members in
gaol for conscience' sake.  We are also one of the few religious bodies
which can boast that many of those who are in our ranks have gone
through terms of penal servitude.  We, therefore, know the prison at
both ends.  Some men go to gaol because they are better than their
neighbours, most men because they are worse.  Martyrs, patriots,
reformers of all kinds belong to the first category.  No great cause
has ever achieved a triumph before it has furnished a certain quota to
the prison population.  The repeal of an unjust law is seldom carried
until a certain number of those who are labouring for the reform have
experienced in their own persons the hardships of fine and imprisonment.
Christianity itself would never have triumphed over the Paganism of
ancient Rome had the early Christians not been enabled to testify from
the dungeon and the arena as to the sincerity and serenity of soul with
which they could confront their persecutors, and from that time down to
the successful struggles of our people for the right of public meeting
at Whitchurch and elsewhere, the Christian religion and the liberties
of men have never failed to demand their quota of martyrs for the
faith.

When a man has been to prison in the best of causes he learns to look
at the question of prison discipline with a much more sympathetic eye
for those who are sent there, even for the worst offences, than judges
and legislators who only look at the prison from the outside.
"A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind," and it is an immense
advantage to us in dealing with the criminal classes that many of our
best Officers have themselves been in a prison cell.  Our people, thank
God, have never learnt to regard a prisoner as a mere convict--A 234.
He is ever a human being to them, who is to be cared for and looked
after as a mother looks after her ailing child.  At present there seems
to be but little likelihood of any real reform in the interior of our
prisons.  We have therefore to wait until the men come outside, in
order to see what, can be done.  Our work begins when that of the
prison authorities ceases.  We have already had a good deal of
experience in this work, both here and in Bombay, in Ceylon,
in South Africa, in Australia and elsewhere, and as the nett result of
our experience we proceed now to set forth the measures we intend to
adopt, some of which are already in successful operation.

1. We propose the opening of Homes for this class as near as possible
   to the different gaols. One for men has just been taken at
   King's Cross, and will be occupied as soon as it can be got ready.
   One for women must follow immediately.  Others will be required in
   different parts of the Metropolis, and contiguous to each of its
   great prisons.  Connected with these Homes will be workshops in
   which the inmates will be regularly employed until such time as we
   can get them work elsewhere.  For this class must also work,
   not only as a discipline, but as the means for their own support.

2. In order to save, as far as possible, first offenders from the
   contamination of prison life, and to prevent the formation of
   further evil companionships, and the recklessness which follows the
   loss of character entailed by imprisonment, we would offer, in the
   Police and Criminal Courts, to take such offenders under our wing as
   were anxious to come and willing to accept our regulations.
   The confidence of both magistrates and prisoners would, we think,
   soon be secured, the friends of the latter would be mostly on our
   side, and the probability, therefore, is that we should soon have a
   large  number of cases placed under our care on what is known as
   "suspended sentence," to be brought up for judgment when called
   upon, the record of each sentence to be wiped out on report being
   favourable of their conduct in the Salvation Army Home.

3. We should seek access to the prisons in order to gain such
   acquaintance with the prisoners as would enable us the more
   effectually to benefit them on their discharge.  This privilege,
   we think, would be accorded us by the prison authorities when they
   became acquainted with the nature of our work and the remarkable
   results which followed it.  The right of entry into the gaols has
   already been conceded to our people in Australia, where they have
   free access to, and communion with, the inmates while under going
   their sentences.  Prisoners are recommended to come to us by the
   gaol authorities, who also forward to our people information of the
   date and hour when they leave, in order that they may be met on
   their release,

4. We propose to meet the criminals at the prison gates with the offer
   of immediate admission to our Homes.  The general rule is for them
   to be met by their friends or old associates, who ordinarily belong
   to the same class.  Any way, it would be an exception to the rule
   were they not all alike believers in the comforting and cheering
   power of the intoxicating cup.  Hence the public-house is invariably
   adjourned to, where plans for further crime are often decided upon
   straight away, resulting frequently, before many weeks are past,
   in the return of the liberated convict to the confinement from
   which he has just escaped.  Having been accustomed during confinement
   to the implicit submission of themselves to the will of another, the
   newly-discharged prisoner is easily influenced by whoever first gets
   hold of him.  Now, we propose to be beforehand with these old
   companions by taking the gaol-bird under our wing and setting before
   him an open door of hope the moment he crosses the threshold of the
   prison, assuring him that if he is willing to work and comply with
   our discipline, he never need know want any more.

5. We shall seek from the authorities the privilege of supervising
   and reporting upon those who are discharged with tickets-of-leave,
   so as to free them from the humiliating and harassing duty of having
   to report themselves at the police stations.

6. We shall find suitable employment for each individual.  If not in
   possession of some useful trade or calling we will teach him one.

7. After a certain length of residence in these Homes, if consistent
   evidence is given of a sincere purpose to live an honest life,
   he will be transferred to the Farm Colony, unless in the meanwhile
   friends or old employers take him off our hands, or some other form
   of occupation is obtained, in which case he will still be the object
   of watchful care.

We shall offer to all the ultimate possibility of being restored to
Society in this country, or transferred to commence life afresh in
another

With respect to results we can speak very positively, for although our
operations up to the present, except for a short time some three years
ago, have been limited, and unassisted by the important accessories
above described, yet the success that has at tended them has been most
remarkable.  The following are a few instances which might be
multiplied: --

J. W. was met at prison gate by the Captain of the Home and offered
help.  He declined to come at once as he had friends in Scotland who he
thought would help him; but if they failed, he promised to come.
It was his first conviction, and he had six months for robbing his
employer.  His trade was that of a baker.  In a few days he presented
himself at the Home, and was received.  In the course of a few weeks,
he professed conversion, and gave every evidence of the change.
For four months he was cook and baker in the kitchen, and at last a
situation as second hand was offered for him, with the [sic]

J. S. Sergeant-major of the Congress Hall Corps.  That is three years
ago.   He is there to-day, saved, and satisfactory; a thoroughly useful
and respectable man.

J. P. was an old offender.  He was met at Millbank on the expiration
of his last term (five years), and brought to the Home, where he worked
at his trade a tailor.  Eventually he got a situation, and has since
married.  He has now a good home, the confidence of his neighbours,
is well saved, and a soldier of the Hackney Corps.

C. M. Old offender, and penal servitude case.  Was induced to come to
the Home, got saved, was there for a long period, offered for the work,
and went into the Field, was Lieutenant for two years, and eventually
married.  He is now a respectable mechanic and soldier of a Corps in
Derbyshire.

J. W. Was manager in a large West End millinery establishment.
He was sent out with two ten-pound packages of silver to change.
On his way he met a companion and was induced to take a drink.
In the tavern the companion made an excuse to go outside and did not
return, and W. found one of the packages had been abstracted from his
outside pocket.  He was afraid to return, and decamped with the other
into the country.  Whilst in a small town he strolled into a Mission
Hall; there happened to be a hitch in the proceedings, the organist was
absent, a volunteer was called for, and W., being a good musician,
offered to play.  It seems the music took hold of him.  In the middle
of the hymn he walked out and went to the police station and gave
himself up.  He got six months.  When he came out, he saw that Happy
George, an ex-gaol bird, was announced at the Congress Hall.  He went
to the meeting and was induced to come to the Home.  He eventually got
saved, and to-day he is at the head of a Mission work in the provinces.

"Old Dan" was a penal servitude case, and had had several long
sentences.  He came into the Home and was saved.  He managed the
bootmaking there for a long time.  He has since gone into business at
Hackney, and is married.  He is of four years' standing, a thorough
respectable tradesman, and a Salvationist.

Charles C. has done in the aggregate twenty-three years' penal
servitude.  Was out on licence, and got saved at the Hull Barracks.
At that time he had neglected to report himself, and had destroyed his
licence, taking an assumed name.  When he got saved he gave himself up,
and was taken before the magistrate, who, instead of sending him back
to fulfil his sentence, gave him up to the Army.  He was sent to us
from Hull by our representative, is now in our factory and doing well.
He is still under police supervision for five years.

H. Kelso.  Also a licence man.  He had neglected to report himself,
and was arrested.  While before the magistrate he said he was tired of
dishonesty, and would go to the Salvation Army if they would discharge
him.  He was sent back to penal servitude.  Application was made by us
to the Home Secretary on his behalf, and Mr. Matthews granted his
release.  He was handed over to our Officers at Bristol, brought to
London, and is now in the Factory, saved and doing well.

E. W. belongs to Birmingham, is in his forty-ninth year, and has been
in and out of prison all his life.  He was at Redhill Reformatory five
years, and his last term was five years' penal servitude.  The Chaplain
at Pentonville advised him it he really meant reformation to seek the
Salvation Army on his release.  He came to Thames Street, was sent to
the Workshop and professed salvation the following Sunday at the
Shelter.  This is three months ago.  He is quite satisfactory,
industrious, contented and seemingly godly.

A. B., Gentleman loafer, good prospects, drink and idleness broke up
his home, killed his wife, and got him into gaol.  Presbyterian
minister, friend of his family, tried to reclaim him, but
unsuccessfully.  He entered the Prison Gate Home, became thoroughly
saved, distributed handbills for the Home, and ultimately got work in a
large printing and publishing works, where, after three years' service,
he now occupies a most responsible position.  Is an elder in the
Presbyterian Church, restored to his family, and the possessor of a
happy home.

W. C., a native of London, a good-for-nothing lad, idle and dissolute.
When leaving England his father warned him that if he didn't alter he'd
end his days on the gallows.  Served various sentences on all sorts of
charges.  Over six years ago we took him in hand, admitted him into
Prison Gate Brigade Home, where he became truly saved; he got a job of
painting, which he had learnt in gaol, and has married a woman who had
formerly been a procuress, but had passed through our Rescued Sinners'
Home, and there became thoroughly converted.  Together they have braved
the storms of life, both working diligently for their living.
They have now a happy little home of their own, and are doing very well.

F. X., the son of a Government officer, a drunkard, gambler, forger,
and all-round blackguard; served numerous sentences for forgery.
On his last discharge was admitted into Prison Gate Brigade Home, where
he stayed about five months and became truly saved.  Although his
health was completely shattered from the effects of his sinful life,
he steadfastly resisted all temptations to drink, and kept true to God.
Through advertising in the War Cry, he found his lost son and daughter,
who are delighted with the wonderful change in their father.  They have
become regular attendants at our meetings in the Temperance Hall.
He now keeps a coffee-stall, is doing well, and properly saved.

G. A., 72, spent 23 years in gaol, last sentence two years for
burglary; was a drunkard, gambler, and swearer.  Met on his discharge
by the Prison Gate Brigade, admitted into Home, where he remained four
months, and became truly saved.  He is living a consistent, godly life,
and is in employment.

C. D., aged 64, opium-smoker, gambler, blackguard, separated from wife
and family, and eventually landed in gaol, was met on his discharge and
admitted into Prison Gate Brigade Home, was saved, and is now restored
to his wife and family, and giving satisfaction in his employment.

S. T. was an idle, loafing, thieving, swearing, disreputable young man,
who lived, when out of gaol, with the low prostitutes of Little Bourke
Street.  Was taken in hand by our Prison Gate Brigade Officers,
who got him saved, then found him work.  After a few months he
expressed a desire to work for God, and although a cripple, and having
to use a crutch, such was his earnestness that he was accepted and has
done good service as an Army officer.  His testimony is good and his
life consistent.  He is, indeed, a marvel of Divine grace.

M. J., a young man holding a high position in England, got into a fast
set; thought a change to the Colonies would be to his advantage.
Started for Australia with #200 odd, of which he spent a good portion
on board ship in drink, soon dissipated the balance on landing,
and woke up one morning to find himself in gaol, with delirium tremens
on him, no money, his luggage lost, and without a friend on the whole
continent.  On his discharge he entered our Prison Gate Home,
became converted, and is now occupying a responsible position in a
Colonial Bank.

B. C., a man of good birth, education, and position; drank himself out
of home and friends and into gaol on leaving which he came to our Home;
was saved, exhibiting by an earnest and truly consistent life the depth
of his conversion, being made instrumental while with us in the
salvation of many who, like himself, had come to utter destitution and
crime through drink.  He is now in a first-class situation, getting
#300 a year, wife and family restored, the possessor of a happy home,
and the love of God shed abroad in it.

I do not produce these samples, which are but a few, taken at random
from the many, for the purpose of boasting.  The power which has
wrought these miracles is not in me nor in my Officers; it is power
which comes down from above.  But I think I may fairly point to these
cases, in which our instrumentality has been blessed, to the plucking
of these brands from the burning, as affording some justification for
the plea to be enabled to go on with this work on a much more extended
scale.  If any other organisation, religious or secular, can show
similar trophies as the result of such limited operations as ours have
hitherto been among the criminal population, I am willing to give place
to them.  All that I want is to have the work done.

SECTION 4.--EFFECTUAL DELIVERANCE FOR THE DRUNKARD.

The number, misery, and hopeless condition of the slaves of strong
drink, of both sexes, have been already dealt with at considerable
length.

We have seen that there are in Great Britain one million of men and
women, or thereabouts, completely under the domination of this cruel
appetite.  The utter helplessness of Society to deal with the drunkard
has been proved again and again, and confessed on all hands by those
who have had experience on the subject.  As we have before said, the
general feeling of all those who have tried their hands at this kind of
business is one of despair.  They think the present race of drunkards
must be left to perish, that every species of effort having proved
vain, the energies expended in the endeavour to rescue the parents will
be laid out to greater advantages upon the children.

There is a great deal of truth in all this.  Our own efforts have been
successful in a very remarkable degree.  Some of the bravest, most
devoted, and successful workers in our ranks are men and women who were
once the most abject slaves of the intoxicating cup.  Instances of this
have been given already.  We might multiply them by thousands.
Still, when compared with the ghastly array which the drunken army
presents to-day, those rescued are comparatively few.  The great reason
for this is the simple fact that the vast majority of those addicted to
the cup are its veritable slaves.  No amount of reasoning, or earthly
or religious considerations, can have any effect upon a man who is so
completely under the mastery of this passion that he cannot break away
from it, although he sees the most terrible consequences staring him in
the face.

The drunkard promises and vows, but promises and vows in vain.
Occasionally he will put forth frantic efforts to deliver himself,
but only to fall again in the presence of the opportunity.
The insatiable crave controls him.  He cannot get away from it.
It compels him to drink, whether he will or not, and, unless delivered
by an Almighty hand, he will drink himself into a drunkard's grave and
a drunkard's hell.

Our annals team with successful rescues effected from the ranks of
the drunken army.  The following will not only be examples of this,
but will tend to illustrate the strength and madness of the passion
which masters the slave to strong drink.

Barbara.--She had sunk about as low as any woman could when we found
her.  From the age of eighteen, when her parents had forced her to
throw over her sailor sweetheart and marry a man with "good prospects,"
she had been going steadily down.

She did not love her husband, and soon sought comfort from the little
public-house only a few steps from her own door.  Quarrels in her home
quickly gave place to fighting, angry curses, and oaths, and soon her
life became one of the most wretched in the place.  Her husband made no
pretence of caring for her, and when she was ill and unable to earn
money by selling fish in the streets, he would go off for a few months,
leaving her to keep the house and support herself and babies as best
she could.  Out of her twenty years of married life, ten were spent in
these on-and-off separations.  And so she got to live for only one
thing--drink.  It was life to her; and the mad craving grew to be
irresistible.  The woman who looked after her at the birth of her child
refused to fetch her whisky, so when she had done all she could and
left the mother to rest, Barbara crept out of bed and crawled slowly
down the stairs over the way to the tap-room, where she sat drinking
with the baby, not yet an hour old, in her arms.  So things went on,
until her life got so unbearable that she determined to have done with
it.  Taking her two eldest children with her, she went down to the bay,
and deliberately threw them both into the water, jumping in herself
after them.  "Oh, mither, mither, dinna droon me!" wailed her little
three-year-old Sarah, but she was determined and held them under the
water, till, seeing a boat put out to the rescue she knew that she was
discovered.  Too late to do it now, she thought, and, holding both
children, swam quickly back to the shore.  A made-up story about having
fallen into the water satisfied the boatman, and Barbara returned home
dripping and baffled.  But little Sarah did not recover from the shock,
and after a few weeks her short life ended, and she was laid in the
Cemetery.

Yet another time, goaded to desperation, she tried to take her life
by hanging herself, but a neighbour came in and cut her down
unconscious, but still living.  She became a terror to all the
neighbourhood, and her name was the bye-word for daring and desperate
actions.  But our Open-Air Meetings attracted her, she came to the
Barracks, got saved, and was delivered from her love of drink and sin.

From being a dread her home became a sort of house of refuge in the
little low street where she lived; other wives as unhappy as herself
would come in for advice and help.  Anyone knew that Barbie was
changed, and loved to do all she could for her neighbours.
A few months ago she came up to the Captain's in great distress over a
woman who lived just opposite.  She had been cruelly kicked and cursed
by her husband, who had finally bolted the door against her, and she
had turned to Barbie as the only hope.  And of course Barbie took her
in, with her rough-and-ready kindness got her to bed, kept out the
other women who crowded round to sympathise and declaim against the
husband's brutality, was both nurse and doctor for the poor woman till
her child was born and laid in the mother's arms.  And then, to
Barbie's distress, she could do no more, for the woman, not daring to
be absent longer, got up as best she could, and crawled on hands and
knees down the little steep steps, across the street, and back to her
own door.  "But, Barbie!" exclaimed the Captain, horrified,
"you should have nursed her, and kept her until she was strong enough."
But Barbie answered by reminding the Captain of "John's" fearful
temper, and how it might cost the woman her life to be absent from her
home more than a couple of hours.

The second is the case of--

Maggie.--She had a home, but seldom was sober enough to reach it at
nights.  She would fall down on the doorsteps until found by some
passer-by or a policeman.

In one of her mad freaks a boon-companion happened to offend her.
He was a little hunch-back, and a fellow-drunkard; but without a
moment's hesitation, Maggie seized him and pushed him head-foremost
down the old-fashioned wide sewer of the Scotch town.  Had not some one
seen his heel's kicking out and rescued him, he would surley have been
suffocated.

One winter's night Maggie had been drinking heavily, fighting, too,
as usual, and she staggered only as far, on her way home, as the narrow
chain-pier.  Here she stumbled and fell, and lay along on the snow, the
blood oozing from her cuts, and her hair spread out in a tangled mass.

At 5 in the morning, some factory girls, crossing the bridge to their
work, came upon her, lying stiff and stark amidst the snow and
darkness.

To rouse her from her drunken sleep was hard, but to raise her from the
ground was still harder.  The matted hair and blood had frozen fast to
the earth, and Maggie was a prisoner.  After trying to free her in
different ways, and receiving as a reward volleys of abuse and bad
language, one of the girl's ran for a kettle of boiling water, and by
pouring it all around her, they succeeded by degrees in melting her on
to her feet again!  But she came to our Barracks, and got soundly
converted, and the Captain was rewarded for nights and days of toil by
seeing her a saved and sober woman.

All went right till a friend asked her to his house, to drink his
health, and that of his newly-married wife.  "I wouldn't ask you to
take anything strong," he said.  "Drink to me with this lemonade."
And Maggie, nothing suspecting, drank, and as she drank tasted in the
glass her old enemy, whisky!  The man laughed at her dismay, but a
friend rushed off to tell the Captain.  "I may be in time, she has not
really gone back"; and the Captain ran to the house, tying her bonnet
strings as she ran.  "It's no good--keep awa'--I don't want to
see'er, Captain," wailed Maggie "let me have some more--oh, I'm on
fire inside."  But the Captain was firm, and taking her to her home,
she locked herself in with the woman, and sat with the key in her
pocket, while Maggie, half mad with craving, paced the floor like a
caged animal, threatening and entreating by terms.  "Never while I live,"
was all the answer she could get; so she turned to the door, and busied
herself there a moment or two.  A clinking noise.  The Captain started
up--to see the door open and Maggie rush through it!  Accustomed to
stealing and all its "dodges," she had taken the lock off the door,
and was away to the nearest public-house.

Down the stairs, Captain after her, into the gin palace; but before the
astonished publican could give her the drink she was clamouring for,
the "bonnet" was by her side, "If you dare to serve her, I'll break the
glass before it reaches her lips.  She shall not have any!" and so
Maggie was coaxed away, and shielded till the passion was over, and she
was Herself once more.

But the man who gave her the whisky durst not leave his house for
weeks.  The roughs got to know of the trap he had laid for her,
and would have lynched him could they have got hold of him.

The third is the case of Rose.

Rose was ruined, deserted, and left to the streets when only a girl of
thirteen, by a once well-to-do man, who is now, we believe, closing his
days in a workhouse in the North of England.

Fatherless, motherless, and you might almost say friendless, Rose trod
the broad way to destruction, with all its misery and shame, for twelve
long years.  Her wild, passionate nature, writhing under the wrong
suffered, sought forgetfulness in the intoxicating cup, and she soon
became a notorious drunkard.  Seventy-four times during her career she
was dragged before the magistrates, and seventy-four times, with one
exception, she was punished, but the seventy-fourth time she was
as far off reformation as ever.  The one exception happened on the
Queen's Jubilee Day.  On seeing her well-known face again before him, the
magistrate enquired, "How many times has this woman been here before?"

The Police Superintendent answered, "Fifty times."  The magistrate
remarked, in somewhat grim humour, "Then this is her Jubilee," and,
moved by the coincidence, he let her go free.  So Rose spent her
jubilee out of prison.

It is a wonder that the dreadful, drunken, reckless, dissipated life
she lived did not hurry her to an early grave; it did affect her
reason, and for three weeks she was locked up in Lancaster Lunatic
Asylum, having really gone mad through drink and sin.

In evidence of her reckless nature, it is said that after her second
imprisonment she vowed she would never again walk to the police
station; consequently, when in her wild orgies the police found it
necessary to arrest her, they had to get her to the police station as
best they could, sometimes by requisitioning a wheelbarrow or a cart,
or the use of a stretcher, and sometimes they had to carry her right
out.  On one occasion, towards the close of her career, when driven to
the last-named method, four policemen were carrying her to the station,
and she was extra violent, screaming, plunging and biting, when, either
by accident or design, one of the policemen let go of her head, and it
came in contact with the curbstone, causing the blood to pour forth in
a stream.  As soon as they placed her in the cell the poor creature
caught the blood in her hands, and literally washed her face with it.
On the following morning she presented a pitiable sight, and before
taking her into the court the police wanted to wash her, but she
declared she would draw any man's blood who attempted to put a finger
upon her; they had spilt her blood, and she would carry it into the
court as a witness against them.  On coming out of gaol for the last
time, she met with a few Salvationists beating the drum and singing
"Oh! the Lamb, the bleeding Lamb; He was found worthy."  Rose, struck
with the song, and impressed with the very faces of the people,
followed them, saying to herself, "I never before heard anything like
that, or seen such happy looking people."  She came into the Barracks;
her heart was broken; she found her way to the Penitent Form, and
Christ, with His own precious blood, washed her sins away.  She arose
from her knees and said to the Captain, "It is all right now."

Three months after her conversion a great meeting was held in the
largest hall in the town, where she was known to almost every inhabitant.
There were about three thousand people present.  Rose was called upon
to give her testimony to the power of God to save.  A more enthusiastic
wave of sympathy never greeted any speaker than that which met her from
that crowd, every one of whom was familiar with her past history.
After a few broken words, in which she spoke of the wonderful change
that had taken place, a cousin, who, like herself, had lived a
notoriously evil life, came to the Cross.

Rose is now War Cry sergeant.  She goes into the brothels and
gin palaces and other haunts of vice, from which she was rescued,
and sells more papers than any other Soldier.

The Superintendent of Police, soon after her conversion, told the
Captain at the Corps that in rescuing Rose a more wonderful work had
been done than he had seen in all the years gone by.

S. was a native of Lancashire, the son of poor, but pious, parents.
He was saved when sixteen years of age.  He was first an Evangelist,
then a City Missionary for five or six years, and afterwards a Baptist
Minister.  He then fell under the influence of drink, resigned,
and became a commercial traveller, but lost his berth through drink.
He was then an insurance agent, and rose to be superintendent, but was
again dismissed through drink.  During his drunken career he had
delirium tremens four times, attempted suicide three times, sold up six
homes, was in the workhouse with his wife and family three times.
His last contrivance for getting drink was to preach mock sermons,
and offer mock prayers in the tap-rooms.

After one of these blasphemous performances in a public-house, on the
words, "Are you Saved?" he was challenged to go to the Salvation
Barracks.  He went, and the Captain, who knew him well, at once made
for him, to plead for his soul, but S. knocked him down, and rushed
back to the public-house for more drink.  He was, however, so moved by
what he had heard that he was unable to raise the liquor to his mouth,
although he made three attempts.  He again returned to the meeting,
and again quitted it for the public-house.  He could not rest, and for
the third time he returned to the Barracks.  As he entered the last
time the Soldiers were singing: --

 "Depth of mercy, can there be
 Mercy still reserved for me?
 Can my God his wrath forbear?
 Me, the chief of Sinners, spare?

This song impressed him still further; he wept, and remained in the
Barracks under deep conviction until midnight.  He was drunk all the
next day, vainly trying to drown his convictions.  The Captain visited
him at night, but was quickly thrust out of the house.  He was there
again next morning, and prayed and talked with S. for nearly two hours.
Poor S. was in despair.  He persisted that there was no mercy for him.
After a long struggle, however, hope sprung up, he fell upon his knees,
confessed his sins, and obtained forgiveness.

When this happened, his furniture consisted of a soap-box for a table,
and starch boxes for chairs.  His wife, himself, and three children,
had not slept in a bed for three years.  He has now a happy family,
a comfortable home, and has been the means of leading numbers of other
slaves of sin to the Saviour, and to a truly happy life.

Similar cases, describing the deliverance of drunkards from the bondage
of strong drink, could be produced indefinitely.  There are Officers
marching in our ranks to-day, who where once gripped by this fiendish
fascination, who have had their fetters broken, and are now free men in
the Army.  Still the mighty torrent of Alcohol, fed by ten thousand
manufactories, sweeps on, bearing with it, I have no hesitation in
saying, the foulest, bloodiest tide that ever flowed from earth to
eternity.  The Church of the living God ought not--and to say nothing
about religion, the people who have any humanity ought not, to rest
without doing something desperate to rescue this half of a million who
are in the eddying maelstrom.  We purpose, therefore, the taking away
of the people from the temptation which they cannot resist.  We would
to God that the temptation could be taken away from them, that every
house licensed to send forth the black streams of bitter death were
closed, and closed for ever.  But this will not be, we fear, for the
present at least.

While in one case drunkenness may be resolved into a habit, in another
it must be accounted a disease.  What is wanted in the one case,
therefore, is some method of removing the man out of the sphere of the
temptation, and in the other for treating the passion as a disease,
as we should any other physical affection, bringing to bear upon it
every agency, hygienic and otherwise, calculated to effect a cure.

The Dalrymple Homes, in which, on the order of a magistrate and by
their own consent, Inebriates can be confined for a time, have been a
partial success in dealing with this class in both these respects;
but they are admittedly too expensive to be of any service to the poor.
It could never be hoped that working people of themselves, or with the
assistance of their friends, would be able to pay two pounds a week for
the privilege of being removed away from the licensed temptations to
drink which surround them at every step.  Moreover, could they obtain
admission they would feel themselves anything but at ease amongst the
class who avail themselves of these institutions.  We propose to
establish Homes which will contemplate the deliverance, not of ones and
twos, but of multitudes, and which will be accessible to the poor,
or to persons of any class choosing to use them.  This is our national
vice, and it demands nothing short of a national remedy--anyway,
one of proportions large enough to be counted national.

1.  To begin with, there will be City Homes, into which a man can be
    taken, watched over, kept out of the way of temptation, and if
    possible delivered from the power of this dreadful habit.

In some cases persons would be taken in who are engaged in business in
the City in the day, being accompanied by an attendant to and from the
Home.  In this case, of course, adequate remuneration for this extra
care would be required.

2.  Country Homes, which we shall conduct on the Dalrymple principle;
    that is, taking persons for compulsory confinement, they binding
    themselves by a bond confirmed by a magistrate that they would
    remain for a certain period.  The general regulations for both
    establishments would be something as follows: --

 (1). There would be only one class in each establishment.  If it was
      found that the rich and the poor did not work comfortably
      together, separate institutions must be provided.
 (2). All would alike have to engage in some remunerative form of
      employment.  Outdoor work would be preferred, but indoor
      employment would be arranged for those for whom it was most
      suitable, and in such weather and at such times of the year when
      garden work was impracticable.
 (3). A charge of 10s. per week would be made.  This could be
      remitted when there was no ability to pay it.

The usefulness of such Homes is too evident to need any discussion.
There is one class of unfortunate creatures who must be objects of pity
to all who have any knowledge of their existence, and that is, those
men and women who are being continually dragged before the magistrates,
of whom we are constantly reading in the police reports, whose lives
are spent in and out of prison, at an enormous cost to the country,
and without any benefit to themselves.

We should then be able to deal with this class.  It would be possible
for a magistrate, instead of sentencing the poor wrecks of humanity to
the sixty-fourth and one hundred and twentieth term of imprisonment,
to send them to this Institution, by simply remanding them to come up
for sentence when called for.  How much cheaper such an arrangement
would be for the country!

SECTION 5.--A NEW WAY OF ESCAPE FOR LOST WOMEN.  THE RESCUE HOMES.

Perhaps there is no evil more destructive of the best interests of
Society, or confessedly more difficult to deal with remedially,
than that which is known as the Social Evil.  We have already seen
something of the extent to which this terrible scourge has grown,
and the alarming manner in which it affects our modern civilisation.

We have already made an attempt at grappling with this evil, having
about thirteen Homes in Great Britain, accommodating 307 girls under
the charge of 132 Officers, together with seventeen Homes abroad,
open for the same purpose.  The whole, although a small affair compared
with the vastness of the necessity, nevertheless constitutes perhaps
the largest and most efficient effort of its character in the world.

It is difficult to estimate the results that have been already
realised.  By our varied operations, apart from these Homes, probably
hundreds, if not thousands, have been delivered from lives of shame and
misery.  We have no exact return of the number who have gone through
the Homes abroad, but in connection with the work in this country,
about 3,000 have been rescued, and are living lives of virtue.

This success has not only been gratifying on account of the blessing it
has brought these young women, the gladness it has introduced to the
homes to which they have been restored, and the benefit it has bestowed
upon Society, but because it has assured us that much greater results
of the same character may be realised by operations conducted on a
larger scale, and under more favourable circumstances.

With this view we propose to remodel and greatly increase the number of
our Homes both in London and the provinces, establishing one in every
great centre of this infamous traffic.

To make them very largely Receiving Houses, where the girls will be
initiated into the system of reformation, tested as to the reality of
their desires for deliverance, and started forward on the highway of
truth, virtue, and religion.

From these Homes large numbers, as at present, would be restored to
their friends and relatives, while some would be detained in training
for domestic service, and others passed on to the Farm Colony.

On the Farm they would be engaged in various occupations.
In the Factory, at Bookbinding and Weaving; in the Garden and
Glasshouses amongst fruit and flowers; in the Dairy, making butter;
in all cases going through a course of House-work which will fit them
for domestic service.

At every stage the same process of moral and religious training,
on which we specially rely, will be carried forward.

There would probably be a considerable amount of inter-marriage amongst
the Colonists, and in this way a number of these girl's would be
absorbed into Society.

A large number would be sent abroad as domestic servants.  In Canada,
the girls are taken out of the Rescue Homes as servants, with no other
reference than is gained by a few weeks' residence there, and are paid
as much as #3 a month wages.  The scarcity of domestic servants in the
Australian Colonies, Western States of America, Africa, and elsewhere
is well known.  And we have no doubt that on all hands our girls with
12 months' character will be welcomed, the question of outfit and
passage-money being easily arranged for by the persons requiring their
services advancing the amount, with an understanding that it is to be
deducted out of their first earnings.

Then we have the Colony Over-Sea, which will require the service of a
large number.  Very few families will go out who will not be very glad
to take a young woman with them, not as a menial servant, but as a
companion and friend.

By this method we should be able to carry out Rescue work on a much
larger scale.  At present two difficulties very largely block our way.
One is the costliness of the work.  The expense of rescuing a girl on
the present plan cannot be much less than #7; that is, if we include
the cost of those with whom we fail, and on whom the money is largely
thrown away.  Seven pounds is certainly not a very large sum for the
measure of benefit bestowed upon the girl by bringing her off the
streets, and that which is bestowed on Society by removing her from her
evil course.  Still, when the work runs into thousands of individuals,
the amount required becomes considerable.  On the plan proposed we
calculate that from the date of their reaching the Farm Colony they
will earn nearly all that is required for their support.

The next difficulty which hinders our expansion in this department is
the want of suitable and permanent situations, Although we have been
marvellously successful so far, having at this hour probably 1,200
girls in domestic service alone, still the difficulty in this respect
is great.  Families are naturally shy at receiving these poor
unfortunates when they can secure the help they need combined with
unblemished character; and we cannot blame them.

Then, again, it can easily be understood that the monotony of domestic
service in this country is not altogether congenial to the tastes of
many of these girls, who have been accustomed to a life of excitement
and freedom.  This can be easily understood.  To be shut up seven days
a week with little or no intercourse, either with friends or with the
outside world, beyond that which comes of the weekly Church service or
"night out" with nowhere to go, as many of them are tied off from the
Salvation Army Meetings, becomes very monotonous, and in hours of
depression it is not to be wondered at if a few break down in their
resolutions, and fall back into their old ways.

On the plan we propose there is something to cheer these girls forward.
Life on the farm will be attractive.  From there they can go to a new
country and begin the world afresh, with the possibility of being
married and having a little home of their own some day.  With such
prospects, we think, they will be much more likely to fight their way
through seasons of darkness and temptation than as at present.

This plan will also make the task of rescuing the girls much more
agreeable to the Officers engaged in it.  They will have this future to
dwell upon as an encouragement to persevere with the girls, and will be
spared one element at least in the regret they experience, when a girl
falls back into old habits, namely, that she earned the principal part
of the money that has been expended upon her.

That girls can be rescued and blessedly saved even now, despite all
their surroundings, we have many remarkable proofs.  Of these take one
or two as examples: --

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.

She had left a respectable home, forsaken her husband and family,
and sunk so low that the man who then claimed her boasted to the
Officer that he had bettered her condition by taking her off the
streets.

We took the poor creature away, washed and clothed her; and, changed in
heart and life, she is one more added to the number of those who rise
up to bless the Salvation Army workers.

SECTION 6.--A PREVENTIVE HOME FOR UNFALLEN GIRLS WHEN IN DANGER.

There is a story told likely enough to be true about a young girl who
applied one evening for admission to some home established for the
purpose of rescuing fallen women.  The matron naturally inquired
whether she had forfeited her virtue; the girl replied in the negative.
She had been kept from that infamy, but she was poor and friendless,
and wanted somewhere to lay her head until she could secure work,
and obtain a home.  The matron must have pitied her, but she could not
help her as she did not belong to the class for whose benefit the
Institution was intended.  The girl pleaded, but the matron could not
alter the rule, and dare not break it, they were so pressed to find
room for their own poor unfortunates, and she could not receive her.
The poor girl left the door reluctantly but returned in a very short
time, and said, "I am fallen now, will you take me in?"

I am somewhat slow to credit this incident; anyway it is true in
spirit, and illustrates the fact that while there are homes to which
any poor, ruined, degraded harlot can run for shelter, there is only
here and there a corner to which a poor friendless, moneyless,
homeless, but unfallen girl can fly for shelter from the storm which
bids fair to sweep her away whether she will or no into the deadly
vortex of ruin which gapes beneath her.

In London and all our large towns there must be a considerable number
of poor girls who from various causes are suddenly plunged into this
forlorn condition; a quarrel with the mistress and sudden discharge,
a long bout of disease and dismissal penniless from the hospital,
a robbery of a purse, having to wait for a situation until the last
penny is spent, and many other causes will leave a girl an almost
hopeless prey to the linx-eyed villains who are ever watching to take
advantage of innocence when in danger.  Then, again, what a number
there must be in a great city like London who are ever faced with the
alternative of being turned out of doors if they refuse to submit
themselves to the infamous overtures of those around them.
I understand that the Society for the Protection of Children prosecuted
last year a fabulous number of fathers for unnatural sins with their
children.  If so many were brought to justice, how many were there of
whom the world never heard in any shape or form?  We have only to
imagine how many a poor girl is, faced with the terrible alternative of
being driven literally into the streets by employers or relatives or
others in whose power she is unfortunately placed.

Now, we want a real home for such--a house to which any girl can fly
at any hour of the day or night, and be taken in, cared for, shielded
from the enemy, and helped into circumstances of safety.

The Refuge we propose will be very much on the same principle as the
Homes for the Destitute already described.  We should accept any girls,
say from fourteen years of age, who were without visible means of
support, but who were willing to work, and to conform to discipline.
There would be various forms of labour provided, such as laundry work,
sewing, knitting by machines, &c.  Every beneficial influence within
our power would be brought to bear on the rectification and formation
of character.  Continued efforts would be made to secure situations
according to the adaptation of the girls, to restore wanderers to their
homes, and otherwise provide for all.  From this, as with the other
Homes, there will be a way made to the Farm and to the Colony over the
sea.  The institutions would be multiplied as we had means and found
them to be necessary, and made self-supporting as far as possible.

SECTION 7.--ENQUIRY OFFICE FOR LOST PEOPLE.

Perhaps nothing more vividly suggests the varied forms of
broken-hearted misery in the great City than the statement that 18,000
people are lost in it every year, of whom 9,000 are never heard of any
more, anyway in this world.  What is true about London is, we suppose,
true in about the same proportion of the rest of the country.
Husbands, sons, daughters, and mothers are continually disappearing,
and leaving no trace behind.

In such cases, where the relations are of some importance in the world,
they may interest the police authorities sufficiently to make some
enquiries in this country, which, however, are not often successful;
or where they can afford to spend large sums of money, they can fall
back upon the private detective, who will continue these enquiries,
not only at home but abroad.

But where the relations of the missing individual are in humble
circumstances, they are absolutely powerless, in nine cases out of ten,
to effectually prosecute any search at all that is likely to be
successful.

Take, for instance, a cottager in a village, whose daughter leaves for
service in a big town or city.  Shortly afterwards a letter arrives
informing her parents of the satisfactory character of her place.
The mistress is kind, the work easy, and she likes her fellow servants.
She is going to chapel or church, and the family are pleased.  Letters
continue to arrive of the same purport, but, at length, they suddenly
cease.  Full of concern, the mother writes to know the reason, but no
answer comes back, and after a time the letters are returned with
"gone, no address," written on the envelope.  The mother writes to the
mistress, or the father journeys to the city, but no further
information can be obtained beyond the fact that "the girl has
conducted herself somewhat mysteriously of late; had ceased to be as
careful at her work; had been noticed to be keeping company with some
young man; had given notice and disappeared altogether."

Now, what can these poor people do?  They apply to the police, but they
can do nothing.  Perhaps they ask the clergyman of the parish, who is
equally helpless, and there is nothing for them but for the father to
hang his head and the mother to cry her self to sleep--to long,
and wait, and pray for information that perhaps never comes, and to
fear the worst.

Now, our Enquiry Department supplies a remedy for this state of things.
In such a case application would simply have to be made to the nearest
Salvation Army Officer--probably in her own village, any way, in the
nearest town--who would instruct the parents to write to the Chief
Office in London, sending portraits and all particulars.  Enquiries
would at once be set on foot, which would very possibly end in the
restoration of the girl.

The achievements of this Department, which has only been in operation
for a short time, and that on a limited scale, as a branch of Rescue
Work, have been marvellous.  No more romantic stories can be found in
the pages of our most imaginative writers than those it records.
We give three or four illustrative cases of recent date.

A LOST HUSBAND.

ENQUIRY.

Mrs. S., of New Town, Leeds, wrote to say that ROBERT R. left England
in July 1889, for Canada to improve his position.  He left a wife and
four little children behind, and on leaving said that if he were
successful out there he should send for them, but if not he should
return.

As he was unsuccessful, he left Montreal in the Dominion Liner
"Oregon," on October 30th, but except receiving a card from him ere he
started, the wife and friends had heard no more of him from that day
till the date they wrote us.

They had written to the "Dominion" Company, who replied that "he landed
at Liverpool all right," so, thinking he had disappeared upon his
arrival, they put the matter in the hands of the Liverpool Police, who,
after having the case in hand for several weeks made the usual report
--"Cannot be traced."

RESULT.

We at once commenced looking for some passenger who had come over by
the same steamer, and after the lapse of a little time we succeeded in
getting hold of one.

In our first interview with him we learned that Robert R. did not land
at Liverpool, but when suffering from depression threw himself
overboard three days after leaving America, and was drowned.
We further elicited that upon his death the sailors rifled his clothes
and boxes, and partitioned them.

We wrote the Company reporting this, and they promised to make
enquiries and amends, but as too often happens, upon making report of
the same to the family they took the matter into their own hands,
dealt with the Company direct, and in all probability thereby lost a
good sum in compensation which we should probably have obtained for
them.

A LOST WIFE.

ENQUIRY.

F. J. L. asked us to seek for his wife, who left him on November 4th,
1888.  He feared she had gone to live an immoral life; gave us two
addresses at which she might possibly be heard of, and a description.
They had three children.

RESULT.

Enquiries at the addresses given elicited no information, but from
observation in the neighbourhood the woman's whereabouts was
discovered.

After some difficulty our Officer obtained an interview with the woman,
who was greatly astonished at our having discovered her.  She was dealt
with faithfully and firmly:  the plain truth of God set before her,
and was covered with shame and remorse, and promised to return.

We communicated with Mr. L. A few days after he wrote that he had
been telegraphed for, had forgiven his wife, and that they were
re-united.

Soon afterwards she wrote expressing her deep gratitude to
Mrs. Bramwell Booth for the trouble taken in her case.

A LOST CHILD.

ENQUIRY.

ALICE P. was stolen away from home by Gypsies ten years ago, and now
longs to find her parents to be restored to them.  She believes her
home to be in Yorkshire.  The Police had this case in hand for some
time, but failed entirely.

RESULT.

With these particulars we advertised in the "War Cry."  Captain Green,
seeing the advertisement, wrote, April 3rd, from 3, C. S., M. H.,
that her Lieutenant knew a family of the name advertised for, living at
Gomersal, Leeds.

We, on the 4th, wrote to this address for confirmation.

April 6th, we heard from Mr. P---, that this lass is his child, and he
writes full of gratitude and joy, saying he will send money for her to
go home We, meanwhile, get from the Police, who had long sought this
girl, a full description and photo, which we sent to Captain Cutmore;
and on April 9th, she wrote us to the effect that the girl exactly
answered the description.  We got from the parents 15/- for the fare,
and Alice was once more restored to her parents.  Praise God.

A LOST DAUGHTER.

ENQUIRY.

E. W. Age 17.  Application from this girl's mother and brother, who
had lost all trace of her since July, 1885, when she left for Canada.
Letters had been once or twice received, dated from Montreal, but they
stopped.  A photo., full description, and handwriting were supplied.

RESULT.

We discovered that some kind Church people here had helped E. W. to
emigrate, but they had no information as to her movements after
landing.

Full particulars, with photo., were sent to our Officers in Canada.
The girl was not found in Montreal.  The information was then sent to
Officers in other towns in that part of the Colony.

The enquiry was continued through some months; and, finally, through
our Major of Division, the girl was reported to us as having been
recognised in one of our Barracks and identified.  When suddenly called
by her own name, she nearly fainted with agitation.

She was in a condition of terrible poverty and shame, but at once
consented, on hearing of her mother's enquiries, to go into one of our
Canadian Rescue Homes.  She is now doing well.  Her mother's joy may be
imagined.

A LOST SERVANT.

ENQUIRY.

Mrs. M., Clevedon, one of Harriett P.'s old mistresses, wrote us, in
deep concern, about this girl.  She said she was a good servant, but
was ruined by the young man who courted her, and had since had three
children.  Occasionally, she would have a few bright and happy weeks,
but would again lapse into the "vile path."

Mrs. M. tells us that Harriett had good parents, who are dead, but
she still has a respectable brother in Hampshire.  The last she heard
of her was that some weeks ago she was staying at a Girl's Shelter at
Bristol, but had since left, and nothing more had been heard of her.

The enquirer requested us to find her, and in much faith added,
"I believe you are the only people who, if successful in tracing her,
can rescue and do her a permanent good."

RESULT.

We at once set enquiries on foot, and in the space of a few days found
that she had started from Bristol on the road for Bath.  Following her
up we found that at a little place called Bridlington, on the way to
Bath, she had met a man, of whom she enquired her way.  He hearing a
bit of her story, after taking her to a public-house, prevailed upon
her to go home and live with him, as he had lost his wife.

It was at this stage that we came upon the scene, and having dealt with
them both upon the matter, got her to consent to come away if the man
would not marry her, giving him two days to make up his mind.

The two days' respite having expired and, he being unwilling to
undertake matrimony, we brought her away, and sent her to one of our
Homes, where she is enjoying peace and penitence.

When we informed the mistress and brother of the success, they were
greatly rejoiced and overwhelmed us with thanks.

A LOST HUSBAND.

In a seaside home last Christmas there was a sorrowing wife, who
mourned over the basest desertion of her husband.  Wandering from place
to place drinking, he had left her to struggle alone with four little
ones dependent upon her exertions.

Knowing her distress, the captain of the corps wrote begging us to
advertise for the man in the Cry.  We did this, but for some time heard
nothing of the result.

Several weeks later a Salvationist entered a beer-house, where a group
of men were drinking, and began to distribute War Crys amongst them,
speaking here and there upon the eternity which faced everyone.

At the counter stood a man with a pint pot in hand, who took one of the
papers passed to him, and glancing carelessly down its columns caught
sight of his own name, and was so startled that the pot fell from his
grasp to the floor.  "Come home," the paragraph ran, "and all will be
forgiven."

His sin faced him; the thought of a broken-hearted wife and starving
children conquered him completely, and there and then he left the
public-house, and started to walk home--a distance of many mile--
arriving there about midnight the same night, after an absence of
eleven months.

The letter from his wife telling the good news of his return, spoke
also of his determination by God's help to be a different man, and they
are both attendants at the Salvation Army barracks.

A SEDUCER COMPELLED TO PAY.

Amongst the letters that came to the Inquiry Office one morning was one
from a girl who asked us to help her to trace the father of her child
who had for some time ceased to pay anything towards its support.
The case had been brought into the Police Court, and judgment given in
her favour, but the guilty one had hidden, and his father refused to
reveal his whereabouts.

We called upon the elder man and laid the matter before him, but failed
to prevail upon him either to pay his son's liabilities or to put us
into communication with him.  The answers to an advertisement in the
War Cry, however, had brought the required in formation as to his son's
whereabouts, and the same morning that our Inquiry Officer communicated
with the police, and served a summons for the overdue money, the young
man had also received a letter from his father advising him to leave
the country at once.  He had given notice to his employers; and the #16
salary he received, with some help his father had sent him towards the
journey, he was compelled to hand over to the mother of his child.

FOUND IN THE BUSH.

A year or two ago a respectable-looking Dutch girl might have been seem
making her way quickly and stealthily across a stretch of long rank
grass towards the shelter of some woods on the banks of a distant
river.  Behind her lay the South African town from which she had come,
betrayed, disgraced, ejected from her home with words of bitter scorn,
having no longer a friend in the wide world who would hold out to her a
hand of help.  What could there be better for her than to plunge into
that river yonder, and end this life--no matter what should come
after the plunge?  But Greetah feared the "future," and turned aside to
spend the night in darkness, wretched and alone.

Seven years had passed.  An English traveller making his way through
Southern Africa halted for the Sabbath at a little village on his
route.  A ramble through the woods brought him unexpectedly in front of
a kraal, at the door of which squatted all old Hottentot, with a fair
white-faced Child playing on the ground near by.  Glad to accept the
proffered shelter of the hut from the burning sun, the traveller
entered, and was greatly astonished to find within a young white girl,
evidently the mother of the frolicsome child.  Full of pity for the
strange pair, and especially for the girl, who wore an air of
refinement little to be expected in this out-of-the-world spot, he sat
down on the earthen floor, and told them of the wonderful Salvation of
God.  This was Greetah, and the Englishman would have given a great
deal if he could have rescued her from this miserable lot.  But this
was impossible, and with reluctance he bid her farewell.

It was an English home.  By a glowing fire one night a man sat alone,
and in his imaginings there came up the vision of the girl he had met
in the Hottentot's Kraal, and wondering whether any way of rescue was
possible.  Then he remembered reading, since his return, the following
paragraph in the War Cry: --

"TO THE DISTRESSED.  The Salvation Army invite parents, relations,
and friends in any part of the world interested in any woman or girl
who is known, or feared to be, living in immorality, or is in danger
of coming under the control of immoral persons, to write, stating full
particulars, with names, dates, and address of all concerned, and,
if possible, a photograph of the person in who the interest is taken.

"All letters, whether from these persons or from such women or girls
themselves, will be regarded as strictly confidential.  They maybe
written in any language, and should be addressed to Mrs. Bramwell
Booth, 101, Queen Victoria Street, London, E.C."  "It will do no harm to
try, anyhow," exclaimed he, "the thing haunts me as it is," and without
further delay he penned an account of his African adventure, as full as
possible.  The next African mail carried instructions to the Officer in
Command of our South African work.

Shortly after, one of our Salvation Riders was exploring the bush, and
after some difficulty the kraal was discovered the girl was rescued and
saved.  The Hottentot was converted afterwards, and both are now
Salvation Soldiers.

Apart from the independent agencies employed to prosecute this class of
enquiries, which it is proposed to very largely increase, the Army
possesses in itself peculiar advantages for this kind of investigation.
The mode of operation is as follows: --

There is a Head Centre under the direction of a capable Officer and
assistants, to which particulars of lost husbands, sons, daughters,
and wives, as the case may be, are forwarded.  These are advertised,
except when deemed inadvisable, in the English "War Cry," with its
300,000 circulation, and from it copied into the twenty-three other
"War Crys" published in different parts of the world.  Specially
prepared information in each case is sent to the local Officers of the
Army when that is thought wise, or Special Enquiry Officers trained to
their work are immediately set to work to follow up any clue which has
been given by enquiring relations or friends.

Every one of its 10,000 Officers, nay, almost every soldier in its
ranks, scattered, as they are, through every quarter of the globe, may
be regarded as an Agent.  A small charge for enquiries is made, and,
where persons are able, all the costs of the investigation will he
defrayed by them.

SECTION 8.--REFUGES FOR THE CHILDREN OF THE STREETS.

For the waifs and strays of the streets of London much commiseration is
expressed, and far more pity is deserved than is bestowed.  We have no
direct purpose of entering on a crusade on their behalf, apart from our
attempt at changing the hearts and lives and improving the
circumstances of their parents.

Our main hope for these wild, youthful, outcasts lies in this
direction.  If we can reach and benefit their guardians, morally and
materially, we shall take the most effectual road to benefit the
children themselves.

Still, a number of them will unavoidably be forced upon us; and we
shall be quite prepared to accept the responsibility of dealing with
them, calculating that our organisation will enable us to do so,
not only with facility and efficiency, but with trifling cost to the
public

To begin with, Children's Creches or Children's Day Homes would be
established in the centres of every poor population, where for a small
charge babies and young children can be taken care of in the day while
the mothers are at work, instead of being left to the dangers of the
thoroughfares or the almost greater peril of being burnt to death in
their own miserable homes.

By this plan we shall not only be able to benefit the poor children,
if in no other direction than that of soap and water and a little
wholesome food, but exercise some humanising influence upon the mothers
themselves.

On the Farm Colony, we should be able to deal with the infants from the
Unions and other quarters.  Our Cottage mothers, with two or three
children of their own, would readily take in an extra one on the usual
terms of boarding out children, and nothing would be more simple or
easy for us than to set apart some trustworthy experienced dame to make
a constant inspection as to whether the children placed out were
enjoying the necessary conditions of health and general well-being.
Here would be a Baby Farm carried on with the most favourable
surroundings.

SECTION 9.--INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS.

I also propose, at the earliest opportunity, to give the subject of the
industrial training of boys a fair trial; and, if successful, follow it
on with a similar one for girls.  I am nearly satisfied in my own mind
that the children of the streets taken, say at eight years of age,
and kept till, say twenty-one, would, by judicious management and the
utilisation of their strength and capacity, amply supply all their own
wants, and would, I think, be likely to turn out thoroughly good and
capable members of the community.

Apart from the mere benevolent aspect of the question, the present
system of teaching is, to my mind, unnatural, and shamefully wasteful
of the energies of the children.  Fully one-half the time that boys and
girls are compelled to sit in school is spent to little or no purpose
--nay, it is worse than wasted.  The minds of the children are only
capable of useful application for so many consecutive minutes,
and hence the rational method must be to apportion the time of the
children; say, half the morning's work to be given to their books,
and the other half to some industrial employment; the garden would be
most natural and healthy in fair weather, while the workshop should be
fallen back upon when unfavourable.

By this method health would be promoted, school would be loved,
the cost of education would be cheapened, and the natural bent of the
child's capacities would be discovered and could be cultivated.
Instead of coming out of school, or going away from apprenticeship,
with the most precious part of life for ever gone so far as learning
is concerned, chained to some pursuit for which there is no
predilection, and which promises nothing higher than mediocrity if not
failure--the work for which the mind was peculiarly adapted and for
which, therefore, it would have a natural capacity, would not only have
been discovered, but the bent of the inclination cultivated, and the
life's work chosen accordingly.

It is not for me to attempt any reform of our School system on this
model.  But I do think that I may be allowed to test the theory by its
practical working in an Industrial School in connection with the Farm
Colony.  I should begin probably with children selected for their
goodness and capacity, with a view to imparting a superior education,
thus fitting them for the position of Officers in all parts of the
world, with the special object of raising up a body of men thoroughly
trained and educated, among other things, to carry out all the branches
of the Social work that are set forth in this book, and it may be to
instruct other nations in the same.

SECTION 10.--ASYLUMS FOR MORAL LUNATICS.

There will remain, after all has been said and done, one problem that
has yet to be faced.  You may minimise the difficulty every way,
and it is your duty to do so, but no amount of hopefulness can make us
blink the fact that when all has been done and every chance has been
offered, when you have forgiven your brother not only seven times but
seventy times seven, when you have fished him up from the mire and put
him on firm ground only to see him relapse and again relapse until you
have no strength left to pull him out once more, there will still
remain a residuum of men and women who have, whether from heredity or
custom, or hopeless demoralisation, become reprobates.  After a certain
time, some men of science hold that persistence in habits tends to
convert a man from a being with freedom of action and will into a mere
automaton.  There are some cases within our knowledge which seem to
confirm the somewhat dreadful verdict by which a man appears to be a
lost soul on this side of the grave.

There are men so incorrigibly lazy that no inducement that you can
offer will tempt them to work; so eaten up by vice that virtue is
abhorrent to them, and so inveterately dishonest that theft is to them
a master passion.  When a human being has reached that stage, there is
only one course that can be rationally pursued.  Sorrowfully, but
remorselessly, it must be recognised that he has become lunatic,
morally demented, incapable of self-government, and that upon him,
therefore, must be passed the sentence of permanent seclusion from a
world in which he is not fit to be at large.  The ultimate destiny of
these poor wretches should be a penal settlement where they could be
confined during Her Majesty's pleasure as are the criminal lunatics at
Broadmoor.  It is a crime against the race to allow those who are so
inveterately depraved the freedom to wander abroad, infect their
fellows, prey upon Society, and to multiply their kind.  Whatever else
Society may do, and suffer to be done, this thing it ought not to
allow, any  more than it should allow the free perambulation of a mad
dog.  But before we come to this I would have every possible means
tried to effect their reclamation.  Let Justice punish them, and Mercy
put her arms around them; let them be appealed to by penalty and by
reason, and by every influence, human and Divine, that can possibly be
brought to bear upon them.  Then, if all alike failed, their ability to
further curse their fellows and themselves should be stayed.

They will still remain objects worthy of infinite compassion.
They should lead as human a life as is possible to those who have
fallen under so terrible a judgment.  They should have their own little
cottages in their own little gardens, under the blue sky, and, if
possible, amid the green fields.  I would deny them none of the
advantages, moral, mental, and religious which might minister to their
diseased minds, and tend to restore them to a better state.  Not until
the breath leaves their bodies should we cease to labour and wrestle
for their salvation.  But when they have reached a certain point access
to their fellow men should be forbidden.  Between them and the wide
world there should be reared an impassable barrier, which once passed
should be recrossed no more for ever.  Such a course must be wiser than
allowing them to go in and out among their fellows, carrying with them
the contagion of moral leprosy, and multiplying a progeny doomed before
its birth to inherit the vices and diseased cravings of their unhappy
parents.  To these proposals three leading objections will probably be
raised

1. It may be said that to shut out men and women from that liberty
   which is their universal birthright would be cruel.

To this it might be sufficient to reply that this is already done;
twenty years' immurement is a very common sentence passed upon
wrong-doers, and in some cases the law goes as far as to inflict penal
servitude for life.  But we say further that it would be far more
merciful treatment than that which is dealt out to them at present,
and it would be far more likely to secure a pleasant existence.
Knowing their fate they would soon become resigned to it.
Habits of industry, sobriety, and kindness with them would create a
restfulness of spirit which goes far on in the direction of happiness,
and if religion were added it would make that happiness complete.
There might be set continually before them a large measure of freedom
and more frequent intercourse with the world in the shape of
correspondence, newspapers, and even occasional interviews with
relatives, as rewards for well-doing.  And in sickness and old age
their latter days might be closed in comfort.  In fact, so far as this
class of people were concerned, we can see that they would be far
better circumstanced for happiness in this life and in the life to come
than in their present liberty--if a life spent alternatively in
drunkenness, debauchery, and crime, on the one hand, or the prison on
the other, can be called liberty.

2. It may be said that the carrying out of such a suggestion would be
   too expensive.

To this we reply that it would have to be very costly to exceed the
expense in which all such characters involve the nation under the
present regulations of vice and crime.  But there is no need for any
great expense, seeing that after the first outlay the inmates of such
an institution, if it were fixed upon the land, would readily earn all
that would be required for their support.

3. But it may be said that this is impossible.

It would certainly be impossible other than as a State regulation.
But it would surely be a very simple matter to enact a law which should
decree that after an individual had suffered a certain number of
convictions for crime, drunkenness, or vagrancy, he should forfeit his
freedom to roam abroad and curse his fellows.  When I include vagrancy
in this list, I do it on the supposition that the opportunity and
ability for work are present.  Otherwise it seems to me most heartless
to punish a hungry man who begs for food because he can in no other way
obtain it.  But with the opportunity and ability for work I would count
the solicitation of charity a crime, and punish it as such.  Anyway, if
a man would not work of his own free will I would compel him.

CHAPTER 6.  ASSISTANCE IN GENERAL.

There are many who are not lost, who need help.  A little assistance
given to-day will perhaps prevent the need of having to save them
to-morrow.  There are some, who, after they have been rescued,
will still need a friendly hand.  The very service which we have
rendered them at starting makes it obligatory upon us to finish the
good work.  Hitherto it may be objected that the Scheme has dealt
almost exclusively with those who are more or less disreputable and
desperate.  This was inevitable.  We obey our Divine Master and seek to
save those who are lost.  But because, as I said at the beginning,
urgency is claimed rightly for those who have no helper, we do not,
therefore, forget the needs and the aspirations of the decent working
people who are poor indeed, but who keep their feet, who have not
fallen, and who help themselves and help each other.  They constitute
the bulk of the nation.  There is an uppercrust and a submerged tenth.
But the hardworking poor people, who earn a pound a week or less,
constitute in every land the majority of the population.  We cannot
forget them, for we are at home with them.  We belong to them and many
thousands of them belong to us.  We are always studying how to help
them, and we think this can be done in many ways, some of which I
proceed to describe.

SECTION 1.--IMPROVED LODGINGS.

The necessity for a superior class of lodgings for the poor men rescued
at our Shelters has been forcing itself already upon our notice,
and demanding attention.  One of the first things that happens when a
man, lifted out of the gutter, has obtained a situation, and is earning
a decent livelihood, is for him to want some better accommodation than
that afforded at the Shelters.  We have some hundreds on our hands now
who can afford to pay for greater comfort and seclusion.
These are continually saying to us something like the following: --

The Shelters are all very well when a man is down in his luck.
They have been a good thing for us; in fact, had it not been for them,
we would still have been without a friend, sleeping on the Embankment,
getting our living dishonestly, or not getting a living at all.
We have now got work, and want a bed to sleep on, and a room to
ourselves, and a box, or something where we can stow away our bits of
things.  Cannot you do something for us?"  We have replied that there
were Lodging-houses elsewhere, which, now that they were in work,
they could afford to pay for, where they would obtain the comfort they
desired.  To this they answer, "That is all very well.  We know there
are these places, and that we could go to them.  But then," they said,
"you see, here in the Shelters are our mates, who think as we do.
And there is the prayer, and the meeting, and kind influence every
night, that helps to keep us straight.  We would like a better place,
but if you cannot find us one we would rather stop in the Shelter and
sleep on the floor, as we have been doing, than go to something more
complete, get into bad company, and so fall back again to where we were
before."

But this, although natural, is not desirable; for, if the process went
on, in course of time the whole of the Shelter Depots would be taken up
by persons who had risen above the class for whom they were originally
destined.  I propose, therefore, to draft those who get on, but wish to
continue in connection with the Army, into a superior lodging-house, a
sort of POOR MAN'S METROPOLE, managed on the same principles, but with
better accommodation in every way, which, I anticipate, would be
self-supporting from the first.  In these homes there would be separate
dormitories, good sitting-rooms, cooking conveniences, baths, a hall
for meetings, and many other comforts, of which all would have the
benefit at as low a figure above cost price as will not only pay
interest on the original outlay, but secure us against any shrinkage of
capital.

Something superior in this direction will also be required for the
women.  Having begun, we must go on.  Hitherto I have proposed to deal
only with single men and single women, but one of the consequences of
getting hold of these men very soon makes itself felt.  Your ragged,
hungry, destitute Out-of-Work in almost every case is married.
When he comes to us he comes as single and is dealt with as such,
but after you rouse in him aspirations for better things he remembers
the wife whom he has probably enough deserted, or left from sheer
inability to provide her anything to eat.  As soon as such a man finds
himself under good influence and fairly employed his first thought is
to go and look after the "Missis."  There is very little reality about
any change of heart in a married man who does not thus turn in sympathy
and longing towards his wife, and the more successful we are in dealing
with these people the more inevitable it is that we shall be confronted
with married couple's who in turn demand that we should provide for
them lodgings.  This we propose to do also on a commercial footing.
I see greater developments in this direction, one of which will be
described in the chapter relating to Suburban Cottages.
The Model-lodging House for Married People is, however, one of
those things that must be provided as an adjunct of the Food and
Shelter Depots.

SECTION 2.--MODEL SUBURBAN VILLAGES.

As I have repeatedly stated already, but will state once more, for it
is important enough to bear endless repetition, one of the first steps
which must inevitably be taken in the reformation of this class, is to
make for them decent, healthy, pleasant homes, or help them to make
them for themselves, which, if possible, is far better.  I do not regard
the institution of any first, second, or third-class lodging-houses as
affording anything but palliatives of the existing distress.
To substitute life in a boarding-house for life in the streets is,
no doubt, an immense advance, but it is by no means the ultimatum.
Life in a boarding-house is better than the worst, but it is far from
being the best form of human existence.  Hence, the object I constantly
keep in view is how to pilot those persons who have been set on their
feet again by means of the Food and Shelter Depots, and who have
obtained employment in the City, into the possession of homes of their
own.

Neither can I regard the one, or at most two, rooms in which the large
majority of the inhabitants of our great cities are compelled to spend
their days, as a solution of the question.  The overcrowding which fills
every separate room of a tenement with a human litter, and compels
family life from the cradle to the grave to be lived within the four
walls of a single apartment, must go on reproducing in endless
succession all the terrible evils which such a state of things must
inevitably create.

Neither can I be satisfied with the vast, unsightly piles of
barrack-like buildings, which are only a slight advance upon the
Union Bastille--dubbed Model Industrial Dwellings--so much in
fashion at present, as being a satisfactory settlement of the burning
question of the housing of the poor.  As a contribution to this
question, I propose the establishment of a series of Industrial
Settlements or Suburban Villages, lying out in the country, within a
reasonable distance of all our great cities, composed of cottages of
suitable size and construction, and with all needful comfort and
accommodation for the families of working-men, the rent of which,
together with the railway fare, and other economic conveniences,
should be within the reach of a family of moderate income.

This proposal lies slightly apart from the scope of this book,
otherwise I should be disposed to elaborate the project at greater
length.  I may say, however, that what I here propose has been carefully
thought out, and is of a perfectly practical character.
In the planning of it I have received some valuable assistance from a
friend who has had considerable experience in the building trade,
and he stakes his professional reputation on its feasibility.
The following, however, may be taken as a rough outline: --

The Village should not be more than twelve miles from town; should be
in a dry and healthy situation, and on a line of railway.  It is not
absolutely necessary that it should be near a station, seeing that the
company would, for their own interests, immediately erect one.

The Cottages should be built of the best material and workmanship.
This would be effected most satisfactorily by securing a contract for
the labour only, the projectors of the Scheme purchasing the materials
and supplying them direct from the manufacturers to the builders.
The cottages would consist of three or four rooms, with a scullery,
and out-building in the garden.  The cottages should be built in
terraces, each having a good garden attached.  Arrangements should be
made for the erection of from one thousand to two thousand houses at
the onset.  In the Village a Co-operative Goods Store should be
established, supplying everything that was really necessary for the
villagers at the most economic prices.  The sale of intoxicating drink
should be strictly forbidden on the Estate, and, if possible,
the landowner from whom the land is obtained should be tied off from
allowing any licences to be held on any other portion of the adjoining
land.  It is thought that the Railway Company, in consideration of the
inconvenience and suffering they have inflicted on the poor,
and in their own interests, might be induced to make the following
advantageous arrangements: --

(1) The conveyance of each member actually living in the village to and
    from London at the rate of sixpence per week.  Each pass should
    have on it the portrait of the owner, and be fastened to some
    article of the dress, and be available only by Workmen's Trains
    running early and late and during certain hours of the day, when
    the trains are almost empty.

(2) The conveyance of goods and parcels should be at half the ordinary
    rates.  It is reasonable to suppose that large landowners would
    gladly give one hundred acres of land in view of the immensely
    advanced values of the surrounding property which would immediately
    follow, seeing that the erection of one thousand or two thousand
    cottages would constitute the nucleus of a much larger Settlement.

Lastly, the rent of a four-roomed cottage must not exceed 3s. per week.
Add to this the sixpenny ticket to and from London, and you have 3s. 6d.
and if the company should insist on 1s., it will make 4s., for which
there would be all the advantages of a comfortable cottage--of which
it would be possible for the tenant to become the owner--a good garden,
pleasant surroundings, and other influences promotive of the health
and happiness of the family.  It is hardly necessary to remark that
in connection with this Village there will be perfect freedom of
opinion on all matters.  A glance at the ordinary homes of the poor
people of this great City will at once assure us that such a village
would be a veritable Paradise to them, and that were four, five,
or six settlements provided at once they would not contain a tithe of
the people who would throng to occupy them.

SECTION 3.--THE POOR MAN'S BANK.

If the love of money is the root of all evil, the want of money is the
cause of an immensity of evil and trouble.  The moment you begin
practically to alleviate the miseries of the people, you discover that
the eternal want of pence is one of their greatest difficulties.
In my most sanguine moments I have never dreamed of smoothing this
difficulty out of the lot of man, but it is surely no unattainable
ideal to establish a Poor Man's Bank, which will extend to the lower
middle class and the working population the advantages of the credit
system, which is the very foundation of our boasted commerce.

It might be better that there should be no such thing as credit,
that no one should lend money, and that everyone should be compelled to
rely solely upon whatever ready money he may possess from day to day.
But if so, let us apply the principle all round; do not let us glory in
our world-wide commerce and boast ourselves in our riches, obtained,
in so many cases, by the ignoring of this principle.  If it is right
for a great merchant to have dealings with his banker, if it is
indispensable for the due carrying on of the business of the rich men
that they should have at their elbow a credit system which will from
time to time accommodate them with needful advances and enable them to
stand up against the pressure of sudden demands, which otherwise would
wreck them, then surely the case is still stronger for providing a
similar resource for the smaller men, the weaker men.  At present
Society is organised far too much on the principle of giving to him who
hath so that he shall have more abundantly, and taking away from him
who hath not even that which he hath.

If we are to really benefit the poor, we can only do so by practical
measures.  We have merely to look round and see the kind of advantages
which wealthy men find indispensable for the due management of their
business, and ask ourselves whether poor men cannot be supplied with
the same opportunities.  The reason why they are not is obvious.
To supply the needs of the rich is a means of making yourself rich;
to supply the needs of the poor will involve you in trouble so out of
proportion to the profit that the game may not be worth the candle.
Men go into banking and other businesses for the sake of obtaining what
the American humourist said was the chief end of man in these modern
times, namely, "ten per cent."  To obtain a ten per cent. what will not
men do?  They will penetrate the bowels of the earth, explore the depths
of the sea, ascend the snow-capped mountain's highest peak, or navigate
the air, if they can be guaranteed a ten per cent.  I do not venture to
suggest that the business of a Poor Man's Bank would yield ten per cent.,
or even five, but I think it might be made to pay its expenses,
and the resulting gain to the community would be enormous.

Ask any merchant in your acquaintance where his business would be if
he had no banker, and then, when you have his answer, ask yourself
whether it would not be an object worth taking some trouble to secure,
to furnish the great mass of our fellow countrymen, on sound business
principles with the advantages of the credit system, which is found to
work so beneficially for the "well-to-do" few.

Some day I hope the State may be sufficiently enlightened to take up
this business itself; at present it is left in the hands of the
pawnbroker and the loan agency, and a set of sharks, who cruelly prey
upon the interests of the poor.  The establishment of land banks,
where the poor man is almost always a peasant, has been one of the
features of modern legislation in Russia, Germany, and elsewhere.
The institution of a Poor Man's Bank will be, I hope, before long,
one of the recognised objects of our own government.

Pending that I venture to throw out a suggestion, without in any way
pledging myself to add this branch of activity to the already gigantic
range of operations foreshadowed in this book--Would it not be
possible for some philanthropists with capital to establish on clearly
defined principles a Poor Man's Bank for the making of small loans on
good security, or making advances to those who are in danger of being
overwhelmed by sudden financial pressure--in fact, for doing for the
"little man" what all the banks do for the "big man"?  Meanwhile,
should it enter into the heart of some benevolently disposed possessor
of wealth to give the price of a racehorse, or of an "old master,"
to form the nucleus of the necessary capital, I will certainly
experiment in this direction.

I can anticipate the sneer of the cynic who scoffs at what he calls my
glorified pawnshop.  I am indifferent to his sneers.  A Mont de Piete--
the very name (Mount of Piety) shows that the Poor Man's Bank is
regarded as anything but an objectionable institution across the
Channel--might be an excellent institution in England.  Owing,
however, to the vested interests of the existing traders it might be
impossible for the State to establish it, excepting at a ruinous
expense.  There would be no difficulty, however, of instituting a
private Mont de Piete, which would confer an incalculable boon upon the
struggling poor.

Further, I am by no means indisposed to recognise the necessity of
dealing with this subject in connection with the Labour Bureau,
provided that one clearly recognised principle can be acted upon.
That principle is that a man shall be free to bind himself as security
for the repayment of a loan, that is to pledge himself to work for his
rations until such time as he has repaid capital and interest.
An illustration or two will explain what I mean.  Here is a carpenter
who comes to our Labour shed; he is an honest, decent man, who has by
sickness or some other calamity been reduced to destitution.  He has by
degrees pawned one article after another to keep body and soul
together, until at last he has been compelled to pawn his tools.
We register him, and an employer comes along who wants a carpenter whom
we can recommend.  We at once suggest this man, but then arises this
difficulty.  He has no tools; what are we to do?  As things are at
present, the man loses the job and continues on our hands.  Obviously
it is most desirable in the interest of the community that the man
should get his tools out of pawn; but who is to take the responsibility
of advancing the money to redeem them?  This difficulty might be met,
I think, by the man entering into a legal undertaking to make over his
wages to us, or such proportion of them as would be convenient to his
circumstances, we in return undertaking to find him in food and shelter
until such time as he has repaid the advance made.  That obligation it
would be the truest kindness to enforce with Rhadamantine severity.
Until the man is out of debt he is not his own master.  All that he can
make over his actual rations and Shelter money should belong to his
creditor.  Of course such an arrangement might be varied indefinitely
by private agreement; the repayment of instalments could be spread ever
a longer or shorter time, but the mainstay of the whole principle would
be the execution of a legal agreement by which the man makes over the
whole product of his labour to the Bank until he has repaid, his debt.

Take another instance.  A clerk who has been many years in a situation
and has a large family, which he has brought up respectably and
educated.  He has every prospect of retiring in a few years upon a
superannuating allowance, but is suddenly confronted by a claim often
through no fault of his own, of a sum of fifty or a hundred pounds,
which is quite beyond his means.  He has been a careful saving man,
who has never borrowed a penny in his life, and does not know where to
turn in his emergency.  If he can not raise this money he will be sold
up, his family will be scattered, his situation and his prospective
pension will be lost, and blank ruin will stare him in the face.
Now, were he in receipt of an income of ten times the amount, he would
probably have a banking account, and, in consequence, be able to secure
an advance of all he needed from his banker.  Why should he not be able
to pledge his salary, or a portion of it, to an Institution which would
enable him to pay off his debt, on terms that, while sufficiently
remunerative to the bank, would not unduly embarrass him?

At present what does the poor wretch do?  He consults his friends, who,
it is quite possible, are as hard up as himself, or he applies to some
loan agency, and as likely as not falls into the hands of sharpers,
who indeed, let him have the money, but at interest altogether out of
proportion to the risk which they run, and use the advantage which
their position gives them to extort every penny he has.  A great black
book written within and without in letters of lamentation, mourning,
and woe might be written on the dealings of these usurers with their
victims in every land.

It is of little service denouncing these extortioners.  They have always
existed, and probably always will; but what we can do is to
circumscribe the range of their operations and the number of their
victims.  This can only be done by a legitimate and merciful provision
for these poor creatures in their hours of desperate need, so as to
prevent their falling into the hands of these remorseless wretches,
who have wrecked the fortunes of thousands, and driven many a decent
man to suicide or a premature grave.

There are endless ramifications of this principle, which do not need to
be described here, but before leaving the subject I may allude to an
evil which is a cruel reality, alas! to a multitude of unfortunate men
and women.  I refer to the working of the Hire System.  The decent poor
man or woman who is anxious to earn an honest penny by the use of,
it may be a mangle, or a sewing-machine, a lathe, or some other
indispensable instrument, and is without the few pounds necessary to
buy it, must take it on the Hire System--that is to say, for the
accommodation of being allowed to pay for the machine by instalments--
he is charged, in addition to the full market value of his purchase,
ten or twenty times the amount of what would be a fair rate of
interest, and more than this if he should at any time, through
misfortune, fail in his payment, the total amount already paid will be
confiscated, the machine seized, and the money lost.

Here again we fall back on our analogy of what goes on in a small
community where neighbours know each other.  Take, for instance, when a
lad who is recognised as bright, promising, honest, and industrious,
who wants to make a start in life which requires some little outlay,
his better-to-do neighbour will often assist him by providing the
capital necessary to enable him to make a way for himself in the world.
The neighbour does this because he knows the lad, because the family is
at least related by ties of neighbourhood, and the honour of the lad's
family is a security upon which a man may safely advance a small sum.
All this would equally apply to a destitute widow, an artizan suddenly
thrown out of work, an orphan family, or the like.  In the large City
all this kindly helpfulness disappears, and with it go all those small
acts of service which are, as it were, the buffers which save men from
being crushed to death against the iron walls of circumstances.  We must
try to replace them in some way or other if we are to get back, not to
the Garden of Eden, but to the ordinary conditions of life, as they
exist in a healthy, small community.  No institution, it is true,
can ever replace the magic bond of personal friendship, but if we have
the whole mass of Society permeated in every direction by brotherly
associations established for the purpose of mutual help and
sympathising counsel, it is not an impossible thing to believe that we
shall be able to do something to restore the missing element in modern
civilisation.

SECTION 4.--THE POOR MAN'S LAWYER.

The moment you set about dealing with the wants of the people,
you discover that many of their difficulties are not material,
but moral.  There never was a greater mistake than to imagine that you
have only to fill a man's stomach, and clothe his back in order to
secure his happiness.  Man is, much more than a digestive apparatus,
liable to get out of order.  Hence, while it is important to remember
that man has a stomach, it is also necessary to bear in mind that he
has a heart, and a mind that is frequently sorely troubled by
difficulties which, if he lived in a friendly world, would often
disappear.  A man, and still more a woman, stands often quite as much
in need of a trusted adviser as he or she does of a dinner or a dress.
Many a poor soul is miserable all the day long, and gets dragged down
deeper and deeper into the depths of sin and sorrow and despair for
want of a sympathising friend, who can give her advice, and make her
feel that somebody in the world cares for her, and will help her if
they can.

If we are to bring back the sense of brotherhood to the world,
we must confront this difficulty.  God, it was said in old time,
setteth the desolate in families; but somehow, in our time,
the desolate wander alone in the midst of a careless and unsympathising
world.  "There is no-one who cares for my soul.  There is no creature
loves me, and if I die no one will pity me," is surely one of the
bitterest cries that can burst from a breaking heart.  One of the
secrets of the success of the Salvation Army is, that the friendless of
the world find friends in it.  There is not one sinner in the world--
no matter how degraded and dirty he may be--whom my people will not
rejoice to take by the hand and pray with, and labour for, if thereby
they can but snatch him as a brand from the burning.  Now, we want to
make more use of this, to make the Salvation Army the nucleus of a
great agency for bringing comfort and counsel to those who are at their
wits' end, feeling as if in the whole world there was no one to whom
they could go.

What we want to do is to exemplify to the world the family idea.
"Our Father" is the keynote.  One is Our Father, then all we are
brethren.  But in a family, if anyone is troubled in mind or
conscience, there is no difficulty.  The daughter goes to her father,
or the son to his mother, and pour out their soul's troubles, and are
relieved.  If there is any serious difficulty a family council is held,
and all unite their will and their resources to get matters put
straight.  This is what we mean to try to get done in the New
Organisation of Society for which we are labouring.  We cannot know
better than God Almighty what will do good to man.  We are content to
follow on His lines, and to mend the world we shall seek to restore
something of the family idea to the many hundreds of thousands--ay,
millions--who have no one wiser or more experienced than themselves,
to whom they can take their sorrows, or consult in their difficulties.

Of course we can do this but imperfectly.  Only God can create a mother.
But Society needs a great deal of mothering, much more than it gets.
And as a child needs a mother to run to in its difficulties and troubles,
to whom it can let out its little heart in confidence, so men and
women, weary and worn in the battles of life, need someone to whom they
can go when pressed down with a sense of wrongs suffered or done,
knowing that their confidence will be preserved inviolate, and that
their statements will be received with sympathy.  I propose to attempt
to meet this want.  I shall establish a department, over which I shall
place the wisest, the pitifullest, and the most sagacious men and women
whom I can find on my staff, to whom all those in trouble and
perplexity shall be invited to address themselves.  It is no use saying
that we love our fellow men unless we try to help them, and it is no
use pretending to sympathise with the heavy burdens which darken their
lives unless we try to ease them and to lighten their existence.

Insomuch as we have more practical experience of life than other men,
by so much are we bound to help their inexperience, and share our
talents with them.  But if we believe they are our brothers, and that
One is our Father, even the God who will come to judge us hereafter for
all the deeds that we have done in the body, then must we constitute,
in some such imperfect way as is open to us, the parental office.
We must be willing to receive the outpourings of our struggling fellow
men, to listen to the long-buried secret that has troubled the human
heart, and to welcome instead of repelling those who would obey the
Apostolic precept:  "To confess their sins one to another."  Let not
that word confession scandalise any.  Confession of the most open sort;
confession on the public platform before the presence of all the man's
former associates in sin has long been one of the most potent weapons
by which the Salvation Army has won its victories.  That confession we
have long imposed on all our converts, and it is the only confession
which seems to us to be a condition of Salvation.  But this suggestion
is of a different kind.  It is not imposed as a means of grace.
It is not put forward as a preliminary to the absolution which no one
can pronounce but our Lord Himself.  It is merely a response on our
part to one of the deepest needs and secret longings of the actual men
and women who are meeting us daily in our work.  Why should they be
left to brood in misery over their secret sin, when a plain
straightforward talk with a man or woman selected for his or her
sympathetic common-sense and spiritual experience might take the weight
off their shoulders which is crushing them into dull despair?

Not for absolution, but for sympathy and direction, do I propose to
establish my Advice Bureau in definite form, for in practice it has
been in existence for some time, and wonderful things have been done
in the direction on which I contemplate it working.  I have no pleasure
in inventing these departments.  They all entail hard work and no end
of anxiety.  But if we are to represent the love of God to men, we must
minister to all the wants and needs of the human heart.  Nor is it only
in affairs of the heart that this Advice Bureau will be of service. It
will be quite as useful in affairs of the head.  As I conceive it, the
Advice Bureau will be THE POOR MANS LAWYER AND THE POOR MANS TRIBUNE.

There are no means in London, so far as my knowledge goes, by which the
poor and needy can obtain any legal assistance in the varied
oppressions and difficulties from which they must, in consequence of
their poverty and associations, be continually suffering.

While the "well-to-do" classes can fall back upon skilful friends for
direction, or avail themselves of the learning and experience of the
legal profession, the poor man has literally no one qualified to
counsel him on such matters.  In cases of sickness he can apply to the
parish doctor or the great hospital, and receive an odd word or two of
advice, with a bottle of physic which may or may not be of service.
But if his circumstances are sick, out of order, in danger of carrying
him to utter destitution, or to prison, or to the Union, he has no one
to appeal to who has the willingness or the ability to help him.

Now, we want to create a Court of Counsel or Appeal, to which anyone
suffering from imposition having to do with person, liberty, or
property, or anything else of sufficient importance, can apply,
and obtain not only advice, but practical assistance.

Among others for whom this Court would be devised is the
shamefully-neglected class of Widows, of whom in the East of London
there are 6,000, mostly in very destitute circumstances.  In the whole
of London there cannot be less than 20,000, and in England and Wales it
is estimated there are 100,000, fifty thousand of whom are probably
poor and friendless.

The treatment these poor people by the nation is a crying scandal.
Take the case of the average widow, even when left in comfortable
circumstances.  She will often be launched into a sea of perplexity,
although able to avail herself of the best advice.  But think of the
multitudes of poor women, who, when they close their husbands' eyes,
lose the only friend who knows anything; about their circumstances.
There may be a trifle of money or a struggling business or a little
income connected with property or some other possession, all needing
immediate attention, and that of a skilful sort, in order to enable the
poor creature to weather the storm and avoid the vortex of utter
destitution.

All we have said applies equally to orphans and friendless people
generally.  Nothing, however, short of a national institution could
meet the necessities of all such cases.  But we can do something, and
in matters already referred to, such as involve loss of property,
malicious prosecution, criminal and otherwise, we can render
substantial assistance.

In carrying out this purpose it will be no part of our plan to
encourage legal proceedings in others, or to have recourse to them
ourselves.  All resort to law would be avoided either in counsel or
practice, unless absolutely necessary.  But where manifest injustice
and wrong are perpetrated, and every other method of obtaining
reparation fails, we shall avail ourselves of the assistance the Law
affords.

Our great hope of usefulness, however, in this Department lies in
prevention, The knowledge that the oppressed poor have in us a friend
able to speak for them will often prevent the injustice which cowardly
and avaricious persons might otherwise inflict, and the same
considerations may induce them to accord without compulsion the right
of the weak and friendless.

I also calculate upon a wide sphere of usefulness in the direction of
friendly arbitration and intervention.  There will be at least one
disinterested tribunal, however humble, to which business, domestic,
or any other questions of a contentious and litigious nature can be
referred without involving any serious costs.

The following incidents have been gathered from operations already
undertaken in this direction, and will explain and illustrate the kind
of work we contemplate, and some of the benefits that may be expected
to follow from it.

About four years ago a young and delicate girl, the daughter of a
pilot, came to us in great distress.  Her story was that of thousands
of others.  She had been betrayed by a man in a good position in the
West End, and was now the mother of an infant child.

Just before her confinement her seducer had taken her to his solicitors
and made her sign and swear an affidavit to the effect that he was not
the father of the then expected child.  Upon this he gave her a few
pounds in settlement of all claims upon him.  The poor thing was in
great poverty and distress.  Through our solicitors, we immediately
opened communications with the man, and after negotiations, he, to
avoid further proceedings, was compelled to secure by a deed a proper
allowance to his unfortunate victim for the maintenance of her child.

SHADOWED AND CAUGHT.

A-- was induced to leave a comfortable home to become the governess of
the motherless children of Mr. G--, whom she found to be a kind and
considerate employer.  After she had been in his service some little
time he proposed that she should take a trip to London.  To this she
very gladly consented, all the more so when he offered to take her
himself to a good appointment he had secured for her.  In London he
seduced her, and kept her as his mistress until, tired of her,
he told her to go and do as "other women did."

Instead of descending to this infamy, she procured work, and so
supported herself and child in some degree of comfort, when he sought
her out and again dragged her down.  Another child was born, and a
second time he threw her up and left her to starve.  It was then she
applied to our people.  We hunted up the man, followed him to the
country, threatened him with public exposure, and forced from him the
payment to his victim of #60 down, an allowance of #1 a week, and an
Insurance Policy on his life for #450 in her favour.

#60 FROM ITALY.

C. was seduced by a young Italian of good position in society,
who promised to marry her, but a short time before the day fixed for
the ceremony he told her urgent business called him abroad.  He assured
her he would return in two years and make her his wife.  He wrote
occasionally, and at last broke her heart by sending the news of his
marriage to another, adding insult to injury by suggesting that she
should come and live with his wife as her maid, offering at the same
time to pay for the maintenance of the child till it was old enough to
be placed in charge of the captain of one of the vessels belonging to
his firm.

None of these promises were fulfilled, and C., with her mother's
assistance, for a time managed to support herself and child; but the
mother, worn out by age and trouble, could help her no longer,
and the poor girl was driven to despair.  Her case was brought before
us, and we at once set to work to assist her.  The Consul of the town
where the seducer lived in style was communicated with.  Approaches
were made to the young man's father, who, to save the dishonour that
would follow exposure, paid over #60.  This helps to maintain the
child; and the girl is in domestic service and doing well.

THE HIRE SYSTEM.

The most cruel wrongs are frequently inflicted on the very poorest
persons, in connection with this method of obtaining Furniture, Sewing
Machines, Mangles, or other articles.  Caught by the lure of misleading
advertisements, the poor are induced to purchase articles to be paid
for by weekly or monthly instalments.  They struggle through half the
amount perhaps, at all manner of sacrifice, when some delay in the
payment is made the occasion not only for seizing the goods, which they
have come to regard as their own, and on which their very existence
depends, but by availing themselves of some technical clause in the
agreement, for robbing them in addition.  In such circumstances the
poor things, being utterly friendless, have to submit to these infamous
extortions without remedy.  Our Bureau will be open to all such.

TALLYMEN, MONEY LENDERS, AND BILLS-OF-SALEMONGERS.

Here again we have a class who prey upon the poverty of the people,
inducing them to purchase things for which they have often no immediate
use--anyway for which there is no real necessity--by all manner of
specious promises as to easy terms of repayment. And once having got
their dupes into their power they drag them down to misery, and very
often utter temporal ruin; once in their net escape is exceedingly
difficult, if not impossible.  We propose  to help the poor victims by
this Scheme, as far as possible.