第71章 MORE CRUSADES.(5)

The table is very seldom,if ever,properly cleaned,dirty cups and saucers lie about it,together with bits of bread,and if they have bloaters the bones and heads are left on the table,Sometimes there are pieces of onions mixed up with the rest.The floors are in a very much worse condition than the street pavements,and when they are supposed to clean them they do it with about a pint of dirty water.When they wash,which is rarely,for washing to them seems an unnecessary work,they do it in a quart or two of water,and sometimes boil the things in some old saucepan in which they cook their food.They do this simply because they have no larger vessel to wash in.The vermin fall off the walls and ceiling on you while you are standing in the rooms.

Some of the walls are covered with marks where they have killed them.

Many people in the summer sit on the door steps all night,the reason for this being,that their rooms are so close from the heat and so unendurable from the vermin that they prefer staying out in the cool night air.But as they cannot stay anywhere long without drinking,they send for beer from the neighbouring public--alas!never far away --and pass it from one doorway to another,the result being singing,shouting and fighting up till three and four o'clock in the morning."I could fill volumes with stories of the war against vermin,which is part of this campaign in the slums,but the subject is too revolting to those who are often indifferent to the agonies their fellow creatures suffer,so long as their sensitive ears are not shocked by the mention of so painful a subject.Here,for instance,is a sample of the kind of region in which the Slum Sisters spend themselves:

"In an apparently respectable street near Oxford street,the Officers where visiting one day when they saw a very dark staircase leading into a cellar,and thinking it possible that someone might be there they attempted to go down,and yet the staircase was so dark they thought it impossible for anyone to be there.However,they tried again and groped their way along in the dark for some time until at last they found the door and entered the room.At first they could not discern anything because of the darkness.But after they got used to it they saw a filthy room.There was no fire in the grate,but the fire-place was heaped up with ashes,an accumulation of several weeks at least.

At one end of the room there was an old sack of rags and bones partly emptied upon the floor,from which there came a most unpleasant odour.

At the other end lay an old man very ill.The apology for a bed on which he lay was filthy and had neither sheets nor blankets.

His covering consisted of old rags.His poor wife,who attended on him,appeared to be a stranger to soap and water.These Slum Sisters nursed the old people,and on one occasion undertook to do their washing,and they brought it home to their copper for this purpose,but it was so infested with vermin that they did not know how to wash it.Their landlady,who happened to see them,forbade them ever to bring such stuff there any more.The old man,when well enough,worked at his trade,which was tailoring.They had two shillings and sixpence per week from the parish."Here is a report from the headquarters of our Slum Brigade as to the work which the Slum Sisters have done.It is almost four years since the Slum Work was started in London.The principal work done by our first Officers was that of visiting the sick,cleansing the homes of the Slummers,and of feeding the hungry.The following are a few of the cases of those who have gained temporally,as well as spiritually,through our work:--Mrs.W.--Of Haggerston Slum.Heavy drinker,wrecked home,husband a drunkard,place dirty and filthy,terribly poor.Saved now over two years,home A1.,plenty of employment at cane-chair bottoming;husband now saved also.

Mrs.R.--Drury Lane Slum.Husband and wife,drunkards;husband very lazy,only worked when starved in to it.We found them both out of work,home furnitureless,in debt.She got saved,and our lasses prayed for him to get work.He did so,and went to it.He fell out again a few weeks after,and beat his wife.She sought employment at charing and office cleaning,got it,and has been regularly at work since.He too got work.He is now a teetotaler.The home is very comfortable now,and they are putting money in the bank.

A.M.in the Dials.Was a great drunkard,thriftless,did not go to the trouble of seeking work.Was in a Slum meeting,heard the Captain speak on "Seek first the Kingdom of God!"called out and said,"Do you mean that if I ask God for work,He will give it me?"Of course she said,"Yes."He was converted that night,found work,and is now employed in the Gas Works,Old Kent Road.

Jimmy is a soldier in the Boro'Slum!Was starving when he got converted through being out of work.Through joining the Army,he was turned out of his home.He found work,and now owns a coffee-stall in Billingsgate Market,and is doing well.

Sergeant R.--Of Marylebone Slum.Used to drink,lived in a wretched place in the famous Charles Street,had work at two places,at one of which he got 5s.a week and the other 10s.,when he got saved;this was starvation wages,on which to keep himself,his wife,and four children.At the 10s.a week work he had to deliver drink for a spirit merchant;feeling condemned over it,he gave it up,and was out of work for weeks.The brokers were put in,but the Lord rescued him just in time.The 5s.a week employer took him afterwards at 18s.,and he is now earning 22s.,and has left the ground-floor slum tenement for a better house.

H.--Nine Elms Slum.Was saved on Easter Monday,out of work several 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.