Darkest India Part 17

"He that heareth, let him hear; and he that forbeareth, let him forbear; but G.o.d shall be the judge between us, and His voice says in Scripture: 'If thou forbear to deliver them that are bound unto death, and those who are ready to be slain; if thou sayest, "Behold," we knew it not, doth not He that pondereth the heart consider it, and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not He know it, and shall not He render to every man according to his work?'"

_Archdeacon Sinclair wishes the scheme success._

Speaking at Bromley, Kent, on Friday night, in connection with the Canterbury diocese, of the Church of England Temperance Society, Archdeacon Sinclair referred to General Booth's scheme. He wished very great success to that courageous and large scheme.

_The Rev. Brooke Lambert defends the scheme in the "Times."_

There is much that is not new in the scheme. General Booth allows that much. But there are two factors in his scheme which, if not new, at least acquire a new prominence. These two factors are help and hope.

Society drops these two h's. For help it subst.i.tutes money-giving, and as for hope for the disreputable, it has none. The personal contact of General Booth's workers, of his 10,000 officers, is an essential feature of the scheme. They take the man or the woman as they enter the shelter, and prevent it from becoming a means of dissemination of crime, of filth, of disease. They stand by the new-fledged proselyte to work, to encourage perseverance. They follow him to the country colony, the abomination of desolation to one who has walked the London pavements and found his heaven in the gin-palace and the music-hall, to stimulate effort. They accompany him to the colony to remind him that true freedom is not licence, that the conditions of success are a change of mind and not of climate. But for them, one might doubt whether the hope General Booth conceives for the "submerged tenth" would be hope at all in their eyes. Nothing so difficult as to persuade the Londoner to go into the country, and the emigrant to keep to work away from the congenial interludes of town pleasure. But once create this hope (and persistent reiteration can do much when the agent is a kindly man or woman) and you have introduced a new element into the life of the wastrel. Our prison system, growing in harshness, failed utterly to deter; with the reformatory system, based on the principle of making it to a man's interest to behave well within the walls, a new era dawned on criminal legislation. It is for these reasons that I look with deep interest on General Booth's experiment. Do not let us say, "The experiment has been tried before; it is useless to attempt it again." I believe there is enough of novelty in General Booth's scheme to justify a hope of success. But for past failures I can but say that people do not regard failure as a ground for inaction when their interest is deeply involved.

When I was a boy, some 45 years ago, I saw at the old Polytechnic experiments in electricity: the electric light, the electric cautery, &c. For years I expected to see them introduced into the work-day world.

Now, at last, they are coming into use, but I do not think the shares stand at a very high premium. None the less electricity will one day be of universal use. That is what experiment in spite of failure has done; that is what we ought to do in social matters. When all is done, the result will be comparatively small when compared with our aspirations, but it will create, as all good work does, new outlets for effort, new objects for hope.

BROOKE LAMBERT.

_The Vicarage, Greenwich, Nov. 19._

_Dr. Parker approves the General's Scheme._

A report in the _Star_ says:--"Dr. Parker, preaching his one-minute sermon at the City Temple yesterday (Sunday) morning, said, 'I hope General Booth will get every penny he asked for. No man can make better use of money. I wish be would include other Englands in his scheme.

There is another England, darker than the darkest he has in view. I mean the England of genteel poverty and genteel misery.... These people are not in the slums, but they are fast being driven in that direction....

From my point of view, one of the best features in General Booth's scheme is that n.o.body is to receive anything for nothing. It is easy to throw money away. Money we work for goes farthest. There is

NO STAIN OF PAUPERISM

upon it.

DR. PARKER SAYS "NO BOARDS."--Dr. Parker, addressing his congregation on Thursday morning, said:--"General Booth spoke to me the other day at my house, amongst others, about boards of trustees and referees, and all the rest of it, in reference to his scheme. I said that would spoil the whole thing. I do not want any boards of reference. We have boards enough and referees enough--(laughter)--and we do not want little men to a.s.sume an awful responsibility which Providence never meant them to handle. They had better let a great governing spirit like General Booth manage the whole thing in his own way. I am afraid I was even more of a democrat than even General Booth suspected. (Laughter.) I am an autocrat--I believe in one man doing a thing. Some persons imagine if they have got six little men together that they will total up into a Booth. The Lord makes His own Booths, and Moodys, and Spurgeons, and sends them out to do His work, and we shall do well to get out of their way, except when we have anything to give of sympathy, money, prayer and a.s.sistance. Presently, some Thursday morning, I am going to give you a chance of giving--which you will--to this great scheme." (Applause.)

_Dr. Moulton, President of the Wesleyan Conference, is grateful for the labour which the General has expended upon this problem._

"No one can read your book without recognising the claim which you have established on the sympathetic help of all Christian churches. For myself, I am deeply grateful to you for the enormous labor which you have expended on the great problem, and for your able treatment of its difficulties."

_Revd. Alfred Rowland says he believes the working of the Scheme will be for the good of the people._

Yesterday morning the Rev. Alfred Rowland preached at Park Chapel, Crouch End, the first portion of a sermon on General Booth's book. The preacher said the scheme was a n.o.ble, bold, and generous effort to reach the ma.s.ses. He believed the result of the working of the scheme would be for the good of the people at large. He asked them to give liberally to the project, even if it was only an experiment, because he believed it would succeed, and all he could do, financially and otherwise, he should be pleased to do in support of the scheme.

_A Collection for the Scheme is raised at City Church, Oxford._

At the City Church, Oxford, on Sunday, the rector, the Rev. Carterel J.H. Fletcher, preached at both morning and evening services in aid of General Booth's Social Salvation Fund, and the collections were devoted to the object.

_Revd. H. Arnold Thomas makes a successful appeal on behalf of the Scheme._

A HANDSOME OFFERING.

The sum of 650 was collected at Highbury Congregational Chapel, Bristol, on Sunday, as a contribution to General Booth's fund, for his scheme unfolded in his book, "In Darkest England." This was in response to an appeal from the pastor, the Rev. H. Arnold Thomas.

_Revd. Champness looks upon it as a forlorn hope._

A letter dated from Rochdale, and bearing the well-known name "Thomas Champness," has reached General Booth, with a contribution of 50. "I wish," writes Mr. Champness in his letter, "I could make you know how much my heart is with you in your great scheme. I am not as sanguine as some of your admirers are as to the success you are sure to win; but I look upon it as a forlorn hope, in which a man had better lose his life than save it by ign.o.ble do-nothingness."

_Mrs. Fawcett points out the great value of the Scheme._

MRS. FAWCETT'S VIEWS.

Mrs. Henry Fawcett, lecturing last night on "Private Remedies for Poverty," before the Marylebone Centre of the university Extension Lectures Society, at Welbeck Hall, Welbeck-street, W., said that according to cla.s.sified directories of London charities, these charities had a yearly income of 4,000,000, but she did not think full returns were made in all instances, and that the total sum was nearer 7,000,000 than 4,000000, while the entire cost of poor-law relief in the United Kingdom was only 8,000,000. Having dwelt upon the evils of misdirected charity, she said the keynote of General Booth's scheme, and what, as it seemed to her, gave her great hope of its being to some extent a success, was the amount of personal devotion and energy which it called for and which she believed the Salvation Army was prepared to give to its development. Its keynote was the possibility of bringing about a change in the individual by personal effort and influence. As General Booth pointed out, the problem was unsolvable unless new soul could be infused in the poor and outcast cla.s.s whom it was designed to help: and to this end it was not money that was wanted so much as the personal service of men and women. One great feature of the scheme was that no relief was to be given without work, except in very exceptional cases. She had personally visited the workshops and shelters of the Salvation Army in Whitechapel, and she found a number of people apparently of the very lowest moral and physical type, and yet they were de-brutalised and had a happy human look as they went on with their work, which in some cases was the same as they had performed in gaol. No temptation was afforded by the workshops or shelters to induce people to stay away from ordinary industrial life longer than they could possibly help. The men had to sleep in a kind of orange-box without bottom, on the floor, upon an American oilcloth mattress; and with a piece of leather for a coverlet. Most previous schemes for employing the unemployed upon colonies and waste land had failed because of the men put upon them, who were drunken, lazy, and half-witted. By General Booth's scheme there was process of selection which would weed out those individuals: and she thought photography might be employed in getting to know bad and unsatisfactory characters.

_Mrs. Howard M'Lean hopes the Scheme may have an immediate trial._

Mrs. Howard M'Lean "presents her compliments to General Booth, and begs to send him her promise of 100, in the earnest hope that the scheme set forth in 'In Darkest England' may at least have a fair trial, and that immediately."

_The "Times of India" points out the advantages of the Scheme._

If we apprehend the scheme aright, it will be carried out independently of existing charities, and indeed not under the guise of a charity at all. The bread of poverty is bitter enough, but that of pauperism is bitterer still, and General Booth, it would seem, intends to foster rather than discourage such spirit of independence as he may find among the lost souls for whom he works. But it seems to us that where such a scheme as his chiefly gains its power, is in its total dissociation from church or sect. However good the work which is done by the Church and by the more widely ramified agency of the Non-conformist sects--and no one will be found to deny that this work is of the greatest possible value in relieving the dest.i.tute and reclaiming the criminal cla.s.ses--there is little or no unity about it. It is under no individual control, it is not carried out on any uniform system, and one agency has no means of knowing what another agency is doing. The result is that relief gets very unevenly distributed, and the lazy and dissolute profit at the expense of the deserving poor. Nor do any of these agencies, as a general rule, aim at any systematic crusade against other dest.i.tution than that of the moment. When they touch the lowest of low-life deeps; it is for the most part in the way of temporary relief only, without the effort (because they have not power) to set these people on their feet again and give them the means of earning a living. It is here that General Booth steps in, and by an elaborate but perfectly feasible system, proposes without any attempt at proselytization to drag the poor from their poverty, put them in the way of doing work of any kind they may be fitted for, and eventually establish them in an over-sea colony.

Looking now to the objections which may be urged against General Booth's scheme, we are at once confronted by two important considerations. The first concerns the "General" himself. He asks for a million pounds sterling to enable him to carry out his project, and the question seems to have already been asked, Is he the person to whom a million pounds may be entrusted? Will it be so safeguarded that those who subscribe may feel a.s.sured that the money will be properly applied and an honest attempt made to do the work here planned out? To all these questions we are disposed to reply in the affirmative. General Booth and his Salvation Army have by this time pretty well weathered the storm of abuse and scorn with which their methods were at first received, and however much we may be disposed even now to question the taste or propriety of those methods, there can be no amount of doubt in the mind of any reasonable man that the Salvation Army has been the means of achieving enormous good the whole world over. In his administration of this huge organization of which himself was the founder, Mr. Booth has proved himself a man of probity and of the strictest possible integrity.

We do not hesitate to say that all the money he requires for this great scheme may be safely placed in his hands, and that he will render a strict account of its disburs.e.m.e.nt. Then comes the question, how far is it possible for him to succeed in the work he proposes to undertake? He has already in the field a vast organization doing good work among the dregs of the population, and the extension of this organization to carry out the main points of his project is not a matter of difficulty. The ill is a terrible one, the evil gigantic, and the means to grapple with it must be gigantic also. But given the means, will they be effective?

We frankly confess that we do not believe they will be so effective as General Booth hopes, but we believe at the same time that if he can achieve only one-tenth of what he hopes to achieve, ten millions of pounds would be worthily laid out upon it. The hungry, the dirty, the ragged, the hopeless and outcast, the criminal and the drunkard, the idle and the vicious--can he gather all these in with any hope of starting them afresh on the journey of life? So much work of this kind has already been done without any special system, that there can be little doubt that to a large extent he can. With the honestly poor it is not a difficult matter, but with the vicious and criminal cla.s.ses, who have no inclination to work so long as they can steal, it will be a long time before the Salvation Army or any other agency can effect any sweeping reform. The work will be slow, but we believe it will be done.

It has been objected against General Booth's scheme that it is not new, except in the fact that General Booth proposes that it shall be himself who carries it out. It seems to us, on the contrary, that it is new in one most vital aspect, and that is, that its details are to be worked out by an enormous united body on a definite plan, instead of by numberless charitable agencies all working independently of each other.

We believe, in short, that General Booth will meet with a very large measure of success, and we believe also that when the details of his scheme come to be read and discussed, he will have no difficulty in getting all the money he asks for, and more besides. Looking at the enormous wealth of England, a million pounds is as nothing. It is the Duke of Westminister's income for three months, and it would open up the means of finding hope and work and refuge, and a new life beyond the seas, for a million or more of the helpless poor. We wish Mr. Booth G.o.d-speed in his great undertaking.

_The "Bombay Gazette" of November 15th, 1890, gives an exhaustive review, from which we cull the following extracts:_--

There is little of the form, though there may be much of the spirit, of the Salvation Army in General Booth's "Darkest England and the Way Out."

It is on the whole a sober, and in some respects well-reasoned, attempt to solve the most urgent problem of the day. Whosesoever the actual workmans.h.i.+p of the book may be, the personality of General Booth pervades every page--nowhere obtrusively it is true, but sufficiently to impart life and warmth to the discussion of a problem whose solution, though it must be sought for only within the limits marked out by economic principles, will never be found, unless it is sought for with a certain pa.s.sionate sympathy for the outcast. The dramatic parallel which the writer establishes between the savagery of Darkest Africa and the suffering and sin of Darkest England, will arrest attention, and will of itself make the book popular. Here, however, we are concerned with the more matter-of-fact elements in the problem, and with the practical remedies which are proposed for it. The heading of "the Submerged Tenth"

which is given to one of the chapters, roughly indicates the dimensions of the task that has to be performed. General Booth takes three millions to be the strength of the army of the dest.i.tute in England. The total comprises the representatives of every phase of want--criminals and drunkards and idlers and their dependants, as well as the cla.s.s who are dest.i.tute through misfortune, who are honest in their poverty, and whom no man can blame for it. For these last-named, society does next to nothing. There is the workhouse for people who have spent their last penny; for so long as it remains unspent, it is a legal disqualification for the help of the State. Or there is the casual ward, where a hard task is exacted in payment for hard fare, but where absolutely nothing is done to help the wayfarer to gain or regain a place and a living in society. Out-relief has been reduced to the minimum. A few weeks ago the whole parish of St. Jude, Whitechapel, with a population of sixty thousand, provided only four applicants to the Board of Guardians for out-relief. Thus far the organized official agency has done little enough for the raising of the "submerged tenth." If _laissez faire_ were a cure for all the ills of society, they would have been cured long ago, for the remedy has been applied with a persistency that has failed not.

General Booth thinks that he has discovered a more excellent way, and is ent.i.tled to a hearing for his plan, for part of it is already in operation. In the "shelters" established by the Salvation Army in the east of London, casual relief is given on almost as large a scale as in the casual wards of the London Workhouses; but he claims for it that it is a less degrading form of help, that sympathy goes with it; and with him of course the emotional accompaniments which the Salvation Army is careful to provide, count for much.

_The "Christian" prognosticates a good future for the Scheme._

Up to this stage the great social scheme of General Booth for uplifting the "sunken tenth," has been, so to speak, "in the air." Monday night's meeting at Exeter Hall may be said to have set it on the solid ground and given good hope that it will run as fast and as far as the supplied resources will allow. The great audience to which the General had to address himself, was not mainly of the usual enthusiastic Army type; but it cannot be said that it was not ready to approve and applaud when any good and telling point was made. The brief religious service at the beginning gave the proceedings the spiritual stamp of Army gatherings, but the larger part of the time was taken up with the statement of the General. For more than two and a half hours he was on his feet so that he did not, at any rate, spare himself in his effort to interest the public in his gigantic plan of campaign. At the outset, he expressed diffidence in entering on the exposition of somewhat new lines of work, but he soon showed himself at home, and in much that he advanced there was a happy audacity and a confidence that boded well for the future developments of his scheme.

_The "Bombay Guardian" defends the Scheme._

General Booth's aim is to give every one who is "down in the world" a chance to rise. No one, however poor or however degraded, is to be left out. By means of shelters and training factories in the towns, he would give every one a chance who wishes to work, however "lost" their character may have become. There is to be absolutely no charity. All will work for their food and lodging, until they have gained sufficient character and experience to take a situation as a respectable working man or woman. There are thousands of "out-of-works," "ne'er-do-wells,"