It is a
common remark with those who, as an act of adventure, now
and again visit such places, that it is marvellous how well,
under the circumstances, the half-naked and more than half-
starved little ragamuffins seen playing in the gutters look, and
that it really seems as though they throve on dirt and neglect,
as more fortunate children thrive with cleanliness and care.
But it is only the exceptionally strong ones who are able to bear up against the baneful influences that threaten
their
early extinction. The weakliest ones are weeded out from
the stronger during infancy, but there still remains a very
large proportion of those who are described by their parents
as never being what may be called "well and hearty." And
then again, when epidemic disease visits these shady places,
which the sun never fairly penetrates, and through the
dismal recesses of which a healthful breeze was never known
to blow - that is when havoc is wrought amongst the gutter
children. They have no armour of defence against it. Their
food is insufficient and of the very worst. In hundreds of
cases, in the hot summer-time, when fever and cholera prevail, the child of ten is left at home to "look after" its three
or four younger brothers and sisters, while the mother is
out at work, the "looking after " mainly consisting in escorting them to the most likely place
where something to eat
may be picked up - literally,- the most favoured hunting-
ground being the nearest fruit market, where, a dozen times
a day, they may take their chance in a scramble for a share
of rotten pears and plums, cast out ostensibly to be by-and-bye carted off by the scavenger.
They are unwashed, clad in rags, and their "bed" is an
abomination. That there are thousands of mothers dwelling
in the back settlements, as they are called, who do their
utmost to keep their homes and children clean and decent, I
am not only willing to admit, but am prepared to vouch for, but
that there is also an unpardonably grimy side to the picture
is, unhappily, equally true. At best, however, it bears
cruelly hard on the poor children when they are prostrated
in sickness. It is bad enough, that bed of theirs, when, in
the enjoyment of health, they retire to rest after a long day
of street-prowling and kennel-raking; but to be there from
an early waking in the morning, all the day through, and
again through the long night, and next day again, with
mother out at work (to stay at home is to proclaim a famine),
and with the other children away at play or at school, and
nothing to break the weary monotony but the hurried visit
of the parish doctor, or the occasional and uncertain "look
in" of the neighbour who has promised to give the little
patient its medicine regularly. Do they suffer, and are they
as sensitive as children delicately bred and tenderly
nurtured? Make no doubt of it, kind-hearted mother with
a little flock of your own, nor hesitate to bestow on them a
full measure of your compassion. There may perhaps be
some truth in the assertion that while they are hale and
robust, the children of the slums grow to some extent
innured to the hardships of the life they are born to; but
that distinction between them and your own children or
mine ceases at the threshold of the room where they lie ill
abed. Their tastes and habits are coarser, and being all
unused to a nurse's anxious care they are less fretful and
peevish, maybe, but they are as fanciful and as imaginative
as their small brothers and sisters of more respectable
growth, and feel just as keenly the hardship and the weariness, and experience the same heart-yearning for the time when
they will get well again. They feel it more, probably. In
ordinary life, the child who is sick is consoled and comforted
in its affliction; its mother's care and attention is unceasing,
there is not a member of the family who has not a cheering
word for it, or an endeavour lacking to mitigate its suffering and enable it to tide over, as easily as maybe, the tedious
time of convalescence.
But, as a rule, the sick child, alley born and bred, has no
such helps back to health afforded it. Its being smitten with
disease is an additional burden placed on the backs of those
who already are too heavily laden. Take the very common
case of mother and father and three or four children occupying one room night and day. It is no use preaching to such
unfortunate folk the dictates of decency. Somehow or other,
probably those who are most fastidious as to the observances
of polite society may have had something to do with their
being thrust back to where we find them. Practically,
they are as unable to help themselves to a more desirable
state of things as if they were fettered hand and foot. It is
only by ingenious contrivance that, at best of times, they
can eke out the miserable dormitory accommodation at their
disposal. Father and mother and the youngest child probably sleep in one bed and the three other children on a
"shake-down," as it is called, in a corner. The latter are
used to " roughing it," and in winter time cuddle together
like little pigs in their straw for warmth sake. But sickness
seizes on one of them; if it is contagious and takes the form
of measles or whooping cough, so much the worse; but the
more common ailment in such localities is low fever and
wasting. The poor little patient's temples throb with a
burning heat, he is full of aches and pains and cannot bear
to be roughly touched. He is wakeful, perhaps a little
delirious, and, in the long night-time, fidgetty and fretful.
It is all very well to say that the affection of a mother and
father for their child should be sufficient to enable them to
bear cheerfully their share of such a family affliction ; but
the matter has its physical as well as its moral aspect. The
father perhaps is a waterside or a market labourer, and
sorely needs all the rest he can obtain between, say eleven
o'clock at night and four or five in the morning, and the
mother may be in much the same case. Thus night after
night there is no sleep for anyone in the unwholesomely
close little room, and how is it possible that the innocent
cause of so much inconvenience can be amiably regarded?
But, as I have already said, the worst part of the business
is when the little invalid boy or girl is slowly recovering
from their sickness, and are in urgent need of the three
essentials to setting them up again-proper strengthening
food, pure air and sunshine and pleasant companionship--
and have no more chance of attaining them than of their going
a journey to the moon on horseback; nothing but the dismal
old conditions to assist the shaky little patient in the up-hill
struggle-the stinted meal of bread and dripping or treacle,
or a share in the hotch-potch of meat scraps or tripe
cuttings with potatoes, with no more delightful outlook, as
he or she lies in bed, than the blackened ceiling and the
broken wall, and with no other couch than the old one, with
a couple of sacks in lieu of sheet and blanket, and a bolster
as hard as a wooden block. One can easily imagine a poor
little girl or boy, so circumstanced, dreaming a dream.
Closing their eyes in hopelessness and weariness, they fall
asleep, and straightway a Dreamland Fairy whisks them
off to a place that appears to be too much like what they
have heard and read of Paradise to be a portion of the dull
and dreary world they have been used to. They are snugly
abed in a bran-new iron cot, with snowy sheets and fleecy
blankets, and, lying near the window, they can make out
that all round about the outside of the house, as far as they
can see. are green hills and valleys spangled with wild
flowers and level meadows smooth as a carpet, where cricket
and football and a dozen other games may be played; with
tall trees with clustering foliage and gnarled limbs, irresistibly
suggestive of bird-nesting, and with a sparkling stream in which the fish are leaping as though inviting any boy possessed of a rod and line to come and catch them if he can;
with, over all, a cloudless blue sky, and the larks carolling,
and the bees busily humming as they industriously give all
their attention to the manufacture of wax and honey. He
was but poorly, the boy recollects, when he lay down in that
other bed, in the dark corner; but waking up in this one,
and looking, as I have before said, out at the window, he
already feels "ten pounds better," as the saying is, and
wants to get up and be off for a ramble in the woods or a
scamper across the meadows. Is he at liberty to do so?
He will risk it, anyhow. And up he gets, and slips on his
clothes-not his old rags, but a clean and comfortable suit -
and makes for the door. But alas for the treacherous
nature of dreams! no sooner has he done so, than the delapidated old room in Squalor Alley presents itself, and he is
compelled to step into it, and there he really wakes, worse
oft and more miserable than before he had the lovely vision.
What would the poor little convalescent give if that dream
could only be made to come true? But it is after having
thus artfully worked my way towards it that I come to the
pith and purpose of my paper. To put it bluntly, it is not a
question of what the ailing one, boy or girl, would give to
make the realisation of that vision of Paradise possible, but
how much - to make it a personal matter - will the warmhearted reader whom God has blessed with means beyond
his actual need, give towards it ? It would be much prettier,
more poetic, at all events, if the great good hinted at could be
achieved by the interposition of the wand of the Dreamland
Fairy before alluded to, but, perforce, we must be practical, and
make it a matter of pounds and shillings. The scheme that is
to spread gladness through Shady-land has already been begun. Those who are at the helm of affairs at that successful
centre of East-end benevolence, the London Cottage Mission,
Salmon's Lane, Limehouse, have boldly taken the matter in
hand, and progressed with it so far as to have completed an
arrangement with a large-hearted gentleman, the owner of land
in the lovely district of Sevenoaks, for a rich slice of that fruitful land, nearly twelve acres in extent. The present position
of affairs is this :- the ground having been secured for what
may be termed a preliminary term of three years and a half,
with power to continue the holding on an extended lease, it
is proposed as the most expeditious and least expensive
arrangement to erect several wooden houses, which, while
they are weather-proof and quite comfortable, can be taken
to pieces as they are put together, without waste of material.
It is proposed to make provision to start, for about two
hundred boys and girls, an equal number of each, and the
necessary means being assured, the builder, who will engage
to carry out and complete his contract in three weeks from
the day of commencing, will get to work immediately, and
meanwhile every other preparation will be making. The
two hundred and fifty iron bedsteads, with the necessary
bedding, will be got ready with the rest of the furniture for
dormitories, school room, dining room, playground, &c., &c.,
so that there is really no obstacle but one - so slight that it may be conquered easily enough by a few passes
of the pen across the face of a few bankers' cheques - to the
place being occupied before the advancing summer is more
than a month older. Six or seven hundred pounds I am
assured by the hard-working Secretary, Mr. Walter Austin,
will suffice to make the affair an accomplished fact. And
such a fact! All that I spoke of as appearing in that vision
to the poor little convalescent of Squalor Alley is to be found
there, and more. Not only is there wood and dell, hills and
valleys; the trout stream is a reality, and so is the orchard
and the market garden (tons of material for the Salmon's Lane
Irish stew dinners might be grown there). All round about
too, there are hop gardens, and there seems no reason why,
come picking time, many of the small patients should not
find a royal road to health, and at the same time earn quite
a comfortable sum by working, taking it easy of course. for
the hop growers. Included with these various uncommon
advantages is another, a well of mineral water, the healing
virtues of which are spoken of by the inhabitants of the
locality as well-nigh invaluable.
But this of course would have to be tested and proved
and there will be time for that when the Convalescent
Home is built up and fully arranged, and the first contingent of the host of children of East London
who are
slowly recovering from attacks of illness, more or less protracted, has been packed thither by rail. The best
guarantee that can be given that the Halls Green Convalescent Home will be well managed is to be found in
the fact that Miss Napton, to whose untiring energy and
wise judgment not a little of the prosperity of the Salmon
Lane Charity is due, will be the lady chief in command there,
assisted by an efficient staff. It is not proposed to keep the
children at the home for an indefinite time; there will be too
many candidates for the blessings it will confer, to admit of
such liberality, as that. The spell in the country will last
from a fortnight to a month, and in cases where the parents
can afford it they will be expected to pay the sick child's
railway fare. In the majority of cases the patients will be
too poor to pay anything, they will have to he taken "just
as they are" from the squalid bedroom (but not before a
medical certificate has been procured stating the child is
free from contagious disease and may be removed with
safety), cleaned, clothed, and whisked off to Wonderland,
and there well fed and kindly cared for, and coaxed back to
health at the expense of the Institution and its patrons.
The latter arc folk to be envied, for what greater blessing in
life can there be than for a man to he able to reason thus:- "Just at present, this bright and beautiful summer time there
are hundreds of wretched children who have long lain ill in
their miserable homes and are now slowly, and by a painfully tedious process, recovering. I will make it my affair
to give, say, ten of them a friendly lift on the hilly road to
health. I have ten pounds to spare, and each golden coin will be a passport for some poor pale faced little boy or
girl, so wan and weak that people turn round and look at
her or him on the way to the railway station. They will
proceed to snug quarters at Sevenoaks, there to remain
until their dull eyes brighten and their small appetites
become prodigiously large ones, and their white lips become
rosy, and the sickly hue of their complexion is changed by
country fare and country air to a wholesome russet brown.
I can do this," says the man with ten pounds to give, "and
I will. And, without fear of contradiction, I say of him,
that he be the happiest man alive.
James Greenwood, Glad News for Shady-Land, 18??