THEM***


Transcribed from the 1860 James Nisbet edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

                   [Picture: Public domain book cover]

  [Picture: Tucker’s cottage.  The Oldest House in Kensington Potteries]





                              RAGGED HOMES,
                                   AND
                            HOW TO MEND THEM.


                                * * * * *

                                    BY
                                MRS BAYLY.

                                * * * * *

         “The corner-stone of the commonwealth is the hearth-stone.”

                                * * * * *

                             Fifth Thousand.

                                * * * * *

                                 LONDON:
                 JAMES NISBET AND CO., 21 BERNERS STREET.
                                M.DCCC.LX.




DEDICATED,
BY PERMISSION,
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY.


MY LORD,

I do not inscribe this narrative of facts to you in the expectation of
adding to that acquaintance with the working-classes which you have
gained from personal intercourse with them.

It is for my own satisfaction that I have dedicated this little Volume to
you.  An opportunity, which might not otherwise have occurred, now offers
for thanking you in the name of the poor whom you have cheered by your
sympathy, and of the rich whom you have stimulated by your example.

Compliments between fellow-workers are not seemly, however humble the
bestower, however illustrious the receiver.

That you have allowed your name to appear in these pages cannot but be
gratifying to the writer.  The reader will rejoice no less, and from
higher than personal motives.  He will see in this kindness another proof
of your hearty interest in that class which, if rightly considered, is,
from its very poverty, a blessing to the land, by putting our indolence
and selfishness to shame.

                         I have the honour to be,

                                                                  MY LORD,
                                          Your Lordship’s obliged Servant,
                                                               MARY BAYLY.




PREFACE.


AMIDST the excitements of political contests at home, with wars and
rumours of wars abroad, the voice of “Social Science” is occasionally
heard, and listened to, with a growing conviction of its importance.  The
Politician, the Moralist, and the Christian are impelled by various
reasons to its consideration, and will listen with equal interest to its
details.

Experience is always valued by practical men, and the records of what has
been done are anxiously sought, to assist our judgment in future and more
extended exertions.

The condition of the young, and the education of children, naturally
engaged the earliest attention of Social Reformers.  Experience has shewn
the importance of genial influences at home, and that it is _necessary_
to improve the homes of the poor, in order to save the children from
destruction.  It has also been found that _much_ can be thus effected.
Poor women, who have been subjected to the severe discipline of a
struggling existence, are often willing and anxious listeners to useful
instruction, and are perhaps more susceptible of good influence than
younger persons who have not felt the necessity for improvement.  There
is, therefore, room to hope that the influence which can be brought to
bear upon the mothers of the working-classes will be a most important
element in that general elevation which it is our desire to attain.

It was principally owing to this impression, and also the great desire
which I felt to do something, however feeble, to bring more happiness and
comfort into the houses of my poor neighbours, that induced me, five or
six years ago, to commence a Mothers’ Society.  The usual ways of helping
the poor seemed to me to effect little real good.  The nice soup sent for
the sick man was spoiled by being smoked in the warming up, or by the
taste infused into it from the dirty saucepan: the sago intended for the
infant was burnt, or only half cooked; and medicine and food alike failed
to be efficacious in the absence of cleanliness, and in the stifling air
which the poor patient was doomed to breathe.  The mothers of the little,
thin, fretful babies would complain to me that they could not think why
the child did so badly, for they managed to get a rasher of bacon for it
whenever they could, and always fed it two or three times in the night.
I saw that the wise man was indeed right in saying “that knowledge is the
principal thing;” and that if I could help them in any way to “get
knowledge,” it would be a gift far surpassing in value anything else I
could offer them.  The applications constantly made to me for information
on the best modes of establishing and conducting these Societies, induce
me to suppose that they have taken some hold on the public mind, and that
these institutions supply a want that is every day increasingly felt.

The only value that can be attached to any remarks which I have to make
is, that they are the result of some years’ experience; and that the
plans which I have adopted, though capable of great improvement, have
been to some extent successful.  But the principal motive in my own mind
for sending these simple narratives forth into the world is, the hope
that more attention than ever may by their means be directed to that
great and difficult subject, the improvement of the homes of the poor.
As a few notes of a bird, the lisping of a child, the sound of the wind
dying away, have sometimes been sufficient to awaken the spirit of
harmony in some master-mind, and so led to the composition of the music
which has thrilled and delighted all who have heard it; so, it is hoped,
the suggestions here made may be of use to many minds, and that anything
already effected may be as the drop to the showers, or as the first buds
of spring to the luxuriance of summer.

8 LANSDOWNE CRESCENT,
      _May_ 10, 1859.




CONTENTS.

                                        PAGE
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER                       1
                 CHAPTER I.
A VILLAGE—NOT PICTURESQUE                 19
                CHAPTER II.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHARACTER                39
                CHAPTER III.
SLOW ADVANCING                            61
                CHAPTER IV.
SOWING SEED                               81
                 CHAPTER V.
HOMES AND NO HOMES                       107
                CHAPTER VI.
DIFFICULTIES                             125
                CHAPTER VII.
GIVING AND RECEIVING                     143
               CHAPTER VIII.
LIGHT UPON A DARK SUBJECT                157
                CHAPTER IX.
OUR MISSIONARIES                         175
                 CHAPTER X.
OUR BABY                                 195
                CHAPTER XI.
LETTERS                                  213
                CHAPTER XII.
OBSTACLES: WHO SHALL REMOVE THEM?        237
APPENDIX                                 259




INTRODUCTORY.


    “Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
    Of nicely calculated less and more.”

                                                               WORDSWORTH.

A FEW weeks ago I was visiting the Library in the British Museum.  Two
gentlemen, who stood near me, appeared very earnest in the pursuit of
something which they wanted.  Presently, by an exclamation of delight, I
understood that their search had been successful; they had found what
they had sought.  And what had they found?  A very old book, so badly
printed as to be read with difficulty, and containing information of what
must have taken place at least two thousand years ago—information very
interesting and important to the old Romans, no doubt; and which would
have been still more so, if they could have foreseen what delight it
would have imparted, centuries later, to two inhabitants of a remote
island in the north, who could not possibly be affected by it.  But so it
is: some minds prefer to dwell on the past; others live in the present;
and some seem of opinion that “man never is, but always _to be_, blest.”
This diversity is no doubt necessary; all do some good: the antiquarian
adds to the interest of our libraries, if not of our lives; and we owe
much to those who teach us to look forward, if they will only at the same
time help us to look upward: but to such as wish to _do_ something, who
desire to have an influence on the great living history which every day
is writing afresh, the passing events of the time have the greatest
charm, because they not only present food for reflection, but opportunity
for exertion.

We not unfrequently hear people speak of life in such a way as would lead
us to suppose that there had been some mistake as to the date of their
birth.  Had they come a little earlier or a little later, it would have
been different; but the present seems to afford them no object of
interest.  They complain of intolerable dulness, the weariness of life;
and in watching the cheerless, the objectless existence of such people,
we wonder that it is recorded of only a single individual, that one
morning he shot himself, for the reason assigned on a slip of paper which
he had left on the dressing-table—“I am tired of living only to
breakfast, dine, and sup.”

I have often thought, when listening to such complaints, of the prayer of
Elisha for his unbelieving servant, “Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes,
that he may see;” and if the Lord would do for them as He did for this
servant, and open their eyes—not to see “mountains full of horses and
chariots of fire” waiting to deliver them—but alleys, and lanes, and
villages, full of the needy and the sick, waiting for loving hearts and
kind hands to come and help them to rise from their degradation,
wretchedness, and filth,—the strain would be changed; and, in the
contemplation of such a vast amount of labour, followed by such rich
reward, we should rather expect to hear, if it must still be the language
of complaint:—

    “O wretched yet inevitable spite
    Of our short span! and we must yield our breath,
    And wrap us in the lazy coil of death;
    So much remaining of unproved delight!”

There are many indications in the present day that the fields are “white
unto harvest.”  Several things, that were looked upon some years ago as
experiments, have been so eminently successful, that no unprejudiced mind
can doubt that they are the means which God has blessed, and by which He
intends to accomplish a great work of reformation in this country.  It
was a glorious sight at St Martin’s Hall, on the 2d of March, when 567
young persons came forward to claim the prize for having remained a
twelvemonth in a situation; and, were it not for the strictness of the
rules, excluding all apprentices, requiring a written character from a
master or mistress, it was stated that as many as 1500 would have been
present.  All these had been rescued from well-nigh certain destruction
by the Ragged School, and had there received the education which
qualified them to take these situations.  There must have been joy in the
presence of the angels of God that night, as they witnessed these rescued
ones sitting together, and listening eagerly to words by which their
souls might live; and which, if the prayers of many there were answered,
would prepare them to receive an incorruptible prize, that can never fade
away.

Whilst these facts convey resistless evidence to the mind, that these
poor outcasts _can_ be lifted out of their wretchedness and be saved, the
conviction deepens, that God will hold us responsible to do this work;
and, in all the labour ever required of our hands, it has never been so
necessary that whosoever would engage in it must be taught of the Lord.
We have to pray not only that the Lord of the harvest would send more
labourers into the harvest, but also that He would endow them with just
the spirit and power necessary for this particular work.  In noticing the
physical wants and requirements of this country, nothing strikes us more
forcibly than the certainty with which the demand creates the supply.  No
matter how intricate and complicated the required machinery may be, heads
are always to be found clever enough to invent, and hands skilful enough
to work it.  In fact, the degree of perfection attained in this way is
enough to make us “proud of the age we live in.”  If machinery and
steam-power had been the agency required to purify such places as St
Giles’s and Bethnal Green, the work would have been done long ago.  These
wretched localities have not remained so long “like blots in this fair
world,” without being thought of and cared for.  Many politicians and
scientific men have asked earnestly, “What can be done?” and have turned
away hopelessly, feeling that the mighty intellect which could subdue
air, earth, and sea, had now met with something beyond its power; and
still the question remained unanswered, “What can be done?”

One of the most interesting discoveries of the past few years has been,
that the humblest instead of the grandest agency is required to
accomplish this work which the wisest heads have found so difficult.  A
little sketch of the early history of one of God’s most successful agents
will shew that “His thoughts are not as our thoughts;” for it would not
have entered into the heart of man to have suggested such a preparation
for usefulness.  “A drunken father, who broke her mother’s heart, had
brought a young girl of fifteen, gradually down, down from the privileges
of a respectable station, to dwell in a low lodging-house in St Giles’s.
The father died shortly afterwards, and left her, and a sister five years
of age, orphans in the midst of pollution, which they, as by miracle,
escaped; often sitting on the stairs or door-step all night, to avoid
what was to be seen within.  An old man, the fellow-lodger of the
children, and kind-hearted, though an Atheist, had taught the elder to
write a little, but bade her never read the Bible, since it was full of
lies; and that she had only to look around her in St Giles’s, and she
might see that there was no God.  She had learned to read and knit from
looking continually at the shop-windows.  She married at eighteen years
of age her present husband, and for the first time in her young memory
knew the meaning of that blessed word, ‘home;’ although the home was but
a room, changed from time to time in the same neighbourhood.  After many
years of considerable suffering, from loss of children, ill-health, and
other calamities, she took shelter one rainy night in an alley which led
up to a little Mission Hall in Dudley Street.  She entered, and heard it
announced that books would be lent, on the next evening, from a
newly-formed library for the poor at that place.  Going early, she was
the first claimant of the promise.  She had intended to borrow Uncle
Tom’s Cabin; but a strong impulse came over her, which she could not
resist—it was as if she had heard it whispered, ‘Do not borrow Uncle Tom;
borrow a Bible.’  So she asked for a Bible.  ‘A Bible, my good woman?’
was the missionary’s reply.  ‘We did not mean to lend Bibles from this
library; but wait, I will fetch you one.  It is a token for good that the
Book of God, the best of books, should be the first one asked for and
lent from this place.’  He brought her the Bible, and asked if he should
call, and read a chapter with her.  She said respectfully, ‘No, sir,
thank you; we are very quiet folk, my husband might not like it.  I will
take the book, and read it for myself.’  The Lord’s time was come.  His
message then first entered her house, and went straight to her heart.
The Divine Spirit applied the Word with power; and the arrow of
conviction was ere long driven home by suffering and affliction.

“A severe illness laid her prostrate, and to this hour she feels—in a way
that we who help her in her work cannot feel—what is meant by sickness
and poverty coming together.” {8}

This was God’s education to prepare for Himself an agent to carry out His
purposes of mercy.  By uniting the introduction of God’s Word with care
for the temporal wants of the poor people around her, Marian has been
able to accomplish wonders in two short years; and the account of them
will be seen with great pleasure by those who allow themselves the
monthly treat of reading “The Book and its Mission.”  But something more
than facts, valuable as they are, have been deduced from Marian’s
mission.  The lock that refused to be picked, has yielded to the fitting
key.  We have sat in our beautiful churches long enough, and wished we
could see the poor gathered around us; but they have not come.  We have
written numberless