Chapter: HILLSBOROUGH HOUSE INEBRIATES' HOME


Under the guidance of Commissioner Cox I inspected a number of the
London Women's Institutions of the Army, first visiting the
Hillsborough House Inebriates' Home. This Home, a beautifully clean
and well-kept place, has accommodation for thirty patients,
twenty-nine beds being occupied on the day of my visit. The lady in
charge informed me that these patients are expected to contribute 10s.
per week towards the cost of their maintenance; but that, as a matter
of fact, they seldom pay so much. Generally the sum recovered varies
from 7s. to 3s. per week, while a good many give nothing at all.

The work the patients do in this Home is sold and produces something
towards the cost of upkeep. The actual expense of the maintenance of
the inmates averages about 12s. 6d. a week per head, which sum
includes an allowance for rent. Most of the cases stay in the Home for
twelve months, although some remain for a shorter period. When the
cure is completed, if they are married, the patients return to their
husbands. The unmarried are sent out to positions as governesses,
nurses, or servants, that is, if the authorities of the Home are able
to give them satisfactory characters.

As the reader who knows anything of such matters will be aware, it is
generally supposed to be rather more easy to pass a camel through the
eye of a needle than to reclaim a confirmed female drunkard. Yet, as I
have already said, the Salvation Army, on a three years' test in each
case, has shown that it deals successfully with about 50 per cent of
those women who come into its hands for treatment as inebriates or
drug-takers. How is this done? Largely, of course, by effecting
through religious means a change of heart and nature, as the Army
often seems to have the power to do, and by the exercise of gentle
personal influences.

But there remains another aid which is physical.

With the shrewdness that distinguishes them, the Officers of the Army
have discovered that the practice of vegetarianism is a wonderful
enemy to the practice of alcoholism. The vegetarian, it seems,
conceives a bodily distaste to spirituous liquors. If they can
persuade a patient to become a vegetarian, then the chances of her
cure are enormously increased. Therefore, in this and in the other
female Inebriate Homes no meat is served. The breakfast, which is
eaten at 7.30, consists of tea, brown and white bread and butter,
porridge and fresh milk, or stewed fruit. A sample dinner at one
o'clock includes macaroni cheese, greens, potatoes, fruit pudding or
plain boiled puddings with stewed figs. On one day a week, however,
baked or boiled fish is served with pease pudding, potatoes, and
boiled currant pudding, and on another, brown gravy is given with
onions in batter. Tea, which is served at six o'clock, consists--to
take a couple of samples--of tea, white and brown bread and butter,
and cheese sandwiches with salad; or of tea, white and brown bread and
butter, savoury rolls, and apples or oranges.

It will be observed that this diet is as simple as it well can be; but
I think it right to add, after personal inspection, that the inmates
appear to thrive on it extremely well. Certainly all whom I saw looked
well nourished and healthy.

A book is kept in the Home in which the details of each case are
carefully entered, together with its record for two years after
discharge. Here are the particulars of three cases taken by me at
hazard from this book which will serve to indicate the class of
patient that is treated at this Home. Of course, I omit the names:--

     _A.B._ Aged thirty-one. Her mother, who was a drunkard and
     gave A.B. drink in her childhood, died some time ago. A.B.
     drove her father, who was in good circumstances, having a
     large business, to madness by her inebriety. Indeed, he
     tried to commit suicide by hanging himself, but, oddly
     enough, it was A.B. who cut him down, and he was sent to an
     asylum. A.B. had fallen very low since her mother's death;
     but I do not give these details. All the members of her
     family drank, except, strange to say, the father, who at the
     date of my visit was in the asylum. A.B. had been in the
     Home some time, and was giving every satisfaction. It was
     hoped that she will be quite cured.

     _C.D._ Aged thirty. C.D.'s father, a farmer, was a moderate
     drinker, her mother was a temperance woman. Her parents
     discovered her craving for drink about ten years ago. She
     was unable to keep any situation on account of this failing.
     Four years ago C.D. was sent to an Inebriate Home for twelve
     months, but no cure was effected. Afterwards she
     disappeared, having been dismissed from her place, and was
     found again for the mother by the Salvation Army. At the
     time of my visit she had been six months in the Home, and
     was doing well.

     _E.F._ Aged forty-eight; was the widow of a professional
     man, whom she married as his second wife, and by whom she
     had two children, one of whom survives. She began to drink
     before her husband's death, and this tendency was increased
     by family troubles that arose over his will. She mismanaged
     his business and lost everything, drank heavily and
     despaired. She tried to keep a boarding house, but her
     furniture was seized and she came absolutely to the end of
     her resources, her own daughter being sent away to her
     relatives. E.F. was nine months in the Hillsborough Home,
     and had gone as cook and housekeeper to a situation, where
     she also was giving every satisfaction.

 Rivers is at home, and he makes a trip with his family to church. He stares at the windows, which depict Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac and Jesus dying on the cross. The contract, Rivers reasons, is that if a man obeys his elders, even to the point of sacrificing his life, he will someday receive the same obedience from his sons. He reflects that today, in France, they are voiding the contract by killing their sons; there will be no one to inherit from the fathers. After church, Rivers returns to the farmhouse of his brother Charles. Rivers reflects on the relationship he had with his own father, a priest and a speech therapist by profession. As a boy, Rivers rejected both the unquestioning religious belief in Genesis and the physical cause of a man's stammer, both ideas to which his father dedicated his life. Rivers reasons that no father-son relationship is perfect. He sits down to write a letter to Sassoon. Back in the hospital, Sassoon helps Owen to draft one of his most famous poems, "Anthem for Doomed Youth. He notices that Owen's stammer is improving, and he encourages him to publish him poem. Sarah goes with her friend Madge to a war hospital so that Madge can visit her boyfriend, who has been wounded. Sarah does not want to be in the way, so she searches for an exit from the hospital so that she can sit outside for a while. She stumbles across a tent outside, and when she walks into it, she realizes that it is filled with men without limbs. The men stare at her with a look of fear in their eyes. Sarah realizes that the shocked look on her own face must have made their suffering worse, and she is angry with herself. She is also angry that such men should be hidden from public sight. She thinks that if this cost is what society demanded of them, then everyone should be made to see it. Prior goes to the hospital to have his chest examined, and he dislikes the doctor who attends him. He has a feeling that the doctor thinks he is shirking and will soon send him back to the war. Prior feels powerless, but as he leaves the hospital, he notices Sarah; realizing how much he likes her, he asks her to spend some time with him. Rivers goes to visit his old friends Ruth and Henry Head. Ruth suggests to Rivers that perhaps Sassoon is right: the war is horrible and men should be allowed the freedom to disagree with it. Rivers sticks to his duty and says that he has a job to do--to convince Sassoon to return to the war. At home, Henry offers Rivers a great job in London, working in a hospital where patients have had severe spinal injuries. It would be a terrific career move for Rivers, but he is not sure he wants to take it.

