Ten years in a Portsmouth slum

When society is brave enough to say a “fallen man,” as well as a “fallen woman,” the so-called fallen woman will soon disappear. Alas! we talk so glibly of young men’s “wild oats,” oftentimes speaking of sin as a necessity, as if to do wrong in this direction, being human, is natural, that it has become almost recognised that the so-called fallen woman is a necessity. This kind of thing was said over and over again to me by clergymen and others, when I talked to them about the state in which I found my parish, until I was forced to recognise that I must look at this question from two points of view—first, the reclaiming of the sinner; secondly, the removing from amongst my own children the awful danger of infection. I want you to pray, before you read this chapter, that no word of mine may hurt or wound you, as I am praying God the Holy Ghost to give me grace to write it bravely and wisely.

As far as the reformation of this sinner goes, it can only be effected by the loving compassion of a good woman, and God sent me in the hour of my need a woman who practically worked miracles. She is dead now, so I may call her by her name, Mrs. Waldron, a sister of Prebendary Grier. She lived in one of the little cottages which now form the site of the new church, weak in body, yet of such an untiring courage and energy that I have often known her for more than twelve hours at a stretch without food or rest, labouring for some poor soul. I gave her carte blanche when she came, asking no questions, discussing no case unless she desired to discuss it with me, but I know that in a short time more than a hundred poor girls had made their determination for a better life under her influence. And it was no wonder, for harder than marble would have been the heart that resisted her love. In the lives of the saints one reads of those who, nursing the lepers, rejoiced to kiss their sores. That is a physical action, which I suppose anybody could accustom themselves to do. But to touch with your soul a leprous soul, to bear with the blasphemy, the vulgarity, of those who have lost all shame, and perhaps never have had any, to bear with it continually day by day, to have your kindness and hospitality repaid by having all your things stolen, and yourself flouted to your face, mocked at and derided; to find that poor one sick and tired just at the moment when change is possible, to bring her home again without one word or even look of reproach, to do it all without any excitement, any telling of it to anyone else, loving the most hideous for the dear Lord’s sake, treating them in the dear Lord’s own way, no wonder the success was phenomenal. And joined to this an even harder work, to persuade parents to allow their children, their girls of ten and eleven and twelve, to go into preventive homes. For when we first went to Landport that was the only solution of the difficulty possible. We discovered many, many little children from whom no secret of sin was hidden; and we could not remove in a moment their awful instructors, who, directly they were old enough, and that age came sometimes as young as thirteen or fourteen, would give them an easy opportunity of turning instruction into practice. So, though I have never myself been in favour of taking children from their own homes, there was nothing else that we could do.

I determined that by God’s help I would not only endeavour to get the girls out of the bad houses, but the houses out of the parish. The present law is so very difficult to put in force, that I felt that, even if I was successful in invoking the law in a few instances, I should create great prejudice against the work, and effect practically very little reform. So by degrees, with the help of my sister and some of our most earnest mothers, I got a complete list of all the bad houses in the parish. I wrote to all the owners, taking for granted that they did not know the bad purposes for which their houses were being used. I have written these letters week after week, in the hope of shaming them by my persistency or worrying them into taking some steps. After a time, I generally wrote to the Superintendent of Police, and he very kindly did all he could. If there were little children in the house, Mr. Silk, the School Board officer, was also an efficient helper. Then at last the owner, wearied or ashamed, as a rule gave notice to his tenant, and thus in detail, and one by one, our plague spots were removed, until just before I left the parish I bought for £250 the only bad house remaining. The poor woman, now in a lunatic asylum, was her own landlady, and that was why it was so difficult to move it.

You will be quite sure that every effort was made by dealing personally with all the inmates, for when Mrs. Waldron left us, one of my sisters undertook this special work. It would be unbecoming of me to speak of her tact and tenderness; nay, by reason of the salutary rule we had of never talking over cases, I hardly know of them myself; all that I do know is that no poor girl ever left my parish without having the truest womanly love offered her—love which, after seeking her in the worst streets of the town, often found her in the wards of the hospital or poor-house; love which she had refused in the day of her strength, and which now triumphed in the day of her weakness.

Of course, this cleansing of our parish produced a great deal of ill-will from owners of property. Once, feeling myself bound to make a statement in one of my sermons, which got into a newspaper, I was threatened with a libel action for £10,000. I remember quite well, when the lawyer came to see me about it, his utter astonishment not only when he discovered that what I had said was true, but even more when the thought was revealed to him that a clergyman need not necessarily be a fool, and the readiness with which he and his client abated the nuisance was beyond all praise.

The abatement of these nuisances soon did away with the necessity of our sending children to preventive homes. Some words that I had spoken during my first year’s work induced a lady, who has since become one of the Mission’s dearest friends, to undertake an Orphanage for S. Agatha’s children. She opened with a little home in North End, which accommodated about eight children. This was soon overcrowded, and a dear friend of mine, Mrs. Kane, offered us, free of rent, a splendid house in Castle Road, Southsea, where for the last eight years this lady has been mother to more than twenty children. Like all other of God’s gifts to us, this house came at the very moment when we wanted it. It is impossible for me to describe the love with which these children have been mothered, and I doubt if anywhere in England there is any like institution, which is so thoroughly a home. Like all other institutions—and yet that word institution itself is its own condemnation, indeed, I do not think it has ever been an institution—it has had its ups and downs, and we have had to accommodate the method of working it to the age of the children. The younger children coming to our own day schools were kept a little in touch with the outside world, though this had its difficulties, for I have known a time when four or five of the choir boys fell violently in love with the girls. But I welcomed even this danger, from the knowledge that the mixing with other children made the girls more humane, and Wally Kimber, aged nine, surreptitiously offering an apple, had his necessary use. There were also the dangers of measles, whooping cough, etc., but I looked upon these as a development of the child’s physical character.

While recognising to its very full the need of our Orphanage, for most of our children were orphans, or practically so, because their fathers were sailors, I still hold that an indifferent natural home is better for the child than the best artificial one. There is a give and take, a certain amount of bullying, a having to put up with things as they are, sometimes very needless things, a stinting in diet, above all a development of ministry, that I believe to be almost impossible except in the natural home. All this is a formation of character which enables the girl, as soon as she goes out in the world, to know her own value, to judge for herself, and not to be dependent on rules concerning every point, which private judgment would far more healthily direct. Above all, she learns from her father and brothers, and from their companions and friends, natural intercourse with men, which prevents the first man she sees, after she has gone into service, being an overwhelming attraction.

I hope these words will not sound very ungracious towards the very many kind ladies who have taken our children into their Preventive Homes—I bless God continually for many a girl whom their kindness has saved from utter ruin, both of body and soul—and I think they themselves will agree with me generally in what I say. But, on the other hand, many parents are very glad to be saved the expense and trouble of bringing up children in the days when they cannot earn. They even go further than this. I remember, years ago, a great triumph of Mrs. Waldron, when she prevailed on a father to sign the paper allowing his girl to go into a Home. A few months afterwards he came, as I thought, to thank me for having made provision for his child—the mother we knew was a thoroughly bad character—but, after a few preliminaries, he calmly demanded that I should pay him something, or else he would remove the girl. I very soon removed him; but he was continually annoying the sister in charge of the Home, and, as soon as the girl was fifteen, and able to earn, he brought her back again to Portsmouth. I thank God that she was wise enough to insist upon going into service, and has kept herself all right; but it might have been just the other way. Of course, if a mother is depraved, or a girl is beginning to make friends with really bad characters, there is, I suppose, no other remedy; but I am glad to think that, as a rule, such needs have largely passed away from our parish.

We owe a special debt of gratitude to the Portsmouth Ladies’ Committee for Fallen and Preventive work. Through their indefatigable secretary, Mrs. Breton, they have taken out of our hands many of our most difficult cases. I know how often a clergyman’s work is marred by the kind of pompous officialism of many Penitentiary workers. I wish they could have the happiness of working with either Sister Margaret, of the Deaconesses Home, or with Miss Young, of the little Penitentiary in Somers Road, Southsea. Naturally, we came most in contact with her; for when, on Mrs. Waldron’s departure, I shut up our own Penitentiary, hers was open to us night and day. She is, perhaps, the most unassuming and gentle person that ever lived—very delicate, for she was nearly killed in a railway accident, four years ago, and yet exercising a most extraordinary influence over even the rudest and most boisterous girls. The remembrance of her tact and utter absence of hideous rules emboldens me to say what has often been upon my mind about penitentiaries generally—Could there not be a great deal more individualism? And, above all, could there not be fewer prayers and hours of silence? I remember, in my parish in London, a poor girl, who, after many weeks of persuasion, at length entered a temporary Home. On her journey down to a two years’ Home in the country, she disappeared. Two days after, a railway porter brought me a shawl that one of the Penitentiary ladies had lent her, with the message, “Tell Mr. Dolling I could not stick all the prayers.” Perhaps even you and I, who call ourselves religious, would find three set times for prayers a day, with one or two silent hours, more than we could “stick.” And, then, surely a great deal more use might be made of digging. It is far easier to sweat out your evil humours and your sloth in a garden under the sky, than in a wash-house under a roof. I know the infinite tenderness of Penitentiary workers; I know the devotion of their lives; but it has struck me oftentimes, from talking with girls who had been in Homes, that there is a great danger of their looking upon the girl as created for the Home rather than the Home for the girl; and I am sure that if accommodation and workers render this individualism impossible, a smaller number, of whose cure there might be more reasonable assurance, would serve the end far more than a larger number not so successfully dealt with. Above all, a protest needs to be made against a novel system of three months’ Homes. There are in all these girls’ lives times when either weakness of body, utter poverty, reaction against the hatefulness of their life, or a bitter heart-disappointment—for these poor children still have hearts—prompt them to go to a Home. By all means let there be temporary Homes, where they can be taken in, but for God’s sake do not let a whitewashing certificate lightly get them into a house as a servant unless the mistress knows all about them. Of course, there are many ladies living alone who could do no more Christ-like act than to give such a girl a chance; but I have known them sometimes in nurseries—I wonder if people realise how soon little children can be injured by bad habits—and I have known them in houses where there are growing-up sons and daughters, worse for the latter than the former.

I hope you will pardon me for these two digressions, but my work in Portsmouth has brought me in contact with so many poor girls whom a Home seems to have hardened, and my work in the confessional has brought me in contact with so many penitents, whose first temptations to sin arose in their earliest days, and were generally suggested by servants.