r;. ,^ :-^V^ i ■>RAB •^^ • M,' .'•'• ^*^% ill"- Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/crubsforworkinggOOstanrich CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS BY MAUDE STANLEY n author of 'work about the five dials' HonDon MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK I 890 A^^ rights reserved 3lGb «\5^ sz-^^f Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh. ^ TO THE NUMEROUS FRIENDS AND BENEFACTORS OF THE SOHO CLUB AND HOME WHO BY THEIR CONTINUOUS KINDNESS IN AND FOR THE CLUB AND HOME AND BY THEIR GENEROUS AND LIBERAL GIFTS OF MONEY DURING THE PAST TEN YEARS HAVE MADE THE SUCCESS AND PROSPERITY OF THE INSTITUTION Part of the first two chapters appeared in the Nineteenth Century, and are republished by the permission of the Editor. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE The London Work-Girl .... i CHAPTER II The Way to Start and Manage a Girls' Club . . . . . . i6 CHAPTER III Evening Classes ...... 49 CHAPTER IV Country Visits and Excursions ... 86 CHAPTER V Amusements in the Club . . . . 120 viii CONTENTS CHAPTER VI PAGE Religion of the Work-Girl . . . .140 CHAPTER Vn Difference in the Social Position of Work- Girls . . . . . . .174 CHAPTER Vin i Homes for Working Girls . . . .213 CHAPTER IX Conclusion 231 Appendix . . . . . . .271 I THE LONDON WORK-GIRL In the last twenty years innumerable schemes have been brought forward, societies have been established, and unions have been formed for the improvement, the culti- vation, and for the happiness of the working classes. The minds of philanthropists are fortunately so various, that the interest of those who work and of those who can bestow money is spread over such a large area, and flows into such countless channels, that we might almost imagine that all who needed help would come under these beneficent influences. It is true that there are organ- isations seeming to reach every kind of B 2 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS i distress and misfortune both for men, for horses, for dogs, and for cattle. Have we not this year seen a ball taking place to defray the expenses of a home of rest for tired horses ? It is true that much thought is given to alleviate suffering of all kinds ; but do we not still reach a very small number, comparatively, of toiling and suffer- ing humanity ? We are trying to make the lives of the working classes brighter, happier, more full of pleasure, more joyous, and we do succeed somewhat ; every hour of happiness we can bestow on the toilers is of value ; so let us not underrate the smallest effort that is made ; but our lives are so short, for all we would do, and power of work will so soon pass from us, that we should concentrate our efforts to do the most in the short time given to us for work. In these days of widespread literature and newspapers an idea, once it takes hold of the imagination of men, will multiply endlessly. Let us take, for example, the idea of pro- THE LONDON WORK-GIRL viding country holidays for poor children. It is but a dozen years or so since the idea was first formed, and now see the multitudes, the thousands of children sent out into the country every summer from our great centres of industry, from London, Manchester, Liver- pool, and from numerous towns of smaller magnitude. Now in Italy children are sent every summer to the seaside, and in France, Germany, and Austria they go forth from their great cities to the pine -forests or hillsides. Universal as is this idea of country holidays for children, so we hope in time will be the feeling that clubs must be established in the different localities of great cities to carry on the work of the school, and to protect and raise the working girls of our country. Experience shows us that a club for girls will do a great work ; for can we too highly estimate a work which raises, which ennobles, which brings out the best traits in a girl, which by its wholesome pleasures, by its varied interests, by its 4 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS i human sympathies between the ladies and the girls, will make their lives happy and good ones ? We might almost say that the welfare of the work-girl is at the root of the important questions now exercising the minds and thoughts of some of the best of our genera- tion : the question, How are we to improve the lives of our working classes ? What can we do to ameliorate their condition — to make less unequal the lot of the rich and the poor ? You may say. What has the work-girl to do with this question ? Is it not always said, and with truth, that the influence of the mother over her child, the girl over her sweetheart, the wife over her husband, weighs much in the balance for good or evil in men's lives ? We have seen it so in history, we have known it to be so in our own and other lives, and if we raise the work-girl, if we can make her conscious of her own great responsibilities both towards God and man, if we can show her that there THE LONDON WORK-GIRL are other objects in her Hfe besides that of gaining her daily bread or getting as much amusement as possible out of her days, we shall then give her an influence over her sweetheart, her husband, and her sons which will sensibly improve and raise her generation to be something higher than mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. Let us consider, then, the condition of the work-girl in our great towns. Her working and wage-earning life begins at fourteen — often, indeed, at thirteen. In general there is an impatience to go to work, for it means a decided advance in the life of a girl. She ceases to be a child— a step eagerly looked forward to by all girls. If the parents are poor, the girl knows how valuable will be her weekly wage at home ; should her parents be in easy circumstances, wage- earning people, themselves in constant work, the girl may be apprenticed or learn a trade : here also the feeling of independence makes work attractive to the child, who sees the 6 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS i pleasant prospect in coming years of earning good wages. The day will come when the long hours of fatiguing labour will make the child regret those happy schooldays she has so joyfully quitted. In several parts of London the girl will for many years bring home her wages to her mother, who will give her a small sum weekly to put by for her clothes, the remainder going into the common family purse. The daughter thus becomes of importance, in one sense, in the family, for does she not add to the ex- chequer ? is she not a wage-earning member of the household ? In Manchester girls get good wages at the mill — sometimes eighteen shillings a week; their work is more in request than the work of men, and therefore they are often the only bread-winners of the home. This alters in many cases the position of parents and children ; the former will not venture to draw the reins too tightly, no word of warning and advice will be given, for fear that the girl should take herself off to THE LONDON WORK-GIRL lodgings, enjoying the same freedom she has already got accustomed to, without any chance of remonstrance or reproof. The mothers will often say girls must learn the way of the world ; when she has done her work she must have her fling ; and so she will saunter through the gas-lighted streets with some companion, male or female ; she will be ready with a saucy word, a sharp retort, a rude laugh, and often, alas ! even foul words or swearing, that show how fatal has been the consequence of what was at first the harmless recreation of an evening walk after the day s toil. It will be asked. Has the School Board done nothing for our work-girls ? Only those can give a fair answer to this question who have known them after their school life, who have mixed with the girls, and seen the effect of school on those who have scraped through the first three standards, and with the girls who have passed through all their standards with credit. We can unhesitatingly 8 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS i say that a good elementary school education has done a very great deal for the children. It does not signify if it has been in a board school or in a denominational school, so that the teachers have been good and the Educa- tion Code followed. We see in the well- taught working girl intelligence developed, order and discipline are understood, and there is in her a cultivation of mind and manners which makes her often fit, on leaving the school, to take work in first-rate shops, or to begin service with some notion of what is required of her. We have already some technical training for girls — cooking, needle- work, cutting out ; this they learn at school in the advanced standards, and perhaps we might some day have laundry and household work added to the extra subjects of class teaching ; if these were taught in all our schools we should not hear, as we do now, that the work- girl can neither wash her clothes nor clean a room. Such work, if taught in the elemen- tary schools in poor localities, would make THE LONDON WORK-GIRL the girls long for something beyond their own often miserable homes, which would be made less miserable by cleanliness, thrift, and in- dustry. With regard to the subjects now taught in schools, we do not say that ad- vanced rules of arithmetic, that the use of the globes, that the power of singing from notes, will advance the children specially in their life's work ; but the discipline, the order, the intelligence that has been devel- oped in learning these subjects will make them apt pupils in their trades, and will make them better workmen and workwomen. We still see very often the want of primary education in our work-girls, for what with the shifting of the parents from one locality to another, what with the unpunctual and drunken habits of some parents, we have had girls attending our night schools, over seventeen, who would not have passed in the first standard. This has produced in the girl a dull stupidity which has made her unequal in the great competition for work. CNIVEESITl ! lo CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS i and without some helping hand such as can be given by friends in a club, she must have sunk below her companions. It may be said, and truly so, that we can never find better or cleverer servants than were to be found in the last generation, who had no such education, who possibly could neither read nor write ; but remember that such instances were the exceptionally clever ones, who had not had the opportunities of book- learning, and whose acuteness and ingenuity triumphed over all impediments. Those girls in our days who cannot read or write are the neglected, the weakened in mind and in body, too often by the vices and degra- dations of their parents. We may ask, when these girls go forth into the world having been cared for up to twelve, thirteen, or fourteen years of age by the parental arm of the State, has the education they have received done more for them than make them more intelligent, more quick of apprehension, better workwomen ? THE LONDON WORK-GIRL We would answer, according to the higher teaching they have received from their mistress, morally and religiously, will the girl — precocious as, we must remember, these children of the poor are on all social questions — be bent on leading a virtuous, honest life ; but can we say more of a child of thirteen than that ''well begun is half done"? The great mass of girls employed industrially in London, whether in factories or workshops, have their homes with their parents, brothers, and sisters in but one or two rooms, possibly some may be in the improved workmen's dwellings and will have three, and the higher class four rooms for a family of often eight or more children. How can the work -girl find the recreation she must have after ten or eleven hours of monotonous work ? Our children have their lesson-time, at thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen, carefully intermixed with walks, games, rides, gymnastics, and the end- less variety of amusements of the children of well-to-do parents. Our work-girls — children 12 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS i Still, though wage -earning members of the family — seek their recreation where alone they can find it, by loitering about the streets after dark when work is over, with some chosen companion ; often it is with girls, sometimes in rough play with boys and lads. After a time the walk round, the look- ing into the shop-windows, the passing by the glaring gaslit stalls in the evening markets, cease to have interest. Then comes, accord- ing to their means, the visit to the music hall, the cheap theatres, the gin-palaces,' the dancing saloons, and the wine shop ; then soon follow other temptations, the easy slid- ing into greater sin, the degradation and the downfall of all womanly virtue. And we may ask how has this catastrophe come about ? from the innocent and natural wish of the child to play, to be amused, to stretch her wearied limbs after her long day of work. Work which is well paid in the West End of London, but often most cruelly paid in the East End — wages that will not suffice to keep I THE LONDON WORK-GIRL 13 body and soul together in any decency, embittering the hearts of those who have to endure it, creating many a murmur, spoken and unspoken, against the hardships of this unequal world. Well, to counteract these dangers, to save our poor children just start- ing into womanhood, to keep the young girl virtuous, to give to her friends that will be safe guides, that will lead her forwards and up- wards, that will make life a happiness instead of a drudgery — we say, establish in every locality clubs for working girls. Do not put aside these pages and say, ^^ Another hobby ! another vain attempt to use Mrs. Partington's broom to sweep back the Atlantic!" It is not a hobby. Vice, disease, and crime would sweep over this great Babylon as the waters of the Atlantic ; but we must raise barriers, we must stem the tide of evil, and experience has shown us what can be done in the short space of ten years to enable us to raise, to purify, and to strengthen many a girl living in a neighbourhood looked on by some as 14 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS i the worst in our metropolis. With the arm of the Lord we will fight against this evil, these sorrows, this poverty, which is making our great cities into hotbeds of corruption, and with help from above we must use the weapons of foresight and judgment, and we must turn to and provide for the girls that which their parents truly say they cannot provide — healthy and safe recreations, amuse- ments, and occupation for their leisure hours. A club for working girls is one of the most modern of all schemes, but the rapid spread of such institutions, in less than ten years, over England, and Scotland, and America, shows how greatly they were needed. They meet a want which can be met in no other way ; they enlist the sympathy of the upper classes, whilst they gain the con- fidence of the working class. It is the rapid spread of girls' clubs ; it is from the repeated requests of ladies who wish to form new ones, who consult us as to how they I THE LONDON WORK-GIRL 15 should begin, what rules they should have, how they should get together the girls, that these pages are written, in the hope that they may assist others in the work of which we have such a pleasing experience. II THE WAY TO START AND MANAGE A GIRLS' CLUB Girls' clubs have been started in different ways, sometimes locally, so as to benefit the girls living in a certain neighbourhood, some- times for girls engaged in some special branch of industry, such as flower-girls, laundresses, dressmakers, mill-girls, and those engaged in factories. Clubs are also often formed specially for members of some church, into which club other girls may be allowed to enter, or else the club is devoted to the use of the members of the church alone. We would not advocate any one scheme as pre- eminently the best ; for the success of all such undertakings will depend on the zeal, II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB i; the tact, the energy, the capacity of the promoters ; and it would be unwise to dictate any one way to them : they must use their own judgment in starting the club, specially having in view the circumstances of the neighbourhood, the amount of people in- terested in the work who will come forward with personal help and money, and above all they should be satisfied to start in a very small way, to allow the club to grow and increase, however slowly, being assured that the experience gained is worth some delay. In some instances clubs have been started and have proved most lamentable failures ; owing to an undue hurry and inability to work slowly. The managers have been impatient to succeed, not considering that characters require much time to develop under better and new influences, and that by hurrying such a work as this, and being too anxious about results, they will only touch the super- ficial parts of human nature. They should remember that rude, vulgar, untidy, disreput- ^ c 1 8 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS n able habits, uncorrected during childhood and youth, will need very patient and continual correction before we can see the manners of the working girl become refined, polite, unselfish, and thoughtful for others. In starting a club, and indeed in carrying it out, discipline and order are the first requisites. A club was established in one part of London for the poorest of work-girls ; they were allowed to talk to one another as they would have spoken in the streets, probably in their own homes ; their conduct became lawless, there was no respect shown to the ladies, and the club had to be closed for some months, to be reopened under stricter discipline. Another club we know of was started for boys, with the most praise- worthy desire to benefit the lads of a danger- ous neighbourhood. A few respectable boys were got together, who were anxious to find some evening place of recreation ; but the promoters were not satisfied with the progress of the tortoise : they wished for rapid results II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 19 and large numbers ; they admitted all who chose to apply ; there was no order, no means of instruction ; the respectable boys left, the roughs who remained said they must be allowed to smoke in their club ; all control over them was gone, the language was so foul that the police had to interfere, and fortunately the club was soon closed, but not before more harm had certainly been done to the neighbourhood than good by collecting together the ill-disposed lads. The same amount of license will, of course, not prevail amongst girls, but the language may be as foul ; in one club we heard the police say that in the streets they had not heard worse language than was used in that girls' club. We have heard that, the moment the girls were dismissed at closing time from another club, fights took place between them till they rolled in the streets together, abusive words being used to one another and against the ladies who had spent their evenings trying to amuse them. We have seen, in a club. 20 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ii ladies coming in, who were frequent visitors, received by such exclamations as these : ** Well, Lady James, what have you brought for us this evening ? something worth having, we hope," a free and easy style which does not mean confidence or affection but merely ill-bred familiarity. Ladies who engage in this work without previous experience are too apt to be carried away by their sympathy with the hard life of these work-girls, to remember their long hours of wearying work, to look at their pale, care- worn faces, and to think that they will add to their hardships if they in any way reprove them or do not allow them their fling once they are off work and are come to the club. But this is a great mistake ; there is nothing a girl will value more than the thought that she is improving herself, that she is learning manners. Why, have we not been told by the uneducated wife of an artisan the loss she felt when sitting with her husband s friends, that, from want of education, she knew no II rO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 21 '' dictionary words," showing by this that the uneducated, the rough working woman can feel the loss of schooling, and is conscious of the value of culture of which she has been deprived. Men can also become sensible of this deficiency, as a labourer, after a winters training for singing in a church choir, when praised for his progress, answered, ''Why, marm, we have not only learned singing, but we have learned manners too." So first and foremost in club management we must insist on order, discipline, and good manners as well as good conduct, and it is perhaps the most difficult quality to find in any of the well-intentioned, kind ladies who will under- take this work. They must have a dignity in themselves which will command respect ; they must be even-tempered, showing no favouritism amongst the girls ; there must be no hurry, and tact is essentially needed. We have seen the gentlest and most fragile of ladies command a respect which the strongest 22 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ii might fail to obtain. We have known a class to be left in most perfect order by one teacher who had to attend to another part of the club, and, for what reason we know not, disorder had sprung up, slates had been thrown about, and the gas turned out. Such collisions should certainly be avoided, so let the managers be very careful who they get as coadjutors in this sometimes difficult work. Any helper in a girls' club should, above all, have friendliness in her manners and in her heart ; to be lively is a great advantage ; quietness and decorum are attractive in a girls' club as elsewhere, whereas pride or conceit is soon detected by them. We have heard of girls in a club who openly discussed the ladies who came to them, saying of one, '* We don't like Miss Ann, she is so stuck up ! she gives her- self such airs!" We need not add that such remarks should never be allowed — not silenced, but, quietly and apart, the girls should be reasoned with. II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 23 There is often in the minds of people an unfortunate obHquity of vision which places the individual before the institution. The efficiency of a school will sometimes be sacrificed for fear of dismissing an incom- petent teacher, and in other undertakings we have seen the same fatal mistake. The man of business will not hesitate to dismiss the foreman or manager who is not up to his work, and we should manage philan- thropic institutions with the same clear- sighted judgment. Ladies who undertake volunteer work are often new to it, and we must not expect proficiency at once, but must be satisfied to show what is needed. Should we, however, find that they are not fitted for the work, either by disposition, manner, or capacity, we must not hesitate to recommend that they should find some other field for their labour. I have heard of a club where a lady who contributed much of the funds for its maintenance was of such a sensitive organisation that both the playing 24 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ii of the piano and the noise of the games were too much for her ; and on her coming into the club everything had to be still. Can we wonder that the girls were often heard to say, '' I won't come to the club to- night if that old cat is there." In more than one instance ladies have said to me, '' Our club will not succeed and our old members are leaving because Mrs. Dash is so unpopular with them." ''Well," I say, '' why do you not get rid of Mrs. Dash ?" But unfortunately the lady who is so unpopular may be the important lady of the committee ; she may have the purse strings ; she may even be the orginator of the whole scheme ; but her manner is un- sympathetic, and commands neither respect nor affection. Some ladies, with every desire to be of use, with perfect knowledge of the subject they wish to teach, may be unable to interest their pupils, or their strictness or their impatience may make them worse than use- II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 25 less, for they will create a distaste for learn- ing in the minds of their pupils. When we hear from the superintendent that she cannot get the girls to go to a class, or when we hear that on certain evenings but few girls come to the club, we may be sure there is some reason, and should it be that this or that lady is not suited to the girls, let us not hesitate to make a change. We have been fortunate in the Soho in hav- ing most kind, bright and sympathetic ladies who have helped in our club, and whose absence when circumstances called them away has been a cause of sorrow and con- tinual regret to our girls. In starting a club where none has before existed it is sometimes well after taking a room to send out invitations for a tea. Let these invitations be given through district visitors, employers, Sunday school teachers of all denominations. After tea let some lady address the girls, tell them what is pro- posed to be done for them, tell them what sue- 26 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ii cess has attended clubs already established, say what classes will be held, what payment will be required, what amusements will be provided ; then, after this address, let the ladies talk individually to the girls, get to know them, get their names and addresses and promises, if possible, of joining the club. It would be well at first starting to ask no ad- mittance fee, but after a month have one of twopence, sixpence, or one shilling, and admit all who apply with the understanding that there is no membership till a visit has been paid by a lacjy to the candidate s home, after which, if satisfactory, a card of membership will be given. It is well to allow girls, once they are members, to introduce other girls. They will be anxious to introduce none but girls who will be a credit to themselves, and indeed it seems the only way of getting members except those personally known to ladies, for repeatedly has the experiment been tried to give papers of clubs in the streets to work-girls. They have taken the papers. II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 27 expressed a wish to come, but -have never made their appearance. After a day or two it would be well to call on those girls who gave their names and addresses, and explain more about the club to the girls and to their parents. A monthly party is a good thing to propose, when every member is allowed to bring in a friend and where there can be dancing. By this means the club gets known in its most attractive aspect. Another way of making a club known to the girls of the neighbourhood is to call at the factories where they are employed, and by getting the foreman or forewoman in- terested in the scheme, you may probably be allowed to go there at the dinner hour. Those girls who are likely to wish to avail themselves of your club will be brought to you, and you can explain to them all the advantages and pleasures you propose to give them in the club ; you can distribute hand-bills with full details of all that is done 28 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ii there, which they can give amongst their companions. A great deal may be done in getting a club known in a district by window bills, and money spent on printing in this respect is well spent. In London and in other large towns the working people have little com- munication one with another ; their acquaint- ances are generally made amongst their companions in work, and though they live within a stone's throw of a girls' club, they may never have heard of it. The showy window bill may attract their attention, and they may then look in and find a home and friends they had never thought of. In a country town in the west of Eng- land a club was started where girls freely came in, and where there was generally music. One evening a girl appeared in a thick white frock in which she had been singing in public-houses ; strange to say, this was the only garment she had on. Her voice was beautiful, and she had a natural talent for II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 29 singing, and was attracted into these rooms by the sound of music ; the pleasant friendly kindness of the ladies and the homelike ap- pearance of the rooms caused her to come again and again, till the ladies arranged for her by her own wish to go into a home and to be trained for service. Members who come in like this will be exceptional cases ; and we must look out for all sorts of ways for getting the club known. It is of no use asking girls to whom one is unknown ; they will not come ; they are distrustful of such invitations, and shyness also will prevent their entering a strange place. The best way of starting a girls' club, but that is not always possible, is to make it the outcome of a night school, or through the work of a district visitor. There you have a natural connection between members and ladies, and you will have the friendliness on one side and the confidence on the other side engendered by the intercourse already carried on between them. 30 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ii Then, in arranging classes, only settle on such for which you can be certain to have teachers ; they may be paid or unpaid teachers — it matters not if they are of the right sort. They must know how to teach, they must have the gift for teaching, for remember that these scholars are all voluntary ; there can be no compulsion ; and also that they are handicapped by long hours of hard work by which their bodies are tired out, and which may a little dull their brains. But if your teachers love teaching, they will get brighter as the lesson goes on, and their pupils will forget fatigue and lassitude, and will be eager and attentive to get all they can from their instructors. It is most important to secure a good superintendent in a girls' club ; much of the success of the undertaking will depend on the person you place there. It is a great advan- tage to the girls to have visits from ladies, and they should take each their special evenings for visiting the club, but let there be II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 31 one manager, who is always there, and who will know all the members and be known by them. We have had the experience of a lady as a superintendent, and also one of the same class as the girls, and we do not re- commend either one or the other as absolutely the best ; the essential is to find a woman with great friendliness, love for the girls, warm sympathy, order, and liveliness, who will never be tired, or rather who will never let her feelings, mental or physical, interfere with the work of the club. At Nottingham and in some other places a different system is carried on ; there is no regular superinten- dent, but the ladies take their turns at the club. The numbers at such clubs are not so numerous as some London clubs, and where there are over one hundred or more members with an average of over fifty attendance, a per- manent superintendent seems necessary. The salary required for a superintendent will be some consideration when funds are low, but as it will only occupy the evenings of a working 32 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ii woman, a very large pay will not be required. Should the superintendent be a lady, her salary need not be much more, as it would not be wise to engage one who would have to depend on this salary for her maintenance. It is better never to close the club ; this is sometimes done when ladies are out of town, but the sense of continuity is very important to ensure a regular attendance at a club. In some instances we have heard of free teas on Sundays being given to the girls who have come in the week ; this implies that the girls were doing a good action by coming to the club, whereas they should get to feel that they are enjoying a privilege by possessing and making use of the club. It will generally be found necessary to form a committee of ladies, to which gentlemen may be added ; but in starting a club it will be well if the guidance and management of it be left in the hands of one or, at the most, two ladies, who habitually visit the club in the evening, and who will best know the II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 33 requirements and characteristics of the girls. It is very essential also that there should be perfect accord between the ladies and super- intendent, as the girls are on the alert to gauge the amount of confidence placed in their superintendent. We have known the usefulness of a club much marred by the annoyance felt by the ladies at the greater attachment and confidence shown to the superintendent than to themselves. It is but natural that they should be more at their ease with the one that is always with them. Undue familiarity should be discouraged, as it will often lower the respect the girls feel for those placed over them. It would be well, when the club is first started, for the committee to meet every week, but as everything settles down once a month will be sufficient, when the lady who has been in charge can give her report. It is a good plan, when the club has got quite into work- ing order, for each lady of the committee to take a month at a time for looking through D 34 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS n the superintendent's book, her attendance marks, the register of fees, and her log- book, and to visit the club one evening a week during her month of duty. The committee of ladies should be mostly composed of those who work in the club ; they will know best how the work is to be carried on, what classes the girls require, and what amusements should be given to them. It may be well to have some members on the council who, though unable to work in the club or visit it in the evening, will be useful in other ways — getting friends to con- tribute funds or to provide amusements ; but in general I should recommend that only those who would work for the club in one way or another should be asked to become members of the council ; the mere attendance at a committee does not constitute work. In many ways it is advantageous to keep a register of attendances ; the girls like it themselves ; they are glad to think that the ladies look through these registers and ob- II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 35 serve those who are oftenest in the club. In another way it is useful : if a girl has been long absent from the club or comes in less often than before inquiries are made. It has happened that the mothers have fancied their girls were attending the club every evening when they were really elsewhere, and in this way a girl has been more than once checked in giddy ways. The attendance register should be ruled for every day, and marked daily ; a month's attendance may be entered in two folio pages, so that at a glance the girls' attendance can be seen. In some clubs each girl's name is entered on a new page every day ; such a regis- ter would not enable one to see at a glance how often each member has been in the club. For the payments of girls, whether it be twopence or a penny a week, the following register can be adopted. We require in our club that the quarterly fee should be paid by all members over seventeen years of age who have been over one quarter in the club, Vi^hich 36 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS (/5 < 111, sent to Convales- cent Hospital. Three weeks at Wilcote. Three days at Vir- ginia Water. i -3 'S «5 i 13 M -^ ~^ --, « -^ n « « -^ n W CO CO 05 (M S i i i s i 05 vo : • : vo kO > T ^ ^ vo : : : vo o : : : : : • 00 i i i i : I-l S "??" "?r "n" 2 (u t: i3 u .S c c § c J3 <1 <1 U h^ U 00 "^ O 1-^ On 00 00 OO 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1 M N CO Tj- lO II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 37 will give them time to see if they care to belong to it permanently. In the log-book should always be kept the ' record of the ladies who visit the club, any special event, any new members joining, or any other fact of interest it is well to note. In some clubs there is a limit of age for admittance. There are some difficulties in admitting girls under fifteen when they seem to be but children, and when the number of members is very small it is best to keep the girls more of an age ; but my feeling is very strong that girls who have left school at thirteen or fourteen, and have gone to work, should be encouraged to come to a club specially with the object of attending classes ; they are generally anxious to improve them- selves, and the argument of idle hours spent in the streets after their day's work and the danger of such practices applies as much to them as to older girls. In our club in Soho the average age is seventeen, but we are glad to admit the girls of fourteen who have been 38 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ii at the four or five schools of our immediate neighbourhood, and who therefore Hve close by and who are anxious to come. The older ones are apt to talk of the smallness of the new members, but they are reminded that they joined when children, and of the advan- tage the club has been to them. Where the arrangements of the house make such a thing possible, it would be well to have a separate room for the elder members and those who wish for quiet and reading and who do not need supervision. It seems very necessary to provide at a club the means of cheap refreshment, and it is well to let the girls undertake this work them- selves. We must at first choose those girls who seem most capable and whom we con- sider fit to undertake this duty. The charge should be small — a penny and halfpenny a cup of tea or coffee, buns, pastry, etc. , all accord- ing to the usual prices at coffee-taverns. If properly managed there should be no expense attaching to the refreshments, and, indeed, II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 39 there will be a little profit when many are present ; and it is an advantage to the girls to take some little trouble for w^hat they can see is so entirely to their own advantage. Every club should have its library. Books are now so cheap and friends are so kind in giving them that there should be no difficulty in establishing one. Novels and stories are most in request, and as it is very usual for girls to buy the penny serials, which must do them much moral harm, we are glad to put other stories of less sensational character in their way. These novelettes are known to be of such a bad nature that girls will keep them concealed from their mothers, most of whom do not allow them to be brought into their house. They are full of sensation and crime, pretending to depict the lives of Lord Edwards and Lady Janes, who are by the authors supposed to spend their lives in a continual state of melo- dramatic action. There is nothing in these tales to improve or to elevate ; they are 40 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ii taken in week by week, so that they keep up in the readers' mind a perpetual excitement and a longing that in their poor little lives some great sensation should have a place. A mistress who had taken from us a girl as general servant complained of the number of novelettes she took in every week ; this 1 found was true, and with wages of ^lo'a year the girl spent fourpence a week on literature. On speaking to the little servant of this extra- vagance I thought there seemed some excuse when I was told that she had to spend every evening alone in a kitchen that swarmed with black beetles and that no other books had been offered to her by her mistress. Books are lent out at many of the low shops at a halfpenny a volume, and so girls as well as boys can get at translations of the worst French novels without difficulty, and once such a taste is got we know what it must lead to. Our library is managed by two girls, who each take one evening a week to give out books ; they levy fines for the books II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 41 that are not punctually returned, and they keep them covered with brown paper and labelled. We had, as in all libraries, much trouble about getting books returned ; but the following rules have been of some use in preserving the library — 1. Any one borrowing a book must return it to one of the librarians herself. The book must not be left with any one else. 2. If a book is not finished at the end of two weeks, leave must be asked for a further loan. 3. A fine of |^d. if kept over two weeks ; over three weeks, id., and -|d. for each succeeding week. 4. If not returned, the borrower is responsible for the value of the book which she must pay to the librarian. 5. No book may be lent from one member to another. Some girls will make up their minds to go through all the works of one author — Dickens, Miss Sewell, Walter Scott. Books about girls and advice to them are cared for, and a small-sized book is not liked as much as a larger one. It is very useful to have a savings bank, as the facility by which the money, either pe nce o r shillings, 42 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ii can be put by greatly encourages that excellent habit of saving. We need have no fear, as some seem to have, of being over- thrifty as a nation ; we are astonished, on the contrary, to find how little forethought there is, and how as holiday time comes round no provision has been made, though wages have been good and regular. We hear of feather clubs ! but not often of boot clubs. When a girl has learned the value of saving at a club bank she will get her post-office savings bank book and have something put by for her marriage or for the rainy day. A free registry is also of use, for when a club has been long established ladies will often apply there for servants, and girls will frequently wish to give up business and take to service. In some clubs baths have been introduced ; they will be rather expensive but of great value to the girls, who will be quite willing to pay for their use. We know of baths at girls' clubs in Liver- II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 43 pool and Manchester, and we wish that there were space in London clubs to admit of such a convenience. With regard to the payment of fees we found much trouble at first ; when we allowed the girls to pay weekly there was often a jar in the friendly relations in reminding the girls that unpaid fees meant non-membership, so we ruled that nothing less than three weeks' fee of sixpence should be paid in advance. Now we have gone a step further in asking quarterly fees from the senior members. In case of poverty the discretion of the managers may always be used to help those who really need assistance. We have spoken of a girls' committee. This is a very important element in a girls' club— as necessary as in men's clubs of all sorts ; but we cannot expect to start a club with members fit to take a responsible part in the management. At the opening of a club, in the address that is given, we would hold out as an object before us the work of a girls' 44 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS n committee, and explain how it can be accom- plished. The whole question will be new to the girls, so they must feel their way slowly, see what is wanted, what duties could properly be discharged by the committee, and at the end of a year the members will have got to see in which girl they can best place confidence ; a day should be named, the voting papers prepared, and six to twelve members can then be chosen by all the club. It is well to have two members on duty every even- ing, in case of the unavoidable absence of one of them. The committee members should undertake every evening the refresh- ment bar, buying the food and keeping the accounts ; they should undertake the library, appoint two days in the week for lending and receiving back the books ; they should between them see that the class-rooms are ready each evening ; some of the com- mittee members should give out the games, see that the new members are introduced to other girls, and that no one sits neglected by II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 45 herself. Then, on the evenings of the soirdes — we wish we could find an English word equally descriptive of the evening entertain- ment — the committee should again act as hostesses, send out invitations, receive the guests, and keep up the life and amusement of the evening. But a girls' committee will require look- ing after for some time ; they have not learned business habits and regularity, they have not learned the importance of an engagement nor the necessity for punctu- ality except at the shop or the factory, and so though we have started them at the right road, taught them how to hold committees, still ladies who are more conversant with such duties must inquire occasionally, and look how their books are being kept. The committee should have a book in which the minutes are entered every week, and a monthly report should be prepared by the chairwoman, and after being presented to the committee and approved by them 46 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ii should be sent to the secretary of the ladies' committee or council, as they may be called. In the report the chairwoman may, by the request of the other girls, suggest any altera- tion in the rules or propose amusements or changes in the work of the club. We have had a variety of proposals from our girls ; they have asked for an extra evening for dancing when the ladies were all away and there were no classes, and to this we agreed. At other times they have proposed to have parties or dramatic entertainments, and it was by their wish that a bazaar was got up at our club, and carried out by themselves. They formed themselves into a bazaar committee of twenty girls who resolved to work, and this they did most energetically. Our excellent printer undertook to attend the committees, showing them how the goods received were to be entered as stock, and how all the different books were to be kept. In other clubs we hear of sales of work being got up by the members for the benefit II TO START AND MANAGE GIRLS' CLUB 47 of the club, and in another one we heard that whenever their funds were low they would get up a concert to which their friends would come, so raising the small sum required. We were once asked by the committee to allow playing cards ; but this was not thought advisable, and on the reasons being given for the refusal the girls cheerfully acquiesced in the decision of the council. We feel that a girls' committee could really manage the club entirely alone, but as those who form the committee are all work- ing girls, finishing their work at seven or eight, or later, in the evening, it would be too much to expect of them to give up so much of leisure as would be needed for the whole management of the books, registry of attendances, and payment of club fees. During our superintendent's three weeks' holiday last year the club was managed by the girls' committee, and everything was most satisfactory. We have reached this point after nearly 48 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ii ten years of work in our club. Slowly and gradually the girls have learned that order conduces more to the general w^ellbeing and comfort than disorder, and that culture and refinement are to a certain extent within their reach. They have realised that their club has been of inestimable value to themselves, that it has given them interests which have brightened their days, that through the club they have found friends who have helped them on in this life and shown them a higher life worth striving for. We have not wished to take our girls out of their class, but we have wished to see them ennoble the class to which they belong. Ill EVENING CLASSES The establishment of classes and the proper management of them is a very important question to be considered in connection with a girls' club. Most managers will haye some classes, but they are not always carried on with regularity or system. It is best to settle the days for the various classes, and to let it be written up in the club or printed on the handbills that are given away. We find that in many clubs the managers say they do not need evening schools for the girls that have been at the Board Schools — that, hav- ing passed through all the standards, the girls need no further instruction. In one instance we heard of factory girls belonging E so CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iii to a club who would often recite passages from Shakespeare which they had learned at school ; but who would not, we were told, care to pursue any further their learning. We think that it must only have been so because the classes were not started, or because the teachers were not suitable, that the girls did not appear to desire more advanced learning. Not only do we see a great advantage in the cultivation of the intelligence and intellect of work girls ; but we feel that when the clubs are only formed for amusement they have not that hold on the members that we desire to obtain. A settled programme of classes is best ; not, as in some clubs, left for the lady who happens to be in the club each evening to choose what subject is taught. We know that the girls tire of amusement alone, for where that has been the only pursuit no game has continued in favour above a week or two, and the ingenuity of the ladies has been exercised in devising fresh pastimes. Let us take first into consideration the in EVENING CLASSES 51 classes that will form a regular evening school. It should begin afresh each year in Sep- tember, and work up to the Government examination in the spring. There is a great advantage in putting these classes under Government examination; it is a help to the teachers and to the pupils. The latter are accustomed to work in standards, and if they should have left school in the lower forms they are much pleased to obtain year by year certificates which record their advancement. We would recommend that the classes should be put under a trained teacher, possibly an assistant teacher in some school, or one who has left the pro- fession, and she should also have volunteer help. There are some untrained teachers who, with experience and an attractive manner and special aptitude for teaching, may even get a larger class together than the regular trained schoolmistress ; but they are the exception, and the good attendance at evening classes will always depend 52 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS hi mostly on the fitness in all respects of the teacher for such work. We expect that in all girls' clubs there will be found girls who have not mastered the three R's. Some may desire to improve especially in their handwriting, some in keeping accounts, some in composition. It may seem hardly credible in these days of school-boards that we have had many girls in our club so deficient in learning that we had to place them in the third, second, and even the first standard. It is wonderful to see the per- severing efforts of a girl of nearly twenty in these lower standards, and how much she can learn in the course of six months with two nights' schooling a week, and we should do all we can to encourage the elder girls, who are anxious to overtake the deficiency of the past, to join these classes. The gross ignorance of not being able to read and write is, however, the exception ; but many girls having had their intelligence quickened at a good school are anxious both to keep up Ill EVENING CLASSES 53 what they know and to learn more. Geo- graphy and history, of which they learn little at the ordinary elementary schools, can be made attractive for the more advanced pupils, and composition is always a pleasant way of improving the mind, as by taking a variety of subjects week by week for com- position we can train them to think, and lead them to habits of reflection which must improve their lives as well as develop their mental faculties. We may carry on the reading of the sixth and seventh standards into lessons of elocution, a most delightful talent for all to possess ; and once the elements of learning are given to a girl such as she will possess on leaving the sixth standard, she can with little difficulty obtain great intellectual enjoyment through the cheap standard books now attainable by all. We have found an elocution class the source of great pleasure to our girls ; many have proved themselves most apt pupils, some taking the emotional, some the heroic, and 54 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iii some the humorous parts. We know one girl who learned most of her pieces whilst peeling potatoes, in no way to the detri- ment of the potatoes, as she is an excellent servant. The most generally popular class is that of singing, and we find that in all clubs there is a good deal of singing, but we shall not get the same advantage by the girls merely learning to sing from ear, and catching up this or that tune from their teacher, as we shall if we teach them the principles of music, give them the power of reading at sight, and an appreciation of good music. A lesson once a week of an hour and a half will very soon give the pupils a real desire to learn, and we find that, instead of being a weariness to them to repeat a difficult passage in their songs dozens of times till they have mastered it, they are delighted to know that they have conquered a difficulty. In this, as in all lessons, the teacher must be able to convince, her pupils that their labour has taught them Ill EVENING CLASSES 55 something, and that the one or two hours spent in some definite intellectual exercise has not only improved their minds but rested their tired bodies, by the employment of other faculties which during the hours of monotonous labour had been left dormant. We would recommend the manager of a club to employ a teacher who knows the tonic sol-fa system, as most of the girls will have learnt it at school, and so it will be easier for them to take it up again. But managers cannot always find all they require in a teacher, therefore should the best teacher at hand be one who only knows the old notation, let that one be employed regardless of the advantages of the other system. We have had the experience of several different teachers in a singing class, and know how rapidly the members will fall off if the teacher is not both capable and bright. After the class has attained some efficiency a concert is desirable. Now also may the elocution class be turned to account. 56 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iii as recitations may be intermixed with the songs. In the early days of a club the concert may be made up of glees sung by the girls, whilst ladies may assist in the solos. These concerts may be made paying ones for the benefit of the club with penny or threepenny tickets, and the choir derive much pleasure from the fact of their perform- ances increasing the funds of the club. When the singing has yet further advanced a singing competition of several clubs is of great use. Two such competitions have been held in the Soho club room, when nine clubs of the Soho Club Union competed for a challenge picture of St. Cecilia, to be held for one year and then again to be competed for. One song was chosen for all to sing, April of Gaul, by the judge. Professor Henry Thomas of the Guildhall school of music, and each choir was to choose one other song which they sung. As there was a difficulty in settling which choir should begin, lots were drawn for places. Singing competitions, like Ill EVENING CLASSES 57 concerts, give a very proper interest in the lessons, a point to look to and an object for continued study. In all towns where a girls' club is started we soon find others springing up, some connected with the Church, some with the Nonconformists. The choirs of these may thus join, and a friendly feeling and inter- change of ideas with them will be brought about. The singing competition of the pupil teachers' centres in London was held this year at the Portman rooms, and friends were admitted by shilling tickets. A hall might be hired for club competitions, as no club-room would be large enough to hold more than the choirs themselves, and it is well for the friends and other club members to be able to attend. Another class which is general and much liked is one for needlework, cutting out of under garments and dressmaking. This may be carried on whilst a story is being read, but if the pupils are backward it would 58 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iii be best to devote all the attention to needle- work. Sometimes garments are made, and the girls are paid for making them, and they are afterwards sold at quarterly sales for the price of the material. In other cases the girl chooses the garment she wishes to make, and which she wants for her own use ; she is shown how to cut it out and make it, and each week she gives the teacher some pence towards the cost of the material, and when that is paid she takes possession of the work. In some clubs they have an odds-and-ends evening, when scraps are given and the inge- nuity of the girls is put to the test by the articles they contrive to make out of these pieces of material ; sometimes it will be for Christmas trees, or for bran pies ; and there are many other ways of disposing of these little presents. Work may sometimes beengaged in formission work or for some other charitable object. We hear of dolls being dressed in some clubs for children's hospitals, or toys being made for a Ill EVENING CLASSES 59 like object. Many of our girls have made all their underclothes at the club before their marriage, getting the matron to cut them out, and some bring their father s shirts to be cut out and make them of an evening. Miss Calder, well known in connection with the cooking classes at Liverpool, has lately been making a tour of school inspection in Ger- many, and has been very much struck with the tidiness of the children's clothes worn in the poorest districts ; this she thinks is owing to the afternoon schools established for the girls who have left school and who are over four- teen. There they mend, patch, and do other plain needlework, which is thoroughly taught. Could we not in our clubs have a mending class, where the garments would be brought by the girls and where patches would be put on or skirts turned or stockings darned ? We need not speak of hats retrimmed, for such is the importance of this article of dress in the eyes of the work -girl that she will always be able to manipulate her hat with feathers or 6o CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iii flowers to meet the exigencies of the newest fashion. At schools children are taught to patch and to darn on scientific principles, and the small samples of needlework are excellent ; but the application to practical life is not always carried out, for we can see many a pinafore or frock which need mending, gaping holes that call for patches or darnings. A bazaar may sometimes be got up by the members for the benefit of their club, when each girl will contribute, giving if possible something belonging to her own trade, or she will make up useful clothes. The great thing is to give an interest to the girls, to show them the way of helping, and then to leave them to carry it out. Cooking is in some cases a very useful subject to teach, and has been very success- fully carried out at Salford ; but many girls are too tired with their day's work to stand for one and a half or two hours in a kitchen for a regular demonstration lesson as taught Ill EVENING CLASSES 6i by the School Board, so we must not expect as numerous a class here as in other subjects. At Salford they had a bread-baking class which consisted of six ; they each in turn made the bread entirely themselves, and as soon as one girl had accomplished the feat she was removed from the class and another took her place, so that five girls were always watching the process. The girls met at 6.30, and whilst the bread was rising sat in the kitchen chattering. At the close of the evening the bread was brought into the club- room and exhibited by the bread-maker ; the largest loaf she had herself, the smaller ones were given to the other members of the class. A penny each per lesson was paid, and six pounds of flour was the quantity used, making the cost, with the barm, not above ninepence. At the same club they have one lesson a week on practical cookery. Again only six girls join, who pay their pennies for the material, which they consume when cooked. A musical drill class is of much use to the 62 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iii girls, and if possible gymnastics, parallel bars, jumping, and a ladder. Their health is much improved by these exercises, and the discipline and exactness so essential to such performances has a beneficial effect upon the more boisterous members. An occasional display to their friends is very encouraging to both pupils and teachers, the ball exercises are extremely graceful, and can be diversified endlessly. In clubs newly started and in rough neighbourhoods we should recommend musical drill as the first class to begin with, as it is a very popular one, and indirectly will teach them order and discipline. Many ladies have learned these exercises, and should none be found a member of a class in some other club might be engaged. Three of our girls have proved efficient teachers at four of the clubs in our Union, and a club member may often be found who can play the accompaniments. There is a book, called Music and Drill, by S. A. Bedding, published by Griffith, Farren and Ill EVENING CLASSES 63 Co., which gives easy tunes and diagrams of exercises which will be useful to teachers. Laundry work might now be taught in girls* clubs, as there are trained teachers instructing such work in elementary schools both in Liverpool and in London. The course is supposed to be completed in nine lessons of two hours each. Twelve children form a class, and some instruction about the qualities of starch, blue, etc., is given before the manual work commences. The children take great delight in the lesson, and no doubt our girls would also enjoy it. In addition to these regular classes in a girls' club we would recommend occasional courses of lectures, consisting of six or more, with an examination at the end, when the numbers of marks the girls have got will be notified to the club. We do not recommend prizes to be given — it would have the tendency of making the girls work for other and lower objects than the actual improvement to them- selves and for the love of learning — and we 64 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iii would here observe that it is well for teachers to exact a very regular attendance at their classes, and to expect a message or written excuse from those who do not attend, once they have engaged to do so. The girls should understand that the teacher gives up much to attend week after week, giving up all other engagements, often pleasant ones, to be with the girls, and that in return she expects regular attendance and attention. If the teacher takes this high standpoint, she will rarely be disappointed. There are, of course, sometimes lively and saucy girls who will give trouble at first ; but a teacher who has tact and brightness will soon over- come these difficulties. One evening a lady who was teaching a class found one girl very troublesome, disturbing the others by her constant remarks, on which the lady said : ''I think, Fanny, if you knew how difficult it often is to teach, you would do your best to help me, instead of disturbing your companions as you do ; it may be hard Ill EVENING CLASSES 65 to learn, but it is far more difficult to teach." '*Oh Miss Jones! I should so like to try, do let me ! " was the unexpected answer of Fanny. It was difficult to help smiling, but the lesson went on more quietly, and after it was over Miss Jones took her irrepressible pupil aside, and tried to show her how wrong it was to disturb the whole class, on which she was answered by the saucy Fanny, *' Why, now, you would not like me to sit through the lesson with a solemn face ! you would at once say, * Why, what has happened to little Fanny, she looks so dull and sad this evening?'" If a teacher can be good- humoured enough to meet with such repartees we may be sure that she will be successful, both in enforcing attention as well as in getting the affections of her pupils. The courses of lectures which have been given and have been much enjoyed by our Soho girls have been on physiology, nursing, botany, English literature, history, Greek mythology, and ambulance classes. The 66 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iii management of a Bible class we shall consider in another chapter. English literature was much enjoyed by our Soho girls, and visits to the library of the British Museum gave them an enlarged view of the subjects taught. In the history they were also much interested, and it was made more real to them by visits to Westminster Abbey and to monuments and churches in London. On a visit to Canter- bury, when in the cathedral, one of the girls exclaimed, '' Why, that is exactly how we read of it in the book," thus realising perhaps for the first time that accounts in books of historical events were real and true stories. The book that had been read to them during a week's stay at Westgate was Memorials of Canterbury, by Dean Stanley, which has such a graphic and pictorial account of the three great historical events of that cathedral and neighbourhood that none better could have been found to give them their first idea of history. The plan of carrying out the teaching Ill EVENING CLASSES 67 given in class by visits to the British Museum, National Gallery, Westminster Abbey, and other places of interest in London, which we have always done in our club, will not only give additional interest to the study of history or art, but will develop the power of observa- tion so sadly deficient in many. Great interest was given to girls who had to walk a long way to work by telling them something about architecture ; they began to observe with interest whether the capitals of the columns they passed were Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian. If this idea in education were carried out for girls in the secondary schools and in the upper classes, lessons would never be dull or thought tedious. Want of observa- tion is a defect which interferes very much with the proper fulfilment of most duties in every condition of life. The mother who has no observation will notice no change in her child, which might be a warning of coming illness ; the servant who is deficient in this quality will be a useful machine, but 68 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iii Will not be that careful, thoughtful servant who seems to forestall every requirement by her kindly observation of what her mistress is needing. The entire absence of observation was so inconvenient in a maid whom a lady was training for service that she had to adopt the plan by which the great conjuror Houdin was taught observation, and she was sent out, to walk down one street and up another, and bring back to the lady an exact and detailed account of everything she had seen. This training was successful, and the observation which should have been de- veloped in her in childhood was matured after she had grown up. Now there is much we can do for our club girls in like manner to make their walks of interest, and to exemplify that interesting little story of '' Eyes and no Eyes" told to us by Miss Barbauld in Evenings at Home, We have had ambulance classes and lectures on physiology, which have inter- ested the girls very much, and they passed Ill EVENING CLASSES 69 their examinations most creditably. Some lectures were given by a lady who had been a friend to our club from its very foundation on Greek heroines. She chose this subject partly from its being one she was well ac- quainted with from giving archaeological lectures at the British Museum. She also hoped that these lectures would give the girls something good and noble to think of quite outside their lives. The subject of the lectures were Sacrifice of Iphigenia, Self- devotion of Andromeda, of Alcestis to her husband, and of Antigone to her father, the Faithfulness of Penelope to her husband, and of Clytemnestra to Agamemnon. The girls attended these lectures and passed an examination which was set to them as it would have been set for the girls of a high school, and so well had they attended to the teaching that to two were awarded a star of distinction ; one of them was so keen about the stories she had heard that she found at a book-stall a large classical diction- 70 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS m ary that she bought for a shilling. Two of the girls who had attended these lectures worked at a factory, where they were em- ployed all day in the monotonous occu- pation of folding up small packets of black lead ; they forgot the tediousness of their work in talking over these Greek heroines of whom they had been told in these inter- esting lectures. The subject may appear to be of little use to working girls, but we must consider first that when ladies or gentlemen who are specialists in their line are so kind as to instruct a class they must choose their own subject, and again that any noble thoughts or heroic actions, though they are but myths, will certainly raise the thoughts above the commonplace and vulgar tone of ordinary life. In all courses of lectures I think that it is of great advantage to have an examina- tion — questions that the pupils have to answer by themselves after the course is over. We have occasionally given prizes for the Ill EVENING CLASSES . 71 best essay and given out a subject once a month, and the marks have been given by some one outside the class. A debating society was also started in our club by a lady who belonged to one in connection with University College in London, and during the months that she was with us and guided the discussions, the girls entered quite into the spirit of the debate. After the first evening they chose themselves the subjects they would discuss, taking amongst others, '' The amusements of work- ing people," ** The good or bad influence of the Drama," '* Education," ''Total absti- nence," ''Whether life is most pleasant in town or country ? " Two girls wrote papers, for and against, and after reading them the discussion began. This lasted about half an hour, when votes were taken to see which side had the majority of adherents. We had these debates once a month through the winter, and they gave a great deal of pleasant enjoyment to the girls. 72 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iii In these latter pages we have been speak- ing mostly of what we would do for the higher class of work-girls, not high in position but in mental culture and intellectual activity. As ours is a very mixed club both as to age and conditions, we have also to consider the quite untrained minds of the girls who have carried away from the elementary schools no advantage, and who have lost the little culture they gained there by the continuous mono- tony and drudgery of unskilled labour. For them an ordinary well-conducted evening school is the best education, and we may also awaken their intelligence by games. Even a dull girl may waken up at the letter game, and find that she is able when amongst perhaps brighter companions to take her part in making words out of the letters before her. Our work with many girls is to help them to find out their own powers and to raise them more in their own estimation, for if a girl is stupid the fact of being thought so will put out even the small spark of intelligence Ill EVENING CLASSES T>> that remains in her. A club for the girls should be like a large family, where every variety of character and disposition is con- sidered, and where the ladies who look after it should deal with the girls not as with a company of soldiers who are being drilled, but as separate responsible beings. The managers will be dependent for the subjects of the lectures on the special studies of their volunteer helpers, and they should, above all things, in laying out a programme of classes, find out what will be most accept- able and most required by the girls, whose taste must vary in different towns, or even localities of the same town. In some in- stances girls will have come from such a good elementary school that they have already got habits of discipline and a desire for higher intellectual interests. We think it should be pointed out to the girls how much they must lose of the teaching they have already received if they do not keep it up by practice at evening classes. Children are often pressed 74 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS m on SO that at eleven they are able to leave school as half-timers on having passed the third standard. We think this has a bad effect upon them ; they are too young to value learning, and are often glad to have done with it altogether. It is certainly a loss to the child when it completes school-life before thirteen. We cannot finish this subject of evening schools better than by quoting the points specially recommended in the minority report of the Royal Com- mission on Education for the conduct of evening schools — (i) That the desire and need of young people for healthy physical exercises be re- cognised. A system of calisthenics and musical drill would give healthy training to the body, would be likely to attract scholars, would provide the outlet to physical energies which educators know to be necessary to adolescent youth, and would further impart moral discipline and train the scholars in habits of order and obedience. Ill EVENING CLASSES 75 (2) That the methods and subjects of in- struction should be such as will awaken the interests of the pupils and give them pleasure in the pursuit of knowledge, rather than cram them with information merely committed to memory. For this purpose the teaching should be mainly oral, and be given in connection with real objects, and should in many cases have a direct bearing on the pupils' own lives and avocations. By these means the faculty of observation will be cultivated and developed, and an increased interest will be aroused in the duties of life. (3) The education, so far as it bears directly upon the daily work of the scholars, both on the intellectual and practical sides, should be, if only in an elementary sense, technical. One way in which the interest of the majority of scholars can be secured is by making clear the benefit they derive from learning. The dwarfing effect of an excessive division of labour will be lessened, and the 76 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iii intelligence and skill applied to manual work will both give the worker a greater pleasure in it, and inspire a worthy ambition to excel. In addition to drawing, art handwork has also been suggested as likely to prove most attractive to both boys and girls, who are greatly interested in what they do with their own hands. By these means scholars should be trained to dexterity of hand, accuracy of sight and touch, and to the perception and enjoyment of neat workmanship and of beau- tiful form. (4) The course of reading should be such as to fill the minds and imaginations of the pupils with noble examples of duty. Music should be taught, so as to elevate the taste and prepare the scholars to enjoy in their home-life and elsewhere the pure pleasure which song alone can impart. It should also be remembered that some scholars attending evening schools desire not so much the sys- tematic continuation of their education as to supplement some special deficiency of which Ill EVENING CLASSES 77 they are conscious. Thus some will wish to improve their handwriting, and others their knowledge of accounts ; some their power of correct composition and grammatical expres- sion, while lads intending to be mechanics want to learn drawing and practical geometry. The following are the classes carried on at the Soho Club — Monday. — Evening school under Government inspec- tion ; French class. Dramatic class. Tuesday, — Singing, old notation ; mending, patching, and darning. Wednesday. — Gymnastics ; art needlework. Thursday. — Evening school, elocution class, Bible class. Sunday. — Bible class. The following accounts of girls' clubs in America will give an idea of the classes carried on there for working girls — My dear Miss Stanley — My sister May has written of your kindness to her and has sent me the report of the Club which you gave her. She also has asked that I should send you particulars of our Clubs for working girls. The 38 Street Working Girls' Society 78 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS m grew naturally from a class of factory girls which met with me on Tuesday evenings. This Society started the others in New York, as well as suggesting the plan to many workers in other places. As during one year so many clubs were formed, it seemed wise at the very beginning of the movement to unite the several Clubs, and last March the Association of Working Girls' Societies was formed. It was an interesting gathering, as for the first time in New York a thousand women of all classes met alone (without men) to discuss business matters. On the platform there were over fifty, consisting of the officers both ladies and working girls, who formed the Central Council of the New York Association. Each Club was represented by four to six members. On the floor the members met, each wearing a small bow of ribbon showing to which Club they belonged. I enclose the constitution of the 38 Street Society. This with the member's card has been practically copied by the majority of the other Clubs. The leaflet is used by the members in bringing in others. We have had join now over 335 since the Society was formed in March 1884 ; a hundred have left for good cause in the majority of cases, several have married, and several have moved away. Fully two-thirds of the members are factory girls, others work in shops, some iare out at service, or do shop work at home. During this summer nearly five hundred will go from the Association on vacations, paying a small sum, the boarding places and rest of the expenses being furnished by the Working Girls' Vacation Society. Many day excursions are also taken, when we ladies go with our fellow members. An inside organisation has been formed in the 38 Street Ill EVENING CLASSES 79 Society, composed of about fifty members, who are banded together to help others. One duty is to carry flowers to sick people living in tenement houses. During June and July they thus visited and left sweet blossoms to over a hundred and sixty sick ones. The house in 38 Street is sub-let, except for four or five rooms — the rent of these the girls meet. The monthly meetings are most business- Hke and thoroughly enjoyed. The Librarian is a charming lady who lives in part of our house, paying rent ; as she must support herself and mother, and so could not give up every evening, an outside elderly lady friend who loves girls and yet cannot work among them, pays her a salary to act as her substitute. As President I appointed her librarian ; to fulfil her duties she has to be there each evening, and so looks after many details. Indirectly much direct religious influence is exercised. Next winter Sunday Bible classes will probably he started in several Clubs. It was delightful to see from your report how similar some of our work is, though we knew nothing before of yours. Our work is very new, only yet in its infancy. We are thankful to our Heavenly Father for the past, and look to Him for continued blessing. Many plans for the future are being discussed. We ladies are intimate friends with many of our members, and feel that our influence must tell during the many evenings we spend with them ; the girls however are the ones in the Society affairs to advise and counsel us. Pardon please such a long letter, but from my sister's letter I judged you desired just these details. Wishing your Club the richest of blessings, believe me, very sincerely yours, Grace H. Dodge. New York City, U.S.A., 1885. 8o CLUBS FOR WORKING-GIRLS iii The Yonkers Library Association. Our membership roll is perhaps no longer than it was a year ago. Many new names have been added, but other names have been removed, leaving about 120 on the list. The progress is shown more in the life of the organisation, for there is a deeper interest and an earnest- ness of purpose among the present members which is a very satisfactory element. Our classes have continued about the same as hereto- fore. The choral class on Monday evenings, which numbers through the year about thirty members, has given several pleasant entertainments for the members of the association and their friends. One of these was a " pay concert," from which 30 dols. was realised, and used to pay expenses incident to this branch of instruction. At the closing exercises in June, part of a cantata, "The Flower Queen," was rendered, and at the Christmas festival, in addition to the carols, a Kinder symphony was performed. The needlework department has sixty members. They have devoted themselves largely to crewel samplers, Kensington embroidery, crotchet and lace work. There was an exhibition of last season's work in June, and a few articles were sold. This year, besides the regular lessons, a class for advanced workers has been formed with a view of preparing articles for sale at the close of the year. The profits of such sales will be divided equally between the Library Association treasury and the makers of the articles. There was a millinery class last spring of twenty Ill EVENING CLASSES 8i members and a dressmaking class this fall of about thirty. We hope that their summer bonnets and winter suits have shown the general beneficial effects of these courses of instruction, and we hear that a few of the girls have taken up dressmaking as a trade. We have at present a class of fourteen in book- keeping and penmanship, which we trust will create a desire for the keeping of private accounts, if it accom- plishes nothing more. One other course I must not omit to mention — the wax-flower class of twenty. Should this develop taste for the pursuit of botany or the starting of a flower mission, we would feel that it had been useful as well as ornamental. In addition to the classes we have weekly gatherings for business or social meetings, tales, readings, etc. Once a month tea and crackers are served, and on state occasions cake ; games are played, and new members have a chance to become acquainted with the old ones. Talks on domestic economy were given. Health talks, also, we have had. Last April Dr. Dio Lewis, in whose death the Library Association certainly lost a friend, gave three exceedingly interesting lectures on this subject, and this year we have had a medical service every Thursday evening — free to the members of the Association — conducted by Dr. Sarah E. Post. And we, too, have a Lend-a-Hand Club, which, although still quite in its infancy, has, nevertheless, a report to make. Its first effort was in behalf of the Yonkers Nursery and Home. The girls furnished and presided at one of the tables of a fair given in aid of the object, and in this way we were able to add 50 dols. to the net G 82 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS m proceeds. Several dresses and garments which had been made for the purpose were sold and then presented by the purchasers to the nursery children, thus doing double duty. Christmas cards and papers found their way into two hospitals during the holiday season, and since then some of the girls have been working for our Charity Organisation Society. And now I must add a word concerning our Free Circulating Library for Self-supporting Women. This supplies four hundred applicants with good literature from eighteen hundred volumes. Two hundred books are constantly oif the shelves, while the yearly circulation amounts to 4000. Our Book Committee has just provided us with a printed catalogue, by means of which we believe the circulation will be largely increased. The library is supported by subscriptions, and we are in hopes of raising in time an endowment fund, so as to have a permanent source of income ; we have already started this fund with 1000 dols., the recent generous gift of one of our friends. As our little home- like building is secure to us, free from rent, during twenty years, our running expenses are not large. They seldom exceed 600 dols. including everything, even the purchase of books. When we consider that the visits made to the building during the year, counting for the library as well as for the evening classes, number nearly 8000, we ought to feel that our little red brick house is indeed a centre of attraction. But numbers could tell of the individual benefits here derived, of the personal pleasure here realised. While we wish to increase our work, our Ill EVENING CLASSES Z^ desire is not so much for larger statistics as for wider influence, an influence for good carried by each member far beyond their walls. Our hope is not so much for more members, though we welcome them most heartily, as that each member should here find strength and encouragement and brightness for her daily duties, and that there may come to her, as perhaps never has come before, a realising sense of the dignity of labour and the power of a noble womanhood. YoNKERS, N.Y., March 1887. San Francisco Girls' Union. This Society is formed in the interest of the self- reliant, self-respecting girls of San Francisco, and un- protected strangers. It will be conducted upon business principles, compromising in no way womanly independ- ence, and proposed to be largely self-supporting when fully established. Its object is not only to do for the worthy girls of the city what the Y.M.C.A. is doing for young men, viz. : open attractive rooms for music, reading, etc., evenings ; take cognisance of their personal and business wants ; but also to sub-let all private rooms in the society's building to those without or too remote from home and friends, and furnish board at moderate cost. In short, the spirit of the " Union " is to give every bread-winning and aspiring girl, whatever the line of her honest endeavour, the protection and friendly interest that her case requires ; and also to acquaint the patrons of skilled and domestic industries in the way of supply with the best self-supporting classes of our sex. In this enterprise (already auspiciously opened at 84 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iii the Society's building), looking to brighter lives and happier homes, as greater fidelity and skill bring greater appreciation, an interested public is kindly invited to co-operate personally, by sustaining and beneficiary memberships — calling at the " Union " between the hours of 3 and 5 p.m. in a business way, and as visitors when receptions are announced through the press. Morally this work appeals to all who value honesty and purity in womanhood, and to every parent who recognises the possibility of its required protection and aid for the loved daughters of their own fireside. Numerous statistics proved that in the estabhshments of centres for Christian effort in behalf of the young girls of any city — tiding them over times of enforced idleness and special temptation — many have been saved to a true and pure womanhood who, otherwise weak, inexperienced and friendless, would swell the sad list of those who go down to a fathomless immoral grave. To the Self-supporting Girls of San Francisco. The society for mutual benefit called the " San Francisco Girls' Union," located at 714 Bush Street, invites you all to its membership and privileges. Call in a business way, between the hours of 3 and 5 p.m.^ or if engaged, between 7 and 9 Tuesday or Thursday evenings. Rooms and board are furnished from 15 to 18 dollars per month, with use of attractive parlours, music and reading. Especially suited is this home to meet the wants of girls employed in public business places, without parental homes and the sympathy and protection impossible to Ill EVENING CLASSES 85 lodge and restaurant life. To this class its convenient location, social and home-like atmosphere must only be understood to fill its neat and sunny rooms and capacious dining hall. All beneficiary members are entitled to such business aid as the Society can give. IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS Amongst the rapid growth of benevolent and wise charities none, as we have already noticed, are so remarkable as that of country holidays given to poor children and to young women. The desire is now very generally felt by those who themselves enjoy the pleasures of country homes, or indeed of country visits to their friends, to give to the poor and to those of the working classes whose lives are spent in the toil of great cities the enjoyment of some days or a few weeks in the country. Working lads do not need this change as much as the girls, for the former will often go into the country on Sundays or holidays, with their fishing rods. IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 87 or for a long walk, or on bicycling expedi- tions ; whereas the children and girls would, but for these country holidays, never have the benefit and the advantage of country life, so needful to all, both physically and mentally. Mothers, whilst rejoicing over the pleasures given to their children, say sadly : *' Such things were not thought of in our day ; we have had to work from year to year ! we never saw the country or had a day's holiday!'' This is most true of thousands of our working women in London. I sent one who was in the shoemaking trade in the East End for her first country visit to a convalescent hospital; she told me that from a child she had worked hard, first to help her parents, then after she married she had to work on to help her husband, as his wages alone would not have kept the children. There was no time for holidays, only for work ; no beauty brought to her life, only toil — unceasing, endless toil. Her daughters were now married and they were beginning afresh 88 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv their married life of labour. That country- visit, coming for the first time in her life to this toiler when she was nearly half a century- old, made her life seem more bearable, and made her feel that she also might have some of the pure joys of this world, which she had often been told by the socialist preachers belonged only to those with money, who would never bestow on the poor anything that they could keep for themselves. There are many of our working people who have never been brought in contact with any but hard, harsh, money -loving people, whose hearts are bitter within them at the disparity of fortune, who cannot believe that lords and ladies are other than those unreal personages that they read of in their penny serials. Now of all ways to touch the hearts of the poor and the suffering there is none to com- pare to that of a country visit. I do not know what longer experience others engaged in philanthropic work may have of such invita- IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 89 tions ; the first that was given to me was from a lady whose heart and head were always full of plans for the happiness and for the uplifting of others. About twenty years ago she asked me to send down to her beauti- ful home by the Wye some work -girl who needed this blissful change. The girl I sent, a lace cleaner by trade, visited this happy home, was free to roam through woods and over commons ; the bright beautiful joyous welcome of the hostess made her feel really at home, and the three weeks of happiness were but too soon over. The experiment was so successful that the invitation was repeated, and another lady with the same loving sympathetic heart, who has also passed away from us, gave me the same happy privilege of selecting guests for these summer holidays. Now many ladies do the same, and girls from many clubs and parishes throughout Lon- don, from the Girls' Friendly Society and the Young Women's Christian Association, 'i%s ERSITY ) 90 CLUBS FOR WORKING-GIRLS iv go forth in August and September to the country. I know of some mill-girls in Yorkshire who save money throughout the year to pay for a poor London girl to come down to their country side, where she is their guest. Is it not true that we have but to start some practical way of showing kindness, and the idea spreads and unites many hearts in the earnest desire of giving happiness ? ' In many different w^ays our girls are invited to the country. Sometimes, as in our first experience, they are the guests in a lady's own house, more often are they lodged and boarded in cottages, under the supervision of the lady herself. The cottagers we find are very kind to the girls, making them most happy and comfortable. Sometimes the ladies, whilst lodging the girls in cottages, let them have meals with their own servants ; others have rooms set apart for these holiday parties, and invite three or four girls at a time, giving them each five shillings a week, IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 91 milk, vegetables, coals, and light. The visitors keep house together, and have the amusement of providing for themselves. In other places a regular guest-house is arranged, as at Castle Howard, where eighteen women and girls are received for eleven months of the year. A matron is in charge, who attends to the cooking, whilst the guests help in the house- work. This guest-house has been established nine years, and has become a most valuable institution for over - worked and delicate women and girls from the manufacturing towns of Yorkshire. At Wilcote, in Oxfordshire, a similar plan has been adopted on a smaller scale. Here for a great many years three rooms that were built adjoining the stables have been occupied all the summer and autumn by three or four guests. There is no matron, so the rule, and a very wise one, is made that no girl should come down without some older person who will look after them. Sometimes a mother and baby can be sent, or small child- 92 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv ren and older girls ; no limit is put to age, but they must be respectable. The housekeeper looks after them, the guests are responsible for the housework and cooking in their apart- ments. From the days of Elisha no doubt countless guest-chambers have been estab- lished by many kind and sympathetic people, and in many different ways have we heard of this hospitality being carried out. There is a host we know of who in his country house has set apart some rooms to receive poor ladies, — poor in the goods of this world, but poor also in the lack of any of life's pleasures. Another gentleman we know of who in his little house in London had always one room set apart, not for a friend, but for the sorrowful or sick who needed this change and rest. No doubt many will in their experience have known of similar instances of thoughtful hospitality, for very much is done quietly, perseveringly, and per- sistently, that is never heard of beyond the immediate circle of friends, and perhaps not IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 93 always by them. Whilst mentioning a few of the country homes that have been established, we by no means think we speak of all, but only of the few, whose hospitality we know of from experience. At Babbacombe in Devonshire the Misses Skinner have built a delightful home of rest for business girls, who are taken in for five shillings a week if they have a subscriber's letter, or without for twelve shillings, and have a return ticket at the price of a single fare. This is for the higher class of work -girls. Another home was opened a few years ago at Heme Bay by the Sisters of East Grim- stead at Hackney, and the cost there is twelve shillings a week and the return journey is five shillings. At Brighton, Lymington, and Eastbourne are seaside homes of the same kind ; also in Lancashire and Yorkshire are there several established. We had a most kind friend to our Soho club, whom we have just lost, who had for many Bank holidays invited three girls to 94 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv go to a cottage near Virginia Water on the Saturday before the Easter, Whitsun, and August Bank holidays. The girls stayed there either till the Tuesday evening, or, when that extra day has not been granted to them, have been able to return to London in time for eight or nine o'clock work. The girls chosen have been those who would have had no other holidays granted to them but the Bank holidays. These, we are thankful to say. Parliament has given to all. Many have but these few days throughout the year for holidays. A week or more would in many cases be beyond all possibility of obtaining from employers. These days have been so delightful to the girls and a source of such real happiness that I would recommend the same plan to be followed in connection with other clubs both in London and in country towns. It is extraordinary how much the girls will see in that very short visit. One of them, an upholstress, a fragile -looking girl, IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 95 told me how she had walked through Windsor Park in the morning, a distance of eleven miles, seen the State apartments in the castle, come back by train, had her dinner, walked to Holloway College and back, and again after tea walked to a lady's house for whom she had a letter, making throughout the day seventeen miles of walking. Virginia Water, with its lovely surround- ings, is particularly suited for such visits, as there are so many points of interest all round, and the girls delight in long walks whenever they get to the country. The absolute necessity of a convalescent home for many hospital cases is so well established that most of our large London hospitals have a convalescent home attached to their institutions ; but many of our work- girls need this change after long months of unceasing toil as much as if they had gone through a severe illness. The long hours of work, the confined air of the work- 96 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv room, and the heavy atmosphere of the streets, with the small overcrowded tenements which they inhabit, all produce a languor and fatigue which would often develop some disease if this life-giving change to the country were not possible. Very often the girls have told me that the doctor says : *' You are not well certainly, but if you had not been in the country last summer you would have had a severe illness by now." I would recommend that the girls should pay their own journey when able to do so, though there are cases when such an expense would prohibit this enjoyment. I would also enjoin all ladies who have the privilege of selecting visitors for these country visits to be very particular to know the possibilities of saving which exist in the case of each girl whom she sends away. If the girl cannot pay on the first occasion she may be able to do so on a future one, when she has learned by experience the value of the invitation, both as regards IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 97 health and enjoyment. All the year will she have remembered and talked of the kindness she has received during her last country visit. The lady who is entrusted with the selection of girls should find means to make saving by small sums practicable throughout the year. Above all, she should inquire very particularly into the state of the girls' wardrobe, for many have been found prepared for the country visits with splendid feathers and lace adornments, who have most sadly wanted a wholesome and tidy change of linen. When will our work-girls become like the German maidens, careful to possess a good stock of underclothing, strong and well made '^ We do not wish them to spin their own flax like the German girls ; but we do wish them to know how to cut out their shifts, their night-gowns, and to be provided with a tidy stock of underclothing. We might perhaps pay more attention in our girls clubs to getting up occasional needle- work parties for this object. H 98 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv The girl who looks white and listless from her long months of labour returns from her country visit with often the delight of a sun- burnt face. Health to them is the greatest beauty, and at the seaside I have seen them wet their faces with sea water and let it dry in the sun, in the hopes that they should go home with reddened complexions. All languor seems at once gone when they are in the country ; they breathe in with delight the fresh sweet air, they gather with joy the smallest flower, and their one talk is of the beauty of the country. They may not know which is the oak, the beech, or the poplar ; but they know that the fields are lovely, that the running water is clear and sparkling, and that the sky is free of smoke, and that all nature rejoices with them in a summer holiday. I cannot certainly say enough of the physical benefits of these country visits ; but how much more there is to say on the moral aspects of these holidays ! Only the two are so interwoven that we can hardly IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 99 separate one from the other. The embittered feelings engendered by poverty, the often vulgar and pert manners of those bred in towns, and the small interests of those who have never been away from the busy, the hurrying, the distracting throngs of our cities, seem to be corrected by these visits. All the better nature of our work -girls is brought out by this acquaintance, this knowledge of nature. Poetry is then to be understood. To us who have so often seen the sea with its wondrous and ever-changing aspects of beauty — who have seen the rushing streams, the rivers, the mountains, the storms, the clouds, the forest- — poetry speaks to us in a language that we can understand. When wearied with our town life, with the confine- ment of endless streets, are we not refreshed when we remember the sublime beauties of nature that we have so often enjoyed ? I think that till the work -girl has ^^^n the country she has not that longing for it that we see in her afterwards. Once she has loo CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv seen the green fields, the sunny streams, and the luxury of the country flowers, we may often see developed in her the same love of nature that those most cultivated possess ; and do we not then give to her a possession and a knowledge that must add to her happiness, and make her work less burdensome ? Let me here say that work is not in itself an ill. I look on it as one of the best things in life, as it makes pleasures the greater by the very contrasts. Work is, though, more burdensome now than formerly, from the monotony of the endless subdivisions of labour which is needed to produce the article at the cheap rate at which the public demand it. Sometimes two companions have been away together, and then day after day at their work they will recall to one another some slight incident of that holiday, short indeed, but long enough to have filled the mind with beautiful pictures of our bountiful mother earth. IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS loi Uneducated people, or we should perhaps say English people, are often very undemon- strative even when they feel most keenly, and so the lady who has been most hospitably entertaining work-girls may not know how much joy she has given ; but let us who know these girls, tell them that no pleasure is to be compared to that of country visits. Such a visit as eighteen of our Soho club girls once had with me in Surrey may not again occur in the annals of working girls' clubs. There we were welcomed and entertained and made happy from a Saturday to a Tuesday by the kindest of friends. The girls might go in and out of the house at their good pleasure ; they might be up with the lark, and see the fresh dew on the flowery pastures ; they might walk in the garden, and they slept in lovely guest-chambers where everything was dainty and fresh. We Londoners know what an exquisite pleasure it is to find ourselves the first I02 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv morning awaking in the quiet and delicious fragrance of a country home. We seem to get rid of the smoke, the dust, the toil of the town, and to be truly happy ; our burdens seem cast off; and if it is so to us who live always in pleasant houses, in broad streets, what must it be to the work-girl from the narrow street and noisy court ? With some pleasures there is a proportion to be gauged between expense, trouble, and result ; but here there is no proportion. The happiness conferred is out of all proportion to the expense, to the trouble, of the host. The girl seems for her short visit to possess to the full her share of all the good things of life, and she receives kindness and sym- pathy — the bulwarks, as we may well call them, of life. Again I must say that we should re- member that the work-girl has not the habit of visiting, so let us give her, before she starts, a few words of advice. We have already overlooked her wardrobe ; shall we IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 103 not remind her of the cleanliness, the order of the country ; recommend her politeness and consideration for her hostess and grate- ful attention to the servants, and no flighti- ness of conduct ? When sending girls to stay in the country, if not in Homes under the care of a matron, where they are care- fully looked after, we should be very cautious as to the sort of girls we send ; much serious harm may come of what should only be a benefit. A lady told me she had had much difficulty in a mining district in keeping the girls who came from the towns from making in many cases dangerous acquaintances. Before closing the subject of country visits I should like my readers to judge for themselves the appreciation felt by a London work -girl for the beauties of nature. This girl was in no way above her companions ; she had had but the ordinary elementary education, but from her first country visit at seventeen she found she loved nature better than all else, and has I04 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv been year after year the happy guest of many kind friends. Visit to the New Forest. On Friday, 20th August, Evelyn Duggin and myself were most kindly invited down to the New Forest by a lady, Mrs. Maxwell ; we started from the Waterloo Station by the nine o'clock train for Winchester, arriving at that old town by half-past ten. After staying there for two hours we had to get into the train which was to take us to Lyndhurst ; the country through which we passed was indeed lovely, especially Southampton ; we were delayed here, which gave us a chance of seeing the beautiful breakwater and the Gulf Links. These Links are small islands which are joined together by narrow strips of land ; on these horses were feeding, and in the water the children were paddling, swimming, and ducking each other under the waves, it made us quite happy to look at them. The train moved on again, and in a short time we found ourselves at Lyndhurst Road Station, where a gentleman was waiting to take us in his dog-cart. The road from the station leads through the forest ; we drove past pretty houses covered with creeping plants and large yellow roses, and surrounded by orchards, with the forest in the background forming a very nice picture. After a drive of about three miles we came to the village of Lyndhurst; here we saw the station-house. Crown Hotel, a beautiful Church and the Queen's House, where resides the master of the forest. Driving on we met cattle, pigs, and geese, the geese making a loud noise on our approach. When we passed Bank Hill, IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 105 Mrs. Maxwell's house was pointed out to us, and I do not think there could be a prettier one. Alighting at a house a little farther up we were welcomed by Mrs. Wade, Eliza Sabin, and Emma Lockyer, who were waiting to receive us. Here we were to stay for our holidays ; when we had refreshed and rested ourselves Eliza and Emma introduced us to the forest and to some of the inhabitants. We saw a flying-snake just above our heads. The next morning Evelyn and I went into the forest by our- selves, where, after going through a lovely glade, we picked a handkerchief full of large mushrooms ; these we were very careful of, for fear of breaking such beauties ; we bore them home in high glee. Imagine our dis- appointment when we were told by Mrs. Wade that they were all cowherbs or toadstools, and there was not one mushroom amongst them. In the afternoon we went to see the river ; it is called the Slab ; it is but a shallow stream, but its water is very clear and the banks of it are plentifully covered with vegetation of all kinds. The next day we were taken to see the big oak, which measures eight yards round the smallest part of the trunk, and its great boughs spread far over the roads. On our return we saw the scissors beach, which is in the shape of that most useful article. We never seemed tired of wandering through such a lovely place. When taking our walk over the hill which is at the back of Mrs. Maxwell's house, we saw on the left one part of the forest enclosed; this is where the game is bred. In this enclosure it is so dark that the rays of the sun could not shine through the thick foliage and inter- lacing boughs. On our right was the common ; this was covered with bright coloured heather, blazing away as if io6 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv trying to make up for the darkness on the other side. Looking across this dazzHng colour nothing was to be seen but the forest, which walled this heath in on all sides, and the blue heavens smiling over all things. Everything was so beautiful and calm, here the silence only broken by the song of the birds and the soft cooing of the wood pigeon. This was my favourite place when I wanted to read and did not want to be disturbed by the cows and pigs. When by myself I often followed the course of one of the streamlets which were so numerous ; they led me into such lovely parts of the forest, which were 59 lonely and wild, and yet so peaceful and shady, that it used to put me in mind of that pretty song that was often sung by the Club girls — O forest deep and gloomy, Or woodland, vale and hill. The music seemed as if it were composed for this forest which was indeed deep and gloomy, and yet it was delight- ful walking here forgetting everything save the beauty of the woods which surrounded you on all sides, and the murmur of the water as it ran over its pebbly bed. As I went farther up the stream I came to an opening, and found myself standing on a hill ; the scene before me was very picturesque ; there was the white winding road leading through the forest, and large fields of grass mixed with heather, and where cattle and horses were quietly grazing, a pretty thatched house, a duck pond in front of it, with white ducks sailing on it, the sound of children's voices, and the tinkle of the bells on the cows' necks, who were going home to be milked, were all in perfect harmony IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 107 with the place. On the following Sunday I went with some friends to Rinefield House ; on our way there we came across a large beech tree ; one of its limbs had been blown off by the wind, and was about two yards and a half round. Going up the hill we crossed some beautiful spots and green glades where the sun shone on ferns and shrubs, making them look golden in the mellow^light; the ground was carpeted in some places and dotted in others with little patches of soft moss. At length we came to Rinefield House ; it is an old deserted mansion ; we could not go over it as it was locked, and there was not any one in charge of it ; it is surrounded by an orchard, and near the gate are two very curious trees, called puzzle monkeys ; outside the orchard are large fields of feather grasses. This house stands on a hill, and the view from it is most splendid ; it is really so beautiful that I cannot describe it. As we gaze over this spot of beauty, the sun is sinking behind the blue line of the tree tops, and the soft white mist is rising in the valley, and as we bend our steps homewards through the woods again, there are various cries coming from the darkening forest ; it is quite dark when we reach home. So ends our walk of some miles to see the old mansion of Rinefield. September has now come in with its falling leaves, which put me in mind of these lines. Comes autumn from the sunset skies With nutbrown hair and dreamy eyes. But summer haunts the woodland yet Her fair face showed her eyelids wet. And lingers as if loth to go — From lonely man who loved her so. io8 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv We are going to the village and find ourselves sur- rounded by sixteen piglings, who run at us and then beat a hasty retreat when we turn round to them, and directly we turn our backs they are at us again squealing all the time. On the third of September my three friends left me to go to London whilst I remained in the forest. I could not go out in the day much as it was raining, but the evenings were lovely. When returning from one of my walks I was surprised to see a beautiful lake, as I thought, but on coming up to it, it was the fog ; on looking round I seemed to be on an island, for wherever I looked there was this mist spread over the ground, just like a river with the moonbeams shining on it. Returning from the horses' grave which we had been to see, I hear the cry of the owl as he flies from an old tree after some little bird who is late home, and then there is wafted across the breeze the gentle hee-haw of the donkey. My week is nearly up and I must bid good-bye to the forest which holds such charms for me, and to all my kind friends down here ; and now I must conclude my short and very poor account of what I have seen and felt in the forest. With many thanks to Mrs. Maxwell for her kind in- vitation, and to Miss Stanley for sending us down for such a pleasant holiday. After a country holiday we would place next in enjoyment the happy day excursions into the country or to some kind friend's house, when work - girls are invited and IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 109 made so welcome and happy that the enjoy- ment of the day and the remembrance of it afterwards seems to brighten all the hours of work. We have been invited out in parties of ten, of twenty, of fifty, and once of a hundred, and our girls generally say : *' Well, this is the best day we have had." The present kindness brings to their hearts such grateful appreciation of all that is done for them. For the last twelve years we have been asked out, and we who have been continu- ally with the girls often recall our first after- noon party at Campden Hill, and mark the change that has come over our club members through the influence of these parties and of the club. The first time we went out, as we came out of Kensington Gardens two girls suddenly disappeared into a public-house, saying they wanted some- thing to drink. On another occasion, after spending a whole day in the country with our girls, when we got back to the London no CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv Station at ten at night, not a girl came to say good -night; each rushed off without one word of ''thank you" to those who had laboured all day on their behalf. I mention this to show that the material out of which we have got our present club members was in some instances as uneducated in manners and refinement as any we hear of in other clubs. The constant intercourse with ladies, the notice that was taken of this want of manners, and the good feeling that has been called out by continued kindness have made the members of our club what we now generally find them, courteous and grateful for the kindnesses that are showered on them. One of our kind friends who has for six years invited girls to her country house for a whole day's pleasure, wrote after the last Bank holiday that she and her friends found a marked improvement year by year in the manners, the appearance, the dress of the guests ; and for all clubs this continuation of invitations from the same IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS iii kind ladies we should say was of immense value. When visiting girls' clubs in some of our provincial towns I regretted to hear how rarely they were invited to any of the country houses or villas in the neighbourhood. A dozen girls invited out to tea on a Saturday after- noon from one of our smoky manufacturing centres would be of the greatest advantage to the club. Everything in a lady's house will be a silent lesson to the girls — the order, the refine- ment, the neat dresses of the maidservants. These I have heard admired by girls who saw to what they might attain if they would seek service. Then if amongst the invited guests are any that are heavily weighted with the cares and sorrows of life, how cheering will be this little party with the nice tea, the prettily served table, and the kind words addressed to each guest by the lady, who can feel, from sympathy though not from experi- ence, the troubles of the work-girl. 112 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv England is so full of noble parks, of beautiful gardens, of pleasant pleasure- grounds, and many in these splendid abodes of wealth throw them open to their poorer neighbours. We wish that all who have such possessions would do likewise, but we would urge also on those who possess smaller houses and less means to do something for the toilers of great cities. A homely tea with a kind welcome will do as much for our girls as the most splendid repast. It is not possible perhaps for those who give the feast to go out into the streets and lanes of the city and gather in the guests ; but they may, through the various agencies now established, through district visitors, through managers of clubs for girls, or for boys, invite a few or more to their houses. It is not the grandeur of the entertainment that makes the charm. It is the luxury of repose, of refine- ment, of sympathy and pleasant surroundings that makes these days the bright ones of the year, that gives fresh courage for work, gives IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 113 happy recollections in the future grind of the incessant treadmill of the working life. We who are at ease, how much we have to give, how much we can share with others, not only of our money but of the many talents committed to our care. Our culture, our experience, our knowledge of life, can we not make use of them for those less fortunate in this world's lot ? How attractive to the work -girl will be the young lady with pleasant easy manners, who will not only talk to her, but will lead her on to talk of her own life, of her difficulties, of her pleasures, and of her troubles. On some occasions a Bank holiday party may be arranged for all the club members who may like to join, each con- tributing to the expense ; thus all may share in the day's pleasure. We have generally found the girls eager to go very early. On one occasion they said to me : '' May we start very early on Monday, so as to have a good long day in the I 114 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv country ? " — '' Willingly ; what o'clock would you like me to meet you at the station ? " ** At seven ! " they all exclaimed. That was rather too early, but we met at 8 a.m., and had a long and successful day, which I shall describe, so that others who would organise a day in the country, and have not yet arranged one, may see how easily such a pleasure can be given. If it is a Bank holiday, when the station will be crowded, by all alike bent on pleasure, get your tickets the day before, with the understanding that all unused tickets may be returned. Alas ! how often have we found our party less than we expected ; one or more girls after engaging to come having failed at the last moment, with an utter disregard of the inconvenience caused by waiting for truants. But in time even this disregard of the importance of an engagement may be overcome. Let each girl have a card on which the hour of meeting is written clearly, and appoint the time so as to leave a margin V COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 115 before the train starts. If you have fifty or a hundred in your party divide them off amongst leaders, ladies if possible, in whose railway carriage they will go, and who will be responsible for their being present at various times of the day. Require implicit obedience to the orders of the general, or otherwise there will be accidents and mishaps. On the occasion of which I am speaking our destination was Richmond. From the station we went up the town to the bridge, and then by the new pleasure grounds to the Star and Garter, on through the park towards the Kingston gate. There our little parcels of luncheons were opened, and we sat down and refreshed ourselves. Our next move was to walk across the park to the Roehampton gate, where we sat down at a farmhouse for a refreshing and substantial tea. It is a good custom for every one to bring their own dinner, and to depend on tea at four o'clock for the day's meal. In that way, the fare being paid for by the girls, the expense would Ii6 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv not be beyond the means of any managers of a club. With games and singing after tea and a walk through the garden, three more hours passed pleasantly away till we had to walk back to Barnes Station, and got our party into London again before ten o'clock. There are many delightful expeditions to be made near London — to Pinner, where Mr. Barber, Q.C., has so kindly made a play- ground for holiday parties, and where a walk up the hill, and round it, will take up a good part of the day. Then an excursion to Epping, or to Burnham, or to Hatfield, where that beautiful house is open to the public on Bank holidays, and where a good tea can be had at the Salisbury Coffee Tavern in the town of Hatfield. From Bradford many expeditions are made in the neighbourhood, and a house was taken on the Lancashire coast for the members of one of the clubs in that town to go to for a week or a fortnight's sea air. Very delightful expeditions might be IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 117 arranged with girls of a few days in the country, such as boys from their clubs have had. The experience we have had of such expeditions was once four days spent near Ramsgate in an iron house lent to us by Mr. Weigall. There we had a sort of picnic, cooking and doing everything for ourselves — a party of twenty. At another time some rooms were most kindly lent to us one Whitsuntide by the proprietor of a hotel at Westgate-on-Sea, and we spent a week, sixteen of us, making expeditions to Canter- bury and Ramsgate, and the enjoyment was perfect. This seems a very simple way of giving great happiness. Would it be possible to lend some rooms in a country house to any lady who would undertake the charge of work-girls, whom she would bring with her, to spend a few days in the country ? She should take upon herself the responsibility of providing the commissariat for the party. In these cases the girls would contribute ii8 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS iv themselves towards the board and pay their own journey. If no rooms in the country house were available, some over stables or laundries, when the family were absent, might be turned into guest-chambers. We hear of parties of working men from Mr. Barnett's at Whitechapel going to Paris, Germany, and Italy. We do not aim at such undertakings with our club girls, but we might make walking tours in England and Wales, the expense of which need not be very great. But what seems most practicable would be the invitation during the Easter or Whit- sun holiday, when, country places are often deserted, to a little party of work-girls with the ladies who know them and would look after them. We might be afraid of putting forward such a proposal had we not already found in many who have the means to help, and the beautiful houses to dwell in, a most real and hospitable desire to allow others to enjoy with them these blessings. IV COUNTRY VISITS AND EXCURSIONS 119 This has been for some years an idea which I have longed to see carried out, for I am sure it is a practical one, and I hope that some of my readers may wish to make the experiment. Without girls' clubs we might not have been able to make such a proposal, but where girls have been known by ladies night after night in the club and in their own homes, and where the lady would select the party herself, we should have no doubt of the suc- cess of such an invitation. The housekeeper or housemaid left in charge would in most cases be ready to welcome such a party, if it were put before her what great happiness is given to work-girls by their spending a few days in the country. V AMUSEMENTS IN THE CLUB In our last chapter we spoke only of the pleasures outside the club ; but a great deal of amusement and happiness can be given within, and to know how this can be accom- plished is most important, as our first object is to make the club the centre of enjoyment and recreation for the girls who belong to it. The idea of what amount of amusement is needed in the life of a human being differs very curiously according to the position in life of the individual whose interests we are considering. The lady would think it next door to imprisonment to be deprived of her daily drive, her ride, her lawn tennis, her V AMUSEMENTS IN THE CLUB 121 walks, or her visits ; and the maidservant may be considered well off by some if she has her Sunday afternoon to go out twice a month. Readers of our little Soho Maga- zine have sometimes said : *' You seem to be always having amusements and parties in your club ; we are surprised at such constant dissipation." Life should be made up of honourable work and labour for the welfare of others ; but should not pleasure and happiness enter largely into every one's life } and should not those who labour and toil long hours have in their lives as much innocent pleasure and happiness as possible ? One of the greatest benefits of a girls' club is that we can there offer to the girls safe pleasures that will enliven and cheer them, and will not lead to frivolity and dissipation. In some clubs they are satisfied to give their girls a Christmas tree and a summer picnic. I think that any of us who have known what a happy youth meant will 122 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS v think that two parties in twelve months would not have satisfied us ; and I can safely say- that it will not satisfy the working girl. So if we do not provide more than the Christ- mas tree and the summer picnic the girls will find amusements of their own outside the club ; and our object is to make the pleasures within the club of greater attraction than any outside. ' In most clubs there are monthly parties. To some of these the members ask their girl friends ; the managers of other clubs think it well frequently to ask young men, but in our Soho club this privilege of the young men element is only given once a year ; at the dramatic performances and at the concerts young men can come, as the admission tickets are sold. The question of dancing is looked on in a very different way by those who have in various parts of London and in country towns the care of girls' clubs. Let us state the reasons for and against V AMUSEMENTS IN THE CLUB 123 dancing. Those who approve of it look on it as a health-giving exercise ; they think it is a pleasant and natural diversion for girls, whom they find are satisfied and happy to dance one with another for the mere pleasure of the movement. Any one who has worked about the poorer parts of a town will have seen that the English girl has a natural love of dancing. This taste does not, as many suppose, belong only to the Southern nations. No sooner does an organ strike up in the London streets than the pavement is covered with small couples, dancing round in time to the inspiring tune, for the love of dancing is as much inborn in the squalid and tattered little children from the crowded courts of our cities as in the Spanish girl who, with her castanets and graceful movements, delights the English traveller. Those who oppose all dancing in girls' clubs will generally do so because they think that by encouraging girls to dance they will get such a love for dancing that they must 124 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS v necessarily be drawn into those dangerous saloons and become habitual frequenters of dances. It is not that we are unaware of the dangers that attend those who frequent public dances that we approve of dancing in a girls' club ; but it is because we think that by allowing girls to dance in their club one with another we take from them the wish to go elsewhere for that amusement. So sensible are even the opponents of danc- ing of its advantages as a physical exercise that we find them introducing Sir Roger de Coverley into their clubs, but they call it a game and not a dance. The girls know differently, but are content to call it a game if by that means they can get a dance. We think it best to speak openly with the girls of dancing halls, to tell them how much we disapprove of them, of the dangers they must run by going to them, and of the unfit companions they must mix with there. In the West End we are surrounded by V AMUSEMENTS IN THE CLUB 125 such places, and there are some of all sorts more or less dangerous. Some of them are conducted with great propriety ; there is a Master of the Ceremonies, who is always present. There is the dancing room, the refreshment room, and the gallery, to which those who are tired of dancing can go and look on at the dancers ; but all is public, and those who are present are expected to behave decorously. But there are other dancing halls so full of suggestions and possibilities of evil that, as a girl said who went to one in search of a friend whom she wished to draw away from such company, '' Such places as that would soon make a girl one of the worst." The girls are dressed in low-necked gowns, which are of silk or satin, or some light material, all much beyond the means of any w^orking girl's earning. The company the girls find is such as must take away all modesty, and if it does not sully her virtue, must seriously endanger it. Many working mothers whom we know 126 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS v would far rather see their daughters dead than to think that they frequented such places. To some of these the girls go by paying one shilling entrance, to others two shillings and sixpence, and at some they are only admitted by ticket, given to them by the members of various trades. I have known girls in our club who have gone to these dances and balls, and I have spoken to them and urged them to give them up, showing them the dangers of such amuse- ments, and the perils they run, and the un- fitness of the companionship in which they find themselves. Sometimes they will give up these pleasures on being reasoned with, sometimes they will not listen to the warning voice. It is not the taste for dancing, but for unhealthy amusement, which becomes all- engrossing, and ruin generally follows. One girl will often lead another in her workroom to these dances, telling her how jolly they are, and how easy it is there to V AMUSEMENTS IN THE CLUB 127 pick up a young man. And if she goes, as is too often the case, the whole week's wages will be spent in the ball dress, another week's wages may go for shoes and gloves, and debts will be incurred ; and thus not un- frequently the temptation to provide for these pleasures by dishonest or by immoral ways will be yielded to. In shops where girls are lodged the hour for return may be eleven every night ; but on one evening they may stay out till twelve. If later than eleven they are fined the first time one shilling, the second two shillings, and the third time they are dismissed ; but up to eleven they may be at these dances, if it seems good to them, for no one will ask where the evenings are spent. We cannot exaggerate the dangers to respectable girls of the dancing rooms. Some girls will go alone ; they will soon get partners either by being asked to dance, or they will them- selves ask the young men. They will walk home together, appointments will be made, 128 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS v and soon we should hear of their saying, if they had belonged to a girls' club, that the club is very slow, that they want more fun and young men. We have known some of our club members who had reached this point and who yet have been brought to see the folly and the dangers of such a course. Such hold had the club and the friends in the club on them that they have given up the dances and found again pleasure in the quieter amusements of their club. Now will come in one of the many benefits, blessings, we should say, of a good girls' club. The managers must know the dangers of a working girl's life. They must understand the temptations to which she is exposed; then they should reason with the girl and win her back to the sober life, showing to her the great danger she is incurring. If friendly relations are already established she will succeed in this the greatest work that can be done for girls — that is, the preventive work, which will V AMUSEMENTS IN THE CLUB 129 always be of more importance than any fescue work, for it will have kept the girl innocent and pure in the midst of a life of temptation and snares. We then who approve of dancing contend that It is a natural instinct of the girl which we should satisfy by giving her dancing at her club ; but let it be given at stated times and days, or otherwise the lady in charge will probably be tormented every evening to allow dancing. At the Peoples' Palace dancing has been allowed this last winter, and with certain rules and regulations and under proper supervision we should wish to see it allowed at all the institutions started for the benefit of working women. We feel sure that by allowing dancing in a club the girls will be satisfied, and that instead of leading them to attend dancing halls, it will keep them from it. I am sure this will be the case from my own knowledge and experience of girls, and from what the girls have told me. It is true that a very few of K I30 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS v our club members have left the club and gone habitually to the dances, some as often as two or three times a week, but they have not taken to that habit from the love of dancing but from the love of dissipation. The dances the girls like in our club are, Valses, Polkas, Schottisches, Quadrilles, Lancers, and the Morris dance. We should especially encourage country dances, in which all the girls can join. Many in our club can play dance music, so on the Friday evening, when dancing is allowed, the girls' committee arrange for one or the other to attend and be at the piano. In this way many ladies might help by teaching country dances and joining in it themselves. Let us quote what the Bishop of Bedford said about dancing this year at the Church Congress at Cardiff, showing what opinion his East-End experience has given him in this much dis- puted question — Many will, perhaps, hardly be prepared to sanction dancing. I never knew such people to dance as our V AMUSEMENTS IN THE CLUB 131 East-Enders. I never could dance myself, but I often wonder how it came to pass that I escaped the contagion during my ten years of East-End life. I should like to have the verdict of an impartial jury who should be their own witnesses of the dancing at the occasional parties that are given in either the People's Palace or the club in Victoria Square. If dancing is one of the works of the flesh it is not to be tolerated under any conditions by those who would live and have others live according to the will of God ; or, if it is in its nature provocative of what is evil — if it cannot even be said of it with truth it is a harmless amusement, then we cannot look at it. But if it is not actually forbidden to Christians to dance if used in moderation, it is a healthy and invigorating amusement, and if it can be enjoyed without danger to the morals of the company, then it is a permissible form of recreation for those who desire to use it. This is the contention of those who are responsible for its introduc- tion and practice in the two institutions to which I have referred. The scruples of many, I know, have been re- moved after constant and careful observation. The dress of the guests, especially of the women, compares favourably with the dress of those who belong to what is known as " society." The behaviour of men to women and women to men has been worthy of the imitation of many who are known as their "betters." I am con- vinced that every one, whether clergyman or layman, who adds something to the innocent enjoyments of human life has joined in a good work, inasmuch as he has diminished the inducement to vicious indulgences. God knows there is enough of sin and sorrow in the world to make sad the heart of every Christian man. 132 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS v No one, I think, need be ashamed of having sought to cheer the darker hours of his fellow-travellers' steps through life or to beguile their hearts when weary and heavy laden. So far as my experience goes, I have never found that the cause of morality and religion was promoted by sternly checking all tendencies of our nature to relaxation and amusement. If men are too ready to enter upon pleasures which are dangerous or questionable, it is the part of wisdom and benevolence to supply them with sources of enjoyment which are innocent and permissible. We may differ as to the propriety of this or that source of enjoyment, and differ about what is innocent and what is permissible, but we can hardly have any difference about the necessity of removing occasions of temptation, and providing, especially for those whose portion furnishes little that is bright and enjoyable, some relaxation and something to enliven the dulness and the monotony of their lives. At the Christmas party, when young men are invited, we ask our girls to give us the names and addresses of any young man they wish us to ask. Sometimes it is one with whom they are ''keeping company," or a brother, or a brother's friend. We tell the girls not to mind if they have not young men, as we can provide them with partners. And amongst all the eighty or ninety girls we V AMUSEMENTS IN THE CLUB 133 have asked not half have cared to ask us for an invitation, as they were not going out with any young man, and have not been ashamed to say so. For these we have invited for partners young men from the surrounding choirs or Bible classes, and friends of the ladies interested in the club have kindly helped us, so that we have had a fair propor- tion of male as well as female partners. We have two parties at Christmas. To the first one we ask all members under seventeen, and the members who have been in the club less than six months, and to the other party we ask the girls over seventeen and their young men. We have heard of a parish in London where there are dances every Wednesday for young men and women, under the direc- tion of the vicar, which only close at twelve o'clock. We cannot think that a good thing ; as it must keep up a continuous and dangerous excitement. Our club closes on ordinary occasions at ten o'clock, on 134 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS v soirde evenings at 10.30, and at Christmas we may keep on till 11.30. But late hours should not be encouraged ; the girls would keep the family up by being late, and can do themselves no good, as they must be ready for their work at eight o'clock in the morning. At the soirdes, which generally take place once a month on Saturdays, we have games as well as dancing. Some girls prefer them, and they are often made more sociable by a few games. For instance, there is nothing like musical chairs for starting the evening ; then, when tired with dancing, we have the magic art, or blowing out the candle blindfolded, which causes vast merri- ment, or questions and answers to discover what has been thought of ; forfeits, and many such like lively diversions. The great thing is to bring all into the game, and to give confidence to the bashful, and to keep up the spirit of the evening. In some clubs a barrel organ has been used ; but a piano can be got for a very few V AMUSEMENTS IN THE CLUB 135 pounds, and I would always recommend the purchase of one, and it is unlikely that no one connected with the club could use it. In some cases it is very pleasant for a story to be read to the girls as they work, and much pleasure is given by the letter or word- making game, dominoes, spindlekins, fish- ponds, draughts, and the cards of happy families. In many clubs we find the girls much amused with the magic - lantern and with dissolving views. The concerts and the dramatic entertain- ments got up by the girls afford much amuse- ment, though in the latter case we must be careful that the girls who are keen about the drama do not monopolise every- thing in the club and make it dull for the others. What we must aim at is to make the proposals for amusements spring from the girls themselves, so that the managers should not always have to originate club amusements. 136 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS v A pleasure that we find is often given in connection with a club is Saturday afternoon walks ; at Hammersmith the girls are taken by boat or for walks, and so get to care about the country and to value the walk with their friend and teacher. The singing is often made use of to learn a service of song,such as ''Christie's Old Organ," ''Poor Mike," or the "Children's Hour." These when learned will give a very pleas- ant evening at the club to friends. We have started this year one musical evening a week, when ladies have come either alone or with friends to sing and to play. Some have brought violins, some the harp, some have played classical music. The girls have sat about the room, enjoying, we may say, chamber music, in the most luxurious manner. Amateurs have now so improved that their playing is no longer scrambling through a few pieces ; but they are often musicians. One lady used to give the girls a little account of the composer's life and works V AMUSEMENTS IN THE CLUB 137 before she began, and they learnt to appre- ciate the beauty of different styles of music. We have not yet spoken of music halls, but can liardly leave the subject unmentioned when talking of music. The same argument will hold good of music as of dancing ; if we provide good and pleasant music in a club the girls will not go elsewhere to hear it. The music halls differ very much in the East and in the West End. Mr. Charles Booth in East London tells us that the music-hall entertainment is by the mass of the people preferred to the drama. And there are many music halls where the performances are unobjectionable, the key- note being coarse rough fun. The girls in the East End will often attend these entertainments, finding there the recreation they need so much after their long days of work, but when a club is provided it is easy to give them pleasures that will make them care more for the refined music than for the vulgar coarseness of the public music halls. 138 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS v In the West End these places of amuse- ment are not frequented at all by the respect- able work-girl ; the songs might be considered more refined, but they are far lower in morality, and the questionable innuendoes will probably make the success of the song. The company the girls must meet at such places would be degrading to them as well as dangerous, and there is, I am sure, a strong feeling amongst the working girls of the West End that a music hall is an unfit place for them to enter. But for fear that the taste for music cultivated in the girls should tempt them to attend low concerts or music halls, we would recommend that they should be warned of the dangers that attend any girl who becomes a frequenter of such places. We think that amusement is necessary for club girls, and that it is very easy for ladies to provide it for them. The first thing is to have variety in occupation — not always amusement, not always classes. V AMUSEMENTS IN THE CLUB 139 Thus with dancing, music, and games the evenings will be well filled. Another very important element in the question of amuse- ment is to make the girls feel at their ease, that there should be no constraint on them. There should be a restraint on their manners, but the tone will soon become free from vulgar boisterousness if ladies will take a part in the evenings of recreation. VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL I HAVE generally found amongst the working classes, whether men, women, boys, or girls, that the religion, or more properly the denomination they have belonged to, has depended chiefly on that of the teacher or friend who has first stirred in the soul of the other the aspirations after spiritual truths. Whilst saying this I must of course exclude the Roman Catholic, whose faith is taught to him dogmatically in early life, and whose change to any other religious views would in the uneducated mind probably mean only indifference or unbelief. But a vast portion of our working classes attend no place of worship. VI RELIGION OF THE WORK -GIRL 141 I have taken the percentage of those who went to church or chapel in a street where I knew every house, and every family in each house, and I have found it to be lamentably small. A town population in this respect differs entirely from a country one, where the feeling of respectability, the desire to do as the neighbours do, the pleasure of the walk and of the meeting friends at church or chapel will be a motive apart from a religious one for inducing the parishioners to come there. In a town the working classes live so much alone that these motives would have no influence on them, and we may conclude that, as in the upper classes, no one is now obliged to go to church merely because it is the proper thing, so in the working classes in towns, those who attend church or chapel will be there for some higher motive than that of appearing respectable. Let us take the life of our work people from their childhood and see what religious influences are brought to bear upon them. 142 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi At the Board Schools they learn the Bible, and most valuable is this knowledge to them in every way ; but the morality and the religion they learn from these lessons depends on the amount of religious feeling of the teachers, male or female. The teaching of the schoolmaster or mistress will not differ much in this respect, be it board school or church school, for in the latter the clergyman does not always give religious instruction, and most of the teachers in denominational schools will be satisfied to teach the facts of the Bible to satisfy the Diocesan Inspector, who may, on his examination, find the children well up in the catechism and parts of the Bible ; but he will not be able to test the amount of true religious spirit the teacher has put into his lesson. We may therefore take it for granted that not much religious influence is brought to bear upon the child at the day school. If this is so, is it not incumbent on the spiritual pastor of a parish to see that on the Sunday proper instruction, and from religious VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 143 people, should be given to the children, and that the Sunday school should be so well taught that the parents will wish their children to attend ? Often the parents learn indirectly lessons of holiness and righteousness from the lessons that have been taught to their children. At the Sunday school the child will often get from that earnest and devoted army of Sunday school teachers, whether in church or chapel, the most definite religious teaching both in respect of doctrine, moral precepts, and safe guides for a good life. I have found evidence of this amongst our girls, and have heard them speak with deep affection of their former Sunday school teacher, telling me of the remarks they had made on this or that passage of the Bible, and of the advice they had received from them for their conduct. For instance, when speaking of the law amongst the Jews which called on them to give a tenth of their produce to God, I told them of a man of wealth whom they had all heard 144 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi of who had always carried out this practice, and had devoted a tenth part of his income to philanthropic and religious purposes. One of the girls in the class said that her Sunday school teacher, a poor dressmaker, had years ago told her that it was always her practice to put by a tenth of her earnings to the service of God. Another girl told me that her teacher, a poor seamstress, handicapped by deformity, had always taken to the seaside with her every year one^ of her Sunday school class, saving up week by week for this work of charity. In those who have had such teaching, we may say the seed has been sown ; but when childhood is. passed, when the Sunday school is left off, when church may not be attended, the conversation amongst companions will certainly not be on religious topics, and the whole subject may be put on one side, if not forgotten — put on the shelf for some later day when it is supposed the pleasures of youth will be over, and there will be time for serious thought. VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 145 If we are convinced that through religion alone we obtain perfect happiness and have a secure basis for a good life, we will wish that on the foundation of religion our girls clubs should be built. We must then consider how we can best attain that object, and how we can best reach the greatest number. I think it will not be by putting religion forward first, by severity, by exclusion of all amusements, called by some worldly pleasures. Were we to open a club on these lines we might have the serious-minded — the girls who are already well behaved and steady, but we should not gather into our net the frivolous, the careless, the pleasure-seeker, the waverer, who may be in danger of toppling over the precipice to the abyss below. Gather in all who will come who are not leading an immoral life, make the club so attractive that they will be lured away from the temptations spread around every working girl with such alarming fascinations. Then if you love what is good and noble yourself, L 146 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi lead the girls to care for what is good, to admire what is noble, and should you fail to bring them to a knowledge of God, should you be unable to awake in them a desire after holiness, lead them to it through attach- ment to yourself, by which motive, though not the best, they may attain to the higher life. Reading lives of great and noble men and women who have led a life of self-sacrifice and holiness will often awaken a desire for something beyond the selfish gratification of our own interests, therefore we should bring such lives prominently before our girls. If we find the girls in a club have already teachers and attend Bible classes, urge on them greater attention and more reverence, but in most cases you will find that the girls have forgotten the lessons of childhood, be- cause they have put aside all Sunday classes and too often have ceased to attend Divine service. Some who were confirmed have even forgotten if they were confirmed or not, they have never followed up the teaching VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 147 of confirmation, they have never attended the Holy Communion. It had been to them as to too many, a mere form, and had left no trace behind. This is frequently the case, and most often amongst girls from the country, where confirmation has been a mere custom and a habit for children who have left school. I should hope that not many have seen the preparations for confirmation carried on as I have in former years, during the space of three Sundays. The first Sunday the cate- chism was said straight through, the second Sunday it was repeated backwards, and on the third Sunday the tickets were given with directions for attending the confirmation in the ensuing week. The Nonconformists are very zealous about Sunday schools, and the children attend these regularly, but they are not often taken to chapel. Consequently when they cease to go to Sunday schools they may never attend chapel, as they have not acquired the habit of so doing. 148 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ' vi Again you will find others who, having been brought into contact with Secularists, have been tempted, often from curiosity, into Halls of Science, as those meeting-places are called, where working people are told that the belief in Christ must be put down, that His name has wrought more evil than all else in the world, and that it is only the ignorant and down-trodden who will follow the worn-out truths so-called of Christianity. These girls may tell you that they are proud of the name of Atheists, and others will say they would rather not hear anything of religion, for they might become religious and get laughed at in the workroom, or that they know if they attend a place of worship they must give up doing many things they know are wrong, and they are not prepared to make such sacrifices. So I would say begin gently, ask them to attend a Bible class ; but do not press them to do so ; choose the time for your class that will be most convenient to themselves, and make it so bright and so interesting that VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 149 they will be won by you, and will willingly listen to your teaching. I think we should be very careful to let no advantages accrue to the girl who attends the Bible class ; it would be so easy to engender cant or hypocrisy to become supers for this or that denomination. Children, alas ! have learned that treats, that free dinners, that even country holidays may be obtained through their attend- ance at Sunday school, so that we find many children attending two schools of different denominations, indeed sometimes three on the same Sunday. A very strong feeling exists in the East End that most philanthropic work is done in order to advance the interest of some church or chapel ; so that by gifts given, an attendance may be secured at the services. We should beware of giving any grounds for such suspicions. No extra teas, no singling out of the members of the Bible class for some special pleasure. During many years I have had a Bible class for the club members ; some also attended a ISO CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi class at the club held in the evening by another lady, and latterly a clergyman has had a class one evening in the week, out of which grew a confirmation class, asked for by the girls, and later still a guild, proposed by themselves, with the same clerical friend as warden. The guild consists now of forty members, who meet once in three months at the club ; they undertake to do some work for the guild, and many kind, generous, and thoughtful acts of charity have been done by our girls. One poor girl, who was blind, was paid for to learn chair-caning by the united savings of some of our girls ; another, who was too poor to pay her own club fees, was paid for. Garments have been made by guild members, and one girl who had gone to service saved up her money, which she gave to send a poor girl into the country, saying that she wished to do something for others in return for the kindness shown to herself, and should she ever save more she would bring it to be used in the same way. The VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 151 poor are often talked of as possessing all the virtues. Patience, charity, and unselfishness are said to belong to them, and are denied to the rich. My experience leads me to say that patience does belong to them, but with regard to unselfishness they need to learn that lesson as much as those above them. We must, however, make much more allowance for selfishness in their characters than we should for the richer part of the community. Have not the poor to earn a precarious living, with often no certainty that the next day, or the next week, or month, they will have even sufficient food, owing to the uncertainty of their employment 'i On a Saturday, when their wages are paid to them, they may be told they will not be required the following week. They may never have had a kind word, or one of encouragement given to them by their em- ployers. No joys, no pleasures may have fallen to their lot ; they may have had to grind, to labour, to struggle, as it were, for existence. Now if we find the working classes selfish, 152 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi who have almost to fight for existence, can we be surprised? But acknowledging that this is a fault, how can we cure it in those that we are particularly interested in, viz. working girls ? The existence of the club, the assembling them in a common centre, is an education in many ways. We can give them opportunities for preferring others before themselves ; pleasures, flowers, gifts of various kinds may be shared and not seized at enviously one from another ; little opportunities of serving others may be pointed out, and the united life and wellbeing of a club may serve as an illustration of the responsible place the very smallest amongst us holds in this world, where we each have our surroundings, our small world, which is the better or the worse for our conduct. Girls will sometimes say : ''It does not matter what I do ; I am nothing to any one ; I only harm myself by my folly, my extra- vagance, or love of pleasure." But, indeed, the poorest girl in the workshop or the VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 153 factory will influence those who are with her day after day. We have heard of a girl saying to another : *' It must be pleasant to be well thought of Do you think I could ever be like Mary?" Example will ever be more than precept, and so let us teach our girls how great is their responsibility, how great is their power for good or evil. From the circumstances of the crowded condition in which working people live, selfishness has been really taught by mothers to their children as a quality to be cultivated. They live either in artisan dwellings five stories high, or in houses not meant for separate families, but that have become such through the changing fashion of neigh- bourhoods. Soho was once the resort of nobles, where they had their town residences. Have we not here the house where the Duke of Portland lived in the last century. Sir Thomas Lawrence's studio, the mansions of the Lord Gerrards, the Earls of Carlisle, the Dukes of Grafton, now either turned into (fUNlVERSITX) 154 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi business houses or divided up into separate dwellings ? Wherever the workman lives he has close to him, with doors adjoining, a neighbour whose respectability he can only gauge on his arrival by the amount of chairs and tables he brings with him, and so it has be- come to him almost a matter of necessity to keep himself to himself, and to do no neighbourly action ; and this feeling, taught by the parents, has engendered a quality of selfishness amongst the girls which it is perhaps difficult to fight against. We shall need to point out to our girls the beauty of unselfish devotion to others, and to show them that it is of no use being filled with admiration for the lives of good men and women if we do not try to tread humbly in their footsteps. Kindness of heart and generosity are often inborn qualities, but there is no reason why all should not acquire them. We know one little girl, now a club member, who was called VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 155 always in her family the ministering angel. A large family of eight children living in two rooms, where the father worked at his tailor- ing, gave plenty of opportunity for Nelly to minister to others ; and, as her mother said, '' Nelly is always on the look-out for something to do for others ; she will run to shop before and after school for father ; she will wash the little ones ; she will take them out of the way of father s work/' This little maiden of twelve was the joy and light of the family. Many clubs are started with a distinctly outward religious aim — I say outward, for if we knew the motives of the promoters of most clubs, we should probably find that religion had prompted their work, though they may not have considered it expedient to put it forward in the same way. Besides, many who have undertaken philanthropic work, not reckoning that religion would take any part in it, have, through their practical experience with the individual, found that without religion they could not 156 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi give to the hard -worked, the weary one, that rest and peace that would comfort and sustain him as no mere political -economy precept or moral teaching can do. We may organise, we may develop schemes for the improvement of working people ; we may raise them politically and socially ; we may establish sanitary conditions of health ; we may give them opportunities for intellectual development ; but when we come to speak as men to men of their sorrows, their trials, and their loneliness, we find that to give them comfort we must place before them as we would place before our- selves the joy and the hopes of religion. Our sympathy is good, but better still if we can point out to them the Divine sym- pathy and love. Our strength will encourage the weak, but better still is it when we can show that God can give strength to the feeble and raise up those that have fallen. '* I believe," says a lady who had for a year spent her whole time in organising and VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 157 herself working in South London, in connec- tion with other ladies connected with the Universities, *' that there is no scheme except the practice of Christianity by rich and poor alike which can solve the social problems with which we are brought daily face to face." The Guild of Good Life at Hoxton has done much in a neighbourhood immortalised by W. Besant in the Children of Gideon, Poor Melindas and Lotties work there still, and may they not perhaps have found the rest they needed if they have come to Hoxton Hall? This guild consists of 500 members, who meet many evenings in the week for work, singing, for concerts and for instruction. The basis of their membership is Total Abstinence, as the plan of two kinds of membership first adopted was not found to work well. In the higher class of work-girls and in the very lowest we may have this evil of drink to fight against, but those who are untouched by this evil are, we are thankful 158 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi to say, by far the greater number, and it is difficult to persuade them of the danger of^ drink, for in the self-confidence of youth they feel themselves safe from intem- perance. These words, taken from a Manchester paper, give, we fear, a true account of the state of many of the lowest class of work- girls not only in that town but in many other large towns of this kingdom. Drink is the great curse among the very poor of Manchester, and many of the mill-girls have miserable homes and unhappy lives, because their mothers cannot resist spirits. " Oh, teacher," said a pretty little girl, while the tears fell down her cheeks, " I lent the dress you gave me to my eldest sister, because she'd nothing respectable to go in when she went to look for a place, and mother got hold of it. Mother's pawned the skirt for drink. I've only the body left. Mother's given me the pawn-ticket, but I've no money to get the skirt back. I give mother half a crown a week. She hadn't ought to have pawned my skirt ! " This is no unusual occurrence. Our representative visited the home of a mill-girl who was obliged to go into lodgings, about seven years ago, because her mother pawned her clothes for drink, leaving her VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 159 nothing to wear, even in the mill, much less on Saturday or Sunday. During her absence from home things went from bad to worse. At last this noble girl, who had saved up a little money while living away from home, determined to rent a small house. She took her whole family, including the drunken mother, as lodgers in this house, having arranged with her father that he should give her his wages. She then allowed her mother half a crown a week ; and with the rest of the money she managed to make a comfortable home for her father and her brothers and sisters. In Edinburgh the love and indulgence in drink is so prevalent amongst the lowest class of work-girls that a girls' brigade has been formed ; where, instead of the volunteer oath, the temperance pledge is taken, which unites in one the brigade. When drink is the master instead of the servant nothing but total abstinence is of any use, and we wish all our girls would belong to the blue ribbon army, and so be of use to those who are in danger of falling. How often is a whole life made shipwreck of by this miserable and devouring passion ! To cure women of the habit of drinking i6o CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi is indeed most difficult, and let those who undertake it be prepared to give perha]3s years of sympathetic help, let them not think it can be done in a moment. Taking the pledge is the best help we can have ; and though that may be broken again and again, yet we may hope on. A chaplain at one of our London prisons found himself on one of his rounds in the cell of a woman who had been brought in for nearly the hundredth time ; each time it had been for some low brawl or disorderly conduct through drink. He spoke to her as he did to all under his care, and his words pierced through the hardened drunkard's heart ; she fell on her knees, and from that day her behaviour in prison changed, and by the time her sentence was over the chaplain felt that he would have hopes of her ultimate recovery. Three months more of probation she had in a Home, learning tidy habits and decent ways ; after that she emigrated, and in a year's time a letter came from the VI RELIGION OF THE WORK- GIRL i6i mistress in whose service she had been placed, saying that the woman had proved a most excellent servant. Two years later a letter came to the chaplain from the man she had married, thanking him for the good wife he had got. The Welcome, in Jewin Street, Alders- gate, is a distinctly religious work which is brought to bear on work-girls, and great results have been achieved from the work of the ladies at the numerous Bible classes held there on the week-day evenings. The restaurant is always open, and is a great boon to the thousands of work -girls who stream out of the warehouses in its immediate neighbourhood. I have been at a mission service there, and found all seats filled, the girls listening attentively to the words of a young lady, who was earnestly calling on them to come to Christ as a sure refuge. Much work is also done amongst the girls in large factories in the city and the M i62 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi East End by ladies visiting them during the dinner hour. They come to them as friends, with a loving interest, trying to bring to them the words of Christ, which will often sound to their ears as a whispering echo of childish lessons, long since forgotten in the turmoil and in the bustle of working days. Permission must first be asked of the manager of the factory, when that is granted the ladies will see the forewoman and try to get her sympathy in this mission work. At first the girls may receive them with sup- pressed laughter or with rude indifference, but the earnest worker will go on in faith, nothing doubting but that God will bless her humble efforts. Let me take you on a visit to a factory in Bethnal Green, where for a year this work has been carried on for one half hour once a week. We arrive at 1.30 ; half an hour has already gone of the dinner hour ; most of the workwomen have finished their mid-day repast ; some few are still eating the steak and potatoes that they have cooked VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 163 in the workroom. This is a shoe factory, and they have not, as is sometimes the case, a separate room for meal time. The room holds fifty workers ; half we find there, the others have gone out to their dinners, and they come in quietly, after the little service has begun. The lady brings with her hymn- books, Sankey^s well-known words and tunes ; she stands as they sit at their tables and machines ; she gives out the hymn, they all join heartily yet thoughtfully. Then she asks them to remain seated, but to close their eyes for prayer, and with a few earnest words she leads them up to the Father of all and to the Saviour of mankind. Next she reads to them a portion of the Gospel, and with simple words she explains to them the meaning of a parable. Another hymn follows, this time chosen by the girls themselves, and then a short prayer, beseeching God, who knows what are the trials of all those pre- sent, to send them comfort and strength. Throughout this little service all is reverent ; i64 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi it is as if one sister were speaking to another. On the face of the sister who comes to these workers is a look of heavenly joy, and on the faces of those who listen seems to come calm and peace. It is now five minutes to two, the bell will soon ring ; each takes her place, the machines are put in motion, the work is in full swing, but will not that message be thought of as the treadle is worked and as the stitches are sewn ? The girls are tidily dressed, many pretty faces are amongst them, and they earn good wages for their nine and a half hours a day. A few have one pound a week, some eighteen shillings, and so on, gradually lessening till the pay lowers to the six shillings a week of the learners. Does it not raise in our minds a feeling of astonishment that the overlooker of the factory or workshop should allow these ladies to enter his premises and mix with his ''hands"? What is the reason, we ask ourselves, that such a privilege is allowed, that intruders may penetrate where so often VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 165 we see written up '' Admittance only for those on business " ? May we not conclude that this Christian message of peace, of hope, of love is seen to transform the rude, untamed, boisterous, careless girl into the careful, attentive, industrious workwoman ? Yes, kindness will touch and reach the hearts of all, and Christian love unlocks many a stubborn soul. These factory hands in our great cities are protected by our laws from working before they are fourteen years of age, but then comes emancipation from all control save that of parental love. If that does not exist, if there are no home ties, the girl becomes only a ''hand." She may turn her back on church or chapel, she may never hear the Word of God but in horrid oaths, in blasphemous language. She is hardened, she is careless, she has no thought for the future, only to get through her daily task and to have plenty of larks when that is done. There comes across her sometimes a real loneliness — a loneliness i66 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi of soul, a desire to be something to some one ; the inner voice is not stifled, and the thought of something higher, something nobler than a spree presents itself to her as the lady- speaks to her. Remember she has probably- had no talk with any one above her in wisdom or station since she was at school, and possibly she may not then have had a sympathetic teacher, or one who had spoken to her otherwise than a unit that formed part of Standard II or III. If you can imagine the loneliness of the girl who is thus placed, you will see what a beneficent, lov- able being is that lady who comes to her with gentle manners, with tender sympathy, and then how willing shall we find her to accept this message, '' Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden," — a message from that loving Master who through His own suffering on earth could enter into the weariness and loneliness of each one of us. By these visits to the factories the girls are made friends with and they are in- VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 167 vited to come in the evening to clubs. Walks are arranged for the Saturday after- noons, and life becomes to them bright and worth living. In some clubs the evening is opened and closed with prayer; whether this is advis- able or not depends mostly on the members belonging to the club, and the regularity of their attendance and the attendance of a permanent lady or superintendent. When I had a night school for boys I always finished with a prayer, but have never done so at the club. There is generally at the club much fun and gaiety and last words as we close, and I hardly think that a great number would compose themselves sufficiently to look on such a custom with reverence. Should a dozen or more girls be alone with a teacher in a classroom she can finish her instructions if she likes with a prayer ; the girls are composed and collected, and would be able to enter into the spirit of their teacher. The religious teaching amongst girls will 1 68 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi show itself in many ways. In one town, we know of girls who made themselves fhto bands of purity, and who resolved to give up ever visiting the penny theatres so common in manufacturing towns, where highly sensa- tional dramas are carried on in booths or tents. In another club we hear of girls forming themselves into companies called the Help- yourself Society and the Help-one-another Society. We also find them giving up one evening a week for work for the poor, for making toys for hospitals, or for Mission work. All these occupations which are distinctly un- selfish should be encouraged in every way. Some may be willing to help in Bands of Hope, and we have had girls who visited regularly aged women in their own homes or those who were sick. The Sunday evening may be made very pleasant to the girls by the singing of hymns after evening service, or before Christmas by practising carols, but this to be a success requires the VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 169 presence of a lady who will somewhat conduct the singing. What we desire to do by religious teaching and influence is to raise the standard of life. We must know the temptations that our girls are exposed to ; we must speak of purity, of honesty, and of charity, that ill-used word, which should convey to us chiefly the spirit of love and sympathy, which makes all men akin. We know that young men must enter into the thoughts and lives of our girls, so let us speak of them as those that may some day be nearer than friends ! their husbands. If 1 know a girl well, I will often ask her if she is keeping company with a young man, and she will be pleased to tell me all about him ; if he has yet been taken home to see mother ! — a very important step in courtship. For the keeping company may be a matter of many years. I have known marriage not come for nine years or more, and during that time the couple will consider themselves I70 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi bound so far that neither will take another partner out for walks or amusements, fiut until the time for marriage is fixed on, they are not engaged, and on both sides are free to part. During the stage of keeping company there are often, as we may imagine, foolish misunderstandings, and even in these cases are the girls glad of the advice of a lady, whom they know they can trust to hear their confidences and not betray them. Amongst the respectable London work-girls there is a strong feeling that every steady girl can take care of herself, and that she need fear no insult or advance from the strangers who will address her ; and I almost concur in that opinion, but then it is not all girls that are steady, and the dangers they run are from the plea- sures and the amusements offered to them, too often with no good intention. Having had the experience of country girls as well as London ones, I must say that I consider that the London work -girl has a higher moral tone and practice than the country girl. VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 171 In many parts of London where clubs are established the manners of the girls are of the very coarsest and lowest description, and with these there should be certainly plain speaking, and decency of manners should be enforced. A lady went once in her Victoria to an East End club, and was surprised on coming out to find that the carriage was not waiting for her, but standing some two streets off in the large thoroughfare. The reason of this disappear- ance was that as soon as the coachman was left by his mistress several girls rushed into the carriage and threw their arms round his neck at some peril to himself, saying, ** Dear coachman, do give us some of your silver but- tons." The poor victim of these endearments, thinking he would soon be dragged off his box, had to get assistance to be delivered from the embraces of these girls. But such manners may be corrected. And have we not great pity for girls who have lived in such surroundings that modesty is unknown to them ? In these cases not only of outward 172 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vi manners must we speak, but of the import- ance of virtuous conduct. Let us take another of the temptations of a working girl's Hfe — that of dishonesty. Too often it is the love of dress that leads a girl at first to pilfer, and if undetected to help herself still more largely. Girls with a strong sense of honesty are often sorely tried and perplexed with the dishonest habits forced on them by their employers. For instance, they are made to show an article as a bargain, to say that it is reduced in price, whilst they know that in reality it is part of the regular stock. This may seem but a trifle, but when it becomes habitual the feelings of rectitude of the girls will be undermined. Worse still for a girl is it when the fore- woman substitutes her own work for that of the establishment — work that is hidden away the moment the madame enters the room. What must the girl do ? Show up the fraud, denounce the forewoman — can we expect such VI RELIGION OF THE WORK-GIRL 173 courage ? She can do as I have known a brave and honest girl to do, leave a good place, and when the cause of her leaving has come to the knowledge of her employer, boldly confront the dishonest forewoman and with witnesses prove her statement. But this fraudulent practice is so common, with others of a similar character, that too often the work-girl's ideas of honesty get clouded, and the whole tone of her moral nature is lowered. Whilst working for the general improve- ment of girls, boys, men, or women of the labouring classes, let us not in our zeal for improving their material condition forget that along with these objects, most important certainly for their welfare, we should also, if we ourselves feel the comfort and value of religion, endeavour to provide for its culture and advancement, and let this be one of the aims of a girls' club, to point out to our girls from whence they may get help and strength to lead good and honest lives. VII DIFFERENCE IN THE SOCIAL POSITION OF WORK-GIRLS A LADY who was visiting one of our West- End girls' clubs, whilst talking to a member, said : '* Should you call yourself a good speci- men of a working girl ? " The question, we must say, was a curious one to put, but it met with this ready answer : '' I think you would find as many differences amongst us as you would find amongst ladies." I have been often asked the same question, and I should say that our Soho club, with its two hundred and thirty members, covered as wide a social area amongst the working classes as we should find amongst the members of the House of Commons, VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 175 though to those unacquainted with working people the girls seem to be all of one class. How often do people say to us, ''I suppose your girls are all shop girls," probably meaning by that one who serves behind a counter; but working people would understand by a shop girl a runner, a trotter, a matcher, an employment filled by young girls on first leaving school. Business hands, young ladies in business, counterwomen, assistants in shops mean one and the same thing. Then there are dressmakers, milliners, and mantlemakers, who in the West End get from ten shillings to thirty shillings a week ; some live in the house of business, some live at home or in lodgings, and many in Homes. Next to these we would place those working in workshops — tailoresses, shirt- makers, needlewomen of every description, also silver workers, lacquerers, cap -makers, upholsterers. Next we come to factory hands, who abound all over London, East and West alike — jam-makers, biscuit-makers, blacklead 176 CLUBS FOR. WORKING GIRLS vii packers, matchmakers, etc. Laundry workers would be a class by themselves, also girls who sell flowers in the street. For all these clubs have been established ; in general they have been intended for each set of girls by them- selves ; but in Soho we have been fortunate in making ours a club for the neighbourhood, which, from the varying condition of the houses and of the streets, is inhabited by every shade of working people. The old houses are let out in separate tenements of one or of two rooms. Then there are improved workmen's dwellings of different sorts — the Peabody buildings, the Waterlow dwellings, and other blocks of houses built by private contractors. It is a great mistake to say that any street or locality in London is entirely full of bad people, or that in one quarter all are destitute. In the very worst neighbourhoods of Newport Market and of Princes Row we have known it to be otherwise. We shall find a sprinkling of good amongst the worthless, as we shall also find a sprinkling of the worthless and destitute VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 177 amongst the better class of houses. The following account of an inquest held this summer on Henry Ebers, who died in Ber- wick Street, will fully carry out what I say, for in this same street are most excellent shops, and over them live many high class artisans. Yesterday afternoon the deputy coroner for West- minster held an inquiry into the circumstances attending the death of Henry John Ebers, aged sixty years, a coach painter, who was found dead in bed at 6 1 Berwick Street, Oxford Street. The doctor who made a post-mortem examination stated that the man died in a small back kitchen, amid the filthiest surroundings he had ever seen. The walls were wet, and in fact the place was utterly unfit for human habitation. Just outside the window^ and within a space of about half the size of the table the jury were sitting round, were a water-closet, a dust hole, and the water supply for drinking purposes. The room ought certainly never to have been occupied. The deceased's body and the apartment itself were in such a horribly neglected condition that witness's clothing was affected. The room, which measured about i o feet or 1 2 feet, was so dark that when he entered he almost trod on the corpse. The vestry had caused the contents of the room to be burned. Such places as are here described, and indeed worse than these, have I seen inhabited in Soho, very near to good and respectable N 178 CLUBS FOR] WORKING GIRLS vii houses. An inquiry was made this year by Mr. Valpy of the condition and occupatiorf of the people in Central London, and in this pamphlet he says — It is a common thing when people are speaking of the poverty in London to compare one district with another, and to say that the neighbourhood with which they are personally acquainted is quite the poorest in London. But we are a long way nearer understanding the truth when we have recognised the distinction between poverty in extent and poverty in degree, and can show with approximate correctness the number of poor people and the relative depth of their poverty. Now the facts that Mr. Valpy has got about Central London may astonish many who talk of the East End as the scene of the greatest distress and poverty in this town, to which no other parts of London can compare, but it will not astonish the visitors to the poor who used to live about Newport Market and Princes Row, for they have seen poverty of the lowest class. Staircases where the house door was never shut and where outcast men or women might be getting their night's rest ; but who would have to take leave of even VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 179 this hard couch before the day dawned, as they must then skulk away from that neigh- bourhood, when daylight came, to some lower haunt. These abodes, formerly the posses- sions of princes, had become so low in their surroundings, that we are thankful that they are now swept away with the improvements of Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue. The wild girls who used to call themselves the forty thieves, and lived about those courts, the lads who assumed the like designation, where are they gone to ? We see them no longer about Soho. Have they crowded up still more Drury Lane and Clare Market ? Mr. Valpy finds that in extent of poverty Central London compares favourably with any East London district, and yet its poverty in degree comes next to that of St. George's in the East, Stepney, and Bethnal Green. He finds that though the poverty is less in extent, it is most intense, and that a greater depth of poverty exists even where the measure of health is high. i8o CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii The change that has often taken place in the lives of people resident in Soho, is so great that we may find some in dire distress, who had formerly lived in their own houses, and had even kept servants in former days, till the death of the husband, or failures in trade and other causes, had brought them thus low. One woman I found who lived in a small room with her one child, a girl of ten, said to me : '' The Almighty has been good to me ; I have never passed a day but what I have had a piece of bread to give to my Katie." And this woman had been a lady's maid in one family for ten years, till she married a courier, who had died one day quite suddenly two hours after he came in from work. The widow tried to keep herself by her needle, but she could make no living out of it. The family she had been with had gone to Australia, and she had no friends ; so with cleaning offices for six shillings a week, and occasional washing - up at hotels, she had struggled on a bare existence for some years. VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION i8i The principal trade carried on in Soho is tailoring. The large and fashionable West End shops could not afford space for the work to be done on the premises, so that the coat goes to and fro from the shop, to the tailor s house till the fit is perfect. How much could a coat tell its wearer of the troubles, the privations, and the hard life of the poor ! It used to be said that the nobleman's coat had been often used to cover the fevered child of the tailor ; that, we are thankful to say, cannot be now the case, because the fevered patient is carried away from the crowded room of its parents to the beautiful hospitals of the Asylums Board. An ambulance fetches them away, with a careful nurse, who takes them safely to the nearest hospital ; but though the coat will no longer tell how it has covered the infec- tious child, it may tell of other sufferings and, of other sorrows. Soho is largely inhabited by foreigners, and it seems, to judge by the languages you 1 82 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii hear spoken in the streets, to be the rendez- vous of French, Italians, and Germans. Foreign shops also abound here, for oils, for confectionery, for eatables of all sorts. Also French restaurants and hotels, and French laundresses in great numbers. The foreigners bring with them much that is injurious to our people, who are unfortunately ready enough to imitate what is wrong, and do not learn much that might be of use to them in the thrifty housekeeping ways of the French housewife. Our girls, however, have but little intercourse with foreigners except when they find themselves as tailoresses in the same workroom as perhaps a German or a Swede, who come over to England in large numbers, attracted by our higher wages, and who are generally of a higher class, and have better manners than the English journeyman tailor. Another statement commonly made is, I think, as erroneous as the one Mr. Valpy speaks of, namely, that there are courts and VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 183 Streets where no lady may walk in safety. I believe there is no place where, if a lady is known, or seen to be on an errand of mercy, she will not be as safe as if she were walking in Piccadilly. The Seven Dials has an unenviably evil reputation, but to my mind a greatly exag- gerated one, and no lady need be afraid of walking through them. I have heard Little St. Andrew Street, one of these seven streets leading to the Dials, called by a learned professor the Zoological Gardens of the poor, for on a Sunday morning the pavements in front of the bird shops will be crowded by work- ing people looking at all the curious animals that are for sale there. Perhaps no one un- acquainted with the insides of those houses would imagine that in one of the houses on the Seven Dials could be seen a most perfect collection of shells, made by an enlightened and enthusiastic conchologist. Not only in the Seven Dials, but every- i84 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii where in town or country, we find isolated cases in the midst of the most ordinary* surroundings, of minds that have by them- selves groped through the commonplaces of life into the light of intellectual appreciation and enjoyment. A lady of rare charm, the wife of a vicar of a large parish, has afternoon teas once a fortnight for the tradeswomen and others in her parish ; and on one occasion she found that one of her visitors, who had a green- grocer's shop, had read most of Carlyle's works and knew many other authors ; she had alone delighted in these books, for none around her cared for such reading. Now the long mental silence was broken, and she could speak to her hostess of all the great and noble thoughts that had taken root in her mind from such studies. But let us return to our work-girls. Will you take a walk from Regent Street along any of those back streets that lead to Soho } You would there meet hundreds of tailoresses VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 185 hurrying to their shops with their own or their fathers' work thrown over their arm, and covered with a black cotton wrapper. Some will be as neatly dressed as any young lady, with plain serge gowns, tight jackets, hats trimmed plainly, and with tidy boots ; or you will see others with cheap vulgar finery or shabby clothes ; and some even come to shop with ragged garments : the work is the same, but the condition of the workers is very different. In America, where there are now many girls' clubs, the class distinctions in some respects are much more marked. Work- girls would not mix with servants, and a black or coloured girl could not be admitted in a New York club, as they have been in the one in Soho. A lady who had a club under her management at New York came with me one evening to the singing class, and as I walked away with her I asked her what she thought of our girls. '' I would give anything," she said, '*to hear our girls i86 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii laugh as yours did this evening." " How is that?" I asked; *'why do your girls not laugh?" Then she explained to me that the feeling in America of equality between work people and those above them is so strong that they are not at their ease with the ladies, with whom they think themselves equal, and yet they feel there is a difference, so they will not unbend for fear of appearing to take a lower position. ''With you,'' my friend said, ''the girls know there is a difference, and that they are not your equals socially, and so they are as much at their ease with you as you are with them. They are not striving to keep their place as your equals ; they do not think about it, and they are happy to laugh and be amused if you say anything to make them gay." The great difference in the class of house accommodation in Soho causes a vast dif- ference in the class of inhabitants, and as our club has got hold to a great extent of VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 187 the inhabitants locally, the girls in it are of all classes. The young ladies from first West End shops and the girls working in factories have joined there, both in classes of instruc- tion and in amusement. But we must allow that it is not often that the young -lady element of the working class will be found in the girls' clubs. The counter attractions to the club for these girls will be visits to the theatres, operas, cafes, music halls, and balls, to which they will be taken by young men, and when these are the usual pleasures the club will appear dull and uninviting. Besides these evening amusements for business girls there are Sunday excursions — days spent on the river, or rambles about the neighbourhood of London, where they will be accompanied and treated by a gentle- man of their own class or above them. Days spent in this way are of common occurrence in the life of many a London dressmaker and milliner. Young men are i88 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii ready enough to seek the society of a smart work-girl, who thinks that such companion- ship is quite right and proper, that it is mere amusement, that whilst young and nice looking they should enjoy all that can be got out of life, and that no better way of passing the time can be found than a lark of this sort. They see no harm in it, nor do they foresee any danger. ! The very general habit amongst the working class of treating one another to a glass of some sort of stimulant is most danger- ous. Girls will even stand one another a glass for the sake of companionship in going into a public -house or gin palace. This may be witnessed by any who walk about in London. Do we not constantly see, going in, or coming out of the public-house, young women so respectable looking, that we can- not imagine what has taken them into, what must be for them, so foul a place ? It will often at first be the pleasure of companion- ship ; but it will soon get to be the love of VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 189 drink that allures them to their destruction. And once that love gets possession of a woman, how hard it is to drive it out. Dress, as well as pleasure, is a great snare to girls whom we would designate as business girls. The earning of a whole week will often go to get a new ball gown or a smart hat for the river. A taste will be engendered for smartness, for expensiveness in clothes, by their very employment. The girl stands by the hour holding pins whilst the first-hand is fitting on the ladies' gowns ; she will be unnoticed, — she is a mere machine, a piece of the showroom furniture ; but she can hear the endless talk about the dresses that seems so important, how a richer lace is required there, and more satin here. Will she not think, when she hears so much value attached to clothes, that happiness must consist in the beauty of the outside garment alone ? And the little milliner, who sits in the corner of the showroom, what will she think of the lady who takes up one hat I90 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii 4 or bonnet after another ? — none are good enough for the party she is going to on the morrow ; all are thrown aside, when suddenly she sees a hat being packed up that takes her fancy ; here are two roses she must have out of that hat for the one which she has in her hand. *^ Madam, I am sorry I can't take these roses off; they are the only ones I have of this sort from Paris, and a lady has already chosen them. I cannot disappoint her." The customer is now bent on having these two roses ; the cost, she is told, is £2 : IDS. for the flowers alone ; the high price only increases her wish to have them. She persists. The saleswoman, afraid of dis- pleasing the customer who is present, and also afraid of the anger of the owner of the coveted roses if she were to change them, shows flower after flower, but none will satisfy. The manageress comes in, she is appealed to, and says : '' Certainly, if madam wishes for the roses she must have them." No doubt she thinks the VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 191 absent lady will not be able to distinguish, on receiving her hat, that these identical roses have been replaced by others. Now what effect will this little scene, and similar ones enacted day by day, that show the vain frivolity of the lady, have on the work- girl who sits apparently unobservant close by ? Will she perhaps be struck with the startling contrasts in life, when £2 : los. are spent on two flowers considered absolutely essential to wear at a boating party to last probably but one day, and then to be thrown aside as either faded by the sun, or spotted by the shower ? What does that £2 : IDS. mean to her? It means the rent of two months for her widowed mother's poor rooms ; it means the spending of many weeks in the country for her sick sister ; it means the savings of a year, with which she could help her brother to get to Canada. We are often spoken to on the subject of dress ; we are told we should make this one 192 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii of the chief matters to bring before our girlst It is important, we allow, but we shall best get rid of the love of dress and extrava- gance by filling the mind with nobler objects, and by showing the value of those things which are above dress and mere pleasure. If we have shown to our readers that the great temptations in the life of a business girl is excitement, pleasure, and dress, let us take the life of those who will live at home, but whose days are spent in workshops. Pleasures will be offered to them also, but not as frequently and not of the same sort. Dancing will be within their reach, and music halls, and the danger from frequenting these places of amusement are very great. Still the club, when bright and well managed, will be quite as great an attraction if they have not entered those places, and many working girls would never consent to enter them, however much the young man she is keeping company with, would ask her. But there are other classes of work-girls. VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 193 factory hands, who, after the day's work, are always in the street, who are rude, vulgar, boisterous. In one part of London where a girls' club has been established they have been seen on a Saturday night fighting one with another bared to their waists, and yet these, by the gentle and kindly influence of a good matron in a girls' club, have been, may we not say, tamed and civilised. Many of our readers may never have seen the class of girls I now refer to — girls who will roll about the pavements three or four together, their hair cut straight over their foreheads, shawls over their heads, insulting every decent woman they meet ; but even these, if they can be brought into the club, may become quiet and well behaved. The following accounts of how two clubs of such girls were established, and how the difficulties were met with, may interest those who are beginning a similar work : — In a small town in Yorkshire, in the winter of 1882, some workers met together and decided to open an O 194 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii Evening Home in the lowest part of the town, after the manner of the good work begun in Nottingham. We began in a large room lent to us for the purpose by the Town Mission, and to make the first evening attrac- tive we opened with a tea to all girls who would come and partake of it. Our invitations were gladly accepted, and at seven o'clock plenty of guests with bright faces and shawls over their heads came shyly and awkwardly in, and heartily enjoyed the pleasant meal provided. After tea we explained our reason for asking them to come, and enrolled members. After singing and games, and a short hymn to close, the girls went away evidently pleased and interested, not, however, before we found that, when the first shyness did wear off, we should have a rather noisy, probably rough time ofit. We were a little dismayed at the type of girls present — shawls not of the cleanest, binding down wild looking fringes hanging over bright eyes set in dirty faces, hands of the grimiest, soiled frocks and torn aprons, shoes more or less tattered, a look of rowdiness ; and yet the faces were bright and interesting, some were bonny. We will not venture to describe that first winter's ex- periences. We battled bravely on until the summer, when with more or less relief we closed for a three months' rest. Tales of horror spread wide, and many wise heads were shaken in doubt as to the wisdom of collecting girls together to make a " Bear Garden," and terrify kindly ladies who went down late in the evening to preside over the bears. The Committee of workers had taken a cottage of three rooms, one above another, thinking that if the girls were divided into parties with a lady to manage each, VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 195 that the older ones could have a quiet time while the younger ones played and vice versct^ and that peace would prevail. But this plan did not answer at all. The difficulty was how to separate them, and to control each room. On evenings when the workers present had strong influence and power of keeping order to aid them, things went quietly and good was evidently being done. They sewed, and read, and played games, talked to their friends and sang ; finally listened quietly to five minutes' talk — five minutes' singing and the Lord's Prayer quietly if not reverently, and as they went out said a friendly good-night, and begged leave to accompany one or other of the teachers part way home. But never was proverb, " Rome was not built m. a day," brought more clearly to us. We remember one sad night when two bigger girls who were sitting happily at work round a little table with a bright lamp, while a story was read to them, suddenly quarrelled about a thimble, and in a passion one girl threw the table over, the others, mad with excitement, began to act in the wildest, utterly indescribable fashion. The unfortunate teacher seized the dangerous lamp, which went out in her hands, and came downstairs to get help. Meanwhile the girls threw up the window, and hanging out of it, with loud shouts and rude laughter presently had a crowd underneath, with whom they exchanged chaff and abuse. Downstairs the crowded kitchen was too noisy in its play for any upstairs sounds to be audible. They, however, were cautioned to be quiet while the ladies went upstairs with a lamp to quell the disturbance and close the window. Coming down with the subdued and sulky girls, found hiding in corners and tolerably ashamed of themselves, 196 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ^ vii as soon as the light came the horrified workers found the lower room in still worse confusion. Boys were banging at the shutters and door, the girls inside shout- ing and singing, and even fighting, slates, books, and sewing being used as missiles ; and one or two girls were reading the books at the desk, and finding out who had paid the club money and who not, and other interesting details. One of the ladies went to speak to the lads outside, and one threw his cap in, and getting his foot in the doorway prevented the door being closed. Re- monstrances were of no use. They wished to come in and play **with the lasses." At last the cap was thrown out, and the door shut and locked, and the key removed for fear any girl might open it. An attempt was then made to get peace restored, but the boys had taken up the cellar grate outside, had dropped into the dark cellar, groped their way up the steps, and three grinning lads emerged through the cellar door^ into the kitchen, amid shrieks of terror from the girls. The ladies greeted them with silence, and locking the door through which they came, put that key too in safety. The boys struck across the kitchen to the outer door and found them- selves trapped. They didn't like it. *' Now," said the lady, *'I suppose we must give you in charge for house- breaking. You know what the law has to say to burglars?" (She didn't, but the effect of her speech was just as impressive.) The boys began to quail and say, " We didn't mean no harm, missis ; if you'll let us go out we'll never do it no more." The girls listened in silence. At last they began to plead for the boys, and one of them, a great awkward fqllow of about sixteen, began to rub his knuckles in his eyes, and finally his VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 197 coat cuffs were needed to act as a pocket-handkerchief. Then there was relenting and forgiveness, and with relieved faces they shot out into the darkness. Now, the girls came in for their lecture, and the club was closed for the evening, after the fact that their behaviour had caused the boys to be so troublesome had been well brought home to their minds, and the ringleaders amongst the bigger girls were kept behind for a quiet talk. When the streets were cleared the weary " ladies " walked home, thankful that they had not been obliged to call in the aid of the police. Through scenes like this we have passed into peaceful days, where, though much remains to be done, we have no fear of such stormy scenes recurring. We cannot now be described as a Bear Garden. For one thing, we have our club room under the care of the good kind matron who super- intends the Home and F.R.O. of the Ladies Association for the care of friendless girls, and when any help is required she is on the spot to give it, and turn out any girl who will not conform to the unwritten rules of order. The tone of our club has gradually but per- ceptibly risen. The girls value their club too much to abuse its privileges, and they are too busy practising for the February entertainment, and learning to cook, and sew, or mend, so as to earn the prizes given for these useful branches of education. Their cookery class is a delight to them ; they pay a penny and come and look on, and afterwards write out the recipe, then during the week practise at home what they have learnt. The girls themselves put down any noise or rudeness. Should any fresh comer be growing loud in her speech she will probably be told to " Shut up, you are not in 198 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii t' street," and " Be'ave the sen, don't make her 'ead ache." We ought to say that the extreme roughness in our girls comes largely from the fact of their not being employed. There is very little work for women in iron -works and colliery districts, and except a little pottery making and fruit-picking in the summer our girls have only domestic service to look to, and of course the very rough and poor cannot in their untrained condition get into service at all. Many of our girls are Irish, all are poor and most of them idle and undisciplined. We find their affection very touching, and their love for their club is unmistakable, but we expect to find improvement slow, as work among them is very uphill and elementary. Here is the account of a club opened one night a week in a country town. There are now forty-two names on the books and an average attendance of about twenty-six to thirty girls, quite as many as our rooms will hold. They meet at seven o'clock once a week, and from seven to eight they sew and are read to ; they used to write, but this has been given up, and instead they now have glee singing for half an hour, till half-past eight, when one of the clergy usually comes in to give a short address, and they close with a hymn and prayer. We have a clothing club, to which they contribute, having made the garments during the hour of work. They are allowed to buy them very cheaply, and the difference is covered by the sub- scription. This class was first started by two ladies about fourteen or sixteen years ago, and I cannot tell VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 199 you how rough and vulgar they were then, and how quiet and refined they are now. Indeed, the class is in such good repute that only respectable girls are admitted, and there are some very nice ones ; three are wishing shortly to be confirmed. A club properly so called has, not long since, been opened every night for the same class of girls, and this is successful, but it has not been long enough in existence to produce the same humanising effects which are so strikingly visible in those we have ourselves had to do with. A year of patient and continuous work will do wonders, but if the club only meets two or three times a week, or if it is closed in the summer, the good work is partially undone, and the reconstructive work is more difficult. Is not this exemplified in the two accounts we give? In the Yorkshire club, by the untiring work of a year, the girls were civilised in that short space of time, whilst in the one which was opened but once a week, though the same object was attained, many years were needed to accomplish the same end. We know it is not always possible to have a club open every evening, but once the foundations of good behaviour are 200 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii laid every effort should be strained to pro- vide for its being always open. A club we know of was started first as recreative evening classes ; the girls earned at a tobacco factory three shillings and six- pence, five shillings, and six shillings a week ; they paid nothing for the classes ; they had tea and cake given to them at nominal prices, as they were very poor. After three years these girls asked if they might form a club out of those who attended the classes, offer- ing to pay a weekly fee — and the work has prospered. It is, I think, a great advantage to have girls in a club of different classes, as the better mannered girls will set the tone and gradually draw up the others to their standard. At any rate the ladies have some evidence to show the rougher girls that good be- haviour is possible, and that good manners are pleasanter than rough ones. In one town it was proposed by a lady to draw off from all the clubs the best girls from VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 201 each, and so make a model club. This would, I think, be a great mistake. The difficulty in most cases is to get the rough and wild girls to come, and once they have come and been improved, they get attached to the place and to the ladies who have been instrumental in changing their ideas and habits of life, and the girls will themselves be the best civilisers of the unruly ones who continue to join. Let us show the differences that exist in the social condition of our own Soho club members by taking our readers to a few of the homes of the girls. We will go to the poorest home first, so let us visit the third floor of a house near to our Club. As we come in Agnes is just off to her place of housework, where she gets five shillings a week and her tea. She is sixteen years old, and though a good steady girl is not very sharp. Perhaps much poverty, almost starvation, in early days has made her less bright. In the summer we got her a place as a matcher. 202 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii and we had to clothe her to make her even fit for that small place. What is her home ? I have not seen many like it. Outwardly it is dirty and poverty-stricken, but on the faces of father and mother there is a radiant look of love, a refinement, a gentleness not often seen. The home consists of two attics. In the front or living room sleep three boys ; in the back room sleep the father and mother and the four girls, of sixteen, thirteen, seven, and one years old. Potato peelings are about the floor, a cord is across the low room to hang the clothes to dry, the ceiling and walls are grimy, the floor is almost black, the bedclothes are ragged, the chairs — there are but three — are broken, two tables almost fill the room, there are no drawers, there is no washstand, but one mattress, no palliases, the children lie on the boards. Outside in the narrow landing hang the best gown and the jacket of the mother, and a few rags of the children. There is soup for dinner ; there have been days when they have had nothing VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 203 but bread for breakfast, dinner, and tea, and not enough of that. Worst of all, at times the brokers have been threatened, and the workhouse has been offered. What is the cause of this poverty ? The blindness of the father from brain fever after four years of marriage. They were very comfortable before that terrible illness. Mrs. Wate had been five years in one place as servant, and did not know what trouble was. She had a good mistress, a comfortable home, and saved much of her wages. Her mother had been sister of a ward at King's College Hospital for twenty years ; she might have been trained as nurse herself Her mother was known as a valued nurse by the physician, and he would have taken in the daughter, but she said, *^ I refused, as my young man was in the way, and a good man he has been to me ; never in my life a cross word, never anything but love for me." On which he joins in : "I think every one must know she might have been a nurse, for go where we may the neighbours find her 204 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii out when they or their children are sick, and get her to come to them, and she seems to know as much as the doctor almost." I asked her, *' Have you had no visits from the church or the chapel or the mission hall ? " '' No," is the answer, '' none visit us here ; but w^e have help from blind societies, and my husband gets chair -caning now and again, and this morning I got a room and a passage to scrub out, and got sixpence ; and my boy, he is good, he gets nine shillings a week, one shilling he puts by in the bank for clothes, one shilling I give him as pocket money, and he gives me seven shillings. Agnes, she brings in five, but she was in bed two weeks before you sent her away to the sea, and that kind young lady at the club (another of our club members) gave her a frock and paid her journey, and what a pretty chemise she had also from the club ! (another club girls gift), and will you let Mary join the club ? she talks of nothing else, and would like to go to the night school. She is thirteen, and has left VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 205 school, and must try and earn a bit." I said, *' I wonder how you ever can get on with all these children." And the answer was : *' I have such a good sister, who does so much for me. Her husband has but six- teen shillings a week, but she has only one daughter, who is out in service, and when my children want boots or clothes she just gets them for me by going out cleaning herself. She is younger than I am, but she has been as a mother to me for goodness." I am shown the way down the dark and narrow stairs, and when alone the good mother says to me, '* How I did wish I could have asked you last Christmas for the bag that kind lady lends ; I have heard so much of her, and how good she is." *'Why did you not ask?" I said; ** Agnes could have brought me word." " I was afraid," said the poor woman, "that you might say what the other ladies say, that I have too many children ; that pains me so, for they are good children, and we love them so much." 2o6 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii Now let US visit Ruth Lane. Her father owns the whole house, and has a shop in another street, she is a dressmaker, but we find the mother at home in a comfortable well furnished parlour, the two rooms thrown into one with portieres between, a piano, pictures, ornaments, a good carpet, china, arm-chairs, and a large mahogany square table, fit to seat the twelve at dinner on Sundays, when the father likes all the children to be at home, and a friend or two besides, for the important meal of the week, which will last from three to five o'clock. Next let us go up to the fifth floor of the model dwellings. We find here the artisan's home ; a piano is here also, and many children, all so clean and tidy ; the days of struggle are over, for the four elder children are earning, and contributing their share to the family expenses, the rooms are convenient, the father is sober and has a good trade, the girls belong to our club, and the boy belongs VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 207 to the Polytechnic. But let us visit another apartment in the same building. The appearance is very different, — dirt every- where, broken chairs, dirty children, rabbits running about on the filthy floor, the bed is unmade, the mother seems indifferent to the general discomfort. We ask, '' Why has Nelly not been to the club ; for the last three weeks we had missed her at the night school ? " *' To tell you the truth,'' is the answer, ** Nelly said she must be earning something, so she has got a little place, and she thinks the missis will spare her after a bit." May not Nelly have learned what order or cleanli- ness meant at the club, and may "she not have wished to get out of the drunken home she could not improve 'i Look at that poor girl in the club who is enjoying the picture papers. Where does she come from ? Not very far off is a small back room in a court, where she lives with her brother in such poverty that we gave her the ulster she always wears, to cover her 2o8 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii rags and to look tidy amongst her club companions ; she is a tailoress, but her work is of the poorest and badly paid. Her poverty is known, and many little kindnesses are shown to her. I could take my reader to many a home, but they may have had enough. I could show them the poor little room of the orphan sisters, who have kept house alone so respect- ably since their mother died and left them at sixteen and fourteen to care for themselves, the only inheritance being the house, the bed, the chairs, the table, the pictures. The club has been to them a second home, and seldom have they missed coming there. I could show you the upper room in the narrow street, w^here the widowed mother is dying of consumption in a room so clean and tidy we should think there were many to do the work that is done by Annie, who, after her long day of work, which brings in thirteen shillings a week, will often go to the baths to wash all her mother s bed linen to keep her VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 209 clean and fresh. The elder brother brings his earnings, and the two younger ones, still at school, help to keep the one room tidy for the dear mother and the good sister. She cannot come to the club now, mother is so ill, but she has friends there who will care for her when she is left alone. The homes are very different of our club members, their earnings are not the same, their dress shows poverty in some, comfort in many, taste and refinement in others. The following incident will perhaps show to many the contrast of the education of the club and the education of the streets on the girls of the same social position, with the same surroundings and employed in the same labour. One evening four girls came up into our club-room ; they said they came to see what it was like, and before many minutes had passed they made so much noise and behaved in so unseemly a way that the matron had to tell them to leave the club ; this they did ; but not without much swearing and foul P 2IO CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii words used towards those they left in the club. When I was told of this I regretted that I had not been present to try my hand on these rough diamonds, but I had my chance. The next evening I was there and was told that two girls were waiting at the door. I went to them and found one of the visitors of the previous evening and another bold- looking girl. I asked them if they wished to join the club. "No, I don't," says one, **they would laugh at us up there.'' The fact of their coming the second time showed me they wished very much to have some- thing to do with our club, so I said, '' Come up with me ; I will take you in." '' No," they answered, ''they are stuck-up things, they would not like such as us." Most true, we feared, for the girls who knew them had said the night before, *' Oh, those terrible girls, I hope they are not coming here." One of the girls kept repeating my name perpetually whenever she spoke, so I said, ''You seem to VII DIFFERENCE IN SOCIAL POSITION 211 know me; where have we met ?'' '* Why, at St. Mary's School; I always saw you there." *'To be sure/' was my answer, '' and what standard were you in when you left ?" '* In the sixth," was the reply. '' Then come with me ; I shall introduce you as one of my girls from the school, and you will find many you know." So the two came up with me, very reluctantly, to the first flight, but when they came in sight of the bright club, full of girls all so orderly and happy looking, they drew back and said, '' No, we can't go in, I am sure they will mock at us." A little more encouragement and persua- sion brought them into the club -room, but they seemed so shamefaced that we were glad to show them the girls' photographs, and pictures on the wall, to give them some self-confidence. Around them were girls who had been at the same school, who lived in the same street, who had worked at the same factories. The one quiet, gentle, refined ; the other 212 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS vii coarse, loud, blasphemous and rude. Up to thirteen the same teaching, the same training, but since that for the one the education of the streets and of bad companions, and for the others their club, their friends in the club, and the ladies of the club. Here was the same material, in one case become a fragrant flower, in the other become the rank weed. No instance has ever so forcibly shown to me the marvellous good that a girls' club could accomplish as the sight of these girls thus brought together. As children they had seemed alike in every respect, and now how far apart they were ! Not too late though, for they have become members of our club, and may we not hope that they also will grow up as flowers fit for the heavenly garden where no tares shall be seen ? VIII HOMES FOR WORKING GIRLS These institutions are of much older date than clubs, and the necessity for them has perhaps been more apparent to the public than that of clubs, which have only been thought of for the last ten years. Benevolent persons have readily seen the necessity for establishing homes for work- girls who come up to London alone, away from families and homes where they have been shielded from dangers, to a great city where pleasures abound and where tempta- tions surround them. Girls are attracted to London by the higher wages offered in most trades, and the advantage of a London experience in the dressmaking, millinery, 214 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS viii and mantle-making business is very great. Those also who live in the suburbs of London will come to get a West End experience, and so not only do the pleasures and sights of London attract vast numbers year by year, but the fact of having worked in London is of money value to the wage-earning girl. The girl comes up to town with many warnings from home of what she is to avoid, what she is to seek ; but if not in a home she is either sadly desolate or she leads a life of distracting pleasures, for which her earnings may or may not suffice. In the latter case, should she be bent on pleasure, she will have it easily enough through com- panions, whom she will find ever ready to take her to the theatre, to the dancing rooms, or to Sunday excursions. She will on arriving in London be thrown at once in the workroom amongst girls who will be more or less accustomed to town life, and who will soon initiate her into the ways of, alas ! too many business girls. VIII HOMES FOR WORKING GIRLS 215 A great number of homes have been established in London ; those under the management of Mr. Shrimpton are in many different parts of London ; the Young Woman's Christian Association have several homes, and the Girls' Friendly Society have also many to which their own members can come. The management is probably much the same in every one, and the experience that the managers have of the girls who lodge in these homes will no doubt be very similar. There will be some lodgers who will remain on from year to year ; but there will also be many changes. Those who come from the country to get a season s experience of work will stay but a few months ; others, who are dismissed when the season is over, will then seek fresh employment, often in service; and some will be taken into the houses of business as they become better workers. The important question in a home is to have a good matron, who will be able to have 2i6 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS viii command over the lodgers, and will observe with firm attention the rules, ahd who, whilst showing kindness to all, will be impartial and will side with none. The matron must also be a good housekeeper and accountant. Sometimes we get a quarrelsome or an hysterical girl, who upsets the whole com- munity, and the only course to pursue in such case is to get rid of the trouble- some lodger. Reference should always be obtained of the girl's character before admitting her into the home, though occasionally an exception should be made ; but to do so we need some experience, which will make us capable of judging of character. In one instance we were able to help a very pitiable case of destitution. A girl of about twenty had lodged in the home for one night, she had seemed dazed and yet had a refined look ; she had on a curious garment, originally some cotton wrapper, which gave her the appearance of a Chinese lady. She stayed but the one night. The matron was VIII HOMES FOR WORKING GIRLS 217 SO much struck by her look of sadness that on my coming to the home she spoke to me of the girl, and said she wished I had seen her before she had left, as she felt sure she was in some great distress. I managed to trace the girl, and when I saw her, heard her story, which was indeed a sorrowful one. In consequence of her brother, with whom she lived, not receiving his rents from a small and mortgaged property, the interest due was not paid, and the property was lost. The brother, who had taken a university degree, had not yet entered on his pro- fession, was earning nothing, and was left penniless. The brokers having been put into their house, they had left it with all they possessed. They had come to a lodg- ing in London, which they soon had to leave, as the sale of clothes and other small matters had not sufficed for more than a few days' rent, and for three days and nights the brother and sister had wandered homeless, spending the^^night on some EESITY 2i8 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS viii seat in the park, or on the embankment, with no hope or prospect of help. The advertisement of the Soho bazaar for situa- tions had caught their eye, and so they had turned there in hopes of employment, and by that means they had got a knowledge of our home. It is a great pity that the word home, as applied to institutions, has got so associated in the minds of people with a reformatory nature, that it causes many to doubt the character of the inmates of homes which are used as lodgings only for the respectable. It will sometimes happen that we get into our homes as lodgers girls of bad character ; for, unfortunately, every one has not that regard for truth which will prevent them from recommending a girl to better surroundings for the sake of lifting her up. From other homes, and from ladies, we have had untrue characters, and the place the girl may fill in a shop of even known respectability will not ensure her fitness to enter these homes. VIII HOMES FOR WORKING GIRLS 219 With a well-managed house and with over twenty lodgers the payments for the food, though at the low price of twopence halfpenny for breakfast and tea, sixpence for dinner, should cover the expense of housekeeping. I think it is essential that the matron should have her meals with the lodgers, and I would engage no one in such a capacity who required a different table or separate luxuries. It is at meal times especially that the matron can be of use to the girls, can direct the conver- sation, and make her own observations on the character and habits of her lodgers. When a home is established it will always take some time for it to fill, as it is so difficult in London to reach all those who may be wanting the help we are only too ready to proffer. Advertising may bring one or two ; but we must not rely on that, and it will not be for a year or more that the home will be known even in its own neighbourhood. We have had girls with many different occupa- tions in our home ; some few actresses have 220 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS viii Stayed there between their engagments ; girls have come from country towns to take lessons in dancing, to enable them to teach this art from their own homes ; but they have generally been dressmakers, milliners, and tailoresses. We have had governesses, foreigners, emigrants on their way to Australia ; we have had romances without end, both real and imaginary ; and if we were to tell of the variety in temperament and character the stories would be endless. A rnatron has to study character to be able to judge what is real or feigned, to see when extravagance of conduct is from temper or from insanity ; for the latter is often the cause of strange behaviour in girls, and we have had instances amongst our girls which, with careful treatment and removal, has restored the patient in time to health and sanity. If girls are subject to fits they must not be kept in homes of this kind, for sympathy with the sufferer should not make us forget how essen- tial is quiet and the night's rest for the worker. VIII HOMES FOR WORKING GIRLS 221 But in all these cases the doctor's advice should be had at once. Lodgers have often left to be married, and we must say that the sad picture of " Katherine Regina's " life in a boarding- house should not apply to the homes for our working girls. It is true they cannot bring their young men into the home, but they can often see them ; they can have walks together, and amongst the girls in the home they have amusements, music, singing, and danc- ing. The life for them is either happy or sad as the matron and the ladies who manage the home will make it. We have sometimes found that one or two disagreeable or quarrelsome girls were making the home miserable ; we have then asked them to leave, for there is no possibility of peace with those who are determined to be contrary. Often the girls will become jealous one of another, form violent attachments, and then disagree. For all these causes let us seek out as matron, a wise as well as a kindly woman. We have had very poor girls in 222 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS viii our home, as well as those who had money to spare ; and the poverty has never made a girl less liked — indeed many acts of kindness have been done by one to another. We have found it a good plan to say that those who did not like a sixpenny dinner might have a pennyworth of soup and bread or pudding for the same sum, so that none need be suffering from hunger whilst in the home. We have room for forty lodgers in Greek Street, and since we opened our home in 1884 we have had 768 inmates. We had about a hundred in the home during the first year. It takes time for a new place to be known. In several instances we have had girls brought to us as lodgers by their brothers, who were helping to keep them whilst they were learning a trade, generally the tailoring, in which work men and women can work together. Sometimes fathers have come up with their daughters to see the home they were placing them in ; most often the girls come themselves, and give their VIII HOMES FOR WORKING GIRLS 223 references, who are either called upon or written to. During last year a girl who was working close by, came in great distress to say she lived at Whitechapel, and was in such terror, owing to the murders there, that she begged to be taken in. On inquiring, her character proved to be excellent, and she came to us, and when her work ceased we got her into service, where she is doing well. This girl had been without father and mother since she was sixteen, and had lived alone and without friends in Whitechapel. Another girl, a buttonhole maker, whose home was at Camberwell, and who used to go to and fro to work, came to lodge in our home. She had good references ; but her poverty we found was very great ; in many ways she has been helped out of it, and has got better work. But in general our lodgers are in comfort- able circumstances, well-dressed, and having had good educations and good homes ; it is 224 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS viii only now and again that we get those to whom the entrance into the home will have been an entrance into a new life of pleasant surroundings before unknown. As we have many evening classes in the club, those in the home can join with the club members in the singing, the gymnastics, the lectures, the art needlework, or the Bible class, as also in the parties and entertain- ments. Many girls we know have been preserved from much danger whilst in London by living in the home, a great many have had excellent places found for them, either in business or in service. Some have married, one has gone as a missionary to Burmah, others have emi- grated, the lonely girl without a friend has become the valued and trusted servant, and some have become nurses in hospitals. But there must be, we grieve to say, the other side to the picture. Some have chosen and followed pleasure alone, and have yielded to temptation, and we know not where they are. VIII HOMES FOR WORKING GIRLS 225 The work of a home in which the lodgers will often change is not as satisfactory in some ways as the work of a club, for often when we get to know of the girl's difficulties, and are able to help her, it will only be to send her away from us to earn her living under more promising conditions. But some lodgers will again and again turn up, telling us that they keep always the pleasantest remem- brances of the months spent in our home. In many of our country towns a few beds for lodgers are available in the same house as the club, and we should recommend that in all instances in the country this should be done. The additional expense for mak- ing sleeping accommodation is small, and the advantage is very great for girls who may be unexpectedly homeless. The rent also from the lodgers will diminish the rent of the house, so that the club will be the gainer. I should recommend that the rooms used for the club should be well separated from the rooms used by the lodgers, Q 226 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS viii SO that no inconvenience should be felt by either one or the other. The payment asked for rent, must be suited to the earnings of the neighbourhood, and in the home itself we should modify the rent, if necessary, according to the circum- stances and earnings of the girls. The home IS intended by its supporters, to be a help to the working girl, so we may, after we have tested her desire to pay her way, reduce the rent, if we think it well to do so, in individual cases. The rent in different homes varies from one shilling to five shillings a week ; this covers all expense of washing bed -linen, lights, and fire, extras that are always charged for in ordinary lodgings. It is almost impossible for us to realise the loneliness of a girl in a large town who has no relations, no belongings of any sort or kind ; and yet we have met with many such girls, without father or mother, who have from fourteen years or older, been their own VIII HOMES FOR WORKING GIRLS 227 guardians, themselves the bread - winners, with no one over them whom they could turn to for help or advice. Do we not, when we meet such girls, who have walked unscathed through this furnace of trial and temptation — do we not silently lift up our hearts in praise to God, who has kept His children safe through so many dangers ? Self-reliance and fortitude are often the result of this loneliness, and yet they will turn with grateful love to the friend, whom they get to know through the kindly shelter of the home which they may have accidentally found. Overwork, and want of proper nourishment and care, will often produce delicacy or ill health ; then the pleasant country home will be found for the tired girl, or she will be placed under the tender care of nurses in the convalescent home. There is another excellent work that can be done in a home for business women, and that is the training of servants. We have always, in Greek Street, taken in girls to train 228 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS viii them for service. This was our idea when we first opened the home, and in the last year, some of the children we have trained have become our head servants, and the trainers of other young girls, and many good servants have been sent out from our home in Greek Street. There is always a great demand for good servants in small families where not many are kept. Those who can afford to give high wages, can of course easily get the best servants ; but a well trained servant, where two or three are kept, is difficult to find, and so a double work is done in a home, which is made use of as a training school. If every mistress of a household, who could afford this extra expense, would undertake the training of a girl, not in the place, but besides her other servants, she would be doing the best work possible, as she might every year be turning out a well- trained young girl fit for service. VIII HOMES FOR WORKING GIRLS 229 In a country house we know of this used to be the practice every winter ; the best school -girl was engaged for a couple of months at Christmas time, to wait upon the housemaids, who were then extra busy. During these few weeks, the girls got an insight into household work, which enabled them afterwards to get small places at villas in the neighbourhood, and a great number became in this way excellent servants. I know a lady who has carried on this training of girls for a great many years in a more extensive way in Ireland, and has always had girls in the laundry, the still- room, the dairy, and the kitchen, each for one or two years' training, and then places have been got for them. A list was kept of the girls who wished to come to the great house, and much good was thus done to the girls of the country round. There are homes for the purpose of training young servants, but it seems to me, as if teaching them in a family, under a good upper servant. 230 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS viii were a more natural way as well as a less costly one of making thorough servants, and if every mistress of a house would undertake such work, both servants and mistresses would be benefited. IX CONCLUSION We have now considered both the amuse- ments and the conditions of life of working girls. We have tried to show how clubs should be started and how they should be carried on. Have we also shown why it is so important that working girls' clubs should exist ? and why every effort should be made to make them succeed, and to multiply them indefinitely ? Year by year the social problems, become more startling, more difficult to solve ; none can shut their eyes to the evils that are in our midst. The strikes, the crimes of Whitechapel, the reports of the Sweating Committee, have in this last year brought 232 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix the sufferings of the working people more prominently than ever before us. We start back, we are aghast, when we know how in some neighbourhoods the poor live — how^ foul are their surroundings, how ugly and love- less are their lives. We are eager to raise them out of this condition ; we pass laws to improve their dwellings, we put our money into building schemes, we have sanitary organisations, paid and unpaid workers, we legislate to give parks to our townspeople, we preserve open spaces and commons for them, we give them holidays by Acts of Parliament, and by the work of thousands of men and women we make these holidays days of happiness, and healthy amusements to those, who perhaps, if left to themselves, would turn that beneficial Act to their own hurt, by making them days of riot and dis- sipation. We provide country holidays for children, we arrange foreign holiday tours for work- men ; by the Kyrle Society and many other CONCLUSION 233 individual efforts, we bring beauty into the homes of the working class, we teach them thrift by establishing saving banks, which we organise even in our elementary schools. We are always aiming at improving the education of the masses, we make it possible for the lowest to pass through the primary to the secondary education, we teach the adults by means of lectures within the reach of all. We enable all parishes at their own will to levy a rate, in order to establish free libraries, we look after the health of our population, and we establish by means of poor rates excellent hospitals for fevers, smallpox, and diphtheria, where the work- man gets as perfect treatment, and nursing, as could be given to any in the land. Countless other schemes are afloat, and a vast army of unpaid workers are gallantly doing their utmost to improve our over- grown population ; and yet we are never even abreast of the flood, that seems to be 234 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix always surging around us, of destitution and of suffering poverty. And will not all unite in saying that the chief cause of this perplexing difficulty is that of over -population ? And is not this evil mostly the result of early marriages ? That early marriages are habitual amongst the poorest class of workpeople, can easily be shown by statistics, and by registers. When we examine into cases of poverty and distress, and inquire into the date of marriage, do we not generally find that this life -long engagement was entered into on both sides, before either could in truth be called men or women ? What have these early marriages brought but poverty, and sickness, a multitude of children who grow up in conditions of disease and misery that must lower them in the social scale, and take from them all power of improvement ? Now if the root of the whole matter lies in over-population, and if we can show one way in which to stop this, shall we not have IX CONCLUSION 235 begun at the right end, and helped a Httle in this great work of ameliorating the condi- tion of our town populations ? And towards stopping these early marriages I am certain that no better way, nor any such effectual one can be found, as that of clubs for working girls and boys. Then is the time when the acquaintances are formed that slide into marriage, — the lad because it seems a smart thing to have his lass, the girl because she thinks she will have more freedom and have her own home. Love does not always enter into such marriages ; they are often only the result of the imperfect social conditions of the poor. When I started the club first this idea was not prominently before me, but experience has shown me what a complete work is this one of a girls' club, for not only does it, as we have found, raise the girl herself and give her happiness, but it affects the future genera- tion. The girl who has her club will not need the idle companionship of lads. She 236 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix will not want them, for she will have her girl friends, her interests, her occupations for leisure hours in her club, and marriage when it comes will find her, we cannot doubt, better prepared for its duties in experience, in health, and in capacity at twenty-six than at sixteen. We should not generalise unless we have sufficient data to go upon ; but will not the ex- perience of an acquaintance during ten years in our club of over a thousand girls, teach us something ? If we find that girls who con- tinue in the club get wiser as they get older, that they become more responsible, more capable, more thoughtful, and less eager for marriage, without some proper provision for the future, we may feel that this end at least has been accomplished, and that the lesson of provident forethought has been learned. At a very early age — at fourteen — the girl and the boy will generally contribute to the funds of the family. They cease to be children in one sense ; they become wage- earning people, and are important elements CONCLUSION 237 in the family life. The mother thinks that the food of the girl does not count for much in the weekly expenditure ; but she feels that the five shillings, seven shillings, or ten shillings a week is a large addition towards the rent and the next week's expenses. I have been much struck during my twenty years' acquaintance with working people in Soho, at the strong hold that the mothers generally have over their daughters, who hardly ever leave the home till they marry. But in some cases, the mothers pay no heed to the girls once they go out to work, afraid of driving them from home, and as we have shown, where no clubs are established, girls will too often saunter about the streets when work is over, with a saucy word, or a sharp retort, or a rude laugh at this boy and the next ; or a walk round, a look into the shop windows, a visit to the music hall, to the cheap theatres, sometimes loose ways, idle and foul talk, slow or rapid descent to . that sorrowful class of fallen 238 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix women. This will often be the lot of the lowest class. Now take girls of better bring- ing up. There will be the meeting with boys or young men when they are fifteen or sixteen ; when they are thinking only of amusement. No love has entered into their minds ; it is only the idle fancy of vacant moments. The casual meetings become daily ones, often they are wearied with one another, and yet they have drifted into a life of care and responsibility before they have even finished growing. The years since they left school have seen no growth, intellectually or morally. They are unfit to become wives, they are still more unfit to become mothers. This question of early marriage is re- marked upon by Judge Chalmers, who from the Bench has had this social question forced upon him : — Turning to the economical aspects of imprisonment for debt, I find the almost universal cause of the indebtedness and destitution of the poor is early and improvident marriage. About 90 per cent of the judgment summonses are against persons in the receipt CONCLUSION 239 of weekly wages ; and when a poor man gets into money troubles there is no need to say, Cheixhez la femme. If the town artisan would, like the majority of the more educated classes, refrain from " going into housekeeping " till he was thirty, his lot would be an exceedingly comfortable one. For ten years he would have been in receipt of his full wages, and he could have put by a good round sum to provide against a rainy day. When the defendant appears on a judgment summons I always inquire if he is married, and how many children he has to support. I find that more than 98 per cent of the judgment debtors are married. I have not kept the statistics of the number of their children, but one day I put down the figures in fifty consecutive cases. I found the fifty debtors had two hundred and fourteen children between them, that is to say, an average of four and a quarter a piece. What is a poor wretch with five children and twenty-two shillings a week to do ? Day after day I preach the same sermon to deaf ears. The defendant urges the number of his children as his reason for not paying his debts. Is it the plaintiff's fault, I ask him, that you have got seven children? Because you have seven children, is it any reason that the plaintiff should supply you with goods for nothing? Practically, however, I have to admit the validity of his excuse in the order I make. Not long ago a wretched- looking lad of twenty was summoned for a debt of two pounds. I asked him why he had not paid, and he replied that " All the children had been ill." It appeared that he had married at sixteen, and had three children. When I asked him what made him marry at that age his answer was : " Because I was out of work." He meant of 240 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix course that the girl was doing something, and he wanted to share her wages, not thinking of the consequences. Many and bitter, too, are the complaints which men make to me about their wives' extravagance. Day after day I hear the same story. The wife orders goods for the family ; when she has them she goes and pawns them or sells them to other women, and spends the money in drink or finery. The root of the evil lies in the reckless way in which the working classes marry. The experience of these disastrously early marriages amongst working people is not only that of Judge Chalmers, but of many of those who work in great towns and also in poor villages. It seems that where poverty is greatest there will be found the conditions of life that will increase and perpetuate that poverty, by bringing more and more children into the world, for whom the parents cannot possibly provide, because the wages they receive are insufficient to bring up large families decently. Will these wages ever be raised } We cannot tell, but it will be by raising our young men, and young women, that we shall CONCLUSION 241 make them see not only the folly but the sin of such improvidence. In Essex, where the wages throughout the whole year, except at harvest time, are never more than nine shillings a week, marriages are made as early as in the cases that Judge Chalmers writes about. The very poorest are those who are increasing and intensifying this evil of over-population. This cannot be cured by emigration, for our colonies do not want the half-fed under- sized labourers, that are the results of these poor and early marriages ; they can find no work, but that which will give them the miserable wages, on which their parents have brought them up. Now marriage is looked on very differently by various nations. An Irish labourer who had taken to himself a bride with no apparent means of keeping her, was asked by his em- ployer, '' Mike, why have you married when you had not enough to keep yourself, let alone a wife?" ''Well, sure," was the ready R 242 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix answer, ''for the bite and the sup the crater ates it's no' worth being without her." In Scotland, when visiting an old couple who had a middle-aged unmarried daughter and son living with them, we said, '' How is it that you are neither of you married?" *' Weel, sure, one had to stay and bide with father and mother, and as sister married I stayed here, and my brother could not have brought a wife in, there would be no room for bairns with the old folk ; he must wait awhile.'' What we have to do is to change the public opinion of girls and lads. It may seem a colossal work to change ideas with regard to marriage, but it is not impossible. Have we not seen a change in the views of marriage amongst girls of the educated and professional classes ? When they had no other employment but fancy work, tea parties, or walks on the parade, or in the park, what could they think of but flirtations and possible marriages ? Now the girl who has not the certainty of a permanent income, who knows CONCLUSION 243 she cannot expect to have the same home after her father's death, will set her mind to gain her own independence. It need no longer be by that one often monotonous work of teaching, for other employments are open to her: medicine at home or in India, clerkships in the Post-office, or in merchant houses, cashiers in houses of business, nursing which leads to matronships. All these occupations, and many more that are now opened to women, have given to those who must earn their living a different feeling with regard to marriage. Happier marriages will be made when the contract is not entered into by the girl merely to secure a home or a large establishment, and the work undertaken by those girls will make them, when marriage comes, far better wives than if they had had no training or experience of work. We have now to consider how we can create this feeling amongst the working girls and lads of our great towns. We can do so by giving them clubs, by 244 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix letting them see what life has in it besides mere larking folly. We should wish them to look on marriage as an ultimate object ; but we would wish them to be in no hurry, and to enjoy the unmarried life whilst it lasts, laying up stores of education and experience for that better state which we hope will be theirs some day. Some of our club members have been with us seven, eight, and nine years, and we can say with confidence that clubs will keep girls from reckless and improvident marriages. Most women would tell you that they look on these questions very differently at seventeen and at twenty -four, so if a girl will remain single till twenty-four she will be more likely to make a good choice, and not to take up with the first lad who strikes her fancy because he has asked her to walk out with him. Our girls have themselves told me that they consider this postponement of marriage as one of the best results of their club. CONCLUSION 245 I have for some years spoken to our girls about the young men with whom they kept company. This was suggested to me by a lady, who asked if I knew of the love affairs of the girls. At that time I had not often spoken to them of those matters, but I thought the observation a useful one to consider, and have since found that by talking of the young men, it puts the whole question on a natural and sympathetic footing. Foolish and vulgar jokes about young men are not made when they are considered and re- cognised as an important part in the girl's life. Many have been the stories I have been told, and in the lives of our girls are romances both joyful and sad. The following remarks on the use of our club from some of the members will . show their appreciation of our work : — I think it is a good thing to have a place which seems like home. I am speaking only of the club, for I know by experience that girls as a rule desire something besides going home every evening, and will not be satisfied or contented to stay there, as they ought to be. 246 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix All sorts of amusements are sought after, and many dangers are run by this search ; some seem to find amusement only in the company of young men, some in walking about the streets, others in dance rooms and theatres, some find amusement by singing at concert rooms, which I do not hold with at all, as I have known girls whom such practices have made rather bold. Often, too, it is rather dull when the parents are out to be at home, and, even if not dull, there is much more pleasure gained by going to a club of the right kind for a few hours every week. The mind is improved by the different classes, and by the use of a good library; and also it is good for the health to be jolly at times, for in a club with plenty of your own sex and of the same age, and with the help of ladies, there is a good chance of obtaining plenty of that sort of thing. For another reason I do think clubs are good things. Many girls are allowed after their day's work to be out until ten o'clock P.M. I have known some who would stay about in all sorts of weather rather than go in before their time. I think when we have a club to go to it teaches us to put away many foolish things, and to appreciate home more. For improving the mind I think no place can equal a club, for you only have to get enough girls to form a small class, and any subject desired will be taught. Most girls know how to read and write, but there are many interesting subjects to learn, besides those which are taught at the ordinary schools, and girls often do not care so much about learning in school days, but take a liking for it afterwards. CONCLUSION 247 I have now been a member of this club over seven years, and during that time I have not been going about with my eyes shut. I consider the different classes that are held here are of great benefit to us, taking, for instance, the night-school, which is such a capital chance for those young members who are obliged to leave school at thirteen to go to work ; here they may continue their studies, for one cannot learn too much in these days, and some girls who are the eldest of the family often have to stay at home to keep house, and mind the children, while their mothers go to work to help to support the increasing flock. What chance have they for learning when, as you may say, they have been little mothers from their infancy? To go to public night-schools they do not care about, so let them join the club and make acquaintance there with girls who, like themselves, have not had the advantage of learning, and who attend the classes. Depend upon it, they will find it a real pleasure. And the singing class — who amongst us does not like to learn pretty songs, to read the music correctly from notes ? What a pleasure it is to sing of nature, and of all those beautiful things which we find in her alone. Music and books lift us up out of our everyday life to that which is pure and sweet. Surely these must be called benefits, which every working girl of the present day may enjoy. I must not forget the gymnastic class, of which I am a member. This is a splendid exercise for girls and children. Most doctors recommend it as a boon to women. Then there is the art needlework class, which is such a pretty employment, besides being very useful, as it brings in money. Let a girl join such a club, and quite a little world is opened 248 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix to her. She leaves off running the streets, which so often bring disgrace and shame on her friends ; she mixes with girls who are superior to herself; they help to tone down her wild ways, and soon she will look back with disgust on her old bad habits, if ever she has fallen into any. I think it is one of the greatest boons that has been given to the working girl, to have such a pleasant, instructive, and recreative place to attend after her labour is finished for the day ; not that I think for one moment that work is labour, when hands and hearts are willing. Work is one of the greatest blessings we have when we are able to do it. I say to my friends that I should not know what to do with myself if there was not any club for me; you cannot always expect 'to keep a girl at home ; she gets dull, gloomy, and selfish, thinking of her own ills and hard life ; she wants change of scene and a little pleasure. At a club she learns to sympathise with her fellow-creatures, to think more of her friends, to look forward with pleasure of what she will do at the club in the evening, for there is always some class on. There are some stay-at-home girls of course, but the greater part care for pleasure. Many ladies and gentlemen play and sing for the girls in the evenings, give entertainments, invite us to their houses, where we mix with superior society ; they lift us up to their station, and treat us as their equals ; we go to their country houses, have holidays of three or four weeks in different parts of England ; and the only expense is the fare, although some ladies pay that for the girls. Could a girl not belonging to such an insti- tute get such advantages ? — No, many could not afford it. The club is managed by a committee, and do they CONCLUSION 249 help at all in promoting the work of the club ? or are they committee in name only? — I know that they do not hold much power, but it teaches them to help themselves, and not to depend entirely upon the council in providing amusement for the members. Another thing I must mention before concluding my rambling ideas on this subject. Girls belonging to such a place as this learn to help each other, to promote kindness all round. Mothers should feel very grateful that their daughters belong to a club ; it gives them less time to think of young men, and thus helps to save them from early marriages, that drag them so quickly into poverty, and into sorrow at the mistake which cannot then be altered. I am glad to say that each girl who has married from our club has been of an age to understand what she was about to undertake. I must come now to a full stop, or else this little paper will not get finished, and I have tried your patience too long, I fear. Volumes could be written of the same subject, of how a working girl is benefited by belonging to a club like the one in Soho. In years to come when the girls are married and they are worried with household cares and sick- ness, then will they look back with softened thoughts to the days when they were happy girls at the Soho club. It is more than three years since I first joined the club for working girls, and during that time I have spent many happy evenings there, and I have always found the club to be full of pleasant varieties. I suppose all who go to work know what it is to feel tired and fatigued 2 so CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix when the day is over, and it is very pleasant after such a day to be able to spend a few hours somewhere that has nothing to do with our workroom or shop. We find one great advantage in our club, that each night there is something different to be seen and heard. On Monday and Thursday nights there is the night- school for those who are eager to advance their education, and after the night-school is over there are many games of various descriptions for the girls' amusement, and these games have been sent to us by different ladies who take an interest in the club. On Tuesdays there is the singing class, taught by Miss Stanley, which has proved a great pleasure to those who are fond of singing. On Wednesday there is a class for needlework, and on Friday members may bring a friend to visit the club between nine and ten. No one is compelled to attend these classes unless they wish to do so. If they are inclined for reading, there are a number of books to suit all ages, and any night we may occupy ourselves with our needle or fancy work. We have had many very nice entertain- ments, consisting of songs, recitations, and theatrical pieces, given by the members of the club ; each member has been allowed to bring a friend, and we have always had the pleasure of seeing the room quite full. On several occasions ladies and gentlemen have been kind enough to come and entertain us with songs and lectures, and violin and pianoforte solos. And I could not tell to how many parties we have been invited, and what great pleasure and enjoyment they have always given to us. As well as these advantages there are others. Consider how many young girls the club must keep CONCLUSION 251 from the run of the streets, for many of our members attend regularly every night. Therefore it is a clear proof if there was no club they would most likely be walking about the streets, where there is no good whatever to be learned. One of the rules is that no girl can belong to the club unless recommended by a member, and then her home is visited by Miss Stanley or a lady of the council, so that we are sure to have all our members quite respectable, which makes it much more agreeable. But we cannot talk over the pleasures and enjoyments of our club without one thought as to how it is we have got this home-like place to go to, and we need only go as far as the door of the room to prove what it really is ; we can look round and see so many smiling faces, all intent on something, either their work, lessons, or games, and looking as if nothing troubled them. Can we compare it to anything better than to our own home ? And surely for all this, one and all owe great gratitude. . . . Many thanks are also due to all the ladies and gentle- men who have taken an interest in our club, not for- getting Mrs. Brewster, our kind superintendent. Clubs are, I think, for the improvement and refinement of girls in everyway, such as good manners, education; but above all for teaching girls to live good and pure lives. Girls can always find a true and sympathising friend at their clubs who will gladly help them out of any difficulty, and will give them good advice to help them on in the world. If a girl has a talent for singing or music it can be cultivated at the club. 252 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix We can see by these extracts, and we could give many more, what our work-girls think of the benefits they receive from belonging to a girls' club. A public feeling is created, a new sense of responsibility is aroused, they become members of a society, and they value the esteem and respect of those that surround them. They are no longer units, atoms without cohesion. Some objections are raised to girls' clubs, such as that it takes the girls away from home, and that home -life is destroyed. This is well answered by one of our girls, who talks of the girls never coming home till bedtime at ten. No ! unfortunately there is often no home-life in the crowded tenements of work- ing people. There is a home for them, and that a very precious one, where it exists, in the love for the father and mother, for the little ones. The pictures, the ornaments, the furniture, however poor, make up what is called the home of the London poor. But to expect that the tired work-girl will find CONCLUSION 253 refreshment and rest after her long day's work in the small and crowded room of the whole family is a mistake, a misconception of the way in which London girls are living. Another objection made is that it takes girls out of a night into the street. It will not take them out, for they are out already. Drive through Whitechapel, through that long Mile End road, and what do you see but countless numbers of girls walking of an evening on the broad pavement, for where else have they to go to rest themselves or to get fresh life for the next day's work ? But we see some clubs that do not appear to take root, or to succeed. What is the reason } Many things will cause failure ; the locality may be unsuitable, the ladies who work it may not be of the right sort, the rules may have done for another club, but may not suit this one, the discipline may be too lax, it may be too severe. Mixed clubs for lads and girls have been tried, and, as we might sup- pose, have been failures. No need to find 254 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS occasions for them to meet ! There is no lack of occasions, and the parents look with no favour on efforts made to bring them together. We want different occupations for boys and girls, different amusements, and the young man who may be keeping company with a young woman will be better pleased that she should have her club whilst he has his. He is glad to know that her leisure time when away from him is so well spent, and that she has the advantage of the kind com- panionship of ladies. The recreative evening classes that have been started are admirable in their idea, but the work should not rest there ; out of them should grow clubs, for the feeling of pos- session which the girl has in her club, of its *' belonging to her," is a powerful attraction. The club also is permanent ; it is for the girls alone, it is open every evening, for, as I have said before, any intermission is calamitous to the success. If for only three evenings a week the club is open, what is to be done CONCLUSION 255 the other evenings ? I do not say that when the club is open every night the girls will all be there perpetually, but they may wish to go the nights it is closed, and we know how difficult it is to suit ourselves to attend any place on any definite day or evening. Have we shown that by keeping working girls from early marriages we have conferred one of the greatest benefits on the class itself ? I hope we may have convinced some that this work is of great importance, and that it is one of a very far-spreading use, and that by its universal adoption we may do more for our generation than by any other scheme that has been thought of. Are we not striking at the root of the evil ? The acorn is sown, then the strong young tree is planted ; but unless it is sheltered and surrounded in its early days by the hardy firs, will not the sharp winds and the merciless storms wither up the tender shoots ? will not the growth be stopped and the young life killed ? If we feel keenly the inequalities of life, if we 256 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix sorrow for the sufferings, the privations, of the poor, we can be the protecting trees, we can shelter the young in our clubs from the cruel winds of temptation, when they have not yet learned how to be strong, and to resist evil. The growth of intellect, of morals, and of religion that we hope begins at school will not then be checked, for we shall have watered them and warmed them in the kindly sympathy of our love. If we are convinced that the work has to be done, is there any reason for delay ? Shall we put off to another time what we should begin to-day ? Every year a fresh statement is brought out, for the London School Board, of the places that will be wanted to meet the ever - increasing population. A thousand more places are wanted every year, and that means that each year a thousand additional boys and girls are enter- ing into manhood and womanhood, and are taking their place on this great theatre of life, either for good or for evil. And every well CONCLUSION 257 managed club that is established, will not only be of use in its own neighbourhood, but it will show others what can be done, it will give heart to others to do the same. Every club girl will be an influence in her own home. The words we have spoken to her will be carried on to others, and many homes will be made lovely, by the refine- ment and culture brought there by the club members. These pages were written to help those who wish to start clubs, but may we hope that the account we have given of working girls, most imperfect as it is, will yet put into the hearts of those who had not yet thought of what work they should take up, the desire * to help in some way in this national under- taking ? There are small things to be done as well as great ones in philanthropy, and the danger often is that the successful work alone takes hold of the imagination. It is expected that enthusiasm can overcome all difficulties ; s 258 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix the end is expected to be reached before the foundations are laid. The very young cannot accomplish what the more experienced are equal to, and the need for training is often lost sight of in philanthropic work. It is thought that any one can visit the poor, that any one can teach a Sunday class, or in a girls' club, and then it is too often found that teaching is not so easy, and disappoint- ment ensues. So let us advise those who are still young and wish to be of use to prepare themselves intellectually and men- tally for the work they wish to undertake. The reason that Sunday School teachers, as well as other voluntary teachers, sometimes fail in their attempts, may be that they have not prepared their lesson ; they think the teaching so elementary, that it has not been even worth looking over. No good teacher will do this, though he may have gone over the subject again and again, he will think it over before he comes to his class. At the Mild- CONCLUSION 259 may Deaconess Institution much preparation is made before any class is undertaken ; and we may conclude that their great success in getting together on a Sunday, classes of over sixty working men, is somewhat the result of this careful preparation. Women are often dissatisfied to find that the education they have received has not been such as enables them to work as well as men ; and that they cannot work with system or with method. They will often take up a project, but will find no interest in following it out. Let them not undertake more than can be fulfilled, and whatever outside work may be engaged in, it should not be done at the expense of home duties. A little arrange- ment, some system, much order, will double or treble the time we have at our command. From magazine articles, from the news- papers, the need for workers is being per- petually pointed out. Who can remain idle ! What strong words were addressed last year to society at large, by S. G. O., who has 26o CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix now passed to his rest after a long life of work. They were written in reference to the Whitechapel murders ; are they not worth recording ? — You of society, its upper classes, you the dwellers in all attainable luxury, the fortunate of the earth, let your rank be what it may, your wealth a tale of millions, the Godward life of many of you ever in evidence, or the Godless life not less so ; the established church of your nation proclaims in that solemn hour in which your own grave will open that these — the society labelled un- fortunates — are before the God to whom you have been taken, your sisters. Is the arm of the Lord shortened, or are the hands which assume to be those by whom He would have His deeds of mercy done, are they paralysed ? Have not the sociaHsts done some good to their generation, by repeating so often that work of one kind or another is expected from every one ? I should think there can be none in our country, who, though they may not agree with this dictum, have not heard it, and few can have helped asking them- selves, *'What am I doing for the good of the commonwealth ? " Some may say it is not easy to find work to do, ''I am so CONCLUSION 261 incapable, I have no talent, my work could be of use to none." Do not think this. The smallest work done in a single-minded spirit for another is of value ; there must be small beginnings, but above all things begin, and do let me enlist your sympathy, your energy, for girls' clubs. There are, we are thankful to say, so many established, that you can choose work in any part of London, and in many country towns. If you know no one con- nected with a girls' club write to any of the managers, even without knowing them. Many have written to me, and I have thus had valu- able help. Offer what service you can give, great or small, almost any can be made of use. Visits to the club, if you will spare one evening a week regularly, is the best way to help, but if that is not possible, occasional visits, either to talk or sing or play to the girls, or letters can be written to those whom you have learned to know. A few can be invited to tea, or to pay a visit in the country, and a dinner can be given occasionally to those 262 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix who are delicate. All may not have homes to which working girls can be asked, but many, like the poor dressmaker, or like the York- shire factory girls, might save up enough during the year to give a week or fort- nights country air. Flowers can be sent from the country, but no doubt my readers will imagine for themselves many works of kindness that they will offer to their poor and struggling sisters. And when these kind services are under- taken, when promises are made to visit the club, to teach, or to help in any way, do not let it be, as we might say, by an amateur, fitfully and uncertainly. One of the greatest difficulties in carrying out the work of clubs or classes, is that too often, those who under- take these duties voluntarily, will give up these engagements, perhaps without any notice, thus putting the one who is in charge of the club to great inconvenience, and cer- tainly not setting a good example to those they had intended to help. CONCLUSION 263 The disparity in the lot of human beings is so great, that it is appalling sometimes to think of our luxuries, of what is so essential to our comfort, what the poor cannot have, and what they must forego of the absolute necessaries of life. I do not say that they feel the need of many things which are to us all -important, and much would be intolerable to us that they do not mind. I was lately passing through a country town on a market day, and amongst other wares exposed for sale on the pavement were second-hand clothes ; these were looked at and handled approvingly by tidy-looking, but poor folk. Suddenly the thought came, what would it be to be doomed to be dressed in these cast-off garments ? and then came to me profound gratitude for possessions which had been before unheeded. Besides the help we can give to the girls themselves, can we not help the devoted workers in these clubs ? Think that the work is sometimes very uphill, the club does 264 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix not increase in numbers as they would wish, the girls who come are troublesome, are un- grateful, no stranger comes to give a look of approval or a word of encouragement. The heart fails the tired district visitor, who has devotedly added this* work of the club to her other generous labours. But the lady at the villa, the hall, the castle, asks the tired worker to visit her ; she hears of Mary's improvement, of Jane s misfortune, of Sally's new situation, and her kindly interest makes the wearied visitor bright again, and rekindles the enthusiasm that had waned only through lack of sympathy. Those who may read my small attempt to plead for girls' clubs, and for workers in them, may, by the circumstances of their lives, be quite unable to give any personal help them- selves, though I think we have pointed out a variety of ways of helping. They may have wealth, or without wealth they may have the means and power of giving some dona- tion, or subscription to girls' clubs. In CONCLUSION 265 November of this year a club has been opened at Liverpool, given entirely by one gentleman ; it has been built by him for a club that has worked on quietly for some years with few external helps in a poor part of the town. This new building, with its large club and class rooms, its baths and cooking, and washing rooms, will be a model to all England. In another case the splendid gift of ;^500 was given most generously by a gentleman to help to clear off a building debt on a girls' club. These are magnificent gifts, but even a few pounds, or indeed a few shillings, will often help the managers of a club, who are themselves not rich, to carry on their work more efficiently. It is interesting to watch how out of a small beginning work will extend. Some years ago a lady in a high position, who had all that this world could give her — a happy home and a devoted husband — felt that she would like to do something herself for the 266 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix women who toiled, whilst all things were smoothed to her, and life was made so easy. So she settled to make a bag of clothes and baby linen to lend to the poor women in their confinement, and a district visitor was asked to send any woman she knew, with a note, to this lady's house some time before the bag was wanted. When the baby is born the husband fetches the bag, and the housekeeper visits the mother and child, taking with her tea and sugar and such like gifts. Soon two bags were needed. Then the lady wished to give her women and children, as she calls them, a pleasure at Christmas, so a tea-party and Christmas tree were arranged for them. Next, days in the country in the summer time were planned, and all went off in vans to Hampstead or to Epping. Still the work seemed incomplete, and so a cottage close to the country house has been fitted up to receive the delicate children or the tired mothers of this large family. Does not the growth of this individual IX CONCLUSION 267 work show how the heart expands in love for the poor, and how ever fresh ways of helping wisely will be found by those who have set their hand to the plough ? There is now, we may call it, a feverish excitement to put the world right ; there is an impatience in the minds of many at sufferings continuing to exist, at the con- sciousness that, work as we may, fresh horrors of overcrowding, of miserable lives, and of incredible poverty, are for ever starting up, and making us feel that this world is, to some, but one long drawn- out wretchedness. This is true, but is it not also true that crime has diminished, that the pleasures of the working people have become more refined ? no longer is there only the brutalised sports of former days ; but institutes, polytechnics, and clubs attract those who formerly would only have found pleasure in the public-house or in the prize-fight. There is a remarkable diminution in 268 CLUBS FOR WORKING GIRLS ix juvenile crime, may we not say that is the result of the improved education, of the im- proved dwellings, and of the care we take of lads and girls ? Those who would better the poor- — the suffering poor, know now that mere almsgiving will not cure the evil; for if not done with judgment it will only be increased. We must know the facts of these social questions if we would remedy the distress of mankind ; and we must have a knowledge of where the evil is. Taking this view of the present need of the poor, that facts are wanted before the remedy can be propounded, does not this enhance the work of every humble district visitor, who by their quiet and unostentatious work help the politicians, the legislators, the philanthropists to devise remedies for this social condition of suffering and poverty that should not exist ? Those who are continuously working amongst the poor may be disappointed over and over again ; but they will go on CONCLUSION 269 in faith, believing that if they fail in their attempt to remedy much that is wrong, they have yet done something to lighten many a burden if they have been able to give kindly and helpful sympathy to the suffering. Sympathy is indeed the lever with which to make life's wheels run smoothly, and when we feel for the sorrows of others, we cannot rest till we have done something to lessen the load of trouble. By our well- directed efforts we can bring joy and happi- ness to the young, and in no way can we succeed so well in making happy girls, loving wives, and devoted and careful mothers, as by carrying on girls' clubs, through whose means we bring to them the highest educa- tion, morally, physically, and spiritually, that can be desired for working girls. 2.7/ APPENDIX - SOHO CLUB AND HOME 59 GREEK STREET, SOHO SQUARE LONDON, W. RULES AND NOTICES Lodgings for Young Women engaged in business, and students. Rent of Bedroom, including use of Sitting-rooms, is, with Gas, Fire, washing of Bed-linen and Towels, 3s. and 4s. a week, paid in advance. Teachers or Students coming to London to pass Examinations can be lodged at is. per night. Some Rooms at 5s., 6s. and 7s. each. Breakfast or Tea, 2 id. Dinner 6d. Supper 3d. Any one desiring Lodgings must obtain from the Matron the rules and a paper to be filled up with references. Dressmakers and Needlewomen can be recommended from the Home to go out to work in ladies' houses. Entrance Fee to the Club, is. Subscription, 2s. per quarter, payable in advance by all members over seventeen years after one quarter's membership. A fine of 2d. must be paid by members two weeks in arrears. Members under seventeen years may pay their Club fees sixpence at a time. 272 APPENDIX No Member more than two weeks in arrears can be allowed the use of the Club. The Card of Membership will not be given until a visit has been paid to the Candidate's home by one of the Council. The badge is given after one year's membership. On Wednesday and Friday evenings, members may bring in a friend or their mothers to see the Club, on mentioning it first to the Superintendent. A new member may be introduced to the Club by an existing member, by a member of the Council, or by the Superintendent ; but as some may wish to join our Club who do not know any of the members, we shall be glad if they will come in any evening and the rules will be given to them. No girl who has been a member of the Club and has left the Club, can be admitted by a friend at a Soiree, or on any evening meeting of the Club, except with the object of rejoining the Club. Each Lady of the Council will undertake the supervision of the Club for one month at a time, and will during that month visit new members and give them their cards of membership. CLUBS BELONGING TO THE GIRLS' CLUB UNION 1880 — Soho Club and Home for Working Girls, 59 Greek Street, Soho Square, London. Badge, Snowdrop. Secy., Hon. Maude Stanley, 40 Dover Street, W. 1865 — Arch Guild of St. Michael's and All Angels, St. Saviour's Priory, Great Cambridge Street, Hack- ney Road, London. Secretary, Sister Helen. 1880— Club and Working Girls' Home, All Hallows, Southwark, Surrey Row, Victoria Place. Sec- retary, Sister Superior, All Hallows' Mission, 127 Union Street, Borough, London, S.E. APPENDIX 273 1880 — St. Giles's Evening Club for Working Girls, 26 Great Russell Street (originally started in St. Ann's, Soho). Secretary^ Mrs. Edward Drummond. 1882 — Lily Club, 244 Harrow Road, London. Badge, Lilies of the Valley. Abstainers, Water Lilies. Secretary, Mrs. T. Gillilan. 1883 — St. Catherine's Rooms, Catholic Night-school, and Place of Recreation, 154 Brompton Road, S.W. Secretary, Miss Capes. 1883 — Girls' Club, 28 Commercial Street, Whitechapel, London. Secretary, Miss Agnes Gardiner. 1884 — Club for Working Girls, Cedars, Battersea, London. Badge, Star. Motto, "Hearts Upward." Secre- tary, Hon. Mrs. Adamson Parker, 60 Elm Park Gardens. 1884 — Arlington Girls' Club, 97 Arlington Road, Camden Town. Secretary, Miss M. B. Harrison. Badge, Daffodil. 1885— St. Luke's Girls' Club, 38 Newnham Street, Edgware Road. Secretary, Miss A. Gurney. 1885 — Girls' Guild of Good Life, Hoxton Hall, Hoxton, Secretary, Mrs. Rae, 7 Westop Villas, Canon- bury Street, N. 1886 — Chelsea Girls' Club, 5 Christchurch Street, Chelsea. Secretary, Mrs. Philip Daniell, 45 Beaufort Gardens, S.W. 1888 — Trinity Club and Home for Girls, 137 Camber well Road. President, Mrs. Arthur James. Super- intendent, Mrs. Bastoble. 1884 — Clerkenwell Girls' Club, 55 Compton Street, Clerken- well. Badge, Daisy. Secretary, Mrs. Moodey. 1888— St. Clements' Girls' Club, City Road. Secretary, Rev. Fr. Downman, Eagle Dwellings, City Road. T 274 APPENDIX 1889 — Holy Innocents' Girls' Club, 202 Goldhawk Road, Hammersmith. Secretary^ Sister in Charge. 1889 — Tottenham Girls' Club, Coleraine Hall, Poynton Road, N. Secretary^ Miss Alice Lewis. 1882 — St. James's Girls' Evening Home, St. James's Street, Nottingham. Secy.^ Miss Lynam, The Park, Notts. 1885 — Victoria Club, Heathcote Street, Nottingham. Secretaries^ Mrs. Brownswood and Mrs. Cowen. 1882 — York Street Girls' Club, Manchester. Secretary^ Miss Lakin, Barlow Moor Road, Didsbury, Manchester. 1887 — Girls' Evening Home, 32 Broughton Road, Green- gate, Salford. Secretaries^ Miss Farmer, Hope House, Eccles, and Miss Hewitt, 2 1 Leaf Square, Pendleton, Manchester. 1882 — Girls' Club, White Abbey, Bradford. Secretary^ Miss M. Wade, Oak Bank, Manningham, Brad- ford. 1885 — Girls' Club, 20 Chapel Street, Bradford. Secretaries^ Mrs. Hy. Muff and Miss Bottomley. 1886 — Springfield House Home and Club for Working Girls, White Abbey Road, Bradford. Secretary^ Mrs. Bentham, Springfield House, Bradford. 1885 — Sherborne Working Girls' Club. Secretary^ Mrs. E. M. Young, School-house, Sherborne, Dorset. 1886 — The Bedford Girls' Club. President^ Mrs. Ransom, 60 Tavistock Street, Bedford. 1886 — Bromley Working Girls' Club, 26 Simpson's Road, Bromley, Kent. Secretary^ Miss E. Benham, Amberley House, Bromley. 1887 — The James's Court Girls' Club, Edinburgh. Secretary^ Miss Jane Hay, Merchiston Avenue, Edinburgh. APPENDIX 275 OCCUPATIONS OF THE MEMBERS OF THE SOHO CLUB FOR WORKING GIRLS, AND LODGERS IN THE HOME. ■^Clerks. ■^Governesses. ■^Assistants in shops. ■^Dressmakers. ^Milliners. ■^Mantlemakers. "^Embroiderers. ■^Tailoresses. *Waistcoat makers. ■^Machinists. "^Shirt makers. ■^Cap makers. ■^Book-folders. ■^Book-keepers. ■^Ladies'-maids. Church Decorators. Hat makers. Lamp-shade makers. Upholstresses. Leather workers. Boot machinists. Bottle Cap makers. Ladies' Bag makers. Chair Caners. Packers. Shoe makers. Infant Boot makers. Stationers. Feather makers. Jewel polishers. Wig makers. Silk winders. Silver burnishers. Perfumers. Portmanteau makers. Card makers. Cigarette makers. Crosse and Blackwell's Jam factory. Blacklead works (Nixey's). In Service. Helping at Home. ■^ These are lodging in the Home and helong to the Club. 276 APPENDIX AGES OF THE MEMBERS IN THE SOHO CLUB, DECEMBER 1889 4 Members of 1 3 years of age 18 14 20 , 15 18 16 29 17 26 18 20 , , 19 24 , 20 9 , 21 62 , over „ 230 A badge in the form of a white metal brooch, with a snowdrop on it, and the words Soho Club, is given to members who have been one year in the Club ; after five years' membership, a pendant with a ball is added, and ten years' members have two balls. The brooches are made by Messrs. Lander and Rowe, 63 Newhall Street, Birmingham. The Girls' Club Union Magazine is published once a month, price one penny, sent post free for the year for two shillings. 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