SECTION 1.—A SLUM CRUSADE.—OUR SLUM SISTERS

SECTION 1.—A SLUM CRUSADE.—OUR SLUM SISTERS.

When Professor Huxley lived as a medical officer in the East of London he acquired a knowledge of the actual condition of the life of many of its populace which led him long afterwards to declare that the surroundings of the savages of New Guinea were much more conducive to the leading of a decent human existence than those in which many of the East-Enders live. Alas, it is not only in London that such lairs exist in which the savages of civilisation lurk and breed. All the great towns in both the Old World and the New have their slums, in which huddle together, in festering and verminous filth, men, women, and children. They correspond to the lepers who thronged the lazar houses of the Middle Ages.

As in those days St. Francis of Assissi and the heroic band of saints who gathered under his orders were wont to go and lodge with the lepers at the city gates, so the devoted souls who have enlisted in the Salvation Army take up their quarters in the heart of the worst slums. But whereas the Friars were men, our Slum Brigade is composed of women. I have a hundred of them under my orders, young women for the most part, quartered all of them in outposts in the heart of the Devil's country. Most of them are the children of the poor who have known hardship from their youth up. Some are ladies born and bred, who have not been afraid to exchange the comfort of a West End drawing-room for service among the vilest of the vile, and a residence in small and fetid rooms whose walls were infested with vermin. They live the life of the Crucified for the sake of the men and women for whom He lived and died. They form one of the branches of the activity of the Army upon which I dwell with deepest sympathy. They are at the front; they are at close quarters with the enemy. To the dwellers in decent homes who occupy cushioned pews in fashionable churches there is something strange and quaint in the language they hear read from the Bible, language which habitually refers to the Devil as an actual personality, and to the struggle against sin and uncleanness as if it were a hand to hand death wrestle with the legions of Hell. To our little sisters who dwell in an atmosphere heavy with curses, among people sodden with drink, in quarters where sin and uncleanness are universal, all these Biblical sayings are as real as the quotations of yesterday's price of Consols are to a City man. They dwell in the midst of Hell, and in their daily warfare with a hundred devils it seems incredible to them that anyone can doubt the existence of either one or the other.

The Slum Sister is what her name implies, the Sister of the Slum. They go forth in Apostolic fashion, two-and-two living in a couple of the same kind of dens or rooms as are occupied by the people themselves, differing only in the cleanliness and order, and the few articles of furniture which they contain. Here they live all the year round, visiting the sick, looking after the children, showing the women how to keep themselves and their homes decent, often discharging the sick mother's duties themselves; cultivating peace, advocating temperance, counselling in temporalities, and ceaselessly preaching the religion of Jesus Christ to the Outcasts of Society.

I do not like to speak of their work. Words fail me, and what I say is so unworthy the theme. I prefer to quote two descriptions by Journalists who have seen these girls at work in the field. The first is taken from a long article which Julia Hayes Percy contributed to the New York World, describing a visit paid by her to the slum quarters of the Salvation Army in Cherry Hill Alleys, in the Whitechapel of New York.

Twenty-four hours in the slums—just a night and a day— yet into them were crowded such revelations of misery, depravity, and degradation as having once been gazed upon life can never be the same afterwards. Around and above his blighted neighbourhood flows the tide of active, prosperous life. Men and women travel past in street cars by the Elevated Railroad and across the bridge, and take no thought of its wretchedness, of the criminals bred there, and of the disease engendered by its foulness. It is a fearful menace to the public health, both moral and physical, yet the multitude is as heedless of danger as the peasant who makes his house and plants green vineyards and olives above Vesuvian fires. We are almost as careless and quite as unknowing as we pass the bridge in the late afternoon. Our immediate destination is the Salvation Army Barracks in Washington Street, and we are going finally to the Salvation Officers—two young women—who have been dwelling and doing a noble mission work for months in one of the worst corners of New York's most wretched quarter. These Officers are not living under the aegis of the Army, however. The blue bordered flag is furled out of sight, the uniforms and poke bonnets are laid away, and there are no drums or tambourines. "The banner over them is love" of their fellow-creatures among whom they dwell upon an equal plane of poverty, wearing no better clothes than the rest, eating coarse and scanty food, and sleeping upon hard cots or upon the floor. Their lives are consecrated to God's service among the poor of the earth. One is a woman in the early prime of vigorous life, the other a girl of eighteen. The elder of these devoted women is awaiting us at the barracks to be our guide to Slumdom. She is tall, slender, and clad in a coarse brown gown, mended with patches. A big gingham apron, artistically rent in several places, is tied about her waist. She wears on old plaid woollen shawl and an ancient brown straw hat. Her dress indicates extreme poverty, her face denotes perfect peace. "This is Em," says Mrs. Ballington Booth, and after this introduction we sally forth.

More and more wretched grows the district as we penetrate further Em pauses before a dirty, broken, smoke-dimmed window, through which in a dingy room are seen a party of roughs, dark-looking men, drinking and squabbling at a table. "They are our neighbours in the front." We enter the hall-way and proceed to the rear room. It is tiny, but clean and warm. A fire burns on the little cracked stove, which stands up bravely on three legs, with a brick eking out its support at the fourth corner. A tin lamp stands on the table, half-a-dozen chairs, one of which has arms, but must have renounced its rockers long ago, and a packing box, upon which we deposit our shawls, constitute the furniture. Opening from this is a small dark bedroom, with one cot made up and another folded against the wall. Against a door, which must communicate with the front room, in which we saw the disagreeable-looking men sitting, is a wooden table for the hand-basin. A small trunk and a barrel of clothing complete the inventory.

Em's sister in the slum work gives us a sweet shy welcome. She is a Swedish girl, with the fair complexion and crisp, bright hair peculiar to the Scandinavian blonde-type. Her head reminds me of a Grenze that hangs in the Louvre, with its low knot of rippling hair, which fluffs out from her brow and frames a dear little face with soft childish outlines, a nez retrousse, a tiny mouth, like a crushed pink rose, and wistful blue eyes. This girl has been a Salvationist for two years. During that time she has learned to speak, read, and write English, while she has constantly laboured among the poor and wretched. The house where we find ourselves was formerly notorious as one of the worst in the Cherry Hill district. It has been the scene of some memorable crimes, and among them that of the Chinaman who slew his Irish wife, after the manner of "Jack the Ripper," on the staircase leading to the second floor. A notable change has taken place in the tenement since Mattie and Em have lived there, and their gentle influence is making itself felt in the neighbouring houses as well. It is nearly eight o'clock when we sally forth. Each of us carries a handful of printed slips bearing a text of Scripture and a few words of warning to lead the better life.

"These furnish an excuse for entering places where otherwise we could not go," explains Em.

After arranging a rendezvous, we separate. Mattie and Liz go off in one direction, and Em and I in another. From this our progress seems like a descent into Tartarus. Em pauses before a miserable-looking saloon, pushes open the low, swinging door, and we go in. It is a low-ceiled room, dingy with dirt, dim with the smoke, nauseating with the fumes of sour beer and vile liquor. A sloppy bar extends along one side, and opposite is a long table, with indescribable viands littered over it, interspersed with empty glasses, battered hats, and cigar stumps. A motley crowd of men and women jostle in the narrow space. Em speaks to the soberest looking of the lot. He listens to her words, others crowd about. Many accept the slips we offer, and gradually as the throng separates to make way, we gain the further end of the apartment. Em's serious, sweet, saint-like face I follow like a star. All sense of fear slips from me, and a great pity fills my soul as I look upon the various types of wretchedness.

As the night wears on, the whole apartment seems to wake up. Every house is alight; the narrow sidewalks and filthy streets are full of people. Miserable little children, with sin-stamped faces, dart about like rats; little ones who ought to be in their cribs shift for themselves, and sleep on cellar doors and areas, and under carts; a few vendors are abroad with their wares, but the most of the traffic going on is of a different description. Along Water Street are women conspicuously dressed in gaudy colours. Their heavily-painted faces are bloated or pinched; they shiver in the raw night air. Liz speaks to one, who replies that she would like to talk, but dare not, and as she says this an old hag comes to the door and cries: "Get along; don't hinder her work! During the evening a man to whom Em has been talking has told her: —"You ought to join the Salvation Army; they are the only good women who, bother us down here. I don't want to lead that sort of life; but I must go where it is light and warm and clean after working all day, and there isn't any place but this to come to" exclaimed the man. "You will appreciate the plea to-morrow when you see how the people live," Em says, as we turn our steps toward the tenement room, which seems like an oasis of peace and purity after the howling desert we have been wandering in. Em and Mattie brew some oatmeal gruel, and being chilled and faint we enjoyed a cup of it. Liz and I share a cot in the outer room. We are just going to sleep when agonised cries ring out through the night; then the tones of a woman's voice pleading pitifully reach our ears. We are unable to distinguish her words, but the sound is heart-rending. It comes from one of those dreadful Water Street houses, and we all feel that a tragedy is taking place. There is a sound of crashing blows and then silence.

It is customary in the slums to leave the house door open perpetually, which is convenient for tramps, who creep into the hall-ways to sleep at night, thereby saving the few pence it costs to occupy a "spot" in the cheap lodging houses. Em and Mat keep the corridor without their room beautifully clean, and so it has become an especial favourite stamping ground for these vagrants. We were told this when Mattie locked and bolted the door and then tied the keys and the door-handle together. So we understand why there are shuffling steps along the corridor, bumping against the panels of the door, and heavily breathing without during the long hours of the night.

All day Em and Mat have been toiling among their neighbours, and the night before last they sat up with a dying woman. They are worn out and sleep heavily. Liz and I lie awake and wait for the coming of the morning; we are too oppressed by what we have seen and heard to talk.

In the morning Liz and I peep over into the rear houses where we heard those dreadful shrieks in the night. There is no sign of life, but we discover enough filth to breed diphtheria and typhoid throughout a large section. In the area below our window there are several inches of stagnant water, in which is heaped a mass of old shoes, cabbage heads, garbage, rotten wood, bones, rags and refuse, and a few dead rats. We understand now why Em keeps her room full of disinfectants. She tells us that she dare not make any appeal to the sanitary authorities, either on behalf of their own or any other dwelling, for fear of antagonizing the people, who consider such officials as their natural enemies.