SECTION 1.—FOOD AND SHELTER FOR EVERY MAN

SECTION 1.—FOOD AND SHELTER FOR EVERY MAN.

As I rode through Canada and the United States some three years ago, I was greatly impressed with the superabundance of food which I saw at every turn. Oh, how I longed that the poor starving people, and the hungry children of the East of London and of other centres of our destitute populations, should come into the midst of this abundance, but as it appeared impossible for me to take them to it, I secretly resolved that I would endeavour to bring some of it to them. I am thankful to say that I have already been able to do so on a small scale, and hope to accomplish it ere long on a much vaster one.

With this view, the first Cheap Food Depot was opened in the East of London two and a half years ago. This has been followed by others, and we have now three establishments: others are being arranged for.

Since the commencement in 1888, we have supplied over three and a half million meals. Some idea can be formed of the extent to which these Food and Shelter Depots have already struck their roots into the strata of Society which it is proposed to benefit, by the following figures, which give the quantities of food sold during the year at our Food Depots.

            Article Weight Measure Remarks
               Soup ……… 116,400 gallons
              Bread 192.5 tons 106,964 4-lb loaves
                Tea 2.5 tons 46,980 gallons
             Coffee 15 cwt. 13,949 gallons
              Cocoa 6 tons 29,229 gallons
              Sugar 25 tons ………………… 300 bags
           Potatoes 140 tons ………………… 2,800 bags
              Flour 18 tons ………………… 180 sacks
           Peaflour 28.5 tons ………………… 288 sacks
            Oatmeal 3.5 tons ………………… 36 sacks
               Rice 12 tons ………………… 120 sacks
              Beans 12 tons ………………… 240 sacks
Onions and parsnips 12 tons ………………… 240 sacks
                Jam 9 tons ………………… 2,880 jars
          Marmalade 6 tons ………………… 1,920 jars
               Meat 15 tons …………………
               Milk ………. 14,300 quarts

This includes returns from three Food Depots and five Shelters. I propose to multiply their number, to develop their usefulness, and to make them the threshold of the whole Scheme. Those who have already visited our Depots will understand exactly what th is means. The majority, however, of the readers of these pages have not done so, and for them it is necessary to explain what they are.

At each of our Depots, which can be seen by anybody that cares to take the trouble to visit them, there are two departments, one dealing with food, the other with shelter. Of these both are worked together and minister to the same individuals. Many come for food who do not come for shelter, although most of those who come for shelter also come for food, which is sold on terms to cover, as nearly as possible, the cost price and working expenses of the establishment. In this our Food Depots differ from the ordinary soup kitchens.

There is no gratuitous distribution of victuals. The following is our
Price List: —

For a child

Soup Per Basin 1/4d
Soup With Bread 1/2d
Coffee or Cocoa per cup 1/4d
Coffee or Cocoa With Bread and Jam 1/2d

For adults

Soup .. .. .. Per Basin 1/2d
Soup .. .. .. With Bread 1d
Potatoes .. .. .. .. .. 1/2d
Cabbage .. .. .. .. .. 1/2d
Haricot Beans .. .. .. .. 1/2d
Boiled Jam Pudding .. .. .. 1/2d
Boiled Plum Pudding .. .. Each 1d
Rice .. .. .. .. .. .. 1/2d
Baked Plum .. .. .. .. 1/2d
Baked Jam Roll .. .. .. .. 1/2d
Meat Pudding and Potatoes .. .. 3d
Corned Beef .. .. .. .. 2d
Corned Mutton .. .. .. .. 2d
Coffee per cup 1/2d; per mug 1d
Cocoa per cup 1/2d; per mug 1d
Tea per cup 1/2d; per mug 1d
Bread & Butter, Jam or Marmalade per slice 1/2d

Soup in own Jugs, 1d per Quart. Ready at 10 a.m.

A certain discretionary power is vested in the Officers in charge of the Depot, and they can in very urgent cases give relief, but the rule is for the food to be paid for, and the financial results show that working expenses are just about covered.

These Cheap Food Depots I have no doubt have been and are or great service to numbers of hungry starving men, women, and children, at the prices just named, which must be within the reach of all, except the absolutely penniless; but it is the Shelter that I regard as the most useful feature in this part of our undertaking, for if anything is to be done to get hold of those who use the Depot, some more favourable opportunity must be afforded than is offered by the mere coming into the food store to get, perhaps, only a basin of soup. This part of the Scheme I propose to extend very considerably.

Suppose that you are a casual in the streets of London, homeless, friendless, weary with looking for work all day and finding none. Night comes on. Where are you to go? You have perhaps only a few coppers, or it may be, a few shillings, left of the rapidly dwindling store of your little capital. You shrink from sleeping in the open air; you equally shrink from going to the fourpenny Dosshouse where, in the midst of strange and ribald company, you may be robbed of the remnant of the money still in your possession. While at a loss as to what to do, someone who sees you suggests that you should go to our Shelter. You cannot, of course, go to the Casual Ward of the Workhouse as long as you have any money in your possession. You come along to one of our Shelters. On entering you pay fourpence, and are free of the establishment for the night. You can come in early or late. The company begins to assemble about five o'clock in the afternoon. In the women's Shelter you find that many come much earlier and sit sewing, reading or chatting in the sparely furnished but well warmed room from the early hours of the afternoon until bedtime.

You come in, and you get a large pot of coffee, tea, or cocoa, and a hunk of bread. You can go into the wash-house, where you can have a wash with plenty of warm water, and soap and towels free. Then after having washed and eaten you can make yourself comfortable. You can write letters to your friends, if you have any friends to write to, or you can read, or you can sit quietly and do nothing. At eight o'clock the Shelter is tolerably full, and then begins what we consider to be the indispensable feature of the whole concern. Two or three hundred men in the men's Shelter, or as many women in the women's Shelter, are collected together, most of them strange to each other, in a large room. They are all wretchedly poor—what are you to do with them? This is what we do with them.

We hold a rousing Salvation meeting. The Officer in charge of the Depot, assisted by detachments from the Training Homes, conducts a jovial free-and-easy social evening. The girls have their banjos and their tambourines, and for a couple of hours you have as lively a meeting as you will find in London. There is prayer, short and to the point; there are addresses, some delivered by the leaders of the meeting, but the most of them the testimonies of those who have been saved at previous meetings, and who, rising in their seats, tell their companions their experiences. Strange experiences they often are of those who have been down in the very bottomless depths of sin and vice and misery, but who have found at last firm footing on which to stand, and who are, as they say in all sincerity, "as happy as the day is long." There is a joviality and a genuine good feeling at some of these meetings which is refreshing to the soul. There are all sorts and conditions of men; casuals, gaol birds, Out-of-Works, who have come there for the first time, and who find men who last week or last month were even as they themselves are now—still poor but rejoicing in a sense of brotherhood and a consciousness of their being no longer outcasts and forlorn in this wide world. There are men who have at last seen revive before them a hope of escaping from that dreadful vortex, into which their sins and misfortunes had drawn them, and being restored to those comforts that they had feared so long were gone for ever; nay, of rising to live a true and Godly life. These tell their mates how this has come about, and urge all who hear them to try for themselves and see whether it is not a good and happy thing to be soundly saved. In the intervals of testimony—and these testimonies, as every one will bear me witness who has ever attended any of our meetings, are not long, sanctimonious lackadaisical speeches, but simple confessions of individual experience—there are bursts of hearty melody. The conductor of the meeting will start up a verse or two of a hymn illustrative of the experiences mentioned by the last speaker, or one of the girls from the Training Home will sing a solo, accompanying herself on her instrument, while all join in a rattling and rollicking chorus.

There is no compulsion upon anyone of our dossers to take part in this meeting; they do not need to come in until it is over; but as a simple matter of fact they do come in. Any night between eight and ten o'clock you will find these people sitting there, listening to the exhortations and taking part in the singing, many of them, no doubt, unsympathetic enough, but nevertheless preferring to be present with the music and the warmth, mildly stirred, if only by curiosity, as the various testimonies are delivered.

Sometimes these testimonies are enough to rouse the most cynical of observers. We had at one of our shelters the captain of an ocean steamer, who had sunk to the depths of destitution through strong drink. He came in there one night utterly desperate and was taken in hand by our people—and with us taking in hand is no mere phrase, for at the close of our meetings our officers go from seat to seat, and if they see anyone who shows signs of being affected by the speeches or the singing, at once sit down beside him and begin to labour with him for the salvation of his soul. By this means they are able to get hold of the men and to know exactly where the difficulty lies, what the trouble is, and if they do nothing else, at least succeed in convincing them that there is someone who cares for their soul and would do what he could to lend them a helping hand.

The captain of whom I was speaking was got hold of in this way. He was deeply impressed, and was induced to abandon once and for all his habits of intemperance. From that meeting he went an altered man. He regained his position in the merchant service, and twelve months afterwards astonished us all by appearing in the uniform of a captain of a large ocean steamer, to testify to those who were there how low he had been, how utterly he had lost all hold on Society and all hope of the future, when, fortunately led to the Shelter, he found friends, counsel, and salvation, and from that time had never rested until he had regained the position which he had forfeited by his intemperance.

The meeting over, the singing girls go back to the Training Home, and the men prepare for bed. Our sleeping arrangements are somewhat primitive; we do not provide feather beds, and when you go into our dormitories, you will be surprised to find the floor covered by what look like an endless array of packing cases. These are our beds, and each of them forms a cubicle. There is a mattress laid on the floor, and over the mattress a leather apron, which is all the bedclothes that we find it possible to provide. The men undress, each by the side of his packing box, and go to sleep under their leather covering. The dormitory is warmed with hot water pipes to a temperature of 60 degrees, and there has never been any complaint of lack of warmth on the part of those who use the Shelter. The leather can be kept perfectly clean, and the mattresses, covered with American cloth, are carefully inspected every day, so that no stray specimen of vermin may be left in the place. The men turn in about ten o'clock and sleep until six. We have never any disturbances of any kind in the Shelters. We have provided accommodation now for several thousand of the most helplessly broken-down men in London, criminals many of them, mendicants, tramps, those who are among the filth and offscouring of all things; but such is the influence that is established by the meeting and the moral ascendancy of our officers themselves, that we have never had a fight on the premises, and very seldom do we ever hear an oath or an obscene word. Sometimes there has been trouble outside the Shelter, when men insisted upon coming in drunk or were otherwise violent; but once let them come to the Shelter, and get into the swing of the concern, and we have no trouble with them. In the morning they get up and have their breakfast and, after a short service, go off their various ways. We find that we can do this, that is to say, we can provide coffee and bread for breakfast and for supper, and a shake-down on the floor in the packing-boxes I have described in a warm dormitory for fourpence a head.