Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished: A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure

“Yes, poor indeed!” responded Seaward. “The mother forsook her first; then her father took her on the tramp, but the little feet could not travel fast enough, so he got tired of her and offered her to a workhouse. They refused her, so the tramping was continued, and at last baby was sold for three shillings to a stranger man. On taking his purchase home, however, the man found that his wife was unwilling to receive her; he therefore sent poor little baby adrift in the streets of London!”

“What a shame!” cried Di, with flashing orbs.

“Was it not? But, when father and mother cast this little one off, the Lord cared for it. An inspector of police, who found it, took it to his wife, and she carried it to Miss Rye’s Home, where it was at once received and cared for, and, doubtless, this little foundling girl is now dwelling happily and usefully with a Canadian family.”

“How nice!” exclaimed Di, her eyes, lips, and teeth bearing eloquent witness to her satisfaction.

“But no doubt you have heard of Miss Rye’s work, as well as that of Miss Annie Macpherson at the Home of Industry, and, perhaps, contributed to—”

“No,” interrupted Sir Richard, quickly, “I do not contribute; but pray, Mr Seaward, are there other institutions of this sort in London?”

“Oh! yes, there are several, it would take me too long to go into the details of the various agencies we have for succouring the poor. There is, among others, The Church of England ‘Central Home for Waifs and Strays,’ with a ‘Receiving House’ for boys in Upper Clapton, and one for girls in East Dulwich, with the Archbishop of Canterbury for its President. Possibly you may have heard of the ‘Strangers’ Rest,’ in Saint George Street, Ratcliff Highway, where, as far as man can judge, great and permanent good is being constantly done to the souls of sailors. A sailor once entered this ‘Rest’ considerably the worse for drink. He was spoken to by Christian friends, and asked to sign the pledge. He did so, and has now been steadfast for years. Returning from a long voyage lately, he went to revisit the Rest, and there, at the Bible-class, prayed. Part of his prayer was— ‘God bless the Strangers’ Rest. O Lord, we thank Thee for this place, and we shall thank Thee to all eternity.’ This is a sample of the feeling with which the place is regarded by those who have received blessing there. In the same street, only a few doors from this Rest, is the ‘Sailor’s Welcome Home.’ This is more of a home than the other, for it furnishes lodging and unintoxicating refreshment, while its devoted soul-loving manager, Miss Child, and her assistant workers, go fearlessly into the very dens of iniquity, and do all they can to bring sailors to Jesus, and induce them to take the pledge against strong drink, in which work they are, through God’s blessing, wonderfully successful. These two missions work, as it were, into each other’s hands. In the ‘Rest’ are held prayer-meetings and Bible-classes, and when these are dismissed, the sailors find the open door of the ‘Welcome Home’ ready to receive them, and the inmates there seek to deepen the good influence that has been brought to bear at the meetings—and this in the midst of one of the very worst parts of London, where temptation to every species of evil is rampant, on the right-hand and on the left, before and behind.

“But, Sir Richard, although I say that a grand and extensive work of salvation to soul, body, and spirit is being done to thousands of men, and women, and children, by the agencies which I have mentioned, and by many similar agencies which I have not now time to mention, as well as by the band of City Missionaries to which I have the honour to belong, I would earnestly point out that these all put together only scratch the surface of the vast mass of corruption which has to be dealt with in this seething world of London, the population of which is, as you are aware, equal to that of all Scotland; and very specially would I remark that the work is almost exclusively carried on by the voluntary contributions of those who ‘consider the poor!’

“The little tract which I have given you will explain much of the details of this great work, as carried on in the George Yard Mission. When you have read that, if you desire it, I will call on you again. Meanwhile engagements compel me to take my leave.”

After luncheon, that day, Sir Richard drew his chair to the window, but instead of taking up the newspaper and recommending his little one to visit the nursery, he said:

“Come here, Di. You and I will examine this pamphlet—this little book—and I’ll try to explain it, for reports are usually very dry.”

Di looked innocently puzzled. “Should reports always be wet, papa?”

Sir Richard came nearer to the confines of a laugh than he had reached for a long time past.

“No, love—not exactly wet, but—hm—you shall hear. Draw the stool close to my knee and lay your head on it.”

With his large hand on the golden tresses, Sir Richard Brandon began to examine the record of work done in the George Yard Mission.

“What is this?” he said. “Toy Classes,—why, this must be something quite in your way, Di.”

“Oh yes, I’m sure of that, for I adore toys. Tell me about it.”

“These toy classes are for the cheerless and neglected,” said the knight, frowning in a businesslike way at the pamphlet. “Sometimes so many as eighty neglected little ones attend these classes. On one occasion, only one of these had boots on, which were very old, much too large, and both lefts. When they were seated, toys and scrap-books were lent to them. There were puzzles, and toy-bricks, and many other things which kept them quite happy for an hour. Of course the opportunity was seized to tell them about Jesus and His love. A blessed lesson which they would not have had a chance of learning at home—if they had homes; but many of them had none. When it was time to go they said—‘Can’t we stay longer?’

“The beginning of this class was interesting,” said Sir Richard, continuing to read. “The thought arose—‘gather in the most forlorn and wretched children; those who are seldom seen to smile, or heard to laugh; there are many such who require Christian sympathy.’ The thought was immediately acted on. A little barefooted ragged boy was sent into the streets to bring in the children. Soon there was a crowd round the school-door. The most miserable among the little ones were admitted. The proceedings commenced with prayer—then the toys were distributed, the dirty little hands became active, and the dirty little faces began to look happy. When the toys were gathered up, some could not be found, so, at the next meeting, some of the bigger children were set to watch the smaller ones. Presently one little detective said: ‘Please, teacher, Teddy’s got a horse in his pocket,’ and another said that Sally had an elephant in her pinafore! Occasion was thus found to show the evil of stealing, and teach the blessedness of honesty. They soon gave up pilfering, and they now play with the toys without desiring to take them away.”

“How nice!” said Di. “Go on, papa.”

“What can this be?” continued Sir Richard, quoting—“Wild Flowers of the Forest Day Nursery. Oh! I see—very good idea. I’ll not read it, Di, I’ll tell you about it. There are many poor widows, you must know, and women whose husbands are bad, who have no money to buy food and shelter for themselves and little ones except what they can earn each day. But some of these poor women have babies, and they can’t work, you know, with babies in their arms, neither can they leave the babies at home with no one to look after them, except, perhaps, little sisters or brothers not much older than themselves, so they take their babies to this Cradle-Home, and each pays only twopence, for which small sum her baby is taken in, washed, clothed, warmed, fed, and amused by kind nurses, who keep it till the mother returns from her work to get it back again. Isn’t that good?”

“Oh! yes,” assented Di, with all her heart.

“And I read here,” continued her father, “that thousands of the infants of the poor die every year because they have not enough food, or enough clothing to keep them warm.”

“Oh what a pity!” exclaimed Di, the tears of ready sympathy rushing hot into her upturned eyes.

“So you see,” continued Sir Richard, who had unconsciously, as it were, become a pleader for the poor, “if there were a great many nurseries of this kind all over London, a great many little lives would be saved.”

“And why are there not a great many nurseries of that kind, papa?”

“Well, I suppose, it is because there are no funds.”

“No what? papa.”

“Not enough of money, dear.”

“Oh! what a pity! I wish I had lots and lots of money, and then wouldn’t I have Cradle-Homes everywhere?”

Sir Richard, knowing that he had “lots and lots” of money, but had not hitherto contributed one farthing to the object under consideration, thought it best to change the subject by going on with the George Yard Record.

But we will not conduct the reader through it all—interesting though the subject certainly is. Suffice it to say that he found the account classed under several heads. Under “Feeding the Hungry,” for instance, he learned that many poor children are entirely without food, sometimes, for a whole day, so that only two courses are open to them—to steal food and become criminals, or drift into sickness and die. From which fate many hundreds are annually rescued by timely aid at George Yard, the supplies for which are sent by liberal-minded Christians in all ranks of life—from Mr Crackaby with his 150 pounds a year, up through Mr Brisbane and his class to the present Earl of Shaftesbury—who, by the way, has taken a deep interest and lent able support to this particular Mission for more than a quarter of a century. But the name of Sir Richard Brandon did not appear on the roll of contributors. He had not studied the “lower orders” much, except from a politico-economical-argumentative after-dinner-port-winey point of view.

Under the head of “Clothing necessitous Children,” he found that some of the little ones presented themselves at the school-door in such a net-work of rags, probably infected, as to be unfit even for a Ragged School. They were therefore taken in, had their garments destroyed, and were supplied with new clothes. Also, that about 1000 children between the ages of three and fourteen years were connected with the Institution—scattered among the various works of usefulness conducted for the young.

Under “Work among Lads,” he found that those big boys whom one sees idling about corners of streets, fancying themselves men, smoking with obvious dislike and pretended pleasure, and on the highroad to the jail and the gallows—that those boys were enticed into classes opened for carpentry, turning, fretwork, and other attractive industrial pursuits—including even printing, at a press supplied by Lord Shaftesbury. This, in connection with evening classes for reading, writing, and arithmetic—the whole leading up to the grand object and aim of all—the salvation of souls.

Under other heads he found that outcast boys were received, sheltered, sent to Industrial Homes, or returned to friends and parents; that temperance meetings were held, and drunkards, male and female, sought out, prayed for, lovingly reasoned with, and reclaimed from this perhaps the greatest curse of the land; that Juvenile Bands of Hope were formed, on the ground of prevention being better than cure; that lodging-houses, where the poorest of the poor, and the lowest of the low do congregate, were visited, and the gospel proclaimed to ears that were deaf to nearly every good influence; that mothers’ meetings were held—one of them at that old headquarters of sin, the “Black Horse,” where counsel and sympathy were mingled with a Clothing Club and a Bible-woman; that there were a Working Men’s Benefit Society, Bible-Classes, Sunday-School, a Sewing-Class, a Mutual Labour Loan Society, a Shelter for Homeless Girls, a library, an Invalid Children’s Dinner, a bath-room and lavatory, a Flower Mission, and—hear it, ye who fancy that a penny stands very low in the scale of financial littleness—a Farthing Bank! All this free—conducted by an unpaid band of considerably over a hundred Christian workers, male and female—and leavening the foundations of society, without which, and similar missions, there would be very few leavening influences at all, and the superstructure of society would stand a pretty fair chance of being burst up or blown to atoms—though the superstructure is not very willing to believe the fact!

In addition to all this, Sir Richard learned, to his great amazement, that the Jews won’t light their fires on the Sabbath-day—that is, on our Saturday—that they won’t even poke it, and that this abstinence is the immediate cause of a source of revenue to the un-Jewish poor, whom the Jews hire to light and poke their fires for them.

And, lastly, Sir Richard Brandon learned that Mr George Holland, who had managed that mission for more than quarter of a century, was resolved, in the strength of the Lord, to seek out the lost and rescue the perishing, even though he, Sir Richard, and all who resembled him, should refuse to aid by tongue or hand in the glorious work of rescuing the poor from sin and its consequences.

Chapter Ten.

Balls, Bobby, Sir Richard, and Giles appear on the Stage

As from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step, so, from the dining-room to the kitchen there is but a stair. Let us descend the stair and learn that while Sir Richard was expounding the subject of “the poor” to little Di, Mr Balls, the butler, was engaged on the same subject in the servants’ hall.

“I cannot tell you,” said Balls, “what a impression the sight o’ these poor people made on me.”

“La! Mr Balls,” said the cook, who was not unacquainted with low life in London, having herself been born within sound of Bow-Bells, “you’ve got no occasion to worrit yourself about it. It ’as never bin different.”

“That makes it all the worse, cook,” returned Balls, standing with his back to the fireplace and his legs wide apart; “if it was only a temporary depression in trade, or the repeal of the corn laws that did it, one could stand it, but to think that such a state of things always goes on is something fearful. You know I’m a country-bred man myself, and ain’t used to the town, or to such awful sights of squalor. It almost made me weep, I do assure you. One room that I looked into had a mother and two children in it, and I declare to you that the little boy was going about stark naked, and his sister was only just a slight degree better.”

“P’raps they was goin’ to bed,” suggested Mrs Screwbury.

“No, nurse, they wasn’t; they was playing about evidently in their usual costume—for that evenin’ at least. I would not have believed it if I had not seen it. And the mother was so tattered and draggled and dirty—which, also, was the room.”

“Was that in the court where the Frogs live?” asked Jessie Summers.

“It was, and a dreadful court too—shocking!”

“By the way, Mr Balls,” asked the cook, “is there any chance o’ that brat of a boy Bobby, as they call him, coming here? I can’t think why master has offered to take such a creeter into his service.”

“No, cook, there is no chance. I forgot to tell you about that little matter. The boy was here yesterday and he refused—absolutely declined a splendid offer.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” returned the cook.