Part 6

The strongest argument against the positive existence of ghosts, is, that they appear only to people of a certain temperament, and under certain exciting circumstances. The obtuse, matter-of-fact man, never sees a ghost; and we may take it as a natural law, that none of these airy visitants ever appeared to an attorney. But the attorney, Mr. Fee Simple, we are assured, holds Saturday to be an unlucky day. It was on a Saturday that his extortionate bill in poor Mr. G.’s case, was cut down by the taxing master; and it was on a Saturday that a certain heavy bill was duly honoured, upon which he had hoped to reap a large sum in the shape of costs. Therefore Mr. Fee Simple believes that the destinies have put a black mark against Saturday, so far as he is concerned.

The Jew who thought that the thunder-storm was the consequence of his having eaten a slice of bacon, did not present a more ludicrous picture, than Mr. Fee Simple presents with his condemned Saturday.

We have an esteem for ghost-inspectors, which it is utterly impossible to extend to Day-fatalists. Mrs. Piptoss, too, may be pitied; but Mog, turning her money when the moon makes her re-appearance, is an object of ridicule. We shall neither be astonished, nor express condolence, if the present, which Miss Caroline anticipates from the knot in her lace, be not forthcoming; and as for Miss Amelia, who has extinguished the candle, and to the best of her belief lost her husband for a twelvemonth, we can only wish for her, that when she is married, her lord and master will shake her faith in the prophetic power of snuffers. But of all the superstitions that have survived to the present time, and are to be found in force among people of education and a thoughtful habit, Day-fatalism is the most general, as it is the most unfounded and preposterous. It is a superstition, however, in which many great and powerful thinkers have shared, and by which they have been guided; it owes much of its present influence to this fact; but reason, Christianity, and all we have comprehended of the great scheme of which we form part, alike tend to demonstrate its absurdity, and utter want of all foundation.

A LETTER ABOUT SMALL BEGINNINGS.

SIR,—Fortunate mistakes are by no means uncommon. In your number seventeen you fall into an error in reference to the Westminster Ragged Dormitory; in the correction of which I have the good fortune to be able to give you some interesting information. You stated that the particular institution there alluded to was founded by Mr. Walker, the city missionary—that was the error. The credit is due, and should have been given to Mr. C. Nash, who was formerly a schoolmaster, employed by Mr. Walker to teach a ragged school which that gentleman had established before “Ragged Schools” had received their appropriate designation and wide popularity.

The tact, management, and energy displayed by Mr. Nash in forming and establishing the St. Ann Street dormitory deserve every praise; but the ground was in some measure prepared for him by his former principal. The manner in which this was done shows “the power of small beginnings,” even in a stronger light than was exhibited in your article with that title.[3]

Footnote 3:

At page 407.

In the year 1840 it became my duty to enquire into the condition of what are but too literally the outcasts of society; and for that purpose obtained introductions to several city missionaries—adequate description of the scenes of harrowing want, disease, and crime into which those gentlemen introduced me, it would be impossible to pen. They alone seemed able to penetrate the dark moral atmosphere. They were always welcomed even by the poorest and the worst.

As one specimen of the efforts made by the Westminster missionaries, I was introduced to a dilapidated shed in New Pye Street. Here I found several young children of both sexes, in rags, and some nearly naked. The scene was most grotesque; the clotted hair, the mud-covered hands and faces, and the haggard countenances, at once told a tale which would have pierced the coldest heart. They were being taught reading and needlework. They were not particularly orderly and some showed a quaint, pantomimic, half-witted disposition to be funny, which pained rather than amused the spectator. Most of them were the sons and daughters of thieves. The small beginning which gave rise to the general idea of Ragged Dormitories took rise in an event for which I can vouch.

The missionary who had formed this school was standing one day, in 1846, at its door, when two adult thieves appealed to him in behalf of a wretched boy who had, they said, been cruelly maltreated and kicked out of doors by his mother, because his day’s prowl for the purpose of thieving had been unsuccessful. “Why do you not take pity on him yourselves?”—asked the missionary. “Why!”—one of them answered,—“why, if you knew what a thief’s life is as well as we do; you would not train a dog to thieving.” It must have been, thought the missionary, a desperate case which could have so forcibly excited the sympathies of two hardened depredators; and he determined to see into it. He soon found the boy; and his condition was too debased for any description which would not excite loathing. Having made the lad decent, he took him to the model lodging-house in Great Peter Street, benevolently commenced and mainly supported by Lord Kinnaird. The boy was kept there for four months; supported three out of the four solely out of the missionary’s slender private funds.

This circumstance forced on his attention the necessity of providing shelter for such juvenile outcasts, and he drew up an appeal to certain benevolent persons to that effect. The secretary of the Ragged School Union immediately promised that if the missionary would find house room, he would find funds. A house was taken in Old Pye Street, which was soon afterwards opened as the Westminster Juvenile Refuge and School of Industry. This establishment was afterwards removed to Duck Lane, where it now flourishes, under a roof which formerly covered a Thieves’ public-house. The transformation is thus described by the gentleman who made it, in a pamphlet now before me:—

“Indulge me for a moment,” he says, “with a glance at the old public-house, (now The Refuge!) Let us look in at the upper room—(now the girls’ school). Here were fifty youths met around their master (as able a one in his calling as England could produce), listening with undivided attention to his instructions on the ‘map,’—(a pair of trowsers suspended from the ceiling)—on the subject of ‘fob-ology,’ or pocket-picking. After this course of tuition, the next was the mock trial—an imitation of the Old Bailey Court, with a _fac-simile_ of its functionaries and ordeal, done with very great taste, and calculated to make the young rascal not only expert in extracting from the fob or pocket, but clever in defence. To train the young novice in his first essay, he was supplied with a glass, below in the tap—(now the dining-room of the children). If successful, then he returned for the purpose of reporting his success, and having a game at skittles in the skittle ground—(now the boys’ school-room.)”

A concise calculation of the respective expenses entailed on the country, in the same house, under its former and present destiny, may here be made. When it was a finishing-school for thieves, each, on conviction and transportation, cost the community not less than one hundred and fifty pounds. Comparing fifty thieves in the upper room with the fifty pupils now in the lower room, we find that, for the first fifty the cost was five thousand five hundred pounds; for the present fifty, two hundred and fifty pounds. Had the five thousand five hundred pounds been used for the preventing instead of the punishing of crime, what would not have been accomplished for these neglected mortals? It would have educated eleven hundred youths, many of whom would not only have been rescued from vice and crime, but have become a blessing instead of a curse to society.

What I have described, then, is the true origin of the class of institutions to which that founded by Mr. Nash belongs.

The Duck Lane Ragged School and Dormitory averages at present a daily attendance of two hundred and twenty children of both sexes, forty have no fathers, twenty eight have no mothers, eighteen are orphans, six of the fathers have been transported. Provision is made for ten who are totally destitute; they are fed and lodged on the premises; twenty-four thieves and vagrants have been admitted during the year, and many more refused for want of support; eleven have emigrated, three have been provided with situations in this country; some of those have spent three, five, seven, and ten years in a course of crime; who have gone forth from this Institution after a moral and an industrial training, and are now doing well.

Three of the emigrants have given an account of themselves in the following joint epistle to Mr. Walker, their benefactor. It is so characteristic that we print it almost literally:—

“_B——, July 18th 1850._ “Mr. Walker,

“Dear Sir,—You may wonder how it is that you have not heard from us before, but as they that came from Mr. Nash, was going to write, they promised Mr. Cain that they would acquaint you of our safe arrival. We left Gravesend on the Sunday morning, and sailed out for the great depths of the Atlantic, which gave us some _great shakes_ before we got to our journey’s end. The vessel proved to be in but a sorry condition for passengers, there being hardly any dry berths on board, and ours the worst of the whole lot, Mr. Cain and Churn got another berth aft, and Fred and me had to take to the sails room aft where we stopt during the remainder of the voyage. We had four deaths on board, two babies, one old lady, and one of the poor sailors who fell from the fore top across the windlass, which killed him instantly. We made the passage in about five weeks and five days, as we arrived at New York on the 17th of May. We found it to be a place quite different to our likeing, and so we left it and proceeded up the country without anything in our pockets, for we were determined not to be discouraged, though in a strange land, for we knew that we had the same eye watching over us here as we had in England so we pushed on, on board of a canal boat that was going to Buffalo, but stopping about 2½ Miles from the Town of B—— on account of a breakage in the canal, we took the opportunity to look round the Town for work and was fortunate enough to fall into work, the three of us. Fred is learning the harness making, as he did not much care about learning the shoemaking over again, as me and Churn has to do, for the work here is as different to what we had been accustomed to as light from darkness. I do scarcely anything but upper leathers, with now and then a pair or two of Boy’s Boots which I make here in about three hours, being all pegged work, as for closing you must not take a day to close one pair, but must do 16 or 18 pair a day, and 6 or 8 pair of what you call Wellingtons. So you will see by this that it is no use coming over unless you mean to work in downright ernest, for they think of nothing but of making money, up at ½ past 4 four in the morning, begin work at five and keep on till seven in the evening, and no time allowed for your meals but eat away as fast as you like and then back again to work, our breakfast here beats all the dinners in England, for theres roast and boil meats, pies, puddings, cakes, salids, tea, coffee, bread and butter which latter article comes on at all meals. We had grand doings here on the fourth of July, in anniversary of their Independence fireworks, Bonfires, Circus, shows, firemen going round all the City with the engines decorated out with flowers which look very pretty. The President of the united States died at Washington on the tenth of this month of Billious Diarrhoæ, he is to be buried on Friday the 12th. Twenty years ago this Town was nothing but a low swampy mass of Land, with but one house on it, now it is a flourishing place with twenty thousand inhabitants, its rise is owing to a salt spring about 2 miles off where they make vast quantities of salt, indeed it is one of the chief trades here it employs about three thousand hands all the summer, but they do not work at it in the winter, their weekly earnings are from 4 to 5 Dollars that is 1 pound English. It is very hard work I can tell you, in this country were the thermometer is never much less than 100 during the summer, where they have got to stand over large Furnaces, attending to the boiling of the salt. I do not think that I shall rest contended over here longer than a few years, for a man earns not a fraction more here than he does in England, the only difference is, that he works more hours here than he does there and consequently he is glad to get home to rest himself, instead of fooling his money away at the pothouse, and then some of the things are rather cheaper here, and as I told you before they only think of getting money. I shall write and let you know more about it when I have been over some time longer, I shall then I guess know more about the place. You can tell the others if they come over that I should advise them to push up a little higher in the country than stop in New York as it is far better, and tell them that they need not mind having any money for they will not starve over here for we found the people very kind to us here not like they are in England. You must excuse this funny letter, as it is the work of several evenings, and therefore it may read curious, for I have felt rather unsettled as yet being among strangers, but I will write you another shortly, when I feel more at home, and will give you a further description of the place, so you must excuse all faults. Timothy Case left his place in New York, for what reason I do not know further than that he said he only was going there till we came that he might go with us, as he felt sure when I saw New York that I should not stop in it, and that if we would not go with him, he should then have gone by himself. I felt very vexed with him at leaving, and tried to persuade to stop but it was no use, so Fred and me took him under our care and got our boss to take him where he is now learning the harness making. I guess he will get about 20 Dollars a year he being hardly an inch taller than he was at home. When you return an answer direct to me at Mr. Apples Boot and Shoe Store 8 Empire Block B—— Onoydaga County State of New York. They don’t say streets, but call them Blocks, and they _guess_ they don’t _think_ here so I suppose that I shall get a regular Yankee in time. It is tremendous hot here now, and I feel it so when at work very much. Tell Mr. Slade that I will write him a letter _soon_. I get 2_s._ 6_d._ english money a week or 30 Dollars a year of this, board lodging and washing which is pretty fair wages here for boys, learning pegged work, the general pay being 15 or 18 dollars a year, but as we had learned the other work our boss gave us thirty, (boss here is what they call the Master in England) Fred and Churn gets the same wages, as me, you must give all our best loves and wishes to all the School children, and we hope that they will all value their learning, which they will find will be a blessing and comfort to them hereafter. You can tell them that I often think of them when I sit at work and that I almost fancy that I am in the old shop once more hearing their voices as they say their lessons showing how strong fancy leads us back again to old familiar scenes, I hope that God will bless and prosper them all in this life, and that he will take them to his everlasting home is the fervent prayer of John Jones. Give our love to all kind friends at home, for so I am bound to call it, and receive the same yourself with Mrs. W—— and Harriet.

“From yours ever affectionate pupils, “J. J., J. H. C., and F. J.”

Before reception into the Duck Lane School, all these boys had been thieves. J. J. had lived by plunder for seven years; J. H. C. had been a thief from early childhood; and F. J. from the age of five years.

* * * * *

_On the 20th inst. will be published, price 5s. 6d., neatly bound in Cloth_,

THE FIRST VOLUME OF “HOUSEHOLD WORDS,”

_Containing Numbers 1 to 26_.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page Changed from Changed to

581 her with a curtesy, and thought her with a curtsey, and thought how pleased how pleased

● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Renumbered footnotes. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● The caret (^) is used to indicate superscript, whether applied to a single character (as in 2^d) or to an entire expression (as in 1^{st}).