Read Ebook: Ragged Homes and How to Mend Them by Bayly Mrs Mary

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INTRODUCTORY.

"Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less and more."

WORDSWORTH.

We not unfrequently hear people speak of life in such a way as would lead us to suppose that there had been some mistake as to the date of their birth. Had they come a little earlier or a little later, it would have been different; but the present seems to afford them no object of interest. They complain of intolerable dulness, the weariness of life; and in watching the cheerless, the objectless existence of such people, we wonder that it is recorded of only a single individual, that one morning he shot himself, for the reason assigned on a slip of paper which he had left on the dressing-table--"I am tired of living only to breakfast, dine, and sup."

I have often thought, when listening to such complaints, of the prayer of Elisha for his unbelieving servant, "Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see;" and if the Lord would do for them as He did for this servant, and open their eyes--not to see "mountains full of horses and chariots of fire" waiting to deliver them--but alleys, and lanes, and villages, full of the needy and the sick, waiting for loving hearts and kind hands to come and help them to rise from their degradation, wretchedness, and filth,--the strain would be changed; and, in the contemplation of such a vast amount of labour, followed by such rich reward, we should rather expect to hear, if it must still be the language of complaint:--

"O wretched yet inevitable spite Of our short span! and we must yield our breath, And wrap us in the lazy coil of death; So much remaining of unproved delight!"

There are many indications in the present day that the fields are "white unto harvest." Several things, that were looked upon some years ago as experiments, have been so eminently successful, that no unprejudiced mind can doubt that they are the means which God has blessed, and by which He intends to accomplish a great work of reformation in this country. It was a glorious sight at St Martin's Hall, on the 2d of March, when 567 young persons came forward to claim the prize for having remained a twelvemonth in a situation; and, were it not for the strictness of the rules, excluding all apprentices, requiring a written character from a master or mistress, it was stated that as many as 1500 would have been present. All these had been rescued from well-nigh certain destruction by the Ragged School, and had there received the education which qualified them to take these situations. There must have been joy in the presence of the angels of God that night, as they witnessed these rescued ones sitting together, and listening eagerly to words by which their souls might live; and which, if the prayers of many there were answered, would prepare them to receive an incorruptible prize, that can never fade away.

One of the most interesting discoveries of the past few years has been, that the humblest instead of the grandest agency is required to accomplish this work which the wisest heads have found so difficult. A little sketch of the early history of one of God's most successful agents will shew that "His thoughts are not as our thoughts;" for it would not have entered into the heart of man to have suggested such a preparation for usefulness. "A drunken father, who broke her mother's heart, had brought a young girl of fifteen, gradually down, down from the privileges of a respectable station, to dwell in a low lodging-house in St Giles's. The father died shortly afterwards, and left her, and a sister five years of age, orphans in the midst of pollution, which they, as by miracle, escaped; often sitting on the stairs or door-step all night, to avoid what was to be seen within. An old man, the fellow-lodger of the children, and kind-hearted, though an Atheist, had taught the elder to write a little, but bade her never read the Bible, since it was full of lies; and that she had only to look around her in St Giles's, and she might see that there was no God. She had learned to read and knit from looking continually at the shop-windows. She married at eighteen years of age her present husband, and for the first time in her young memory knew the meaning of that blessed word, 'home;' although the home was but a room, changed from time to time in the same neighbourhood. After many years of considerable suffering, from loss of children, ill-health, and other calamities, she took shelter one rainy night in an alley which led up to a little Mission Hall in Dudley Street. She entered, and heard it announced that books would be lent, on the next evening, from a newly-formed library for the poor at that place. Going early, she was the first claimant of the promise. She had intended to borrow Uncle Tom's Cabin; but a strong impulse came over her, which she could not resist--it was as if she had heard it whispered, 'Do not borrow Uncle Tom; borrow a Bible.' So she asked for a Bible. 'A Bible, my good woman?' was the missionary's reply. 'We did not mean to lend Bibles from this library; but wait, I will fetch you one. It is a token for good that the Book of God, the best of books, should be the first one asked for and lent from this place.' He brought her the Bible, and asked if he should call, and read a chapter with her. She said respectfully, 'No, sir, thank you; we are very quiet folk, my husband might not like it. I will take the book, and read it for myself.' The Lord's time was come. His message then first entered her house, and went straight to her heart. The Divine Spirit applied the Word with power; and the arrow of conviction was ere long driven home by suffering and affliction.

"A severe illness laid her prostrate, and to this hour she feels--in a way that we who help her in her work cannot feel--what is meant by sickness and poverty coming together."

My acquaintance with the poor began very early. My father's house stood alone, surrounded by beautiful lawns, wood, and water. Our nearest neighbours were the poor people in a village about five minutes' walk from our home; most of them were simple labouring people, and as children we were trusted to go amongst them without much superintendence from our elders. Our dear mother often employed us on errands of mercy to them; and as soon as we could read well enough, we were sometimes sent to cheer the solitary hours of some poor invalid by reading to him. Our relations to each other were so kindly and pleasant, that we always met with a hearty welcome; and for years, I believe, I knew something about the interior of every cottage in the place. I remember even then feeling astonished at the wretched management I saw, especially with regard to children; and as we did not live in any fear of one another, I sometimes took upon myself to remark to the "gudewife" that so-and-so was never done at home. All this was taken in good part: the reply was generally a laugh, and "Law, my dear, poor people's children isn't like gentlefolk's;" or if my observations extended to cooking or house-cleaning, it was, "Law, bless you, you doesn't know anything about that; gentlefolks never does." Notwithstanding all these rebukes, I still thought over these things; and have thought over them, to a greater or less extent, ever since; and the result is, the deliberate conviction that so long as the wives and mothers of the poor continue such as we generally find them, we cannot look for any very great improvement in their social position.

I have known many women, under thirty years of age, with six or eight children, so totally unqualified for almost everything which they had to do, that I have wondered how they managed to exist at all. I am now, of course, speaking of those below the class from which we usually obtain our domestic servants; and amongst this class, more unfit than any other for life's solemn duties, the earliest marriages are contracted, apparently without any idea that at least as much preparation is needed as is deemed necessary for breaking stones on the road.

If a lady feels herself unequal to the management of her family, she can call in the aid of nurses, governesses, and schools; and thus her defects may in some measure be made up by assistance from without. But who or what is to step in between the poor mother and her children? If she cannot train them during the first few years of infancy, they remain untrained; and not only are the wise man's words proved true, that "a child left to itself bringeth its mother to shame," but it is found that the multiplication of these families thus left to themselves, bringeth a nation to shame. When we look honestly at things as they are, we have no right to be much surprised at such a result: it is unreasonable to expect to reap what has never been sown. Seven years of careful training is not thought too much for those who are to be employed in the making of our shoes, our coats, or in the building of our houses. The education of the men of this country is generally, from a very early age, adapted to their future employment. Hence, as might be expected, there is no lack of clever artisans, who have indeed a higher character for cleverness than for goodness. But the girl, who is to grow up to exercise an influence upon persons more than upon things, is left to scramble on as best she can, generally content to do as badly as those who have preceded her; and yet, in the words of one who has thought and written much upon the subject--"It is to the poor man's wife that we must chiefly look, when we indulge the hope of reducing that frightful amount of crime which, with all our inventions, discoveries, and improvements, sometimes awakens a fear that we may not really be in so prosperous a condition, socially and nationally, as our rapid progress in what is called civilisation would lead a superficial observer to suppose."

I have never yet been able to see how schools, or any system of national education, could meet this difficulty. That we should be much worse than we are without them, there cannot be a doubt. Our beautiful Infant Schools especially, that shelter these little ones so many hours a day from the sight and the sound of evil, call for a special thanksgiving to God. To no class of people in this country are we more indebted than to those high-minded Christian teachers who, with infinite patience and self-denial, manage to infuse into their teaching such freshness, purity, and wondrous adaptation, that many a little rebel is through them brought back to allegiance. The preparation for life that boys likewise require can, to some considerable extent, be supplied from without; but to girls, whose education is valuable in proportion as it prepares them for domestic duties, nothing can ever compensate for the absence of home-training. The question then arises, considering that nineteen girls out of twenty do not receive a proper home-training, what is the best substitute for it? Until some remedy for so great an evil can be found, this misery and misfortune must continue. I do not pretend to answer this question satisfactorily; I rather wish to obtain for it the attention of wiser and clearer heads, believing that nothing can, at the present time, exceed it in importance. The few suggestions I have to make are very simple, and cannot be considered comprehensive enough to meet such a widely extended evil. If we were to see seven people struggling in the water, and could only save one from drowning, we could not plead as an excuse for neglecting to help that one, our inability to rescue the six. In like manner, we must use the little light that is given to us, trusting that, as we advance, more light will be granted.

That which we propose to substitute should resemble, as nearly as possible, the home-training which we find to be so sadly deficient. These poor girls require friends who will supply to them the place of mothers. Much has been said and written about ladies devoting their leisure time to the poor, and there is no doubt that much more good might be done by them in this way than is done; but the work we refer to demands something far beyond the occasional call, the book lent, and the garment cut out.

There are so many points of difference between the child reared in the mansions of the wealthy, and the uncared-for, friendless infant picked out of the streets and alleys, that it is not strange if they should have few thoughts in common. It is true there is in some hearts, as in that of Elizabeth Fry, a sympathy strong enough to extend itself to everything with which it comes in contact. The moral power of such natures is very great: they are one of God's best gifts to this fallen world, yet not the most common. In devising schemes of improvement, we cannot therefore rely upon the powerful assistance which they give; nor must we take it for granted that our plans will be worked out by their aid. Probably, the best suggestion that has been offered hitherto, is made by the writer of "The Book and its Mission," who proposes that some of the best of the poor women, superintended by ladies, should be employed as missionaries; and that each missionary should be the mistress of a house, into which a number of homeless girls might be received on payment of a small weekly sum. Here, under motherly training, they might be fitted for their future duties.

The Marian above alluded to, soon after the commencement of her work in St Giles's, says:--"I long to lift poor young girls, from twelve to eighteen years of age, out of the horrors of those overcrowded rooms; and how glad I should be to take a house and make a dormitory for them by themselves! I know forty who would come to me at once, and pay threepence a night each: they could well afford it, and it would take the money from those dancing-rooms and casinos to which they flock to their ruin. What new thoughts I might put into their minds in the evening! How I might read the Bible with them! and some of them might help me in my other work. There is no provision of the sort for the class I mean; and they are those who most want it. Such a change would be to them the beginning of a new life; and there are perhaps five thousand of those girls always growing up in St Giles's."

But how inadequate, some will say, are these means to meet so extensive an evil! To provide for forty out of five thousand is of little avail. So it, indeed, appears if we look merely on the surface of this great subject. But it must never be forgotten that, every individual is a centre of influence. It is a proverb that "one sickly sheep infects the flock," but happily this law of infection is not always on the side of evil; and, I believe, the force of example is stronger in the class to which I am now referring, than amongst the reading and thinking people in a higher grade of society. "I thought he was right, at first," a lady once said to me, "but when I sat down by the fire quietly in the evening with my Bible, and listened to the voice within, as well as to the teaching of the Word, I then saw it all in a different light; and I resolved more firmly than I had ever done before that God should be my guide, and not man."

But we are not speaking of the few who sit quietly by their fireside in the evening to weigh the actions of the day in the balance of truth; we refer to the multitude whose rule of conduct is summed up in the words--"Follow my leader." True, they do not always follow the same leader; and the defection of a comrade will cause them to halt. Yet, after a time, they are found walking behind another guide. They are contented even if he choose the old path. But whether old or new, they cannot advance without guidance. To such accustomed only to "move altogether if they move at all," we would commend the great truth that God can work by and for the few as well as for the many; that He is often content with small beginnings where we should have expected mighty achievements. This lesson we learn from our Saviour's teaching.

He often spoke to large audiences; but He never refrained because His listeners were few. What minister charged with such a message as, "Whosoever drinketh the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life," would have told it for the first time to a poor sinful woman whom he met by the way-side? Would he not rather have reasoned that his church must be unusually full before such a wonderful message could be delivered? Surely many "masters of Israel" should have been present to hear the answer to the question that has vexed and troubled the Church in all ages, as to where and how the Father was to be worshipped. But no; the same wondering woman, standing with her water-pitcher in her hand, was taught that neither exclusively "in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem" was the Father to be worshipped, but that "the true worshippers worship the Father in spirit and in truth." Jesus knew she would go on her way and stop every one she met, to repeat what she had heard, and to say, "Come, see a man who told me all things that ever I did." This, too, is our hope, when the thought depresses us, that these small means can never affect such masses of evil. Each rescued soul becomes a light set upon a hill that cannot be hid, and many will make use of this light to guide themselves out of darkness.

Let those who are actively and successfully engaged in their own peculiar duties, spare a little time to assist their less gifted or less fortunate neighbours. Let those who are weary of doing nothing, assist those who are weak and weary with doing too much. Let those who are strong, aid those whose burden of life is too heavy for them to bear. And let us all seek to fulfil the great Christian command--which should be the bane of selfishness, and must be the foundation of social elevation--"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others."

"Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"

THE wish of the child for a picture of the story which has interested him, expresses a feeling that is found in those of maturer years. "Where did this happen?" is the question sure to follow a narrative that has awakened sympathy. We realise the truth of a description more forcibly when we have given to it "a local habitation and a name." In the present instance there is more than the usual reason for detail. Characteristic peculiarities belong both to the place and the people whom I am about to describe. Origin, occupation, and habits will, to a great extent, account for much that would otherwise require explanation. Without a due regard to these particulars, much labour is lost in working among the poor. We know that the seed which flourishes in one soil, and brings forth fruit to perfection, will scarcely live in another; and as every successful gardener considers both ground and plant, so every labourer in the human soil is careful to adapt means to ends, or his toil is fruitless.

Inasmuch as there has always been a demand for pigs' flesh, at least among Christians, it is impossible to determine for how long pig-feeding establishments have been thought necessary for the neighbourhood of London. In all probability they had their origin at a very early date, and can claim to be ranked among the "time-honoured institutions" of this great city.

The ground which these pigs occupied had become too valuable for them to remain there in peace. I have not been able to discover whether they were expelled by purchase, ejectment, or annoyance; but it is certain that, about the period I have named, they were compelled to go in search of a new home.

About that time a man named Lake, a chimney-sweeper and scavenger, who lived in Tottenham Court Road, became, from the nature of his occupation, so obnoxious to his neighbours, that he, too, was compelled to take himself off to a fresh locality. My informant told me he was determined to go at once far enough out of London. He thought three miles in a westerly direction would make him safe, and finding a spot that suited him, he secured a lease of the land, and removed himself and his appendages to a place, now sometimes called Notting Dale, but more generally the "Potteries." Here, for a short time, he enjoyed almost a solitary life. The population of the place, for the first year or two, consisted of only three persons. Whatever he may have suffered from loneliness, was, no doubt, abundantly made up to him by a sense of freedom, and an absence from all restraint, for his neighbours were distant and few. At length finding he could not use all the land he had leased, he naturally looked about for some one to share it with him. Alas! he was not company for every one. Eventually he heard of a man named Stephens, a bowstring maker, who, from the unsavoury nature of his trade, was enduring a similar persecution to that from which he himself had escaped. Lake invited this man to become his neighbour; and Stephens eventually purchased from him the lease of a plot of land for one hundred pounds, and removed his bowstring establishment to this new possession. Perhaps he did not find it answer to carry on his business so far from town: this does not appear in the narrative; but it is certain that, for some reason, he soon relinquished it, and commenced pig-keeping instead,--probably for the same reason as the bone-picker assigned for his attachment to his trade, that he shouldn't think it all right, unless he could "feel a smell."

In his inquiries after pigs, &c., he became acquainted with the distress of the "West-end establishment," and offered its members a share of the refuge which he and his friend Lake had found. The offer was gladly accepted, and many of the masters either bought or rented small plots of land from the original proprietors, and removed their establishments of pigs and children to this favoured spot, where Lake assured them everybody should do as they liked, and "he'd see that nobody meddled with them."

Under this magnificent charter and spirited government the little colony progressed rapidly, and numbers of houses, or rather huts, sprang up on all sides. Such things as drainage and fresh water were considered superfluous; and the accumulation of the filth of years rendered it certain, by the simple law of self-preservation, that nothing would be meddled with.

"We had no near neighbours for a long time; there was a farm-house where the Mitre Tavern now stands, and I can mind, when I have been passing by, seeing the men stacking the hay and the corn, and hearing them singing over their work. Then there was another farm-house, down where the Royal Crescent is now; and sometimes I have been there for a drop of milk, for we hadn't no shops for a long time."

I knew that my communicative old woman had been a good Christian character for many years; so I asked her how she, as an individual, had managed to pass her Sundays in this dark place, before there were either schools or places of worship of any kind there.

"Why, ma'am," she replied, "I never would work of a Sunday--nobody couldn't make me. I used to tidy up my house after breakfast, and put the saucepan by the fire, and then I went over to the old church at Kensington. The people now and then threw stones at me, and used to threaten to set the dogs at me; but they never did,--the Lord didn't let 'em; and they knew me, too, that I'd be torn in pieces before I'd give up what I knew to be right."

I was astonished at the immense numbers of pigs which these people seemed to keep, and I asked the old woman how they managed to find food for them all; she said--

"Do you go to the same houses every day?" I asked.

Although, as years rolled on, London continued to come further out of town, till those pig-feeders found themselves again surrounded by streets, squares, and terraces, inhabited by the "quality," little attention was directed to the place, till the visitation of cholera in 1849. Then the eyes of the newly arrived were opened, and many were horrified at discerning what a plague-spot they had in their midst.

In one of the first numbers of Dickens's "Household Words" the following passages appeared, which at once brought the place into notice; and, both in and out of Parliament, plans for its improvement were discussed:--

"In a neighbourhood studded thickly with elegant villas and mansions, viz., Bayswater and Notting Hill, in the parish of Kensington, is a plague-spot, scarcely equalled for its insalubrity by any other in London; it is called the Potteries. It comprises some seven or eight acres, with about two hundred and sixty houses , and a population of nine hundred or one thousand. The occupation of the inhabitants is principally pig-fattening. Many hundreds of pigs, ducks, and fowls, are kept in an incredible state of filth. Dogs abound, for the purpose of guarding the swine. The atmosphere is still further polluted by the process of fat-boiling. In these hovels, discontent, dirt, filth, and misery are unsurpassed by anything known even in Ireland. Water is supplied to only a small number of the houses. There are foul ditches, open sewers, and defective drains, smelling most offensively, and generating large quantities of poisonous gases; stagnant water is found at every turn; not a drop of clean water can be obtained; all is charged to saturation with putrescent matter. Wells have been sunk on some of the premises, but they have become in many instances useless, from organic matter soaking into them. In some of the wells the water is perfectly black and fetid. The paint on the window-frames has become black from the action of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. Nearly all the inhabitants look unhealthy; the women especially complain of sickness and want of appetite, their eyes are sunken, and their skin shrivelled.

It will be supposed that, after this, the law of self-preservation induced the surrounding inhabitants to be very urgent with parochial and all other officials who had any authority in the place. In a short time a good road was made, and supplies of fresh water were introduced. The drainage was found very difficult, from the low level of the ground; and it certainly could not have been thoroughly completed; for in the Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Parish of Kensington, for the year 1856, by Francis Goderich, M.R.C.S., L.A.C., Medical Officer of Health, the following passages appear:--

"One of the most deplorable spots, not only in Kensington, but in the whole metropolis, is the Potteries at Notting Dale,--a locality which is from its position difficult to drain. It occupies eight or nine acres of ground, and contains about 1000 inhabitants, the majority of whom obtain a living by rearing and fattening pigs upon the house-refuse obtained from club-houses and hotels, and upon offal, entrails, liver, and blood from slaughter-houses. This offensive food, often in a high state of decomposition when brought to the place, is boiled down in coppers and the fat separated for sale.

"The number of pigs varies from 1000 to 2000 , in filthy and badly-paved styes close to the houses. The drainage, in nearly all cases very defective, permits the liquid manure to run over the yards, saturating the ground to a great depth, contaminating all the wells with putrid matter, and polluting the atmosphere for a considerable distance around. There were, till lately, several immense accumulations of stagnant water, into which this pig matter found its way. One immense piece, called the 'Ocean,' formerly occupied nearly an acre of ground; it was covered with filthy slime, and bubbling with poisonous gases, caused by the drainage of pigstyes, &c., flowing into it. Till lately, the want of water was most severely felt by the inhabitants, and even now many of the yards in which the pigs are kept are entirely destitute of it. Many of the houses are in a most dilapidated state. Old railway-carriages and worn-out travelling-vans may be seen taken off their wheels and converted into dwellings.

"The people in general look sallow and aged; the children pale and flabby, their eyes glistening as if stimulated by ammonia. Small-pox is ten times more fatal than in any of the surrounding districts.

"The general death-rate varies from forty to sixty per 1000 per annum; of these deaths the very large proportion of 87.5 per cent. are under five years of age; and nearly all the deaths, I again observe, occur from zymotic diseases. The most appalling fact, however, connected with this subject, and one most likely to make a deep sensation in the public mind, is, that for a period of three years the average age at death is under twelve years."

After this, great efforts were made to get rid of "the swinish multitude" altogether; but the shrewd chimney-sweep, Lake, seems to have foreseen this evil day, and "for the purpose of pig-keeping" had been inserted in the very leases which the people were able to produce; so that nothing but a special Act of Parliament could remedy the existing evil. The number of animals was, however, somewhat reduced; and, by additional drainage and further supplies of fresh water, a decided improvement has been effected. The inhabitants have become much healthier, and for the last year or two the number of deaths has scarcely exceeded the common average.

So much for the physical aspect of the district. But another question arises, fraught with still greater interest. What has been done for the people themselves? Surely the moral as well as the physical drainer had work to do here. However scanty may have been the supply of fresh water, the "water of life" was still more scarce. The road to heaven, though it had not to be made for them, had to be pointed out. In the almost entire absence of the observance of the Sabbath and of the means of grace, it is not surprising that a generation should have grown up without God in the world, and to all outward appearance as "far off by wicked works" as any of the heathen nations.

When, however, the place began to be frequented by the district visitor, it was found that a few, even there, had from the first feared and honoured God, had kept His Sabbaths in spite of all opposition; and though their cry had been, "Woe is me that I dwell in Meshec," yet they had held fast their integrity, and, in a few cases, had managed even to establish in their families the daily reading of the Bible and united prayer. I have had the pleasure of conversing with some of these good people; and it might as truly be said of their moral standing, as it was of Saul's natural height, that "from their shoulders and upwards" they were higher than any of the people.

The first girls' school in the Potteries was established through the benevolent exertions of Lady Mary Fox. Some time after its foundation, a gentleman, who took a deep interest in the improvement of the district, presented a plot of ground on which a spacious national school-room was soon erected. It was, and is still , surrounded by pigstyes. St James's Church was built in 1845, within a few minutes' walk of these school-rooms.

Another happy event was the appointment of a City Missionary, in the year 1850. It was pre-eminently the missionary that those people required. Their early habits, and also a spirit of lawlessness which seems one of their natural characteristics, made it difficult to persuade them to attend any place of worship. They had, indeed, to be "sought out."

It has been remarked of the people in the United States of America, that they are all, to some extent, tinctured with the spirit of their early founders. The indomitable spirit, the resolution to conquer difficulties at any cost, is traced back by some to "the Pilgrim Fathers." Those who reason thus would perhaps think they could account in the same way for that extraordinary spirit of independence which is so manifest in the dispositions of the people of whom we are now writing. The descendants of Lake and Stephens would, if placed in the same difficulties, undoubtedly exhibit the same ingenuity and resolution to extricate themselves. Another cause of this independence may be, that they have remained very much their own masters. Each man and woman seems to have had so many pigs and children to rule over, and no one dared to interfere. This absence of service, each one having to think for himself, and not to conform to the dictates of another, would also cause unusual self-reliance.

Fortunately for this people, the missionary soon made himself thoroughly acquainted with the soil he had come to cultivate, and was enabled so to accommodate and adapt himself to its requirements, that very little time was lost in getting to work. Had the case been otherwise, years might have passed in fruitless labour; but God gave to His servant a wise and understanding heart, and by appearing to yield everything, he gained everything. Among the many triumphs of missionary work, the Potteries must rank almost the highest. A contrast more striking could scarcely be imagined than that between the indifference, rudeness, and sometimes even execration, with which his first visits were received, and the spontaneous respect which is now paid to him by every man, woman, and child.

I was present at a meeting held at Kensington Chapel some time since, when a report of these schools was read. In describing the first gathering of the children, it was remarked that the scholars who regularly attended soon became orderly and attentive; the annoyance which was at first experienced arose not from them, but from the ragged, neglected children without, who for a long time persisted in throwing stones, breaking windows, persecuting the scholars as they came and returned, and in other varieties of characteristic mischief. From these facts it was evident that while the "aristocracy" of the Potteries had education provided for their children, there still existed an outlying juvenile population of young Ishmaelites, to reach whom some other means must be devised. After a short time, a room was hired, and a Ragged Evening School for girls was established; a Mothers' Class soon followed, then a Sunday Evening Ragged School for boys, a Working Men's Association, and other like institutions. All these, from want of a suitable place for assembling, were maintained with considerable difficulty, and also with great expense. This want continued to be so increasingly felt, that in June 1855, a lady in the neighbourhood kindly convened a meeting of influential ladies and gentlemen at her house, to consider the possibility of erecting such a building. At this meeting, the following resolutions were unanimously carried:--

"1st, That should such school-rooms be raised, they should be placed in trust of a committee of evangelical Christians, to consist of members of the Church of England and Dissenters in equal numbers.

"2d, That they should be for the benefit of four chief objects:--the Boys' Ragged School, the Girls' Ragged School, the Infant School, and the Mothers' Meetings.

"3d, It is also considered important that the use of the building should be granted for lectures and for general educational purposes. The means of carrying out these resolutions are left for decision till a future meeting."

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