Thomas Archer

“ Standing here, in front of this broad noble building, with its many windows, its picturesque front of red brick and white stone, its central tower, its sheltered garden-walks, and pleasant lawn, we may well feel glad to hear that the work done within its wards is known and recognised. What a work it is can only be estimated by those who remember how fell is the disease from which so many of the patients suffer, and how great a thing it has been, even where cures could not be effected, usefully to prolong the lives of hundreds of those who must have died but for timely aid. ”

“ In all our large towns people who have money to spend are, at least, beginning to make up their minds where they shall take their autumn holiday;—in many quiet health-resorts wealthy invalids, and some who are not wealthy, have already passed the early spring and summer;—at a score of pleasant watering-places, where the cool sparkling waves break upon the "ribbed sea-sand," troops of children are already browning in the sun, scores of hearts feel a throb of grateful joy as the glow of health begins to touch cheeks lately pale, and dull eyes brighten under the clear blue sky. ”

“ There are few neighbourhoods in which a Refuge for the homeless, a soup-kitchen, a ragged-school, a "servants home," an orphanage, a hospital or some asylum for the sick and suffering, does not relieve that sense of neglect and indifference which is the first painful impression of the thoughtful visitor to those "worst quarters," which yet lie close behind the grand thoroughfares and splendid edifices that distinguish aristocratic and commercial London. ”

“ There is a great handsome dining-hall, with a painted ceiling, wherein the vast troop of quiet, orderly, and happy-faced children sit down to well-cooked wholesome meals of meat and pudding. There are two great school-rooms, one divided into class-rooms for the girls, and another wherein the boys assemble to be taught, not in the narrow spirit of the first directors of the old building in the City Road, but with a full appreciation of the duty of giving these young minds and hearts full opportunity to expand. ”

“ Indeed, food is medicine to those who are turning the corner towards convalescence—food and air—of which latter commodity there is a very excellent supply considering the kind of neighbourhood we are in. Here and there we see a little wan, pinched, wasted face lying on the pillow; a listless, transparent hand upon the counterpane—which are sad tokens that the tiny sufferers are nearing the eternal fold beyond the shadowy threshold where all is dark to us, who note how every breath bespeaks a feebler hold on the world of which they have learnt so little in their tiny lives. ”

“ I want you to come to-day to a kitchen which is open all the year round—the only kitchen of the kind in London which does not close its doors even when the spring-tide brings buds of promise on the shrubs in Leicester Square, and the London sparrow comes out from roofs and eaves, and preens his dingy plumage in the summer sun, as though Great Windmill Street had something in common with its name, and sweet country odours came from the region of the Haymarket. ”

“ The sound of the forty singing like one is not perceptible as we approach the house, which, with its large high windows open to the soft, warm air, lies very still and quiet. The wire-blinds to the windows near the street bear the name of the institution, and over the doorway is inscribed the fact that the Princess Christian has become the patroness of this charity, which appeals to all young mothers, and to every woman who acknowledges the true womanly love for children. ”

“ It may be happy for them if they are not compelled by sudden sickness or accident, to fall out of the ranks, and to leave the plough sticking in the furrow. It is not all for pleasure and careless enjoyment that the thousands of our wealthy brethren and sisters go to the terraced houses, or handsomely appointed mansions, which await them all round the English shore. Into how many eyes tears must need spring, when the prayers for all who are in sorrow, need, or adversity are read in seaside churches on a summer's Sunday. ”

“ Do you think at first sight, and from the external appearance of the building, that charity here has gone beyond precedent in providing such a place—a palatial pile standing amidst scenery that one might well come far to see? Remember what is the need of those who have to be lifted out of the dark, hopeless depths of what is almost despair; of those who, finding themselves banished from hospital wards, unable to earn their bread, feeling themselves a burden upon those for whom they would almost consent to die rather than live upon their poverty ”

“ The 'tween-decks of the Dreadnought no longer form the sole hospital for invalided merchant seamen in the Port of London; but even reckoning all that has been done for sailors, and fresh from a visit to that great building where three hundred hale and hearty seamen of the great mercantile navy find a home, we are left to wonder that so little has been accomplished for those old tars who, having lived for threescore years or more, going to and fro upon the great deep, can find no certain anchorage, except within the walls of some union where they may at last succeed in claiming a settlement. ”

“ Ah, the time may come when the hand of the bread-winner is still, when the little money left in the house is scarcely sufficient to pay for the "respectable funeral" which is the last effort of genteel poverty, when the red-eyed widow gathers her fatherless children about her, and wonders amidst her stupor of grief what is to become of the younger ones who yet so need her care that she will not be able to go forth to seek the means of living. ”

“ Stay—let me be accurate. I said within its wards; but here, as I pass the gates and the unpretentious house of the resident surgeon to the broad sea front of the building, I note that under the protecting screen of the wall that bounds the wide space of grass-plot and gravel-paths a row of beds are placed, and in each of them a patient lies basking in the warm sunlit air; while a little band of convalescents saunter gently, some of them with the aid of crutch or stick, with the enjoyment of a sense of returning strength. ”

“ A spacious assembly room—let us call it by the good old name of "parlour," for there is much quietly animated talk going on—talk, and needlework of all kinds, from the knitting of a warm woollen shawl to the manipulation of delicate lace, and the deft handling of implements for making those exquisite tortures of society known as antimacassars. With ever so wide an experience of halls, salons, suites, or drawing-rooms, the visitor can see nothing resembling this wonderful parlour elsewhere. A room of noble proportions, one end of which is occupied by an organ ”

“ These are broken-down men and women; old men beaten in the battle of life, and full of present sorrow; young men who have fought and failed, or who have eaten of the husks, and seek occasion to rise to a better mind; middle-aged men not altogether crushed or hopeless, but in sore want, and needing the sound of a kindly voice, the touch of a friendly hand; women who have lost youth and worldly hope together—women who, more weak than wicked, and without resource, need some stay alike for fainting bodies and for wandering souls ”

“ It is a poor little place enough; poor, and little, and dim, even for an almshouse, and scarcely suggestive of comfort though a bright fire is burning in a grate, which somewhat resembles a reduced kitchen-range, and though the table which stands beneath the casement bears some preparations for the evening meal, and the cheap luxury of a cut orange on a plate. The walls are dim, the ceiling cracked and discoloured by the evident overflow of water in the room overhead ”

“ A hundred infirm sailors, each of whom is more than sixty years old, are serenely at their moorings in that spacious square-built house, where the long wards are divided into cabins, each with its neat furniture, and many of them ornamented with the curious knick-knacks, and strange waifs and strays of former voyages which sailors like to have about them. There is of course a sick-ward, where those who are permanently disabled, or are suffering from illness, receive medical attention and a special diet ”

“ Let us see what has been done in twenty years to alleviate what might seem to be almost hopeless suffering.
Let us, coming face to face with the mystery of pain, and looking as it were from afar on that dark shadow which yet always lies so near to every one of us, note how in the heart of the mystery there is hidden a joyful {168} hope for humanity, how in the very shadow of death there is a light that never yet has shone on land or sea. ”

“ Such a system would lack the very qualification most needed here, and to be found only in that voluntary personal interest that brings to the recipients of bounty more than the mere bounty itself, the heart-throb of sympathy, the feeling that the gift means more than the cold official recognition of a national duty, that it is the expression of loving-kindness ever active and living; and so making for the helpless, the destitute, and the dying, not a mere asylum, but a home. ”

“ Stay! here come the old ladies, with old-fashioned curtseys, which are more than half a bow, and not a mere vulgar "bob." There is no mistaking some of their faces. You may see their like in French pictures, or in old French towns still. Some of them with eyes from which the fire had not yet died out; with deftly-moving fingers; with a quick, springy step; with an inherited remnant of the French moue and shrug, as they answer a gentle jest about their age and comeliness. ”

“ In the poetry, the songs, the literature, the political records, the social chronicles, the domestic {76} narratives of England, the sailor holds a place, and even at our holiday seasons, when our children cluster on the shingly shore or the far-stretching brown sands of the coast, we find still that we belong to a nation of which the sailor long stood as the chosen representative. Nay, in the midst of the life of a great city we cannot fail to be reminded of the daring and the enterprise which has helped to make London what it is. ”

“ What silent tears and low murmuring cries on behalf of dear ones on whose pale cheeks the July roses never more may bloom, mark the watches of the silent night, when the waves sob wakefully upon the beach. What thrills of hope and joy contend with obtrusive fears as, the golden spears of dawn break through the impenetrable slate-blue sky, and a touch of strength and healing is seen to have left its mark upon a brow on which the morning kiss is pressed with a keen throb that is itself almost a pang. ”

“ Witness, too, the recognition of some of our own painters when Sir Charles Eastlake was president of the Royal Academy, and when you found a friendly patron in Queen Adelaide of gentle memory. Alas, the hand has lost its cunning; and if its work is not altogether forgotten, those who look upon it are unaware that you are living here in this poor room—pensioner of a charity which, were it but supported as it might be, could better lighten your declining years. ”

“ There is something in the flow of a broad and rapid stream which has a peculiar association with thoughts of the struggle and toil of human life, and as we look on the ever-moving tide, we ask ourselves what have we done for the brave old toil-worn men who have seen the wonders of the great deep for so many years, and have brought so much to us that we can scarcely speak of food or drink without some reminder of their toilsome lives and long voyages? ”

“ Each bed is, as it were, set in an alcove of its own snow-white hangings, relieved by bits of colour which would delight an artist's eye—pieces of embroidery, framed illuminated texts, bright flecks of Berlin woolwork, or glistening designs in beads, or deep glowing knick-knacks wrought in silk and lace. Each little bedside table, though it may hold medicine and diet—drink and requisites for the sick—is decked with flowers and little framed pictures, gaily-bound books, and bright-hued toys and trifles, that make it look like a miniature stand at a fancy fair. ”

“ Imagine, if you can, the shivering, shrinking, bewildered feeling of the man or woman who, after, undergoing a term of penal servitude, some of it passed in hours of solitary confinement, has all this great city suddenly opened again, with its wilderness of streets, its crowd of unfamiliar faces, its tremendous temptations, its few resources for the friendless and the suspected, its great broad thoroughfares, where on every side may be seen evidences of wealth and plenty; where the tavern and the gin-shop offer a temporary solace to the wretched ”

“ I think I have some acquaintance with what are the worst neighbourhoods of London. I have made many a journey down East; have studied some of the strange varieties of life on the shore amidst the water-side population; have lived amidst the slums of Spitalfields, and passed nights "Whitechapel way;" but never in any unbroken area of such extent have I seen so much that is suggestive of utter poverty, so much privation of the ordinary means of health and decency, as on a journey about this district which I long ago named "The Chequers." ”

“ Alighting from the railway carriage which conveys us from Mansion House Station to the pleasant old High Street of Kensington, we are close to the place that we have come to see, for the building itself—a quaint old house, with a central doorway between two projecting deep bay-windowed fronts, and built of the reddest of red brick—stands at the end of Wright's Lane, looking us full in the face as we approach it to read the style and title plainly painted across its upper storey. ”