I have written, I fear, rather flippantly on this topic; but that is only because I dare not trust myself to be serious. I realize as much as any one that the life is a shameful life, and all that sort of thing; but I boil with indignation at the hundred shamefulnesses which these charity-mongers heap upon defenceless girls who, in a weak moment, have sought their protection. If you know anything about the matter, you will know that these girls have in their little souls an almost savage flame of self-respect which burns with splendour before the bleak, miserable flame of Organized Charity. If I spoke my mind on the subject, this page would blaze with fury ... and you would smile.
But amid all this welter of misdirected endeavour, there is just one organized charity for which I should like to say a word; and that is The Salvation Army. I do not refer to its religious activities so much as to its social work as represented in the excellent Shelters which have been opened in various districts. There is one in Whitechapel Road, which is the identical building where General Booth first started a small weekly mission service which was afterwards known all over the world as The Salvation Army. There is one in Hoxton. There is one--a large one--in Blackfriars Road. And there are others wherever they may be most needed.
The doors open at five o'clock every evening. The Shelter, mark you, is not precisely a Charity. The men have to pay. Here is shown the excellent understanding of the psychology of the people which the University Socialist misses. You cannot get hold of people by offering them something for nothing; but you can get hold of them by tens of thousands by offering them something good at a low price. For a halfpenny the Salvation Army offers them tea, coffee, cocoa, or soup, with bread-and-butter, cake, or pudding. All this food is cooked and prepared at the Islington headquarters, and the great furnaces in the kitchens of the Shelters are roaring night and day for the purpose of warming-up the food, heating the Shelter, and serving the drying-rooms, where the men can hang their wet clothes.
A spotlessly clean bed is offered for threepence a night, which includes use of bathroom, lavatory, and washhouse. The washhouse is in very great demand on wet nights by those who have been working out of doors, and by those who wish to wash their underclothes, etc.