BAND OF HOPE RECORD.

INTEMPERANCE AND RAGGED SCHOOLS.

By the Rev. G. W. McCREE.

[Read before the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, at the Guildhall, June 12th, 1862.]

To the efforts of Robert Raikes, Joseph Lancaster, John Pounds, Thomas Cranfield, Thomas Guthrie, and Lord Shaftesbury, may be ascribed the honour of creating and guiding that interest in the children of the poor which has resulted in the general establishment of ragged schools. From the year 1783, when Robert Raikes commenced his labours in Gloucester, to the formation of the Ragged School Union, in April, 1844, at which period there were 16 ragged schools in London, and from 1844 to the present time there has been a general increase in the number and efficiency of those admirable institutions. In the metropolis there are now 176 school buildings, in which there are 201 sunday schools, with 25,000 scholars; 172 day schools, with 18,000 scholars; and 211 evening schools, with 9,000 scholars. Nearly all large towns are provided with similar institutions.

That there is a deplorable necessity for ragged schools must be admitted. Our cities swarm with children who are untaught, badly-fed, ill-housed, and morally debased. They are familiar with hunger, cold, nakedness, and obscene language. Without moral culture, left to play, or steal, or lie, or fight as they list, taken by their parents to the beer-shop and cheap theatre, sent into the streets to beg, and accustomed to witness the drunken brawls of low neighbourhoods, they become wild, cruel,, filthy, and vile. To neglect them would be both perilous and criminal. For them the ragged school is wisely provided, and both church and state are benefited by the expedient.

But it is earnestly asked by many thoughtful men-what causes perpetuate the wide-spread necessity for ragged schools? England is a rich and prosperous couutry. The working classes. earn higher wages than formerly, free trade has made food cheap and plentiful, emigration has drafted off many competitors from the labour market, the means of self improvement abound, and altogether the condition of the people is favourable to dignity,

virtue, and independence. Whence, then, the poverty, moral debasement, and parental neglect which has induced philanthropic and religious men to establish ragged schools?

This is a grave question, and demands an honest answer. Without ignoring the fact that the poor widow, the sick labourer, and the ill-paid needlewoman supply a part of the children who attend ragged schools, the writer avows his conviction that most of the ignorance, wretchedness, and vice which have led to the establishment of ragged schools, may be traced to intemperance.

The money spent by the working classes in the purchase of intoxicating drinks is absolutely appalling. It is expenditure which none can extenuate. The probability is, that strong drink costs them £50,000,000 every year. The amount spent in public houses by the working people of Dundee is probably £250,000; Newcastle-upon-Tyne, £400,000; Birmingham, £600,000; Glasgow, 1,000,000, and, Manchester, 1,000,000. When Mr. S. Neale, the chief constable of Salford, estimated that in the 2037 public houses and beer-shops of Manchester and Salford, £4074 is spent every Saturday night, it was said this was seven times more than would educate all the children in Manchester. Be that as it may, the fact is patent to all men, that if the working man spent his money on the education of his child, instead of in the public house, he would not need to send his offspring to the ragged school.

The writer has pursued his vocation in the parish of St. Giles's for a period of 14 years, and is familiar with the homes, pursuits, amusements, and moral habits of its population. He is also a daily visitor to one of the largest and best institutions in London, namely, that known as "St. Giles's and St. George's Ragged Schools, Bloomsbury," and all the experience gathered in this way confirms him in the conclusion to which he has come. Most of the children attending this school come from the Seven Dials, and the contiguous streets. They are shown on this plan. The professional surveyor employed to prepare it found 26 places where intoxicating drinks are sold, 10 bakers' shops, 3 newspaper shops, 3 places of worship, and 4 day or sunday schools. The same gentleman, who is well acquainted with the value of property, estimates the money expended in the public houses and gin-palaces to amount to £1,040 per week, or more than £52,000, a year! In Dudley Street-marked on the map-50 houses were carefully examined, and found to

*

A Map was exhibited.

contain 250 families, and 345 children, of whom only 136 attended any school. Large numbers of ragged children reside in this street, which is furnished with three public houses, and back entrances to two more, but it has no baker's shop, no butcher's shop, no bookseller's shop. Now, could not the people of Dudley Street, if total abstainers, afford for the most part to educate their children? "Had it not been for habits of intemperance," says Dr. Guthrie, of Edinburgh, "no fewer than 85 per cent. of the children under my care might never have required either to beg their bread, or attend ragged schools." In this opinion the writer of this paper fully concurs.

When debased by intemperance, the poor seldom make any effort to secure a good education for their children. Hence, thousands of them do not attend even ragged schools, where, of course, no charge is made. In one of the streets marked on the plan, and which contains many parents whose habits are intemperate, the writer, at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, found 55 children at play. A court which contained 16 houses, and 80 families, was most carefully visited by the writer, (in search of children for the ragged school.) In the course of his visits he met with a half-drunken mother with four children, and asked her to allow him to conduct them to the ragged school. The reply given was— 'And how much a week will you give me for sending them?" Finding no pecuniary reward could be given, she refused to let them go to the school.

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The drunkard's home is most unfavourable to the cultivation of amiable affections, orderly habits, a pure taste, noble conceptions of life, morning and evening prayer, and the practice of religion. But the ragged school scholar often returns to such a home, and, in time, displays manifest signs of moral contamination. A teacher, who has 180 boys in his charge, says-"three-fourths of the fathers are intemperate." Hence, such unfortunate children are beaten, starved, taught by their fathers to swear, smoke, and drink, and soon become wild, rough, obscene, and intemperate lads. The boy Reeves, who when only 18 years of age strangled his little sister in the coal-cellar, was once a promising boy in a ragged school, in Drury Lane, but having been corrupted by the example of his drunken parents, he forsook the school for the tap-room, and became a callous murderer. The writer heard him sentenced to death, and he never shed a tear! No doubt, decent parents have bad children, but such persons aid as best they can the efforts of the ragged school teacher. Drunken parents counteract his efforts,

and thus blight the precious fruit his institution would have brought to perfection.

Many of the ragged schools have Sunday schools connected with them. The religious instruction is imparted by devoted persons, who seek for no temporal emolument or honour. They have to lament that their labours are not unfrequently sterile. The plenteous harvest does not gladden their eyes. They complain that the foolish, costly, and superfluous drinking customs of the home, the factory and the holyday, do immense mischief to their scholars. Both boys and girls, whose early life seemed to predict a beautiful prime, are ruined in body and morals by those pernicious customs. The writer has seen a tap-room at Hampton Court, filled with boys and girls drinking, smoking, and singing, until their passions were so inflamed that the most deplorable results were inevitable. In the more crowded parts of London-in what a popular writer designates "Ragged London"-there are houses where the young of both sexes meet to drink and dance, and the provinces contain similar resorts. Birmingham is furnished with many such pest-houses, which, if the magistrates did their duty, would be made to feel the force of a prohibitory law. "The class I was in," said an old Sunday scholar in that town, "consisted of about 16 or 17 scholars, and I am sure that 12 of them became sots." The Rev G. F. Bagshawe, M.A., of the Salford New Bailey, examined the antecedents of 1,050 boys, and he proved that 977 had attended Sunday schools. Such facts are deplorable. The gin-palace, with its crystal splendours shining at every corner of our streets, is a disgrace and curse, and were it not in existence-were it closed by the voluntary abstinence of the people, or a prohibitory law, the usefulness of ragged schools would be increased fourfold.

Wise men, true friends of the working classes, and the statesmen of the age, would do well to investigate the relation of intemperance to the present physical, moral, and intellectual condition of ragged school scholars. Pauperism, crowded dwellings, unwholesome food, tattered garments, and vicious parents, are a sad heritage for children who might be endowed with a brighter lot. Penny banks, model-houses, boards of health, public lectures, city missions, and special religious services, secure the writer's cordial adhesion, but it is his honest. and therefore, avowed conviction, that temperance societies, bands of hope, and restrictive legislation are essential to the future welfare of the poor man's child.

THE HISTORY OF TWO VILLAGE APPRENTICES.

By Mr W. B. AFFLECK.

"And when thou art toss'd and driven

On the troublous sea of sin,

Starry wings shall waft to heaven,

Sweetest odours from within."

On a winter evening in the year 1851, a temperance meeting was held in the Primitive Methodist Chapel, at Annfield Plain, a colliery village about ten miles south of Newcastle-on-Tyne. A stranger was advertised to lecture, and the excitement was very great. As the time drew near for the meeting, a disap pointment was felt on account of the non-appearance of the speaker. However, after a little anxiety and suspense a person in the audience volunteered to give an address. A chairman was elected, who opened the proceedings by giving out a hymn, and offering prayer, for the blessing of the Almighty on the temperance cause. The chairman said he could not account for

the stranger's non arrival, but he had no doubt that the persons would all be both pleased and edified with the voluntary address of their own villager. The speaker rose to speak; the door was partially opened by three young men, who on seeing the speaker turned back without entering, and said as they departed, "Oh! it's only a working man that's speaking." The door had scarcely closed nntil it was reopened by two ragged lads, who took their seats in the darkest corner of the chapel. They were apprentices, whose duties compelled them to work till the hour for commencing the meeting, and not wishing to lose any time, they had proceeded direct from the bench to the meeting, in their working attire, and also unwashed. A leather apron, which each wore, tended to conceal many holes in their tattered garments. As they sat with their eyes steadfastly fixed on the speaker, a beam of hope illumined up their saddened countenances. The truths spoken welled up warm and fresh from the fountain of a newly regenerate heart; and "a word spoken in season how good is it!"

"Kind words can never die, cherished and blessed,

God knows how deep they lie stored in the breast."

A heart touched with a "live coal from off the altar," is sure to generate heat, and 'twas so while the working man related the harrowing story of his experience. He told how he had been for many years the bond slave of drinking customs; how he had enfeebled his strength, wasted his energies, ruined his