AN APPEAL.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.']
SIR,—Under the above heading, I venture to ask for help for a home and evening club for the working girls and mothers of South London.
It is about a year ago since you were kind enough to find room for a letter of mine, asking for money, &c., to enable this home to be furnished and opened; and in consequence of the generous manner in which your readers responded to the appeal, it was opened last autumn, and has succeeded in every branch almost beyond our hopes. It consists of a house containing eight rooms, with a large cellar, now a club-room, where Bible readings and mothers' meetings are held, and evening classes for girls also,—lant the latter three times a week only, on account of insufficiency of workers. These classes are a great power for good ; they not only draw the girls out of the streets, teach them reading, needlework, &c., but it is during these social gatherings that the ladies who live iu the house are enabled to obtain that personal influence over them which is the aim and object of the whole institution. That they are appreciated is shown by the fact that there are as many as seventy girls and fifty mothers on the books, with an average attendance of forty of the former and thirty of the latter.
Besides this, there is a restaurant where daily cheap dinners, suppers, and coffee are sold, and where from forty to fifty factory- girls dine every day. I need hardly say how this part of the work has thriven during the past winter. I am sorry to say what hinders us most is the absence of any regular income. We live from hand to mouth ; consequently, the anxiety is at times very great, and I am certain that any one paying us a visit any Monday, Wednesday, or Friday evening, at 38 Tabard Street, and thus seeing for himself the almost destitute condition of many of the girls, would not hesitate to leave behind him a good round annual subscription, and would in addition find much to interest him in the working of the Young Woman's Help Society, to which we owe our existence, as do many other such institutions throughout the length and breadth of England.
A great hold has been obtained during the past six months over the rough women of the neighbourhood, whioh is, I ant convinced, of infinite importance, for the wife is in too many cases the only softening influence in the lives of the men, and these same women either are or probably will be called upon to exercise this influence ; and if the salt has lost its savour, where- with, indeed, shall the whole be salted P In these days of an ever-
extending franchise, who can fathom the influence which woman in her own peculiar sphere—viz., in the quiet home life—may exercise for good ?—and it is surely that good, which so largely partakes of the Divine good, which is even more needed in the party struggles of the day than much public speaking or many political clubs.
Any farther information will gladly be given, or subscriptions received, by your obedient servant,
18 Chester Street, Grosvenor Place. BASIL LEVETT.
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