Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished: A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure by - (best self help books to read txt) đ
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Of course all the pins were extracted in this second act of the play, and innumerable new and gaping wounds were introduced into the clothing, insomuch that all ordinary civilised people, except philanthropists, would have been shocked with the appearance of the little ones.
But it was during the third and closing act of the play that the affair culminated. The scene was laid on the lawn in front of Mr Brisbaneâs mansion.
Enter, at one end of the lawn, a band of small and dirty but flushed and happy boys and girls, in rags which might appropriately be styled ribbons. At the other end of the lawn a train of domestics bearing trays with tea, cakes, buns, pies, fruits, and other delectable things, to which the ragged army sits down.
Enter host and hostess, with Sir Richard, friends and attendants.
(Host.)âafter asking a blessingââMy little friends, this afternoon we meet to eat, and only one request have I to makeâthat you shall do your duty well.â (Small boy in ribbons.ââVonât I, just!â) âNo platter shall return to my house till it be empty. No little one shall quit these premises till he be full; what cannot be eaten must be carried away.â
(The ragged army cheers.)
(Host.)ââEnough. Fall-to.â
(They fall-to.)
(Little boy in tatters, pausing.)ââI shanât fall two, Iâll fall three or four.â
(Another little boy, in worse tatters.)ââSo shall I.â
(First little boy.)ââI say, Jim, wot would mother say if she was here?â
(Jim.)ââSheâd say nothinâ. âEr mouth âud be too full to speak.â
(Prolonged silence. Only mastication heard, mingled with a few cases of choking, which are promptly dealt with.)
(Blobby, with a sigh.)ââI say, Robin, Iâm gettinâ tight.â
(Robin, with a gasp.)ââSo am I; Iâm about bustinâ.â
(Blobby, coming to another pause.)ââI say, Robin, Iâm as full as I can âold. Soâs all my pockits, anâ thereâs some left over!â
(Robinâsharply.)ââStick it in your âat, then.â
(Blobby takes off his billycock, thrusts the remnant of food therein, and puts it on.)
Enter the brass band of the neighbouring village, (the bandsmen being boys), which plays a selection of airs, and sends a few of the smaller ragamuffins to sleep.
(Sir Richard Brandon, confidentially to his friend.)ââIt is an amazing sight.â
(Host.)ââWould that it were a more common sight!â
Enter more domestics with more tea, buns, and fruit; but the army is glutted, and the pockets are brought into requisition: much pinning being a necessary consequence.
(Lilly Snow, softly.)ââItâs like âeaven!â
(Hetty, remonstratingly.)ââOh! Lilly, âeaven is quite different.â
(Dick Swiller.)ââIâm sorry for it. Couldnât be much âappier to my mind.â
(Host.)ââNow, dear boys and girls, before we close the proceedings of this happy day, my excellent friend, your missionary, Mr Seaward, will say a few words.â
John Seaward steps to the front, and says a few wordsâsays them so well, too, so simply, so kindly, yet so heartily, that the army is roused to a pitch of great enthusiasm; but we leave this speech to the readerâs imagination: after whichâ Exeunt Omnes.
And, as the curtain of night falls on these ragged ones, scattered now, many of them, to varied homes of vice, and filth, and misery, the heavy eyelids close to open again, perchance, in ecstatic dreams of food, and fun and green fields, fresh air and sunshine, which impress them more or less with the idea embodied in the aphorism, that âGod made the country, but man made the town.â
âI am obliged to you, Mr Seaward, for coming out of your way to see me,â said Sir Richard Brandon, while little Di brought their visitor a chair. âI know that your time is fully occupied, and would not have asked you to call had not my friend Mr Brisbane assured me that you had to pass my house daily on your way toâto business.â
âNo apology, Sir Richard, pray. I am at all times ready to answer a call whether of the poor or the rich, if by any means I may help my Lordâs cause.â
The knight thought for a moment that he might claim to be classed among the poor, seeing that his miserable pittance of five thousand barely enabled him to make the two ends meet, but he only said:
âEver since we had the pleasure of meeting at that gathering of ragged children, my little girl here has been asking so many questions about poor peopleâthe lower orders, I meanâwhich I could not answer, that I have asked you to call, that we may get some information about them. You see, Diana is an eccentric little puss,â (Di opened her eyes very wide at this, wondering what âeccentricâ could mean), âand she has got into a most unaccountable habit of thinking and planning about poor people.â
âA good habit, Sir Richard,â said the missionary. ââBlessed are they that consider the poor.ââ
Sir Richard acknowledged this remark with a little bow. âNow, we should like to ask, if you have no objection, what is your chief object in the mission atâwhat did you say its nameâah! George Yard?â
âTo save souls,â said Mr Seaward.
âOhâahâprecisely,â said the knight, taken somewhat aback by the nature and brevity of the answer, âthat of course; but I meant, how do you proceed? What is the method, and what the machinery that you put in motion?â
âPerhaps,â said the missionary, drawing a small pamphlet from his pocket, âthis will furnish you with all the information you desire. You can read it over to Miss Diana at your leisureâand donât return it; I have plenty more. Meanwhile I may briefly state that the mission premises are in George Yard, High Street, Whitechapel, one of the worst parts of the east of London, where the fire of sin and crime rages most fiercely; where the soldiers of the Cross are comparatively few, and would be overwhelmed by mere numbers, were it not that they are invincible, carrying on the war as they do in the strength of Him who said, âLo, I am with you alway.â
âIn the old coaching days,â continued Mr Seaward, âthis was a great centre, a starting-point for mail-coaches. For nigh thirty years the mission has been there. The âBlack Horseâ was a public-house in George Yard, once known to the magistrates as one of the worst gin-shops and resort of thieves and nurseries of crime in London. That public-house is now a shelter for friendless girls, and a place where sick children of the poor are gratuitously fed.â
From this point the missionary went off into a graphic account of incidents illustrative of the great work done by the mission, and succeeded in deeply interesting both Diana and her father, though the latter held himself well in hand, knowing, as he was fond of remarking, that there were two sides to every question.
Checking his visitor at one point, he said, âYou have mentioned ragged schools and the good that is done by them, but why should not the school-boards look after such children?â
âBecause, Sir Richard, the school-boards cannot reach them. There are upwards of 150,000 people in London who have never lived more than three months in one place. No law reaches this class, because they do not stay long enough in any neighbourhood for the school-board authorities to put the law into operation. Now, nearly three hundred of the children of these wanderers meet in our Free Ragged Day Schools twice a day for instruction. Here we teach them as efficiently as we can in secular matters, and of course they are taught the Word of God, and told of Jesus the Saviour of sinners; but our difficulties are great, for children as well as parents are often in extremest poverty, the former suffering from hunger even when sent to schoolâand they never stay with us long. Let me give you an instance:â
âOne morning a mother came and begged to have her children admitted. She had just left the workhouse. Three children in rags, that did not suffice to cover much less to protect them, stood by her side. She did not know where they were to sleep that night, but hoped to obtain a little charing and earn enough to obtain a lodging somewhere. She could not take the children with her while seeking workâWould we take them in? for, if not, they would have to be left in the streets, and as they were very young they might lose themselves or be run over. We took them in, fed, sympathised with, and taught them. In the afternoon the mother returned weary, hungry, dejected. She had failed to obtain employment, and took the children away to apply for admission to a casual ward.â
âWhat is a casual ward, Mr Missionary?â asked Di.
âSeaward, my love,âhis name is not Missionary,â said Sir Richard.
âA casual ward,â answered the visitor, âis an exceedingly plain room with rows of very poor beds; mere wooden frames with canvas stretched on them, in which any miserable beggars who choose to submit to the rules may sleep for a night after eating a bit of bread and a basin of gruelâfor all which they pay nothing. It is a very poor and comfortless placeâat least you would think it soâand is meant to save poor people from sleeping, perhaps dying, in the streets.â
âDo some people sleep in the streets?â asked Di in great surprise.
âYes, dear, Iâm sorry to say that many do.â
âDâyou mean on the stones, in their night-dresses?â asked the child with increasing surprise.
âYes, love,â said her father, âbut in their ordinary clothes, not in their night-dressesâthey have no night-dresses.â
Little Di had now reached a pitch of surprise which rendered her dumb, so the missionary continued:
âHere is another case. A poor widow called once, and said she would be so grateful if we would admit her little girl and boy into the schools. She looked clean and tidy, and the children had not been neglected. She could not afford to pay for them, as she had not a penny in the world, and applied to us because we made no charge. The children were admitted and supplied with a plain but nourishing meal, while their mother went away to seek for work. We did not hear how she sped, but she had probably taken her case to God, and found Him faithful, for she had said, before going away, âI know that God is the Father of the fatherless, and the husband of the widow.â
âAgain, another poor woman came. Her husband had fallen sick. Till within a few days her children had been at a school and paid for, but now the bread-winner was illâmight never recoverâand had gone to the hospital. These children were at once admitted, and in each case investigation was made to test the veracity of the applicants.
âOf course,â continued the missionary, âI have spoken chiefly about the agencies with which I happen to have come personally in contact, but it must not be supposed that therefore I ignore or am indifferent to the other grand centres of influence which are elsewhere at work in London; such as, for instance, the various agencies set agoing and superintended by Dr Barnardo, whose Home for Working and Destitute Boys, in Stepney Causeway, is a shelter from which thousands of rescued little ones go forth to labour as honest and useful members of society, instead of dying miserably in the slums of London, or growing up to recruit the ranks of our criminal classes. These agencies, besides rescuing destitute and neglected children, include Homes for destitute girls and for little boys in Ilford and Jersey, an Infirmary for sick children of the destitute classes in Stepney, Orphan Homes, Ragged and Day schools, Free dinner-table to destitute children, Mission Halls, Coffee Palaces, and, in short, a grand net-work of beneficent agenciesâEvangelistic, Temperance, and Medicalâfor the conduct of which is required not far short of One
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