wide open to those young and inexperienced feet. To help them after they have fallen is good,- to prevent their fall is infinitely better. A painful story is told of a young girl in one of our cities applying vainly for admission at the door of the various institutions. She could not be received because she had not fallen. Driven to despair, she returned soon afterwards saying, "Now I have done what you wanted. Now I am truly fallen and I have a right to claim admission." There can be no doubt that cheap homes for respectable young women are daily becoming a greater necessity in our cities. We have already established several such. Our home in Boston has been named after the late Washington Benedict, who was deeply interested in the establishment of such an institution. Our Flower home in Los Angeles was presented to the Salvation army by the ladies' committee, who had been managing it for several years. The property is valued at $20,000, and is beautifully situated in the center of the city. The officer in charge holds a medical diploma. CHAPTER 8 CHILDREN'S HOMES "Damned into the world rather than born into it," some one has said, are the children of our slums. The tenements of our great cities swarm with those who answer to this pitiful description. Cradled from their infancy in disease, misery, vice and crime, little wonder that many of them grow up to be the terrors of the society that has so often neglected them. Often the only fault of the parents is their poverty. "It is only that I am hungry, but mother says I must not tell!" said a little boy, who had fainted away in one of our meetings. And then the sad story leaked out. His father, an honest working man, had been out of employment for weeks. In vain had he walked the streets day after day in search of work. For some time the mother had painfully bat tled with the wolf at the door by means of needle-work. Finally she had broken down beneath the strain. She was ill in bed, and the seven children were literally starving. There was no food in the attic which served as home. Help was quickly sent, the father was found work, and before long the whole family was comfortably established in a little home. It was a cold Christmas and the snow was on the ground. Little Freddy ran to the window, threw it open and flung out a handful of crumbs for the birds. See, mama," he cried gleefully, "last Christmas we had no crumbs for ourselves. This Christmas we have plenty for the birds as well.” Our New York and San Francisco homes for orphans and destitute children accommodate about 60 such, and every available bed is occupied, while we are reluctantly compelled to refuse many a little needy lamb, it being impossible to make this branch of our operations self-supporting, as we are able to do with most of the others. It is intended at an early date to establish a branch home on one of our farm colonies, with a special view to teaching the children agricultural pursuits and finally planting them out in homes of their own. This seems preferable to the existing plan of placing them out in the families of farmers, as under our system they will become homeowners and not merely farm laborers. CHAPTER 9 RESCUE HOMES FOR FALLEN WOMEN It is estimated that in the United States alone no less than 50,000 girls annually pass from the ranks of the fallen to a premature grave. Their places, alas, are quickly taken by others, so that there is no apparent diminution in the volume of vice which pours its Niagara of woe through our streets and homes. More sinned against than sinning, the doors of society are closed tightly against these human derelicts, the wreckage and wreckers of our homes and youth. |