The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-04-03 00:00:00

"OUR GUTTER CHILDREN."

Under the above heading Miss Maria S. Rye, writ-
ing from MS, Strand, London, has vent the following
letter to The Ti hire for let lic;stion, and itie with much
rinateure we find Nina, for her let ter in inur journal,
trusting it may be the illoatlS of assisting 3i is* I:ye in
the attainment of her object:—
The help yeu have kindly given me durieg the past
seven years (which has so materially assieted ine to send
women to our colonies) emboldens me to ask permission to
lay before the public, through your column', a fresh branch
of my work, whic I I believe may prove even more beneficial
tban anything I have attempted. I allele to the emigration
of our street children to Cal,aila and tile Western si; ales .4
America. Some of your readers may have heard of Mr Van
Meter, who at the conichisimi of the American war picked
up the c‘ty Arabs of New York (the Wiwi.* of that terrilile
struggle and carried them into the Far West, where godly
nieti and women, for the love of Christ, received these
orphaned anti destitute little ones, and restored to thorn
all and in some cas a more than they hail lost. Last year,
wnen ill America, I w oidered as far, anti, indeed, farther
west than Chicago, and Diet with some of the people who
had assisted Mr Van Meter ill carrying alit his plans. I
know people in this country who have confided children to
his care, and have evei) reasm to believe that he has, as lie
states, reeics.eil ever 2,000 children, from the "slums" of New
York and given them a fair start in Me in the mighty West.
I have seen the working of all thin; I know its dangers, its
difficulties, its 'successes It is very wonderful, then, that
on my return to England the idea has crossed my mind a
thousand times—why noi attempt the same thing for the
" gutter children" of Londe°, Manchester, Birmingham,
Bristol, Liverpool? I have hesitated for some time to place
my plans bef..re tne public. I feel that what I want to state
is so coetrary to our everyday experience at home—we are
no over-taxed, over-hurilened, overmopulated—that people
will scarcely credit me when I say l know a land where
"hat py is the man with his quiver full of children" inn tins
saying even at this day—a land where corn has been hunit
for fuel, and where a million men only occupy territories
larger than the whole of Great Britain.
In will be maul, no doubt,—" But if you take those
children abroad what euarautee can you give its that they
will be kiiitily treated, or even receive common justice from
the people with whom poi leave them?" I answer,—What
treatment avid they receive from the cold, the starvatiso,
the temptation they inert with is lier glitters ; what justice
will they receive at our hands when the police, the gaol, the
hospital, mid the Magdalen receive them? Can anything I
introduce them hi in *Snead, or America be worse than that
to which they are doomed if we Lave them where they are
1,11 W? 1 said I hail been hesitating about laying this scheme
before the public for the past Si% 111011013, but day hyllay
the importatne of the question forces itself on my mind,
and I hesitate no long, r, feeling also assured that the heart
of the nation does most honestly desire to rescue these
hildren if it only knew how; and perhaps niy suggestion
may commend itself to the minds of a few fellow-workers,
that so we may at least save some.
I am well air are, if no higher motive guided me, that my
smallest movements are scrutinised in Canada by an intelligent
and watchf sl press and people ; set, fully conscious of this
scrutiny, lam prepared as soon as my preliminary arrange-
ments are completed (and I hoe they will be completed by
the autumn) to start with a party of children fir the West
about August. The matter was, indeed, pressed upon my
attention by both press and people in America. They said,
" You talk of your poverty, your increasing paoperisto, your
growing crime. We are hone of your bone and flesh of your
flesh ; we want to help you; we do not want your paupers or
your criminals, but bring us your children, your waifs and
strays, your orphan outcasts, the raw material from which
your criminals and yt air Magtlalens are numufactered, anti
we will show you that the best methrel of treating pauperism
anti Cl'iMe is to raise the people to the pOsd9CS4lllll Itt ES,me
property. We have no money to give you, no time for plat-
form spseches. no inellef hi institutions ; lint such as we
have we vice yon—a bed at the side, a seat at the tire, the
church, the selimnl, with our owli altililren, and, in (line, a
handle at the plough, and a toed share of the increase of a
land where the measure is always full and running over."
I have no wish anti tin intention that this work shall Inter-
fere in any way with toy work for adult women ; that, God
willing, will go on aimultaneonslv with this: but I cannot
conceal from myself the fact that the poorest of the most
destitute of our women—the people I most wish to help—
are the very people for whom I can do the least ; nor do I
see any way of effectually eradicating that common disgrace
of our common womanhood, the London neeillewoman,
except by some such method as I have just described.
As the boys have more "home" and" reformatory" accom-
modation than the girls and have also the army and navy
by which to rain their breast, besides ienum• ratite trades,
while the girls are confined almost exclusisely to domestic
service and needlework. I propose taking imly female children
and they are to he-1. Orphans ;2. Children who heve been
deserted five pears, 3. Fouedlings also deserted; and all to
herd the age of hom live to ten sears.
To start this work properly I shall want £l,OOO at least.
Should 1 be able to raise this sum, I shall take some email
plane in or near London as a sheltering home until the
children are ready to start, and another and similar pace in
Canada to receive them npon onr arrival in that country,
and from which the children would be draughted as fit and
suitable opportue dies occurred.
I am in treaty for a little property in the village of
Niagara, and if it he ultimately no arranged that our
" Western Wanderers' Home" should he in this locality I
have received many promises of help in "kind" to keep the
children on our first arrival, and an assurance from the
people of that one district that they will adopt, either for
life or to bring up with a view to ultimate service, twenty-
five of the child', n when I bring then,.
Ant am s Protestant myself, and am anxious that there
eheuld be no difficulty raised at ally future time tin this point,
I desire to say that all children committed to my care will he
placed under or within the influence of clergymen of our
National Church, or Evangelical ministers of other denomi-
nations, upon whose cooperation I know I may rely. and who
will supply quarterly reports of the welfare of the little MOB
living in their respective neighbourhoods, and with members
of their congregations
Mr. Van Meter, in his wide experience, haa hail scarcely a
bad report of the treatment of the children whom he has
played tilt, Mid I use no reason why the same ble•sing should
lit alit follow my work, which stands out imlilly and brightly
before me, and whi di will, I trust, commend itself to the
favourable notice id the piddle, from whom I have already
received so notch sympathy and assistance, and front whom
once more venture to ask fee help.

The Rev. J. Maconechy, Vicar of Christ Church, I
Watneyistreet, London, noticing the above letter,
writes :
/ have in my parish hundreds nf " mitter children." lin
two very low streets alone there are about 500 of them, and
many are even 'win./ the class which it is possible to get
into nor ragged school. They are growing up to be thieves
and lissilsienes, and the difficulty of rescuing ti.em from
such a life in this cbuntry is shown by the following ex-
ample, which, as a type of ninny others, may, perhaps, help
to commend Miss Rye's scheme to the support ot the public.
One day last slimmer the sick nurse of nay parish brought
I to me a wild little girl, for whom she Waa anxious that I