The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-04-12 00:00:00

HOME FOR EMIGRANT CHILDREN.

The Esrl f Shaftesbury has sent the following letter to
Pe Trines for publicati.n

'rhe efforts of Mira Rye on behalf of the gutter-
children, as they are called, are so well known and lip-
pr.eiated that I venture, with your pertniseion, to
make an appeal to the public for further assistance to
hrr in her excellent work.

I leave out of preseni—ccnsideration the orphan girls
of the workhotwea, for the expenee of whose paseage
arrow the Atlantic the parishes are voluntarily re.

My immediate o' ject is to raise funds fiir the corn-
rinil the effectual operation of a Flume, now
es•ablishod at Peckham, into which the destitute and
partakes little girls picked up in all quarters may be
receiviid'and submitted to some preparation and train-
ing below they start on their new career in the
n of Canada.

Tr. en, wre.many admirable institutiorui, no doubt, in
which young females are educated for domestic service
—cl cvesirone must wish them God speed—but, in
1111, ber,-they are wholly inadequate to the want, and
eve were they multiplied they would not tend to
abate the enormous disproportion of the two sexes in
this country, which renders the condition of vast
tom liens of women, especially the poorer class, one
of .. ,staiit struggle, distress, and almost insuperable
e last Census showed an excess, in the British
m 1.,, of 640,000 females over males, a mischievous
and unhealthy state of things, while, on the other
side 4,1 the ocean, though the disproportion be not so
gr..f there is a very great demand indeed for female
service.

Itisa
high merit in Mies Rye's scheme that, taking
no ..I.ildren above 14 years of age, she removes those
only who, for • long time, would he merely a burden
on !, e public resources. To the Canadians, "bread
and meat"—such is the expression—" are of no ac-
coutit ;" they prefer to receive the children very young,
that they may form them to the habits of the country,
a dinipline which older girls are generally disposed to
repudiate. I do not dare to fill your columns with all
the details of Mrs. Rye's mode of conducting the move-
rnentK —suffice it to say, that there is a large Home in
Niaiara to receive the emigrants on their arrival, from
which they are assigned to the several families who
desire such domestic aid' that Miss Rye herself au.
perintende the whole, and, in fact, in almost every in.
stance, takes the personal charge of each company of
them that embarks for America.
Her greet enterprise has been blessed with signal
success. Nearly 1,000 of the most destitute children
have been placed in comfort and security, enjoying the
benefits of care and education until such tiles as they
are fit for the active duties of life. In December of 'act
year a great supper was given at the Niagara Home—
as may be read in all the papers of the district—to
celebrate, the third anniversary of its foundation.
'l'hree buadrecl and fifty of the children came to the
Invitation, brought from great distances by those who
bad adopted them; aid, but for the season and the
badness of the roads, twice that number in all likeli-
hood would have been present,
I have before me at this moment the strongest
local evidgme of the value of thii immigration to the
children aggl to the country. It comes from lawyers,
military men, and clergy, both Anglican and Presby-
terian. I:win give but one extract as a sample of the
whole. The Rev. Charles Campbell, minister of St.
Andrew's CI nrch, Niagara, states in a letter to the
lion. S. Macdonald, formerly Premier of Canada All the children In this neighbourhood are doing well,
have good, comfortable horns., awl are likely In time to
become good citisous of tlie Dominion I have no hwitation
o laying that they are infinitely better, and more likely to
km lAA well, tau WI would hay, been in to. old conlik7;

and that, as far as regards the children themselves, the
scheme Is • blessed one for them."
I may, perhaps, add my much smaller experience.
Three years ago I picked up a little girl, eight years
of age, in • state of dirt and disease from cold and
hunger perfectly fearful, without father or mother
or any relative. I sent her, under good care, to
Canada. She was there adopted into the family of a
respectable tradesman, and I continue to receive ac-
counts of her as one of the moot amiable, bright, and
docile little creatures on the face of the earth.
. . . . .

But London abounds with such as thaw, and It is on
their behalf that I now hazard this appeaL Mies Rye
has, no more than myself, any beneficial interest in
thie matter. Tier anxieties and her labours are all
gratuitous. She is animated by the feeling which
would animate every one who, when contemplating
the hideous present and the still more hideous future
of these miserable children, saw a mode of escape for
them to a life of usefulness and safety. It may be
taken out of the range of ordinary benevolence; for,
while it is a relief to hundreds of these fotsaken
children, the seed.plot of crime and mischief, it is al-
most a still greater relief to the community from among
whom they are transplanted to other lands.

Miss Rye, in acknowledging the receipt, In The Tunes, of
several sums of money In aid of the charity, remark, :
I have so long been a beggar for poor girls an
children that I am almost ashamed to ask for "more,"
but a woik like this involves a large expenditure.
First, there is the finding the child in her misery, and
ignorance, and dirt ; after that, the cleaning, the
clothing, and the elementary teaching ; then the
voyage and safe custody across the Atlantic ; and,
last of all, the maintenance and oversight in the
Western Home until the plscing out fr life. I
say the placing out for life. Unfortunately, that is a
figure of speech in many instances. I have during the
three past years taken 870 children across the great
seas, and of that number 104 children have at different
intervals been returned to the Home for general in-
subordination and stubbornnese—theee children have
been replaced, some two or three time., some four or
five, and a few seven times over, representing in all
278 fresh places, in addition to the original 870 homes
for the children on their arrival in the country. So I
think I am right in saying that the work is necessarily
an expensive one.
. . _

Sometime, I think there is a little nnder.current of
jealousy at my taking these poor children out of the
country, the argument being that England herself
waute more domestic servants, and that charity begins
at home. This is very true; we do want more do-
mestic servants, but who is to teach and train the poor
little creatures whom the Bible women and the Scrip-
ture readers are constantly bringing to my doors in
filth and rage? I say, who will do it may do it, for I
am sure there are enough children, and to spare, for
I England and Canada both; but think of the years it
I takes, and the money it coats in England—to feed,
teach, and train a child, of say eight or nine,
till she is fourteen—i.e., old enough to take
into your houses, and after all these years of
training in the schools what? —ail • rule, upper
servants rebel against the charity child, and, at beat,
she has no true home centre of her life, for the place
in which she has lived so many years is not and never
can be home in the true wino, of the word. But let
uslake her int, a new country, where population is
sparse and the nscesaities of life superabundant, she is
individualized, she is welcomed, she is homed ; and,
if you want to turn a child into a woman, that is
what you must give her; and I proudly say of my
dear Canadian friends who have opened their doors to
my children that their patience with the wayward ones,
and their love and kindness to the good girls are be-
yond all praise, and have surpassed my greateat ex•
pectations.
Many of your readers, no doubt, saw that terrible
statement of 1,200 young women beeiegiug the doors of
the Telegraph Company the other day, clamouring for
eleven situations I How could I help thinking as I
read that statement, Ah, if I had only had those
women while they were young, what could I not have
done for them in Canada I and, it is to avoid a repeti-
ti .n of such sorrold that I ask you to help me to con-
thane this work. My first party of children will
(1). V.) leave England on the let of May, and if we
raise enough funds, the second party will start about
the let of June.—Yours faithfully,
MARIA S. RirE.