The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-26 00:00:00

711 E MIDNIGHT MISSION.

This remarkable movement has lost nothing of its first
efficiency, though it has long ceased to excire the interest
of novelty. It was a bold, but an important enterprise. It
is now confessedly a success. It demanded a more than
common amount of good sense, discretion, and delicacy ; it
laid its promoters open to severe censure in case of failure,
and exposed them to great ridicule and smart gibes on the
part of those who can always laugh at what they cannot
understand, or will not help. The brief history of this
movement is instructive. Many kind and earnest ministers
and laymen felt deeply for the condition of 40,000 fallen
women traversing nightly the streets of London. They
were not only lost sheep, but apparently inaccessible to the
aggressive efforts of those whose compassion their sorrows__
and their sufferings had excited. That there might be-UV
fair opening for censure, the first promoters sent out to
leading and influential persons 700 notices of their design.
On the Bth of February, 1860, 500 invitations, enclosed in
envelopes, were distributed among the sisters of the pave in
Regent-street, Coventry-street, and the Haymarket, and in
the various casinos which they are in the habit of frequent-
ing, affectionately and respectfully inviting them to meet a
few friends at tea in the Restaurant of St. James's-hall at
half-past 11 p.m. About 250 of these " unfortunate ladies"
accepted the invitation. They were addressed by the Hon.
and Rev. Baptist Noel, in words full of earnest remon-
strance, Christian feeling, and in a temperate spirit, and
the effect was most impressive. Numbers felt chords
touched in their nature that had long ceased to vibrate,
and reminiscences stirred that had been almost effaced, and
applications many and fervent were made by the victims
of a great evil for deliverance from its bondage. The re-
sults, in a mere statistical point of view, were as follows :
—TWelve meetings of this kind were held; 2,400 unfor-
tunate women attended, 26 were restored to their
friends, 18 were placed in service, 91 were gathered into
various homes provided for this purpose, four married,
and two emigrated. A contemporaneous attempt was made
by some French pastors under the same sanction to impress
the very numerous Frenchwomen who have fallen into the
same degraded condition; but here the difficulties were
very great. The haunts of these unfortunates are the pro-
perty of Belgians and Frenchmen, who import the unhappy
creatures into this country by gross misrepresentations, and
afterwards live and become rich by their gains. These
taskmasters forbade their victims to accept the invitations,
and threatened to flog them if they disobeyed their orders.
It was also found that the scepticism and superstition in
which they had been trained in their own country enabled
them to a great extent to resist every attempt to awaken
them to a sense of their position, and to throw off every
earnest and salutary appeal. But, accepting all the failures,
there remains sufficient success to be a reward to those be-
nevolent persons who so nobly pitied and so kindly toiled
for those who did not pity themselves. The countries to
which the 138 reclaimed unfortunates belonged were as fol-
low :-59 were natives of London ; two came from Wales,
three from Scotland, and six from Ireland. Yorkshire fur-
nished three, Gloucestershire four, Somersetshire eight, and
two were from each of the remaining English counties.
Their average age was 22 years. The sources and springs
of the " social evil" are many and various. Not a few start
on their unhappy career from fashionable dressmakers'
establishments. Young and beautiful, they feel the op-
pressive fatigue of vitiated air, late hours, and incessant
work. They meet with them that "smile and are villains."
Dissatisfied with their intolerable toils, yearning for relief
and sympathy, they yield, are forsaken, and die alike un-
knowing and unknown. Another source of this evil is found
in the army. The rules of the service allow only six wives
in each company, and the marriage of soldiers is generally
discouraged. Regiments sent to India are accompanied by
30 wives, though composed of 1,000 men. If young women
could look forward to early marriages they would thus be
lifted out of the way of temptation. But, owing to the
consumption of men by the navy and the army, by emi-
gration, and by the fact that there are thousands of ehop-
men whose masters would dismiss them if they dared to
marry, there were found at last census 1,400,000 women be-
tween 20 and 40 years of age unmarried, Servants out of
place swell the ranks of the fallen. In fact, poverty has
much to do as an occasion, if not a cause, of the first step
downward. They see thousands of their sex on the streets
gaudily attired, apparently prosperous and merry, while
they are cold and hunger-bitten, and in rags. The tempta-
tion to plunge into the current is strong, and their prin-
ciples or powers of calculation are weak, and they are ruined.
The upper classes also contribute their share of victims.
Fashionable mothers cultivate the society of profligate
young men of rank and fortune, and often reap the fruits
they have been fostering in the degradation of their daugh-
ters. No conduct is more worthy of censure. Vice ought
to be reprobated in man as firmly as in woman. If we can-
not extinguish the social evil we may do much to lessen it.
Earlier marriages would be a step in the right direction.
Let young men begin as their parents began, and not wait
to begin as their parents live after 30 years of prosperous
labour. Let mothers learn to appreciate a fortune an a
young man as highly as a fortune with a young man.
The former is a mine, the latter is but a ba/ance in the
bank. At all events, he cannot have much pity or com-
passion in his heart who refuses his best wishes for the
success of an enterprise that has already lessened the bur-
den of human suffering, and appears to have capabilities of
increased success.

_
A fire broke out last week at St. Jean-Sarrebruck,
in Prussia, in the house of a Baker named Brenner, which
was completely destroyed. Five children of the owner un-
fortunately perished in the flames, and their mother only
escaped by jumping out of the window, by which, however,
she received severe injuries. A female servant also jumped
out and saved her life after first throwing out another of
the baker's children. Several other persons who were in
the house received more or less serious injuries in effecting
their escape.