St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-03-23


upon the white lids that had closed over the
bright eyes as the petals of a sensitive flower
close at night time overits delicate heart, and
the world was nothing to him.
| Octocio Hill and Her Work.
went one day to see Miss Octavia Hill,
and learned something of her work from
herself (and her books, and something OF
herself from her friends. She is keen,
bright, pleasant, vigorous little woman, now
scarcely above forty, and lives in Maryleoone
Parish, not far from where the old parish
church looks out through York Gate upon the
pleasant expanse of Regents Park, with its
costly terraces; not far, also, from some OF
the worst slums of London. For it is one of
the characteristics OF great Babylon that its
palaces and its slums jostle each other. Miss
| HIPS home is a capacious house, plain but
prettily decorated as one enters, in which an
elder sister and herself have their school. AT
the back is an extension, built almost at the
commencement of her work, to provide
large room where she might meet her people
Miss Hills everyday work is to teach draw
ing and Latin It is in addition to this that she
has found time to institute the work by which
she is best known; to centre in herself the
relieving work of one of the most important
parishes of London, 10 promote the Kyrle So
ciety, of which she is treasurer; to write the
considerable number OF papers which In
propagation of her work she has contributed
to periodicals and made up into her books,
as well as the annual sIetter to my Fellow
oh no m al
progress and to do the thousand other good
works for which idle women can not find
time, and stronger than she have not strength,
and richer than she have not money. For it
is to the further credit of Miss Hill say it
not to her mpliment, but to the encourage
ment of others-that she is not and has not
been a rich woman Nor did the means for
her work come to her at first unsought. She
has had to earn her opportunities at every
step. But when she left England few years
since for needed rest she transferred back to
her fellow workers ga 900 of property that
had been put under her management.
Miss Hill was in early life a worker with
Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice, one OF whose
sons married one of her four sisters Here
was true apostolic succession OF the spirit
of Christ. 1t was when she was but twenty
five or thereabOnts that she took in hand the
dwellings of the poor Mr. Ruskin was her
first supporter; it was he in 1S64--5 provided
the e. 900 with which to purchase the firsttwo
neglected courts, known by the curiously sa-
tiric name of ''Paradise'' and ''Freshwa-
teri; and it was he who, assuring her that If
the money were sunk he would never regret
the giving, impressed upon her, nevertheless,
with wise foresight, that working-man
ought to be able to pay for his own home,
and that if her plan could be proved to pay
it would surely spread 1t has paid; it has
spread; and now Miss Hill can have all the
money and all the houses she wants, the ex-
tension of her work is only limited by the
number of trained workers, and what she
has accomplished can in no wise be measur-
ed by the work associated with her name.
For she does not believe in hemming in
work with the circumference of an associa-
ton, but in providing centres whence good
work may radiate, as the light streams from
the sun. Her principle is the principle of
Mr. Hale's story of ''Ten Times One is
Ten" There is germ theory of disease:
this is the germ theory of cure.
There is a court-to Illustrate Miss Hill's
work by an example-which was in 1869 one
of the worst places in Marylebone. Lon
doners who rolled by in their carriages or
Street, would not suspect the nature of the
place, which was situated not far from
fashionable Regent Street. Indeed, its real
nature was not seen from the court itsef-a
paved walk, narrow and dirty, to be sure,
but not otherwise noticeable, with high
houses on either side, the ground-foors of
which were mostly small shops, whence
secondhand furniture and other
commodities overlooked upon the
pavement, as they do now.
The inhabitants were mostly coster-mongers
and small hawkers and others of the very
DOOR, the lowest class who have houses, one
remove above the Migrants who wander at
night into the common lodging houses"
The police records were full of it, and
throughout the district, 'Gone to live in
Court was phrase which expressed a fall
to the lowest depths. The houses were I'M
utterably vile. The stairways were caked
with inches of dirt; the dust bins crammed
with rotting refuse of food, which also was
spilled about the passages; water dripped
through the leaky roofs, or drove in through
the smashed windows; the plaster and wood
work were broken away; even the kitchens
underground, with chinks for windows, were
living and sleeping room for whole families;
and the back yards were built over until in
most cases only space three feet by four
was left. To this place, ''truly wild, law
less, desolate little kingdom to come to rule
over" came the queen in 1869, when one
lady friend bought six-roomed houses, and
another lady five more, for her to manage.
The first thing was inexorably to collect the
rents That is Miss Hills basis principle,
and it is a part of her self-denial that she
permits no posing, and appears to her peo-
pie not as guardian angel, but as prosaic
and hard-hearted collector of half-crowns.
She had to go of nights, every Monday, and
poke about the foul-smelling passages in the
dark, because few of the tenants were in by
day, and noone could trustaneighborwith the
rent. More than once ferocious woman
locked Miss Hill into the room with her, in
the vain attempt to bully out of her some
thing for which the fit time had not come.
Biding her own time, little by little she
cleaned up and repaired, hiring the men
tenants as far as might be to do little jobs
(put aside often till they were out of work.,
and the older girls to scrub the passages in
turn.
The line of clean hallway against the line
of grimy room presently did its preaching,
and the women began to scrub up for them
selves. The next thing was to get the under
ground tenants e-ground-against
their will. 'sMy bits of things won't look
anything if you bring them to the light" plead
edone woman. At last, from this business
IL I a1a4.