The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1890-12-19
LoNDoNs BIG CHARITIES.
Methods Which Might Be Followed with
Profit in This Country.

Methods which Might Be Followed with
Profit in This Country.
Among the passengers on the Alaska
was Mr.. Charles B. Slower, superintend-
ent Of the Neighborhood Guild. Mr..
Slower went abroad for the purpose Of
studying, as far as his time allowed, the
question of social reform among the
working classes The Neighborhood
Guild with which he is connected has
for three years been engaged in the or
ganization of clubs for mutual improve
ment among the tenement population of
the district
In pursuing this work Mr.. Slower has
found many things in the methods prac-
ticed in the East Side of London which
seemed worthy of imitation here, and it
was partly for closer study of these
matters that he has taken the tour not
only through England, but in Norway,
Sweden and Russia. Mr.. Stover had
some very interesting facts to recount in
relation to his experiences in visiting the
workingmen's clubs and other institu-
tions of the sort with which the poorest
quarters of London are dotted.
MY visit to London, said he, swas
perhaps rather at an unfortunate time
of year, as many of the places which
wanted to visit were closed for the sum-
mer. However, | saw among other
things the Peoples Palace, in East Lon
don, in Mile End road, the most dismal
quarter of the East Side. It is the
gigantic technical and industrial insti-
tute founded in a great degree as re-
suit of Besant's novel, All Sorts and
Conditions of Men 1t is in an unfin-
ished state as yet, of course, but should
say that it would prove to be as much
like an enlarged Cooper Union as any
thing
'sThe Palace is entirely without re-
ligious instruction, being distinctive in
this particular from the other large in
dustrial institutes. The classes number
already some 10000 members, it is said,
in spite of the incomplete condition of
the building. They include not only
the usual classes in carpentry and cabi-
netmaking, but matchmaking and pho
Biography, and should think that al
most overy trade could be learned there.
The Palace is founded in part ON the
Beaumont trust fund, and the technical
schools are supported by the Drapers'
company, one of the wealthy trade or
garizations Of London. The Regent
Street Polytechnic is another large insti-
tute Of some 6.000 or 1000 members,
which has been highly successful.
visited this and went all through the
building.
Mr.. Stover described also visit which
he paid to the famous Toynbee hall in
Whitechapel, an institution of which
the Neighborhood Guild is an attempted
imitation. Toynbee hall is a settlement
of twenty or more university graduates
who have thus taken up their residences
in the midst of London's worst quarter,
and there conduct classes, form clubs,
and do what they can in their associa-
ton with the working classes about
them to encourage social improvement.
The workingmen's clubs, with their
reading and billiard rooms, and, strange
to say, bars open at all hours and every
day, Mr.. Stover also described. The
ease with which the poorer people of
London, whose poverty is everywhere
apparent, can support such clubs was
very striking. Other clubs of like nat
ure, with the exception that the drink
ing in them is confined to non-intoxi-
cants, We're also self supporting. This
suggested the possibility to Mr.. Slower
of establishing here places of resort for
workingmen, where they could find at
tractive surroundings and perfect free
dom. These places could be made self
supporting, Mr.. Stover thinks, and
would be valuable allies to work like
the guild.
| "The main problem . said Mr. Slower,
sis not how to form charitable institu-
ton. There are enough of them already
But it is, rather, how we may establish
on business principles something which
may induce the working classes to COM
bine, not for each ones individual bene-
fit, but for the general good of all. Such
an affair should be self supporting, not
dependent upon contributions from the
richer classes. New York Times.
1