Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-04-20
THE SALVATION ARMY.
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS AT HEADQUAR
TIERS IN NEW YORK.
Mrs. Ballington Booth Among Her Girls
Charitable Ladies Among the
Sick Recruits.

Charitable Ladies Among the
| Sick Recruits.
"Why are you so pale? Where did you
get those dark rings under your eyes?'
asked brilliant young society woman Of
my acquaintance yesterday, says writer
in the New York Star. She had gone
through the weary mill of a hard-working
New York social winter with her bloom
unimpaired and her eyes like stars, and
now, when Lent was offering its welcome
chance of rest and retirement, she stood
before me with her charming young face
wan with fatigue, and her blue eyes heavy
for want of sleep.
"Oh, have only been sitting up for a
few nights with one of the Salvation
Army girls" she explained. "There are
nine of them down with the 'grip'-all
bad cases; indeed, we fear that two will
die-and so we are taking turns from the
church to look after them"
This was new phase of the matter to
me. l had heard all my life of the Saliva
tion Army as a street nuisance, with its
brass bands, its rag-tag and bob-tail, and
its attendant mob of vagabonds. / had
heard lately, as we all have, of the gentle
crusade of charming Mrs. Ballington
Booth, the pretty young English woman
who devotes her life to the interests of
this organization. Indeed, l had pene-
trated one winter afternoon to fuxu-
riously furnished, softly lighted Fifth
avenue arawing-room, where, with her
ringing, musical English voice, she had
pleaded the cause of her Army before a
roomful of New York society women,
pleaded it with such pretty, plaintive
earnestness and conviction that one
almost embraced the cause for her sweet
sake.
Could it be that with her gracious mag
netism she had succeeded in drawing from
the ranks of the rich and prosperous such
perfect specimens as the woman before nee,
with whom to re-enforce her crusading
numbers?
"Have you joined the Army ?" l said to
my friend: in bewilderment.
"No, my dear, l have not. I am doing
my duty strictly in that rank of life to
which it has pleased God to call me, but
that duty includes visiting the sick and
afflicted, particularly in Lent, you know
"What sort of girls are they? where do
they live?"
"Come with me; I am going to their
barracks now. You shall see for your
selfn
A short ride brought us to the head
quarters of this branch of the army, on
1 of
great ugly building, for which they pay
Sl25 month, a rent which sorely taxes
their slender resources. We entered a
large bare room, gloomy with the late light
of winter afternoon, insufficiently lighted
and aired by the two windows at the fur
ther end, and roughly divided off into Sec
tions by plain deal partitions about eight
feet high.
This room is the sole home of this corps
of the army. Here they live and eat and
sleep. Behind the dark partitions are
their beds, line of dark cotton curtains
dividing a series of little rooms thus
formed from the main passage. At long
wooden table at one end they take tn cir
frugal and often insufficient food One
small stove is the only source of warmth,
the two windows at the end the only
source OF light.
Several girls clad in the rough dark
blue regulation dress were sitting around,
among them two or three l noticed were
looking pitifully i'll and worn and appar-
emily suffering much from the cold-a
cold that the stuffiness of the room did
little or nothing to mitigate.
"How are you to-day, Annie ?" my es-
cort asked one of these girls compassion
ately.
"Much better, thank you, ma'am, only l
can't get warm" was the reply as she
turned toward us gentle, haggard young
face lighted up with an expression Of
brave and even humorous patience, good,
if pitiful, to see.
"They are all SICK" said with indig-
nation. "Why don't the people in con-
troll, whoever they are, give them another
stove and few invalid comforts? 1t is
barbarous to keep convalescents in great
chilly barn like this"
ave are too poor" said voice like a
hute-note behind me, and l turned to see
Mrs. Ballington Booth herself, with her
lovely young face framed in its mass Of
chestnut curls anil surmounted by the
huge Salvation Army poke.
"Do yon live here?" / calculated,
startled out of all propriety by the appa.
ration.
"No; but these are my girls, they are
the recruits of my army, and l like their
present condition even less than you do,
for | love them. All through the grip
epidemic they labored late and long among
the very lowest and poorest sufferers in
this city; they were sent to rooms COM
| rod 10 Nvh &c Al
cheerfully gave up natural rest and needed
food and went and came at the word OF
command like trained soldiers, and now
that their work is done they are stricken
down themselves. quite agree with you
that it is barbarous to keepsick people in a
place like this, but l have noticed with a
little laugh) that the conditions of extreme
poverty are necessarily barbarous But
we who embrace them voluntarily are
capable of the courage of our choice
quoth Mrs. Booth, with her young head
erect.
~ know" she said, following my glance
around the great, chilly room, 81 know
this is no place for them, and we do not
intend to make a permanent home here
The attraction of the place is the large
room we have overhead in which to hold
meetings, but / am working hard to get
funds together in order to give these brave
girls better sleeping place. We have in
view large. airy fiat which we shall use
entirely as night quarters, making this the
daily meeting place. But you have no
idea how much money we need, and how
little we have. Since nine of our girls
were taken down with the grip it has
been veg hard on us; they have needed
more Ind better food and constant atten-
tion, besides the doctors visits. It would
be vain to try to tell you how good people
have been to us in this extremity. We
have had food sent in and clothing. One
of the wealthiest members of St. Georges
Church, on Stuyvesant Square, sent In her
own physician, and many other ladies
have given us not only money and food.
but have devoted themselves personally to
the care of our sick girls. Come with me, .
she ended suddenly, turning and walking
to one of the partitions, from behind which
came the incessant babble of girls voice,
sharp and strained in delirium.
I Behind the boarding we found two large
beds, covered with dark cotton spreads.
On one lay tossing in all the misery of