The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1892-12-11

tious one. 1t is u neat little story and
half cottage, the main part of which
must have been built some forty years
ago, and to which many little roofs and
angles and Il pleasant veranda have been
added A graceful elm, knotted, cher
ry and conelike evergreen adorn the
wide, grassy yard that surrounds the
house.
If you enter the modest porch that
shades the front door and pull the bell
you will be admitted to narrow entry
hung about with uniforms and caps and
sashes and flags of the Salvation Army
The dumpy English servant girl who
will open the door bears the distinct
stamp of the Army on her face She
will listen to your message and COM
ment on it with much confusion of as.
pirates, and if you convince her that
you should be admitted she will take
you into the plainly furnished room
where the marshal of the forces receives
his visitors.
Ballington Booth and his wife are de-
voted to their work. Mrs. Booth, as the
world knows pretty we'll by this time,
was delicately reared in an English
home, and gave up all the pleasures and
comforts of her early life to take up the
heavy burdens of the Salvation Army
when she married the son of the army's
founder. She has never spared her in
adequate strength since she first laid
the cause next her heart, and the news
papers have told the pathetic story of
her breakdown during the recent con-
tinental congress of the army in New
York after the dedication of her baby to
the work of its parents. Her health is
now very fragile, if not completely shat
tered.
The work of Mrs. Booth is, if any
thing, more arduous and it is probably
more effective than that of her husband
1t has been her desire to carry the Cos
pei war alike into the highest and the
lowest places. She is n person of much
refinement, and she it was who first sue
ceeded in getting the members of New
York's Four Hundred to give some coun-
tenance to the movement. Her meetings
in the parlors of Murray Hill and other
aristocratic sections of the metropolis
have been well attended and have
brought forth substantial financial fruit.
Turning from this work, for which
she is eminently fitted, she has felt it
her duty to plunge into the slums. There
she has led the vanguard, and is known
personally quite as well III the lowest ten
ement houses as i'll the residences fronted
with brownstone. Owing to her per-
sonal exertions the army has recently
opened its first refuge for fallen women
in New York. The location of this in
stitution has been kept secret SO far, as
it is not desired to make it Il place of re-
sort for sightseers.
Whatever may be thought of the pc
culiar methods of Marshal Booth and
his self sacrificing wife, it must be con-
coded that their motives are not mer-
cenary. The regular salary of a Saliva
ton Army officer is but seven dollars a
week if the officer be single, ten dollars
a week if he be married, with one dollar
extra for each child in the family. AT
this rate Marshal Booth would receive
but twelve dollars week, and it il
stated that he does not always accept
that sum in full. 1t goes without saying
that he conld not pay the rent of his
Montclair cottage and support his fam
lily on this sum, and Mrs. Booth devotes
her entire time to the Army