The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-01-25
THE PRISONERS ADVOCATE
UNITED CRUNCH CROWDED TO
 HEAR MRS. WILMINGTON BOOTH.

AWay-Auuress Listened to With the
 Closest Interest-Mrs. Booth Describes
 Her Work in the Prisons Large Collec-
 ton Taken,
 The audience which Mrs. Ballington Booth of the American Volunteers ad- dressed in United church last evening was a remarkable one. Dr. Munger, the pastor, declared that it was prob ably the largest he had ever seen in the church, not less than 1,2o0 or 1,5O0, as he thought, and less conservative estimates would doubtless have placed it at more than 2,000 Seats for the multitude were utterly out of the ques- tion, for long before the meeting open- ed they were ali filled. Was there standing room for all? Hundreds who arrived at the church last will tell you ''no."
 All the space that could be occupied was taken, people standing at the rear of the church about the doors as thick as they could be placed; also in crowds in the vestlbule outside the doors, while the vestibule stairs were loaded with people. mostly ladies, who desired to hear this wonderful woman preacher from these points of vantage through the open doors.
 There were hundreds who were not even so much favored and went away disappointed.
 The audience was suited to the speaker, who is undoubtedly one of the best heard in New Haven for a long time.
 Mrs. Booth wore the plain. unadorned blue uniform of the Volunteers with the shoulder straps of an officer, and the usual unseemly bonnet of the type worn by the women of the Salvation Army, out of which the American Volunteers sprung. She has a very attractive face, strong with clear cut lines and intellectual; above all, sympathetic. Her power as a speaker is great, and she had the clos est attention of her audience last even ing. White haired professors of the- ology and preachers of the gospel list ened with the closest attention to her words and followed every changing expression of her face throughout her long talk.
 She took her audience with her into whatever mood she went, her bright smile and fearful eyes awaking ever a sympathetic response.
 The address was upon the work of the Volunteers in this country in the prisons. Her earnest and unaffected way of saying what she did made it interesting more than anything she said or the words in which she said it.
 She referred very happily to her speaking to an audience in the United church five years ago.
 Tt is not the policy of the Volun- teers to speak of the work we are to do, but to let the work speak for it. self
 This young organization of ours has already some victories to be thankful for.'
 She then described the trials In the organization of the Volunteers and said that now they had 800 commissioned officers, 200 posts and headquarters, with fifty or sixty employed there; pub- fish paper and magazine, and have a legion of friends.
 ''We belong to no church and our organization is in antagonism to no church.
 "The government is always to be in this country. If any wish to go to for eign countries they can go, but we be- lieve that no organization can be sue ces sfully governed three thousand miles away.
 "We go to the hopeless classes. My own work, and the one in which I am most interested, is among the prison CTS. As I was riding on the train a short time ago a gentleman entertain ed my little boy with accounts of the many places he had visited. At last my little boy broke out, Have you ever been to Sing Sing?' No, have never landed there yet the gentleman re- piled, looking quite surprised; and my little boy, with a pitying look upon his face, went on and told the gentleman what beautiful place Sing Sing was to spend the holidays at, and gave the gentleman some of his friends address es. which were the numbers of the cells.
 s"The gentleman said he had never been in Sing Sing, but he had been in a Russian prison. On learning this my little boy dropped his pttying look and said, eagerly: Oh, then you must be one of my mothers old prisoners?'
 My heart has been in this prison work, and I feel as though I could spend my life there. I come to ask you tonight If you in heart and sympathy have been to Sing Sing. I do not come here to give you statistics, but what I have myself seen and heard during days and nights which I have spent in work for prisoners within the prison walls.
 "Some of the men in prison with the longest sentences to serve are those who most desire to be at liberty. I found in the prisons I visited men who are filled with despair and hopeless ness.
 'sOn their release from prison the state erases the name convict but the public prefixes 'ex-' and stigmatizes them .ex-convicts.' They are pointed at with derision and scorn as men not to be trusted and it is hard for them to get work of any kind. This, I say, is unjust and unchristian. I believe that so or 90 per cent. of released con- victs intend to reform but for the way in which people receive them.''
 I, Is,os J (