The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-09-21
SALVATION ARMY FARMING
WORKING OF THE "D-1RKESI ENG-
 LANDo SCHEME
For Reforming Outcasts-A Big Farm Near London and How 1t is Managed Bements to Menlth and Morals.

| behehtb 10 hcnlfn anu MOENiss
 The Darkest England scheme for
 raising the Submerged Tenth is di- .vided into three branches--City Shel-
 ters, Farm Colony in England and an i Oversea Colony. Hadleigh Farm Col ony, about thirty eight miles from Lon l don, is beautifully situated on the estu-
 ary of the Thames in the southeastern { corner of the garden of England, some
 five miles from Southend, and com 1 prises 3,050 acres of all sorts of land,
 which about ten years ago was quite | wilderness, even the pastures being l ovelrun with weeds. But under the
 skIlful management and the labor of
 men who heretofore were loss and danger to the community great change has been made in the vast area of dere- i lict Essex farms, so great indeed that l last year the gross turnover was tWen- 1 ty-Gye thousand pounds. The Tilbury
 and Southend railway runs along the lower border of this estate, and as one 1 approaches by the line the scene is, in- | NNVNs SAl ihlllS3 Ibl IIh hiIiiS Sh'' 'if'N
 the army is engaged in other pursuits
 as well as farming. At the base of the 1 hill, which starts almost at the railway ! embankment, are three brick fields, i whose total output for last year was ! three million bricks, yielding to the ! credit of the colony &4,717. The num-
 Der would probably have reached four | million but that operations were limi- | ted by the scarcity of water. On the ! summit of the hill, swept by health giv- l ing breozes, are the homes of the men
 reclaimed from lives of crime and idle
 ness, farm buildings, the 'citader'-
 where religious meetings are held-a li-
 brary stores and bakehouses, The pie i turesque ruins of Hadleigh Castle, situ
 ated on the brow of the hill, overlook ! this scene of hopeful industry. On the { other side of the railway line the pros | pect is not quite so inviting, although
 showing many results of labor and en- 1 terprise There are great mud flats, 1 which year by year are being reclaimed 1 and turned into pasture lands, em- 1 bankments having been built to keep ! out the waters of the northern estuary. . Altogether there are twelve hundred
 
 | the foreshore has so far been let out as
 the colony officials in their own words,
 have humorously declared themselves
 to be for the present only "1shers of i men,"
 1 It is with this great effort at refor- ! nation as with all good work-you can
 not limit it's influence The amateur i laborers can, generally speaking, only | do the rougher duties of the farm. 1 Skilled workmen are required to build
 on the estate, and many of them have l found their way to this neighborhood, ! During the last few years the aspect of
 Weigh, q hamlet on the outskirts of the | colony, has entirely changed. New | houses are rising everywhere construct ! ed in many cases with the bricks pro | duced on the farm. The new post-ottice ! is built of these bricks. Ten years ago I the population of the village was four | hundred now it exceeds one thousand,
 and it is constantly growing.
 At the present time this wide reach- ! ing estate is worked by three hundred
 n1en clad in motley garments, but near l ly all wearing good, strong, servceable
 boots, for which they pay the modest 1 sum of Is. 3d. Some are hoeing weeds i in the turnip fields. others are engaged | in orchards planted by the army upon
 several hundreds of acres, picking fruit,
 most of which will be sold to private
 customers in the neighboring towns;
 and others, again, are seeing after the
 cows, pigs and poultry, while bricks
 and tiles are being turned out at the
 rate of twenty-five thousand day, to l be increased by and by to seventy or eighty thousand
 1 The housing of the ''coonists" is sim
 ply arranged There are two large dor mitores with thirty or forty beds in
 each, where new arrivals are lodged.
 As they prove themselves ready and
 willing workers, they go up a grade to
 another building, occupying room where there are ten beds and then to a
 room with only three, and, lastly, some l few get small cubicles to themselves. A
 new conner is given any work to do,
 and allowed one shilling a day for the l first fortnight or so, even if he does not
 earn it. This payment is made in col
 ony coins-brass discs, marked 4d., 2d., i Id and 1ad,, of no value outside the 1 farm. If the worker proves energetic
 and quick he can earn anything up to
 4s or 5s. a day, and when he leaves he
 gets in return for savings he may have ! accumulated equivalent current coin of
 the realm amounting sometimes to as
 much as four pounds.
 Not a few of the candidates for work
 and a better life are at the outset too
 proud or too infirm to dig. But they l soon thrive in health, and come round
 to the common sense argument of Col
 onel Lamb, the resident Father" of 1 the colony. well, you won't dig, l then? What can you do? Here you
 are without a trade and no work, and i TO prospect of work" Whatever the
 calling of the penitent may have been, l he must begin on the toughest unskilled
 job in the market garden, or in digging
 out clay for bricks.
 At first" said Colonel Lamb, If he | has been accustomed to office work, his
 new labor begins to tell on him. but in
 a few days he is another and, in regard l to health, a better man. The people | belonging to respectable stations in life , whom we get are both moral and phys 1 ical wrecks, and it is surprising what
 wonderful change weeks work In
 the open air makes
 From our stores man can obtain
 strong. durable suit of clothes for ten 1 or twelve shillinss, which sum- Il he is