The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-10-31


 fort to meet a crying public need
 The call to-day is not for Anchorites
 but for clergymen who know life as i
 is, who become familiar with theil
 surroundings, and who, if the way o
 usefulness be blocked in one direction look eagerly, as the Rev. Montague Fowler has done, to see if it isn't wide
 open in some other. That tent in the grave yard of All Hallows, so conspic- uous to the passer-by, was symbolica to this writer of the changed view Christian churches are getting as tc their mission. A tent is naturally sug- gestive, or 1t used to be, of an army on
 the march, looking for enemies. watch
 ing for opportunities never getting into
 ruts, but always on the move and one
 is constantly impressed in London, by
 the extraordinary amount of street
 preaching there is and by the multi 1 piled and ever-increasing agencies for
 helping people, that many of the | churches here are tired of convention alities, and instead of waiting vainly for the people to come to them, are | pitching their tents in the graveyards of Journalism, and with all their war
 paint on are going after the people
 For the kind of work into which it has entered with so much enthusiasm the Church of All Hallows- on- the Wall is admirably located. It Is only two minutes from Liverpool street station, that great terminus of the Great East
 ern railway which with the adjoining
 station of Bishopsgate, under the same
 management, lands in the city every
 morning between six and ten o'clock
 working population, in all lines of ac- tivity, from the bod carrier to the
 stockbroker, of about sixty-fve thou
 sand people. For whole day, and on an ordinary day, too, the total arrivals at these connected stations will reach nearly a hundred thousand, and the number of people leaving will be even more. But especially interesting is it to watch the arrival between 5:30 and a. m., of those who come to town by what are known as working-class trains It is wise provision of the British government that every railway shall afford them reasonable facilities for getting to and from their daily la bor at proper hours of the day These provisions of the railways regard more or less. Some of them undoubtedly, for less than they should, for railways are not noted as observers of the strict letter of the law, even In such a law abiding country as ngland
 But everybody admits that the rail- way which runs into Liverpool street, and which, coming from the east, ne- cessarily takes in many working class suburbs, is the least amongst the trans gressors both as to rates and the time at which 1t runs it's working class trains. It's boast is that every day it has hundred trains in motion for the benefit of Londons toilers. Daily, too, 1t transports thousands of this class ten miles and back for the small sum of four cents, and this, so far as 1t goes, would seem to be all that could be de- sired But these temptingly cheap trains begin running very early in the and give place after an hour or so to trains which exact little more than four cents fory the round trip, these in turn being supplanted az the morn ing hours advance by trains of still higher fare, until finally, and too early, as the workers and their friends are loudly claiming, no trains are run at other than the ordinary rates,
 Out of this statement the reader will easily gather almost everything neces- sary to full understanding of the early morning problem which Is being So happily solved, on small scale. by the down town Church of All Hallows- l on the Wall Naturally both the men l and the women, working on small | wage. as they are compelled to do in l this country, count every penny saved | on railway fare as that much to the | good for other purposes, the result being that many take the earliest and | cheapest trains like clerks, shop ass | sistants and women employed in the | sewing-rooms of big stores, wwo would, | if they only looked at the sit- nation with less regard to the saving | ,f a few pence, better promote their physical well-being by remaining in | ped an hour longer and paying the slightly increased fare of trains run ling later.
 It must not of course be overlooked nat the CLASS or WOTheIS HeFe lfleH- toned begin their daily labor much ater in England than in the United States, and continue to a later hour in he evening. For shop assistants and ewing girls nine a. m. is about the .verage in London, and for those en- ,aged in office work most of them not ,etting more than five dollars or seven fifty a week, the days labor scarcely yer begins before 9:30 and often not lntil ten. So that for those who take he advantage of the cheapest trains here Is long and dreary interval be- ween their arrival at the railway sta- ion and the time when they can enter heir places of employment. For the nen there Is always, of course warm welcome in the public house, and for he girls, too, if they choose to go there But the usual recourse of both classes a wearisome peranbulation of the treets, which, in damp weather, and lith the never absent fog of London 1orning in autumn and winter, must e dreadfully depressing to both the edith and spirits. "Wh-," said the lev. Montague Fowler, as he pointed roudly to his happy, early-morning ompany of good looking, tidily- ressed young ladies, waiting in the helter of All Hallows for the time to egin their days work-"Why," he aid, with worm enthusiasm, "before