Holbrook argus., 1910-12-20
GIRLS LACK HOMES
London 1aS No Respectable Ref
 uge for Women.
Sister Maggie Has strikingIy Dis coursging Experience-ordinary
 Lodgings Unfit for Hon.
 est Poor.

Sister Maggie" a jealous and original worker connected with the Bloomsbury Social union, is en- gagged in an effort to provide hotels for respectable girls who find them selves in London without money or friends. Sister Maggie claims that young men are amply provided for in this respect, but that the contrary is the case as to girls.
 "In order to test the matter for my self" said she, "I disguised myself as a young country girl out of situation in London and, with only nine pence in my pockets, walked the streets to find respectable nights lodging. This is how I fared After calling in many places where I was refused ad- mittance because I had not a shilling in my pocket spoke to an old woman selling matches at a street corner, who directed me to home for young women conducted by a religious body.
 The first question that was put to me there by the matron was, Where is your reference? I had to confess that 1 had none, so I was told I was not the sort wanted there and was turned out on the street I spoke to three policemen, but not one of them could help me. No person who kept furnished apartments would let me have a room for the night under the cost of shiiling Then I went to an ordinary lodging house for women where after some bargaining 1 was taken in for six pence.
 "The house was full of women, young and old, many of whom had come to London as young girls from the country. Now every one was a moral wreck; their conversation was indescribable and finally a quarrel broke out in the room where they were herded together.
 Perhaps because I looked respect able, the landlady blamed me for 1t, and I was turned out once more. After this I wandered on through street after street, always with an awful dread in my heart and always followed by some man, until at last I was di- rected to a house in a respectable street. I found at length what thought was haven of refuge. Here the landlady welcomed me most kind ly. It was the only place found even the suggestion of human sympathy, but before I was there ten minutes women, yes and many young girls of under sixteen, began to come and go through the open door and, to my horror, discovered the nature of the place, the only roof to which I as a poor girl had been welcomed"
 Sister Maggie holds that rescue work is often hopeless and that the thing to do is to fence of the preci- pice rather than to try to save the pieces below. She recommends that the churches of all denominations bind themselves together to establish properly governed women's lodging houses or inns. She says the Catholic women of Belgium have accomplished incalculable good in this way.
 Her idea is that notice boards at the railway stations and in the prin- cipal streets should be put up telling girls where such places are to be found. The police, she thinks, might be of assistance to girls whom they meet wandering in the streets at night. Sister Maggie pronounces ab- solutely against the common lodging house for women. 'It is no place. '' says she, "to which any respectable woman can be sent"