The Winslow mail., 1910-12-24
GIRLS LACK HOMES
London Has No Respectable Ref
uge for Women.
Sister Maggie Has StrkingIy Dis
eouragng Experience-Ordinary
Lodgings Unfit for Hon
est Poor.

London.-"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
Tn order to test the matter for my
self" said she, Il 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 | Jared. After calling in
many places where | was refused ad
mittance because | had not shilling
in my pocket I spoke to an old woman
selling matches at a street corner,
who directed me to home for young
women conducted by religious body.
The first question that was put to
me there by the matron was, Where
is your reference?' l had to confess
that / had none, so I was told | was
not the sort wanted there and was
turned out on the street. | 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 a shifting. Then | went to an
ordinary lodging house for women
where after some bargaining | 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 quarrel
broke out in the room where they
were herded together.
Perhaps because I looked respect
able, the landIady blamed me for it,
and I was turned out once more. After
this | 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 house in a respectable
street. I found at length what I
thought was haven of refuge. Here
the landlady welcomed me most kind
ly. 1t was the only place I 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 | 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 off the preci-
pice rather than to try to save the
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-
cipa1 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 alb
solutely against the common lodging
house for women. "It is no place.
says she, ito which any respectable
woman can be sent"