INTO A QUIET HAVEN

Lady iiexry Somerset's home FOR INEBRIATE WOMEN. The name of Lady Henry Somerset is as closely associated with the crusade against intemperance as that of Josephine Butler is with the crusade Against immorality. Like the latter, she • has not only advocated temperance from, the platformj but has devoted her best energies to actual rescue' work among the women -victims of the drink habit. For twenty years Lady Henry Somerset has been working quietly at the Duxhurst Farm Colony, near Reigate, to prove that drunkards and criminals can fee, not reformed but redeemed, transformed into new creatures capable of living their lives in a happy, healthy epirit. Her work is a, thrilling chapter in Christian apologetics. It tocuhes the "very springs of life. I spent three or four hours at the colony one afteTnoon in the late springtime, and carried away , a host of impressions whose fragrance remains with me, though I am hack in Fleet-street again.: Ah account of this work will have special interestnow, in view, of the widespread, discussion on the .evils of intemperance to which the necessities of the national j cfrisis have given rise. .... At the "Cottage" where Lady Henry, spends most of her time, which stands in the midst .of the village, one finds the ; key to all that is going on- in the colony, j It is a real cottage, almost hidden by i masses of flowers, with a large, long room on 1 the ground, floor opening di- , rectly on to the garden—a wonderful room, with an open fireplace, where a > log fire burns on red hearthstones, its flame reflected from polished brass and antique oak furniture, with books and ; magazines scattered about, with lattice * windows, and doors fastened by great ; wooden latches. Through one of these i I passed into another room, descending i a couple of steps, where the mistress of ! the cottage waited to receive me-u -room lined with books, light and sunny, [ having a thini ol Puritan sweetness and i freshness quite in keeping with the ap- i pearance of Lady Henry Somerset her- j self. Before my visit ended I saw the > interior of other rooms in the cottage, : and my la«t impression is of a little re- j treat, half-study, half-oratory, almost ; ecclesiastical in its atmosphere and furnishing, with a praying desk and stool j before the crucifix. With Sister Minnie, a delightfully J frank and eager guide, whose explaruv- i tions and experiences, given as we j walked, echoed and reinforced what ' Lady Henry. Somerset had told men. I went from the cottage first to the church, and thence to the village quad- .j rangle. In the beautiful little church, l the Church of St. Mary and the Angels, ' there are altar cloths and tapestries j /worked by the patients—the building j itself is copied from a little church in | one of the valleys of Switzerland. Ser- j .•vices are held every Sunday by the i • chaplain, who conducts classes and .services several times during the week, j Religious influences, as Lady Henry said, j and as my gnide emphasised, are not j merely supplementary to the other ' agencies by which the patients in the colony are restored to health, of body and spirit, religion is central. "There are no mysteries in , our work," I was told, "except the prbfundent mystery of all—the power of religion in the soul. We surround our patients with every healthful influence j we give them work to -do. ii>- the gardens, kitchen, .or laundry or. weaving rooms - to 'keep . their hands and brains pleasantly occupied in. Thinking and doing. beautiful things, -wierhelp tnem -to make .friends with each other, and to enjoy the full benefits of the communal, life of the .village ; the beauty and,order.of their.lives here enable them to gain self-respect and courage and 'strength-of .will, and restores their .physical well-being. But all that- is only the means ; to the end. The end is gained when, the. patient begins- to yield to the spirit which underlies our work, of which this- church is the sign and symbol.".- ; - ' -The homes- form-a quadrangle, each with a little garden and: porch bowered with white roses. Half a dozen women live in each cottage,' with a nurse-sister to-lo ; Qk after them;•the bedrooms,"generally containing two -beds, spotlessly clean, and dainty, . a pretty, bright sit-, ting-room, and ! a kitchen, and the sister s combined bed-sitting-room, permitting the development- of a. genuine family" life, in each cottage. The communal "note is - attained both, in ; the cottages- and, in the -loing building forming one" side of the quadrangle, which" con-

tains the central kitchen and the com mon dining-hall, as well as the work rooms. When the bell rings for th principal meals the women come from al parts .of the farm, into this dining hall and make a very bright and cneerfu party; the most morose or reserved per son could not long resist the contagion o the cheerful friendliness generated unde these conditions. Everywhere we wn th same spirit prevailed; in the weav-ing-rooms, where many wonderful fab . rics are made by the patients; in thi laundry and the kitchen, and the gar dens and outhouses. A healthy comradeship grows up, an< is fostered by the wise and gentle sisten —not guardians or nurses even, but sis ters— m charge of the different depart ments. There are rules, I suppose; bu' one never thinks of them as necessary and there are certainly no bolts or locks There is a boundary to the colony, anc the patients enter into an honourabl< undertaking not to pass them without leave; but there is nothing that I couk see to restrain a patient from leavinp the colony, except the subtle persuasive influence of love and sympathising un derstanding from which a patient wil not easily escape. . . . From the village we went to the nest a long, low bunding near the entrance to the colony, backed by a pine wooc and fronting a meadow. Here are sheltered a large and happy family of children, both boys and girls, of all ages, all extraordinarily healthy and joyou3. Of all ages: I stood embarrassed ' before the latest arrivals, two babies borne in the arms of two of the elder girls, one aged only a few weeks, and the other about as many months; but they looked alike to me—little, soft, helpless creatures whose lives had fallen for them in pleasant places. But it might have been otherwise. These boys and girls are the children of drunken, neglectful, or cruel parents, saved from the miseries and dangers of such parentage by the Society for the Prevention of * Cruelty to Children and their organisations. God's orphans, mercifully placed in the care of a colony of mothers and sisters, they repay the guardianship and care bestowed on them by helping to erase fitter ■memprites of shajme .and humiliation -from the minds of the women in the colony. They are part of the colony, not the least potent influence of those who help to redeem, the inebriate. These children have a happy time in the nest. They have a little. church of •their own, where prayesr are said every morning; those who are old enough go to the village school; help in all sorts of ways to bnghen the life of the colony. As they grow up some go out into the world, while others stay to share the domestic work of the village; but those who leave come back to their "home'.' for holidays, and mote than one has come back to be married. There was a wedding two years ago, and another was shortly expected to take place. That, indeed, is one of the best features of the colony: the patients really are at home, and when they leave often revisit the place again with-a sense of home-coming. Many spend holidays at Duxhurst. "Old Patients' Day" is a great festival of reunion, when many who have been reclaimed and restored to a. life of happiness and usefulness bring their husbands once perhaps estranged, separated, or divorced—and Tenew their associatipn with friends they knew in the colony. "Of the patients to be accounted for from 1905 to 1912,. 205, who were admitted between those dates, are at this moment doing well, all women who stayed one, year.' Fifty-two failed, twelve' were lost, sight, of, -and seven are uncertain. If we add the uncertain, and those whom we can ho. longer trace to those whom we acknowledge are failures, we arrive at' the number of seventy none. Eleven died, twenty-two were feeble-minded or mentally.deranged, we dismissed eighteen who were unsuitable, and ten returned home' for causes of- serious and chronic ill-health; three were transferred, to other homes, two were immoral. .... Therefore,. among those that remained one. year, which were cases of inebriety only,, more than- 73 per cent are doing well; and, counting all from!-whom we do'not. hear as amongst those who have not succeeded, and also those about whom we are uncertain, we get 27 pel cent, only as failures. "—The "Christian Commonwealth," April 7th, 1915.