MR GLADSTONE

Evening Star, Issue 19559, 18 May 1927, Page 3

MR GLADSTONE

A FRIEND OF THE FALLEN Mr C. F. G. Masteringn, in his pieface to the abridged edition of Morley’s ‘ Life of Gladstone ’ deals with Gladstone’s work of reclamation among tho women of the streets. Mr Masterman writes:— “For nearly sixty years Gladstone continued the work unceasingly and defiantly, utterly careless of me warnings of friends or the extraordinary danger he was running of the misunderstanding of his nature and object by “ men of the world.” He found the abandonment of the work by his friends more than compensated by the sympathy and active assistance of his wife. He enlisted with ardor in the enterprise such prominent and distinguished women as Lady Frederick Cavendish and Lady Sarah Spencer. Stories were told about him in the crude gossip of the clubs. Once or twice they rose to the surface and were knocked cn the head. . . . Many thought that these activities were confined to giving food advice to women who “ -ccosted ” im in the streets or to organising rescue homes and penitentiaries for this class of unfortunates.” According to Mr Masterman, Gladstone did not wait to be “accosted ” : “He went out deliberately to ‘accost, to seek, and to save those who were lost. . . .’ He spent great sums of money not only in the work of supporting rescue homes, but in personal gifts. He would send these forlorn creatures to health resorts, paying for the whole obligation, and contriving, in conjunction with his wife, to procure them places of honest livelihood. He kept a record of every case, and when, as often, the woman resumed her old occupation he threw the whole blame on himself for want of zeal or want of effort and sacrifice or want of Christian charity. He would hunt them again and again in a passionate determination (as he would have put it) to • ‘ save souls.He pur*

sued them even into houses of ill-fame. Many of the London police knew him and knew his work, and some mis' understood hts actions. At any moment some catastrophe might have occurred which would have ruined his whole political career. . . . Many iimes during nil these crowded years Mr Gladstone’s friends endeavored to urge him to abandon this work, regarding it as incompatible with th« leadership of a great political party and provocative of danger. . . * There was much to be said and there is much to be said to-day in favor of such a remonstrance. But it is mim arguing with an avalanche.”