"OUTCAST."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7002, 26 April 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

"OUTCAST."

The London correspondent of the Birmingham Daily Post says :— The endeavours to ameliorate the condition o£ the poor of the East End of London are still being carried out with great success. Most of the dark, sreen, mouldy courts and alleys round Bethnal Green are being cleansed and purified under the supervision of a lady of title, who, still young and attractive, besides being possessed of some fortune, has resolved to devote her whole life to the oare of the poor women and children of the neighbourhood. A few weeks ago this lady left her father's house in Belgravia, after having distributed, by a written document, all her jewels and wardrobe, with a certain sum of money, amongst her. friends and dependents ; and taking with her nothing but a carpet bag containing a few articles of clothing of the 'simplest kind, departed for the East End, where she now lives in one hired room, and employs her whole time in visiting her poor neighbours, with the great object of first inspiring a love of cleanliness in the matrons and girls of the locality, and the ambition of helping themselves to independence by work. The system adopted b7 this practical philosopher is simple enough. She knocks at the door of the miserable room, laden not with provisions or warm clothing, as depicted in the goody goody etory books concocted for

the Be of our Sunday-Bchools, but with toso andn scrubbing brushes, a pail, and broom With these she" sets the housewife and her daughters to work cleaning and scrubbine the floor and walls, while she minds the children, or watches the wretched dinner cooking on the fire. When the job is ovej she inquires the price of their work by the hour, makes a basiness-like calculation of the time expended in cleaning the room, pay 8 the price demanded, and departs, bidding the people expect her again in a day or two. It is thus that she has been enabled to purify many of the Augean stables of Betlmil Green, and has brought a new sense to the obtasß understanding of their inhabitants By the females of the neighbourhood she is called "the queer woman," by the children "the funny lady;" but during the many weeks she has been pursuing the good work of cleanliness, which Bhe declares to ba the first element of the education of the poor and of far more importance than all the science imparted'by the School Board, ah has never met with the slightest oppoaißoa to her wishes, nor £a any one case have the brooms and brashes disappeared. This new instance of the self-sacrificing charity of the women of our day has been variously com. merited upon. Some see it in the pride of doing good which apes humility—others again, declare the effort to originate in a slight " crack" in the brain—but all agree in declaring that the houses under her Baper. veillance are beginning to assume a cleanly and respectable appearance which shames the men into more decent and orderly behaviour when they return from their labour, anj sometimes even to yield to the suggestion made by the wife to take off the muddy boots before stepping over the clean well, scrubbed floor of the little room.