Josephine E. Butler.

White Ribbon, Volume 2, Issue 19, 1 January 1897, Page 1

Josephine E. Butler.

“ I came not to send police on the earth, but a sword."—Jesus, the Thrist. Those who recall the part played and hardships endured by Mr W. T. Stead some twelve years since in the cause of Purity, will be in no wise surprised that he s able, in the November issue of the Review of Reviews, to write so sympathetically of Mrs Butler’s recently published volume; and the value of the article is considerably enhanced by reason of the fact that Mr Stead is also enabled to draw upon his own peisonal knowledge of the work and its pioneer. Says Mr Stead : “It is the peculiar glory of Mrs Butler that to her was reserved, in this century, the task of rediscovering a segment of humanity which, until she arose, had been almost as completely submerged from human ken as the continent of Atlantis. No Sargasso Sea of drifting morass and floating forest could conceal behind a more impenetrable barrier the surviving peaks or the sunken continent than the suspicion, the prejudice and the selfishness by which fallen women were fenced off trom their kind. The women of the town, it was declared, were outcast, disinherited, excom. municate—things rather than women. The Administration doomed them to life-long slavery, and destroyed by law or by ordinance their claim to the most

sacred and inalienable of all human rights-the right to their own persons and their own liberty. “Then Josephine Butler arose, and of her own knowledge, born ot much painful and terrible exploration of the Sargasso Sea of this Under-World, bore testimony that human hearts still were to be found even in this lost Atlantis of Si vice, and that woman did not lose the indestructible divinity of her sex even when she had made of it merchandise in order to procure her daily bread.” Mrs Butler says : “ It may surprise some of my readers to learn that the first great uprising against legalised vice had much less of the character of the ‘ revolt of a sex ’ than has been often supposed. It was as a citizen of a free country first, and as a women secondly, that I felt compelled to come forward in the defence of the right. The Crusade was essentially a cry for ‘ equal justice.’ ” While noting that Mrs Butler was “ a rebel born and bred ” —“ descended from the rebel Huguenots on her mother’s side, and from the sturdy Northumbrians of the Border on the side of her father. ” Mr Stead also points out “ that it was left to her to proclaim the fundamental truth —We never get to the heart cf things human till we take the tender side of human nature.” Long years since Mrs Butler appealed to those who, after years of shameful wallowing in sin, have married and |

settled down, while the outcast woman dies, consumed by disease and misery. “ She is lost to society, you are petted by society. Your own past life could reveal sins as great before God as hers have been.” Again she says, “ Down all the ages, since that hour when Christ and the outcast woman were face to face in the Temple, and every man in the surrounding crowd was pointing the finger of scorn at her, the world has continually been pointing the finger of scorn at her, the world has continually been pointing the finger at this typical figure of woe, as the scapegoat upon whom, justly or unjustly, the sins and miseries of society must be The question has always been, ‘ What shall we do with her ? ’ Never till this last * new era ’ has it dawned upon us, has it been asked, 4 What shall we do with him ? ’—him, her com-

panion in sin.” And to this last question Mrs Butler replies, “ At any rate do not let us send him to Parliament to make the laws.” In one of her electoral manifestoes she wrote “ We have listened to cynical arguments in favour of the protection of male vice from men in that House of Commons, whose illegitimate children and cast-off paramours we have sheltered and nursed in their disease and poverty and desertion, and the victims of whose seduction we have laboured hard to restore to hope and a row life. Sometimes after looking dowu from the ladies’ gallery there^

or vainly arguing with some hardened sinner in the lobby, we have returned to our almost hopeless work among their victims, and have been driven in a moment of darkness to ask, 4 Is there indeed a God in Heaven ? ’ ** “ Another thing,” says Mr Stead, “which Mrs Butler thought might be done with ‘him ’ was to compel him to face the responsibilities of paternity ” Driven to work among the prostitutes by sore heartache caused by the sudden death of her only daughter, her tenderness, love and care for the poor outcasts knew no bounds. She says, “ I have but one spare bedroom in my house. Into that room I have received with my husband’s joyful consent, one after another of these my fallen sisters, we have given to them in the hour of trouble, sickness, and death, the best that our house could afford. In that room I have nursed these poor outcasts filled with disease, many of them have died in my arms.” Her stories from this Sargasso Sea are pitiful reading —girls and women driven to sell their own persons in order to buy hare necessaries for dear dying ones. But not only did she pity and strive to save the individuals sufferers. To rouse public opinion was her point, to uncover the deeds of darkness. She says, “ I used to kneel and pray 4 O God, I beseech Thee, send light upon these evil deeds —light, though it may be terrible to bear.’ ” And cgain, 44 One of my great difficulties has been to overcome the reluctance of men to see their women work in this matter, but every adult woman with a moral sense ought now to move . . . and it does not injure purity." This need for a holy revolt of good women was the burden of her Crusade cry of a quarter of a century since. 44 But not lightly did she raise the standard of revolt. ’ 44 I worked hard at other things good

works, as I thought with a kind of half • conscious hope that God would accept that work, and not require me to go farther and run my hertit against the naked sword which seemed to be held out. But the hand of the Lord was upon me.” Obedience to the call brought relief. Space forbids quotation from Incidents of the Crusade. Not only did the mob and the police join hands in support of the Act, but when Canon butler attempted to bring the matter before the Church Congress he was howled down. 1 he mobs hunted the brave woman through the streets, and attempted to suffocate her. Hotels refused to take her in, and it was difficult to find her a refuge. 44 But from the day when she stood in a cart in Newark marketplace, supported on either side by a man bearing a flaming torch, the common people heard her gladly, and in the end enabled the Crusaders to triumph over all their foes.”