HOLIDAYS FOR THE POOR.
[TO TIES EDITOR OF THE EPEOTATOR.1 SIRS Will you kindly allow me to make known through you a very simple plan for giving innocent and invigorating pleasure to children growing up white and sickly in the crowded parts of London, like plants a long way from the window ? It is so simple, and has proved so successful in the hands of one lady, that one wonders whether it really is a new discovery, or like some other great discoveries, only a finishing touch put to Nature's preparations. This lady has written, for the use of friends, a short account of its details, from which I am allowed to make extracts. I Icr own words tell the story better than any others could do. In a sketch of the plan, before trying it, she says :— " My scheme is to got a certain number of children from the poor, overcrowded parts of London, say six, with one grown-up woman, either a Sister, or a poor, overworked drudge, or seamstress, or mother, or any one, to come to the country for a wook. Changing thus every week (luring the two or three warm summer months we can ensure fifty poor young things enjoying themselves for once in their lives. Not that I want to limit it to once, on the contrary, I want it to become an established thing that every child shall have a yearly week's holiday, lay in a stock of health for the rest of the year, and have a memory and a hope. This must not degenerate into a formal business, subscriptions, buildings, establishments, So. All would be spoiled. I want the children to live in a cottage, have a run in the fields or on the sea-shore, live only a little bettor than they do at home, feel themselves free of school, in communion with nature and the rest of humanity. I want every village to have a few rooms devoted to this object ; every farmer's wife to give a little food, milk, eggs, butter, scraps ; the children, with their grown-up companion, to wash and clean their own rooms, &c. A number of little con- tributions will go a great way. The rich can help with money for the hire of the rooms, and the railway charges will be tho chief ex- pense. Servants might be made to take an interest in it and assist. Young ladies might help to make them sightly, if their rags are too much tattered. They will go home better in health, lively in spirits, glad to take with there their little stock of news, little treasures, shells, pebbles, a flower-pot with a real plant, horse-chestnuts, odds and ends of things that will amuse them the whole winter, which big houses throw away as too insignificant oven to be given to their usual poor."
And in a paper dated a few months later, she thus describes its successful working
:- "Fifty girls, from twelve to fourteen, and ton women, have had each a week's holiday and enjoyed it very much. It was managed in this way: I took a small cottage close to our garden gate, belonging to a small inn on the road, close to the sea-side. This cottage contained two bed-rooms and one living room, and I engaged the landlady of the little inn to do all that was wanted for the children. She furnished bed and table linen, cooked for thorn, and looked after their comforts. The house- keeping was managed as in my own house ; I ordered the dinner and every other meal, and I had the tradespeople's books every week, the landlady being, as it were, my housekeeper, and taking my orders. The children had tea and broad-and-butter for breakfast, a few biscuits between that and dinner, if hungry ; a joint of meat or a stow, with potatoes and greens, and a plain pudding or fruit tart for din- ner. Tea at five, with bread and butter or jam—they preferred butter—and at night a biscuit. No wino or beer, excepting a glass of beer for the attendant woman. As long as the school holidays lasted, two of the Sisters who kept the school in Whitochapol came with , them. They, poor things, wanted the change almost more than the children, so I had only six girls with them. Afterwards, when their work began again, one woman came with seven girls. I could not manage more, and I think it was a very good number ; quite largo enough to make a merry party, not so large as to split up and require more supervision. The women were either charwomen, washerwomen, or semp-tresses—all known to the children and to the children's parents, consequently there was mutual confidence. I am told that it was very pretty to sou in London every child brought by its father and mother to the place of rendezvous, every child care- fully scrubbed and brushed the night before, over,' as they told me with groat pride, and each dressed cleanly, and as well as they could, some little girls having their week deferred to the next, as their mothers could not get them properly fitted out before. This suited me, as I particularly wished to avoid any semblance of this being a charity business, and I carefully impressed on their minds that they were all on a visit to a friend, like other people. On the day appointed, the now batch left London by as early a train as possible, with return tickets, arrived early, and wore received by the old batch as they landed, and all fourteen walked up the bill together. Then the combined forces had one cheerful dinner together, then the old ones showed the new ones their harpy playing-grounds, their limits or bounds, and after tea the new ones accompanied the home-going party to the steamer, they travelling home with the morning's return tickets, happy and joyous. Next week the same was repeated, all the new-comers knowing every item of the programme beforehand. The expense of all this was very small, the chief item being the railway tickets. The hire of the cottage, suffi- ciently furnished, the use of the inn kitchen fire, and the attendance of the landlady was £1 a week ; butcher, grocer, baker, milk, and vege- tables, £30 ; travelling expenses (railway, flys, steamers from London to Southampton and Calehot), £34. But I count the journey as also an enjoyable part of the expedition. Calculating all together, every indi- vidual cost £1 4s. 6d. for a full week's enjoyment and change of air."
No comment is needed (beyond that which every mother's expe- rience will supply) upon the touching beauty of this little story. Its happy author does not want help for her own plan, she only wishes others to know how cheaply and easily they may do likewise.
May I add that many who cannot afford to take a cottage, and receive parties of six or seven, might easily receive one or two little ones for a week or two in their own country homes. Now that the summer is coming on, will not some kind country people open to such little guests the paradise of a garden or a farmyard, and at the same time, light up their own homes with the bright- ness which nothing but childhood can give ? Poor children give so little trouble, and few servants would grudge that little for the pleasure of having a child about the house.—I am, Sir, &c.,
48 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, S.W. C. K STEPHEN.
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