CLUB FOR FACTORY-WOMEN IN SOUTHWARK.
pro THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—May I again bring before your readers the needs of our Women's Club in Southwark ? After four years of almost incessant work, we are just beginning to realise what uphill work it is to make a permanent and continuing impression on the rough girls and women in the lower parts of London,— more difficult, I sometimes think, than on men, perhaps because the usual standard among women is higher than among men ; and in this case I am not sure that it is so.
This past year, the ladies who work down in the home have laid great stress upon their efforts to get at the mothers and younger married women, and through them at the girls, a move which seems to me most wise.
The poverty and degradation in which some of these live is really terrible. A lady went to pay a visit to one of these poor women the other day. The court she lived in was so dark. she could not even see the door ; after climbing up a staircase which hardly held together, she found her in a filthy room, eight feet by ten, lying on a bedstead, foul beyond description, and half-delirious with pain, want, and neglect. Round a fire of cinders, gathered from the neighbours' dustheap, sat five small children equally dirty, with neither
light nor food. All this was brought about by drink and thriftlessness. What wonder, then, is there that the girls grow up little better than savages ? But, thank God, they improve, slowly, but I think very surely, owing to the outward touch of sympathy given to them by the ladies who day after day go down to the club in the evening. It is for the expenses of this mission to the poor—gas, rent, food, Bank- holiday treats, &c.—that I venture to ask for help.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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