'brewer's apron, or leaves ticketed as 'strong Bohea,' 'Young Hyson,' or genuine Souchong,' all of which may have done duty at the Carlton or Reform Clubs, or the last tea drinking at your own Ragged School. They exist, too, in connection with some licensed beershops, where pewter pots and porter reign triumphant, and solos are roared from the mouth of some vagrant, or screamed by some wanton-where the fiddler plays the last polka, and shares with the landlord the profits of the twopenny hop. Yes, even there they exist; and I blush to state it, women, when all their money is gone, are known to slip off some article of dress, and hand it to the landlord as a security for the maddening beverage he calls porter. It is generally the thirst for drink which bring them customers; and they are ready to possess anything on which they can with safety advance the price of a pint of porter or half a quartern of gin. The existence of these places in any locality is an unmitigated curse, as the facilities afforded for the disposal of almost worthless articles helps the drunkard to pander to his appetite, robs the home of its most necessary articles-children of their food and clothing; while it contributes to the supply of paupers in all our metropolitan parishes. I could occupy the whole of your time with tales, some ludicrous, some appalling, illustrative of the evil influence of these pest-houses. I give you two: A hard-working man, who liked and deserved the good things of this life, found himself, after a week's toil, walking home with a fine leg of mutton and large loaf of bread. The bread was a usual thing; but there was the mutton, sufficient to cheer, and yet surprise any wife. No cag-mag, but cut from a genuine Southdown. Wife,' says the husband, 'that will make us a good Sunday dinner, boiled, with caper sauce.' 'Boiled!' says the wife. 'Yes, dear; a leg of mutton is always best boiled.' Now that word boiled was terrible in its influence, because it would require a large kettle, and that was at the dolly-shop-unknown, of course, by the loving husband. Happily, if the husband had love, the wife had genius. Off went the wife, Sunday morning, with the loaf to redeem the kettle-accomplished her purpose-boiled the mutton-redeemed the loaf by again pledging the kettle, and then sat down to eat her dinner, praise the quality of the mutton, and be praised in return for her skill in cooking it. I make bold to tell husbands this tale need not alarm them, as the doings of this wife and woman are quite an exception to the rule. So is the following: It is no doubt well-known to most that our Poor-Law contemplates condition, not character. In other words, the vile and lazy can claim and have as much legal right to shelter, food, and clothing, as the most moral and industrious. They can enter the union or workhouse just when they like, and leave when they like. That is the law; and master, matron, or guardian have no power to alter it. The unworthy know this, and of course take advantage of it. Possessing this knowledge, the heroine of our story often claimed her right to admission and discharge. In filth and wretchedness she always came; in decent, if not fashionable attire, she always left. No remonstrance was heeded; no punishment effectual to secure a reform. Every time she left, her clothing was disposed of, and how to prevent it baffled master, doctor, clerk, guardians, and all others concerned, save the matron. Who knows the depth of a woman's skill? Commend me to two women, whose pursuits are antagonistic, for a display of ability. When genius is opposed to genius they develop each other-act and react. This was seen in the matron and her persevering friend. 'Please, ma'am,' said the woman to the matron, 'I want to leave.' The matron knew it was gin she wanted, but very good-temperedly replied― 'You The Pawnbrokers' Customers. 381 'You can leave to-morrow.' Determined at the same time no gin should be had at the expense of the parish. Thus resolved, she contrived a dress from old counterpanes, cut and made in a style far above the fashion of the day. On the morrow our friend was ready for her liberty, so was the matron with her dress. Proud of her achievement and secure of a triumph, cooly the robe was put on, and away she went. I am sorry to add, her desire of liberty was but brief, as in a few days she claimed her right for shelter, and in triumph informed the matron the dress was at the dolly-shop, and may be obtained by paying principal and interest. This is no fiction. I have an authority for asserting it as a fact-terrible, if for a moment amusing. You who happily live and move in a circle far removed from the lower strata of society, can afford to think your ignorance is bliss, and perhaps, in some respects, it is. Still, it would not do for all to discard these things. If humanity does sink so low, let me know it, aye, and witness it too. I say they are still akin to us. Our hearts will not be less grateful for knowing something of the pit in which so many have fallen, or for the power which in mercy restrains us from it. I have seen some as low as this wretched woman-I have made inquiries into their early history, and now say with confidence, they are not limited to any class-their ranks are filled from every grade. Some have been nursed in comfort-trained with care-lived in the enjoyment of every luxury the heart could desire, and owe their degradation to a false step-to disappointed hopes-to cunning schemers-to the formation of habits which not only admit, but compel a downward tendency, until the last stage is reached, when, destitute of shame, they seem to possess only the power to resist every effort to elevate and bring back to a position of comfort and respect. Oh! it is alas too true!-human nature can educate itself for the vilest life-for the deepest woe, and live glorying in it. THE PAWNBROKERS' CUSTOMERS. of For convenience, we may divide the customers into three classes-the vicious, the imprudent, and the needy. I am aware that all may be regarded as needy; but this division will be near enough for our purpose. I include in the vicious all who pledge for the purpose pleasure or sin. I am sorry to say that this class is somewhat numerous. It is a great blessing that few vices can be gratified without expense. There is some limit to indulgence, apart even from health; the state of the finances must check, not, however, until every scheme is exhausted, and every article pledged. The future never enters into the calculations of the gay or vicious-present gratification absorbs their mind, and produces at the same moment pleasure and pain. To a great extent the interests of the ginshop and pawnshop go together. My Uncle, from the nature of his business, affords facility for raising money, which the proprietor of the gin-shop secures. No one at all familiar with the working class, or those above them, but must have seen and heard of things which confirm this statement. I have worked with men who delighted in a drunken bout, and seen them take every tool to pledge. It is the usual place of resort, known as well as the shop in which they work, or the home in which they live. I refer, of course, to the drunkard. I have seen a parcel of forty duplicates in the hand of a commercial gentleman, a present from his wife, on his return from a journey. In this case, the interest of my Uncle's was also the publican's. These are every-day facts. Unfortunately, too, they are everyday customers. What will not vice do in both sexes? I have known a man compel his wife to strip his children and pledge their clothing, to pro cure cure him the means of gratifying his base appetite. I have known a woman do it while her husband has been hard at work. You may put it down as certain that all drunken men or women among the lower class know the pawnshop as well as they do the gin-shop. ** I am sorry to say the majority who visit the pawnshop are the imprudent among the working class. Imprudence is often the companion of impudence. There is little or no shame in these customers. They meet and mingle, freely pass their jokes with each other, and banter my Uncle with all the confidence of old friends. It is natural: where there is no shame there is no fear. They are my Uncle's living; they are weekly visitors; it is these that pay; quick returns are his delight. A thousand imprudent customers are worth many hundred pounds annually. But perhaps some of you doubt if the imprudent form the majority, and deserve the name. I used to think pawnbrokers fattened, while other tradesmen grew lean. I know better now. A good harvest-an increasing revenue, with plenty of employment-gladden their hearts as much as they do Her Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer. When trade is good they thrive. It is, beyond question, the best paid, mechanics and the most regularly employed are the very best customers. 'There are few well-doing tradesmen, indeed almost none, who require the pawnbroker; the wages they get are sufficient to save them from it,' was the statement of a manufacturing justice in Scotland to a deputation of pawnbrokers who waited on him. It is the very reverse,' cried one, and I can prove it. They are not alike provident; and how can you make the improvident better? I perhaps count among my customers some of the most sober and industrious men in your honour's own employment I'll be bound to say nine-tenths (mark that) of the customers are respectable mechanics' wives.' I confess at once this was a knock-down blow to my notions of Scotch prudence. It is quite as bad in England. 'Get the working classes up a week, and keep them up, and many of us may close our shops. It is by their imprudence we live,' is the candid admission made to myself by some of the most respectable of my Uncles. If these statements are true, it shows that a hundred and forty millions of the hundred and fifty-six annually taken, are from the imprudent, the vicious, and the gay. The worst feature in the case is, it becomes a habit, as settled and fixed as fainting is to some ladies, or the pipe to some gentlemen-a thing that must be done, despite of regular employment-the capability of getting above it -or the considerable item it adds to the expenses, in the shape of interest. I think of these with regret. The best paid mechanics are not too well paid. The skill they display-their endurance of toil-the position they occupy in what constitutes the wealth of a nationmake what they get deserving of a better fate than swelling my Uncle's stock, or contributing to his wealth, and diminishing to a great extent their own comforts. But if the vicious and imprudent deserve censure, there are the needy who merit sympathy. Whatever abuses exist, and however much the facility afforded for getting a little ready cash may be taken advantage of, there is a necessity for the existence of pawnshops arising from the ever-changing circumstances of the working class. * I asked, when standing in a wareroom, if they could tell the needy from the imprudent. 'Oh, yes,' was the reply; 'the order in which the articles are brought tell us at once. We get first a shawl, then a dress, and so on to every article a woman can spare. Then comes the husband's clothingalways last in pledge, and first to be redeemed.' It will not be out of place to tell you how the needy customers are produced. Want of employment will do it in many cases. There are other causes, however, more distressing still. Note that genteel-looking woman leaving the side-door, gripping firmly the silver received in return for the pledge left. Let her history tell you; it will be one among many. Till lately, no care has settled on her brow, no sorrow eaten into her heart. 'Home, sweet home,' she could sing with rapture. The partner of her life has been true to his vows, and she has been true to hers. They have been blessed with enough for every want—if not abundance-all reaped from his toil. All was well, cheerful, and happy. Now affliction has stopped the supply, and laid the strong man low—all is changed. 'Their sorrows are no phantoms of the night, No idle tale; No cloud that floats across a sky of light, They are the true realities of earth.' Affliction brings an increase of expenditure, as we all know; and, generally with the poor, diminished resources. Pain requires a cordial to soothe; weakness, nourishment to support. The supply from friends is not like the widow's oil; they oftentimes fail in the hour of need. How can necessity be supplied? Hope and fortitude seldom fail in a loving-hearted woman. These are the alternatives-sell or pledge. The last is chosen in hope, though followed out with reluctance. Who will blame? I am prepared to applaud; especially as it is certain her apparel went without a sigh-his with a heavy heart. The lives of the most distressed families prove the proverb, When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at the window,' a gross libel. It is the time when love reaches its climax in woman, makes it manifest, proves its power, and shows her to be a helpmate indeed. I would that I could depict in appropriate language, and had the rich to hear me, the privations of some of the poor ere they gave way to the stern necessity of pledging imposed on them. It would prove that natures as noble exist in the lowly cottage-in pinching want, covered with rags, struggling for life- -as are to be found in the high places of the earth, and help to break down the pride of caste and the dignity of position, and bring out what are primary truths of revelation. God has made of one blood the high and low, the rich and poor, and makes character, not position, the ground of respect and love. I am convinced, however, that one day there will be no want of a herald to proclaim-Virtue in poverty is more dignified than gilded crime-more acceptable to a beneficent Creator, and ought to be more attractive to men.-From The Three Gilt Balls; or, My Uncle, his Stock-in-Trade and Customers.' A Lecture. By T. TURNER. London: E. Marlborough and Co. PASTOR FLIEDNER, OF KAISERWERTH. Miss Nightingale, who spent some months at Kaiserwerth in 1857, has published the following remarks: 'Pastor Fliedner died (in harness) on the 4th of October, at the Deaconesses' Institution at Kaiserwerth-on-the-Rhine, near Dusseldorf, which he had founded. He lived to preside at the thirty-first celebration of the anniversary of this his foundation, which he began in September, 1833, with one "sister," one female criminal, and no money, in a small summer-house in his pastor's garden. But though he willingly kept himself in the background on this thirty-first anniversary, he was so exhausted after it, having long been suffering from chest disease, that the medical man ordered him entire rest and change of air. He went to the Convalescent Institution which he himself had founded for his sick deaconesses, but came back for the confirmation of two of his sons on Sept. 25, and all then saw he was dying. But he had time to collect all his children about him, to give them precious precious words of exhortation, and to speak to them, too, quite simply and openly about his own death, of which he said, "It needs only to be as a little child going to its father." He was in the last agony on Tuesday, Oct. 4. But hymns were sung and prayers offered aloud, at his own desire, all that Tuesday morning, as he sat in his chair. And the deaconesses were all admitted into his room, by tens and twelves, to see him and to join in these hymns and prayers, till two o'clock, when he died. His last words were "Victory!" and "Overcome!" Pastor Fliedner created a hospital, a penitentiary and asylums for females released from prison, an orphan asylum, a normal school, an infant school, and lastly, a lunatic asylum-the whole to serve as training schools for his deaconesses, whom he also trained as parish deaconesses. The mother house was at Kaiserwerth. But his sisters are not only all over Germany, but all over the world, from the East to North America, from Italy to London, at the German Hospital, Dalston. He has deaconesses at Jerusalem, Constantinople, Smyrna, Alexandria, and Bucharest, and since 1860, he has (as stated in the number of "Evangelical Christendom" of October, 1862) at Beyrout and Sidon, given a Christian harbour to the orphan children and sufferers from the Lebanon massacre, under his deaconesses' wing. In the spring of this year (1864) there were four hundred and fifteen deaconesses belonging to Kaiserwerth, of whom two hundred and fifty-six were full sisters; three hundred and three are at work at one hundred and three stations in Germany and abroad. Besides these, twenty were at work in the war hospitals of Schleswig-Holstein, ten more had been asked for by the War Minister, but only some of the ten could be spared to go. In the Schleswig-Holstein war-hospitals were more Danes and Roman Catholic Austrians than Prussians. (So much the better. The Roman Catholics now know how evangelical sisters of charity can work.) Thirty-three sisters are at work as parish deaconesses in twenty-five parishes, but yearly have applications for sisters to be refused. The harvest truly is ready, but the labourers are still too few. Seventy-five sisters devoted to education only (of whom thirty-one are full sisters) are included among the above four hundred and fifteen. But this number gives no idea of the work of training mistresses for infant schools, elementary schools, industrial schools, young ladies' boarding schools, and governesses for private families, which goes on at Kaiserwerth; one thousand and seven have been thus trained, who work freely for the good cause, but do not enter as deaconesses; and, blessed as is the work of the latter, perhaps the former work has an equally world-wide influence for good. When arrived at their destination, the schoolmistresses try, by Sunday-schools, by visits to the poorer children at home, by friendly acquaintance with the mothers, to spread the real work of education. At the young ladies' boarding-schools, besides excellent instruction, the girls can, if the parents wish it, receive an initiation into housekeeping, cooking, and dressmaking. They are exercised in gymnastics and in the open air. And they have all the beautiful German music-teaching. A few stations (e.g., London) were also originally started with Pastor Fliedner's deaconesses, who still administer them, though no longer attached to Kaiserwerth. And when we consider that all this was done at an annual expense (last year) of about £7,500 (plus a sum of about £1,500, spent in building in 1863), we may truly say, never was so much good effected with such small means. And all this has been accomplished in little more than a quarter of a century-in twenty-seven short years, or, including the Penitentiary, which was Pastor Fliedner's first work, thirtyone. They ask our prayers from Kaiserwerth for the continuance of his work. He leaves a widow who was as efficient a "mother" to the deaconesses as he was a "father," and seven children without provision. His daughter is married to Pastor Disselhoff, who ably seconded him in the institution. They ask our prayers, not for these fatherless children and widow, but for |