The Salvation Army and Rescue Work

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 94, 14 February 1889, Page 3

The Salvation Army and Rescue Work

11 General" Booth, as the head of the Salvation Army, has made a bold and, what will be considered by many a most laudable proposal to the Government in ' regard to the prevailing distress and to the chronic misery and rice of Load on. In a memorial to the Home Secretary he suggests that the Government should aid the Army in its rescue work and in the provision of food and shelter depots by a grant of £15,000. The principle on which the Salvation Army has hitherto succesfully dealt with the more degrading kinds of want, that drive women to prostitution atd men to c ime, is that of stepping between the tempter and . the worst temptation, by the supply . of the absolute necessaries of life at an . absolutely nominal cost. At the West India Dock Shelter homeless and .hungry wanderers may lie down in a clean and well -warmed room for a penny a night, and find something to eat at prices ranging from* a farthing to a penny. The head of the army -wishes to extend this sysr-m to the whole metropolis, and indent to other large cities, and he has received a gratifying assurance that the best attention of Mr Matthews will be given to his proposal. The principal novelty of it, as we understand, is that it completely does away with the painful and degarding tests of the casual ward which make so many prefer the street i*aelf to the shelter supplied by public charity. Mr Booth's first object, however, is to enable the destitute to avoid the common lodging houses. Should the Government fail him, he may probably get the money from the public if he is able to satisfy them with the guarantees of the perfect success of his scheme which he has already offered to Mr Matthews.