Children's Corner

Hutt News, Volume 3, Issue 6, 3 July 1930, Page 4

Children's Corner

THE LITTLE DRESSMAKER.

There once lived, near Yarmouth, a girl named Sarah Martin As soon as she was old enough— and that was long before the age at which girls leave/school now—she went to work as a dressmaker* and earned one shilling and threepence* a day for working from eight in the morning until seven at night. Most of the people ■./•for whom she worked lived in Yarmouth, three miles li:omheA' village, so that she had the long walk morning and evening too.

Sarah liVed with h-er grand-' mother, who was old and ill, and wanted lots of Ihings done for her. You might therefore, thinfc that SaTah had her hands full; Ibtut when she was about eighteen years old, she heard a sernion preached, which made her think very deeply that she ought to do something to help people who were even less well off than she herself. '-- ; v '

In those clays—somewhere about the year 1820—-many things were different from what they are now. Ljittle or nothing was done for the very poor^ and if any one did wrong and went to prison, nothing was^sone for^hajt man or wonian or t)6y oi 5 girl to'help them to do ' better. wlisn /they came out again. They were left in prison, dirty and Unnoticed and untaught.

In London, $ brave Quaker woman, .Elizabeth Fry, had done much for wqman prisoners, but outside London, nothing had been done.

Well, when Sarah Martin felt so strongly that she ought to do something to help others, she did not dash into the work.. For a whole year she studied her Bible very thoughtfully, and then she started a small Sunday School for little children.—That was only a beginning, but the children loved j hei% and Sarah taught them to be | good and happy. ■■! Presently Sarah found that the, people in Yarmouth workhoxise had no clergyman* and that no; one came to see them ill hospital^ So she went hevseti. f$h&MM up so much of her time'that atlast she gave up one day's sewing work a week.. This^neant|*a/3t>ig xftoney loss to her/when you5 think that she only earned seven and sixpence a week alto gether. Sarah worked among the workhouse people for many years; she formed £ day-school for the little children there, who before had been taught nothing. She showed them how to read and write, and taught them the lessons of the Bible.

Four times a year too, she gave them a little party, with buns and coffee, and Bibles for prizes.^This may not sound very exciting to you, but remember that these children hacl nothing to do but play about in the dirty workhouse yard, and the food they hud was very poor. They could not read; they had no books, and certainly no toys. It was through Sarah that a proper workhouse school was built at last? the schoolmasters were brought to teach the chit dren.

7 About this time Sarah's grandmother died and left her between two and three hundred pounds. All the interest the bank paid her on this money, (for if you put your savings in a bank, you know, the -bank pays you something for the use of your money) Sarah spent on her poor people. She bought them food, and clothes and medicine.

Then she heard very bad accounts of Yarmouth prison, and went to see if she could help. There was then only one courtyard for all prisoners; there was nowhere for sick people to gp; prisoners who were almost children were mixed up with people who had done all manner of wrong things for many days. No clergyman or schoolmaster ever

visited the prison, and the place was veryllirty. Sarah, the little dressmaker, set herself to put things right. . For seventeen years she worked there. First of all, she just read the Bible a little every day to the people; but soon she found that there were many other things which she could da as well, and she helped them to learn trades and earn a little money. Also she took two services oh Sundays, and when she could not find enough printed sermons she made up her £>wn.

An Inspector of Prisons said in 1835 that he had attended one of these services; that* the woman Who was in charge of it had a •Deautiful voice, and spoke clearly; and that ;all the prisoners sang the psalms very well indeed, and listened to Sarah with deep attenr. tion. • -

* The prisoners, until Saraji started going to the goal, had b ben left without anything to do at all. Sarah started first with the wo. men prisoners* and when two old gentlemen of the town gave her wliat seeinecL a little fortunesthirty shillings-—she at once spent the money 611 seHying things, and set the wtifnen .to" work on baby T clothes. She sold what they made for sev-eib;;, pp/unds}^aiid in the course of a |eWv years over four hundred spends %^orth of work was soldi; "so tliat eachp prisoner. wl?:en she; left goal, had a little money with which to start life afresh.

For the mien Sarah collected all sorts of old clothes and rags, and taught them.to make rugs of these and also to carve spoons and other articles froni bones.

It w:as-a strange sight to see that little village dressmaker in the goal .with men* women and children sitting round her, working hard and happily at the tasks she offered to them, while she help ed-thera with the work, or read to them, or told them stores. Very many of them*.when they left the prison with "the little sums of money they had earned throtigh Sarah, must have lived good and nisefiil lives because, of the leaving lielp which she h^id given them, : ;.-.:-' u -;y-' .'■ -j"'