Alone – And Nowhere To Go.
How The Travellers’ Aid Society Safeguards The Unprotected Girl in a Strange Town.
And then, perhaps, we have sighed and wished that there were some means of protecting helplessness and guiding ignorance when obliged to travel alone; we know the risks and we wish they could be spared these “little ones.”
And all the while there is such a means, only it is not sufficiently known, despite the big framed advertisements in waiting-rooms and the leaflets published by its organisers.
Red Riding Hood can safely travel the length and breadth of the country, by day or night, if she will but avail herself of the kindness of that old-established and Royally patronised society, the Travellers’ Aid Society for Girls and Women. She need fear no unscrupulous wolf in the apparent guise of a harmless sheep; she can rely upon aid exactly when and where she needs it. She has but to ask, or get someone to ask for her, and all will be well.
THE POST IN LONDON.
“I RECKON our Mary would like to take a post in Lunnon, but ’tis a powerful wicked place, and folks do tell such tales of young girls being lost there or worse,” says the village mother. “And what with fares being that high and food that dear, I can’t contrive to take her up meself. She isn’t over-sharp in strange places, and I don’t want her to come to no harm, so there ‘tis; she must bide at home.”
But there is disappointment on the faces of both mother and daughter, for that well-paid post would have been a godsend, with times so bad and a sick father.
And, like water on thirsty ground, comes the news that Mary can travel as pleasantly and safely as if she were the young lady at the Hall with her maid. We will write, giving three days’ notice to the Society’s Secretary, at the Office, 3, Baker Street, London, W.1, and a friendly, helpful guide will meet Mary at the terminus, and see that she reaches her destination.
IS THE SITUATION GENUINE?
OR, maybe, the “place” sounds well, but the cautious mother hesitates; all is not gold that glitters, she knows. How can she be sure that her lassie will not run her head into a noose of entanglement and misery?
And again the society will help; the situation will be put to the test, and Mary can enter upon it with a good heart.
Wonderful society! It meets the bewildered girl whose train is late and, whose connection being lost, is stranded, penniless and helpless; it will take her to a decent shelter for the night at its own office or elsewhere; it will telegraph to her friends if need be; in short, it will “mother” her till she is safe once there.
The little booklet published by the society tells of a few of the splendid “rescues” that have been accomplished; of the young Belgian lassie who came from Boulogne at night too late to go on to Buckinghamshire, and who, but for the might have fallen indeed amongst wolves. Of the little child-actresses, separated from their company, who were petted and sheltered and sent again on their way rejoicing.
A TYPICAL CASE.
A GIRL, eighteen years old, had come from America to go to her home in Kent. The train from Liverpool arrived in London late at night;. and she found that she could not continue her journey till the next morning. She had enough money for her fare, but not any to pay for a night’s lodging, nor yet for crossing London with her heavy luggage. A “gentleman” who had travelled by the same train got her story from her, and offered to pay for herself and luggage across London and take her down by a night train which, he averred, would reach the town at 1 a.m., and she could stay in the railway-station waiting-room till it was light enough for her to get home. Although not knowing that the “night train” was a pure invention on the part of her informant, yet the girl objected to arriving at a country station at one o’clock in the morning, and a discussion ensued. While they were talking a station official came up to see what was going on. He promptly dismissed the “gentleman” and put the girl in a cab and sent her to the T.A.S., where a night's lodging was given her, and she was seen off for home on the next day. She wrote afterwards to announce her safe arrival, and to express regret that she and her parents had no means to repay the Society.
A DOUBTFUL SITUATION.
THE danger to girls who take situations heard of only through advertisements and arranged only by letter is terrible to think of, and the pity of it is enhanced by the remembrance that it is just the simple and ignorant who are most surely entrapped in this way.
A French girl, whose parents were very poor and worthy people, had a narrow escape. Tempted by the prospect of better wages, she came to London, and finding no one to meet her at the station, she took a cab and drove to the address to which she had directed her letters. It was a small shop. She asked for Mrs. J.; Mrs. J. did not live there, but a man called for letters addressed to her. He had been there that afternoon, but had gone away again in a hurry, saying that he must go to the railway station. The cab-man had to take his “fare” back to the station, and the interpreter advised her to go to the Travellers’ Aid Society, which she did. She was put into a home, a respectable situation was found for her, and she was most grateful to have been saved from what looked like a very doubtful engagement. How would it have been possible for her poor parents to trace her had she once got into the hands of that man, who must have had reasons of his own for concealing his real address?
HELP FOR ALL.
THERE are many school-children, too, who will speak gratefully of the kind helpers who made their journeys so easy and safe; there are countless women and girls who have read the placards of the society in waiting-rooms, and remembered in dire emergency, where they could summon help — help that has saved them from worse than death. Foolish children who have run away from home in anger, to find themselves stranded and penniless and afraid — they also would add their quota of gratitude if asked.
Often these befriended ones return to their good Samaritans of the society a tangible token of gratitude for their stay in the emergency rooms, but sometimes they cannot, for stress of poverty. It is all the same to thr T.A.S.; not means, but helplessness is the key to its heart. Everyone who cares for others, especially for the weak and the ignorant, should remember that all they need do when they would help such on their way is to apply to this useful body of charitable folk, the Travellers’ Aid Society, on behalf of their proteges, giving a clear three days’ notice at the least.
It goes without saying that if they also can help by offerings of service or of money, they will forward a great work. For until the wolf is extinct the lamb will be in danger; Red Riding Hood is just a pretty parable of a very real and grim fact of modern life. And it is the T.A.S. that sees to it that there is a “happy ending” to the story, you know.
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