Dr. Barnardo, the father of "nobody's children" : a sketch / [W.T. Stead].

  • William Thomas Stead
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Barnardo, the father of "nobody's children" : a sketch / [W.T. Stead]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CHARACTER SKETCH. DR^ BARNARDO: THE FATHER OF ^'NOBODY^S CHILDREN/' PART I.—GENESIS. I.—JIM. TOE HEAD OFFICES IN STEPNEY CAUSEWAY. HE world knows little of the messengers of God. The Royal Albert Hail was filled on Midsummer Day, 1896, by a brilliant and imposing audi- e n c e. The Heir to the Throne of the British Empire was there, with the Princess of Wales, to do honour to the work of the Father of “No¬ body’s Chil¬ dren.” The Duke of Sutherland was in the chair, and the Duchess, the uncrowned queen of North Britain, presented the prizes. The picked flower of English society, philanthropic and imperial, crowded the splendid hall. Everything that rank and beauty, art and music, discipline and enthusiasm could effect was done, and done admirably, to ensure the success of an appeal made for one of the worthiest causes ever submitted to the British public. It was a magni¬ ficent tribute to a magnificent work, one of the most distinctive of the glories of modern England. i And yet in the whole of that brilliant assemblage, of all those cheering thousands, was there more than one who, in the moment of assured triumph, remembered the humble messenger of God by whom the seed of the Word was brought, as the fertilising pollen is brought by the insect to the flower, and from which the imposing con¬ geries of benevolent institutions associated with the name of Dr. Bamardo have sprung ? Dr. Barnardo, no doubt, remembered him well. But to the multitude he was as if he had never been. The very fact of his existence has perished from the memory of man. But the work, in the foundation of which he played so momentous a part, looms ever larger and larger before the eyes of all. But who was he, this messenger of the Lord ? His name was Jim—James Jervis he said it was, but he was only known as Jim. He was born when all England rang with the fool frenzy of the Crimean war, but he did not emerge into the light of history until nearly .ten years later, just after the roar of the cannon in the war with Denmark announced the opening of the great world- drama of the unification of Germany. No one knows where he was born, nor exactly when ; nor has any one been able to trace his family belongings. He never knew his father. His mother was a Roman Catholic, who was always sick, and who died ^ in a work- house infirmary, Jim looking on with wonder at the black-coated priest, whose apparition at the death-bed of his mother was the immediate precursor of her dis¬ appearance from the world. When about five years old, Jim, being alone in the world and not liking the restraint of the workhouse school, made a bolt for liberty, and, succeeding, began independent existence as a free Arab of the Streets. From that point, his history is pretty clear, and may be read in an autobiographical interview, which is not without a certain historic interest. For Jim, little Jim, may yet be found to have played a more im¬ portant part in the history of our epoch than nine-tenths of the personages who figure in “ Debrett,” or even than most of the chosen few who are selected for immortality by Leslie Stephen and the Editors of “ The Dictionary of National Biography.” Here, then, is his life-story from five to ten, as told to an interviewer thirty years ago after coffee had loosened his tongue and kindly words had won his confidence :—• “ I got along o’ a lot of boys, sir, down near Wapping way; an’ there wor an ole lady lived there as wunst knowed mother, an’ she let me lie in a shed at the back ; an’ while I wor there I got on werry well. She wor werry kind, an’ gev’ me nice bits o’ broken wittals. Arter this I did odd jobs with a lighterman, to help him aboard a barge. He treated me werry bad—knocked me about frightful. He used to thrash me for nothin’, an’ I didn’t sometimes have anything to eat; an’ sometimes he’d go away for days, an’ leave me alone with the boat.” “ Why did you not run away, then, and leave him ? ” he asked. “ So I would, sir, but Dick—that’s his name, they called him ‘ Swearin’ Dick’—one day arter he thrashed me awful, swore if ever I runned away, he’d catch me, an’ take my life; an’ he’d got a dog aboard as he made smell me, an’ he telled me, if I tried to leave the barge, the dog ’udbe arter me; an’, sir, he were such a big, fierce un. Sometimes, when’Dick were drunk, he’d put the dog on me, ‘ out of fun,’ as he called it; an’ look ’ere, sir, that’s what he did’ wunst.” And the poor little fellow pulled aside some of his rags, and ^showed me the scarred marks, as of teeth, right down his leg. “ Well, sir, I sto]3ped a long while with Dick. I dunno how long it wor; I’d have runned away often, but I wor afeared, till one day a man came aboard, and said as how Dick was