01 Chapter 1. Jute Hands.

Chapter 1.

Jute Hands. Who is willing to join me in a ramble to-day? We have taken some pleasant ones together. Many a bright autumn morning has found us on the sands or by the shore, hunting among sea-weeds and pebbles for crabs or starfish, learning a little more than we might have known before of the wisdom and power of God in His care for such weak tiny things as sea snails or hermit crabs. But our walks on this occasion will not take us within sight or sound of the sea; we are not going to the fields to gather flowers or to the woods to return with baskets well filled with nuts.

Ah! I see you are beginning to wonder where I am going to take you. To pay some visits, and get a few peeps at the working girls of East London.

Edith looks up with a smile and says, "It will be delightful," for she has read of little children who work at match box making, and would very much like to see some of them.

Match box making is only one of many occupations in which we shall find the girls we are going to see employed, and though I am glad to be able to tell you that the amount of child-labour in East London is not nearly so large as it was before the law of England required that every child in Great Britain should receive some education, still we shall find much that will, I hope, prove interesting. Where shall we begin?

Suppose we visit a jute factory, and take a peep at "the hands," as the working girls are called, who spend so much of their week-day lives within its walls. But perhaps before we ring the bell I had better tell you where all the jute comes from.

It does not grow in England, so has to be sent over from some other country. Much of it comes from Russia and the cold countries north of the Baltic.

Frank says, "It is an import."

He is quite right, and I should have used the word myself, only I was afraid some of my very little friends might not know its meaning.

Many shiploads of jute come into the Port of London every year. If we were to visit the Docks we should see it lying about in large bales.

It is a vegetable fibre, not unlike flax or hemp. It is largely used in making ropes, coarse sacks, and for other purposes. Some of the very same jute, too, spun and dyed, re-enters the market under another name. It is the ice wool some of our girls are so fond of working into shawls, caps and other pretty and useful birthday or New Year presents. But the jute as we see it in the Docks is what is called in its raw state and must pass through many hands, as it needs to be cleaned, combed, sorted, etc., before it will be ready for use.

Let us go into the factory. What a busy scene it is! Great numbers of girls are at work picking or combing the jute. They seem very poor, but most of them are clean, and we are glad to notice the rooms are airy and well lighted in which their work has to be done.

Many of the young work-people attend Sunday school or Bible class, so they have heard the sweet story of a Saviour’s love, and there is reason to hope that a few at least have not only heard but believed the gospel message, and are seeking in their daily walk and ways to please and honour the Lord Jesus.

One who knows the jute girls better than I do, has often told me how for quite a long time any attempt to bring them under the sound of the gospel seemed such very discouraging, almost hopeless work, that several who had tried, gave it up, saying, "It is of no use." For, though perhaps it would be going too far to say that even at the time of which I write there were not one or two christian girls in the jute factory, taking them as a class they were perhaps the wildest and roughest of all the working girls of East London: hardly one went to Sunday school, and when any were invited to attend they would refuse, saying, We don’t like to sit with girls who wear better clothes than ourselves." But "God, who is rich in mercy," had thoughts of peace and blessing even for these poor neglected girls: He wanted them to hear of His love to sinners, and the story of how a Bible class for them grew from a very small beginning will, I feel sure, be read with interest by all our young friends.