(No woman can be persuaded to look after a boiler.) In the
midst of all those females he had the appearance of a superannuated
and disillusioned Turk contemplating his too extensive establishment
and reflecting on its monthly bills.
The matron in charge informed me that even for these rough women there
is no system of punishment whatsoever. No girl is ever restricted in
her food, or put on bread and water, or struck, or shut away by
herself. The Army maxim is that it is its mission not to punish but to
try to reform. If in any particular case its methods of gentleness
fail, which they rarely do, it is considered best that the case should
depart, very possibly to return again later on.
She added that although many of these women had committed assaults,
and even fought the Police, not one of them attacks another in the
Home once in a year, and that during her twenty years of work,
although she had lived among some of the worst women in England, she
had never received a single blow. As an illustration of what the
Salvation Army understands by this word 'work' I may state that
throughout these twenty years, except for the allotted annual
fortnight, this lady has had no furlough.
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