Thorne Guy
The Great Acceptance: The Life Story of F. N. Charrington

The Scots Observer, for example – and the paper, as every one knows, was most brilliantly served by the best young literary blood of the day – wrote as follows —

"By the gracious condescension of the London County Council, that august body which includes all bright, particular stars of vestrydom and watches with maiden-auntish tenderness over the public morals, we are permitted for another year at least to expose ourselves to the perils of the music halls. But thankful as we are for thus much of mercy, to contemplate the future without apprehension is impossible. That bright band whose microscopic vision detects indecency on the chastest hoarding, has not at present the support of a compact majority. But the sentimentalists of all denominations are rallying round the chieftains of the fig-leaf, and when Mr. Charrington and the great M'Dougall, scourge of the music-hall, are put in power, the fires of Smithfield will soon be set ablaze for all whose costume and deportment do not satisfy the modest County Council. Meanwhile, the defenders of virtue – in others – are crippled and helpless. They cannot hope to carry the citadel of vice at the first assault. They must perforce content themselves with enacting scenes which are nothing less than a national scandal. And the protagonist is Mr. Charrington's Grocer.

"This person has been suborned to do what he himself would call the 'Alls. His business is to seek out impropriety wherever it may be found. Mr. Charrington is himself far too good to pass the porches of sin. For him it is enough to shout in the doorway and distribute handbills. But his Grocer is made of sterner stuff. Did he not declare on oath that he was not easily shocked? He has been 'winked at' by 'bad characters' at the Popular Palace of Varieties. He has clamoured for recognition in the lounge of the Empire; but the 'lydies' of the West End Music Hall declined to waste a look upon him. 'He wasn't swell enough,' he complained. Of course he wasn't. Does the man not know his betters? However, he was quite sure the performance was indecent, because some people went out and the dresses were not what he was accustomed to see at Mile End. He is absolutely convinced that the 'lydies' who frequent the Empire are no better than they ought to be, and his reasons are ingenious, if not entirely conclusive. It is worth while to set them forth with some circumstance; (1) the 'lydies' were respectably dressed; (2) they wouldn't look at him; (3) they walked two and two; (4) one of their number was observed carrying a brandy-bottle under her 'harm'! A 'lydy' with a bottle under her 'harm' is likely to arouse suspicion, and when she is accompanied by another 'lydy' (not a gentleman) her character is gone for ever. That Mr. Charrington should employ the service of the creature who wrote this testimony is not surprising: a fanatic is capable of anything. But when you read that the Grocer is now the accredited agent of the County Council, you can only conclude that that respectable body has marked out the music hall for destruction, and devoutly believes that any stick is good enough to beat a dog withal.

"Reason does not seem to have played a conspicuous part in the deliberations of Mr. Charrington and his friends after the case of the Empire was cleared away from vice. War was declared against the Aquarium, because Mr. Coote, Cardinal Manning, and the faddists, have smelled out impropriety in a poster. The fact that posters are outside the jurisdiction of the Council was no bar to the discussion. The great M'Dougall observed, with a characteristic touch of Zolasim, that all was not well with Zæo's back. Another sensitive Councillor objects to snakes, and begged that Paula's portrait might be withdrawn. And finally the Council threatened (its action cannot be otherwise described) that if the directors did not suppress their posters, it would not renew their license. To impose this condition were ultra vires; but Mr. Charrington and his Grocer are the ultimate arbiters of morality, and we can but submit."

Thus the howl of the witty, the brilliant, yet the thoroughly irreligious.

The Saturday Review had its say in an article so stupid in its bitterness that I do not wish to quote it here. But I should not be giving a complete picture if I did not include one or two of the remarks made by the professedly anti-Christian press – newspapers which owed their very existence to their pandering to vice.

For example, an amusing print – long since fallen into oblivion – but, during its brief space of life, known as Sporting Truth, was pleased to remark as follows —

"The best censors of morals are the public, who are quite able to get along without the aid of the Council. We do not want to be made moral by a paternal Council any more than we wish to be made sober by Act of Parliament. And the sooner the Council turns itself to its own work – to the better drainage of the city, to the improvement of the water supply, and the thousand and one other urgent needs of this mighty town – the better we shall be pleased. And if they must have the spies and informers they appear to have so plentifully engaged – the Peeping Toms, the Paul Prys, the key-hole listeners, the dirty-minded, leprous beings they seem so pleased to patronise – the man who can never see a couple crossing a field but he scents immorality in the air, the lineal descendants of those revered elders in God who concealed themselves in order to descry Susannah's nakedness – if they must have these writhing, detestable police de mœurs in their employ, let them withdraw them from music halls, and send them to the sewers; and the quicker they are poisoned in that foul, mephitic atmosphere, the better for the business of the world."

This is enough.

It is necessary to have indicated the nature of the opposition to Mr. Charrington's work for the purification of the music halls, but it serves no good purpose to particularise further. Let me rather turn to another side of the evangelist's fighting life. Let me tell, as I am impatient to tell, of his wonderful purity crusade, and its results. It is a terrible story, and shows Frederick Charrington, perhaps, in the greatest peril of his career, yet – as always – undaunted and unstayed.

CHAPTER VII
THE FIGHT FOR THE PURITY OF THE EAST END

In 1885, the late Mr. Stead, whose death this year in the "Titanic" suddenly closed so brilliant a career, startled the whole of England by the publication of his "Maiden Tribute" in the Pall Mall Gazette, of which he was editor at that time.

When the Criminal Law Amendment Bill was talked out just before the defeat of the Ministry it became necessary to rouse public attention to the necessity for legislation on this painful subject.

The evidence taken before the House of Lords Committee in 1882 was useful, but the facts were not up to date; members said things had changed since then, and the need for legislation had passed. It was necessary to bring information up to date, and that duty – albeit with some reluctance – Mr. Stead resolutely undertook. For four weeks, aided by two or three coadjutors of whose devotion and self-sacrifice, combined with a rare instinct for investigation and a singular personal fearlessness, he explored the London Inferno.

"It has been a strange and unexampled experience," he wrote. "For a month I have oscillated between the noblest and meanest of mankind, the saviours and destroyers of their race. London beneath the gas glare of its innumerable lamps became, not like Paris in 1793 – 'a naphtha-lighted city of Dis' – but a resurrected and magnified City of the Plain, with the vices of Gomorrah, daring the vengeance of long-suffering Heaven. It seemed a strange inverted world, that in which I lived in those terrible weeks – the world of the streets and the brothel. It was the same, yet not the same, as the world of business and the world of politics. I heard much of the same people in the house of ill-fame as those of whom you hear in caucuses, in law courts, and on 'Change.' But all were judged by a different standard, and their relative importance was altogether changed. It was as if the position of our world had suddenly been altered, and you saw most of the planets and fixed stars in different combinations, so that at first it was difficult to recognise them. After a time the eye grows familiar with the foul and poisonous air, but at the best you wander in a Circe's isle, where the victims of the foul enchantress' wand meet you at every turn. But with a difference, for whereas the enchanted in olden times had the heads and the voices and the bristles of swine, while the heart of man was in them still, these have not put on in outward form the 'inglorious likeness of a beast,' but are in semblance as other men, while within there is only the heart of a beast – bestial, ferocious, and filthy beyond imagination of decent men.

"For days and nights it is as if I had suffered the penalties inflicted upon the lost souls of the Moslem hell, for I seemed to have to drink of the purulent matter that flows from the bodies of the damned. But the sojourn in this hell has not been fruitless. The facts which I and my coadjutors have verified I now place on record at once as a revelation and a warning – a revelation of the system, and a warning to those who may be its victims. In the statement which follows I give no names and I omit addresses. My purpose was not to secure the punishment of criminals, but to lay bare the working of a great organisation of crime. But as a proof of good faith, I am prepared to substantiate the accuracy of every statement contained herein."

I can only paraphrase and hint at the nature of the burning pages which heralded the most awful revelations of London life ever presented to the public, revelations which ended in a revolution in the laws affecting immorality. And I must not stay to do more than pay a slight tribute of respect to the brave and courageous man who did so much for womenkind.

As some of my readers may be aware, in the earlier part of this year – 1912 – I had occasion in a public work of mine to pay a man whom I never saw, but with whom I had been in intimate correspondence about various social matters for a very considerable time, a tribute of respect I had long wished to make. One of the last letters, upon a subject affecting public thought, ever written by Mr. Stead was written to me – just before he made his final voyage in the Titanic.

I am telling here, for the first time, some of the secret history of that "Maiden Tribute" movement – for it was to Mr. Charrington that Mr. Stead came in the first instance in order to find out the truth of what was going on in the East End. Up to that time, Mr. Charrington, though, of course, he had been painfully aware of many of the horrors that surrounded him, had been too occupied with his other campaigns, and his evangelistic work, to take sword in hand, himself, against this particular aspect of the immorality of the darkest portion of London.

Do not misunderstand me. You have just read of what Mr. Charrington, with the most fearless courage, did in the case of the Battle of the Music Halls. What I mean is that he had not yet begun the extraordinary campaign against the brothels of the East End, of which I have to tell in this chapter.

At any rate, he was able to respond to Mr. Stead's request, and it was he who first – if I may so use the word – "introduced" Mr. Stead to the erst-while ruffian of whom the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette goes on to speak.

It is of some historic interest, and I wish my readers to remember that it was Mr. Charrington who first put Mr. Stead upon the path which had such magnificent results.

The man of whom I speak, and who told Mr. Stead of the horrors that went on in the East End, was converted in the Great Assembly Hall by Mr. Charrington by means of that magnetic and spiritual power which he has on so many occasions wielded like a veritable Apostle. The fellow was led from the dark byways of unnamable infamy and brought to Jesus.

At the present moment of which I write, he is an active worker for Christ, and holds an official position in one of our great over-sea colonies, to which he was shipped by Mr. Charrington.

It was owing to this conversion that when the late Mr. Stead came to Mr. Charrington for information, the evangelist was able to put him into communication with this man.

Mr. Stead used this man's revelations in his "Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon," under the heading "Confessions of a Brothel-keeper." The statement was to the effect that the man had formerly kept a noted house of ill-fame near the Mile End Road, but was now endeavouring to start life afresh as an honest man. Mr. Stead saw both him and his wife, herself a notorious woman, whom he had married off the streets, where she had earned her living since an early age.

He gathered that the white slave traffic, more particularly in regard to very young girls, was in the most flourishing and lucrative position. He exposed all the details, the working of this infernal machinery, and all England was thrilled with horror. This man made it a part of his daily business to go away into the country, and to decoy girls from their parents for bad purposes. Among his patrons were many wealthy men who paid him large sums – monsters of iniquity, who stood at nothing to gratify their evil desires. The whole story is a systematic confession of a depravity which can hardly be equalled, and yet we see how, before the man was put into communication with Mr. Stead and confessed, Frederick Charrington was able to rescue even such an one as this, and bring him to Jesus!

I have quoted other testimonies elsewhere, but I think this is probably the most striking instance upon record of the exercise of Mr. Charrington's God-given power.

Never was a more striking amplification of the saying, "It is never too late to mend." Never was a more extraordinary instance of the power of Jesus to cleanse and purify, than in the case of this man.

He owes everything, his whole chance of Eternal Life, his veritable salvation, to Frederick Charrington, through the working of the Holy Spirit.

If the evangelist in all his long career had done nothing else than this, even then, I beg leave to think, his career would have been a marvellous one.

Miracles still happen. This is one of them. I have gone into some of Mr. Stead's efforts in the furtherance of this bill for the protection of young girls. After his publication it was deemed advisable to further influence public opinion by holding a great demonstration in Hyde Park. A public meeting was accordingly held, at which the project was considered. At this meeting Mr. Charrington was unanimously elected chairman of the executive to carry out the necessary arrangements, Mr. Samuel Morley, M.P. acting as treasurer. Everything was organised successfully, and a gigantic meeting was held in Hyde Park, noted clergymen and ministers, leading laymen, and members of Parliament, presiding or speaking on the platforms erected for the occasion. Huge processions were formed and came from all parts of London. It must be remembered that this demonstration was for the furtherance of a bill for the protection of young girls, and, perhaps, the most noticeable and touching feature of the processions was the van-loads of quite young girls dressed solely in white. Mr. Charrington tells me that he will never forget the effect this particular feature had on one of the opponents of the bill, who came out of one of the great clubs in Pall Mall, and who turned perfectly white as he saw these groups of innocent children.

In 1887, the state of the East End was still appalling. It was then that our "Valiant-for-Good" began a furious, God-inspired onslaught upon the dens of East London, which actually resulted in the closing of two hundred brothels and in purifying the East End to an extent that can hardly be realised by those who knew it in those days, and who know it now.

Alone, or occasionally accompanied by a friend or two, always unarmed, Charrington penetrated to the foulest sinks of iniquity.

He came this time as an avenger of Christ in the first instance. He came to reprove the blackest evil – he came with a sword in his hand to destroy it.

And destroy it he did.

I am told by those who remember that strenuous fight that the bullies, the keepers of evil houses, the horrible folk who battened upon shame, and enriched themselves with the wages of sin, feared Frederick Charrington as they feared no policeman, no inspector, no other living being.

They ran from him. They hid themselves like frightened birds at the mere rumour of his approach, as he marched alone among them.

His name actually excited the same sort of terror as the name of Napoleon excited in England in 1813. The blackest scoundrels in London trembled both at his footsteps and his name.

And it was not only that he came determined to sweep them out of existence, to destroy their horrid trade, armed with all the powers of his organisation and the majesty of the law – the supine law which he himself had stirred to activity – it was that he came among them as a man of God, radiating the wrath of the Almighty against sinners, and by that mere force of personal magnetism which was actually testified to in a surprised court of law, insisting upon the fulfilment of his commands!

I am not going into too many details, but let me tell of one street alone which was purged and cleansed by the evangelist.

I think no more striking record than this could possibly be found.

"Lady Lake's Grove, Mile End, has long been notoriously the most disorderly and the most irreclaimable of any of the streets or roads of East London. A mere lane, running almost parallel with a portion of the Mile End Road, it contains about eight houses, while, near the middle of the Grove, and running off at right angles, is another but an infinitely smaller lane, only some four feet in width, known as Cottage Row, nearly the whole of the houses in which are devoted to the shelter of loose women, and what are colloquially known as their 'bullies.' These 'bullies' are men who, for the purpose of having some sort of a legal claim upon the proceeds of the shame of these women, either marry or live with them, or, when the earnings are small, take up the profession of thieves. For this latter purpose the houses in Cottage Row are peculiarly adapted; the whole property is somewhat like a rabbit-warren, communicating, as the houses do, with each other. The rooms contained in each of the five houses in Cottage Row number but one or two, and it is in these rooms, crowded with women and children, that scenes of the grossest immorality frequently take place. The eight houses known as 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, and 36, Lady Lake's Grove, are but little better than those in Cottage Row. They contain about six rooms each, of the most dilapidated description, each of which are let off to one, two, three, and even four girls, and women of loose character, and at rents varying from four to six shillings for each person occupying the rooms. In none of these houses are there less than ten girls and women carrying on their nefarious trade, and in some there are as many as twenty. The scene on every night of the week at Lady Lake's Grove is one of the most unqualified bestiality, the women occupying the houses in the Grove being largely reinforced lately by those whose former haunts have been indicted. Worse than all, an extensive system of procuration has been carried on at some of these houses for a long time past, the agents of 'Continental houses' finding at the 'Grove' their largest and cheapest supply of 'goods.' Hitherto, owing to the fear of the 'bullies' who reside in the locality in large numbers, there have been none sufficiently courageous as to lodge information against the houses in the Grove, and it was reserved for Mr. F. N. Charrington, of the Great Assembly Hall, to take up the cudgels against the Grove. This he only did after long and careful personal inquiry had convinced him of the character of the houses. The summonses were taken out this week against the owners of the houses mentioned in the 'Grove' – amongst them William and John Loman, Emma Breeson, and Charlotte Squire, together with the owners of the houses in Cottage Row – and were made returnable at the Thames Police Court yesterday afternoon. On the receipt of the summonses, however, the owners of all the houses in Cottage Row decided that the better policy would be to close their houses, which was at once done. The owners in Lady Lake's Grove, however, decided to hold out a little longer, and accordingly four of them waited until Wednesday to close their premises. The owners of the four houses, 22, 24, 26, and 28, a little more determined, perhaps, refused to close their houses even then.

"In the meantime, Mr. Charrington, to show that he was actuated by no animosity towards the girls and women themselves, determined to give them a breakfast on Thursday at one o'clock – the usual hour of breakfasting with these women. No formal invitations were issued, but on Thursday morning Mr. Charrington, accompanied by one or two of his fellow-workers, went into the 'Grove' and personally invited the women and the girls there to the breakfast. The reception accorded Mr. Charrington and his colleagues was by no means flattering – on the contrary, it was in the highest degree threatening. The women standing on the steps openly laughed at him, while the bullies hanging about began to close round them in a decidedly 'ugly' manner.

"The discreet appearance of a policeman's helmet at the further end of the 'Grove,' however, induced the bullies to move away to a respectable distance, while Mr. Charrington proceeded from house to house, begging and entreating the women to come. The invitation was at first viewed with some amount of distrust, and open expressions of its being 'a plant' were frequently heard, but as Mr. Charrington proceeded to tell them that his only desire was to show that he was not their enemy, they began to get a little more confident, and finally, about twenty-five girls who had been plying their trade outside the four enclosed houses made their way to the hall – the majority of them confessing that their only object was 'to have a lark with Charrington.' Arrived at the small hall, they found two long tables laid out with piles of bread-and-butter and ham and beef, with two large coffee urns steaming at either end. Mr. Day-Winter was sitting at the organ at the time, and by a happy inspiration he proceeded to start the refrain 'For Auld Lang Syne.' The reception was somewhat different from what the women had expected, and after a brief pause of surprise they joined heartily in the refrain. And then they proceeded to attack the viands placed before them – an operation in which the latter suffered the greatest damage. It cannot honestly be said that the talk and the general remarks indulged in were of the most carefully chosen or elevating character, but, bad though it was, Mr. Charrington and his friends patiently bore it, nor ventured to protest when matters went considerably further, and the coarsest of jokes were cut. One satisfactory feature, however, there was, deserving of mention. The girls and women who had met Mr. Charrington that morning with expressions of open and undisguised hostility now began to see that he was sincerely anxious for their welfare, and treated him accordingly. It was, perhaps, a mistake – though a well-intentioned one – to start the singing of hymns at the close of the meal; Sankey's solos and a very recent connection with disorderly houses do not always agree, especially at such short notice. Mr. Charrington saw at once that the attempt at reformation was too premature, and proceeded accordingly. He asked the girls whether they had any objection to leaving their names and addresses for the purpose of ascertaining whether something might be done for them in the future, and the information was furnished to the best of their ability, considering that some of them had no other names than 'nick' names, such as 'Aunt Sally.' And then they were asked if they had any objection to their photographs being taken in groups – a request to which they assented with even more avidity after they had extracted from Mr. Charrington a promise that they each should have a copy. They were rather rough and very coarse-speaking groups that were formed before the photographer's lens – groups in which every colour under the sun might have been found in a proximity at utter variance with all the prevailing laws of fashion – but taken they were. Then, while the photographer examined his proofs, Mr. Charrington and others questioned the girls as far as possible as to their future prospects, and, without a word of rebuke, asked them whether they intended to continue their present lives, or whether they really wished to become a little better. These inquiries had to be conducted in the quietest possible manner, for there was, among the women present, one who owned a house in the 'Grove,' the girls in which had practically sold themselves to her, body and soul, and who seemed in no way disposed to allow them to be taken to a place where they were not likely to increase her shameful receipts. One such instance was that of a light-hearted Irish girl, who, on some pretext or other, ran round a corner to where a gentleman connected with one of the Refuges was standing, and, in a few excited words, told him that she was tired of the life she was leading; that she would see him a few days later, but that she must not be seen talking to him on any account. It was with sad hearts that the little party saw the girls troop out from the hall into their old haunts of vice."

These details are almost too dreadful for amplification, but I must conclude this story of Charrington's battle for purity with the extraordinary incident of a woman known as Mrs. Rose.

Mrs. Rose was a procuress and brothel-keeper of the worst description. She was told that Mr. Charrington had her name in his "black book," and was coming, as indeed he was, for the purpose of warning her that he was taking proceedings.

The woman was standing at the door of her house when the news of Mr. Charrington's approach was brought. She at once ran indoors, fell upon the floor, and died within the space of a very few minutes.

There are some who will say – and far be it from me to disagree with them – that terror of detection acting upon a weak heart caused this evil woman's sudden death. This is the way in which it might be scientifically accounted for. But, science, which so often thinks itself the destroyer of religion, is, after all, only the handmaid – the unconscious handmaid – of the Unseen. It was surely the power of God, approaching in the person of His servant, who "pressed God's lamp to his breast," that struck down this woman, as a terrible example to all the others?

It must be an august and terrible thing for a man to know that, filled with the power of the Holy Ghost, he was the medium of so sudden and awful a death.

During the Purity Crusade such dramatic instances were of constant occurrence. Two girls rescued by Mr. Charrington – who afterwards gave evidence in the Battle of the Music Halls case – were decoyed into a public-house known as the "Red Cow" which still exists quite close to the Great Assembly Hall, by the publican to whom the place belonged. They remained there all night. The man, who had previously publicly cursed Mr. Charrington in the most appalling way, took poison, and was found dead in his bed on the very next morning.

There was also a humorous side to all this strenuous campaign.

Mr. Charrington on one occasion set out to rescue a young girl who was being detained in a house of infamy. He was accompanied by two detectives disguised as water-inspectors. The girl was duly rescued, and upon the mantel-shelf of the principal room of this abominable house the evangelist discovered his own portrait. He was naturally considerably startled, but still more so when one of the detectives told him that there was not a house of this description in the East End which had not such a portrait.

The explanation, of course, is very simple. The keepers of these places wished to have a ready means of identifying the man who was breaking up a dreadful trade.

Altogether two hundred brothels were swept out of existence. The rescued girls were sent to the beautiful home provided for them by the liberality of Lady Ashburton. Souls and bodies were saved.

A man had come into dark places, in the words of St. Paul: "Giving no offence in anything, that the ministry be not blamed; but in all things approving yourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in affliction, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; by pureness, by knowledge, by long-suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness, on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report; as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well-known; as dying, and behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."