brent house, hackney

this home serves a somewhat similar purpose as that at lorne house, but the young women taken in here while awaiting their confinement are not, as a rule, of so high a class.

in the garden at the back of the house about forty girls were seated in a kind of shelter which protected them from the rain, some of them working and some talking together, while others remained apart depressed and silent. most of these young women were shortly expecting to become mothers. certain of them, however, already had their infants, as there were seventeen babies in the home who had been crowded out of the central maternity hospital. among these were some very sad cases, several of them being girls of gentle birth, taken in here because they could pay nothing. one, i remember, was a foreign young lady, whose sad history i will not relate. she was found running about the streets of a seaport town in a half-crazed condition and brought to this place by the officers of the salvation army.

in this house there is a room where ex-patients who are in service can bring their infants upon their holidays. two or three of these women were here upon the occasion of my visit, and it was a pathetic sight to see them dandling the babies from whom they had been separated and giving them their food.

it is the custom in this and other salvation army maternity homes to set apart a night in every month for what is called a social evening. on these occasions fifty or more of the former inmates will arrive with their children, whom they have brought from the various places where they are at nurse, and for a few hours enjoy their society, after which they take them back to the nurses and return to their work, whatever it may be. by means of this kindly arrangement these poor mothers are enabled from time to time to see something of their offspring, which, needless to say, is a boon they greatly prize.