by Barrie Jones
Chapter VI recounts Henry’s views on Prisoners’ Aid Societies and in particular the Salvation Army.
The Dark Side of Convict Life (Being the Account of the Career of Harry Williams, a Merthyr Man). Merthyr Express, 26th February 1910, page 11.
Chapter VI
On Prisoners’ Aid Societies.
I daresay that my readers have heard a great deal about these benevolent societies, and I should like to give my opinion concerning their pretended generosity. I have often thought that if I had been assisted I should never have gone through any further trouble, but as I was deceived after forming good resolutions, there was an excuse why I again trod the path of evil.
There has been a great deal said about the goodness of their work in helping and rescuing the criminal, and of the wonderful work they have done and are doing, but some of them are little better than money-making institutions.
There is one society that has really and truly done some good, and that is the Salvation Army. I say this because I have experienced this, but there are many people who do not like the Salvationists, simply because they are noisy in the streets; but they are only acting in accordance with the Bible, for it says “Thou shalt make a noise with timbrels and instruments of music, that my words shall be heard throughout all lands,” or something to that effect. The Salvationists have not only assisted and helped to make homes for the discharged criminals, but also for the distressed and poverty-stricken poor of many countries.
A chaplain of a certain prison in Wales once told me that the Salvationists were too fond of boasting of the good they have done, and that it was the working-class who chiefly contributed towards them, and that the wealthy as a rule passed them by. I was not long in telling him that there are to be found among the Salvationists people of independent means. And it is so; and I think they are in the right to boast since the Church of England does exactly the same thing. “Go out into the highways and hedges, and bring in hither the halt, the maimed and the blind.” The Church preaches this, but the Salvation Army practices it.
The Salvation Army has a farm colony, somewhere outside London, where they train criminals for emigration to Canada, but the Canadian Government has now put a stop to this, so that no criminal should be allowed out there who is assisted by public funds. As the Salvationists are people who never give in they will, I am quite sure, some day, even if General Booth does not live to do it – his son possesses exactly the same determination – from a scheme to obtain a substitute for the Canadian farming.
Speaking from experience I am justified in saying that the Salvation Army societies are the predominating societies of the world, and God knows what it will lead to yet. It is not the Salvationists who boast of the work they have done, for they do not praise themselves in their Christian calling, as a great many are too apt to believe, but it is the likes of myself more who praise their splendid work, which is a work of love. I cannot find words to praise them enough, for they have turned many a hardened criminal into a respectable citizen, and a loving husband and father. If there are any of my readers who have a tendency to oppose this, let them come to me and I will argue with them upon the subject until they are black in the face. Their flag is still flying, and it will fly when those who condemn it are in their graves.
To be continued……..