04 Chapter 4. Match Box Makers.

Chapter 4.

Match Box Makers. The poor children who are employed in making match boxes we have all heard of, or read about, but perhaps few of us have really seen them at work.

I have many times, and I am going to tell my young readers a little about their work and the places in which it is done.

What is Nellie saying? She thinks our story, as it is all true, ought to begin by telling you where the match box makers live.

Match box making is carried on in many parts of East London — Shoreditch, Spitalfields, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Hackney Wick, and several others.

We cannot visit them all at once, we know, but a short journey by train will take us to Old Ford, and a walk of only a few minutes from the railway station will bring us into a road where quite a number of match box makers live.

It is quite early in the afternoon, but as it is holiday time the Board schools we pass on our way are closed, and we know we shall be likely to find the children at their work. The houses, though not large, are often let to two or three families; in many cases the rent of one room is all that the people, most of whom are very poor, can afford to pay, and the boxes are made in the room in which father and three or four children live, eat and sleep; sometimes it is done in a small kitchen or washhouse. Our knock at one of the doors is answered by a bright-looking little girl about ten years of age. "Yes," she says, they are quite busy; work has been very slack, but mother got an order this morning for six gross of boxes, they will be wanted tomorrow, so they must all work away."

We follow her, and find her mother and four other children sitting round a low table. Each worker has a pile of very thin strips of wood, a tin of paste and a packet of printed labels.

How quickly their fingers move! In less time than it takes to write about it the flat strips of wood are one at a time folded into boxes, pasted, labelled and thrown on to the heap of those already finished.

Talking need not stop working, and the mother, who seems glad to have a visitor, says, "There is not much doing in the trade now, so many of the cheap matches being made in Sweden and Germany."

She used to help her mother to make boxes when quite a little girl herself, not more than six or seven years old, often working from six in the morning till eight or nine o’clock at night, and was always kept away from school in busy times.

Children, she tells us, do not work such long hours now, they get more play and all attend school, but hers are always willing to "help mother" when she has any work. Can they earn much? we ask. She shakes her head, saying, "Not a great deal, as the price paid for the work is very low, and though the wood and labels are supplied when the work is given out, they have to find their own paste and keep a good fire for drying, as wet work would not be passed by the overlooker." Would the children like to hear a true story while they work?

It is pleasant to see how their eyes brighten, and we know by the look on their faces they are all going to listen,

"Not very long ago a young girl, who had begun to trust the Lord Jesus as her own precious Saviour, left her home in the country and went to a place of service in London. It was a large household where many servants were kept.

"Mary, as I am going to call her, was the kitchen-maid, an under-servant, the youngest and in a way the lowest of them all. She saw it would not be her place to talk much to people so much older than herself, but she prayed that the Lord would give her grace to live for Him, and I am going to tell you how her prayer was answered.

"Her master was obliged to leave his town house, and was away for many weeks.

"On his return he told his servants that he was so pleased with the way in which they had served him during his absence, he was going to give them what he thought would be a great treat, every one was to have a free ticket for the theatre. All but Mary had got their tickets; when her name was called she went up to her master, saying in a shy way, ’Thank you all the same, sir; but if you please, sir, I don’t want to go.’

"’Don’t want to go! what a strange girl you are, you must tell me why not.’

"’Because, if you please, sir, the Lord Jesus loves me and I love Him, and I know He will not be there.’"