"The Ragged Girl" (1860)

The Ragged Girl

1860

Wood engraving

The Girl's Birthday Book, p. 213.

"The church of St. Barnabas rose stately and picturesque in the midst of a crowd of mean, dirty by-streets, narrow alleys, and back-yards, where, when Aminta Nugent and her highly respectable friends came out from their handsome house, in all their rich attire, to attend divine service, bearing in their hands their service books bound in gold and velvet, their eyes and ears were offended by ill-looking people, and ragged boys and girls, lounging about, even on the very steps of the sacred edifice, and in the unswept, disagreeable thoroughfares adjoining...."

Scanned image and Text byJacqueline Banerjee

Six-year-old Aminta asks her well-to-do mother about these poor children, and is particularly drawn to a little girl called Ann Roper, probably the one shown in the foreground here. Aminta is encouraged to help the poverty-stricken Roper family, and Ann is eventually sent out to Australia after being trained up as a domestic servant. She does very well there. Ironically, Aminta herself falls on hard times, to the extent that one day she has to seek shelter at Ann's "Bush Farm," before recovering her standing in life (an excellent illustration of Ecclesiastes 11, i: "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days"). The startling thing about this anonymous story is Aminta's age at the beginning. Evidently, children had to set on the right path as soon as they were old enough to take note of their surroundings.

References

Anon. "The Ragged Girl" in The Girl's Birthday Book: A Collection of Tales, Essays and Narratives, Especially Designed for Girls. London: Houlston and Wright, 1860.

Last modified 15 August 2007