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With our Adelaide Hallelujah Lads and Lassies
The War Cry - 1888

THE WAR CRY (International) July 4th 1888
(from The South Australian Register )

Last Sunday night at seven o’clock I presented myself at the door of The Salvation Army Barracks in the not very highly reputable neighbourhood of Light Square. All round the entrance was a crush.
The guardian soldier-sentry stationed there hoarsely assured me, ‘There ain’t no sort of chance to get in’ as he pointed to the Morphet Street side of the square and by pantomime gave me to move towards a crowd of some hundred people who were listening in easy though picturesque attitudes beneath the flickering light of two lanterns to sounds coming from the barracks. But determined to see for myself I pressed through the surging crowd and entered the crowded lobby, some people were coming out so at last I succeeded in entering the building.

The principle soldiers were penned up within a platform hedge – Hallelujah lassies, in their hideous sooty sugar-scoop poke bonnets and their plain black dresses, relieved by gold laced collar or silver “S “, on the right hand side, their brother warriors, all intensely earnest, and uniformed according to their rank, on the left. In the centre is the Commanding Officer Rolfe, thoroughly warm, nervous of speech, mightily enthusiastic, and so much master of the situation that his every gesture carries meaning, whilst his orders are instantly obeyed. At intervals along the aisles and at the door, to keep order and to bring out the wounded, are other Soldiers, mostly in dark raiment, but some in crimson. These last are sinewy fighting men – the terror of the larrikins. At one side of the platform the brass band; at the other more warrior lads and lasses; in front the audience.

There were prostitutes there – bold some, and keenly wideawake to business; touched slightly, others as the night advanced. There were old besotted men eyes blear and bloodshot, beards unreaped, and hair unkempt. There were aged women, toothless, ragged, gin scented, wizened. There were vacant faced larrikins, male and female every now and again interpellating mocking scoffing words.

I saw five theatricals there and a clergyman, a banker, a broker, a master blacksmith.

There was one wee woman whose bearing would have touched the hardest heart. She was a tidy little body, and fussy as all little bodies are. Her dress showed - poor self sacrificing soul – that she put every penny to the farthest, but hadn’t many to handle. Her husband drank –drank hard, and she had been long trying to get him to go and see a better way pointed out; and for a weary while she had not succeeded. But she gained her point at last, and this night she had managed to bring him and to pen him in the seat between herself and the wall. The eager solicitous look she cast upon him I shall not forget. As he chafed she pleaded, and by all sorts of little womanly devices she prevailed upon him to stay for quite a long time, till at last, breaking through all her restraints, he brushed past her and went out, she closely following. These were some of the people, and this was a sample of the incidents one saw while watching the crowd, the bulk of whom however, was made up of quiet, well-disposed labourers, their wives and their little ones.

You should have heard that crowd, mixed as it was, and vile as part of it was, sing the Army’s popular music. You would have discovered yourself, as I did discover myself, joining in, injected by the spirit of the thing, and oblivious to the character of the folk as I helped to swell the chorus.

Then up popped the Captain, hair rampant, eyes blazing, with a cheery-“Come in, my friends, come in! We’ve something good to offer you. Better than anything else. Better than your weekly wages, however much it may be.”

And the chorus started again, and the people shouted, and the Soldiers swayed to and fro and the excitement generally ran high. The Captain (then proceeded to read the Scripture very) well indeed. I have heard worse readers at pretentious altars, he accompanied his reading by simple comments- rough some of them, but palpably understood. When for instance, exemplifying the way of beginning a better life he said with detectable provincialism- “ Jist roll yourselves over on Christ” The breeze of muffled “Amen’s” which had accompanied him all the way through freshened at once into a lusty gale. Before it the Soldiers rocked and rocked, and poke bonnets bobbed and bobbed, in a fashion which would have been ludicrous had it not been so touching.

Then there was a collection introduced by a begging speech. “We are stretching out into new places today, my friends,” said the Captain, “ and you must help us.”
“Doan’t be shaamed to give a little,” said the kindly faced old man who came to our side, “If you’ve only a haap’ny put it in; bless the Loard!” and they did give nobly. “If you chuck the plate near me I’ll steal it, “said one bell-bottom-trousered larrikin near me. “Noa, you won’t.” said the kind faced old fellow , smilingly: “ a foine young felloa like you’ll give summat, I knoa.” And the larrikin fumbled for a threepenny-bit.

Meanwhile the Captain read the weeks programme. One night the Salvation Soldiers were to meet; the next the little Soldiers’ Band; the third the Hallelujah lassies; the fourth the sisters. On Saturday there was to be a Free-and-Easy; at such a time there was to be practice at knee drill; and so on. Then there was more singing- double fortissimo at first, and later, when the audience knelt, soft and plaintive.

A ’Hallelujah lass’ - a shrinking timid maiden of about eighteen years- promptly obeyed the beck of the Captain, and, advancing from the body of the hall to the front of the platform, spoke a few words, hands clasped the while, but spoke so softly that all we at the back could hear was a slight lisp. There was something really pathetic in the sight of this shrinking girl addressing a crowd of riff raff, and impelled to the duty by her conscience.-. with a full-blown Captain for its visible agent.

A brawny young soldier came next – a man with a loud voice with rebellious hair and never resting hands, alternately thumping on the Bible and beating a tattoo on the top rail of the platform fence. “Hark young fellow, “he said pointing straight at a shock-haired larrikin in a corner “Do you know where you’re going? You are travelling faster than an express train. Where to? Hell! Take care.” The shock-haired looked decidedly uncomfortable. “People say we work on the feelings,” continued his tormentor ”We don’t if I wanted to please you I would give you laudanum or some other drug to make you feel pleasant.” And then, hooking his little finger and holding it out towards a meek little. old man with a bald head, “What’s the difference between being washed white and whitewashed, eh?” and the meek man didn’t seem to know, and he looked sorry for it, “Supposin,” continued the orator, “Sposin’ I was to whitewash that wall.-.the dirt would still be under it. But supposin’ I washed it and didn’nt whitewash it, it would be cleaner than it would be if I did whitewash it and didn’nt wash it, wouldn’t it?? Well then, be washed, not whitewashed.

When your money’s gone, your friends is gone,” continued the fervent preacher.

“Aye true; you never said truer,” shouted a man who had not all the godliness worn off him, though he had sunk low. “True. true; you n-e-v-e-r spoke a truer word. The audience gave no heed to the interruption, but the breeze of “Amens” freshened again. The speaker closed with a solo, in the chorus of which joined the whole congregation with a vigour which almost threatened damage to the window panes. Whomsoever the Captain orders must speak, if a heartbreak be the consequence, so strong is the military tie which binds these Salvation people together. But then the Captain generally seems judicious.

A broad-chested Cornishman followed – a man who retained nearly all the freshness of the brogue of the land of ‘Taatee oggans.” Here is what he said in effect, the good-hearted fellow - “Pipple do say as ‘ow we in The Army does’nt do no good. Let ‘em hark to these caases from Sydney. Wan man, who for the last twenty ‘ears never knawed wat it was to have any plaice but a jail or a gutter for a bed- he went and got saved, and now ez’ appy an prosperous He ‘ad been in jail twenty three times. ‘Nother man caame up and said ‘ow he’d been in preeson aate times, and was drummed out of the naavy. He was saved. “There was wan more. Tell ‘bout Ned Kelly. He was much worse. But He was saved too. And so can all you be….. I doa’nt onnerstand why our Council is against us. If they would only help us to roll the old chariot along it would be fine sight better.”

“Now,” shouted the Captain; “now for an ‘Eye-opener.” To the front stepped a stalwart young fellow with a sheepish look, but some show of boldness. He had been a scapegrace seven weeks before, he said, going to perdition in for capital letters as fast as five double capitals would let him; But now he’d reformed – and as he said it, fine, manly fellow, his overwrought feelings found relief in real tears, but now he’d reformed, and he, too, meant to “roll the old chariot along,”

While I was cogitating upon its probable import, a lass with a wonderfully soft voice sang from the platform a touching solo – oh! So very sweetly. The audience listened open-mouthed, and the ‘vim’ with which they sang the chorus I never heard surpassed; except on one occasion when I listened to 300 chinamen singing a ‘Chinese’ hymn to the grand old tune of “Rosseau.” As soon as this lass had finished, and while yet the Soldiers were swaying to and fro, moved by their emotion, Happy Dinah, the very antithesis of her sweet-voiced sister, came to speak, she was explicit.

“I’ve got a Hallelujah ticket, and I’m booked for glory’” was her preface, and then she proceeded-“ If you don’t look out you will find yourself fallen head first into hell ……I mean to fight.” And she really looked as though she did. It would have fared hard with the arch-enemy if he had hazarded within arm’s-reach at the moment.

Then there was more whole-souled singing in the midst of which Mr. and Mrs.Burnett arrived.. Mr Burnett, as is his right, is a little demi-god amongst the Soldiers, who evidently struggled between the sacredness of the place and the day and their inclination to cheer the evangelist. When he began to speak with all his old fire and fervour, he had a constant murmuring of ‘Amens’ to help him, “I wish I could hear a hundred- two hundred – three hundred- a thousand ‘Amens’” He cried. The result is unreportable. Thereforth the fervent response came in at every point, appropriate or otherwise, just as it happened: but always devoutly given, I do believe, Mr Burnett gained the people’s ears. They listened eagerly right up to half-past nine oclock.

When we had finished the Captain mounted the central seat and in a business-like fashion asked whether anyone wanted “to be done good to;” and if so to step up to the front seat. About half-a-dozen responded amidst a perpect salvo of devotional cheers. From then till about ten o-clock the scene was a moving one. It revived recollections of the negro camp meetings, which Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s wonderful pen has told us of. From the penitents proceeded low sobs and cries; all round them were wrestling Soldiers; two or three were praying together sometimes, and the audience singing in different keys at the same moment. And as these penitent folk rose one after the other they shrieked or sobbed or spoke quietly their testimony- according to the temperament of each, I at least could not doubt their sincerity – though I might suspect the element of evanescence.

At ten o’clock shouted the Captain- “Now for a thorough Hallelujah Wind Up……,pray short and pray sharp….and pray sweet.” And so they did.

The battle with evil was yet in progress when I elbowed my way outward through the proralacuour throng who still crowded round the doors.