3-021-111 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Distributing soup at the Strangers' Home, West India-road, Limehouse, 1868. Relief '...of the distressed poor in the eastern suburbs of London...[at] the soup kitchen of the Limehouse Special Relief Committee...The peculiarity of this kitchen is that the soup is made and served...entirely by the inmates of the Home, who are natives of India, Arabia, Africa, China, the Mozambique, and the [Pacific] islands...[It] is the only institution in the United Kingdom expressly built, furnished, and set apart for natives of the East and of Africa...as many as 2870 Asiatics, Africans, and South Sea Islanders have been lodged and boarded, for various periods, at their own or at their employers' expense; while 785 natives of India, China, Strait of Malacca, Arabia, East and West Africa, and of the islands of the South Pacific, in a state of destitution, some of whom were shipwrecked, but principally beggars taken off the streets...have been sheltered and gratuitously boarded, and provided with employment, or a passage to their native country...beds at 3d. each, baths at 2d. each, and meals at 3d. and 5d., have also been provided...All cases of destitution have been inquired into, relief afforded, and every exertion made to put a stop to Asiatic mendicancy'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.