Her Benny: A Story of Street Life

by Silas Kitto Hocking

Her Benny: A Story of Street Life By Silas K. Hocking

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Young Adult, Novels, Drama, British Literature, Adult

120 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1879

Reviews

[Shovelmonkey1 · Rating 3 out of 5]

My teeth fell out shortly after reading this as this is probably the most saccharine novel of mid-Victorian poverty and death that I've ever read. Written by Silas K Hocking, who as a man of the cloth, experienced first hand the social deprivations experienced in Liverpool during the mid 19th century and felt compelled to put pen to paper in order to let people know. Kind of an Engels Condition of the Working classes in England but for kiddlywinks, this book was aimed at urchinesque ankle biters and emotionally susceptible adults in order to convince them to do the right thing by a sort of emotional and spiritual blackmail. Down on your luck? Starving? Don't steal! The Almighty will sort it out for you.

Benny Bates and his wee sister Nelly live in the damp and dung ridden courts of inner city Liverpool (somewhere around Everton I think based on the description - no offence to Evertonians, I'm not inferring your streets are dung ridden now!)and endure the daily deprivations of hunger and an abusive home life. They are the apple of each others eye and cling together for survival like a couple of limpets on the Albert Dock wall. Benny makes money by porterage at the landing stage and taking up any odd jobs. Nelly plies her trade like the little match girl selling fusees on around Castle Street and St George's Church.

Eventually they are compelled to run away from home after one beating too many and are rescued by watchman friend Joe Ragg and the companionable Nanny (like Nana in Peter Pan but not a dog) who continue to keep a watchful eye over them as the roam the streets.

Benny is given several chances to improve himself and even when he and Nell are down on their luck he always steers away from stealing and any thing dishonest. In the meantime Nelly gets God in a big way and starts to wish for the sweet release of death because people have told her that heaven is a reward and better than life on earth. It sounds like some sort of terrible Dickensian street urchin euthanasia where the kids have been brain washed into wanting to go to heaven and just sort of pine away.

Eventually Nell shuffles off the mortal coil and probably gets to heaven or becomes a little angel and Benny decides the best thing he can do is head off down the road towards Manchester and then lie down and wait for death to take him Cheerfully Benny is rescued by a friendly farmer and is cured of his heavy heart by a healthy dose of farm activities and the outdoor lifestyle and goes on to make his way in the world with an almost improbable bought of self improvements.

The combination of twee-ness and religious overtones make this a little indigestible in places but it is one of the most famous books about Victorian Liverpool and did successfully highlight the plight of children in the city. The overarching message is that even when you're starving and homeless you can always rely on prayer and that it's better to have faith than to steal a loaf of bread for your survival. Obviously, if the angels of the Victorian period served up a sort of wholesome spiritual meals on wheels delivery service and swooped down to drop off a bacon butty when you were most in need then this would make perfect sense but they didn't so it doesn't.

[Thom Swennes · Rating 3 out of 5]

This evangelistic work for the youthful reader by Silas K. Hocking (1850-1935) is about two waifs, Benny and his younger sister Nelly. They flee an abusive father and take to the streets of Liverpool to provide the meager necessities of life. Nelly has a weak constitution and Benny considers a life of crime as a means to alleviate their suffering. This road, however, goes against his conscience and he promises his sister to always be honest. Her Benny is a tale filled with numerous trials and tribulations. The language, vocabulary and grammar misuse put me occasionally is a state of apoplexy and nearly to tears. Once recovered from this shock, the tears soon reappeared as a result of this heart wrenching story. If you can overlook or ignore the language, vocabulary and grammar use, I feel sure you too would love the tale.

[Ayesha Siddiqua · Rating 3 out of 5]

এই বইটা আর The grave of Fireflies anime movie দুটো মিলেমিশে বছরের প্রথমদিন মন খারাপ করে দেয়....
দুটো মিষ্টি ভাইবোনের করুণ গল্প চোখের সামনে ভেসে বেড়ায়...

[Rita · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Victorian tale of poverty on the streets of Liverpool. A homeless brother and sister and how they survived. This is a reread for me, I read this book in school, I loved it then and it's still as good now. A story that is heart wrenching in parts and full of emotion throughout, I defy you not to tear up when reading this. It is written alot in northern dialect, which some people may struggle with, other than that it's a beautifully written story, one that the author tells us contains more truth than fiction, which just breaks my heart all over again. Only thing left to say is, read it.

[Nicole Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I mean having grown up in liverpool and the surrounding areas I have visited many places within this book and have felt able to immerse myself into what was happening. The language was a little hard to follow at times but was to be expected given the era it was written in.

[Maruf Hossain · Rating 5 out of 5]

বইটা পড়ে কান্না আটকে রাখতে পারছিলাম না কোনভাবেই, ফুঁপিয়ে ফুঁপিয়ে কাঁদছিলাম। ইফতেখার আমিনের অসাধারণ অনুবাদ বইটাকে দিয়েছে অন্যমাত্রা।

[Christy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Victorian sob story by my new favorite author, Silas Hocking. He was a preacher, and this book overflows with religious conviction, which I didn’t mind at all. The main character, Benny, is determined to stay honest and never slip into crime, like most of the other street boys of Liverpool. His determination pays off, of course. His pathetic little sister is already close to heaven, having pink spots on her cheeks and a constant cough. From other Victorian novels, we know what that means. So you’d better have a handkerchief ready. Or two. But you’ll love the story anyway.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hurray! Victorian non-conformist work ethic fiction of the best kind. You can spot the doomed character early on, the right people repent, and because it's non-conformist it's (slightly) more believable than eg Susan Warner.

[Anthony Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read one other novel by Hocking – ‘Crookleigh’ – and found it a good story with mild religious instruction along the way. ‘Her Benny’, being his most popular, was therefore on my list and I bought a lovely 1892 Frederick Warne edition from Todmorden market. It has ‘original illustrations’ which are excellent, but the artist is, I’m sorry to say, uncredited.

By contrast with ‘Crookleigh’, ‘Her Benny’ is rather more overtly evangelical, and whether that detracts from the pleasure that can be taken in the story will depend on the reader. I tended to read the Christian elements respectfully while simultaneously wondering why this particular story should have proved such a successful one for Hocking’s proselytising mission.

So: the story itself follows the early life of Benny Bates who rises in the world from Liverpudlian ‘street Arab’ to be a partner in a successful merchant enterprise owing to his perseverance, honesty, hard work, the kindness of others and, eventually, the fortitude provided by the Christian practice of loving God and your neighbour. In all this, he is influenced mostly by his little sister, Nelly, who, early on in their struggles on the street selling ‘fusees’, finds comfort in the warmth of a chapel and the words of that ‘wonderful text, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life.”’

Nelly, just like Dickens’ ‘Little Nell’, is ‘ripening for the kingdom’ and destined to die, and it is her death and her fixation on the word ‘whosoever’ that pervade Benny’s consciousness when he is left on his own. These memories, and his sensitivity to them, enable him eventually to resist the temptations to crime that are put his way by a lad known as Perks. Nelly is a sentimentalised figure, but I kind of understand that, and why Hocking might have made her so. The world he lived in was one that could all too easily wear you down to tearfulness especially if you were of a socially conscientious and sensitive disposition. Hocking was a Methodist preacher who practised in many places, one of them Liverpool, and the kind of work he engaged in, and which he describes succinctly in his Preface to ‘Her Benny’, would have taken him into close contact with the miseries of the insecure, unhappy struggle among the employed and the unemployed and the nefariously engaged poor of the city. Sickness caused by the stresses of insecure employment, filth, inadequate sanitation, cold, drunkenness and poor diet – Nelly and Benny subsist on bread, and goodness knows where they find drinking water – would have worn people down all too easily. Nelly succumbs to a wasting disease, and her death in the infirmary is dealt with gently, but relentlessly, and she is buried at the public expense.

This latter detail seems to me important in the novel. Hocking is at pains not to dwell on social misery to the exclusion of elements of human kindness. There is, he emphasises, natural goodness in the world, and for him it is best cultivated by following the Christian faith. Plenty of characters exemplify this: Joe Wrag, a night watchman who lets Nelly and Benny share his fire and who introduces them, when they are homeless, to Betty Barker, whom they call Granny, and to whom they pay a daily rent for board and lodging; then there is Eva Lawrence, a rich girl, who gives Benny a shilling when her father has not offered even a penny, and who later intervenes with her father on Benny’s behalf to get him a position as an office boy; after these inauspicious beginnings, Mr Lawrence becomes very fond of Benny, and promotes his doing well; and eventually there are Mr and Mrs Fisher, the farmers, who take Benny in when he is close to dying of exhaustion and sunstroke.

Mr Lawrence is an interesting figure. He is both kind, but guilty of a grave error of judgment, for he causes, albeit reluctantly, Benny to be threatened with imprisonment. He is, however, when Benny is eventually shown to have been innocent, most anxious to seek the young man’s forgiveness. The aforementioned Perks, on the other hand, is shown to go from bad to worse for unlike Benny he lacks the trust in honesty and the memory of Nelly who sits on Benny’s shoulder like Jiminy Cricket, pricking his conscience. There but for the grace of God… - but Hocking takes another angle on Perks’ situation as well. Perks, visited in prison by a grown up Benny, ‘confessed…the justice of his sentence, though he would insist upon it that society had made him what he was, and was to some degree responsible for his wickedness.’ Perks is not allowed to exculpate himself from his criminality altogether, but Hocking clearly makes the point bluntly here, and elsewhere by implication in his descriptions of poverty and its effects on children and adults, that society does not organise itself in a way that promotes equality and opportunity for all.

Another ‘victim’ of society is Benny and Nelly’s father, Dick Bates. He is, when drunk, violent and abusive. When sober, he is a man who loves his children, but is afflicted by a desperation resulting from his first wife’s death. He adored her, and his second wife is a slatternly misery to him. Hocking is peculiarly understanding of him, and I wonder if he was a type Hocking the preacher visiting his flock knew well. I took it that Hocking felt that such men were not beyond redemption and that society – and his own vocation – ought to offer such cases practical and emotional support.

I think the modern reader is likely to regard ‘Her Benny’ as a novel exemplifying Karl Marx’s view that religion is the opium of the people. For me, however, Hocking’s storytelling was sincere and heartfelt enough to show that for some people it’s not an opiate, but a force for good in the individual. Benny, after a few years staying with and working for the Fishers and attending church regularly, suddenly hears the significance of Charles Wesley’s hymn ‘Give me the faith which can remove’ and sees that the lines ‘Enlarge, inflame, and fill my heart / With boundless charity divine’ apply to him. He sees that ‘religion was no longer the cold, formal thing he had once imagined it to be, but a warm, living something that filled his whole life. Duty now became a joy, because love inspired it.’ He duly sets out to teach others the Christian message as well as he can for the benefit of the individual and of society. Thus, though Perks is not wrong to blame society for his criminality, he is clearly, for Hocking, someone who would benefit from leading a Christian life in – and this is important - a supportive Christian community.

It’s this aspect of religion - the way the individual can feel compelled by it at an emotional level - that struck a chord with me. Just as Benny is compelled by his intense love for his sister Nelly to lead as honest a life as possible, so her simple faith, in combination with his deep affection for her, affects Joe Wrag too. Joe is at the start of the novel a Calvinist who regards himself as damned as he is not one of the elect, and he is tortured by this predicament which eliminates him from salvation and paradise. Nelly’s belief that Heaven is ready to receive ‘whoever’, rather than just the elect, enables him to forsake the theory of predestination, and find salvation, and, like Benny, to take it upon himself to preach the same to others.

I was reminded of my response to the Anglo-Saxon poems ‘The Wanderer’ and ‘The Seafarer’ when I was at university. Their concluding lines adopt the same sentiment: That life is blooming miserable and not worth living for men separated from society and who find themselves utterly alone in the world. Therefore, says the Christian scribe at the end of each poem – and I paraphrase – ‘Foolish is he who does not understand that there is a place for him in a loving Father’s house in Heaven if he embraces the way of the Lord.’ It’s a common experience: if the awfulness of your life is made manageable by a faith that does no harm to others, and makes you well disposed towards them, so be it, for as a sign I saw in 1974 outside an evangelical church in Nottingham said: ‘When life knocks you to your knees, you are in the correct position for prayer.’ See ‘Her Benny’, Chapter XI !

[Md. Faysal Alam Riyad · Rating 4 out of 5]

আপনি কি চার্লস ডিকেন্স এর অলিভার টুইস্টকে চিনেন? যদি না চিনেন সমস্যা নাই। আজকে আপনাদের সাথে পরিচয় করিয়ে দিব বেনি বেটস নামের এক তরুণ এর সাথে। লিভারপুরের পথে পথে দেশলাই ফেরী করে পেট চালায় আমাদের এই বেনি বেটস এবং তার বোন নেলি বেটস। মা নেই, থাকে বাবা আর সৎ মায়ের সাথে। মা মারা যাবার পর থেকেই মাতাল বাবা আর সৎ মায়ের অত্যাচারে অসহ্য হয়ে এক সময় বাড়ি থেকে পালায় দুই ভাই-বোন।কিন্তু পালালেই ত আর হলো না, সারাদিন না হয় পথে পথে ঘুরা যায় কিন্তু রাতটা কি করবে বেনি, যখন তার সাথে আবার তার বোন নেলিও রয়েছে। অবশেষে পরিচতি জো’র সাহায্য নিয়ে বেটি বার্কার ওরফে গ্রানির বাসায় আশ্রয় হল দুজনের।

সুখেই দিন কাটছিল তাদের, কিন্তু হঠাৎ করেই তার বোন নেলি অসুস্থ হয়ে পড়ল। সে অসুখ যেন অার ভালো হবার কোন লক্ষণই নাই। অসুস্থতার কারণে কাজেও যেতে পারে না নেলি, তাই বেনিকেই বেশি পরিশ্রম করতে হচ্ছে। কিন্তু সুস্থ হবার পরও একটা সময় সবাইকে কাঁদিয়ে চলে গেল নেলি, এবং ভাইকে উপদেশ দিয়ে গেল সে যেন সবসময় সৎ পথে থাকে। এমন ঘটনার পর বড্ড একা হয়ে গেল বেনি। আজ নেলি নেই, কাজেই তারও যেন প্রয়োজন ফুরিয়ে গেছে সবকিছুরই। এর কিছুদিন পরে বড়দিনের আগে হঠাৎ রেল স্টেশনে তার দেখা হল ইভা লরেন্স এর সাথে। নানান ঘটনায় পর ইভার বাবার অফিসে একটা চাকরি পেল বেনি। কিন্তু চুরির অপরাধ নিয়ে শেষ পর্যন্ত তাকে প্রিয় শহর, নেলি সবাইকে ছেড়ে দিয়ে ভগ্ন হৃদয়ে লিভারপুল ছেড়ে পালাতে হল।

কাহিনী এখানেই শেষ নয়, এ কাহিনী গড়িয়েছে আরো বহুদূর। সব ক্ষেত্রেই সে তার বোনের ওই কথাটি মেনে চলেছে, সে কখনো সৎ পথ ছেড়ে দেয় নি, এবং দিন শেষে সে অনেক উন্নতি করে। একই সময়ে গল্পে পার্কাস নামের আরেকটি চরিত্রের সাথে পরিচয় হয় পাঠক, পার্কাস বেনির বন্ধু, চুরির অপরাধে তাকে বিশ বছরের সশ্রম কারাদন্ড দেয়া হয়। পার্কাস সৎ পথে থাকে নি, সে বেছে নিয়েছিল অসৎ জীবন।কিন্তু এই পথে তার আসার জন্য পার্কাস কি নিজে দায়ী? তার পরিবেশ তার সমাজ কি এর জন্য একটুও দায়ী নয়! পার্কাসও ত চেয়েছিল ভালো মত বাঁচতে। কিন্তু এই লিভারপুল শহর তাকে বাঁচতে দেয় নি, হয়ত আমাদের এই বেনিও যদি লিভারপুল শহর থেকে না পালাত তার অবস্থাও পার্কাস এর মত হত। এই সমাজ, এই সমাজ ব্যবস্থা, আমাদের বিশ্বাস-কর্ম সবই বড় বিচিত্র। তবে দিন শেষে সৎ ও সত্যেরই জয় হয়।

[Roomey Rahman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book fills full of my expectation. Outstanding book. This is one of the best book I have ever read. All the entire book I feel sad for Nelly. At one point I was thinking I was Benny and Nelly was my sister. And finally I got the message, writer want to give us. You have to honest, whatever everything goes wrong with you.

[Angie Peate alcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic! Read it at least 8 times and each time I cry xx

[Kathy Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book , could reread it over once more ,

[Ashek Tipu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like anything related siblings! <3

[Sheila · Rating 2 out of 5]

If this were not a book group choice I would not have persisted beyond the first few pages. The most positive aspects were the historical interest and the settings: the cold and gritty streets and docksides of Victorian Liverpool and the surrounding woods and fields to which Benny retreats and where he grows in faith and stature. A varied cast ranges from night watchman Joe, whose Calvinistic leanings at first prevent him, almost literally, from seeing the light, to well-intentioned gentry and kindly farmers. Although the author is obviously familiar with the conditions suffered by the urban poor, his characters lack psychological realism and illustrate doctrine rather than convince as real people. The rendition of speech, both of the street characters and the more genteel are unconvincing. The book seems at times like an extended religious homily. With the unredeemed and therefore undeserving poor Hocking has little sympathy. The harsh portrayal of street urchin Perks, alias John Cadger, contrasts with empathy of Charles Dickens in his creation of the Artful Dodger. Hocking has none of Dickens’ humour and his descriptions, particularly of Little Nell, Benny’s sister, are sentimental to the point of embarrassment. When Oscar Wilde said you’d have to have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing one wonders whether he was really thinking of Hocking. Benny’s father’s drowning in the dock – gurgles and all – and the scene where Joe invites his docile fellow workers to hear him read the bible are similarly absurd. Coincidences and melodrama abound. The lines that appear as chapter headings seem to be chosen as particularly glaring examples of bad Victorian verse.

[Paul Moran · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came across Her Benny while researching local Cornish authors. Silas Kitto Hocking (1850-1935) was born in St. Stephen's, the son of a tin mine owner and became a methodist preacher.
Her Benny was his second novel written in 1879 at the age of twenty nine after he has spent three years working with the poor and destitute on the streets of Liverpool. The book sold over a million copies, and it is easy to see why such a tale would have appealed to the late Victorians, following on from the social issues first raised by Dickens.
If you are able to ignore the moralistic and didactic overtones of each chapter, the narrative is an important tale of the conditions on the streets of Liverpool when there was no Government safety net, healthcare, sanitation or empathy for the disadvantaged . The harshness of life and death is brought easily to the minds eye of even a modern reader, and the book is certain to bring more than one tear to the eye of even the most cold hearted of readers.
If I were to choose a reading list for those younger people interested in what life was like and still is for many on the streets of our cities even today, this book would be top of the list.
A beautifully crafted work of despair hope love and redemption that leaves you wanting more.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A rags to riches story in 19th century Liverpool

Life of two poor children in mid 19th century Liverpool. The twists and turns in life of ‘Her Benny’ (her being Nelly, his sister) illustrate the poverty and destitution of the time, but a godly approach to life pays dividends in the end.

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a wonderful snapshot of life for the very poor and destitute in the Victorian industrial revolution. it is well written and paints a literary picture of the hardships endured in those times.
I recommend this book and others by Silas K Hocking - A brilliant and prolific novelist.

[Silent Way · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sentimental yarn, but an easy and pleasant read and a snapshot into a much harder Victorian world.

[Sandra Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Tale for Ages to #ome

Original copy of this book was given by my grandfather to his young sister. Story was of God's wonderful love.

[A. R. Imon · Rating 5 out of 5]

অসাধারণ একটা কাহিনী! মনে থাকবে বহুদিন। এমন কাহিনী অনেকদিন পর পড়লাম।

[Kayleigh Formby · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite books of all time ❤️

[Rebecca Anson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite reads ❤️

[Terri Quigley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favourite books. Read it when I was 8 and several times since. Old Liverpool seeps from every page. Sills makes you feel every high and low with his writing. Would recommend!!

[Charlotte Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't usually write reviews, but this one deserves it. this book deserves to be a classic, talks on the childhood poverty in liverpool.

[Kirsty Burke · Rating 5 out of 5]

it doesn't matter how many times I read this book, I still cry when Nelly dies...sorry for the spoiler...one of my favourite books which I will read again and again

[Steventhesteve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this was a delightfully depressing tale about poverty in Victorian Liverpool. It's much more interesting to me as a local resident simply because I KNOW THOSE STREETS, I walk them when I'm out shopping, drinking, or working, and it's awful to think how wretched the lives of the poor were back in the day on the same street corners.

Bit too much God in the pages for my taste, but it was written by a preacher after all. A very interesting read!

I should add that the front entrance of the Liverpool Central library has the names of many books and theatre productions written in the flagstones as you approach the front door, Her Benny is amongst them, which is how I discovered it! My efforts to hopscotch to the front door jumping only on books I've read is getting closer to completion!

[Gerhard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the obvious drawbacks - melodramatic story line, a surfeit of religious instruction, the suffering of the (admittedly likeable) hero turned up to the nth degree, tear-jerking scenes always only a page away - this Victorian novel may present to the sophisticated reader of the 21st century, I found it to be sincere and affecting. Clearly this should be read in the context of the times in which it was written. The author's clear no-nonsense prose and the quaint illustrations add to the pleasure of reading this curiosity. It's not Dickens, but then you can't have it all.

[Rachael · Rating 3 out of 5]

If possible I'd give it 3.5 stars, I enjoyed it more than I expected. The earlier dialogue was sometimes hard to get through but I got used to it quick enough. I wasn't used to reading something where spirituality and religion was so prominent but in the end it didn't take away from the story.
I've not read anything with this style of writing or genre, I got the book as a gift, but I did like it and it's something I'll keep for a long time.

[Jacqui Hale · Rating 5 out of 5]

My mum has been trying to her me to read this for years but it never appealed to me, embarking on the 59 book challenge with one of the topics "a book your mum loves" I had to choose this one.

I loved it too! Such a touching story of a poor liverpool street child and his struggle to survive. No spoilers but can highly recommend this book!