The text describes the colony and the Polish mission in London, including St Casimir's and St Joseph's Church, which is its home. It was built by the Poles and is located in a part of the East End. This is followed by a detailed physical description of the area around the church and the church itself and the activities of the Polish Londoners (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1899, Półrocze II, pp. 921-922 , after: Digital Library of the University of Lodz).

A modernised reading of the text

Colony and the Polish mission in London.

In the autumn of last year, the Archbishop of Westminster, Vaughan, consecrated a Polish church dedicated to St Casimir and St Joseph in London, and at last, after many years of uncertain and even turbulent vicissitudes, the Polish mission established its existence and took a more impressive form. The church, erected on the initiative of the Chapter and Order of the Divine Mercy in Sevres near Paris, by the hands of Polish friars, is situated in the eastern district of the city, inhabited by the proletariat, in the so-called East-end, comprising a bizarre and interesting mosaic of people from the most varied geographical and spiritual spheres, into which some three thousand Polish and Lithuanian craftsmen are intermingled.

There are no proud Gothic towers shooting up to the heavens here, the temple does not lure the eyes of a passer-by with the beauty of its architecture; the street is invisible, settling quietly among a cluster of buildings, as if a group of people it serves, obscured from the world by the huge walls of an English community. Only the monastery gate, and the inscription: "Roman Catholic Church" indicate to us from the street the existence of a familiar corner, where on Sundays and holidays the songs of Polish and Lithuanian resound and merge into one harmonious chord.

The three warm-hearted friars at the side of Father Antoni Lejchert and his deputy Father Jozef Bakanovsky are still working around the church on weekdays, plastering or painting the walls, repairing the slate roof or planting flowers near the entrance. Above the modest altar is a painting of Our Lady of Czestochowa, on the walls are two canvases of patron saints sent from Cracow, and the space is filled with pews and kneelers. About three hundred people can fit inside the church's cavernous walls, but on holidays it can be cramped here, and the devout people crawl out in front of the bell tower-like front into a small courtyard, fenced off from the factories by a wall.

The church is flanked by a brick shed with craftsmen's tools and a four-room vicarage with a bedroom for the vicar, brothers and an office.

The courtyard is bustling with people asking the priest for weddings, funerals or baptisms, chattering among themselves in groups, as if in front of a Vistula church.

Here a Lithuanian tells his friends about the visitors, there a woman asks for advice from a Polish nun, a Nazareth nun, dressed in black, her face serene, framed in white cloth.

There is no corner of Poland that does not have its representative in this congregation. There are so many faces here with features we know well! But you would look in vain here for a coarse shirt, a dressing gown or a coarse robe: all dressed in an urban, affluent, English style...

We are struck by the large number of Lithuanians from near Kaunas, Suwalki and Lomza, where there is a steady, if not crowded, emigration to English soil, maintained and fuelled by emigrants who are doing well. The factories of Manchester and neighbouring factory foci employ significant numbers of these emigrants, while on the Thames they nestle in large numbers in the suburban settlements of Silvertown and Woolwich.

Upwards of five hundred people of Latvian speech work in the gasworks and sugar factory there, in addition to dozens of stonemasons and tailors employed by the large warehouses. This colony, somewhat removed from the Polish one, leads a separate life and generally makes a better impression. The owner of the sugar factory speaks very highly of it and clearly appreciates the quiet, punctual and hard-working Latvian worker. He earns an average of thirty shillings or fifteen roubles a week, his clean and hygienic premises are filled with bright and well-dressed children, and a certain prosperity is evident everywhere.

In case of illness, the people have the assistance of a doctor, a Polish-speaking school, a hospital, and finally the care of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth. All the factory workers are secured by the landlord in an assurance society, and, not being constrained by this, have themselves set up a fund for fraternal aid, so that the impotence of the assembled people draws about twenty shillings a week.

On Saturdays after work, a crowd of men stream into a shabby, soiled tavern, which - or so the Polish language is not heard - bears the name: "Polish Working Men's Club". A Lithuanian with an untrustworthy physiognomy hams up a lot of beer, but in spite of this, neither quarrels nor brawls disturb the silence that reigns around the club. In general, the Lithuanian excels in many respects over the brutal English worker; he is distinguished, like the Pole, by a certain refinement and steadiness in his manner, which is all the more remarkable as this colony contains a considerable number of people with a dark past, and the "East-end", a community of various social scum, does not seem to have a moralising influence on the immigrant elements. But the effect of ignorance of the national language separates this people from the English world: the workers live and marry in their cluster, and money seems to be their great civiliser.

In the suburbs it is rare to encounter a Pole, for the colony has dispersed throughout the great expanse of east London and other districts, is recruited mostly from the urban folk and bears a different character.

Many expatriates work in bamboo hardware, cane and umbrella workshops, moreover they do not group themselves in any industry. There is a significant percentage of bakers among them, but there is no shortage of tailors and shoemakers, nor of carpenters and mechanics, nor of typesetters and... reformers, and all of them give the impression of a field of miscellaneous grain, heavily stained with tares: a disordered body in which the blood circulates improperly. Greater Poland and Warsaw present themselves most favourably: a few barbers from the Warta have shops in the west of the city, but where to look at these people, drowning in a sea of foreignness.

"The Polish Society" in its best days had no more than fifty members, while other associations lead an ephemeral life. Only soirées and theatrical performances attract more people to the "Society's" headquarters. This state of affairs is influenced by the dispersion of the elements, their uneven mental scale, and the lack of people suitable to steer the Society. Here, therefore, a grateful field opens up for the Polish mission.

The church on Cambridge Road is almost the only link between these two branches of our artisan colony, with only a few Poles from another social stratum standing by. The mission therefore has a heavy responsibility. Catechism and choir singing lessons, co-operation with associations, care for visitors who, having landed in the harbour of a foreign, huge city, often become the prey of swindlers - these are just a few paragraphs of a programme that goes beyond the realm of religious matters.

But apart from the priest, the mission also includes a few enlightened Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth who speak Polish and Lithuanian and are animated by the love of the people. And in general, in its present situation, the mission has all the conditions to meet the task and to render valuable services to this colony, which is the raison d'être and basis of its existence, and so confidently gathered under its wings - before the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa.