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The People Of The Abyss
By
Jack London
Contents
CHAPTER III--MY LODGING AND SOME OTHERS
CHAPTER IV--A MAN AND THE ABYSS.
CHAPTER VI--FRYING-PAN ALLEY AND A GLIMPSE OF INFER=
NO
CHAPTER VII--A WINNER OF THE VICTORIA CROSS
CHAPTER VIII--THE CARTER AND THE CARPENTER
CHAPTER X--CARRYING THE BANNER.
CHAPTER XIII--DAN CULLEN, DOCKER.
CHAPTER XIV--HOPS AND HOPPERS.
CHAPTER XVI--PROPERTY VERSUS PERSON
CHAPTER XX--COFFEE-HOUSES AND DOSS-HOUSES
CHAPTER XXI--THE PRECARIOUSNESS OF LIFE
CHAPTER XXIV--A VISION OF THE NIGHT
CHAPTER XXVI--DRINK, TEMPERANCE, AND THRIFT
THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS=
span>
The chief priests and rulers cry:-<= o:p>
"O Lord and Master, not=
ours
the guilt, We bui=
ld but
as our fathers built; Behold thine images how=
they
stand Sovereign a=
nd
sole through all our land.
"Our task is hard--with=
sword
and flame, To hold
thine earth forever the same, And with sharp crooks of
steel to keep, St=
ill as
thou leftest them, thy sheep."
Then Christ sought out an ar=
tisan,
A low-browed, stu=
nted,
haggard man, And a
motherless girl whose fingers thin Crushed from her faintl=
y want
and sin.
These set he in the midst of=
them,
And as they drew =
back
their garment hem For
fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he, "The images ye hav=
e made
of me."
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
PREFACE=
The experiences related in this vol=
ume
fell to me in the summer of 1902. I went down into the under-world of London
with an attitude of mind which I may best liken to that of the explorer.
It will be readily
apparent to the reader that I saw much that was bad. Yet it must not be
forgotten that the time of which I write was considered "good times&qu=
ot;
in England. The starvation an=
d lack
of shelter I encountered constituted a chronic condition of misery which is
never wiped out, even in the periods of greatest prosperity.
Following the sum=
mer
in question came a hard winter.
Great numbers of the unemployed formed into processions, as many as a
dozen at a time, and daily marched through the streets of London crying for
bread. Mr. Justin McCarthy, w=
riting
in the month of January 1903, to the New York Independent, briefly epitomis=
es
the situation as follows:-
"The workhouses have no=
space
left in which to pack the starving crowds who are craving =
every
day and night at their doors for food and shelter. All the charitable institutions ha=
ve
exhausted their means in trying to raise supp=
lies
of food for the famishing residents of the garrets and cellars of =
London
lanes and alleys. The quarter=
s of
the Salvation Arm=
y in
various parts of London are nightly besieged by hosts of the unemployed=
and
the hungry for whom neither shelter nor the means of sustenance=
can
be provided."
It has been urged
that the criticism I have passed on things as they are in England is too
pessimistic. I must say, in
extenuation, that of optimists I am the most optimistic. But I measure manhood less by poli=
tical
aggregations than by individuals.
Society grows, while political machines rack to pieces and become
"scrap." For the En=
glish,
so far as manhood and womanhood and health and happiness go, I see a broad =
and
smiling future. But for a gre=
at
deal of the political machinery, which at present mismanages for them, I see
nothing else than the scrap heap.
JACK LONDON. PIED=
MONT,
CALIFORNIA.
"But you can't do it, you
know," friends said, to whom I applied for assistance in the matter of
sinking myself down into the East End of London. "You had better see the polic=
e for
a guide," they added, on second thought, painfully endeavouring to adj=
ust
themselves to the psychological processes of a madman who had come to them =
with
better credentials than brains.
"But I don't
want to see the police," I protested.=
"What I wish to do is to go down into the East End and see thin=
gs
for myself. I wish to know how
those people are living there, and why they are living there, and what they=
are
living for. In short, I am go=
ing to
live there myself."
"You don't w=
ant
to live down there!" everybody said, with disapprobation writ large up=
on
their faces. "Why, it is=
said
there are places where a man's life isn't worth tu'pence."
"The very pl=
aces
I wish to see," I broke in.
"But you can=
't,
you know," was the unfailing rejoinder.
"Which is not
what I came to see you about," I answered brusquely, somewhat nettled =
by
their incomprehension. "=
I am a
stranger here, and I want you to tell me what you know of the East End, in
order that I may have something to start on."
"But we know
nothing of the East End. It i=
s over
there, somewhere." And t=
hey
waved their hands vaguely in the direction where the sun on rare occasions =
may
be seen to rise.
"Then I shal=
l go
to Cook's," I announced.
"Oh yes,&quo=
t;
they said, with relief.
"Cook's will be sure to know."
But O Cook, O Tho=
mas
Cook & Son, path-finders and trail-clearers, living sign-posts to all t=
he
world, and bestowers of first aid to bewildered travellers--unhesitatingly =
and
instantly, with ease and celerity, could you send me to Darkest Africa or
Innermost Thibet, but to the East End of London, barely a stone's throw dis=
tant
from Ludgate Circus, you know not the way!
"You can't do
it, you know," said the human emporium of routes and fares at Cook's
Cheapside branch. "It is
so--hem--so unusual."
"Consult the
police," he concluded authoritatively, when I had persisted. "We =
are
not accustomed to taking travellers to the East End; we receive no call to =
take
them there, and we know nothing whatsoever about the place at all."
"Never mind
that," I interposed, to save myself from being swept out of the office=
by
his flood of negations.
"Here's something you can do for me. I wish you to understand in advanc=
e what
I intend doing, so that in case of trouble you may be able to identify
me."
"Ah, I see!
should you be murdered, we would be in position to identify the corpse.&quo=
t;
He said it so
cheerfully and cold-bloodedly that on the instant I saw my stark and mutila=
ted
cadaver stretched upon a slab where cool waters trickle ceaselessly, and hi=
m I
saw bending over and sadly and patiently identifying it as the body of the
insane American who would see the East End.
"No, no,&quo=
t; I
answered; "merely to identify me in case I get into a scrape with the
'bobbies.'" This last I =
said
with a thrill; truly, I was gripping hold of the vernacular.
"That,"=
he
said, "is a matter for the consideration of the Chief Office."
"It is so
unprecedented, you know," he added apologetically.
The man at the Ch=
ief
Office hemmed and hawed. &quo=
t;We
make it a rule," he explained, "to give no information concerning=
our
clients."
"But in this
case," I urged, "it is the client who requests you to give the
information concerning himself."
Again he hemmed a=
nd
hawed.
"Of
course," I hastily anticipated, "I know it is unprecedented,
but--"
"As I was ab=
out
to remark," he went on steadily, "it is unprecedented, and I don't
think we can do anything for you."
However, I depart=
ed
with the address of a detective who lived in the East End, and took my way =
to
the American consul-general. =
And
here, at last, I found a man with whom I could "do business." There was no hemming and hawing, no
lifted brows, open incredulity, or blank amazement. In one minute I explained myself a=
nd my
project, which he accepted as a matter of course. In the second minute he asked my a=
ge,
height, and weight, and looked me over.&nb=
sp;
And in the third minute, as we shook hands at parting, he said:
"All right, Jack. I'll
remember you and keep track."
I breathed a sigh=
of
relief. Having burnt my ships
behind me, I was now free to plunge into that human wilderness of which nob=
ody
seemed to know anything. But =
at
once I encountered a new difficulty in the shape of my cabby, a grey-whiske=
red
and eminently decorous personage who had imperturbably driven me for several
hours about the "City."
"Drive me do=
wn
to the East End," I ordered, taking my seat.
"Where,
sir?" he demanded with frank surprise.
"To the East
End, anywhere. Go on."
The hansom pursue=
d an
aimless way for several minutes, then came to a puzzled stop. The aperture above my head was
uncovered, and the cabman peered down perplexedly at me.
"I say,"=
; he
said, "wot plyce yer wanter go?"
"East End,&q=
uot;
I repeated. "Nowhere in
particular. Just drive me aro=
und anywhere."
"But wot's t=
he
haddress, sir?"
"See here!&q=
uot;
I thundered. "Drive me d=
own to
the East End, and at once!"
It was evident th=
at
he did not understand, but he withdrew his head, and grumblingly started his
horse.
Nowhere in the
streets of London may one escape the sight of abject poverty, while five
minutes' walk from almost any point will bring one to a slum; but the regio=
n my
hansom was now penetrating was one unending slum. The streets were filled with a new=
and
different race of people, short of stature, and of wretched or beer-sodden
appearance. We rolled along t=
hrough
miles of bricks and squalor, and from each cross street and alley flashed l=
ong
vistas of bricks and misery. =
Here
and there lurched a drunken man or woman, and the air was obscene with soun=
ds
of jangling and squabbling. A=
t a
market, tottery old men and women were searching in the garbage thrown in t=
he
mud for rotten potatoes, beans, and vegetables, while little children clust=
ered
like flies around a festering mass of fruit, thrusting their arms to the
shoulders into the liquid corruption, and drawing forth morsels but partial=
ly
decayed, which they devoured on the spot.
Not a hansom did I
meet with in all my drive, while mine was like an apparition from another a=
nd
better world, the way the children ran after it and alongside. And as far as I could see were the=
solid
walls of brick, the slimy pavements, and the screaming streets; and for the
first time in my life the fear of the crowd smote me. It was like the fear of the sea; a=
nd the
miserable multitudes, street upon street, seemed so many waves of a vast and
malodorous sea, lapping about me and threatening to well up and over me.
"Stepney, si=
r;
Stepney Station," the cabby called down.
I looked about. It was really a railroad station, =
and he
had driven desperately to it as the one familiar spot he had ever heard of =
in
all that wilderness.
"Well,"=
I
said.
He spluttered
unintelligibly, shook his head, and looked very miserable. "I'm a stry=
nger
'ere," he managed to articulate.
"An' if yer don't want Stepney Station, I'm blessed if I know w=
otcher
do want."
"I'll tell y=
ou
what I want," I said.
"You drive along and keep your eye out for a shop where old clo=
thes
are sold. Now, when you see s=
uch a shop,
drive right on till you turn the corner, then stop and let me out."
I could see that =
he was
growing dubious of his fare, but not long afterwards he pulled up to the cu=
rb
and informed me that an old-clothes shop was to be found a bit of the way b=
ack.
"Won'tcher py
me?" he pleaded. "T=
here's
seven an' six owin' me."
"Yes," I
laughed, "and it would be the last I'd see of you."
"Lord lumme,=
but
it'll be the last I see of you if yer don't py me," he retorted.
But a crowd of ra=
gged
onlookers had already gathered around the cab, and I laughed again and walk=
ed
back to the old-clothes shop.
Here the chief
difficulty was in making the shopman understand that I really and truly wan=
ted
old clothes. But after fruitl=
ess
attempts to press upon me new and impossible coats and trousers, he began to
bring to light heaps of old ones, looking mysterious the while and hinting
darkly. This he did with the palpable intention of letting me know that he =
had "piped
my lay," in order to bulldose me, through fear of exposure, into paying
heavily for my purchases. A m=
an in
trouble, or a high-class criminal from across the water, was what he took my
measure for--in either case, a person anxious to avoid the police.
But I disputed wi=
th
him over the outrageous difference between prices and values, till I quite
disabused him of the notion, and he settled down to drive a hard bargain wi=
th a
hard customer. In the end I
selected a pair of stout though well-worn trousers, a frayed jacket with one
remaining button, a pair of brogans which had plainly seen service where co=
al
was shovelled, a thin leather belt, and a very dirty cloth cap. My underclothing and socks, howeve=
r,
were new and warm, but of the sort that any American waif, down in his luck,
could acquire in the ordinary course of events.
"I must sy y=
er a
sharp 'un," he said, with counterfeit admiration, as I handed over the=
ten
shillings finally agreed upon for the outfit. "Blimey, if you ain't be=
n up
an' down Petticut Lane afore now.
Yer trouseys is wuth five bob to hany man, an' a docker 'ud give two=
an'
six for the shoes, to sy nothin' of the coat an' cap an' new stoker's singl=
et an'
hother things."
"How much wi=
ll
you give me for them?" I demanded suddenly. "I paid you ten bob for the l=
ot,
and I'll sell them back to you, right now, for eight! Come, it's a go!"
But he grinned and
shook his head, and though I had made a good bargain, I was unpleasantly aw=
are
that he had made a better one.
I found the cabby=
and
a policeman with their heads together, but the latter, after looking me over
sharply, and particularly scrutinizing the bundle under my arm, turned away=
and
left the cabby to wax mutinous by himself.=
And not a step would he budge till I paid him the seven shillings and
sixpence owing him. Whereupon=
he
was willing to drive me to the ends of the earth, apologising profusely for=
his
insistence, and explaining that one ran across queer customers in London To=
wn.
But he drove me o= nly to Highbury Vale, in North London, where my luggage was waiting for me. Here, next day, I took off my shoe= s (not without regret for their lightness and comfort), and my soft, grey travelli= ng suit, and, in fact, all my clothing; and proceeded to array myself in the clothes= of the other and unimaginable men, who must have been indeed unfortunate to ha= ve had to part with such rags for the pitiable sums obtainable from a dealer.<= o:p>
Inside my stoker's
singlet, in the armpit, I sewed a gold sovereign (an emergency sum certainl=
y of
modest proportions); and inside my stoker's singlet I put myself. And then I sat down and moralised =
upon
the fair years and fat, which had made my skin soft and brought the nerves
close to the surface; for the singlet was rough and raspy as a hair shirt, =
and I
am confident that the most rigorous of ascetics suffer no more than I did in
the ensuing twenty-four hours.
The remainder of =
my
costume was fairly easy to put on, though the brogans, or brogues, were qui=
te a
problem. As stiff and hard as=
if
made of wood, it was only after a prolonged pounding of the uppers with my =
fists
that I was able to get my feet into them at all. Then, with a few shillings, a knif=
e, a handkerchief,
and some brown papers and flake tobacco stowed away in my pockets, I thumped
down the stairs and said good-bye to my foreboding friends. As I paused out of the door, the &=
quot;help,"
a comely middle-aged woman, could not conquer a grin that twisted her lips =
and
separated them till the throat, out of involuntary sympathy, made the uncou=
th
animal noises we are wont to designate as "laughter."
No sooner was I o=
ut
on the streets than I was impressed by the difference in status effected by=
my
clothes. All servility vanish=
ed
from the demeanour of the common people with whom I came in contact. Presto! in the twinkling of an eye=
, so
to say, I had become one of them.
My frayed and out-at-elbows jacket was the badge and advertisement o=
f my
class, which was their class. It
made me of like kind, and in place of the fawning and too respectful attent=
ion
I had hitherto received, I now shared with them a comradeship. The man in corduroy and dirty neck=
erchief
no longer addressed me as "sir" or "governor." It was "mate" now--and a=
fine
and hearty word, with a tingle to it, and a warmth and gladness, which the
other term does not possess.
Governor! It smacks of=
mastery,
and power, and high authority--the tribute of the man who is under to the m=
an
on top, delivered in the hope that he will let up a bit and ease his weight,
which is another way of saying that it is an appeal for alms.
This brings me to=
a
delight I experienced in my rags and tatters which is denied the average
American abroad. The European=
traveller
from the States, who is not a Croesus, speedily finds himself reduced to a
chronic state of self-conscious sordidness by the hordes of cringing robbers
who clutter his steps from dawn till dark, and deplete his pocket-book in a=
way
that puts compound interest to the blush.
In my rags and
tatters I escaped the pestilence of tipping, and encountered men on a basis=
of
equality. Nay, before the day=
was
out I turned the tables, and said, most gratefully, "Thank you, sir,&q=
uot;
to a gentleman whose horse I held, and who dropped a penny into my eager pa=
lm.
Other changes I
discovered were wrought in my condition by my new garb. In crossing crowded
thoroughfares I found I had to be, if anything, more lively in avoiding
vehicles, and it was strikingly impressed upon me that my life had cheapene=
d in
direct ratio with my clothes. When
before I inquired the way of a policeman, I was usually asked, "Bus or
'ansom, sir?" But now the
query became, "Walk or ride?"&nb=
sp;
Also, at the railway stations, a third-class ticket was now shoved o=
ut
to me as a matter of course.
But there was
compensation for it all. For =
the
first time I met the English lower classes face to face, and knew them for =
what
they were. When loungers and workmen, at street corners and in public-house=
s,
talked with me, they talked as one man to another, and they talked as natur=
al men
should talk, without the least idea of getting anything out of me for what =
they
talked or the way they talked.
And when at last I
made into the East End, I was gratified to find that the fear of the crowd =
no
longer haunted me. I had beco=
me a
part of it. The vast and malodorous sea had welled up and over me, or I had
slipped gently into it, and there was nothing fearsome about it--with the o=
ne exception
of the stoker's singlet.
I shall not give you the address of
Johnny Upright. Let it suffic=
e that
he lives in the most respectable street in the East End--a street that woul=
d be
considered very mean in America, but a veritable oasis in the desert of East
London. It is surrounded on e=
very
side by close-packed squalor and streets jammed by a young and vile and dir=
ty
generation; but its own pavements are comparatively bare of the children who
have no other place to play, while it has an air of desertion, so few are t=
he people
that come and go.
Each house in this
street, as in all the streets, is shoulder to shoulder with its
neighbours. To each house the=
re is
but one entrance, the front door; and each house is about eighteen feet wid=
e,
with a bit of a brick- walled yard behind, where, when it is not raining, o=
ne
may look at a slate-coloured sky.
But it must be understood that this is East End opulence we are now
considering. Some of the peop=
le in
this street are even so well-to-do as to keep a "slavey." Johnny Upright keeps one, as I well
know, she being my first acquaintance in this particular portion of the wor=
ld.
To Johnny Upright=
's
house I came, and to the door came the "slavey." Now, mark you, her position in lif=
e was
pitiable and contemptible, but it was with pity and contempt that she looke=
d at
me. She evinced a plain desir=
e that
our conversation should be short.
It was Sunday, and Johnny Upright was not at home, and that was all
there was to it. But I linger=
ed, discussing
whether or not it was all there was to it, till Mrs. Johnny Upright was
attracted to the door, where she scolded the girl for not having closed it
before turning her attention to me.
No, Mr. Johnny
Upright was not at home, and further, he saw nobody on Sunday. It is too bad, said I. Was I looking for work? No, quite the contrary; in fact, I=
had
come to see Johnny Upright on business which might be profitable to him.
A change came over
the face of things at once. T=
he
gentleman in question was at church, but would be home in an hour or
thereabouts, when no doubt he could be seen.
Would I kindly st=
ep
in?--no, the lady did not ask me, though I fished for an invitation by stat=
ing
that I would go down to the corner and wait in a public-house. And down to the corner I went, but=
, it
being church time, the "pub" was closed. A miserable drizzle was falling, a=
nd, in
lieu of better, I took a seat on a neighbourly doorstep and waited.
And here to the
doorstep came the "slavey," very frowzy and very perplexed, to te=
ll
me that the missus would let me come back and wait in the kitchen.
"So many peo=
ple
come 'ere lookin' for work," Mrs. Johnny Upright apologetically
explained. "So I 'ope you
won't feel bad the way I spoke."
"Not at all,=
not
at all," I replied in my grandest manner, for the nonce investing my r=
ags
with dignity. "I quite
understand, I assure you. I s=
uppose
people looking for work almost worry you to death?"
"That they
do," she answered, with an eloquent and expressive glance; and thereup=
on
ushered me into, not the kitchen, but the dining room--a favour, I took it,=
in
recompense for my grand manner.
This dining-room,=
on
the same floor as the kitchen, was about four feet below the level of the
ground, and so dark (it was midday) that I had to wait a space for my eyes =
to
adjust themselves to the gloom.
Dirty light filtered in through a window, the top of which was on a
level with a sidewalk, and in this light I found that I was able to read
newspaper print.
And here, while
waiting the coming of Johnny Upright, let me explain my errand. While living, eating, and sleeping=
with
the people of the East End, it was my intention to have a port of refuge, n=
ot
too far distant, into which could run now and again to assure myself that g=
ood
clothes and cleanliness still existed.&nbs=
p;
Also in such port I could receive my mail, work up my notes, and sal=
ly
forth occasionally in changed garb to civilisation.
But this involved=
a
dilemma. A lodging where my
property would be safe implied a landlady apt to be suspicious of a gentlem=
an
leading a double life; while a landlady who would not bother her head over =
the
double life of her lodgers would imply lodgings where property was unsafe.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> To avoid the dilemma was what had
brought me to Johnny Upright. A
detective of thirty-odd years' continuous service in the East End, known far
and wide by a name given him by a convicted felon in the dock, he was just =
the
man to find me an honest landlady, and make her rest easy concerning the st=
range
comings and goings of which I might be guilty.
His two daughters
beat him home from church--and pretty girls they were in their Sunday dress=
es;
withal it was the certain weak and delicate prettiness which characterises =
the
Cockney lasses, a prettiness which is no more than a promise with no grip on
time, and doomed to fade quickly away like the colour from a sunset sky.
They looked me ov=
er
with frank curiosity, as though I were some sort of a strange animal, and t=
hen
ignored me utterly for the rest of my wait. Then Johnny Upright himself arrive=
d, and
I was summoned upstairs to confer with him.
"Speak
loud," he interrupted my opening words. "I've got a bad cold, and I c=
an't
hear well."
Shades of Old Sle=
uth
and Sherlock Holmes! I wonder=
ed as
to where the assistant was located whose duty it was to take down whatever
information I might loudly vouchsafe.
And to this day, much as I have seen of Johnny Upright and much as I
have puzzled over the incident, I have never been quite able to make up my =
mind
as to whether or not he had a cold, or had an assistant planted in the other
room. But of one thing I am s=
ure: though
I gave Johnny Upright the facts concerning myself and project, he withheld
judgment till next day, when I dodged into his street conventionally garbed=
and
in a hansom. Then his greetin=
g was
cordial enough, and I went down into the dining-room to join the family at =
tea.
"We are humb=
le
here," he said, "not given to the flesh, and you must take us for
what we are, in our humble way."
The girls were
flushed and embarrassed at greeting me, while he did not make it any the ea=
sier
for them.
"Ha! ha!&quo=
t;
he roared heartily, slapping the table with his open hand till the dishes
rang. "The girls thought
yesterday you had come to ask for a piece of bread! Ha! ha! ho! ho! ho!"
This they indigna=
ntly
denied, with snapping eyes and guilty red cheeks, as though it were an
essential of true refinement to be able to discern under his rags a man who=
had
no need to go ragged.
And then, while I=
ate
bread and marmalade, proceeded a play at cross purposes, the daughters deem=
ing
it an insult to me that I should have been mistaken for a beggar, and the
father considering it as the highest compliment to my cleverness to succeed=
in
being so mistaken. All of whi=
ch I
enjoyed, and the bread, the marmalade, and the tea, till the time came for
Johnny Upright to find me a lodging, which he did, not half-a- dozen doors
away, in his own respectable and opulent street, in a house as like to his =
own
as a pea to its mate.
CHAPTER III--MY LODGING A=
ND
SOME OTHERS
From an East London standpoint, the=
room
I rented for six shillings, or a dollar and a half, per week, was a most
comfortable affair. From the =
American
standpoint, on the other hand, it was rudely furnished, uncomfortable, and
small. By the time I had adde=
d an
ordinary typewriter table to its scanty furnishing, I was hard put to turn
around; at the best, I managed to navigate it by a sort of vermicular
progression requiring great dexterity and presence of mind.
Having settled
myself, or my property rather, I put on my knockabout clothes and went out =
for
a walk. Lodgings being fresh =
in my
mind, I began to look them up, bearing in mind the hypothesis that I was a =
poor
young man with a wife and large family.
My first discovery
was that empty houses were few and far between--so far between, in fact, th=
at
though I walked miles in irregular circles over a large area, I still remai=
ned
between. Not one empty house =
could
I find--a conclusive proof that the district was "saturated."
It being plain th=
at
as a poor young man with a family I could rent no houses at all in this most
undesirable region, I next looked for rooms, unfurnished rooms, in which I
could store my wife and babies and chattels. There were not many, but I found t=
hem,
usually in the singular, for one appears to be considered sufficient for a =
poor
man's family in which to cook and eat and sleep. When I asked for two rooms, the
sublettees looked at me very much in the manner, I imagine, that a certain
personage looked at Oliver Twist when he asked for more.
Not only was one =
room
deemed sufficient for a poor man and his family, but I learned that many
families, occupying single rooms, had so much space to spare as to be able =
to
take in a lodger or two. When=
such
rooms can be rented for from three to six shillings per week, it is a fair =
conclusion
that a lodger with references should obtain floor space for, say, from
eightpence to a shilling. He =
may
even be able to board with the sublettees for a few shillings more. This, however, I failed to inquire
into--a reprehensible error on my part, considering that I was working on t=
he
basis of a hypothetical family.
Not only did the
houses I investigated have no bath-tubs, but I learned that there were no
bath-tubs in all the thousands of houses I had seen. Under the circumstance=
s,
with my wife and babies and a couple of lodgers suffering from the too great
spaciousness of one room, taking a bath in a tin wash-basin would be an
unfeasible undertaking. But, =
it
seems, the compensation comes in with the saving of soap, so all's well, and
God's still in heaven.
However, I rented=
no
rooms, but returned to my own Johnny Upright's street. What with my wife, and babies, and
lodgers, and the various cubby-holes into which I had fitted them, my mind's
eye had become narrow- angled, and I could not quite take in all of my own =
room
at once. The immensity of it =
was
awe-inspiring. Could this be =
the
room I had rented for six shillings a week? Impossible! But my landlady, knocking at the d=
oor to
learn if I were comfortable, dispelled my doubts.
"Oh yes,
sir," she said, in reply to a question. "This street is the very last=
. All the other streets were like th=
is
eight or ten years ago, and all the people were very respectable. But the others have driven our kind
out. Those in this street are=
the
only ones left. It's shocking=
, sir!"
And then she
explained the process of saturation, by which the rental value of a
neighbourhood went up, while its tone went down.
"You see, si=
r,
our kind are not used to crowding in the way the others do. We need more room. The others, the foreigners and
lower-class people, can get five and six families into this house, where we
only get one. So they can pay=
more
rent for the house than we can afford.&nbs=
p;
It is shocking, sir; and just to think, only a few years ago all thi=
s neighbourhood
was just as nice as it could be."
I looked at her.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Here was a woman, of the finest gr=
ade of
the English working-class, with numerous evidences of refinement, being slo=
wly engulfed
by that noisome and rotten tide of humanity which the powers that be are
pouring eastward out of London Town.
Bank, factory, hotel, and office building must go up, and the city p=
oor
folk are a nomadic breed; so they migrate eastward, wave upon wave, saturat=
ing
and degrading neighbourhood by neighbourhood, driving the better class of
workers before them to pioneer, on the rim of the city, or dragging them do=
wn,
if not in the first generation, surely in the second and third.
It is only a ques=
tion
of months when Johnny Upright's street must go. He realises it himself.
"In a couple=
of
years," he says, "my lease expires. My landlord is one of our kind.
And truly I saw
Johnny Upright, and his good wife and fair daughters, and frowzy slavey, li=
ke
so many ghosts flitting eastward through the gloom, the monster city roarin=
g at
their heels.
But Johnny Uprigh=
t is
not alone in his flitting. Fa=
r, far
out, on the fringe of the city, live the small business men, little manager=
s,
and successful clerks. They d=
well
in cottages and semi-detached villas, with bits of flower garden, and elbow
room, and breathing space. Th=
ey
inflate themselves with pride, and throw out their chests when they contemp=
late
the Abyss from which they have escaped, and they thank God that they are no=
t as
other men. And lo! down upon =
them
comes Johnny Upright and the monster city at his heels. Tenements spring up like magic, ga=
rdens
are built upon, villas are divided and subdivided into many dwellings, and =
the
black night of London settles down in a greasy pall.
CHAPTER IV--A MAN AND THE
ABYSS
"I say, can you let a lodging?=
"
These words I
discharged carelessly over my shoulder at a stout and elderly woman, of who=
se
fare I was partaking in a greasy coffee-house down near the Pool and not ve=
ry
far from Limehouse.
"Oh yus,&quo=
t;
she answered shortly, my appearance possibly not approximating the standard=
of
affluence required by her house.
I said no more,
consuming my rasher of bacon and pint of sickly tea in silence. Nor did she take further interest =
in me
till I came to pay my reckoning (fourpence), when I pulled all of ten shill=
ings
out of my pocket. The expected
result was produced.
"Yus, sir,&q=
uot;
she at once volunteered; "I 'ave nice lodgin's you'd likely tyke a fan=
cy
to. Back from a voyage, sir?&=
quot;
"How much fo=
r a
room?" I inquired, ignoring her curiosity.
She looked me up =
and
down with frank surprise. &qu=
ot;I
don't let rooms, not to my reg'lar lodgers, much less casuals."
"Then I'll h=
ave
to look along a bit," I said, with marked disappointment.
But the sight of =
my
ten shillings had made her keen.
"I can let you have a nice bed in with two hother men," she
urged. "Good, respectabl=
e men,
an' steady."
"But I don't
want to sleep with two other men," I objected.
"You don't '=
ave
to. There's three beds in the=
room,
an' hit's not a very small room."
"How much?&q=
uot;
I demanded.
"'Arf a crow=
n a
week, two an' six, to a regular lodger.&nb=
sp;
You'll fancy the men, I'm sure.&nbs=
p;
One works in the ware'ouse, an' 'e's been with me two years now. An' the hother's bin with me six--=
six
years, sir, an' two months comin' nex' Saturday. 'E's a scene-shifter," she we=
nt
on. "A steady, respectab=
le
man, never missin' a night's work in the time 'e's bin with me. An' 'e likes the 'ouse; 'e says as=
it's
the best 'e can do in the w'y of lodgin's.=
I board 'im, an' the hother lodgers too."
"I suppose h=
e's
saving money right along," I insinuated innocently.
"Bless you, =
no! Nor can 'e do as well helsewhere w=
ith
'is money."
And I thought of =
my
own spacious West, with room under its sky and unlimited air for a thousand
Londons; and here was this man, a steady and reliable man, never missing a
night's work, frugal and honest, lodging in one room with two other men, pa=
ying
two dollars and a half per month for it, and out of his experience adjudgin=
g it
to be the best he could do! And here was I, on the strength of the ten
shillings in my pocket, able to enter in with my rags and take up my bed wi=
th
him. The human soul is a lone=
ly
thing, but it must be very lonely sometimes when there are three beds to a
room, and casuals with ten shillings are admitted.
"How long ha=
ve
you been here?" I asked.
"Thirteen ye=
ars,
sir; an' don't you think you'll fancy the lodgin'?"
The while she tal=
ked
she was shuffling ponderously about the small kitchen in which she cooked t=
he
food for her lodgers who were also boarders. When I first entered, she had been=
hard
at work, nor had she let up once throughout the conversation. Undoubtedly she was a busy woman.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> "Up at half-past five,"
"to bed the last thing at night," "workin' fit ter drop,&quo=
t;
thirteen years of it, and for reward, grey hairs, frowzy clothes, stooped
shoulders, slatternly figure, unending toil in a foul and noisome coffee-ho=
use
that faced on an alley ten feet between the walls, and a waterside environm=
ent
that was ugly and sickening, to say the least.
"You'll be h=
in
hagain to 'ave a look?" she questioned wistfully, as I went out of the=
door.
And as I turned a=
nd
looked at her, I realized to the full the deeper truth underlying that very
wise old maxim: "Virtue is its own reward."
I went back to
her. "Have you ever take=
n a
vacation?" I asked.
"Vycytion!&q=
uot;
"A trip to t=
he
country for a couple of days, fresh air, a day off, you know, a rest."=
"Lor'
lumme!" she laughed, for the first time stopping from her work. "A vycytion, eh? for the like=
s o'
me? Just fancy, now!--Mind ye=
r feet!"--this
last sharply, and to me, as I stumbled over the rotten threshold.
Down near the West
India Dock I came upon a young fellow staring disconsolately at the muddy
water. A fireman's cap was pu=
lled
down across his eyes, and the fit and sag of his clothes whispered unmistak=
ably
of the sea.
"Hello,
mate," I greeted him, sparring for a beginning. "Can you tell me the way to
Wapping?"
"Worked yer =
way
over on a cattle boat?" he countered, fixing my nationality on the
instant.
And thereupon we
entered upon a talk that extended itself to a public- house and a couple of
pints of "arf an' arf."
This led to closer intimacy, so that when I brought to light all of a
shilling's worth of coppers (ostensibly my all), and put aside sixpence for=
a
bed, and sixpence for more arf an' arf, he generously proposed that we drin=
k up
the whole shilling.
"My mate, 'e=
cut
up rough las' night," he explained.&n=
bsp;
"An' the bobbies got 'm, so you can bunk in wi' me. Wotcher say?"
I said yes, and by
the time we had soaked ourselves in a whole shilling's worth of beer, and s=
lept
the night on a miserable bed in a miserable den, I knew him pretty fairly f=
or
what he was. And that in one
respect he was representative of a large body of the lower-class London
workman, my later experience substantiates.
He was London-bor=
n,
his father a fireman and a drinker before him. As a child, his home was the stree=
ts and
the docks. He had never learn=
ed to read,
and had never felt the need for it--a vain and useless accomplishment, he h=
eld,
at least for a man of his station in life.
He had had a moth=
er and
numerous squalling brothers and sisters, all crammed into a couple of rooms=
and
living on poorer and less regular food than he could ordinarily rustle for
himself. In fact, he never we=
nt
home except at periods when he was unfortunate in procuring his own food. P=
etty
pilfering and begging along the streets and docks, a trip or two to sea as
mess-boy, a few trips more as coal-trimmer, and then a full-fledged fireman=
, he
had reached the top of his life.
And in the course=
of
this he had also hammered out a philosophy of life, an ugly and repulsive
philosophy, but withal a very logical and sensible one from his point of
view. When I asked him what he
lived for, he immediately answered, "Booze." A voyage to sea (for a man must li=
ve and
get the wherewithal), and then the paying off and the big drunk at the end.=
After that, haphazard little drunk=
s,
sponged in the "pubs" from mates with a few coppers left, like
myself, and when sponging was played out another trip to sea and a repetiti=
on
of the beastly cycle.
"But
women," I suggested, when he had finished proclaiming booze the sole e=
nd
of existence.
"Wimmen!&quo=
t; He thumped his pot upon the bar and
orated eloquently. "Wimm=
en is
a thing my edication 'as learnt me t' let alone. It don't pay, matey; it don't pay.=
Wot's a man like me want o' wimmen=
, eh?
jest you tell me. There was my mar, she was enough, a-bangin' the kids about
an' makin' the ole man mis'rable when 'e come 'ome, w'ich was seldom, I
grant. An' fer w'y? Becos o' mar! She didn't make 'is 'ome 'appy, th=
at was
w'y. Then, there's the other
wimmen, 'ow do they treat a pore stoker with a few shillin's in 'is
trouseys? A good drunk is wot=
'e's
got in 'is pockits, a good long drunk, an' the wimmen skin 'im out of his m=
oney
so quick 'e ain't 'ad 'ardly a glass.
I know. I've 'ad my fl=
ing,
an' I know wot's wot. An' I t=
ell
you, where's wimmen is trouble--screechin' an' carryin' on, fightin', cutti=
n',
bobbies, magistrates, an' a month's 'ard labour back of it all, an' no pay-=
day
when you come out."
"But a wife =
and
children," I insisted. &=
quot;A
home of your own, and all that.
Think of it, back from a voyage, little children climbing on your kn=
ee,
and the wife happy and smiling, and a kiss for you when she lays the table,=
and
a kiss all round from the babies when they go to bed, and the kettle singing
and the long talk afterwards of where you've been and what you've seen, and=
of
her and all the little happenings at home while you've been away, and--&quo=
t;
"Garn!"=
he
cried, with a playful shove of his fist on my shoulder. "Wot's yer game, eh? A missus kissin' an' kids clim'in'=
, an'
kettle singin', all on four poun' ten a month w'en you 'ave a ship, an' four
nothin' w'en you 'aven't. I'l=
l tell
you wot I'd get on four poun' ten--a missus rowin', kids squallin', no coal=
t'
make the kettle sing, an' the kettle up the spout, that's wot I'd get. Enough t' make a bloke bloomin' we=
ll glad
to be back t' sea. A missus!<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Wot for? T' make you mis'rable? Kids? Jest take my counsel, matey, an' d=
on't
'ave 'em. Look at me! I can 'ave my beer w'en I like, an=
' no
blessed missus an' kids a-crying for bread. I'm 'appy, I am, with my beer an' =
mates
like you, an' a good ship comin', an' another trip to sea. So I say, let's 'ave another pint.=
Arf an' arf's good enough for me.&=
quot;
Without going fur=
ther
with the speech of this young fellow of two-and- twenty, I think I have
sufficiently indicated his philosophy of life and the underlying economic
reason for it. Home life he h=
ad
never known. The word
"home" aroused nothing but unpleasant associations. In the low wages of his father, an=
d of
other men in the same walk in life, he found sufficient reason for branding
wife and children as encumbrances and causes of masculine misery. An unconscious hedonist, utterly u=
nmoral
and materialistic, he sought the greatest possible happiness for himself, a=
nd found
it in drink.
A young sot; a
premature wreck; physical inability to do a stoker's work; the gutter or the
workhouse; and the end--he saw it all as clearly as I, but it held no terro=
rs for
him. From the moment of his b=
irth,
all the forces of his environment had tended to harden him, and he viewed h=
is wretched,
inevitable future with a callousness and unconcern I could not shake.
And yet he was no=
t a
bad man. He was not inherentl=
y vicious
and brutal. He had normal mentality, and a more than average physique. His eyes were blue and round, shad=
ed by
long lashes, and wide apart. =
And
there was a laugh in them, and a fund of humour behind. The brow and general features were=
good,
the mouth and lips sweet, though already developing a harsh twist. The chin was weak, but not too wea=
k; I
have seen men sitting in the high places with weaker.
His head was shap=
ely,
and so gracefully was it poised upon a perfect neck that I was not surprise=
d by
his body that night when he stripped for bed. I have seen many men strip, in
gymnasium and training quarters, men of good blood and upbringing, but I ha=
ve
never seen one who stripped to better advantage than this young sot of
two-and-twenty, this young god doomed to rack and ruin in four or five short
years, and to pass hence without posterity to receive the splendid heritage=
it
was his to bequeath.
It seemed sacrile=
ge
to waste such life, and yet I was forced to confess that he was right in not
marrying on four pounds ten in London Town. Just as the scene-shifter was happ=
ier in
making both ends meet in a room shared with two other men, than he would ha=
ve
been had he packed a feeble family along with a couple of men into a cheaper
room, and failed in making both ends meet.
And day by day I
became convinced that not only is it unwise, but it is criminal for the peo=
ple
of the Abyss to marry. They a=
re the
stones by the builder rejected.
There is no place for them, in the social fabric, while all the forc=
es of
society drive them downward till they perish. At the bottom of the Abyss they are
feeble, besotted, and imbecile. If
they reproduce, the life is so cheap that perforce it perishes of itself. The work of the world goes on above
them, and they do not care to take part in it, nor are they able. Moreover, the work of the world do=
es not
need them. There are plenty, =
far
fitter than they, clinging to the steep slope above, and struggling frantic=
ally
to slide no more.
In short, the Lon=
don
Abyss is a vast shambles. Yea=
r by
year, and decade after decade, rural England pours in a flood of vigorous
strong life, that not only does not renew itself, but perishes by the third=
generation. Competent authorities aver that the
London workman whose parents and grand-parents were born in London is so
remarkable a specimen that he is rarely found.
Mr. A. C. Pigou h=
as
said that the aged poor, and the residuum which compose the "submerged
tenth," constitute 71 per cent, of the population of London. Which is to say that last year, and
yesterday, and to-day, at this very moment, 450,000 of these creatures are
dying miserably at the bottom of the social pit called "London."<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> As to how they die, I shall take an
instance from this morning's paper.
SELF-NEGLECT
Yesterday Dr. Wynn Westcott =
held
an inquest at Shoreditch, respecting the death of Elizabeth =
Crews,
aged 77 years, of 32 East Street, Holborn, who died on
Wednesday last. Alice Mathies=
on
stated that she w=
as
landlady of the house where deceased lived. Witness last saw her alive on the previous
Monday. She lived quite alone=
. Mr. Francis Birch, relieving office=
r for
the Holborn district, stated that deceased had occupied t=
he
room in question for thirty-five years.&nb=
sp;
When witne=
ss was
called, on the 1st, he found the old woman in a terrible state, and the ambulanc=
e and
coachman had to be disinfected after the removal. Dr. Chase Fennell said death was d=
ue to
blood-poisoning from bed-sores, due to
self-neglect and filthy surroundings, and the jury returned a verdict to t=
hat
effect.
The most startling
thing about this little incident of a woman's death is the smug complacency
with which the officials looked upon it and rendered judgment. That an old woman of seventy-seven=
years
of age should die of SELF-NEGLECT is the most optimistic way possible of
looking at it. It was the old=
dead
woman's fault that she died, and having located the responsibility, society
goes contentedly on about its own affairs.
Of the
"submerged tenth" Mr. Pigou has said: "Either through lack o=
f bodily
strength, or of intelligence, or of fibre, or of all three, they are
inefficient or unwilling workers, and consequently unable to support themse=
lves
. . . They are often so degraded in intellect as to be incapable of
distinguishing their right from their left hand, or of recognising the numb=
ers
of their own houses; their bodies are feeble and without stamina, their
affections are warped, and they scarcely know what family life means."=
Four hundred and
fifty thousand is a whole lot of people.&n=
bsp;
The young fireman was only one, and it took him some time to say his
little say. I should not like=
to
hear them all talk at once. I
wonder if God hears them?
CHAPTER V--THOSE ON THE E=
DGE
My first impression of East London =
was
naturally a general one. Late=
r the
details began to appear, and here and there in the chaos of misery I found
little spots where a fair measure of happiness reigned--sometimes whole row=
s of
houses in little out-of-the-way streets, where artisans dwell and where a r=
ude
sort of family life obtains. =
In the
evenings the men can be seen at the doors, pipes in their mouths and childr=
en
on their knees, wives gossiping, and laughter and fun going on. The content of these people is
manifestly great, for, relative to the wretchedness that encompasses them, =
they
are well off.
But at the best, =
it
is a dull, animal happiness, the content of the full belly. The dominant note of their lives is
materialistic. They are stupi=
d and
heavy, without imagination. T=
he Abyss
seems to exude a stupefying atmosphere of torpor, which wraps about them and
deadens them. Religion passes them by.&nbs=
p;
The Unseen holds for them neither terror nor delight. They are unaware of the Unseen; an=
d the
full belly and the evening pipe, with their regular "arf an' arf,"=
; is
all they demand, or dream of demanding, from existence.
This would not be=
so
bad if it were all; but it is not all.&nbs=
p;
The satisfied torpor in which they are sunk is the deadly inertia th=
at precedes
dissolution. There is no prog=
ress,
and with them not to progress is to fall back and into the Abyss. In their own lives they may only s=
tart
to fall, leaving the fall to be completed by their children and their
children's children. Man alwa=
ys
gets less than he demands from life; and so little do they demand, that the
less than little they get cannot save them.
At the best, city
life is an unnatural life for the human; but the city life of London is so
utterly unnatural that the average workman or workwoman cannot stand it.
If nothing else, =
the
air he breathes, and from which he never escapes, is sufficient to weaken h=
im
mentally and physically, so that he becomes unable to compete with the fresh
virile life from the country hastening on to London Town to destroy and be
destroyed.
Leaving out the
disease germs that fill the air of the East End, consider but the one item =
of
smoke. Sir William Thiselton-=
Dyer,
curator of Kew Gardens, has been studying smoke deposits on vegetation, and,
according to his calculations, no less than six tons of solid matter,
consisting of soot and tarry hydrocarbons, are deposited every week on every
quarter of a square mile in and about London. This is equivalent to twenty-four =
tons
per week to the square mile, or 1248 tons per year to the square mile. From the cornice below the dome of=
St.
Paul's Cathedral was recently taken a solid deposit of crystallised sulphat=
e of
lime. This deposit had been f=
ormed
by the action of the sulphuric acid in the atmosphere upon the carbonate of
lime in the stone. And this
sulphuric acid in the atmosphere is constantly being breathed by the London
workmen through all the days and nights of their lives.
It is
incontrovertible that the children grow up into rotten adults, without viri=
lity
or stamina, a weak-kneed, narrow-chested, listless breed, that crumples up =
and
goes down in the brute struggle for life with the invading hordes from the
country. The railway men, car=
riers,
omnibus drivers, corn and timber porters, and all those who require physica=
l stamina,
are largely drawn from the country; while in the Metropolitan Police there =
are,
roughly, 12,000 country-born as against 3000 London- born.
So one is forced =
to
conclude that the Abyss is literally a huge man-killing machine, and when I
pass along the little out-of-the-way streets with the full-bellied artisans=
at
the doors, I am aware of a greater sorrow for them than for the 450,000 lost
and hopeless wretches dying at the bottom of the pit. They, at least, are dying, that is=
the point;
while these have yet to go through the slow and preliminary pangs extending
through two and even three generations.
And yet the quali=
ty
of the life is good. All human
potentialities are in it. Giv=
en
proper conditions, it could live through the centuries, and great men, hero=
es
and masters, spring from it and make the world better by having lived.
I talked with a w=
oman
who was representative of that type which has been jerked out of its little
out-of-the-way streets and has started on the fatal fall to the bottom. Her husband was a fitter and a mem=
ber of
the Engineers' Union. That he=
was a
poor engineer was evidenced by his inability to get regular employment. He did not have the energy and ent=
erprise
necessary to obtain or hold a steady position.
The pair had two
daughters, and the four of them lived in a couple of holes, called
"rooms" by courtesy, for which they paid seven shillings per
week. They possessed no stove,
managing their cooking on a single gas-ring in the fireplace. Not being persons of property, the=
y were
unable to obtain an unlimited supply of gas; but a clever machine had been
installed for their benefit. =
By
dropping a penny in the slot, the gas was forthcoming, and when a penny's w=
orth
had forthcome the supply was automatically shut off. "A penny gawn in no time,&quo=
t; she
explained, "an' the cookin' not arf done!"
Incipient starvat=
ion
had been their portion for years.
Month in and month out, they had arisen from the table able and will=
ing
to eat more. And when once on the downward slope, chronic innutrition is an
important factor in sapping vitality and hastening the descent.
Yet this woman wa=
s a
hard worker. From 4.30 in the
morning till the last light at night, she said, she had toiled at making cl=
oth
dress-skirts, lined up and with two flounces, for seven shillings a dozen.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Cloth dress- skirts, mark you, lin=
ed up
with two flounces, for seven shillings a dozen! This is equal to
1.75 per dozen, or
14.75 cents per skirt.
The husband, in o=
rder
to obtain employment, had to belong to the union, which collected one shill=
ing
and sixpence from him each week.
Also, when strikes were afoot and he chanced to be working, he had at
times been compelled to pay as high as seventeen shillings into the union's
coffers for the relief fund.
One daughter, the
elder, had worked as green hand for a dressmaker, for one shilling and sixp=
ence
per week--37.5 cents per week, or a fraction over 5 cents per day. However, when the slack season cam=
e she
was discharged, though she had been taken on at such low pay with the under=
standing
that she was to learn the trade and work up. After that she had been employed i=
n a
bicycle store for three years, for which she received five shillings per we=
ek,
walking two miles to her work, and two back, and being fined for tardiness.=
As far as the man=
and
woman were concerned, the game was played.=
They had lost handhold and foothold, and were falling into the pit.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> But what of the daughters? Living like swine, enfeebled by ch=
ronic
innutrition, being sapped mentally, morally, and physically, what chance ha=
ve
they to crawl up and out of the Abyss into which they were born falling?
As I write this, =
and
for an hour past, the air has been made hideous by a free-for-all,
rough-and-tumble fight going on in the yard that is back to back with my
yard. When the first sounds r=
eached
me I took it for the barking and snarling of dogs, and some minutes were
required to convince me that human beings, and women at that, could produce
such a fearful clamour.
Drunken women
fighting! It is not nice to t=
hink
of; it is far worse to listen to.
Something like this it runs--
Incoherent babble,
shrieked at the top of the lungs of several women; a lull, in which is hear=
d a
child crying and a young girl's voice pleading tearfully; a woman's voice
rises, harsh and grating, "You 'it me! Jest you 'it me!" then, swat!
challenge accepted and fight rages afresh.
The back windows =
of
the houses commanding the scene are lined with enthusiastic spectators, and=
the
sound of blows, and of oaths that make one's blood run cold, are borne to my
ears. Happily, I cannot see t=
he combatants.
A lull; "You=
let
that child alone!" child, evidently of few years, screaming in downrig=
ht
terror. "Awright,"
repeated insistently and at top pitch twenty times straight running;
"you'll git this rock on the 'ead!" and then rock evidently on the
head from the shriek that goes up.
A lull; apparently
one combatant temporarily disabled and being resuscitated; child's voice
audible again, but now sunk to a lower note of terror and growing exhaustio=
n.
Voices begin to g=
o up
the scale, something like this:-
"Yes?"<= o:p>
"Yes!"<= o:p>
"Yes?"<= o:p>
"Yes!"<= o:p>
"Yes?"<= o:p>
"Yes!"<= o:p>
"Yes?"<= o:p>
"Yes!"<= o:p>
Sufficient
affirmation on both sides, conflict again precipitated. One combatant gets overwhelming
advantage, and follows it up from the way the other combatant screams bloody
murder. Bloody murder gurgles=
and
dies out, undoubtedly throttled by a strangle hold.
Entrance of new
voices; a flank attack; strangle hold suddenly broken from the way bloody
murder goes up half an octave higher than before; general hullaballoo,
everybody fighting.
Lull; new voice,
young girl's, "I'm goin' ter tyke my mother's part;" dialogue,
repeated about five times, "I'll do as I like, blankety, blank, blank!=
" "I'd like ter see yer, blanke=
ty,
blank, blank!" renewed conflict, mothers, daughters, everybody, during
which my landlady calls her young daughter in from the back steps, while I
wonder what will be the effect of all that she has heard upon her moral fib=
re.
CHAPTER VI--FRYING-PAN AL=
LEY
AND A GLIMPSE OF INFERNO
Three of us walked down Mile End Ro=
ad,
and one was a hero. He was a =
slender
lad of nineteen, so slight and frail, in fact, that, like Fra Lippo Lippi, a
puff of wind might double him up and turn him over. He was a burning young socialist, =
in the
first throes of enthusiasm and ripe for martyrdom. As platform speaker or chairman he=
had taken
an active and dangerous part in the many indoor and outdoor pro-Boer meetin=
gs
which have vexed the serenity of Merry England these several years back.
And I, walking he=
ad
and shoulders above my two companions, remembered my own husky West, and the
stalwart men it had been my custom, in turn, to envy there. Also, as I looked at the mite of a=
youth
with the heart of a lion, I thought, this is the type that on occasion rears
barricades and shows the world that men have not forgotten how to die.
But up spoke my o=
ther
companion, a man of twenty-eight, who eked out a precarious existence in a
sweating den.
"I'm a 'earty
man, I am," he announced.
"Not like the other chaps at my shop, I ain't. They consider me a fine specimen o=
f manhood. W'y, d' ye know, I weigh ten
stone!"
I was ashamed to =
tell
him that I weighed one hundred and seventy pounds, or over twelve stone, so=
I
contented myself with taking his measure. Poor, misshapen little man! His skin an unhealthy colour, body
gnarled and twisted out of all decency, contracted chest, shoulders bent pr=
odigiously
from long hours of toil, and head hanging heavily forward and out of
place! A "'earty man,' 'e
was!"
"How tall are
you?"
"Five foot
two," he answered proudly; "an' the chaps at the shop . . . "=
;
"Let me see =
that
shop," I said.
The shop was idle
just then, but I still desired to see it.&=
nbsp;
Passing Leman Street, we cut off to the left into Spitalfields, and
dived into Frying-pan Alley. A
spawn of children cluttered the slimy pavement, for all the world like tadp=
oles
just turned frogs on the bottom of a dry pond. In a narrow doorway, so narrow that
perforce we stepped over her, sat a woman with a young babe, nursing at bre=
asts
grossly naked and libelling all the sacredness of motherhood. In the black and narrow hall behin=
d her
we waded through a mess of young life, and essayed an even narrower and fou=
ler
stairway. Up we went, three
flights, each landing two feet by three in area, and heaped with filth and
refuse.
There were seven
rooms in this abomination called a house.&=
nbsp;
In six of the rooms, twenty-odd people, of both sexes and all ages,
cooked, ate, slept, and worked. In
size the rooms averaged eight feet by eight, or possibly nine. The seventh room we entered. It was the den in which five men &=
quot;sweated." It was seven feet wide by eight lo=
ng,
and the table at which the work was performed took up the major portion of =
the
space. On this table were five
lasts, and there was barely room for the men to stand to their work, for the
rest of the space was heaped with cardboard, leather, bundles of shoe upper=
s,
and a miscellaneous assortment of materials used in attaching the uppers of
shoes to their soles.
In the adjoining =
room
lived a woman and six children. In
another vile hole lived a widow, with an only son of sixteen who was dying =
of consumption. The woman hawked sweetmeats on the
street, I was told, and more often failed than not to supply her son with t=
he
three quarts of milk he daily required.&nb=
sp;
Further, this son, weak and dying, did not taste meat oftener than o=
nce
a week; and the kind and quality of this meat cannot possibly be imagined by
people who have never watched human swine eat.
"The w'y 'e
coughs is somethin' terrible," volunteered my sweated friend, referrin=
g to
the dying boy. "We 'ear =
'im
'ere, w'ile we're workin', an' it's terrible, I say, terrible!"
And, what of the
coughing and the sweetmeats, I found another menace added to the hostile
environment of the children of the slum.
My sweated friend,
when work was to be had, toiled with four other men in his eight-by-seven
room. In the winter a lamp bu=
rned
nearly all the day and added its fumes to the over-loaded air, which was
breathed, and breathed, and breathed again.
In good times, wh=
en
there was a rush of work, this man told me that he could earn as high as
"thirty bob a week."--Thirty shillings! Seven dollars and a half!
"But it's on=
ly
the best of us can do it," he qualified. "An' then we work twelve, thi=
rteen,
and fourteen hours a day, just as fast as we can. An' you should see us
sweat! Just running from us!<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> If you could see us, it'd dazzle y=
our
eyes--tacks flyin' out of mouth like from a machine. Look at my mouth."=
;
I looked. The teeth were worn down by the co=
nstant
friction of the metallic brads, while they were coal-black and rotten.
"I clean my
teeth," he added, "else they'd be worse."
After he had told=
me
that the workers had to furnish their own tools, brads, "grindery,&quo=
t;
cardboard, rent, light, and what not, it was plain that his thirty bob was a
diminishing quantity.
"But how long
does the rush season last, in which you receive this high wage of thirty
bob?" I asked.
"Four
months," was the answer; and for the rest of the year, he informed me,
they average from "half a quid" to a "quid" a week, whi=
ch
is equivalent to from two dollars and a half to five dollars. The present week was half gone, an=
d he
had earned four bob, or one dollar.
And yet I was given to understand that this was one of the better gr=
ades
of sweating.
I looked out of t=
he
window, which should have commanded the back yards of the neighbouring
buildings. But there were no =
back
yards, or, rather, they were covered with one-storey hovels, cowsheds, in w=
hich
people lived. The roofs of th=
ese
hovels were covered with deposits of filth, in some places a couple of feet
deep--the contributions from the back windows of the second and third
storeys. I could make out fis=
h and
meat bones, garbage, pestilential rags, old boots, broken earthenware, and =
all the
general refuse of a human sty.
"This is the
last year of this trade; they're getting machines to do away with us,"
said the sweated one mournfully, as we stepped over the woman with the brea=
sts
grossly naked and waded anew through the cheap young life.
We next visited t=
he
municipal dwellings erected by the London County Council on the site of the
slums where lived Arthur Morrison's "Child of the Jago." While the buildings housed more pe=
ople
than before, it was much healthier.
But the dwellings were inhabited by the better-class workmen and
artisans. The slum people had
simply drifted on to crowd other slums or to form new slums.
"An' now,&qu=
ot;
said the sweated one, the 'earty man who worked so fast as to dazzle one's
eyes, "I'll show you one of London's lungs. This is Spitalfields Garden."=
And he mouthed the word
"garden" with scorn.
The shadow of Christ's Church falls across Spitalfields Garden, and in the shadow of Chri= st's Church, at three o'clock in the afternoon, I saw a sight I never wish to see again. There are no flowers i= n this garden, which is smaller than my own rose garden at home. Grass only grows here, and it is surrounded by a sharp-spiked iron fencing, as are all the parks of London T= own, so that homeless men and women may not come in at night and sleep upon it.<= o:p>
As we entered the
garden, an old woman, between fifty and sixty, passed us, striding with stu=
rdy
intention if somewhat rickety action, with two bulky bundles, covered with
sacking, slung fore and aft upon her.
She was a woman tramp, a houseless soul, too independent to drag her
failing carcass through the workhouse door. Like the snail, she carried her ho=
me with
her. In the two sacking-cover=
ed
bundles were her household goods, her wardrobe, linen, and dear feminine
possessions.
We went up the na=
rrow
gravelled walk. On the benche=
s on
either side arrayed a mass of miserable and distorted humanity, the sight of
which would have impelled Dore to more diabolical flights of fancy than he =
ever
succeeded in achieving. It wa=
s a
welter of rags and filth, of all manner of loathsome skin diseases, open so=
res,
bruises, grossness, indecency, leering monstrosities, and bestial faces.
It was this sleep=
ing
that puzzled me. Why were nin=
e out
of ten of them asleep or trying to sleep?&=
nbsp;
But it was not till afterwards that I learned. It is a law of the powers that be =
that
the homeless shall not sleep by night.&nbs=
p;
On the pavement, by the portico of Christ's Church, where the stone
pillars rise toward the sky in a stately row, were whole rows of men lying
asleep or drowsing, and all too deep sunk in torpor to rouse or be made cur=
ious
by our intrusion.
"A lung of L=
ondon,"
I said; "nay, an abscess, a great putrescent sore."
"Oh, why did=
you
bring me here?" demanded the burning young socialist, his delicate face
white with sickness of soul and stomach sickness.
"Those women
there," said our guide, "will sell themselves for thru'pence, or
tu'pence, or a loaf of stale bread."
He said it with a
cheerful sneer.
But what more he
might have said I do not know, for the sick man cried, "For heaven's s=
ake
let us get out of this."
CHAPTER VII--A WINNER OF =
THE
VICTORIA CROSS
I have found that it is not easy to=
get
into the casual ward of the workhouse.&nbs=
p;
I have made two attempts now, and I shall shortly make a third. The first time I started out at se=
ven
o'clock in the evening with four shillings in my pocket. Herein I committed two errors. In the first place, the applicant =
for
admission to the casual ward must be destitute, and as he is subjected to a
rigorous search, he must really be destitute; and fourpence, much less four
shillings, is sufficient affluence to disqualify him. In the second place, I made the mi=
stake
of tardiness. Seven o'clock i=
n the
evening is too late in the day for a pauper to get a pauper's bed.
For the benefit of
gently nurtured and innocent folk, let me explain what a ward is. It is a building where the homeles=
s,
bedless, penniless man, if he be lucky, may casually rest his weary bones, =
and
then work like a navvy next day to pay for it.
My second attempt=
to
break into the casual ward began more auspiciously. I started in the middle=
of
the afternoon, accompanied by the burning young socialist and another frien=
d,
and all I had in my pocket was thru'pence.=
They piloted me to the Whitechapel Workhouse, at which I peered from
around a friendly corner. It =
was a
few minutes past five in the afternoon but already a long and melancholy li=
ne
was formed, which strung out around the corner of the building and out of
sight.
It was a most woe=
ful
picture, men and women waiting in the cold grey end of the day for a pauper=
's
shelter from the night, and I confess it almost unnerved me. Like the boy before the dentist's =
door,
I suddenly discovered a multitude of reasons for being elsewhere. Some hints of the struggle going on
within must have shown in my face, for one of my companions said, "Don=
't
funk; you can do it."
Of course I could=
do
it, but I became aware that even thru'pence in my pocket was too lordly a
treasure for such a throng; and, in order that all invidious distinctions m=
ight
be removed, I emptied out the coppers. Then I bade good-bye to my friends, =
and
with my heart going pit-a-pat, slouched down the street and took my place at
the end of the line. Woeful it
looked, this line of poor folk tottering on the steep pitch to death; how
woeful it was I did not dream.
Next to me stood a
short, stout man. Hale and he=
arty,
though aged, strong-featured, with the tough and leathery skin produced by =
long
years of sunbeat and weatherbeat, his was the unmistakable sea face and eye=
s; and
at once there came to me a bit of Kipling's "Galley Slave":-
"By the brand upon my
shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel; By the welt the whips h=
ave
left me, by the scars that never heal; By eyes grown old with
staring through the sun-wash on the brine, I am paid in full for s=
ervice
. . . "
How correct I was= in my surmise, and how peculiarly appropriate the verse was, you shall learn.<= o:p>
"I won't sta=
nd
it much longer, I won't," he was complaining to the man on the other s=
ide
of him. "I'll smash a wi=
ndy, a
big 'un, an' get run in for fourteen days.=
Then I'll have a good place to sleep, never fear, an' better grub th=
an
you get here. Though I'd miss=
my
bit of bacey"--this as an after-thought, and said regretfully and
resignedly.
"I've been o=
ut
two nights now," he went on; "wet to the skin night before last, =
an'
I can't stand it much longer. I'm
gettin' old, an' some mornin' they'll pick me up dead."
He whirled with
fierce passion on me: "Don't you ever let yourself grow old, lad. Die when you're young, or you'll c=
ome to
this. I'm tellin' you sure. Seven an' eighty years am I, an' s=
erved
my country like a man. Three good-conduct stripes and the Victoria Cross, a=
n'
this is what I get for it. I =
wish I
was dead, I wish I was dead. =
Can't
come any too quick for me, I tell you."
The moisture rush=
ed
into his eyes, but, before the other man could comfort him, he began to hum=
a
lilting sea song as though there was no such thing as heartbreak in the wor=
ld.
Given encourageme=
nt,
this is the story he told while waiting in line at the workhouse after two
nights of exposure in the streets.
As a boy he had
enlisted in the British navy, and for two score years and more served
faithfully and well. Names, d=
ates,
commanders, ports, ships, engagements, and battles, rolled from his lips in=
a
steady stream, but it is beyond me to remember them all, for it is not quit=
e in
keeping to take notes at the poorhouse door. He had been through the "Firs=
t War
in China," as he termed it; had enlisted with the East India Company a=
nd served
ten years in India; was back in India again, in the English navy, at the ti=
me
of the Mutiny; had served in the Burmese War and in the Crimea; and all thi=
s in
addition to having fought and toiled for the English flag pretty well over =
the
rest of the globe.
Then the thing
happened. A little thing, it =
could
only be traced back to first causes: perhaps the lieutenant's breakfast had=
not
agreed with him; or he had been up late the night before; or his debts were
pressing; or the commander had spoken brusquely to him. The point is, that on this particu=
lar
day the lieutenant was irritable.
The sailor, with others, was "setting up" the fore rigging=
.
Now, mark you, the
sailor had been over forty years in the navy, had three good-conduct stripe=
s,
and possessed the Victoria Cross for distinguished service in battle; so he
could not have been such an altogether bad sort of a sailorman. The lieutenant was irritable; the =
lieutenant
called him a name--well, not a nice sort of name. It referred to his mother. When I was a boy it was our boys' =
code
to fight like little demons should such an insult be given our mothers; and
many men have died in my part of the world for calling other men this name.=
However, the
lieutenant called the sailor this name.&nb=
sp;
At that moment it chanced the sailor had an iron lever or bar in his
hands. He promptly struck the
lieutenant over the head with it, knocking him out of the rigging and
overboard.
And then, in the
man's own words: "I saw what I had done. I knew the Regulations, and I said=
to
myself, 'It's all up with you, Jack, my boy; so here goes.' An' I jumped over after him, my mi=
nd
made up to drown us both. An'=
I'd
ha' done it, too, only the pinnace from the flagship was just comin'
alongside. Up we came to the =
top,
me a hold of him an' punchin' him.
This was what settled for me.
If I hadn't ben strikin' him, I could have claimed that, seein' what=
I
had done, I jumped over to save him."
Then came the
court-martial, or whatever name a sea trial goes by. He recited his sentence, word for =
word,
as though memorised and gone over in bitterness many times. And here it is, for the sake of
discipline and respect to officers not always gentlemen, the punishment of a
man who was guilty of manhood. To
be reduced to the rank of ordinary seaman; to be debarred all prize-money d=
ue
him; to forfeit all rights to pension; to resign the Victoria Cross; to be
discharged from the navy with a good character (this being his first offenc=
e);
to receive fifty lashes; and to serve two years in prison.
"I wish I had
drowned that day, I wish to God I had," he concluded, as the line move=
d up
and we passed around the corner.
At last the door =
came
in sight, through which the paupers were being admitted in bunches. And here I learned a surprising th=
ing:
this being Wednesday, none of us would be released till Friday morning. Fur=
thermore,
and oh, you tobacco users, take heed: we would not be permitted to take in =
any
tobacco. This we would have to
surrender as we entered. Some=
times,
I was told, it was returned on leaving and sometimes it was destroyed.
The old man-of-wa=
r's
man gave me a lesson. Opening=
his
pouch, he emptied the tobacco (a pitiful quantity) into a piece of paper. This, snugly and flatly wrapped, w=
ent
down his sock inside his shoe. Down
went my piece of tobacco inside my sock, for forty hours without tobacco is=
a
hardship all tobacco users will understand.
Again and again t=
he
line moved up, and we were slowly but surely approaching the wicket. At the moment we happened to be st=
anding
on an iron grating, and a man appearing underneath, the old sailor called d=
own to
him,--
"How many mo=
re
do they want?"
"Twenty-four=
,"
came the answer.
We looked ahead
anxiously and counted. Thirty=
-four
were ahead of us. Disappointment and consternation dawned upon the faces ab=
out
me. It is not a nice thing, h=
ungry
and penniless, to face a sleepless night in the streets. But we hoped against hope, till, w=
hen
ten stood outside the wicket, the porter turned us away.
"Full up,&qu=
ot;
was what he said, as he banged the door.
Like a flash, for=
all
his eighty-seven years, the old sailor was speeding away on the desperate
chance of finding shelter elsewhere.
I stood and debated with two other men, wise in the knowledge of cas=
ual
wards, as to where we should go.
They decided on the Poplar Workhouse, three miles away, and we start=
ed
off.
As we rounded the
corner, one of them said, "I could a' got in 'ere to- day. I come by at one o'clock, an' the =
line
was beginnin' to form then--pets, that's what they are. They let 'm in, the same ones, nig=
ht upon
night."
CHAPTER VIII--THE CARTER =
AND
THE CARPENTER
The Carter, with his clean-cut face=
, chin
beard, and shaved upper lip, I should have taken in the United States for
anything from a master workman to a well-to-do farmer. The Carpenter--well, I should have=
taken
him for a carpenter. He looke=
d it,
lean and wiry, with shrewd, observant eyes, and hands that had grown twiste=
d to
the handles of tools through forty- seven years' work at the trade. The chief difficulty with these me=
n was that
they were old, and that their children, instead of growing up to take care =
of
them, had died. Their years h=
ad
told on them, and they had been forced out of the whirl of industry by the
younger and stronger competitors who had taken their places.
These two men, tu=
rned
away from the casual ward of Whitechapel Workhouse, were bound with me for
Poplar Workhouse. Not much of=
a
show, they thought, but to chance it was all that remained to us. It was Poplar, or the streets and
night. Both men were anxious =
for a
bed, for they were "about gone," as they phrased it. The Carter, fifty-eight years of a=
ge, had
spent the last three nights without shelter or sleep, while the Carpenter,
sixty-five years of age, had been out five nights.
But, O dear, soft
people, full of meat and blood, with white beds and airy rooms waiting you =
each
night, how can I make you know what it is to suffer as you would suffer if =
you
spent a weary night on London's streets!&n=
bsp;
Believe me, you would think a thousand centuries had come and gone
before the east paled into dawn; you would shiver till you were ready to cry
aloud with the pain of each aching muscle; and you would marvel that you co=
uld
endure so much and live. Shou=
ld you
rest upon a bench, and your tired eyes close, depend upon it the policeman
would rouse you and gruffly order you to "move on." You may rest upon the bench, and b=
enches
are few and far between; but if rest means sleep, on you must go, dragging =
your
tired body through the endless streets.&nb=
sp;
Should you, in desperate slyness, seek some forlorn alley or dark pa=
ssageway
and lie down, the omnipresent policeman will rout you out just the same.
But when the dawn
came, the nightmare over, you would hale you home to refresh yourself, and
until you died you would tell the story of your adventure to groups of admi=
ring
friends. It would grow into a
mighty story. Your little
eight-hour night would become an Odyssey and you a Homer.
Not so with these
homeless ones who walked to Poplar Workhouse with me. And there are thirty-=
five
thousand of them, men and women, in London Town this night. Please don't remember it as you go=
to
bed; if you are as soft as you ought to be you may not rest so well as
usual. But for old men of six=
ty,
seventy, and eighty, ill-fed, with neither meat nor blood, to greet the dawn
unrefreshed, and to stagger through the day in mad search for crusts, with
relentless night rushing down upon them again, and to do this five nights a=
nd
days--O dear, soft people, full of meat and blood, how can you ever underst=
and?
I walked up Mile =
End
Road between the Carter and the Carpenter.=
Mile End Road is a wide thoroughfare, cutting the heart of East Lond=
on,
and there were tens of thousands of people abroad on it. I tell you this so that you may fu=
lly
appreciate what I shall describe in the next paragraph. As I say, we walked along, and whe=
n they
grew bitter and cursed the land, I cursed with them, cursed as an American =
waif
would curse, stranded in a strange and terrible land. And, as I tried to lead them to be=
lieve,
and succeeded in making them believe, they took me for a "seafaring
man," who had spent his money in riotous living, lost his clothes (no
unusual occurrence with seafaring men ashore), and was temporarily broke wh=
ile looking
for a ship. This accounted fo=
r my
ignorance of English ways in general and casual wards in particular, and my
curiosity concerning the same.
The Carter was ha=
rd
put to keep the pace at which we walked (he told me that he had eaten nothi=
ng
that day), but the Carpenter, lean and hungry, his grey and ragged overcoat
flapping mournfully in the breeze, swung on in a long and tireless stride w=
hich
reminded me strongly of the plains wolf or coyote. Both kept their eyes upon the pave=
ment
as they walked and talked, and every now and then one or the other would st=
oop
and pick something up, never missing the stride the while. I thought it was cigar and cigaret=
te
stumps they were collecting, and for some time took no notice. Then I did notice.
From the slimy,
spittle-drenched, sidewalk, they were picking up bits of orange peel, apple
skin, and grape stems, and, they were eating them. The pits of greengage plums they c=
racked
between their teeth for the kernels inside. They picked up stray bits of bread=
the
size of peas, apple cores so black and dirty one would not take them to be
apple cores, and these things these two men took into their mouths, and che=
wed
them, and swallowed them; and this, between six and seven o'clock in the
evening of August 20, year of our Lord 1902, in the heart of the greatest, =
wealthiest,
and most powerful empire the world has ever seen.
These two men
talked. They were not fools, =
they
were merely old. And, natural=
ly,
their guts a-reek with pavement offal, they talked of bloody revolution.
Being a foreigner,
and a young man, the Carter and the Carpenter explained things to me and
advised me. Their advice, by =
the
way, was brief, and to the point; it was to get out of the country. "As fast as God'll let me,&qu=
ot; I
assured them; "I'll hit only the high places, till you won't be able to
see my trail for smoke." They
felt the force of my figures, rather than understood them, and they nodded
their heads approvingly.
"Actually ma=
ke a
man a criminal against 'is will," said the Carpenter. "'Ere I am,
old, younger men takin' my place, my clothes gettin' shabbier an' shabbier,=
an'
makin' it 'arder every day to get a job.&n=
bsp;
I go to the casual ward for a bed.&=
nbsp;
Must be there by two or three in the afternoon or I won't get in.
"Used to be a
toll-gate 'ere," said the Carter.&nbs=
p;
"Many's the time I've paid my toll 'ere in my cartin' days.&quo=
t;
"I've 'ad th=
ree
'a'penny rolls in two days," the Carpenter announced, after a long pau=
se
in the conversation. "Tw=
o of
them I ate yesterday, an' the third to-day," he concluded, after anoth=
er
long pause.
"I ain't 'ad
anything to-day," said the Carter.&nb=
sp;
"An' I'm fagged out. My
legs is hurtin' me something fearful."
"The roll you get in the 'spike' is that 'ard you can't eat it nicely with less'n a pint = of water," said the Carpenter, for my benefit. And, on asking him what the "spike" was, he answered, "The casual ward. It's a cant word, you know."<= o:p>
But what surprise=
d me
was that he should have the word "cant" in his vocabulary, a
vocabulary that I found was no mean one before we parted.
I asked them what=
I
might expect in the way of treatment, if we succeeded in getting into the
Poplar Workhouse, and between them I was supplied with much information.
"Milk and su=
gar,
I suppose, and a silver spoon?" I queried.
"No fear.
"You do get =
good
skilly at 'Ackney," said the Carter.
"Oh, wonderf=
ul
skilly, that," praised the Carpenter, and each looked eloquently at the
other.
"Flour an' w=
ater
at St. George's in the East," said the Carter.
The Carpenter nod=
ded. He had tried them all.
"Then
what?" I demanded
And I was informed
that I was sent directly to bed.
"Call you at half after five in the mornin', an' you get up an'
take a 'sluice'--if there's any soap.
Then breakfast, same as supper, three parts o' skilly an' a six-ounce
loaf."
"'Tisn't alw=
ays
six ounces," corrected the Carter.
"'Tisn't, no;
an' often that sour you can 'ardly eat it.=
When first I started I couldn't eat the skilly nor the bread, but no=
w I
can eat my own an' another man's portion."
"I could eat
three other men's portions," said the Carter. "I 'aven't 'ad a bit this ble=
ssed
day."
"Then
what?"
"Then you've=
got
to do your task, pick four pounds of oakum, or clean an' scrub, or break te=
n to
eleven hundredweight o' stones. I
don't 'ave to break stones; I'm past sixty, you see. They'll make you do it, though. Yo=
u're
young an' strong."
"What I don't
like," grumbled the Carter, "is to be locked up in a cell to pick
oakum. It's too much like
prison."
"But suppose,
after you've had your night's sleep, you refuse to pick oakum, or break sto=
nes,
or do any work at all?" I asked.
"No fear you=
'll
refuse the second time; they'll run you in," answered the Carpenter. "Wouldn't advise you to try i=
t on,
my lad."
"Then comes
dinner," he went on.
"Eight ounces of bread, one and a arf ounces of cheese, an' cold
water. Then you finish your t=
ask
an' 'ave supper, same as before, three parts o' skilly any six ounces o' br=
ead.
Then to bed, six o'clock, an' next mornin' you're turned loose, provided yo=
u've
finished your task."
We had long since
left Mile End Road, and after traversing a gloomy maze of narrow, winding
streets, we came to Poplar Workhouse.
On a low stone wall we spread our handkerchiefs, and each in his
handkerchief put all his worldly possessions, with the exception of the
"bit o' baccy" down his sock.&nb=
sp;
And then, as the last light was fading from the drab-coloured sky, t=
he
wind blowing cheerless and cold, we stood, with our pitiful little bundles =
in
our hands, a forlorn group at the workhouse door.
Three working gir=
ls
came along, and one looked pityingly at me; as she passed I followed her wi=
th
my eyes, and she still looked pityingly back at me. The old men she did not notice.
On one side the d=
oor
was a bell handle, on the other side a press button.
"Ring the
bell," said the Carter to me.
And just as I
ordinarily would at anybody's door, I pulled out the handle and rang a peal=
.
"Oh! Oh!" they cried in one terrif=
ied
voice. "Not so 'ard!&quo=
t;
I let go, and they
looked reproachfully at me, as though I had imperilled their chance for a b=
ed
and three parts of skilly. No=
body
came. Luckily it was the wrong
bell, and I felt better.
"Press the
button," I said to the Carpenter.
"No, no, wai=
t a
bit," the Carter hurriedly interposed.
From all of which=
I
drew the conclusion that a poorhouse porter, who commonly draws a yearly sa=
lary
of from seven to nine pounds, is a very finicky and important personage, and
cannot be treated too fastidiously by--paupers.
So we waited, ten
times a decent interval, when the Carter stealthily advanced a timid forefi=
nger
to the button, and gave it the faintest, shortest possible push. I have looked at waiting men where=
life
or death was in the issue; but anxious suspense showed less plainly on their
faces than it showed on the faces of these two men as they waited on the co=
ming
of the porter.
He came. He barely looked at us. "Full up," he said and s=
hut
the door.
"Another nig=
ht
of it," groaned the Carpenter.
In the dim light the Carter looked wan and grey.
Indiscriminate
charity is vicious, say the professional philanthropists. Well, I resolved =
to
be vicious.
"Come on; get
your knife out and come here," I said to the Carter, drawing him into a
dark alley.
He glared at me i=
n a
frightened manner, and tried to draw back.=
Possibly he took me for a latter-day Jack-the-Ripper, with a penchant
for elderly male paupers. Or =
he may
have thought I was inveigling him into the commission of some desperate
crime. Anyway, he was frighte=
ned.
It will be rememb=
ered,
at the outset, that I sewed a pound inside my stoker's singlet under the
armpit. This was my emergency=
fund,
and I was now called upon to use it for the first time.
Not until I had g=
one
through the acts of a contortionist, and shown the round coin sewed in, did=
I
succeed in getting the Carter's help.
Even then his hand was trembling so that I was afraid he would cut me
instead of the stitches, and I was forced to take the knife away and do it =
myself. Out rolled the gold piece, a fortu=
ne in
their hungry eyes; and away we stampeded for the nearest coffee-house.
Of course I had to
explain to them that I was merely an investigator, a social student, seekin=
g to
find out how the other half lived.
And at once they shut up like clams. I was not of their kind; my speech=
had changed,
the tones of my voice were different, in short, I was a superior, and they =
were
superbly class conscious.
"What will y=
ou
have?" I asked, as the waiter came for the order.
"Two slices =
an'
a cup of tea," meekly said the Carter.
"Two slices =
an'
a cup of tea," meekly said the Carpenter.
Stop a moment, and
consider the situation. Here =
were
two men, invited by me into the coffee-house. They had seen my gold piece, and t=
hey
could understand that I was no pauper.&nbs=
p;
One had eaten a ha'penny roll that day, the other had eaten
nothing. And they called for
"two slices an' a cup of tea!"&n=
bsp;
Each man had given a tu'penny order. "Two slices," by the way=
, means
two slices of bread and butter.
This was the same
degraded humility that had characterised their attitude toward the poorhouse
porter. But I wouldn't have
it. Step by step I increased =
their
order--eggs, rashers of bacon, more eggs, more bacon, more tea, more slices=
and
so forth--they denying wistfully all the while that they cared for anything
more, and devouring it ravenously as fast as it arrived.
"First cup o'
tea I've 'ad in a fortnight," said the Carter.
"Wonderful t=
ea,
that," said the Carpenter.
They each drank t=
wo
pints of it, and I assure you that it was slops. It resembled tea less than lager b=
eer
resembles champagne. Nay, it =
was "water-bewitched,"
and did not resemble tea at all.
It was curious, a=
fter
the first shock, to notice the effect the food had on them. At first they were melancholy, and
talked of the divers times they had contemplated suicide. The Carter, not a week before, had=
stood
on the bridge and looked at the water, and pondered the question. Water, the Carpenter insisted with=
heat,
was a bad route. He, for one,=
he
knew, would struggle. A bulle=
t was
"'andier," but how under the sun was he to get hold of a
revolver? That was the rub.
They grew more
cheerful as the hot "tea" soaked in, and talked more about themse=
lves. The Carter had buried his wife and
children, with the exception of one son, who grew to manhood and helped him=
in
his little business. Then the=
thing
happened. The son, a man of
thirty-one, died of the smallpox.
No sooner was this over than the father came down with fever and wen=
t to
the hospital for three months. Then
he was done for. He came out weak, debilitated, no strong young son to stan=
d by
him, his little business gone glimmering, and not a farthing. The thing had happened, and the ga=
me was
up. No chance for an old man =
to
start again. Friends all poor and unable to help. He had tried for work when they we=
re
putting up the stands for the first Coronation parade. "An' I got fair sick of the a=
nswer:
'No! no! no!' It rang in my e=
ars at
night when I tried to sleep, always the same, 'No! no! no!'" Only the past week he had answered=
an
advertisement in Hackney, and on giving his age was told, "Oh, too old,
too old by far."
The Carpenter had
been born in the army, where his father had served twenty-two years. Likewise, his two brothers had gon=
e into
the army; one, troop sergeant-major of the Seventh Hussars, dying in India
after the Mutiny; the other, after nine years under Roberts in the East, ha=
d been
lost in Egypt. The Carpenter =
had
not gone into the army, so here he was, still on the planet.
"But 'ere, g=
ive
me your 'and," he said, ripping open his ragged shirt. "I'm fit f=
or
the anatomist, that's all. I'm
wastin' away, sir, actually wastin' away for want of food. Feel my ribs an' you'll see."=
I put my hand und=
er
his shirt and felt. The skin =
was
stretched like parchment over the bones, and the sensation produced was for=
all
the world like running one's hand over a washboard.
"Seven years=
o'
bliss I 'ad," he said. &=
quot;A
good missus and three bonnie lassies.
But they all died. Sca=
rlet
fever took the girls inside a fortnight."
"After this,
sir," said the Carter, indicating the spread, and desiring to turn the
conversation into more cheerful channels; "after this, I wouldn't be a=
ble
to eat a workhouse breakfast in the morning."
"Nor I,"
agreed the Carpenter, and they fell to discussing belly delights and the fi=
ne
dishes their respective wives had cooked in the old days.
"I've gone t=
hree
days and never broke my fast," said the Carter.
"And I,
five," his companion added, turning gloomy with the memory of it. &quo=
t;Five
days once, with nothing on my stomach but a bit of orange peel, an' outraged
nature wouldn't stand it, sir, an' I near died. Sometimes, walkin' the streets at =
night,
I've ben that desperate I've made up my mind to win the horse or lose the
saddle. You know what I mean,
sir--to commit some big robbery.
But when mornin' come, there was I, too weak from 'unger an' cold to
'arm a mouse."
As their poor vit=
als
warmed to the food, they began to expand and wax boastful, and to talk
politics. I can only say that=
they talked
politics as well as the average middle-class man, and a great deal better t=
han some
of the middle-class men I have heard.
What surprised me was the hold they had on the world, its geography =
and
peoples, and on recent and contemporaneous history. As I say, they were not fools, the=
se two
men. They were merely old, and their children had undutifully failed to gro=
w up
and give them a place by the fire.
One last incident=
, as
I bade them good-bye on the corner, happy with a couple of shillings in the=
ir pockets
and the certain prospect of a bed for the night. Lighting a cigarette, I was about =
to
throw away the burning match when the Carter reached for it. I proffered him the box, but he sa=
id,
"Never mind, won't waste it, sir." And while he lighted the cigarette=
I had
given him, the Carpenter hurried with the filling of his pipe in order to h=
ave
a go at the same match.
"It's wrong =
to
waste," said he.
"Yes," I
said, but I was thinking of the wash-board ribs over which I had run my han=
d.
First of all, I must beg forgivenes=
s of
my body for the vileness through which I have dragged it, and forgiveness o=
f my
stomach for the vileness which I have thrust into it. I have been to the spike, and slep=
t in
the spike, and eaten in the spike; also, I have run away from the spike.
After my two
unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the Whitechapel casual ward, I started
early, and joined the desolate line before three o'clock in the afternoon.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> They did not "let in" ti=
ll
six, but at that early hour I was number twenty, while the news had gone fo=
rth
that only twenty-two were to be admitted.&=
nbsp;
By four o'clock there were thirty-four in line, the last ten hanging=
on
in the slender hope of getting in by some kind of a miracle. Many more came, looked at the line=
, and
went away, wise to the bitter fact that the spike would be "full up.&q=
uot;
Conversation was
slack at first, standing there, till the man on one side of me and the man =
on
the other side of me discovered that they had been in the smallpox hospital=
at
the same time, though a full house of sixteen hundred patients had prevented
their becoming acquainted. Bu=
t they
made up for it, discussing and comparing the more loathsome features of the=
ir disease
in the most cold-blooded, matter-of-fact way. I learned that the average mortali=
ty was
one in six, that one of them had been in three months and the other three
months and a half, and that they had been "rotten wi' it." Whereat my flesh began to creep and
crawl, and I asked them how long they had been out. One had been out two weeks, and th=
e other
three weeks. Their faces were=
badly
pitted (though each assured the other that this was not so), and further, t=
hey
showed me in their hands and under the nails the smallpox "seeds"
still working out. Nay, one o=
f them
worked a seed out for my edification, and pop it went, right out of his fle=
sh
into the air. I tried to shri=
nk up
smaller inside my clothes, and I registered a fervent though silent hope th=
at
it had not popped on me.
In both instances=
, I
found that the smallpox was the cause of their being "on the doss,&quo=
t;
which means on the tramp. Bot=
h had
been working when smitten by the disease, and both had emerged from the
hospital "broke," with the gloomy task before them of hunting for
work. So far, they had not fo=
und
any, and they had come to the spike for a "rest up" after three d=
ays
and nights on the street.
It seems that not
only the man who becomes old is punished for his involuntary misfortune, but
likewise the man who is struck by disease or accident. Later on, I talked with another
man--"Ginger" we called him--who stood at the head of the line--a
sure indication that he had been waiting since one o'clock. A year before, one day, while in t=
he employ
of a fish dealer, he was carrying a heavy box of fish which was too much for
him. Result: "something
broke," and there was the box on the ground, and he on the ground besi=
de
it.
At the first
hospital, whither he was immediately carried, they said it was a rupture,
reduced the swelling, gave him some vaseline to rub on it, kept him four ho=
urs,
and told him to get along. Bu=
t he
was not on the streets more than two or three hours when he was down on his
back again. This time he went to another hospital and was patched up. But the point is, the employer did
nothing, positively nothing, for the man injured in his employment, and even
refused him "a light job now and again," when he came out. As far as Ginger is concerned, he =
is a
broken man. His only chance t=
o earn
a living was by heavy work. H=
e is
now incapable of performing heavy work, and from now until he dies, the spi=
ke,
the peg, and the streets are all he can look forward to in the way of food =
and shelter. The thing happened--that is all. He put his back under too great a =
load
of fish, and his chance for happiness in life was crossed off the books.
Several men in the
line had been to the United States, and they were wishing that they had
remained there, and were cursing themselves for their folly in ever having
left. England had become a pr=
ison
to them, a prison from which there was no hope of escape. It was impossible for them to get
away. They could neither scra=
pe
together the passage money, nor get a chance to work their passage. The country was too overrun by poor
devils on that "lay."
I was on the
seafaring-man-who-had-lost-his-clothes-and-money tack, and they all condoled
with me and gave me much sound advice.&nbs=
p;
To sum it up, the advice was something like this: To keep out of all
places like the spike. There =
was
nothing good in it for me. To=
head
for the coast and bend every effort to get away on a ship. To go to work, if possible, and sc=
rape
together a pound or so, with which I might bribe some steward or underling =
to
give me chance to work my passage.
They envied me my youth and strength, which would sooner or later ge=
t me
out of the country. These they no longer possessed. Age and English hardship had broke=
n them,
and for them the game was played and up.
There was one,
however, who was still young, and who, I am sure, will in the end make it
out. He had gone to the United
States as a young fellow, and in fourteen years' residence the longest peri=
od
he had been out of work was twelve hours.&=
nbsp;
He had saved his money, grown too prosperous, and returned to the
mother-country. Now he was st=
anding
in line at the spike.
For the past two
years, he told me, he had been working as a cook. His hours had been from 7 a.m. to =
10.30
p.m., and on Saturday to 12.30 p.m.--ninety-five hours per week, for which =
he
had received twenty shillings, or five dollars.
"But the work
and the long hours was killing me," he said, "and I had to chuck =
the
job. I had a little money sav=
ed,
but I spent it living and looking for another place."
This was his first
night in the spike, and he had come in only to get rested. As soon as he emerged, he intended=
to
start for Bristol, a one- hundred-and-ten-mile walk, where he thought he wo=
uld
eventually get a ship for the States.
But the men in the
line were not all of this calibre.
Some were poor, wretched beasts, inarticulate and callous, but for a=
ll
of that, in many ways very human. =
span>I
remember a carter, evidently returning home after the day's work, stopping =
his
cart before us so that his young hopeful, who had run to meet him, could cl=
imb
in. But the cart was big, the=
young
hopeful little, and he failed in his several attempts to swarm up. Whereupon
one of the most degraded-looking men stepped out of the line and hoisted him
in. Now the virtue and the jo=
y of
this act lies in that it was service of love, not hire. The carter was poor, and the man k=
new it;
and the man was standing in the spike line, and the carter knew it; and the=
man
had done the little act, and the carter had thanked him, even as you and I
would have done and thanked.
Another beautiful
touch was that displayed by the "Hopper" and his "ole woman.=
" He had been in line about half-an-=
hour
when the "ole woman" (his mate) came up to him. She was fairly clad, for her class=
, with
a weather- worn bonnet on her grey head and a sacking-covered bundle in her=
arms. As she talked to him, he reached
forward, caught the one stray wisp of the white hair that was flying wild,
deftly twirled it between his fingers, and tucked it back properly behind h=
er
ear. From all of which one ma=
y conclude
many things. He certainly lik=
ed her
well enough to wish her to be neat and tidy. He was proud of her, standing ther=
e in
the spike line, and it was his desire that she should look well in the eyes=
of
the other unfortunates who stood in the spike line. But last and best, and underlying =
all
these motives, it was a sturdy affection he bore her; for man is not prone =
to
bother his head over neatness and tidiness in a woman for whom he does not
care, nor is he likely to be proud of such a woman.
And I found myself
questioning why this man and his mate, hard workers I knew from their talk,
should have to seek a pauper lodging.
He had pride, pride in his old woman and pride in himself. When I asked him what he thought I=
, a
greenhorn, might expect to earn at "hopping," he sized me up, and
said that it all depended. Pl=
enty
of people were too slow to pick hops and made a failure of it. A man, to succeed, must use his he=
ad and
be quick with his fingers, must be exceeding quick with his fingers. Now he and his old woman could do =
very
well at it, working the one bin between them and not going to sleep over it;
but then, they had been at it for years.
"I 'ad a mat=
e as
went down last year," spoke up a man.=
"It was 'is fust time, but 'e come back wi' two poun' ten in 'is
pockit, an' 'e was only gone a month."
"There you
are," said the Hopper, a wealth of admiration in his voice. "'E w=
as
quick. 'E was jest nat'rally =
born
to it, 'e was."
Two pound ten--tw=
elve
dollars and a half--for a month's work when one is "jest nat'rally bor=
n to
it!" And in addition, sl=
eeping
out without blankets and living the Lord knows how. There are moments when I am thankf=
ul
that I was not "jest nat'rally born" a genius for anything, not e=
ven
hop-picking,
In the matter of
getting an outfit for "the hops," the Hopper gave me some sterling
advice, to which same give heed, you soft and tender people, in case you sh=
ould
ever be stranded in London Town.
"If you ain't
got tins an' cookin' things, all as you can get'll be bread and cheese. No bloomin' good that! You must 'ave 'ot tea, an' wegetab=
les,
an' a bit o' meat, now an' again, if you're goin' to do work as is work.
Again the old wom=
an
nodded and beamed, this time with the dead certainty that he would find a
blanket before long.
"I call it a
'oliday, 'oppin'," he concluded rapturously. "A tidy way o' gettin' two or=
three
pounds together an' fixin' up for winter.&=
nbsp;
The only thing I don't like"--and here was the rift within the
lute--"is paddin' the 'oof down there."
It was plain the =
years
were telling on this energetic pair, and while they enjoyed the quick work =
with
the fingers, "paddin' the 'oof," which is walking, was beginning =
to
bear heavily upon them. And I
looked at their grey hairs, and ahead into the future ten years, and wonder=
ed
how it would be with them.
I noticed another=
man
and his old woman join the line, both of them past fifty. The woman, because she was a woman=
, was
admitted into the spike; but he was too late, and, separated from his mate,=
was
turned away to tramp the streets all night.
The street on whi=
ch
we stood, from wall to wall, was barely twenty feet wide. The sidewalks were three feet wide=
. It was a residence street. At least workmen and their families
existed in some sort of fashion in the houses across from us. And each day and every day, from o=
ne in
the afternoon till six, our ragged spike line is the principal feature of t=
he view
commanded by their front doors and windows. One workman sat in his door direct=
ly
opposite us, taking his rest and a breath of air after the toil of the
day. His wife came to chat wi=
th
him. The doorway was too smal=
l for
two, so she stood up. Their b=
abes
sprawled before them. And her=
e was
the spike line, less than a score of feet away--neither privacy for the
workman, nor privacy for the pauper.
About our feet played the children of the neighbourhood. To them our presence was nothing
unusual. We were not an intrusion.
We were as natural and ordinary as the brick walls and stone curbs of
their environment. They had b=
een
born to the sight of the spike line, and all their brief days they had seen=
it.
At six o'clock the
line moved up, and we were admitted in groups of three. Name, age, occupation, place of bi=
rth,
condition of destitution, and the previous night's "doss," were t=
aken
with lightning-like rapidity by the superintendent; and as I turned I was
startled by a man's thrusting into my hand something that felt like a brick,
and shouting into my ear, "any knives, matches, or tobacco?" "No, sir," I lied, as li=
ed
every man who entered. As I p=
assed
downstairs to the cellar, I looked at the brick in my hand, and saw that by
doing violence to the language it might be called "bread." By its weight and hardness it cert=
ainly
must have been unleavened.
The light was ver=
y dim
down in the cellar, and before I knew it some other man had thrust a pannik=
in
into my other hand. Then I st=
umbled
on to a still darker room, where were benches and tables and men. The place smelled vilely, and the =
sombre
gloom, and the mumble of voices from out of the obscurity, made it seem more
like some anteroom to the infernal regions.
Most of the men w=
ere
suffering from tired feet, and they prefaced the meal by removing their sho=
es
and unbinding the filthy rags with which their feet were wrapped. This added to the general noisomene=
ss,
while it took away from my appetite.
In fact, I found =
that
I had made a mistake. I had e=
aten a
hearty dinner five hours before, and to have done justice to the fare befor=
e me
I should have fasted for a couple of days.=
The pannikin contained skilly, three-quarters of a pint, a mixture of
Indian corn and hot water. Th=
e men
were dipping their bread into heaps of salt scattered over the dirty tables=
. I attempted the same, but the bread
seemed to stick in my mouth, and I remembered the words of the Carpenter,
"You need a pint of water to eat the bread nicely."
I went over into a
dark corner where I had observed other men going and found the water. Then I returned and attacked the
skilly. It was coarse of text=
ure,
unseasoned, gross, and bitter. This
bitterness which lingered persistently in the mouth after the skilly had pa=
ssed
on, I found especially repulsive. =
span>I
struggled manfully, but was mastered by my qualms, and half-a-dozen mouthfu=
ls
of skilly and bread was the measure of my success. The man beside me ate his own shar=
e, and
mine to boot, scraped the pannikins, and looked hungrily for more.
"I met a
'towny,' and he stood me too good a dinner," I explained.
"An' I 'aven=
't
'ad a bite since yesterday mornin'," he replied.
"How about
tobacco?" I asked. "=
;Will
the bloke bother with a fellow now?"
"Oh no,"=
; he
answered me. "No bloomin'
fear. This is the easiest spi=
ke goin'. Y'oughto see some of them. Search you to the skin."
The pannikins scr=
aped
clean, conversation began to spring up.&nb=
sp;
"This super'tendent 'ere is always writin' to the papers 'bout =
us
mugs," said the man on the other side of me.
"What does he
say?" I asked.
"Oh, 'e sez
we're no good, a lot o' blackguards an' scoundrels as won't work. Tells all the ole tricks I've bin
'earin' for twenty years an' w'ich I never seen a mug ever do. Las' thing of 'is I see, 'e was te=
llin'
'ow a mug gets out o' the spike, wi' a crust in 'is pockit. An' w'en 'e sees a nice ole gentle=
man
comin' along the street 'e chucks the crust into the drain, an' borrows the=
old
gent's stick to poke it out. An' then the ole gent gi'es 'im a tanner."=
;
A roar of applause
greeted the time-honoured yarn, and from somewhere over in the deeper darkn=
ess
came another voice, orating angrily:
"Talk o' the
country bein' good for tommy [food]; I'd like to see it. I jest came up from Dover, an' ble=
ssed
little tommy I got. They won'=
t gi' ye
a drink o' water, they won't, much less tommy."
"There's mugs
never go out of Kent," spoke a second voice, "they live bloomin' =
fat
all along."
"I come thro=
ugh
Kent," went on the first voice, still more angrily, "an' Gawd bli=
mey
if I see any tommy. An' I alw=
ays
notices as the blokes as talks about 'ow much they can get, w'en they're in=
the
spike can eat my share o' skilly as well as their bleedin' own."
"There's cha=
ps
in London," said a man across the table from me, "that get all the
tommy they want, an' they never think o' goin' to the country. Stay in Lond=
on
the year 'round. Nor do they =
think
of lookin' for a kip [place to sleep], till nine or ten o'clock at night.&q=
uot;
A general chorus
verified this statement
"But they're
bloomin' clever, them chaps," said an admiring voice.
"Course they
are," said another voice.
"But it's not the likes of me an' you can do it. You got to be born to it, I say. Them chaps 'ave ben openin' cabs a=
n'
sellin' papers since the day they was born, an' their fathers an' mothers
before 'em. It's all in the
trainin', I say, an' the likes of me an' you 'ud starve at it."
This also was
verified by the general chorus, and likewise the statement that there were
"mugs as lives the twelvemonth 'round in the spike an' never get a ble=
ssed
bit o' tommy other than spike skilly an' bread."
"I once got =
arf
a crown in the Stratford spike," said a new voice. Silence fell on the
instant, and all listened to the wonderful tale. "There was three of us
breakin' stones. Winter-time,=
an'
the cold was cruel. T'other t=
wo
said they'd be blessed if they do it, an' they didn't; but I kept wearin' i=
nto
mine to warm up, you know. An=
' then
the guardians come, an' t'other chaps got run in for fourteen days, an' the=
guardians,
w'en they see wot I'd been doin', gives me a tanner each, five o' them, an'
turns me up."
The majority of t=
hese
men, nay, all of them, I found, do not like the spike, and only come to it =
when
driven in. After the "re=
st
up" they are good for two or three days and nights on the streets, when
they are driven in again for another rest.=
Of course, this continuous hardship quickly breaks their constitutio=
ns,
and they realise it, though only in a vague way; while it is so much the co=
mmon
run of things that they do not worry about it.
"On the
doss," they call vagabondage here, which corresponds to "on the r=
oad"
in the United States. The agr=
eement
is that kipping, or dossing, or sleeping, is the hardest problem they have =
to
face, harder even than that of food.
The inclement weather and the harsh laws are mainly responsible for
this, while the men themselves ascribe their homelessness to foreign
immigration, especially of Polish and Russian Jews, who take their places at
lower wages and establish the sweating system.
By seven o'clock =
we
were called away to bathe and go to bed.&n=
bsp;
We stripped our clothes, wrapping them up in our coats and buckling =
our
belts about them, and deposited them in a heaped rack and on the floor--a
beautiful scheme for the spread of vermin.=
Then, two by two, we entered the bathroom. There were two ordinary tubs, and =
this I
know: the two men preceding had washed in that water, we washed in the same
water, and it was not changed for the two men that followed us. This I know; but I am also certain=
that
the twenty-two of us washed in the same water.
I did no more than
make a show of splashing some of this dubious liquid at myself, while I has=
tily
brushed it off with a towel wet from the bodies of other men. My equanimity was not restored by =
seeing
the back of one poor wretch a mass of blood from attacks of vermin and
retaliatory scratching.
A shirt was handed
me--which I could not help but wonder how many other men had worn; and with=
a
couple of blankets under my arm I trudged off to the sleeping apartment.
Many hours passed
before I won to sleep. It was=
only
seven in the evening, and the voices of children, in shrill outcry, playing=
in
the street, continued till nearly midnight. The smell was frightful and sicken=
ing,
while my imagination broke loose, and my skin crept and crawled till I was
nearly frantic. Grunting, gro=
aning,
and snoring arose like the sounds emitted by some sea monster, and several
times, afflicted by nightmare, one or another, by his shrieks and yells,
aroused the lot of us. Toward
morning I was awakened by a rat or some similar animal on my breast. In the quick transition from sleep=
to
waking, before I was completely myself, I raised a shout to wake the dead.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> At any rate, I woke the living, an=
d they
cursed me roundly for my lack of manners.
But morning came,
with a six o'clock breakfast of bread and skilly, which I gave away, and we
were told off to our various tasks.
Some were set to scrubbing and cleaning, others to picking oakum, and
eight of us were convoyed across the street to the Whitechapel Infirmary wh=
ere
we were set at scavenger work. This
was the method by which we paid for our skilly and canvas, and I, for one, =
know
that I paid in full many times over.
Though we had most
revolting tasks to perform, our allotment was considered the best and the o=
ther
men deemed themselves lucky in being chosen to perform it.
"Don't touch=
it,
mate, the nurse sez it's deadly," warned my working partner, as I held
open a sack into which he was emptying a garbage can.
It came from the =
sick
wards, and I told him that I purposed neither to touch it, nor to allow it =
to
touch me. Nevertheless, I had=
to
carry the sack, and other sacks, down five flights of stairs and empty them=
in
a receptacle where the corruption was speedily sprinkled with strong disinf=
ectant.
Perhaps there is a
wise mercy in all this. These=
men
of the spike, the peg, and the street, are encumbrances. They are of no good or use to any =
one,
nor to themselves. They clutt=
er the
earth with their presence, and are better out of the way. Broken by hardship, ill fed, and w=
orse nourished,
they are always the first to be struck down by disease, as they are likewise
the quickest to die.
They feel,
themselves, that the forces of society tend to hurl them out of existence.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> We were sprinkling disinfectant by=
the
mortuary, when the dead waggon drove up and five bodies were packed into
it. The conversation turned t=
o the
"white potion" and "black jack," and I found they were =
all
agreed that the poor person, man or woman, who in the Infirmary gave too mu=
ch
trouble or was in a bad way, was "polished off." That is to say, =
the
incurables and the obstreperous were given a dose of "black jack"=
or
the "white potion," and sent over the divide. It does not matter in the least wh=
ether
this be actually so or not. T=
he
point is, they have the feeling that it is so, and they have created the la=
nguage
with which to express that feeling--"black jack" "white
potion," "polishing off."
At eight o'clock =
we
went down into a cellar under the infirmary, where tea was brought to us, a=
nd
the hospital scraps. These we=
re
heaped high on a huge platter in an indescribable mess--pieces of bread, ch=
unks
of grease and fat pork, the burnt skin from the outside of roasted joints, =
bones,
in short, all the leavings from the fingers and mouths of the sick ones
suffering from all manner of diseases.&nbs=
p;
Into this mess the men plunged their hands, digging, pawing, turning
over, examining, rejecting, and scrambling for. It wasn't pretty. Pigs couldn't have done worse. But=
the
poor devils were hungry, and they ate ravenously of the swill, and when they
could eat no more they bundled what was left into their handkerchiefs and
thrust it inside their shirts.
"Once, w'en I
was 'ere before, wot did I find out there but a 'ole lot of pork-ribs,"
said Ginger to me. By "o=
ut
there" he meant the place where the corruption was dumped and sprinkled
with strong disinfectant.
"They was a prime lot, no end o' meat on 'em, an' I 'ad 'em int=
o my
arms an' was out the gate an' down the street, a-lookin' for some 'un to gi'
'em to. Couldn't see a soul, =
an' I
was runnin' 'round clean crazy, the bloke runnin' after me an' thinkin' I w=
as
'slingin' my 'ook' [running away]. But jest before 'e got me, I got a ole w=
oman
an' poked 'em into 'er apron."
O Charity, O
Philanthropy, descend to the spike and take a lesson from Ginger. At the bottom of the Abyss he perf=
ormed
as purely an altruistic act as was ever performed outside the Abyss. It was fine of Ginger, and if the =
old
woman caught some contagion from the "no end o' meat" on the pork=
-ribs,
it was still fine, though not so fine.&nbs=
p;
But the most salient thing in this incident, it seems to me, is poor
Ginger, "clean crazy" at sight of so much food going to waste.
It is the rule of=
the
casual ward that a man who enters must stay two nights and a day; but I had
seen sufficient for my purpose, had paid for my skilly and canvas, and was
preparing to run for it.
"Come on, le=
t's
sling it," I said to one of my mates, pointing toward the open gate
through which the dead waggon had come.
"An' get
fourteen days?"
"No; get
away."
"Aw, I come =
'ere
for a rest," he said complacently.&nb=
sp;
"An' another night's kip won't 'urt me none."
They were all of =
this
opinion, so I was forced to "sling it" alone.
"You cawn't =
ever
come back 'ere again for a doss," they warned me.
"No fear,&qu=
ot;
said I, with an enthusiasm they could not comprehend; and, dodging out the
gate, I sped down the street.
Straight to my ro=
om I
hurried, changed my clothes, and less than an hour from my escape, in a Tur=
kish
bath, I was sweating out whatever germs and other things had penetrated my
epidermis, and wishing that I could stand a temperature of three hundred and
twenty rather than two hundred and twenty.
CHAPTER X--CARRYING THE
BANNER
"To carry the banner" mea=
ns to
walk the streets all night; and I, with the figurative emblem hoisted, went=
out
to see what I could see. Men =
and women
walk the streets at night all over this great city, but I selected the West
End, making Leicester Square my base, and scouting about from the Thames
Embankment to Hyde Park.
The rain was fall=
ing
heavily when the theatres let out, and the brilliant throng which poured fr=
om
the places of amusement was hard put to find cabs. The streets were so many wild rive=
rs of
cabs, most of which were engaged, however; and here I saw the desperate
attempts of ragged men and boys to get a shelter from the night by procuring
cabs for the cabless ladies and gentlemen.=
I use the word "desperate" advisedly, for these wretched,
homeless ones were gambling a soaking against a bed; and most of them, I to=
ok
notice, got the soaking and missed the bed. Now, to go through a stormy night =
with
wet clothes, and, in addition, to be ill nourished and not to have tasted m=
eat
for a week or a month, is about as severe a hardship as a man can undergo.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Well fed and well clad, I have tra=
velled
all day with the spirit thermometer down to seventy-four degrees below
zero--one hundred and six degrees of frost {1}; and though I suffered, it w=
as a
mere nothing compared with carrying the banner for a night, ill fed, ill cl=
ad,
and soaking wet.
The streets grew =
very
quiet and lonely after the theatre crowd had gone home. Only were to be seen the ubiquitous
policemen, flashing their dark lanterns into doorways and alleys, and men a=
nd
women and boys taking shelter in the lee of buildings from the wind and
rain. Piccadilly, however, wa=
s not
quite so deserted. Its paveme=
nts
were brightened by well-dressed women without escort, and there was more li=
fe
and action there than elsewhere, due to the process of finding escort. But by three o'clock the last of t=
hem
had vanished, and it was then indeed lonely.
At half-past one =
the
steady downpour ceased, and only showers fell thereafter. The homeless folk came away from t=
he
protection of the buildings, and slouched up and down and everywhere, in or=
der
to rush up the circulation and keep warm.
One old woman,
between fifty and sixty, a sheer wreck, I had noticed earlier in the night
standing in Piccadilly, not far from Leicester Square. She seemed to have neither the sen=
se nor
the strength to get out of the rain or keep walking, but stood stupidly,
whenever she got the chance, meditating on past days, I imagine, when life =
was
young and blood was warm. But=
she
did not get the chance often. She
was moved on by every policeman, and it required an average of six moves to
send her doddering off one man's beat and on to another's. By three o'clock, she had progress=
ed as
far as St. James Street, and as the clocks were striking four I saw her
sleeping soundly against the iron railings of Green Park. A brisk shower was falling at the =
time,
and she must have been drenched to the skin.
Now, said I, at o=
ne
o'clock, to myself; consider that you are a poor young man, penniless, in
London Town, and that to-morrow you must look for work. It is necessary, therefore, that y=
ou get
some sleep in order that you may have strength to look for work and to do w=
ork
in case you find it.
So I sat down on =
the
stone steps of a building. Fi=
ve
minutes later a policeman was looking at me. My eyes were wide open, so he only
grunted and passed on. Ten mi=
nutes
later my head was on my knees, I was dozing, and the same policeman was say=
ing
gruffly, "'Ere, you, get outa that!"
I got. And, like the old woman, I continu=
ed to
get; for every time I dozed, a policeman was there to rout me along again.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Not long after, when I had given t=
his
up, I was walking with a young Londoner (who had been out to the colonies a=
nd
wished he were out to them again), when I noticed an open passage leading u=
nder
a building and disappearing in darkness.&n=
bsp;
A low iron gate barred the entrance.
"Come on,&qu=
ot;
I said. "Let's climb ove=
r and
get a good sleep."
"Wot?" =
he
answered, recoiling from me.
"An' get run in fer three months! Blimey if I do!"
Later on I was
passing Hyde Park with a young boy of fourteen or fifteen, a most
wretched-looking youth, gaunt and hollow-eyed and sick.
"Let's go ov=
er
the fence," I proposed, "and crawl into the shrubbery for a
sleep. The bobbies couldn't f=
ind us
there."
"No fear,&qu=
ot;
he answered. "There's th=
e park
guardians, and they'd run you in for six months."
Times have change=
d,
alas! When I was a youngster =
I used
to read of homeless boys sleeping in doorways. Already the thing has become a tra=
dition. As a stock situation it will doubt=
less
linger in literature for a century to come, but as a cold fact it has cease=
d to
be. Here are the doorways, an=
d here
are the boys, but happy conjunctions are no longer effected. The doorways remain empty, and the=
boys
keep awake and carry the banner.
"I was down
under the arches," grumbled another young fellow. By "arches" he meant the=
shore
arches where begin the bridges that span the Thames. "I was down under the arches =
wen it
was ryning its 'ardest, an' a bobby comes in an' chyses me out. But I come back, an' 'e come too. =
''Ere,'
sez 'e, 'wot you doin' 'ere?' An'
out I goes, but I sez, 'Think I want ter pinch [steal] the bleedin'
bridge?'"
Among those who c=
arry
the banner, Green Park has the reputation of opening its gates earlier than=
the
other parks, and at quarter-past four in the morning, I, and many more, ent=
ered
Green Park. It was raining ag=
ain,
but they were worn out with the night's walking, and they were down on the
benches and asleep at once. M=
any of
the men stretched out full length on the dripping wet grass, and, with the =
rain
falling steadily upon them, were sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.
And now I wish to criticise the powers that be. They are the powers, therefore they may decree whatever they please; so I make b= old only to criticise the ridiculousness of their decrees. All night long they make the homel= ess ones walk up and down. They d= rive them out of doors and passages, and lock them out of the parks. The evident intention of all this = is to deprive them of sleep. Well a= nd good, the powers have the power to deprive them of sleep, or of anything el= se for that matter; but why under the sun do they open the gates of the parks = at five o'clock in the morning and let the homeless ones go inside and sleep?<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> If it is their intention to depriv= e them of sleep, why do they let them sleep after five in the morning? And if it is not their intention to deprive them of sleep, why don't they let them sleep earlier in the night?<= o:p>
In this connectio=
n, I
will say that I came by Green Park that same day, at one in the afternoon, =
and
that I counted scores of the ragged wretches asleep in the grass. It was Sunday afternoon, the sun w=
as
fitfully appearing, and the well-dressed West Enders, with their wives and =
progeny,
were out by thousands, taking the air.&nbs=
p;
It was not a pleasant sight for them, those horrible, unkempt, sleep=
ing
vagabonds; while the vagabonds themselves, I know, would rather have done t=
heir
sleeping the night before.
And so, dear soft
people, should you ever visit London Town, and see these men asleep on the
benches and in the grass, please do not think they are lazy creatures,
preferring sleep to work. Kno=
w that
the powers that be have kept them walking all the night long, and that in t=
he
day they have nowhere else to sleep.
But, after carrying the banner all =
night,
I did not sleep in Green Park when morning dawned. I was wet to the skin, it is true,=
and I
had had no sleep for twenty-four hours; but, still adventuring as a pennile=
ss
man looking for work, I had to look about me, first for a breakfast, and ne=
xt for
the work.
During the night I
had heard of a place over on the Surrey side of the Thames, where the Salva=
tion
Army every Sunday morning gave away a breakfast to the unwashed. (And, by the way, the men who carr=
y the banner
are unwashed in the morning, and unless it is raining they do not have much
show for a wash, either.) Thi=
s,
thought I, is the very thing--breakfast in the morning, and then the whole =
day
in which to look for work.
It was a weary
walk. Down St. James Street I
dragged my tired legs, along Pall Mall, past Trafalgar Square, to the
Strand. I crossed the Waterloo
Bridge to the Surrey side, cut across to Blackfriars Road, coming out near =
the
Surrey Theatre, and arrived at the Salvation Army barracks before seven
o'clock. This was "the
peg." And by "the
peg," in the argot, is meant the place where a free meal may be obtain=
ed.
Here was a motley
crowd of woebegone wretches who had spent the night in the rain. Such prodigious misery! and so muc=
h of
it! Old men, young men, all m=
anner
of men, and boys to boot, and all manner of boys. Some were drowsing standing up; ha=
lf a
score of them were stretched out on the stone steps in most painful posture=
s,
all of them sound asleep, the skin of their bodies showing red through the
holes, and rents in their rags. And up and down the street and across the
street for a block either way, each doorstep had from two to three occupant=
s,
all asleep, their heads bent forward on their knees. And, it must be remembered, these =
are
not hard times in England. Th=
ings
are going on very much as they ordinarily do, and times are neither hard nor
easy.
And then came the
policeman. "Get outa tha=
t, you
bloomin' swine! Eigh! eigh! Get out now!" And like swine he drove them from =
the
doorways and scattered them to the four winds of Surrey. But when he encountered the crowd =
asleep
on the steps he was astounded.
"Shocking!" he exclaimed. "Shocking! And of a Sunday morning! A pretty sight! Eigh! eigh! Get outa that, you bleeding
nuisances!"
Of course it was a
shocking sight, I was shocked myself.
And I should not care to have my own daughter pollute her eyes with =
such
a sight, or come within half a mile of it; but--and there we were, and there
you are, and "but" is all that can be said.
The policeman pas=
sed
on, and back we clustered, like flies around a honey jar. For was there not that wonderful t=
hing,
a breakfast, awaiting us? We could not have clustered more persistently and
desperately had they been giving away million-dollar bank-notes. Some were already off to sleep, wh=
en
back came the policeman and away we scattered only to return again as soon =
as
the coast was clear.
At half-past seve=
n a
little door opened, and a Salvation Army soldier stuck out his head. "Ayn't no sense blockin' the =
wy up
that wy," he said. "=
;Those
as 'as tickets cawn come hin now, an' those as 'asn't cawn't come hin till
nine."
Oh, that
breakfast! Nine o'clock! An hour and a half longer! The men who held tickets were grea=
tly
envied. They were permitted t=
o go
inside, have a wash, and sit down and rest until breakfast, while we waited=
for
the same breakfast on the street.
The tickets had been distributed the previous night on the streets a=
nd
along the Embankment, and the possession of them was not a matter of merit,=
but
of chance.
At eight-thirty, =
more
men with tickets were admitted, and by nine the little gate was opened to
us. We crushed through someho=
w, and
found ourselves packed in a courtyard like sardines. On more occasions than one, as a Y=
ankee
tramp in Yankeeland, I have had to work for my breakfast; but for no breakf=
ast
did I ever work so hard as for this one. For over two hours I had waited
outside, and for over another hour I waited in this packed courtyard. I had had nothing to eat all night=
, and I
was weak and faint, while the smell of the soiled clothes and unwashed bodi=
es,
steaming from pent animal heat, and blocked solidly about me, nearly turned=
my
stomach. So tightly were we p=
acked,
that a number of the men took advantage of the opportunity and went soundly
asleep standing up.
Now, about the
Salvation Army in general I know nothing, and whatever criticism I shall ma=
ke
here is of that particular portion of the Salvation Army which does busines=
s on
Blackfriars Road near the Surrey Theatre.&=
nbsp;
In the first place, this forcing of men who have been up all night to
stand on their feet for hours longer, is as cruel as it is needless. We were weak, famished, and exhaus=
ted
from our night's hardship and lack of sleep, and yet there we stood, and st=
ood,
and stood, without rhyme or reason.
Sailors were very
plentiful in this crowd. It s=
eemed
to me that one man in four was looking for a ship, and I found at least a d=
ozen
of them to be American sailors. In
accounting for their being "on the beach," I received the same st=
ory
from each and all, and from my knowledge of sea affairs this story rang
true. English ships sign their
sailors for the voyage, which means the round trip, sometimes lasting as lo=
ng
as three years; and they cannot sign off and receive their discharges until
they reach the home port, which is England. Their wages are low, their food is=
bad,
and their treatment worse. Ve=
ry
often they are really forced by their captains to desert in the New World or
the colonies, leaving a handsome sum of wages behind them--a distinct gain,
either to the captain or the owners, or to both. But whether for this reason alone =
or
not, it is a fact that large numbers of them desert. Then, for the home voyage, the ship
engages whatever sailors it can find on the beach. These men are engaged at the somew=
hat
higher wages that obtain in other portions of the world, under the agreement
that they shall sign off on reaching England. The reason for this is obvious; fo=
r it
would be poor business policy to sign them for any longer time, since seame=
n's
wages are low in England, and England is always crowded with sailormen on t=
he
beach. So this fully accounte=
d for
the American seamen at the Salvation Army barracks. To get off the beach in other outl=
andish
places they had come to England, and gone on the beach in the most outlandi=
sh
place of all.
There were fully a
score of Americans in the crowd, the non-sailors being "tramps
royal," the men whose "mate is the wind that tramps the world.&qu=
ot; They
were all cheerful, facing things with the pluck which is their chief charac=
teristic
and which seems never to desert them, withal they were cursing the country =
with
lurid metaphors quite refreshing after a month of unimaginative, monotonous
Cockney swearing. The Cockney=
has
one oath, and one oath only, the most indecent in the language, which he us=
es
on any and every occasion. Far
different is the luminous and varied Western swearing, which runs to blasph=
emy
rather than indecency. And af=
ter
all, since men will swear, I think I prefer blasphemy to indecency; there i=
s an
audacity about it, an adventurousness and defiance that is better than sheer
filthiness.
There was one
American tramp royal whom I found particularly enjoyable. I first noticed him on the street,
asleep in a doorway, his head on his knees, but a hat on his head that one =
does
not meet this side of the Western Ocean.&n=
bsp;
When the policeman routed him out, he got up slowly and deliberately,
looked at the policeman, yawned and stretched himself, looked at the police=
man
again as much as to say he didn't know whether he would or wouldn't, and th=
en
sauntered leisurely down the sidewalk.&nbs=
p;
At the outset I was sure of the hat, but this made me sure of the we=
arer
of the hat.
In the jam inside=
I
found myself alongside of him, and we had quite a chat. He had been through Spain, Italy,
Switzerland, and France, and had accomplished the practically impossible fe=
at
of beating his way three hundred miles on a French railway without being ca=
ught
at the finish. Where was I hanging out? he asked. And how did I manage for "kip=
ping"?--which
means sleeping. Did I know the
rounds yet? He was getting on,
though the country was "horstyl" and the cities were "bum.&q=
uot;
Fierce, wasn't it? Couldn't
"batter" (beg) anywhere without being "pinched." But he wasn't going to quit it.
And so, after all,
blood is thicker than water. =
We
were fellow-countrymen and strangers in a strange land. I had warmed to his battered old h=
at at
sight of it, and he was as solicitous for my welfare as if we were blood
brothers. We swapped all mann=
er of
useful information concerning the country and the ways of its people, metho=
ds
by which to obtain food and shelter and what not, and we parted genuinely s=
orry
at having to say good-bye.
One thing
particularly conspicuous in this crowd was the shortness of stature. I, who am but of medium height, lo=
oked
over the heads of nine out of ten.
The natives were all short, as were the foreign sailors. There were =
only
five or six in the crowd who could be called fairly tall, and they were
Scandinavians and Americans. =
The
tallest man there, however, was an exception. He was an Englishman, though not a
Londoner. "Candidate for the Life Guards," I remarked to him. "You've hit it, mate," w=
as his
reply; "I've served my bit in that same, and the way things are I'll be
back at it before long."
For an hour we st=
ood
quietly in this packed courtyard.
Then the men began to grow restless. There was pushing and shoving forw=
ard,
and a mild hubbub of voices.
Nothing rough, however, nor violent; merely the restlessness of weary
and hungry men. At this junct=
ure
forth came the adjutant. I di=
d not
like him. His eyes were not
good. There was nothing of the
lowly Galilean about him, but a great deal of the centurion who said: "=
;For
I am a man in authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this man, G=
o,
and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do th=
is,
and he doeth it."
Well, he looked a=
t us
in just that way, and those nearest to him quailed. Then he lifted his voic=
e.
"Stop this '=
ere,
now, or I'll turn you the other wy an' march you out, an' you'll get no
breakfast."
I cannot convey by
printed speech the insufferable way in which he said this. He seemed to me to revel in that h=
e was
a man in authority, able to say to half a thousand ragged wretches, "y=
ou
may eat or go hungry, as I elect."
To deny us our
breakfast after standing for hours!
It was an awful threat, and the pitiful, abject silence which instan=
tly
fell attested its awfulness. =
And it
was a cowardly threat. We cou=
ld not
strike back, for we were starving; and it is the way of the world that when=
one
man feeds another he is that man's master. But the centurion--I mean the adjut=
ant--was
not satisfied. In the dead si=
lence
he raised his voice again, and repeated the threat, and amplified it.
At last we were
permitted to enter the feasting hall, where we found the "ticket men&q=
uot;
washed but unfed. All told, t=
here
must have been nearly seven hundred of us who sat down--not to meat or brea=
d,
but to speech, song, and prayer.
From all of which I am convinced that Tantalus suffers in many guises
this side of the infernal regions.
The adjutant made the prayer, but I did not take note of it, being t=
oo
engrossed with the massed picture of misery before me. But the speech ran something like =
this:
"You will feast in Paradise.
No matter how you starve and suffer here, you will feast in Paradise,
that is, if you will follow the directions." And so forth and so forth. A clever bit of propaganda, I took=
it,
but rendered of no avail for two reasons.&=
nbsp;
First, the men who received it were unimaginative and materialistic,
unaware of the existence of any Unseen, and too inured to hell on earth to =
be
frightened by hell to come. A=
nd
second, weary and exhausted from the night's sleeplessness and hardship,
suffering from the long wait upon their feet, and faint from hunger, they w=
ere
yearning, not for salvation, but for grub.=
The "soul-snatchers" (as these men call all religious prop=
agandists),
should study the physiological basis of psychology a little, if they wish to
make their efforts more effective.
All in good time,
about eleven o'clock, breakfast arrived.&n=
bsp;
It arrived, not on plates, but in paper parcels. I did not have all I wanted, and I=
am
sure that no man there had all he wanted, or half of what he wanted or need=
ed. I gave part of my bread to the tra=
mp
royal who was waiting for Buffalo Bill, and he was as ravenous at the end a=
s he
was in the beginning. This is=
the
breakfast: two slices of bread, one small piece of bread with raisins in it=
and
called "cake," a wafer of cheese, and a mug of "water
bewitched." Numbers of t=
he men
had been waiting since five o'clock for it, while all of us had waited at l=
east
four hours; and in addition, we had been herded like swine, packed like
sardines, and treated like curs, and been preached at, and sung to, and pra=
yed
for. Nor was that all.
No sooner was
breakfast over (and it was over almost as quickly as it takes to tell), than
the tired heads began to nod and droop, and in five minutes half of us were
sound asleep. There were no s=
igns
of our being dismissed, while there were unmistakable signs of preparation =
for
a meeting. I looked at a small
clock hanging on the wall. It
indicated twenty-five minutes to twelve.&n=
bsp;
Heigh-ho, thought I, time is flying, and I have yet to look for work=
.
"I want to
go," I said to a couple of waking men near me.
"Got ter sty=
fer
the service," was the answer.
"Do you want=
to
stay?" I asked.
They shook their
heads.
"Then let us=
go
and tell them we want to get out," I continued. "Come on."
But the poor
creatures were aghast. So I l=
eft
them to their fate, and went up to the nearest Salvation Army man.
"I want to
go," I said. "I cam=
e here
for breakfast in order that I might be in shape to look for work. I didn't think it would take so lo=
ng to get
breakfast. I think I have a c=
hance
for work in Stepney, and the sooner I start, the better chance I'll have of
getting it."
He was really a g=
ood
fellow, though he was startled by my request. "Wy," he said, "we'=
re
goin' to 'old services, and you'd better sty."
"But that wi=
ll
spoil my chances for work," I urged.&=
nbsp;
"And work is the most important thing for me just now."
As he was only a
private, he referred me to the adjutant, and to the adjutant I repeated my
reasons for wishing to go, and politely requested that he let me go.
"But it cawn=
't
be done," he said, waxing virtuously indignant at such ingratitude.
"Do you mean=
to
say that I can't get out of here?" I demanded. "That you will keep me here a=
gainst
my will?"
"Yes," =
he
snorted.
I do not know what
might have happened, for I was waxing indignant myself; but the
"congregation" had "piped" the situation, and he drew m=
e over
to a corner of the room, and then into another room. Here he again demanded my reasons =
for
wishing to go.
"I want to
go," I said, "because I wish to look for work over in Stepney, and
every hour lessens my chance of finding work. It is now twenty-five minutes to
twelve. I did not think when =
I came
in that it would take so long to get a breakfast."
"You 'ave
business, eh?" he sneered.
"A man of business you are, eh? Then wot did you come 'ere
for?"
"I was out a=
ll
night, and I needed a breakfast in order to strengthen me to find work. That is why I came here."
"A nice thin=
g to
do," he went on in the same sneering manner. "A man with business shouldn'=
t come
'ere. You've tyken some poor =
man's breakfast
'ere this morning, that's wot you've done."
Which was a lie, =
for
every mother's son of us had come in.
Now I submit, was
this Christian-like, or even honest?--after I had plainly stated that I was
homeless and hungry, and that I wished to look for work, for him to call my
looking for work "business," to call me therefore a business man,=
and
to draw the corollary that a man of business, and well off, did not require=
a
charity breakfast, and that by taking a charity breakfast I had robbed some
hungry waif who was not a man of business.
I kept my temper,=
but
I went over the facts again, and clearly and concisely demonstrated to him =
how
unjust he was and how he had perverted the facts. As I manifested no signs of backin=
g down
(and I am sure my eyes were beginning to snap), he led me to the rear of the
building where, in an open court, stood a tent. In the same sneering tone he infor=
med a
couple of privates standing there that "'ere is a fellow that 'as busi=
ness
an' 'e wants to go before services."
They were duly
shocked, of course, and they looked unutterable horror while he went into t=
he
tent and brought out the major.
Still in the same sneering manner, laying particular stress on the
"business," he brought my case before the commanding officer. The major was of a different stamp=
of
man. I liked him as soon as I=
saw
him, and to him I stated my case in the same fashion as before.
"Didn't you =
know
you had to stay for services?" he asked.
"Certainly
not," I answered, "or I should have gone without my breakfast. You
have no placards posted to that effect, nor was I so informed when I entered
the place."
He meditated a
moment. "You can go,&quo=
t; he
said.
It was twelve o'c=
lock
when I gained the street, and I couldn't quite make up my mind whether I had
been in the army or in prison. The
day was half gone, and it was a far fetch to Stepney. And besides, it was Sunday, and why
should even a starving man look for work on Sunday? Furthermore, it was my judgment th=
at I
had done a hard night's work walking the streets, and a hard day's work get=
ting
my breakfast; so I disconnected myself from my working hypothesis of a star=
ving
young man in search of employment, hailed a bus, and climbed aboard.
After a shave and=
a
bath, with my clothes all off, I got in between clean white sheets and went=
to
sleep. It was six in the even=
ing
when I closed my eyes. When t=
hey
opened again, the clocks were striking nine next morning. I had slept fifteen straight hours=
. And as I lay there drowsily, my mi=
nd went
back to the seven hundred unfortunates I had left waiting for services. No bath, no shave for them, no cle=
an
white sheets and all clothes off, and fifteen hours' straight sleep. Services over, it was the weary st=
reets
again, the problem of a crust of bread ere night, and the long sleepless ni=
ght
in the streets, and the pondering of the problem of how to obtain a crust at
dawn.
CHAPTER XII--CORONATION D=
AY
O thou that sea-walls sever =
From lands unwalled by =
seas! Wilt thou endure foreve=
r, O Milton's England, these? Thou that wast his Repu=
blic, Wilt thou clasp their k=
nees? These royalties rust-ea=
ten, These worm-corroded lie=
s That keep thy head
storm-beaten, And
sun-like strength of eyes From the open air and h=
eaven Of intercepted skies!
SWINBURNE.
Vivat Rex
Eduardus! They crowned a king=
this
day, and there has been great rejoicing and elaborate tomfoolery, and I am
perplexed and saddened. I nev=
er saw
anything to compare with the pageant, except Yankee circuses and Alhambra
ballets; nor did I ever see anything so hopeless and so tragic.
To have enjoyed t=
he
Coronation procession, I should have come straight from America to the Hotel
Cecil, and straight from the Hotel Cecil to a five-guinea seat among the
washed. My mistake was in com=
ing
from the unwashed of the East End.
There were not many who came from that quarter. The East End, as a whole, remained=
in
the East End and got drunk. T=
he
Socialists, Democrats, and Republicans went off to the country for a breath=
of
fresh air, quite unaffected by the fact that four hundred millions of people
were taking to themselves a crowned and anointed ruler. Six thousand five hundred prelates,
priests, statesmen, princes, and warriors beheld the crowning and anointing,
and the rest of us the pageant as it passed.
I saw it at Trafa=
lgar
Square, "the most splendid site in Europe," and the very innermost
heart of the empire. There we=
re
many thousands of us, all checked and held in order by a superb display of
armed power. The line of marc=
h was
double-walled with soldiers. =
The
base of the Nelson Column was triple-fringed with bluejackets. Eastward, at the entrance to the s=
quare,
stood the Royal Marine Artillery.
In the triangle of Pall Mall and Cockspur Street, the statue of Geor=
ge
III. was buttressed on either side by the Lancers and Hussars. To the west were the red-coats of =
the Royal
Marines, and from the Union Club to the embouchure of Whitehall swept the
glittering, massive curve of the 1st Life Guards--gigantic men mounted on
gigantic chargers, steel-breastplated, steel-helmeted, steel- caparisoned, a
great war-sword of steel ready to the hand of the powers that be. And further, throughout the crowd,=
were
flung long lines of the Metropolitan Constabulary, while in the rear were t=
he
reserves--tall, well-fed men, with weapons to wield and muscles to wield th=
em
in ease of need.
And as it was thu=
s at
Trafalgar Square, so was it along the whole line of march--force, overpower=
ing
force; myriads of men, splendid men, the pick of the people, whose sole
function in life is blindly to obey, and blindly to kill and destroy and st=
amp
out life. And that they shoul=
d be well
fed, well clothed, and well armed, and have ships to hurl them to the ends =
of
the earth, the East End of London, and the "East End" of all Engl=
and,
toils and rots and dies.
There is a Chinese
proverb that if one man lives in laziness another will die of hunger; and
Montesquieu has said, "The fact that many men are occupied in making
clothes for one individual is the cause of there being many people without
clothes." So one explain=
s the
other. We cannot understand t=
he
starved and runty {2} toiler of the East End (living with his family in a
one-room den, and letting out the floor space for lodgings to other starved=
and
runty toilers) till we look at the strapping Life Guardsmen of the West End,
and come to know that the one must feed and clothe and groom the other.
And while in
Westminster Abbey the people were taking unto themselves a king, I, jammed
between the Life Guards and Constabulary of Trafalgar Square, was dwelling =
upon
the time when the people of Israel first took unto themselves a king. You all know how it runs. The elders came to the prophet Sam=
uel,
and said: "Make us a king to judge us like all the nations."
And the Lord said unto Samue=
l: Now
therefore hearken unto their voice; howbeit thou shalt show=
them
the manner of the king that shall reign over them.
And Samuel told all the word=
s of
the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king, and he s=
aid:
This will be the manner of t=
he
king that shall reign over you; he will take your sons, and app=
oint
them unto him, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and they =
shall
run before his chariots.
And he will appoint them unt=
o him
for captains of thousands, and captains of fifties; an=
d he
will set some to plough his ground, and to reap his harvest, and t=
o make
his instruments of war, and the instruments of his char=
iots.
And he will take your daught=
ers to
be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers=
.
And he will take your fields=
and
your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, =
and
give them to his servants.
And he will take a tenth of =
your
seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to=
his
servants.
And he will take your menser=
vants,
and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, an=
d your
asses, and put them to his work.
He will take a tenth of your
flocks; and ye shall be his servants.
And ye shall call out in tha=
t day
because of your king which ye shall have chosen you; and th=
e Lord
will not answer you in that day.
All of which came=
to
pass in that ancient day, and they did cry out to Samuel, saying: "Pray
for thy servants unto the Lord thy God, that we die not; for we have added =
unto
all our sins this evil, to ask us a king." And after Saul, David, and
Solomon, came Rehoboam, who "answered the people roughly, saying: My
father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father chastis=
ed
you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions."
And in these latt=
er
days, five hundred hereditary peers own one-fifth of England; and they, and=
the
officers and servants under the King, and those who go to compose the powers
that be, yearly spend in wasteful luxury
1,850,000,000, or
370,000,000 pounds, which is thirty-two per cent. of the total wealth produ=
ced
by all the toilers of the country.
At the Abbey, cla=
d in
wonderful golden raiment, amid fanfare of trumpets and throbbing of music,
surrounded by a brilliant throng of masters, lords, and rulers, the King was
being invested with the insignia of his sovereignty. The spurs were placed to his heels=
by
the Lord Great Chamberlain, and a sword of state, in purple scabbard, was p=
resented
him by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with these words:-
Receive this kingly sword br=
ought
now from the altar of God, and delivered to you by the=
hands
of the bishops and servants of God, though unworthy.
Whereupon, being
girded, he gave heed to the Archbishop's exhortation:-
With this sword do justice, =
stop
the growth of iniquity, protect the Holy Church of God, hel=
p and
defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to
decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss, and
confirm what is in good order.
But hark! There is cheering down Whitehall; =
the
crowd sways, the double walls of soldiers come to attention, and into view
swing the King's watermen, in fantastic mediaeval garbs of red, for all the
world like the van of a circus parade.&nbs=
p;
Then a royal carriage, filled with ladies and gentlemen of the
household, with powdered footmen and coachmen most gorgeously arrayed. More carriages, lords, and chamber=
lains,
viscounts, mistresses of the robes--lackeys all. Then the warriors, a kingly escort,
generals, bronzed and worn, from the ends of the earth come up to London To=
wn,
volunteer officers, officers of the militia and regular forces; Spens and
Plumer, Broadwood and Cooper who relieved Ookiep, Mathias of Dargai, Dixon =
of
Vlakfontein; General Gaselee and Admiral Seymour of China; Kitchener of
Khartoum; Lord Roberts of India and all the world--the fighting men of Engl=
and,
masters of destruction, engineers of death! Another race of men from those of =
the
shops and slums, a totally different race of men.
But here they com=
e,
in all the pomp and certitude of power, and still they come, these men of
steel, these war lords and world harnessers. Pell- mell, peers and commoners, p=
rinces
and maharajahs, Equerries to the King and Yeomen of the Guard. And here the colonials, lithe and =
hardy
men; and here all the breeds of all the world-soldiers from Canada, Austral=
ia, New
Zealand; from Bermuda, Borneo, Fiji, and the Gold Coast; from Rhodesia, Cap=
e Colony,
Natal, Sierra Leone and Gambia, Nigeria, and Uganda; from Ceylon, Cyprus,
Hong-Kong, Jamaica, and Wei-Hai-Wei; from Lagos, Malta, St. Lucia, Singapor=
e,
Trinidad. And here the conque=
red
men of Ind, swarthy horsemen and sword wielders, fiercely barbaric, blazing=
in
crimson and scarlet, Sikhs, Rajputs, Burmese, province by province, and cas=
te
by caste.
And now the Horse
Guards, a glimpse of beautiful cream ponies, and a golden panoply, a hurric=
ane
of cheers, the crashing of bands--"The King! the King! God save the King!" Everybody has gone mad. The contagion is sweeping me off my
feet--I, too, want to shout, "The King! God save the King!" Ragged men about me, tears in their
eyes, are tossing up their hats and crying ecstatically, "Bless 'em! Bless 'em! Bless 'em!" See, there he is, in that wondrous
golden coach, the great crown flashing on his head, the woman in white besi=
de
him likewise crowned.
And I check myself
with a rush, striving to convince myself that it is all real and rational, =
and
not some glimpse of fairyland. This
I cannot succeed in doing, and it is better so. I much prefer to believe that all =
this
pomp, and vanity, and show, and mumbo-jumbo foolery has come from fairyland,
than to believe it the performance of sane and sensible people who have
mastered matter and solved the secrets of the stars.
Princes and
princelings, dukes, duchesses, and all manner of coroneted folk of the royal
train are flashing past; more warriors, and lackeys, and conquered peoples,=
and
the pagent is over. I drift w=
ith
the crowd out of the square into a tangle of narrow streets, where the publ=
ic-houses
are a-roar with drunkenness, men, women, and children mixed together in
colossal debauch. And on ever=
y side
is rising the favourite song of the Coronation:-
"Oh! on Coronation Day,=
on
Coronation Day, W=
e'll
have a spree, a jubilee, and shout, Hip, hip, hooray, For we'll all be marry,
drinking whisky, wine, and sherry, We'll all be merry on
Coronation Day."
The rain is pouri=
ng
down. Up the street come troo=
ps of
the auxiliaries, black Africans and yellow Asiatics, beturbaned and befezed,
and coolies swinging along with machine guns and mountain batteries on their
heads, and the bare feet of all, in quick rhythm, going slish, slish, slish=
through
the pavement mud. The public-=
houses
empty by magic, and the swarthy allegiants are cheered by their British
brothers, who return at once to the carouse.
"And how did=
you
like the procession, mate?" I asked an old man on a bench in Green Par=
k.
"'Ow did I l=
ike
it? A bloomin' good chawnce, =
sez I
to myself, for a sleep, wi' all the coppers aw'y, so I turned into the corn=
er
there, along wi' fifty others. But
I couldn't sleep, a-lyin' there an' thinkin' 'ow I'd worked all the years o=
' my
life an' now 'ad no plyce to rest my 'ead; an' the music comin' to me, an' =
the
cheers an' cannon, till I got almost a hanarchist an' wanted to blow out the
brains o' the Lord Chamberlain."
Why the Lord
Chamberlain I could not precisely see, nor could he, but that was the way he
felt, he said conclusively, and them was no more discussion.
As night drew on,=
the
city became a blaze of light.
Splashes of colour, green, amber, and ruby, caught the eye at every
point, and "E. R.," in great crystal letters and backed by flamin=
g gas,
was everywhere. The crowds in=
the
streets increased by hundreds of thousands, and though the police sternly p=
ut
down mafficking, drunkenness and rough play abounded. The tired workers see=
med
to have gone mad with the relaxation and excitement, and they surged and da=
nced
down the streets, men and women, old and young, with linked arms and in long
rows, singing, "I may be crazy, but I love you," "Dolly
Gray," and "The Honeysuckle and the Bee"--the last rendered
something like this:-
"Yew aw the enny, ennys=
eckle,
Oi em ther bee, O=
i'd
like ter sip ther enny from those red lips, yew see."
I sat on a bench =
on
the Thames Embankment, looking across the illuminated water. It was approaching midnight, and b=
efore
me poured the better class of merrymakers, shunning the more riotous streets
and returning home. On the be=
nch
beside me sat two ragged creatures, a man and a woman, nodding and dozing.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The woman sat with her arms clasped
across the breast, holding tightly, her body in constant play--now dropping=
forward
till it seemed its balance would be overcome and she would fall to the
pavement; now inclining to the left, sideways, till her head rested on the
man's shoulder; and now to the right, stretched and strained, till the pain=
of
it awoke her and she sat bolt upright. Whereupon the dropping forward would
begin again and go through its cycle till she was aroused by the strain and
stretch.
Every little while
boys and young men stopped long enough to go behind the bench and give vent=
to
sudden and fiendish shouts. T=
his
always jerked the man and woman abruptly from their sleep; and at sight of =
the startled
woe upon their faces the crowd would roar with laughter as it flooded past.=
This was the most
striking thing, the general heartlessness exhibited on every hand. It is a commonplace, the homeless =
on the
benches, the poor miserable folk who may be teased and are harmless. Fifty thousand people must have pa=
ssed
the bench while I sat upon it, and not one, on such a jubilee occasion as t=
he
crowning of the King, felt his heart-strings touched sufficiently to come up
and say to the woman: "Here's sixpence; go and get a bed." But the women, especially the young
women, made witty remarks upon the woman nodding, and invariably set their
companions laughing.
To use a Briticis=
m,
it was "cruel"; the corresponding Americanism was more
appropriate--it was "fierce."&nb=
sp;
I confess I began to grow incensed at this happy crowd streaming by,=
and
to extract a sort of satisfaction from the London statistics which demonstr=
ate
that one in every four adults is destined to die on public charity, either =
in
the workhouse, the infirmary, or the asylum.
I talked with the
man. He was fifty-four and a
broken-down docker. He could =
only
find odd work when there was a large demand for labour, for the younger and
stronger men were preferred when times were slack. He had spent a week, now, on the b=
enches
of the Embankment; but things looked brighter for next week, and he might
possibly get in a few days' work and have a bed in some doss-house. He had lived all his life in Londo=
n,
save for five years, when, in 1878, he saw foreign service in India.
Of course he would
eat; so would the girl. Days =
like
this were uncommon hard on such as they, though the coppers were so busy po=
or
folk could get in more sleep. I
awoke the girl, or woman, rather, for she was "Eyght an' twenty,
sir," and we started for a coffee-house.
"Wot a lot o'
work puttin' up the lights," said the man at sight of some building
superbly illuminated. This wa=
s the
keynote of his being. All his=
life
he had worked, and the whole objective universe, as well as his own soul, he
could express in terms only of work.
"Coronations is some good," he went on. "They give work to men."=
"But your be=
lly
is empty," I said.
"Yes," = he answered. "I tried, but there wasn't any chawnce. My age is against me= . Wot do you work at? Seafarin' chap, eh? I knew it from yer clothes."<= o:p>
"I know wot =
you
are," said the girl, "an Eyetalian."
"No 'e
ayn't," the man cried heatedly.
"'E's a Yank, that's wot 'e is. I know."
"Lord lumne,
look a' that," she exclaimed, as we debauched upon the Strand, choked =
with
the roaring, reeling Coronation crowd, the men bellowing and the girls sing=
ing
in high throaty notes:-
"Oh! on Coronation D'y,=
on
Coronation D'y, W=
e'll
'ave a spree, a jubilee, an' shout 'Ip, 'ip, 'ooray; For we'll all be merry,
drinkin' whisky, wine, and sherry, We'll all be merry on
Coronation D'y."
"'Ow dirty I=
am,
bein' around the w'y I 'ave," the woman said, as she sat down in a
coffee-house, wiping the sleep and grime from the corners of her eyes. "An' the sights I 'ave seen t=
his
d'y, an' I enjoyed it, though it was lonesome by myself. An' the duchesses an' the lydies '=
ad
sich gran' w'ite dresses. The=
y was
jest bu'ful, bu'ful."
"I'm
Irish," she said, in answer to a question. "My nyme's Eyethorne."
"What?"=
I
asked.
"Eyethorne, =
sir;
Eyethorne."
"Spell it.&q=
uot;
"H-a-y-t-h-o=
-r-n-e,
Eyethorne.'
"Oh," I
said, "Irish Cockney."
"Yes, sir,
London-born."
She had lived hap=
pily
at home till her father died, killed in an accident, when she had found her=
self
on the world. One brother was=
in the
army, and the other brother, engaged in keeping a wife and eight children on
twenty shillings a week and unsteady employment, could do nothing for her.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> She had been out of London once in=
her
life, to a place in Essex, twelve miles away, where she had picked fruit for
three weeks: "An' I was as brown as a berry w'en I come back. You won't b'lieve it, but I was.&q=
uot;
The last place in
which she had worked was a coffee-house, hours from seven in the morning ti=
ll
eleven at night, and for which she had received five shillings a week and h=
er
food. Then she had fallen sic=
k, and
since emerging from the hospital had been unable to find anything to do.
Between them they
stowed away a prodigious amount of food, this man and woman, and it was not
till I had duplicated and triplicated their original orders that they showed
signs of easing down.
Once she reached
across and felt the texture of my coat and shirt, and remarked upon the good
clothes the Yanks wore. My ra=
gs
good clothes! It put me to the
blush; but, on inspecting them more closely and on examining the clothes wo=
rn
by the man and woman, I began to feel quite well dressed and respectable.
"What do you
expect to do in the end?" I asked them. "You know you're growing older
every day."
"Work'ouse,&=
quot;
said he.
"Gawd blimey=
if
I do," said she. "T=
here's
no 'ope for me, I know, but I'll die on the streets. No work'ouse for me, thank you.
"After you h=
ave
been out all night in the streets," I asked, "what do you do in t=
he
morning for something to eat?"
"Try to get a
penny, if you 'aven't one saved over," the man explained. "Then g=
o to
a coffee-'ouse an' get a mug o' tea."
"But I don't=
see
how that is to feed you," I objected.
The pair smiled
knowingly.
"You drink y=
our
tea in little sips," he went on, "making it last its longest. An' you look sharp, an' there's so=
me as
leaves a bit be'ind 'em."
"It's s'pris=
in',
the food wot some people leaves," the woman broke in.
"The
thing," said the man judicially, as the trick dawned upon me, "is=
to get
'old o' the penny."
As we started to
leave, Miss Haythorne gathered up a couple of crusts from the neighbouring
tables and thrust them somewhere into her rags.
"Cawn't wyste
'em, you know," said she; to which the docker nodded, tucking away a
couple of crusts himself.
At three in the
morning I strolled up the Embankment.
It was a gala night for the homeless, for the police were elsewhere;=
and
each bench was jammed with sleeping occupants. There were as many women as men, a=
nd the
great majority of them, male and female, were old. Occasionally a boy was to be seen.=
On one bench I noticed a family, a=
man
sitting upright with a sleeping babe in his arms, his wife asleep, her head=
on
his shoulder, and in her lap the head of a sleeping youngster. The man's eyes were wide open.
One cannot walk a=
long
the Thames Embankment, in the small hours of morning, from the Houses of
Parliament, past Cleopatra's Needle, to Waterloo Bridge, without being remi=
nded
of the sufferings, seven and twenty centuries old, recited by the author of
"Job":-
There are that remove the
landmarks; they violently take away flocks and feed them.
They drive away the ass of t=
he
fatherless, they take the widow's ox for a pledge.
They turn the needy out of t=
he
way; the poor of the earth hide themselves together.
Behold, as wild asses in the
desert they go forth to their work, seeking diligently for =
meat;
the wilderness yieldeth them food for their children.
They cut their provender in =
the
field, and they glean the vintage of the wicked.
They lie all night naked wit=
hout
clothing, and have no covering in the cold.
They are wet with the shower= s of the mountains, and embrace the rock for want of a shelter.<= o:p>
There are that pluck the
fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor.
So that they go about naked
without clothing, and being an hungered they carry the sheaves.=
--Job
xxiv. 2-10.
Seven and twenty
centuries agone! And it is al=
l as true
and apposite to- day in the innermost centre of this Christian civilisation
whereof Edward VII. is king.
CHAPTER XIII--DAN CULLEN,
DOCKER
I stood, yesterday, in a room in on=
e of
the "Municipal Dwellings," not far from Leman Street. If I looked into a dreary future a=
nd saw
that I would have to live in such a room until I died, I should immediately=
go down,
plump into the Thames, and cut the tenancy short.
It was not a
room. Courtesy to the languag=
e will
no more permit it to be called a room than it will permit a hovel to be cal=
led
a mansion. It was a den, a
lair. Seven feet by eight wer=
e its
dimensions, and the ceiling was so low as not to give the cubic air space
required by a British soldier in barracks.=
A crazy couch, with ragged coverlets, occupied nearly half the
room. A rickety table, a chai=
r, and
a couple of boxes left little space in which to turn around. Five dollars would have purchased
everything in sight. The floo=
r was
bare, while the walls and ceiling were literally covered with blood marks a=
nd
splotches. Each mark represen=
ted a
violent death--of an insect, for the place swarmed with vermin, a plague wi=
th
which no person could cope single-handed.
The man who had
occupied this hole, one Dan Cullen, docker, was dying in hospital. Yet he had impressed his personalit=
y on
his miserable surroundings sufficiently to give an inkling as to what sort =
of
man he was. On the walls were=
cheap
pictures of Garibaldi, Engels, Dan Burns, and other labour leaders, while on
the table lay one of Walter Besant's novels. He knew his Shakespeare, I was tol=
d, and
had read history, sociology, and economics. And he was self-educated.
On the table, ami=
dst
a wonderful disarray, lay a sheet of paper on which was scrawled: Mr. Culle=
n,
please return the large white jug and corkscrew I lent you--articles loaned,
during the first stages of his sickness, by a woman neighbour, and demanded
back in anticipation of his death.
A large white jug and a corkscrew are far too valuable to a creature=
of
the Abyss to permit another creature to die in peace. To the last, Dan Cullen's soul mus=
t be
harrowed by the sordidness out of which it strove vainly to rise.
It is a brief lit=
tle
story, the story of Dan Cullen, but there is much to read between the
lines. He was born lowly, in =
a city
and land where the lines of caste are tightly drawn. All his days he toiled hard with h=
is body;
and because he had opened the books, and been caught up by the fires of the
spirit, and could "write a letter like a lawyer," he had been sel=
ected
by his fellows to toil hard for them with his brain. He became a leader of the fruit-po=
rters,
represented the dockers on the London Trades Council, and wrote trenchant
articles for the labour journals.
He did not cringe=
to
other men, even though they were his economic masters, and controlled the m=
eans
whereby he lived, and he spoke his mind freely, and fought the good fight.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> In the "Great Dock Strike&quo=
t; he
was guilty of taking a leading part.
And that was the end of Dan Cullen. From that day he was a marked ma=
n,
and every day, for ten years and more, he was "paid off" for what=
he
had done.
A docker is a cas=
ual
labourer. Work ebbs and flows=
, and
he works or does not work according to the amount of goods on hand to be
moved. Dan Cullen was discrim=
inated
against. While he was not
absolutely turned away (which would have caused trouble, and which would
certainly have been more merciful), he was called in by the foreman to do n=
ot
more than two or three days' work per week. This is what is called being "=
;disciplined,"
or "drilled." It me=
ans
being starved. There is no po=
liter
word. Ten years of it broke h=
is
heart, and broken-hearted men cannot live.
He took to his be=
d in
his terrible den, which grew more terrible with his helplessness. He was without kith or kin, a lone=
ly old
man, embittered and pessimistic, fighting vermin the while and looking at
Garibaldi, Engels, and Dan Burns gazing down at him from the blood-bespatte=
red walls. No one came to see him in that cro=
wded
municipal barracks (he had made friends with none of them), and he was left=
to
rot.
But from the far
reaches of the East End came a cobbler and his son, his sole friends. They cleansed his room, brought fr=
esh
linen from home, and took from off his limbs the sheets, greyish-black with
dirt. And they brought to him=
one
of the Queen's Bounty nurses from Aldgate.
She washed his fa= ce, shook up his conch, and talked with him.&n= bsp; It was interesting to talk with him--until he learned her name. Oh, yes, Blank was her name, she r= eplied innocently, and Sir George Blank was her brother. Sir George Blank, eh? thundered ol= d Dan Cullen on his death- bed; Sir George Blank, solicitor to the docks at Cardi= ff, who, more than any other man, had broken up the Dockers' Union of Cardiff, = and was knighted? And she was his sister? Thereupon Dan Cullen = sat up on his crazy couch and pronounced anathema upon her and all her breed; and = she fled, to return no more, strongly impressed with the ungratefulness of the poor.<= o:p>
Dan Cullen's feet became swollen with dropsy. H= e sat up all day on the side of the bed (to keep the water out of his body), no m= at on the floor, a thin blanket on his legs, and an old coat around his shoulders. A missionary broug= ht him a pair of paper slippers, worth fourpence (I saw them), and proceeded to of= fer up fifty prayers or so for the good of Dan Cullen's soul. But Dan Cullen was the sort of man= that wanted his soul left alone. H= e did not care to have Tom, Dick, or Harry, on the strength of fourpenny slippers, tampering with it. He asked t= he missionary kindly to open the window, so that he might toss the slippers out. And the missionary went = away, to return no more, likewise impressed with the ungratefulness of the poor.<= o:p>
The cobbler, a br=
ave
old hero himself, though unaneled and unsung, went privily to the head offi=
ce
of the big fruit brokers for whom Dan Cullen had worked as a casual labourer
for thirty years. Their syste=
m was
such that the work was almost entirely done by casual hands. The cobbler told them the man's
desperate plight, old, broken, dying, without help or money, reminded them =
that
he had worked for them thirty years, and asked them to do something for him=
.
"Oh," s=
aid
the manager, remembering Dan Cullen without having to refer to the books,
"you see, we make it a rule never to help casuals, and we can do
nothing."
Nor did they do
anything, not even sign a letter asking for Dan Cullen's admission to a
hospital. And it is not so ea=
sy to
get into a hospital in London Town.
At Hampstead, if he passed the doctors, at least four months would
elapse before he could get in, there were so many on the books ahead of
him. The cobbler finally got =
him
into the Whitechapel Infirmary, where he visited him frequently. Here he found that Dan Cullen had
succumbed to the prevalent feeling, that, being hopeless, they were hurrying
him out of the way. A fair and
logical conclusion, one must agree, for an old and broken man to arrive at,=
who
has been resolutely "disciplined" and "drilled" for ten
years. When they sweated him =
for
Bright's disease to remove the fat from the kidneys, Dan Cullen contended t=
hat
the sweating was hastening his death; while Bright's disease, being a wasti=
ng
away of the kidneys, there was therefore no fat to remove, and the doctor's
excuse was a palpable lie. Whereupon the doctor became wroth, =
and
did not come near him for nine days.
Then his bed was
tilted up so that his feet and legs were elevated. At once dropsy appeared in the bod=
y, and
Dan Cullen contended that the thing was done in order to run the water down
into his body from his legs and kill him more quickly. He demanded his discharge, though =
they
told him he would die on the stairs, and dragged himself, more dead than al=
ive,
to the cobbler's shop. At the
moment of writing this, he is dying at the Temperance Hospital, into which
place his staunch friend, the cobbler, moved heaven and earth to have him
admitted.
Poor Dan Cullen!<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> A Jude the Obscure, who reached out
after knowledge; who toiled with his body in the day and studied in the wat=
ches
of the night; who dreamed his dream and struck valiantly for the Cause; a p=
atriot,
a lover of human freedom, and a fighter unafraid; and in the end, not gigan=
tic
enough to beat down the conditions which baffled and stifled him, a cynic a=
nd a
pessimist, gasping his final agony on a pauper's couch in a charity
ward,--"For a man to die who might have been wise and was not, this I =
call
a tragedy."
CHAPTER XIV--HOPS AND HOP=
PERS
So far has the divorcement of the w=
orker
from the soil proceeded, that the farming districts, the civilised world ov=
er,
are dependent upon the cities for the gathering of the harvests. Then it is, when the land is spill=
ing
its ripe wealth to waste, that the street folk, who have been driven away f=
rom
the soil, are called back to it again.&nbs=
p;
But in England they return, not as prodigals, but as outcasts still,=
as
vagrants and pariahs, to be doubted and flouted by their country brethren, =
to
sleep in jails and casual wards, or under the hedges, and to live the Lord
knows how.
It is estimated t=
hat
Kent alone requires eighty thousand of the street people to pick her hops.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> And out they come, obedient to the=
call,
which is the call of their bellies and of the lingering dregs of adventure-=
lust
still in them. Slum, stews, a=
nd
ghetto pour them forth, and the festering contents of slum, stews, and ghet=
to
are undiminished. Yet they ov=
errun
the country like an army of ghouls, and the country does not want them. They are out of place. As they drag their squat, misshapen
bodies along the highways and byways, they resemble some vile spawn from un=
derground. Their very presence, the fact of t=
heir
existence, is an outrage to the fresh, bright sun and the green and growing
things. The clean, upstanding=
trees
cry shame upon them and their withered crookedness, and their rottenness is=
a
slimy desecration of the sweetness and purity of nature.
Is the picture
overdrawn? It all depends.
But to return to =
the
hops. Here the divorcement fr=
om the
soil is as apparent as in every other agricultural line in England. While the manufacture of beer stea=
dily
increases, the growth of hops steadily decreases. In 1835 the acreage under hops was
71,327. To-day it stands at 4=
8,024,
a decrease of 3103 from the acreage of last year.
Small as the acre=
age
is this year, a poor summer and terrible storms reduced the yield. This misfortune is divided between=
the
people who own hops and the people who pick hops. The owners perforce must put up wi=
th less
of the nicer things of life, the pickers with less grub, of which, in the b=
est
of times, they never get enough.
For weary weeks headlines like the following have appeared in the Lo=
ndon
papers.-
TRAMPS PLENTIFUL, BUT THE HO=
PS ARE
FEW AND NOT YET READY.
Then there have b=
een
numberless paragraphs like this:-
From the neighbourhood of th=
e hop
fields comes news of a distressing nature. The bright outburst of the last tw=
o days
has sent many hun=
dreds
of hoppers into Kent, who will have to wait till the fields are ready for them. At Dover the number of vagrants in=
the
workhouse is treb=
le the
number there last year at this time, and in other towns the lateness of the sea=
son is
responsible for a large increase in the number of casuals.
To cap their
wretchedness, when at last the picking had begun, hops and hoppers were
well-nigh swept away by a frightful storm of wind, rain, and hail. The hops were stripped clean from =
the
poles and pounded into the earth, while the hoppers, seeking shelter from t=
he
stinging hail, were close to drowning in their huts and camps on the low-ly=
ing
ground. Their condition after=
the
storm was pitiable, their state of vagrancy more pronounced than ever; for,
poor crop that it was, its destruction had taken away the chance of earning=
a
few pennies, and nothing remained for thousands of them but to "pad the
hoof" back to London.
"We ayn't
crossin'-sweepers," they said, turning away from the ground, carpeted
ankle-deep with hops.
Those that remain=
ed
grumbled savagely among the half-stripped poles at the seven bushels for a
shilling--a rate paid in good seasons when the hops are in prime condition,=
and
a rate likewise paid in bad seasons by the growers because they cannot affo=
rd
more.
I passed through
Teston and East and West Farleigh shortly after the storm, and listened to =
the
grumbling of the hoppers and saw the hops rotting on the ground. At the hothouses of Barham Court, =
thirty
thousand panes of glass had been broken by the hail, while peaches, plums,
pears, apples, rhubarb, cabbages, mangolds, everything, had been pounded to=
pieces
and torn to shreds.
All of which was =
too
bad for the owners, certainly; but at the worst, not one of them, for one m=
eal,
would have to go short of food or drink.&n=
bsp;
Yet it was to them that the newspapers devoted columns of sympathy,
their pecuniary losses being detailed at harrowing length. "Mr. Herbert L--- calculates =
his
loss at 8000 pounds;" "Mr. F---, of brewery fame, who rents all t=
he
land in this parish, loses 10,000 pounds;" and "Mr. L---, the
Wateringbury brewer, brother to Mr. Herbert L---, is another heavy loser.&q=
uot; As for the hoppers, they did not
count. Yet I venture to asser=
t that
the several almost-square meals lost by underfed William Buggles, and under=
fed
Mrs. Buggles, and the underfed Buggles kiddies, was a greater tragedy than =
the
10,000 pounds lost by Mr. F---. And
in addition, underfed William Buggles' tragedy might be multiplied by thous=
ands
where Mr. F---'s could not be multiplied by five.
To see how Willia=
m Buggles
and his kind fared, I donned my seafaring togs and started out to get a
job. With me was a young East
London cobbler, Bert, who had yielded to the lure of adventure and joined me
for the trip. Acting on my ad=
vice,
he had brought his "worst rags," and as we hiked up the London ro=
ad
out of Maidstone he was worrying greatly for fear we had come too ill-dress=
ed
for the business.
Nor was he to be
blamed. When we stopped in a =
tavern
the publican eyed us gingerly, nor did his demeanour brighten till we showed
him the colour of our cash. T=
he
natives along the coast were all dubious; and "bean- feasters" fr=
om
London, dashing past in coaches, cheered and jeered and shouted insulting
things after us. But before w=
e were
done with the Maidstone district my friend found that we were as well clad,=
if
not better, than the average hopper.
Some of the bunches of rags we chanced upon were marvellous.
"The tide is
out," called a gypsy-looking woman to her mates, as we came up a long =
row
of bins into which the pickers were stripping the hops.
"Do you
twig?" Bert whispered.
"She's on to you."
I twigged. And it must be confessed the figur=
e was
an apt one. When the tide is =
out
boats are left on the beach and do not sail, and a sailor, when the tide is
out, does not sail either. My
seafaring togs and my presence in the hop field proclaimed that I was a sea=
man
without a ship, a man on the beach, and very like a craft at low water.
"Can yer giv=
e us
a job, governor?" Bert asked the bailiff, a kindly faced and elderly m=
an
who was very busy.
His "No"
was decisively uttered; but Bert clung on and followed him about, and I
followed after, pretty well all over the field. Whether our persistency struck the
bailiff as anxiety to work, or whether he was affected by our hard-luck
appearance and tale, neither Bert nor I succeeded in making out; but in the=
end
he softened his heart and found us the one unoccupied bin in the place--a b=
in
deserted by two other men, from what I could learn, because of inability to
make living wages.
"No bad cond=
uct,
mind ye," warned the bailiff, as he left us at work in the midst of the
women.
It was Saturday
afternoon, and we knew quitting time would come early; so we applied oursel=
ves
earnestly to the task, desiring to learn if we could at least make our
salt. It was simple work, wom=
an's
work, in fact, and not man's. We
sat on the edge of the bin, between the standing hops, while a pole-puller
supplied us with great fragrant branches.&=
nbsp;
In an hour's time we became as expert as it is possible to become. As soon as the fingers became accu=
stomed
automatically to differentiate between hops and leaves and to strip
half-a-dozen blossoms at a time there was no more to learn.
We worked nimbly,=
and
as fast as the women themselves, though their bins filled more rapidly beca=
use
of their swarming children, each of which picked with two hands almost as f=
ast
as we picked.
"Don'tcher p=
ick
too clean, it's against the rules," one of the women informed us; and =
we
took the tip and were grateful.
As the afternoon =
wore
along, we realised that living wages could not be made--by men. Women could pick as much as men, a=
nd
children could do almost as well as women; so it was impossible for a man to
compete with a woman and half-a-dozen children. For it is the woman and the half-d=
ozen children
who count as a unit, and by their combined capacity determine the unit's pa=
y.
"I say, mate=
y,
I'm beastly hungry," said I to Bert.&=
nbsp;
We had not had any dinner.
"Blimey, but=
I
could eat the 'ops," he replied.
Whereupon we both=
lamented
our negligence in not rearing up a numerous progeny to help us in this day =
of
need. And in such fashion we =
whiled
away the time and talked for the edification of our neighbours. We quite won the sympathy of the
pole-puller, a young country yokel, who now and again emptied a few picked
blossoms into our bin, it being part of his business to gather up the stray
clusters torn off in the process of pulling.
With him we discu=
ssed
how much we could "sub," and were informed that while we were bei=
ng
paid a shilling for seven bushels, we could only "sub," or have
advanced to us, a shilling for every twelve bushels. Which is to say that the pay for f=
ive
out of every twelve bushels was withheld--a method of the grower to hold the
hopper to his work whether the crop runs good or bad, and especially if it =
runs
bad.
After all, it was
pleasant sitting there in the bright sunshine, the golden pollen showering =
from
our hands, the pungent aromatic odour of the hops biting our nostrils, and =
the
while remembering dimly the sounding cities whence these people came. Poor street people! Poor gutter folk! Even they grow
earth-hungry, and yearn vaguely for the soil from which they have been driv=
en,
and for the free life in the open, and the wind and rain and sun all undefi=
led
by city smirches. As the sea =
calls
to the sailor, so calls the land to them; and, deep down in their aborted a=
nd decaying
carcasses, they are stirred strangely by the peasant memories of their forb=
ears
who lived before cities were. And
in incomprehensible ways they are made glad by the earth smells and sights =
and
sounds which their blood has not forgotten though unremembered by them.
"No more 'op=
s,
matey," Bert complained.
It was five o'clo=
ck,
and the pole-pullers had knocked off, so that everything could be cleaned u=
p,
there being no work on Sunday. For
an hour we were forced idly to wait the coming of the measurers, our feet t=
ingling
with the frost which came on the heels of the setting sun. In the adjoining bin, two women and
half-a-dozen children had picked nine bushels: so that the five bushels the
measurers found in our bin demonstrated that we had done equally well, for =
the
half-dozen children had ranged from nine to fourteen years of age.
Five bushels! We worked it out to eight-pence ha=
'penny,
or seventeen cents, for two men working three hours and a half. Fourpence farthing apiece! a littl=
e over
a penny an hour! But we were
allowed only to "sub" fivepence of the total sum, though the
tally-keeper, short of change, gave us sixpence. Entreaty was in vain. A hard-luck story could not move
him. He proclaimed loudly tha=
t we
had received a penny more than our due, and went his way.
Granting, for the
sake of the argument, that we were what we represented ourselves to be--nam=
ely,
poor men and broke--then here was out position: night was coming on; we had=
had
no supper, much less dinner; and we possessed sixpence between us. I was hungry enough to eat three s=
ixpenn'orths
of food, and so was Bert. One=
thing
was patent. By doing 16.3 per=
cent.
justice to our stomachs, we would expend the sixpence, and our stomachs wou=
ld
still be gnawing under 83.3 per cent. injustice. Being broke again, we could sleep =
under
a hedge, which was not so bad, though the cold would sap an undue portion of
what we had eaten. But the mo=
rrow was
Sunday, on which we could do no work, though our silly stomachs would not k=
nock
off on that account. Here, th=
en,
was the problem: how to get three meals on Sunday, and two on Monday (for we
could not make another "sub" till Monday evening).
We knew that the
casual wards were overcrowded; also, that if we begged from farmer or villa=
ger,
there was a large likelihood of our going to jail for fourteen days. What was to be done? We looked at each other in despair=
--
--Not a bit of
it. We joyfully thanked God t=
hat we
were not as other men, especially hoppers, and went down the road to Maidst=
one,
jingling in our pockets the half-crowns and florins we had brought from Lon=
don.
CHAPTER XV--THE SEA WIFE<=
/span>
You might not expect to find the Se=
a Wife
in the heart of Kent, but that is where I found her, in a mean street, in t=
he
poor quarter of Maidstone. In her window she had no sign of lodgings to let,
and persuasion was necessary before she could bring herself to let me sleep=
in
her front room. In the evenin=
g I
descended to the semi-subterranean kitchen, and talked with her and her old
man, Thomas Mugridge by name.
And as I talked to
them, all the subtleties and complexities of this tremendous machine
civilisation vanished away. I=
t seemed
that I went down through the skin and the flesh to the naked soul of it, an=
d in
Thomas Mugridge and his old woman gripped hold of the essence of this remar=
kable
English breed. I found there =
the
spirit of the wanderlust which has lured Albion's sons across the zones; an=
d I
found there the colossal unreckoning which has tricked the English into foo=
lish
squabblings and preposterous fights, and the doggedness and stubbornness wh=
ich
have brought them blindly through to empire and greatness; and likewise I f=
ound
that vast, incomprehensible patience which has enabled the home population =
to
endure under the burden of it all, to toil without complaint through the we=
ary
years, and docilely to yield the best of its sons to fight and colonise to =
the
ends of the earth.
Thomas Mugridge w=
as
seventy-one years old and a little man.&nb=
sp;
It was because he was little that he had not gone for a soldier. He had remained at home and worked=
. His first recollections were conne=
cted
with work. He knew nothing el=
se but
work. He had worked all his d=
ays,
and at seventy-one he still worked.
Each morning saw him up with the lark and afield, a day labourer, fo=
r as
such he had been born. Mrs.
Mugridge was seventy-three. F=
rom
seven years of age she had worked in the fields, doing a boy's work at firs=
t,
and later a man's. She still
worked, keeping the house shining, washing, boiling, and baking, and, with =
my advent,
cooking for me and shaming me by making my bed. At the end of threescore years and=
more
of work they possessed nothing, had nothing to look forward to save more
work. And they were contented=
. They expected nothing else, desired
nothing else.
They lived
simply. Their wants were few-=
-a
pint of beer at the end of the day, sipped in the semi-subterranean kitchen=
, a
weekly paper to pore over for seven nights hand-running, and conversation as
meditative and vacant as the chewing of a heifer's cud. From a wood engraving on the wall a
slender, angelic girl looked down upon them, and underneath was the legend:
"Our Future Queen." And
from a highly coloured lithograph alongside looked down a stout and elderly
lady, with underneath: "Our Queen--Diamond Jubilee."
"What you ea=
rn
is sweetest," quoth Mrs. Mugridge, when I suggested that it was about =
time
they took a rest.
"No, an' we
don't want help," said Thomas Mugridge, in reply to my question as to
whether the children lent them a hand.
"We'll work =
till
we dry up and blow away, mother an' me," he added; and Mrs. Mugridge
nodded her head in vigorous indorsement.
Fifteen children =
she
had borne, and all were away and gone, or dead. The "baby," however, liv=
ed in
Maidstone, and she was twenty-seven.
When the children married they had their hands full with their own
families and troubles, like their fathers and mothers before them.
Where were the
children? Ah, where were they
not? Lizzie was in Australia;=
Mary
was in Buenos Ayres; Poll was in New York; Joe had died in India--and so th=
ey
called them up, the living and the dead, soldier and sailor, and colonist's
wife, for the traveller's sake who sat in their kitchen.
They passed me a
photograph. A trim young fell=
ow, in
soldier's garb looked out at me.
"And which s=
on
is this?" I asked.
They laughed a he=
arty
chorus. Son! Nay, grandson, just back from Indi=
an service
and a soldier-trumpeter to the King.
His brother was in the same regiment with him. And so it ran, sons and daughters,=
and
grand sons and daughters, world-wanderers and empire-builders, all of them,
while the old folks stayed at home and worked at building empire too.
"There dwells a wife by=
the
Northern Gate, And a
wealthy wife is she; She breeds a breed o' r=
ovin'
men And c=
asts
them over sea.
"And some are drowned i=
n deep
water, And s=
ome in
sight of shore; A=
nd
word goes back to the weary wife, And e=
ver
she sends more."
But the Sea Wife's
child-bearing is about done. =
The
stock is running out, and the planet is filling up. The wives of her sons may carry on=
the
breed, but her work is past. =
The
erstwhile men of England are now the men of Australia, of Africa, of
America. England has sent for=
th
"the best she breeds" for so long, and has destroyed those that
remained so fiercely, that little remains for her to do but to sit down thr=
ough
the long nights and gaze at royalty on the wall.
The true British
merchant seaman has passed away.
The merchant service is no longer a recruiting ground for such sea d=
ogs
as fought with Nelson at Trafalgar and the Nile. Foreigners largely man the merchant
ships, though Englishmen still continue to officer them and to prefer
foreigners for'ard. In South =
Africa
the colonial teaches the islander how to shoot, and the officers muddle and
blunder; while at home the street people play hysterically at mafficking, a=
nd
the War Office lowers the stature for enlistment.
It could not be
otherwise. The most complacent
Britisher cannot hope to draw off the life-blood, and underfeed, and keep i=
t up
forever. The average Mrs. Tho=
mas
Mugridge has been driven into the city, and she is not breeding very much o=
f anything
save an anaemic and sickly progeny which cannot find enough to eat. The strength of the English-speaki=
ng race
to-day is not in the tight little island, but in the New World overseas, wh=
ere
are the sons and daughters of Mrs. Thomas Mugridge. The Sea Wife by the Northern Gate =
has
just about done her work in the world, though she does not realize it. She must sit down and rest her tir=
ed loins
for a space; and if the casual ward and the workhouse do not await her, it =
is
because of the sons and daughters she has reared up against the day of her
feebleness and decay.
CHAPTER XVI--PROPERTY VER=
SUS
PERSON
In a civilisation frankly materiali=
stic
and based upon property, not soul, it is inevitable that property shall be
exalted over soul, that crimes against property shall be considered far more
serious than crimes against the person.&nb=
sp;
To pound one's wife to a jelly and break a few of her ribs is a triv=
ial
offence compared with sleeping out under the naked stars because one has not
the price of a doss. The lad =
who
steals a few pears from a wealthy railway corporation is a greater menace to
society than the young brute who commits an unprovoked assault upon an old =
man over
seventy years of age. While t=
he
young girl who takes a lodging under the pretence that she has work commits=
so
dangerous an offence, that, were she not severely punished, she and her kind
might bring the whole fabric of property clattering to the ground. Had she unholily tramped Piccadill=
y and
the Strand after midnight, the police would not have interfered with her, a=
nd
she would have been able to pay for her lodging.
The following
illustrative cases are culled from the police-court reports for a single we=
ek:-
Widnes Police Court. Before Aldermen Gossage and Neil.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Thomas Lynch, charged with being drunk and disord=
erly
and with assaulting a constable. Defendant rescued a woman from cus=
tody,
kicked the consta=
ble,
and threw stones at him. Fine=
d 3s.
6d. for the first offence, and 10s. and c=
osts
for the assault.
Glasgow Queen's Park Police
Court. Before Baillie Norman
Thompson. John Ka=
ne
pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife.&nbs=
p;
There were five previous convictions. Fined 2 pounds, 2s.
Taunton County Petty
Sessions. John Painter, a big,
burly fellow, des=
cribed
as a labourer, charged with assaulting his wife. The woman received two severe bla=
ck
eyes, and her face was badly swollen.
Fined 1 po=
und,
8s., including costs, and bound over to keep the peace.
Widnes Police Court. Richard Bestwick and George Hunt,
charged with trespassing in search of
game. Hunt fined 1 pound and =
costs,
Bestwick 2 pounds=
and
costs; in default, one month.
Shaftesbury Police Court.
Glasgow Central Police Court=
. Before Bailie Dunlop. Edward Morrison, a lad, convicted of ste=
aling
fifteen pears from a lorry at the railroad station. Seven days.
Doncaster Borough Police
Court. Before Alderman Clark =
and other
magistrates. James M'Gowan, charged under the
Poaching Prevention Act with being found in
possession of poaching implements and a number of rabbits. Fined 2 pounds and costs, or one m=
onth.
Dunfermline Sheriff Court. Before Sheriff Gillespie. John Young, a pit-head worker, pleaded
guilty to assaulting Alexander Storrar by beating him about the h=
ead
and body with his fists, throwing him on the ground, and also st=
riking
him with a pit prop. Fined 1 =
pound.
Kirkcaldy Police Court. Before Bailie Dishart. Simon Walker pleaded guilty to assaulting a =
man by
striking and knocking him down. It
was an unprovoked
assault, and the magistrate described the accused as a perfect danger to the
community. Fined 30s.
Mansfield Police Court. Before the Mayor, Messrs. F. J. Tu=
rner,
J. Whitaker, F.
Tidsbury, E. Holmes, and Dr. R. Nesbitt.&n=
bsp;
Joseph Jackson, charged with assaulting
Charles Nunn. Without any
provocation, defe=
ndant
struck the complainant a violent blow in the face, knocking him down, and then kick=
ed him
on the side of the head. He w=
as rendered unconscious, a=
nd he
remained under medical treatment for a fortnight. Fined 21s.
Perth Sheriff Court. Before Sheriff Sym. David Mitchell, charged with poaching. There were two previous conviction=
s, the
last being three =
years
ago. The sheriff was asked to=
deal
leniently with Mitchell, who was sixty=
-two
years of age, and who offered no resistance to the
gamekeeper. Four months.
Dundee Sheriff Court. Before Hon. Sheriff-Substitute R. =
C.
Walker. John Murr=
ay,
Donald Craig, and James Parkes, charged with poaching. Craig and Parkes fined 1
pound each or fourteen days; Murray, 5 pounds or one month.
Reading Borough Police Court=
. Before Messrs. W. B. Monck, F. B. =
Parfitt, H. M. Wallis, =
and G.
Gillagan. Alfred Masters, aged
sixteen, charged =
with
sleeping out on a waste piece of ground and having no visible means of
subsistence. Seven days.
Salisbury City Petty Session=
s. Before the Mayor, Messrs. C. Hoski=
ns, G. Fullford, E. Alexand=
er,
and W. Marlow. James Moore, c=
harged
with stealing a p=
air of
boots from outside a shop.
Twenty-one days.
Horncastle Police Court. Before the Rev. W. F. Massingberd,=
the
Rev. J. Graham, a=
nd Mr.
N. Lucas Calcraft. George
Brackenbury, a young labourer, convicted of =
what
the magistrates characterised as an altogether unprovoked a=
nd
brutal assault upon James Sargeant Foster, a man over seventy years =
of
age. Fined 1 pound and 5s. 6d.
costs.
Worksop Petty Sessions. Before Messrs. F. J. S. Foljambe, =
R.
Eddison, and S.
Smith. John Priestley, charge=
d with
assaulting the Rev. Leslie Graham. Defendant, who was drunk, was whee=
ling a
perambulator and =
pushed
it in front of a lorry, with the result that the perambulator was overturned and the =
baby
in it thrown out. The lorry p=
assed
over the perambul=
ator,
but the baby was uninjured.
Defendant then attacked the driver of the lorry=
, and
afterwards assaulted the complainant, who remonstrated with him u=
pon
his conduct. In consequence o=
f the injuries defendant infl=
icted,
complainant had to consult a doctor. Fined 40s. and costs.
Rotherham West Riding Police
Court. Before Messrs. C. Wrig=
ht and
G. Pugh and Colon=
el
Stoddart. Benjamin Storey, Th=
omas
Brammer, and Samu=
el
Wilcock, charged with poaching. One
month each.
Southampton County Police
Court. Before Admiral J. C. R=
owley,
Mr. H. H.
Culme-Seymour, and other magistrates.
Henry Thorrington, charged with sleeping out. Seven days.
Eckington Police Court. Before Major L. B. Bowden, Messrs.=
R.
Eyre, and H. A. F=
owler,
and Dr. Court. Joseph Watts,
charged with stealing nine ferns from a
garden. One month.
Ripley Petty Sessions. Before Messrs. J. B. Wheeler, W. D.
Bembridge, and M.
Hooper. Vincent Allen and Geo=
rge
Hall, charged under the Poaching Prevention Act=
with
being found in possession of a number of rabbits, and John Sparh=
am,
charged with aiding and abetting them.&nbs=
p;
Hall and S=
parham
fined 1 pound, 17s. 4d., and Allen 2 pounds, 17s. 4d., including costs; the fo=
rmer
committed for fourteen days and the latter for one month in defaul=
t of
payment.
South-western Police Court,
London. Before Mr. Rose. John Probyn, charged with doing grie=
vous
bodily harm to a constable.
Prisoner had been kicking his wife, =
and
also assaulting another woman who protested against his brutality.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The constable tried to persuade hi=
m to
go inside his hou=
se, but
prisoner suddenly turned upon him, knocking him down by a blow on the f=
ace,
kicking him as he lay on the ground, and attempting to strangle
him. Finally the prisoner
deliberately kicked the
officer in a dangerous part, inflicting an injury which will keep him off duty for a long=
time
to come. Six weeks.
Lambeth Police Court, London=
. Before Mr. Hopkins. "Baby" Stuart, aged nineteen, describe=
d as a
chorus girl, charged with obtaining food and lodging to the valu=
e of
5s. by false pretences, and with intent to defraud Emma Brasier. Emma Brasier, complainant, lodging=
-house
keeper of Atwell
Road. Prisoner took apartment=
s at
her house on the representation that she=
was
employed at the Crown Theatre.
After pris=
oner
had been in her house two or three days, Mrs. Brasier made inquiries, and, finding=
the
girl's story untrue, gave her into custody. Prisoner told the magistrate that =
she
would have worked had she not had such bad
health. Six weeks' hard labou=
r.
I stopped a moment to listen to an argument on the Mile End Waste. It was night-time, and they were all workmen of the better class. They had surrounded one of their n= umber, a pleasant-faced man of thirty, and were giving it to him rather heatedly.<= o:p>
"But 'ow abo=
ut
this 'ere cheap immigration?" one of them demanded. "The Jews of Whitechapel, say,
a-cutting our throats right along?"
"You can't b=
lame
them," was the answer.
"They're just like us, and they've got to live. Don't blame the man who offers to =
work
cheaper than you and gets your job."
"But 'ow abo=
ut
the wife an' kiddies?" his interlocutor demanded.
"There you
are," came the answer.
"How about the wife and kiddies of the man who works cheaper th=
an
you and gets your job? Eh?
"But wyges d=
on't
come down where there's a union," the objection was made.
"And there y=
ou
are again, right on the head. The
union cheeks competition among the labourers, but makes it harder where the=
re
are no unions. There's where =
your
cheap labour of Whitechapel comes in.
They're unskilled, and have no unions, and cut each other's throats,=
and
ours in the bargain, if we don't belong to a strong union."
Without going fur=
ther
into the argument, this man on the Mile End Waste pointed the moral that wh=
en
two men were after the one job wages were bound to fall. Had he gone deeper into the matter=
, he
would have found that even the union, say twenty thousand strong, could not
hold up wages if twenty thousand idle men were trying to displace the union
men. This is admirably instan=
ced,
just now, by the return and disbandment of the soldiers from South Africa.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> They find themselves, by tens of
thousands, in desperate straits in the army of the unemployed. There is a general decline in wages
throughout the land, which, giving rise to labour disputes and strikes, is
taken advantage of by the unemployed, who gladly pick up the tools thrown d=
own
by the strikers.
Sweating, starvat=
ion
wages, armies of unemployed, and great numbers of the homeless and shelterl=
ess
are inevitable when there are more men to do work than there is work for me=
n to
do. The men and women I have =
met
upon the streets, and in the spikes and pegs, are not there because as a mo=
de of
life it may be considered a "soft snap." I have sufficiently outlined the
hardships they undergo to demonstrate that their existence is anything but
"soft."
It is a matter of
sober calculation, here in England, that it is softer to work for twenty
shillings a week, and have regular food, and a bed at night, than it is to =
walk
the streets. The man who walk=
s the
streets suffers more, and works harder, for far less return. I have depicted the nights they sp=
end,
and how, driven in by physical exhaustion, they go to the casual ward for a
"rest up." Nor is t=
he
casual ward a soft snap. To p=
ick
four pounds of oakum, break twelve hundredweight of stones, or perform the =
most
revolting tasks, in return for the miserable food and shelter they receive,=
is
an unqualified extravagance on the part of the men who are guilty of it.
As I say, it is an
extravagance for a man to patronise a casual ward. And that they know it themselves is
shown by the way these men shun it till driven in by physical exhaustion. Then why do they do it? Not because they are discouraged
workers. The very opposite is=
true;
they are discouraged vagabonds. In
the United States the tramp is almost invariably a discouraged worker. He finds tramping a softer mode of=
life than
working. But this is not true=
in
England. Here the powers that=
be do
their utmost to discourage the tramp and vagabond, and he is, in all truth,=
a
mightily discouraged creature. He
knows that two shillings a day, which is only fifty cents, will buy him thr=
ee
fair meals, a bed at night, and leave him a couple of pennies for pocket
money. He would rather work f=
or
those two shillings than for the charity of the casual ward; for he knows t=
hat
he would not have to work so hard, and that he would not be so abominably
treated. He does not do so,
however, because there are more men to do work than there is work for men to
do.
When there are mo=
re
men than there is work to be done, a sifting-out process must obtain. In every branch of industry the le=
ss
efficient are crowded out. Be=
ing
crowded out because of inefficiency, they cannot go up, but must descend, a=
nd
continue to descend, until they reach their proper level, a place in the
industrial fabric where they are efficient. It follows, therefore, and it is
inexorable, that the least efficient must descend to the very bottom, which=
is
the shambles wherein they perish miserably.
A glance at the
confirmed inefficients at the bottom demonstrates that they are, as a rule,
mental, physical, and moral wrecks.
The exceptions to the rule are the late arrivals, who are merely very
inefficient, and upon whom the wrecking process is just beginning to
operate. All the forces here,=
it
must be remembered, are destructive.
The good body (which is there because its brain is not quick and
capable) is speedily wrenched and twisted out of shape; the clean mind (whi=
ch
is there because of its weak body) is speedily fouled and contaminated.
The mortality is
excessive, but, even then, they die far too lingering deaths.
Here, then, we ha=
ve
the construction of the Abyss and the shambles. Throughout the whole indust=
rial
fabric a constant elimination is going on.=
The inefficient are weeded out and flung downward. Various things constitute
inefficiency. The engineer wh=
o is
irregular or irresponsible will sink down until he finds his place, say as a
casual labourer, an occupation irregular in its very nature and in which th=
ere
is little or no responsibility.
Those who are slow and clumsy, who suffer from weakness of body or m=
ind,
or who lack nervous, mental, and physical stamina, must sink down, sometimes
rapidly, sometimes step by step, to the bottom. Accident, by disabling an efficient
worker, will make him inefficient, and down he must go. And the worker who becomes aged, w=
ith failing
energy and numbing brain, must begin the frightful descent which knows no
stopping-place short of the bottom and death.
In this last
instance, the statistics of London tell a terrible tale. The population of London is one-sev=
enth
of the total population of the United Kingdom, and in London, year in and y=
ear
out, one adult in every four dies on public charity, either in the workhous=
e,
the hospital, or the asylum. =
When
the fact that the well-to-do do not end thus is taken into consideration, it
becomes manifest that it is the fate of at least one in every three adult
workers to die on public charity.
As an illustratio=
n of
how a good worker may suddenly become inefficient, and what then happens to
him, I am tempted to give the case of M'Garry, a man thirty-two years of ag=
e,
and an inmate of the workhouse. The
extracts are quoted from the annual report of the trade union.
I worked at Sullivan's place=
in
Widnes, better known as the British Alkali Chemical Works. I was working in a shed, and I had=
to
cross the yard. It was ten o'clock at night, and t=
here
was no light about. While crossing the yard=
I
felt something take hold of my leg and screw it off. I became unconscious; I didn't kno=
w what
became of me for a day
or two. On the following Sund=
ay
night I came to my senses, and found myself in the
hospital. I asked the nurse w=
hat
was to do with my=
legs,
and she told me both legs were off.
There was a stationary crank=
in
the yard, let into the ground; the hole was 18 inches long=
, 15
inches deep, and 15 inches wide.
The crank
revolved in the hole three revolutions a minute. There was no fence or covering over =
the
hole. Since my accident they =
have
stopped it altoge=
ther,
and have covered the hole up with a piece of sheet iron. . . . They gave m=
e 25
pounds. They didn't reckon th=
at as compensation; they said=
it
was only for charity's sake. =
Out of
that I paid 9 pou=
nds
for a machine by which to wheel myself about.
I was labouring at the time =
I got
my legs off. I got twenty-fou=
r shillings a week, rather
better pay than the other men, because I used to take shifts. When there was heavy work to be do=
ne I
used to be picked=
out
to do it. Mr. Manton, the man=
ager,
visited me at the hospital several times.=
When I was getting better, I asked=
him
if he would be ab=
le to
find me a job. He told me not=
to
trouble myself, as the
firm was not cold-hearted. I =
would
be right enough in any case . . . Mr. Manton stopped =
coming
to see me; and the last time, he said he thought of asking the
directors to give me a fifty-pound note, so I could go home to my fri=
ends
in Ireland.
Poor M'Garry! He received rather better pay than=
the
other men because he was ambitious and took shifts, and when heavy work was=
to
be done he was the man picked out to do it. And then the thing happened, and h=
e went
into the workhouse. The alter=
native
to the workhouse is to go home to Ireland and burden his friends for the re=
st
of his life. Comment is super=
fluous.
It must be unders=
tood
that efficiency is not determined by the workers themselves, but is determi=
ned
by the demand for labour. If =
three
men seek one position, the most efficient man will get it. The other two, no matter how capab=
le
they may be, will none the less be inefficients. If Germany, Japan, and the United =
States
should capture the entire world market for iron, coal, and textiles, at once
the English workers would be thrown idle by hundreds of thousands. Some would emigrate, but the rest =
would
rush their labour into the remaining industries. A general shaking up of the worker=
s from
top to bottom would result; and when equilibrium had been restored, the num=
ber
of the inefficients at the bottom of the Abyss would have been increased by
hundreds of thousands. On the=
other
hand, conditions remaining constant and all the workers doubling their effi=
ciency,
there would still be as many inefficients, though each inefficient were twi=
ce
as capable as he had been and more capable than many of the efficients had
previously been.
When there are mo=
re
men to work than there is work for men to do, just as many men as are in ex=
cess
of work will be inefficients, and as inefficients they are doomed to linger=
ing
and painful destruction. It s=
hall
be the aim of future chapters to show, by their work and manner of living, =
not
only how the inefficients are weeded out and destroyed, but to show how
inefficients are being constantly and wantonly created by the forces of
industrial society as it exists to-day.
When I learned that in Lesser London
there were 1,292,737 people who received twenty-one shillings or less a week
per family, I became interested as to how the wages could best be spent in =
order
to maintain the physical efficiency of such families. Families of six, seven, eight or t=
en
being beyond consideration, I have based the following table upon a family =
of
five--a father, mother, and three children; while I have made twenty-one
shillings equivalent to
5.25, though
actually, twenty-one shillings are equivalent to about
5.11.
Rent
1.50 or 6/0 Bread 1.00=
" 4/0 Meat
O.87.5 " 3/6 Vege=
tables O.62.5 " 2/6 Coals 0.25=
" 1/0 Tea
0.18 "=
; 0/9 Oil
0.16 "=
; 0/8 Sugar 0.18=
" 0/9 Milk
0.12 "=
; 0/6 Soap
0.08 "=
; 0/4 Butter 0.20 " 0/10 Firewood 0.08 " 0/4 Total
5.25 21/2
An analysis of one
item alone will show how little room there is for waste. Bread,
1: for a family of
five, for seven days, one dollar's worth of bread will give each a daily ra=
tion
of 2.8 cents; and if they eat three meals a day, each may consume per meal =
9.5
mills' worth of bread, a little less than one halfpennyworth. Now bread is the heaviest item.
While the table g=
iven
above will permit no extravagance, no overloading of stomachs, it will be
noticed that there is no surplus.
The whole guinea is spent for food and rent. There is no pocket-money left over=
. Does
the man buy a glass of beer, the family must eat that much less; and in so =
far
as it eats less, just that far will it impair its physical efficiency. The members of this family cannot =
ride
in busses or trams, cannot write letters, take outings, go to a "tu'pe=
nny
gaff" for cheap vaudeville, join social or benefit clubs, nor can they=
buy
sweetmeats, tobacco, books, or newspapers.
And further, shou=
ld
one child (and there are three) require a pair of shoes, the family must st=
rike
meat for a week from its bill of fare.&nbs=
p;
And since there are five pairs of feet requiring shoes, and five hea=
ds requiring
hats, and five bodies requiring clothes, and since there are laws regulating
indecency, the family must constantly impair its physical efficiency in ord=
er
to keep warm and out of jail. For
notice, when rent, coals, oil, soap, and firewood are extracted from the we=
ekly
income, there remains a daily allowance for food of 4.5d. to each person; a=
nd that
4.5d. cannot be lessened by buying clothes without impairing the physical
efficiency.
All of which is h=
ard
enough. But the thing happens=
; the
husband and father breaks his leg or his neck. No 4.5d. a day per mouth for food =
is coming
in; no halfpennyworth of bread per meal; and, at the end of the week, no six
shillings for rent. So out th=
ey
must go, to the streets or the workhouse, or to a miserable den, somewhere,=
in
which the mother will desperately endeavour to hold the family together on =
the
ten shillings she may possibly be able to earn.
While in London t=
here
are 1,292,737 people who receive twenty-one shillings or less a week per
family, it must be remembered that we have investigated a family of five li=
ving
on a twenty-one shilling basis. There are larger families, there are many
families that live on less than twenty-one shillings, and there is much
irregular employment. The que=
stion
naturally arises, How do they live?
The answer is that they do not live. They do not know what life is. They drag out a subterbestial exis=
tence
until mercifully released by death.
Before descending=
to
the fouler depths, let the case of the telephone girls be cited. Here are clean, fresh English maid=
s, for
whom a higher standard of living than that of the beasts is absolutely
necessary. Otherwise they cannot remain clean, fresh English maids. On entering the service, a telepho=
ne
girl receives a weekly wage of eleven shillings. If she be quick and clever, she ma=
y, at
the end of five years, attain a minimum wage of one pound. Recently a table of such a girl's =
weekly
expenditure was furnished to Lord Londonderry. Here it is:-
=
&nb=
sp;
s. d. Rent, fire=
, and
light 7 6 Board at
home
3 6 Board =
at the
office 4 6 Street car fare 1
This leaves nothi=
ng
for clothes, recreation, or sickness.
And yet many of the girls are receiving, not eighteen shillings, but
eleven shillings, twelve shillings, and fourteen shillings per week. They must have clothes and recreat=
ion,
and--
Man to Man so oft unjust, Is always so to Woman.<=
o:p>
At the Trades Uni=
on
Congress now being held in London, the Gasworkers' Union moved that
instructions be given the Parliamentary Committee to introduce a Bill to
prohibit the employment of children under fifteen years of age. Mr. Shackleton, Member of Parliame=
nt and
a representative of the Northern Counties Weavers, opposed the resolution on
behalf of the textile workers, who, he said, could not dispense with the
earnings of their children and live on the scale of wages which obtained. The representatives of 514,000 wor=
kers
voted against the resolution, while the representatives of 535,000 workers
voted in favour of it. When 5=
14,000
workers oppose a resolution prohibiting child-labour under fifteen, it is e=
vident
that a less-than-living wage is being paid to an immense number of the adult
workers of the country.
I have spoken with
women in Whitechapel who receive right along less than one shilling for a
twelve-hour day in the coat-making sweat shops; and with women trousers
finishers who receive an average princely and weekly wage of three to four
shillings.
A case recently
cropped up of men, in the employ of a wealthy business house, receiving the=
ir
board and six shillings per week for six working days of sixteen hours
each. The sandwich men get
fourteenpence per day and find themselves.=
The average weekly earnings of the hawkers and costermongers are not
more than ten to twelve shillings.
The average of all common labourers, outside the dockers, is less th=
an
sixteen shillings per week, while the dockers average from eight to nine
shillings. These figures are =
taken
from a royal commission report and are authentic.
Conceive of an old
woman, broken and dying, supporting herself and four children, and paying t=
hree
shillings per week rent, by making match boxes at 2.25d. per gross. Twelve dozen boxes for 2.25d., and=
, in
addition, finding her own paste and thread! She never knew a day off, either f=
or sickness,
rest, or recreation. Each day=
and
every day, Sundays as well, she toiled fourteen hours. Her day's stint was seven gross, f=
or
which she received 1s. 3.75d. In
the week of ninety-eight hours' work, she made 7066 match boxes, and earned=
4s.
10.25d., less per paste and thread.
Last year, Mr. Th=
omas
Holmes, a police-court missionary of note, after writing about the conditio=
n of
the women workers, received the following letter, dated April 18, 1901:-
Sir,--Pardon the liberty I am
taking, but, having read what you said about poor women working
fourteen hours a day for ten shillings per week, I beg to state my
case. I am a tie-maker, who, =
after
working all the w=
eek,
cannot earn more than five shillings, and I have a poor afflicted husband to ke=
ep who
hasn't earned a penny for more than ten years.
Imagine a woman,
capable of writing such a clear, sensible, grammatical letter, supporting h=
er
husband and self on five shillings per week! Mr. Holmes visited her. He had to squeeze to get into the
room. There lay her sick husb=
and;
there she worked all day long; there she cooked, ate, washed, and slept; and
there her husband and she performed all the functions of living and dying.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> There was no space for the mission=
ary to
sit down, save on the bed, which was partially covered with ties and silk.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The sick man's lungs were in the l=
ast
stages of decay. He coughed a=
nd
expectorated constantly, the woman ceasing from her work to assist him in h=
is
paroxysms. The silken fluff f=
rom
the ties was not good for his sickness; nor was his sickness good for the t=
ies,
and the handlers and wearers of the ties yet to come.
Another case Mr.
Holmes visited was that of a young girl, twelve years of age, charged in the
police court with stealing food. He
found her the deputy mother of a boy of nine, a crippled boy of seven, and a
younger child. Her mother was=
a
widow and a blouse-maker. She=
paid
five shillings a week rent. H=
ere
are the last items in her housekeeping account: Tea. 0.5d.; sugar, 0.5d.;
bread, 0.25d.; margarine, 1d.; oil, 1.5d.; and firewood, 1d. Good housewives of the soft and te=
nder
folk, imagine yourselves marketing and keeping house on such a scale, setti=
ng a
table for five, and keeping an eye on your deputy mother of twelve to see t=
hat
she did not steal food for her little brothers and sisters, the while you
stitched, stitched, stitched at a nightmare line of blouses, which stretched
away into the gloom and down to the pauper's coffin a- yawn for you.
CHAPTER XIX--THE GHETTO=
span>
Is it well that while we ran=
ge
with Science, glorying in the time, City children soak and
blacken soul and sense in city slime? There among the gloomy =
alleys
Progress halts on palsied feet; Crime and hunger cast o=
ut
maidens by the thousand on the street;
There the master scrimps his
haggard seamstress of her daily bread; There the single sordid=
attic
holds the living and the dead; There the smouldering f=
ire of
fever creeps across the rotted floor, And the crowded couch of
incest, in the warrens of the poor.
At one time the
nations of Europe confined the undesirable Jews in city ghettos. But to-day the dominant economic c=
lass,
by less arbitrary but none the less rigorous methods, has confined the
undesirable yet necessary workers into ghettos of remarkable meanness and
vastness. East London is such=
a
ghetto, where the rich and the powerful do not dwell, and the traveller com=
eth
not, and where two million workers swarm, procreate, and die.
It must not be
supposed that all the workers of London are crowded into the East End, but =
the
tide is setting strongly in that direction. The poor quarters of the city prop=
er are
constantly being destroyed, and the main stream of the unhoused is toward t=
he
east. In the last twelve year=
s, one
district, "London over the Border," as it is called, which lies w=
ell
beyond Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Mile End, has increased 260,000, or over s=
ixty
per cent. The churches in this
district, by the way, can seat but one in every thirty-seven of the added
population.
The City of Dread=
ful
Monotony, the East End is often called, especially by well-fed, optimistic
sightseers, who look over the surface of things and are merely shocked by t=
he
intolerable sameness and meanness of it all. If the East End is worthy of no wo=
rse
title than The City of Dreadful Monotony, and if working people are unworth=
y of
variety and beauty and surprise, it would not be such a bad place in which =
to
live. But the East End does merit a worse title. It should be called The City of
Degradation.
While it is not a
city of slums, as some people imagine, it may well be said to be one gigant=
ic
slum. From the standpoint of =
simple
decency and clean manhood and womanhood, any mean street, of all its mean
streets, is a slum. Where sig=
hts
and sounds abound which neither you nor I would care to have our children s=
ee
and hear is a place where no man's children should live, and see, and
hear. Where you and I would n=
ot
care to have our wives pass their lives is a place where no other man's wife
should have to pass her life. For
here, in the East End, the obscenities and brute vulgarities of life are
rampant. There is no privacy.=
The bad corrupts the good, and all
fester together. Innocent chi=
ldhood
is sweet and beautiful: but in East London innocence is a fleeting thing, a=
nd
you must catch them before they crawl out of the cradle, or you will find t=
he very
babes as unholily wise as you.
The application of
the Golden Rule determines that East London is an unfit place in which to
live. Where you would not hav=
e your
own babe live, and develop, and gather to itself knowledge of life and the
things of life, is not a fit place for the babes of other men to live, and =
develop,
and gather to themselves knowledge of life and the things of life. It is a simple thing, this Golden =
Rule,
and all that is required. Political economy and the survival of the fittest=
can
go hang if they say otherwise. What
is not good enough for you is not good enough for other men, and there's no
more to be said.
There are 300,000
people in London, divided into families, that live in one-room tenements. Far, far more live in two and three
rooms and are as badly crowded, regardless of sex, as those that live in one
room. The law demands 400 cub=
ic
feet of space for each person. In
army barracks each soldier is allowed 600 cubic feet. Professor Huxley, at one time hims=
elf a
medical officer in East London, always held that each person should have 800
cubic feet of space, and that it should be well ventilated with pure air. Yet in London there are 900,000 pe=
ople
living in less than the 400 cubic feet prescribed by the law.
Mr. Charles Booth,
who engaged in a systematic work of years in charting and classifying the
toiling city population, estimates that there are 1,800,000 people in London
who are poor and very poor. I=
t is
of interest to mark what he terms poor.&nb=
sp;
By poor he means families which have a total weekly income of from
eighteen to twenty-one shillings.
The very poor fall greatly below this standard.
The workers, as a
class, are being more and more segregated by their economic masters; and th=
is
process, with its jamming and overcrowding, tends not so much toward immora=
lity
as unmorality. Here is an ext=
ract from
a recent meeting of the London County Council, terse and bald, but with a
wealth of horror to be read between the lines:-
Mr. Bruce asked the Chairman=
of
the Public Health Committee whether his attention had been =
called
to a number of cases of serious overcrowding in the Eas=
t
End. In St. Georges-in-the-Ea=
st a
man and his wife =
and
their family of eight occupied one small room. This family consisted of five
daughters, aged twenty, seventeen, eight, four, and an infant; and
three sons, aged fifteen, thirteen, and twelve. In Whitechapel a man and his wife =
and
their three daughters, aged sixteen, eight, an=
d four,
and two sons, aged ten and twelve years, occupied a small=
er
room. In Bethnal Green a man =
and
his wife, with fo=
ur
sons, aged twenty-three, twenty-one, nineteen, and sixteen, and two daughters, aged
fourteen and seven, were also found in one room. He asked whether it was not the du=
ty of
the various local authorities to prevent =
such
serious overcrowding.
But with 900,000
people actually living under illegal conditions, the authorities have their
hands full. When the overcrow=
ded
folk are ejected they stray off into some other hole; and, as they move the=
ir
belongings by night, on hand-barrows (one hand-barrow accommodating the ent=
ire household
goods and the sleeping children), it is next to impossible to keep track of
them. If the Public Health Ac=
t of
1891 were suddenly and completely enforced, 900,000 people would receive no=
tice
to clear out of their houses and go on to the streets, and 500,000 rooms wo=
uld
have to be built before they were all legally housed again.
The mean streets
merely look mean from the outside, but inside the walls are to be found
squalor, misery, and tragedy. While
the following tragedy may be revolting to read, it must not be forgotten th=
at
the existence of it is far more revolting.
In Devonshire Pla=
ce,
Lisson Grove, a short while back died an old woman of seventy-five years of
age. At the inquest the coron=
er's
officer stated that "all he found in the room was a lot of old rags
covered with vermin. He had g=
ot
himself smothered with the vermin.
The room was in a shocking condition, and he had never seen anything
like it. Everything was absol=
utely
covered with vermin."
The doctor said:
"He found deceased lying across the fender on her back. She had one
garment and her stockings on. The
body was quite alive with vermin, and all the clothes in the room were
absolutely grey with insects.
Deceased was very badly nourished and was very emaciated. She had extensive sores on her leg=
s, and
her stockings were adherent to those sores. The sores were the result of vermi=
n."
A man present at =
the
inquest wrote: "I had the evil fortune to see the body of the unfortun=
ate
woman as it lay in the mortuary; and even now the memory of that gruesome s=
ight
makes me shudder. There she l=
ay in
the mortuary shell, so starved and emaciated that she was a mere bundle of =
skin
and bones. Her hair, which was
matted with filth, was simply a nest of vermin. Over her bony chest leaped and rol=
led
hundreds, thousands, myriads of vermin!"
If it is not good=
for
your mother and my mother so to die, then it is not good for this woman,
whosoever's mother she might be, so to die.
Bishop Wilkinson,=
who
has lived in Zululand, recently said, "No human of an African village
would allow such a promiscuous mixing of young men and women, boys and
girls." He had reference=
to
the children of the overcrowded folk, who at five have nothing to learn and
much to unlearn which they will never unlearn.
It is notorious t=
hat
here in the Ghetto the houses of the poor are greater profit earners than t=
he
mansions of the rich. Not onl=
y does
the poor worker have to live like a beast, but he pays proportionately more=
for
it than does the rich man for his spacious comfort. A class of house- sweaters has bee=
n made
possible by the competition of the poor for houses. There are more people than there is
room, and numbers are in the workhouse because they cannot find shelter
elsewhere. Not only are house=
s let,
but they are sublet, and sub-sublet down to the very rooms.
"A part of a
room to let." This notic=
e was
posted a short while ago in a window not five minutes' walk from St. James's
Hall. The Rev. Hugh Price Hug=
hes is
authority for the statement that beds are let on the three-relay system--th=
at
is, three tenants to a bed, each occupying it eight hours, so that it never
grows cold; while the floor space underneath the bed is likewise let on the
three-relay system. Health of=
ficers
are not at all unused to finding such cases as the following: in one room
having a cubic capacity of 1000 feet, three adult females in the bed, and t=
wo
adult females under the bed; and in one room of 1650 cubic feet, one adult =
male
and two children in the bed, and two adult females under the bed.
Here is a typical
example of a room on the more respectable two-relay system. It is occupied in the daytime by a=
young
woman employed all night in a hotel.
At seven o'clock in the evening she vacates the room, and a bricklay=
er's
labourer comes in. At seven i=
n the
morning he vacates, and goes to his work, at which time she returns from he=
rs.
The Rev. W. N.
Davies, rector of Spitalfields, took a census of some of the alleys in his
parish. He says:-
In one alley there are ten
houses--fifty-one rooms, nearly all about 8 feet by 9 feet--and 254
people. In six instances only=
do 2
people occupy one=
room;
and in others the number varied from 3 to 9. In another court with six =
houses
and twenty-two rooms were 84 people--again 6, 7, 8, =
and 9
being the number living in one room, in several instances. In one house with eight rooms are =
45 people--one
room containing 9
persons, one 8, two 7, and another 6.
This Ghetto crowd=
ing
is not through inclination, but compulsion. Nearly fifty per cent. of the work=
ers
pay from one-fourth to one-half of their earnings for rent. The average rent in the larger par=
t of
the East End is from four to six shillings per week for one room, while ski=
lled
mechanics, earning thirty-five shillings per week, are forced to part with
fifteen shillings of it for two or three pokey little dens, in which they
strive desperately to obtain some semblance of home life. And rents are going up all the
time. In one street in Stepne=
y the
increase in only two years has been from thirteen to eighteen shillings; in
another street from eleven to sixteen shillings; and in another street, from
eleven to fifteen shillings; while in Whitechapel, two-room houses that
recently rented for ten shillings are now costing twenty-one shillings. East, west, north, and south the r=
ents
are going up. When land is wo=
rth
from 20,000 to 30,000 pounds an acre, some one must pay the landlord.
Mr. W. C. Steadma=
n,
in the House of Commons, in a speech concerning his constituency in Stepney,
related the following:-
This morning, not a hundred =
yards
from where I am myself living, a widow stopped me. She has six children to support, a=
nd the
rent of her house=
was
fourteen shillings per week. =
She
gets her living by letting the house to lo=
dgers
and doing a day's washing or charring. That woman, with tears =
in her
eyes, told me that the landlord had increased the rent from
fourteen shillings to eighteen shillings.&=
nbsp;
What could=
the
woman do? There is no accommo=
dation
in Stepney. Every place is taken up and
overcrowded.
Class supremacy c=
an
rest only on class degradation; and when the workers are segregated in the
Ghetto, they cannot escape the consequent degradation. A short and stunted people is crea=
ted--a
breed strikingly differentiated from their masters' breed, a pavement folk,=
as
it were lacking stamina and strength.
The men become caricatures of what physical men ought to be, and the=
ir
women and children are pale and anaemic, with eyes ringed darkly, who stoop=
and
slouch, and are early twisted out of all shapeliness and beauty.
To make matters
worse, the men of the Ghetto are the men who are left--a deteriorated stock,
left to undergo still further deterioration. For a hundred and fifty years, at =
least,
they have been drained of their best. The strong men, the men of pluck,
initiative, and ambition, have been faring forth to the fresher and freer
portions of the globe, to make new lands and nations. Those who are lacking, the weak of=
heart
and head and hand, as well as the rotten and hopeless, have remained to car=
ry
on the breed. And year by yea=
r, in
turn, the best they breed are taken from them. Wherever a man of vigour and statu=
re
manages to grow up, he is haled forthwith into the army. A soldier, as Bernard Shaw has sai=
d, "ostensibly
a heroic and patriotic defender of his country, is really an unfortunate man
driven by destitution to offer himself as food for powder for the sake of
regular rations, shelter, and clothing."
This constant
selection of the best from the workers has impoverished those who are left,=
a
sadly degraded remainder, for the great part, which, in the Ghetto, sinks to
the deepest depths. The wine =
of
life has been drawn off to spill itself in blood and progeny over the rest =
of
the earth. Those that remain =
are
the lees, and they are segregated and steeped in themselves. They become indecent and bestial.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> When they kill, they kill with the=
ir
hands, and then stupidly surrender themselves to the executioners. There is no splendid audacity about
their transgressions. They go=
uge a
mate with a dull knife, or beat his head in with an iron pot, and then sit =
down
and wait for the police.
Wife-beating is the masculine prerogative of matrimony. They wear remarkable boots of bras=
s and
iron, and when they have polished off the mother of their children with a b=
lack
eye or so, they knock her down and proceed to trample her very much as a
Western stallion tramples a rattlesnake.
A woman of the lo=
wer
Ghetto classes is as much the slave of her husband as is the Indian squaw.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> And I, for one, were I a woman and=
had
but the two choices, should prefer being a squaw. The men are economically dependent=
on
their masters, and the women are economically dependent on the men. The result is, the woman gets the
beating the man should give his master, and she can do nothing. There are the kiddies, and he is t=
he bread-winner,
and she dare not send him to jail and leave herself and children to
starve. Evidence to convict c=
an
rarely be obtained when such cases come into the courts; as a rule, the
trampled wife and mother is weeping and hysterically beseeching the magistr=
ate
to let her husband off for the kiddies' sakes.
The wives become
screaming harridans or, broken-spirited and doglike, lose what little decen=
cy
and self-respect they have remaining over from their maiden days, and all s=
ink
together, unheeding, in their degradation and dirt.
Sometimes I become
afraid of my own generalizations upon the massed misery of this Ghetto life,
and feel that my impressions are exaggerated, that I am too close to the
picture and lack perspective. At
such moments I find it well to turn to the testimony of other men to prove =
to
myself that I am not becoming over-wrought and addle-pated. Frederick Harrison has always stru=
ck me
as being a level-headed, well-controlled man, and he says:-
To me, at least, it would be
enough to condemn modern society as hardly an advance on sl=
avery
or serfdom, if the permanent condition of industry were to be that
which we behold, that ninety per cent. of the actual producers of wea=
lth
have no home that they can call their own beyond the end of the w=
eek;
have no bit of soil, or so much as a room that belongs to them; h=
ave
nothing of value of any kind, except as much old furniture as w=
ill go
into a cart; have the precarious chance of weekly wages, which =
barely
suffice to keep them in health; are housed, for the most pa=
rt, in
places that no man thinks fit for his horse; are separated by=
so
narrow a margin from destitution that a month of bad trade, sic=
kness,
or unexpected loss brings them face to face with hunger and
pauperism . . . But below this normal state of the average workman in =
town
and country, there is found the great band of destitute outcasts--=
the
camp followers of the army of industry--at least one-tenth the who=
le
proletarian population, whose normal condition is one of sic=
kening
wretchedness. If this is to b=
e the permanent arrangement of
modern society, civilization must be held to bring a curse on the gr=
eat
majority of mankind.
Ninety per
cent.! The figures are appall=
ing,
yet Mr. Stopford Brooke, after drawing a frightful London picture, finds
himself compelled to multiply it by half a million. Here it is:-
I often used to meet, when I=
was
curate at Kensington, families drifting into London al=
ong
the Hammersmith Road. One day=
there
came along a labo=
urer
and his wife, his son and two daughters.&n=
bsp;
Their fami=
ly had
lived for a long time on an estate in the country, and managed, with the help =
of the
common-land and their labour, to get on. But the time came when =
the
common was encroached upon, and their labour was not needed o=
n the
estate, and they were quietly turned out of their cottage. Where should they go? Of course to London, where work was thought to be
plentiful. They had a little
savings, and they thought they could get =
two
decent rooms to live in. But =
the inexorable land questio=
n met
them in London. They tried the
decent courts for
lodgings, and found that two rooms would cost ten shillings a week. Food was dear and bad, water was b=
ad,
and in a short time their health suffered.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Work was hard to get, and its wage=
was
so low that they =
were
soon in debt. They became mor=
e ill
and more despairing with the poisonous
surroundings, the darkness, and the long hours of work; and they were dri=
ven forth
to seek a cheaper lodging. Th=
ey found it in a court I k=
new
well--a hotbed of crime and nameless horrors. In this they got a single room at a
cruel rent, and work was more difficult for them=
to
get now, as they came from a place of such bad repute, and they fe=
ll
into the hands of those who sweat the last drop out of man and wom=
an and
child, for wages which are the food only of despair. And the darkness and the dirt, the=
bad
food and the sick=
ness,
and the want of water was worse than before; and the crowd and the companionship o=
f the
court robbed them of the last shreds of self-respect. The drink demon seized upon them.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Of course there was a public-house at both =
ends
of the court. There they fled=
, one
and all, for shel=
ter,
and warmth, and society, and forgetfulness. And they came out in deeper=
debt,
with inflamed senses and burning brains, and an unsatisfied crav=
ing
for drink they would do anything to satiate. And in a few months the father was=
in
prison, the wife =
dying,
the son a criminal, and the daughters on the street. Multiply this by half a million,=
and
you will be beneath the truth.
No more dreary
spectacle can be found on this earth than the whole of the "awful
East," with its Whitechapel, Hoxton, Spitalfields, Bethnal Green, and
Wapping to the East India Docks.
The colour of life is grey and drab. Everything is helpless, hopeless,
unrelieved, and dirty. Bath t=
ubs
are a thing totally unknown, as mythical as the ambrosia of the gods. The people themselves are dirty, w=
hile
any attempt at cleanliness becomes howling farce, when it is not pitiful and
tragic. Strange, vagrant odou=
rs
come drifting along the greasy wind, and the rain, when it falls, is more l=
ike
grease than water from heaven. The
very cobblestones are scummed with grease.
Here lives a
population as dull and unimaginative as its long grey miles of dingy
brick. Religion has virtually
passed it by, and a gross and stupid materialism reigns, fatal alike to the
things of the spirit and the finer instincts of life.
It used to be the
proud boast that every Englishman's home was his castle. But to-day it is an anachronism. The Ghetto folk have no homes. The=
y do
not know the significance and the sacredness of home life. Even the municipal dwellings, wher=
e live
the better-class workers, are overcrowded barracks. They have no home life. The very language proves it. The father returning from work ask=
s his
child in the street where her mother is; and back the answer comes, "In
the buildings."
A new race has sp=
rung
up, a street people. They pass
their lives at work and in the streets.&nb=
sp;
They have dens and lairs into which to crawl for sleeping purposes, =
and
that is all. One cannot trave=
sty
the word by calling such dens and lairs "homes." The traditional silent and reserve=
d Englishman
has passed away. The pavement=
folk
are noisy, voluble, high- strung, excitable--when they are yet young. As they grow older they become ste=
eped
and stupefied in beer. When t=
hey
have nothing else to do, they ruminate as a cow ruminates. They are to be met with everywhere=
, standing
on curbs and corners, and staring into vacancy. Watch one of them. He will stand there, motionless, f=
or
hours, and when you go away you will leave him still staring into vacancy.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> It is most absorbing. He has no money for beer, and his =
lair
is only for sleeping purposes, so what else remains for him to do? He has already solved the mysterie=
s of girl's
love, and wife's love, and child's love, and found them delusions and shams,
vain and fleeting as dew-drops, quick-vanishing before the ferocious facts =
of
life.
As I say, the you=
ng
are high-strung, nervous, excitable; the middle-aged are empty-headed, stol=
id,
and stupid. It is absurd to t=
hink
for an instant that they can compete with the workers of the New World. Bru=
talised,
degraded, and dull, the Ghetto folk will be unable to render efficient serv=
ice
to England in the world struggle for industrial supremacy which economists
declare has already begun. Ne=
ither
as workers nor as soldiers can they come up to the mark when England, in her
need, calls upon them, her forgotten ones; and if England be flung out of t=
he world's
industrial orbit, they will perish like flies at the end of summer. Or, with England critically situat=
ed,
and with them made desperate as wild beasts are made desperate, they may be=
come
a menace and go "swelling" down to the West End to return the
"slumming" the West End has done in the East. In which case, before rapid-fire g=
uns
and the modern machinery of warfare, they will perish the more swiftly and =
easily.
CHAPTER XX--COFFEE-HOUSES=
AND
DOSS-HOUSES
Another phrase gone glimmering, sho=
rn of
romance and tradition and all that goes to make phrases worth keeping! For me, henceforth, "coffee- =
house"
will possess anything but an agreeable connotation. Over on the other side of the worl=
d, the
mere mention of the word was sufficient to conjure up whole crowds of its
historic frequenters, and to send trooping through my imagination endless
groups of wits and dandies, pamphleteers and bravos, and bohemians of Grub
Street.
But here, on this
side of the world, alas and alack, the very name is a misnomer. Coffee-house: a place where people=
drink
coffee. Not at all. You cannot
obtain coffee in such a place for love or money. True, you may call for coffee, and=
you
will have brought you something in a cup purporting to be coffee, and you w=
ill
taste it and be disillusioned, for coffee it certainly is not.
And what is true =
of
the coffee is true of the coffee-house.&nb=
sp;
Working-men, in the main, frequent these places, and greasy, dirty
places they are, without one thing about them to cherish decency in a man or
put self-respect into him.
Table-cloths and napkins are unknown. A man eats in the midst of the deb=
ris
left by his predecessor, and dribbles his own scraps about him and on the
floor. In rush times, in such
places, I have positively waded through the muck and mess that covered the
floor, and I have managed to eat because I was abominably hungry and capabl=
e of
eating anything.
This seems to be =
the
normal condition of the working-man, from the zest with which he addresses
himself to the board. Eating =
is a
necessity, and there are no frills about it. He brings in with him a primitive =
voraciousness,
and, I am confident, carries away with him a fairly healthy appetite. When you see such a man, on his wa=
y to
work in the morning, order a pint of tea, which is no more tea than it is
ambrosia, pull a hunk of dry bread from his pocket, and wash the one down w=
ith
the other, depend upon it, that man has not the right sort of stuff in his =
belly,
nor enough of the wrong sort of stuff, to fit him for big day's work. And further, depend upon it, he an=
d a
thousand of his kind will not turn out the quantity or quality of work that=
a
thousand men will who have eaten heartily of meat and potatoes, and drunk
coffee that is coffee.
As a vagrant in t=
he
"Hobo" of a California jail, I have been served better food and d=
rink
than the London workman receives in his coffee-houses; while as an American
labourer I have eaten a breakfast for twelvepence such as the British labou=
rer
would not dream of eating. Of=
course,
he will pay only three or four pence for his; which is, however, as much as=
I
paid, for I would be earning six shillings to his two or two and a half.
There is a compar=
ison
which sailormen make between the English and American merchant services.
Early in the morn=
ing,
along the streets frequented by workmen on the way to work, many women sit =
on
the sidewalk with sacks of bread beside them. No end of workmen purchase th=
ese,
and eat them as they walk along.
They do not even wash the dry bread down with the tea to be obtained=
for
a penny in the coffee-houses. It is
incontestable that a man is not fit to begin his day's work on a meal like
that; and it is equally incontestable that the loss will fall upon his empl=
oyer
and upon the nation. For some=
time,
now, statesmen have been crying, "Wake up, England!" It would show more hard-headed com=
mon
sense if they changed the tune to "Feed up, England!"
Not only is the
worker poorly fed, but he is filthily fed.=
I have stood outside a butcher-shop and watched a horde of speculati=
ve
housewives turning over the trimmings and scraps and shreds of beef and
mutton--dog- meat in the States. I
would not vouch for the clean fingers of these housewives, no more than I w=
ould
vouch for the cleanliness of the single rooms in which many of them and the=
ir
families lived; yet they raked, and pawed, and scraped the mess about in th=
eir
anxiety to get the worth of their coppers.=
I kept my eye on one particularly offensive-looking bit of meat, and
followed it through the clutches of over twenty women, till it fell to the =
lot
of a timid-appearing little woman whom the butcher bluffed into taking it.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> All day long this heap of scraps w=
as
added to and taken away from, the dust and dirt of the street falling upon =
it, flies
settling on it, and the dirty fingers turning it over and over.
The costers wheel
loads of specked and decaying fruit around in the barrows all day, and very
often store it in their one living and sleeping room for the night. There it is exposed to the sicknes=
s and
disease, the effluvia and vile exhalations of overcrowded and rotten life, =
and
next day it is carted about again to be sold.
The poor worker of
the East End never knows what it is to eat good, wholesome meat or fruit--in
fact, he rarely eats meat or fruit at all; while the skilled workman has
nothing to boast of in the way of what he eats. Judging from the coffee-houses, wh=
ich is
a fair criterion, they never know in all their lives what tea, coffee, or c=
ocoa
tastes like. The slops and
water-witcheries of the coffee-houses, varying only in sloppiness and witch=
ery,
never even approximate or suggest what you and I are accustomed to drink as=
tea
and coffee.
A little incident
comes to me, connected with a coffee-house not far from Jubilee Street on t=
he
Mile End Road.
"Cawn yer le=
t me
'ave somethin' for this, daughter?
Anythin', Hi don't mind. Hi
'aven't 'ad a bite the blessed dy, an' Hi'm that fynt . . . "
She was an old wo=
man,
clad in decent black rags, and in her hand she held a penny. The one she had addressed as
"daughter" was a careworn woman of forty, proprietress and waitre=
ss
of the house.
I waited, possibl=
y as
anxiously as the old woman, to see how the appeal would be received. It was four in the afternoon, and =
she
looked faint and sick. The wo=
man
hesitated an instant, then brought a large plate of "stewed lamb and y=
oung
peas." I was eating a pl=
ate of
it myself, and it is my judgment that the lamb was mutton and that the peas
might have been younger without being youthful. However, the point is, the dish wa=
s sold
at sixpence, and the proprietress gave it for a penny, demonstrating anew t=
he
old truth that the poor are the most charitable.
The old woman,
profuse in her gratitude, took a seat on the other side of the narrow table=
and
ravenously attacked the smoking stew.
We ate steadily and silently, the pair of us, when suddenly, explosi=
vely
and most gleefully, she cried out to me,--
"Hi sold a b=
ox
o' matches! Yus," she
confirmed, if anything with greater and more explosive glee. "Hi sold a box o' matches!
"You must be
getting along in years," I suggested.
"Seventy-four
yesterday," she replied, and returned with gusto to her plate.
"Blimey, I'd
like to do something for the old girl, that I would, but this is the first =
I've
'ad to-dy," the young fellow alongside volunteered to me. "An' I only 'ave this because=
I
'appened to make an odd shilling washin' out, Lord lumme! I don't know 'ow =
many
pots."
"No work at =
my
own tryde for six weeks," he said further, in reply to my questions;
"nothin' but odd jobs a blessed long wy between."
* * * * *
One meets with all
sorts of adventures in coffee-house, and I shall not soon forget a Cockney
Amazon in a place near Trafalgar Square, to whom I tendered a sovereign when
paying my score. (By the way,=
one
is supposed to pay before he begins to eat, and if he be poorly dressed he =
is compelled
to pay before he eats).
The girl bit the =
gold
piece between her teeth, rang it on the counter, and then looked me and my =
rags
witheringly up and down.
"Where'd you
find it?" she at length demanded.
"Some mug le=
ft
it on the table when he went out, eh, don't you think?" I retorted.
"Wot's yer
gyme?" she queried, looking me calmly in the eyes.
"I makes
'em," quoth I.
She sniffed
superciliously and gave me the change in small silver, and I had my revenge=
by
biting and ringing every piece of it.
"I'll give y=
ou a
ha'penny for another lump of sugar in the tea," I said.
"I'll see yo=
u in
'ell first," came the retort courteous. Also, she amplified the retort cou=
rteous
in divers vivid and unprintable ways.
I never had much
talent for repartee, but she knocked silly what little I had, and I gulped =
down
my tea a beaten man, while she gloated after me even as I passed out to the
street.
While 300,000 peo=
ple
of London live in one-room tenements, and 900,000 are illegally and vicious=
ly
housed, 38,000 more are registered as living in common lodging-houses--know=
n in
the vernacular as "doss-houses."=
There are many kinds of doss-houses, but in one thing they are all
alike, from the filthy little ones to the monster big ones paying five per
cent. and blatantly lauded by smug middle-class men who know but one thing
about them, and that one thing is their uninhabitableness. By this I do not mean that the roo=
fs
leak or the walls are draughty; but what I do mean is that life in them is
degrading and unwholesome.
"The poor ma=
n's
hotel," they are often called, but the phrase is caricature. Not to possess a room to one's sel=
f, in
which sometimes to sit alone; to be forced out of bed willy-nilly, the first
thing in the morning; to engage and pay anew for a bed each night; and neve=
r to
have any privacy, surely is a mode of existence quite different from that o=
f hotel
life.
This must not be
considered a sweeping condemnation of the big private and municipal
lodging-houses and working-men's homes.&nb=
sp;
Far from it. They have
remedied many of the atrocities attendant upon the irresponsible small
doss-houses, and they give the workman more for his money than he ever rece=
ived
before; but that does not make them as habitable or wholesome as the
dwelling-place of a man should be who does his work in the world.
The little private
doss-houses, as a rule, are unmitigated horrors. I have slept in them, and I know; =
but
let me pass them by and confine myself to the bigger and better ones. Not far from Middlesex Street, Whi=
techapel,
I entered such a house, a place inhabited almost entirely by working men. The entrance was by way of a fligh=
t of
steps descending from the sidewalk to what was properly the cellar of the
building. Here were two large=
and
gloomily lighted rooms, in which men cooked and ate. I had intended to do some cooking
myself, but the smell of the place stole away my appetite, or, rather, wres=
ted
it from me; so I contented myself with watching other men cook and eat.
One workman, home
from work, sat down opposite me at the rough wooden table, and began his
meal. A handful of salt on th=
e not
over-clean table constituted his butter.&n=
bsp;
Into it he dipped his bread, mouthful by mouthful, and washed it down
with tea from a big mug. A pi=
ece of
fish completed his bill of fare. He
ate silently, looking neither to right nor left nor across at me. Here and there, at the various tab=
les,
other men were eating, just as silently.&n=
bsp;
In the whole room there was hardly a note of conversation. A feeling of gloom pervaded the
ill-lighted place. Many of them sat and brooded over the crumbs of their
repast, and made me wonder, as Childe Roland wondered, what evil they had d=
one
that they should be punished so.
From the kitchen =
came
the sounds of more genial life, and I ventured into the range where the men
were cooking. But the smell I=
had
noticed on entering was stronger here, and a rising nausea drove me into the
street for fresh air.
On my return I pa=
id
fivepence for a "cabin," took my receipt for the same in the form=
of
a huge brass check, and went upstairs to the smoking-room. Here, a couple of
small billiard tables and several checkerboards were being used by young
working-men, who waited in relays for their turn at the games, while many m=
en
were sitting around, smoking, reading, and mending their clothes. The young men were hilarious, the =
old
men were gloomy. In fact, the=
re
were two types of men, the cheerful and the sodden or blue, and age seemed =
to
determine the classification.
But no more than =
the
two cellar rooms did this room convey the remotest suggestion of home. Certainly there could be nothing
home-like about it to you and me, who know what home really is. On the walls were the most prepost=
erous
and insulting notices regulating the conduct of the guests, and at ten o'cl=
ock
the lights were put out, and nothing remained but bed. This was gained by
descending again to the cellar, by surrendering the brass check to a burly
doorkeeper, and by climbing a long flight of stairs into the upper
regions. I went to the top of=
the
building and down again, passing several floors filled with sleeping men. The "cabins" were the be=
st
accommodation, each cabin allowing space for a tiny bed and room alongside =
of
it in which to undress. The b=
edding
was clean, and with neither it nor the bed do I find any fault. But there was no privacy about it,=
no
being alone.
To get an adequate
idea of a floor filled with cabins, you have merely to magnify a layer of t=
he
pasteboard pigeon-holes of an egg-crate till each pigeon-hole is seven feet=
in
height and otherwise properly dimensioned, then place the magnified layer on
the floor of a large, barnlike room, and there you have it. There are no ceilings to the
pigeon-holes, the walls are thin, and the snores from all the sleepers and
every move and turn of your nearer neighbours come plainly to your ears.
Now I contend that
the least a man who does his day's work should have is a room to himself, w=
here
he can lock the door and be safe in his possessions; where he can sit down =
and
read by a window or look out; where he can come and go whenever he wishes;
where he can accumulate a few personal belongings other than those he carri=
es
about with him on his back and in his pockets; where he can hang up picture=
s of
his mother, sister, sweet-heart, ballet dancers, or bulldogs, as his heart
listeth--in short, one place of his own on the earth of which he can say:
"This is mine, my castle; the world stops at the threshold; here am I =
lord
and master." He will be a
better citizen, this man; and he will do a better day's work.
I stood on one fl=
oor
of the poor man's hotel and listened.
I went from bed to bed and looked at the sleepers. They were young men, from twenty to
forty, most of them. Old men =
cannot
afford the working-man's home. They go to the workhouse. But I looked at the young men, sco=
res of
them, and they were not bad-looking fellows. Their faces were made for women's =
kisses,
their necks for women's arms. They
were lovable, as men are lovable.
They were capable of love. =
span>A
woman's touch redeems and softens, and they needed such redemption and
softening instead of each day growing harsh and harsher. And I wondered where these women w=
ere, and
heard a "harlot's ginny laugh."&=
nbsp;
Leman Street, Waterloo Road, Piccadilly, The Strand, answered me, an=
d I
knew where they were.
CHAPTER XXI--THE
PRECARIOUSNESS OF LIFE
I was talking with a very vindictive
man. In his opinion, his wife=
had wronged
him and the law had wronged him.
The merits and morals of the case are immaterial. The meat of the matter is that she=
had
obtained a separation, and he was compelled to pay ten shillings each week =
for
the support of her and the five children.&=
nbsp;
"But look you," said he to me, "wot'll 'appen to 'er =
if I
don't py up the ten shillings?
S'posin', now, just s'posin' a accident 'appens to me, so I cawn't
work. S'posin' I get a ruptur=
e, or
the rheumatics, or the cholera.
Wot's she goin' to do, eh? Wot's she goin' to do?"
He shook his head
sadly. "No 'ope for 'er.=
The best she cawn do is the work'o=
use,
an' that's 'ell. An' if she d=
on't
go to the work'ouse, it'll be a worse 'ell. Come along 'ith me an' I'll show y=
ou
women sleepin' in a passage, a dozen of 'em. An' I'll show you worse, wot she'l=
l come
to if anythin' 'appens to me and the ten shillings."
The certitude of =
this
man's forecast is worthy of consideration.=
He knew conditions sufficiently to know the precariousness of his wi=
fe's
grasp on food and shelter. Fo=
r her
game was up when his working capacity was impaired or destroyed. And when this state of affairs is =
looked
at in its larger aspect, the same will be found true of hundreds of thousan=
ds and
even millions of men and women living amicably together and co-operating in=
the
pursuit of food and shelter.
The figures are
appalling: 1,800,000 people in London live on the poverty line and below it,
and 1,000,000 live with one week's wages between them and pauperism. In all England and Wales, eighteen=
per
cent. of the whole population are driven to the parish for relief, and in
London, according to the statistics of the London County Council, twenty-one
per cent. of the whole population are driven to the parish for relief. Between being driven to the parish=
for
relief and being an out-and-out pauper there is a great difference, yet Lon=
don
supports 123,000 paupers, quite a city of folk in themselves. One in every four in London dies on
public charity, while 939 out of every 1000 in the United Kingdom die in
poverty; 8,000,000 simply struggle on the ragged edge of starvation, and 20=
,000,000
more are not comfortable in the simple and clean sense of the word.
It is interesting=
to
go more into detail concerning the London people who die on charity.
In 1886, and up to
1893, the percentage of pauperism to population was less in London than in =
all
England; but since 1893, and for every succeeding year, the percentage of
pauperism to population has been greater in London than in all England. Yet, from the Registrar-General's =
Report
for 1886, the following figures are taken:-
Out of 81,951 dea=
ths
in London (1884):-
In workhouses =
9,909 In hospitals =
6,559 In lunatic asylums
278 Total in public refuges 16,746
Commenting on the=
se
figures, a Fabian writer says: "Considering that comparatively few of
these are children, it is probable that one in every three London adults wi=
ll
be driven into one of these refuges to die, and the proportion in the case =
of
the manual labour class must of course be still larger."
These figures ser=
ve
somewhat to indicate the proximity of the average worker to pauperism. Various things make pauperism. An advertisement, for instance, su=
ch as
this, appearing in yesterday morning's paper:-
"Clerk wante=
d,
with knowledge of shorthand, typewriting, and invoicing: wages ten shilling=
s (
2.50) a week. Apply by letter," &c.
And in to-day's p=
aper
I read of a clerk, thirty-five years of age and an inmate of a London
workhouse, brought before a magistrate for non-performance of task. He claimed that he had done his va=
rious
tasks since he had been an inmate; but when the master set him to breaking =
stones,
his hands blistered, and he could not finish the task. He had never been used to an imple=
ment
heavier than a pen, he said. =
The magistrate
sentenced him and his blistered hands to seven days' hard labour.
Old age, of cours=
e,
makes pauperism. And then the=
re is
the accident, the thing happening, the death or disablement of the husband,
father, and bread-winner. Her=
e is a
man, with a wife and three children, living on the ticklish security of twe=
nty
shillings per week--and there are hundreds of thousands of such families in
London. Perforce, to even hal=
f exist,
they must live up to the last penny of it, so that a week's wages (one poun=
d)
is all that stands between this family and pauperism or starvation. The thing happens, the father is s=
truck
down, and what then? A mother with three children can do little or
nothing. Either she must hand=
her
children over to society as juvenile paupers, in order to be free to do
something adequate for herself, or she must go to the sweat- shops for work
which she can perform in the vile den possible to her reduced income. But with the sweat-shops, married =
women
who eke out their husband's earnings, and single women who have but themsel=
ves miserably
to support, determine the scale of wages.&=
nbsp;
And this scale of wages, so determined, is so low that the mother and
her three children can live only in positive beastliness and semi-starvatio=
n,
till decay and death end their suffering.
To show that this
mother, with her three children to support, cannot compete in the sweating
industries, I instance from the current newspapers the two following cases:=
-
A father indignan=
tly
writes that his daughter and a girl companion receive 8.5d. per gross for
making boxes. They made each =
day
four gross. Their expenses were 8d. for car fare, 2d. for stamps, 2.5d. for
glue, and 1d. for string, so that all they earned between them was 1s. 9d.,=
or
a daily wage each of 10.5d.
In the second ewe,
before the Luton Guardians a few days ago, an old woman of seventy-two
appeared, asking for relief.
"She was a straw-hat maker, but had been compelled to give up t=
he
work owing to the price she obtained for them--namely, 2.25d. each. For that price she had to provide =
plait
trimmings and make and finish the hats."
Yet this mother a=
nd
her three children we are considering have done no wrong that they should b=
e so
punished. They have not
sinned. The thing happened, t=
hat is
all; the husband, father and bread-winner, was struck down. There is no guarding against it. It is fortuitous. A family stands so many chances of
escaping the bottom of the Abyss, and so many chances of falling plump down=
to
it. The chance is reducible to
cold, pitiless figures, and a few of these figures will not be out of place=
.
Sir A. Forwood
calculates that--
1 of every 1400
workmen is killed annually. 1 of every 2500 workmen is totally disabled. 1 =
of
every 300 workmen is permanently partially disabled. 1 of every 8 workmen is
temporarily disabled 3 or 4 weeks.
But these are only
the accidents of industry. Th=
e high
mortality of the people who live in the Ghetto plays a terrible part. The average age at death among the=
people
of the West End is fifty-five years; the average age at death among the peo=
ple
of the East End is thirty years.
That is to say, the person in the West End has twice the chance for =
life
that the person has in the East End.
Talk of war! The morta=
lity
in South Africa and the Philippines fades away to insignificance. Here, in the heart of peace, is wh=
ere
the blood is being shed; and here not even the civilised rules of warfare
obtain, for the women and children and babes in the arms are killed just as=
ferociously
as the men are killed. War! In England, every year, 500,000 me=
n,
women, and children, engaged in the various industries, are killed and
disabled, or are injured to disablement by disease.
In the West End
eighteen per cent. of the children die before five years of age; in the East
End fifty-five per cent. of the children die before five years of age. And there are streets in London wh=
ere
out of every one hundred children born in a year, fifty die during the next
year; and of the fifty that remain, twenty-five die before they are five ye=
ars
old. Slaughter! Herod did not=
do
quite so badly.
That industry cau=
ses
greater havoc with human life than battle does no better substantiation can=
be
given than the following extract from a recent report of the Liverpool Medi=
cal
Officer, which is not applicable to Liverpool alone:-
In many instances little if =
any
sunlight could get to the courts, and the atmosphere within t=
he
dwellings was always foul, owing largely to the saturated condition=
of
the walls and ceilings, which for so many years had absorbed the
exhalations of the occupants into their porous material. Singular testimony to the absence =
of
sunlight in these courts was furnished by=
the
action of the Parks and Gardens Committee, who desired to brighten=
the
homes of the poorest class by gifts of growing flowers and
window-boxes; but these gifts could not be made in courts such as these, as
flowers and plants were susceptible to the unwholesome surrounding=
s, and
would not live.
Mr. George Haw has
compiled the following table on the three St. George's parishes (London
parishes):-
=
Percentage of =
Po=
pulation Death-rate=
=
Ov=
ercrowded per 1000 S=
t.
George's West 10 =
13.2
St. George's South 35 =
23.7 St. George's East
40 =
26.4
Then there are the
"dangerous trades," in which countless workers are employed. Their hold on life is indeed
precarious--far, far more precarious than the hold of the twentieth-century
soldier on life. In the linen
trade, in the preparation of the flax, wet feet and wet clothes cause an
unusual amount of bronchitis, pneumonia, and severe rheumatism; while in the
carding and spinning departments the fine dust produces lung disease in the
majority of cases, and the woman who starts carding at seventeen or eighteen
begins to break up and go to pieces at thirty. The chemical labourers, picked fro=
m the
strongest and most splendidly-built men to be found, live, on an average, l=
ess
than forty-eight years.
Says Dr. Arlidge,=
of
the potter's trade: "Potter's dust does not kill suddenly, but settles,
year after year, a little more firmly into the lungs, until at length a cas=
e of
plaster is formed. Breathing =
becomes
more and more difficult and depressed, and finally ceases."
Steel dust, stone
dust, clay dust, alkali dust, fluff dust, fibre dust--all these things kill,
and they are more deadly than machine-guns and pom-poms. Worst of all is the lead dust in t=
he
white-lead trades. Here is a description of the typical dissolution of a yo=
ung,
healthy, well-developed girl who goes to work in a white-lead factory:-
Here, after a varying degree=
of
exposure, she becomes anaemic. It
may be that her g=
ums
show a very faint blue line, or perchance her teeth and gums are perfectly =
sound,
and no blue line is discernible. Coincidently with the a=
naemia
she has been getting thinner, but so gradually as scarcely to
impress itself upon her or her friends. Sickness, however, ensu=
es,
and headaches, growing in intensity, are developed. These are frequently attended by
obscuration of vision or temporary blindness.
And here are a few
specific cases of white-lead poisoning:-
Charlotte Rafferty, a fine,
well-grown young woman with a splendid constitution--who had n=
ever
had a day's illness in her life--became a white-lead worker. Convulsions seized her at the foot=
of
the ladder in the
works. Dr. Oliver examined he=
r,
found the blue line along her gums, which shows that =
the
system is under the influence of the lead. He knew that the convul=
sions
would shortly return. They di=
d so,
and she died.
Mary Ann Toler--a girl of
seventeen, who had never had a fit in her life--three times becam=
e ill,
and had to leave off work in the factory. Before she was nineteen she showed
symptoms of lead poisoning--had fits, fr=
othed
at the mouth, and died.
Mary A., an unusually vigoro=
us
woman, was able to work in the lead factory for twenty year=
s,
having colic once only during that time. Her eight children all =
died
in early infancy from convulsions.
One mornin=
g,
whilst brushing her hair, this woman suddenly lost all power in both her wrists.
Eliza H., aged twenty-five, =
after
five months at lead works, was seized with colic. She entered another factory (after=
being
refused by the fi=
rst
one) and worked on uninterruptedly for two years. Then the former symptoms ret=
urned,
she was seized with convulsions, and died in two days of acu=
te
lead poisoning.
Mr. Vaughan Nash,
speaking of the unborn generation, says: "The children of the white-le=
ad
worker enter the world, as a rule, only to die from the convulsions of lead
poisoning--they are either born prematurely, or die within the first
year."
And, finally, let=
me
instance the case of Harriet A. Walker, a young girl of seventeen, killed w=
hile
leading a forlorn hope on the industrial battlefield. She was employed as an enamelled w=
are
brusher, wherein lead poisoning is encountered. Her father and brother were both o=
ut of employment. She concealed her illness, walked =
six
miles a day to and from work, earned her seven or eight shillings per week,=
and
died, at seventeen.
Depression in tra=
de
also plays an important part in hurling the workers into the Abyss. With a week's wages between a fami=
ly and
pauperism, a month's enforced idleness means hardship and misery almost
indescribable, and from the ravages of which the victims do not always reco=
ver
when work is to be had again. Just
now the daily papers contain the report of a meeting of the Carlisle branch=
of
the Dockers' Union, wherein it is stated that many of the men, for months p=
ast,
have not averaged a weekly income of more than from four to five
shillings. The stagnated stat=
e of the
shipping industry in the port of London is held accountable for this condit=
ion
of affairs.
To the young
working-man or working-woman, or married couple, there is no assurance of h=
appy
or healthy middle life, nor of solvent old age. Work as they will, they cannot make
their future secure. It is al=
l a
matter of chance. Everything
depends upon the thing happening, the thing with which they have nothing to
do. Precaution cannot fend it=
off,
nor can wiles evade it. If th=
ey
remain on the industrial battlefield they must face it and take their chance
against heavy odds. Of course=
, if
they are favourably made and are not tied by kinship duties, they may run a=
way from
the industrial battlefield. In
which event the safest thing the man can do is to join the army; and for the
woman, possibly, to become a Red Cross nurse or go into a nunnery. In either case they must forego ho=
me and
children and all that makes life worth living and old age other than a
nightmare.
With life so precarious, and opport=
unity
for the happiness of life so remote, it is inevitable that life shall be ch=
eap
and suicide common. So common=
is
it, that one cannot pick up a daily paper without running across it; while =
an
attempt-at-suicide case in a police court excites no more interest than an
ordinary "drunk," and is handled with the same rapidity and
unconcern.
I remember such a
case in the Thames Police Court. I
pride myself that I have good eyes and ears, and a fair working knowledge of
men and things; but I confess, as I stood in that court-room, that I was ha=
lf
bewildered by the amazing despatch with which drunks, disorderlies, vagrant=
s, brawlers,
wife-beaters, thieves, fences, gamblers, and women of the street went throu=
gh
the machine of justice. The d=
ock
stood in the centre of the court (where the light is best), and into it and=
out
again stepped men, women, and children, in a stream as steady as the stream=
of sentences
which fell from the magistrate's lips.
I was still ponde=
ring
over a consumptive "fence" who had pleaded inability to work and
necessity for supporting wife and children, and who had received a year at =
hard
labour, when a young boy of about twenty appeared in the dock. "Alfred Freeman," I caug=
ht his
name, but failed to catch the charge.
A stout and motherly-looking woman bobbed up in the witness-box and
began her testimony. Wife of =
the
Britannia lock-keeper, I learned she was.&=
nbsp;
Time, night; a splash; she ran to the lock and found the prisoner in=
the
water.
I flashed my gaze from her to him. So that was = the charge, self-murder. He stood there dazed and unheeding, his bonny brown ha= ir rumpled down his forehead, his face haggard and careworn and boyish still.<= o:p>
"Yes, sir,&q=
uot;
the lock-keeper's wife was saying.
"As fast as I pulled to get 'im out, 'e crawled back. Then I called for 'elp, and some w=
orkmen
'appened along, and we got 'im out and turned 'im over to the constable.&qu=
ot;
The magistrate
complimented the woman on her muscular powers, and the court-room laughed; =
but
all I could see was a boy on the threshold of life, passionately crawling to
muddy death, and there was no laughter in it.
A man was now in =
the
witness-box, testifying to the boy's good character and giving extenuating
evidence. He was the boy's fo=
reman,
or had been. Alfred was a good boy, but he had had lots of trouble at home,
money matters. And then his m=
other
was sick. He was given to wor=
rying,
and he worried over it till he laid himself out and wasn't fit for work.
"Anything to
say?" the magistrate demanded abruptly.
The boy in the do=
ck
mumbled something indistinctly. He
was still dazed.
"What does he
say, constable?" the magistrate asked impatiently.
The stalwart man =
in
blue bent his ear to the prisoner's lips, and then replied loudly, "He
says he's very sorry, your Worship."
"Remanded,&q=
uot;
said his Worship; and the next case was under way, the first witness already
engaged in taking the oath. T=
he
boy, dazed and unheeding, passed out with the jailer. That was all, five minutes from st=
art to
finish; and two hulking brutes in the dock were trying strenuously to shift=
the
responsibility of the possession of a stolen fishing-pole, worth probably t=
en
cents.
The chief trouble
with these poor folk is that they do not know how to commit suicide, and
usually have to make two or three attempts before they succeed. This, very naturally, is a horrid
nuisance to the constables and magistrates, and gives them no end of
trouble. Sometimes, however, =
the
magistrates are frankly outspoken about the matter, and censure the prisone=
rs
for the slackness of their attempts.
For instance Mr. R. S---, chairman of the S--- B--- magistrates, in =
the
case the other day of Ann Wood, who tried to make away with herself in the
canal: "If you wanted to do it, why didn't you do it and get it done w=
ith?"
demanded the indignant Mr. R. S---.
"Why did you not get under the water and make an end of it, ins=
tead
of giving us all this trouble and bother?"
Poverty, misery, =
and
fear of the workhouse, are the principal causes of suicide among the working
classes. "I'll drown mys=
elf
before I go into the workhouse," said Ellen Hughes Hunt, aged
fifty-two. Last Wednesday the=
y held
an inquest on her body at Shoreditch.
Her husband came from the Islington Workhouse to testify. He had been a cheesemonger, but fa=
ilure
in business and poverty had driven him into the workhouse, whither his wife=
had
refused to accompany him.
She was last seen=
at
one in the morning. Three hou=
rs
later her hat and jacket were found on the towing path by the Regent's Cana=
l,
and later her body was fished from the water. Verdict: Suicide during temporary =
insanity.
Such verdicts are
crimes against truth. The Law=
is a
lie, and through it men lie most shamelessly. For instance, a disgraced woman,
forsaken and spat upon by kith and kin, doses herself and her baby with
laudanum. The baby dies; but =
she
pulls through after a few weeks in hospital, is charged with murder, convic=
ted,
and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. Recovering, the Law holds her
responsible for her actions; yet, had she died, the same Law would have
rendered a verdict of temporary insanity.
Now, considering =
the
case of Ellen Hughes Hunt, it is as fair and logical to say that her husband
was suffering from temporary insanity when he went into the Islington
Workhouse, as it is to say that she was suffering from temporary insanity w=
hen
she went into the Regent's Canal.
As to which is the preferable sojourning place is a matter of opinio=
n,
of intellectual judgment. I, =
for
one, from what I know of canals and workhouses, should choose the canal, we=
re I
in a similar position. And I =
make
bold to contend that I am no more insane than Ellen Hughes Hunt, her husban=
d,
and the rest of the human herd.
Man no longer fol=
lows
instinct with the old natural fidelity.&nb=
sp;
He has developed into a reasoning creature, and can intellectually c=
ling
to life or discard life just as life happens to promise great pleasure or
pain. I dare to assert that E=
llen
Hughes Hunt, defrauded and bilked of all the joys of life which fifty-two
years' service in the world has earned, with nothing but the horrors of the
workhouse before her, was very rational and level-headed when she elected to
jump into the canal. And I da=
re to assert,
further, that the jury had done a wiser thing to bring in a verdict charging
society with temporary insanity for allowing Ellen Hughes Hunt to be defrau=
ded
and bilked of all the joys of life which fifty-two years' service in the wo=
rld
had earned.
Temporary
insanity! Oh, these cursed ph=
rases,
these lies of language, under which people with meat in their bellies and w=
hole
shirts on their backs shelter themselves, and evade the responsibility of t=
heir
brothers and sisters, empty of belly and without whole shirts on their back=
s.
From one issue of=
the
Observer, an East End paper, I quote the following commonplace events:-
A ship's fireman, named John=
ny
King, was charged with attempting to commit suicide. On Wednesday defendant went to Bow
Police Station and stated that he had swal=
lowed
a quantity of phosphor paste, as he was hard up and unable to o=
btain
work. King was taken inside a=
nd an emetic administered, wh=
en he
vomited up a quantity of the poison. Defendant now said he w=
as
very sorry. Although he had s=
ixteen
years' good chara=
cter,
he was unable to obtain work of any kind.&=
nbsp;
Mr. Dickin=
son
had defendant put back for the court missionary to see him.
Timothy Warner, thirty-two, =
was
remanded for a similar offence. He jumped off Limehouse Pi=
er,
and when rescued, said, "I intended to do it."
A decent-looking young woman,
named Ellen Gray, was remanded on a charge of attempting to
commit suicide. About half-pa=
st
eight on Sunday m=
orning
Constable 834 K found defendant lying in a doorway in Benworth Street, and sh=
e was
in a very drowsy condition. S=
he was
holding an empty =
bottle
in one hand, and stated that some two or three hours previously she had
swallowed a quantity of laudanum.
As she was evidently very ill, the
divisional surgeon was sent for, and having administered some coffe=
e,
ordered that she was to be kept awake.&nbs=
p;
When defen=
dant
was charged, she stated that the reason why she attempted to take her life was she h=
ad
neither home nor friends.
I do not say that=
all
people who commit suicide are sane, no more than I say that all people who =
do
not commit suicide are sane.
Insecurity of food and shelter, by the way, is a great cause of insa=
nity
among the living. Costermonge=
rs,
hawkers, and pedlars, a class of workers who live from hand to mouth more t=
han
those of any other class, form the highest percentage of those in the lunat=
ic
asylums. Among the males each=
year,
26.9 per 10,000 go insane, and among the women, 36.9. On the other hand, of soldiers, wh=
o are
at least sure of food and shelter, 13 per 10,000 go insane; and of farmers =
and
graziers, only 5.1. So a cost=
er is
twice as likely to lose his reason as a soldier, and five times as likely a=
s a farmer.
Misfortune and mi=
sery
are very potent in turning people's heads, and drive one person to the luna=
tic
asylum, and another to the morgue or the gallows. When the thing happens, and the fa=
ther
and husband, for all of his love for wife and children and his willingness =
to
work, can get no work to do, it is a simple matter for his reason to totter=
and
the light within his brain go out.
And it is especially simple when it is taken into consideration that=
his
body is ravaged by innutrition and disease, in addition to his soul being t=
orn
by the sight of his suffering wife and little ones.
"He is a
good-looking man, with a mass of black hair, dark, expressive eyes, delicat=
ely
chiselled nose and chin, and wavy, fair moustache." This is the reporter's description=
of
Frank Cavilla as he stood in court, this dreary month of September,
"dressed in a much worn grey suit, and wearing no collar."
Frank Cavilla liv=
ed
and worked as a house decorator in London.=
He is described as a good workman, a steady fellow, and not given to
drink, while all his neighbours unite in testifying that he was a gentle an=
d affectionate
husband and father.
His wife, Hannah
Cavilla, was a big, handsome, light-hearted woman. She saw to it that his children we=
re
sent neat and clean (the neighbours all remarked the fact) to the Childeric
Road Board School. And so, wi=
th
such a man, so blessed, working steadily and living temperately, all went w=
ell,
and the goose hung high.
Then the thing
happened. He worked for a Mr.=
Beck,
builder, and lived in one of his master's houses in Trundley Road. Mr. Beck was thrown from his trap =
and
killed. The thing was an unru=
ly
horse, and, as I say, it happened.
Cavilla had to seek fresh employment and find another house.
This occurred
eighteen months ago. For eigh=
teen
months he fought the big fight. He
got rooms in a little house in Batavia Road, but could not make both ends
meet. Steady work could not be
obtained. He struggled manful=
ly at
casual employment of all sorts, his wife and four children starving before =
his
eyes. He starved himself, and=
grew
weak, and fell ill. This was =
three
months ago, and then there was absolutely no food at all. They made no complaint, spoke no w=
ord;
but poor folk know. The house=
wives
of Batavia Road sent them food, but so respectable were the Cavillas that t=
he
food was sent anonymously, mysteriously, so as not to hurt their pride.
The thing had
happened. He had fought, and
starved, and suffered for eighteen months.=
He got up one September morning, early. He opened his pocket-knife. He cut the throat of his wife, Han=
nah
Cavilla, aged thirty- three. =
He cut
the throat of his first-born, Frank, aged twelve. He cut the throat of his son, Walt=
er,
aged eight. He cut the throat=
of
his daughter, Nellie, aged four. He
cut the throat of his youngest-born, Ernest, aged sixteen months. Then he watched beside the dead al=
l day until
the evening, when the police came, and he told them to put a penny in the s=
lot
of the gas-meter in order that they might have light to see.
Frank Cavilla sto=
od
in court, dressed in a much worn grey suit, and wearing no collar. He was a good-looking man, with a =
mass
of black hair, dark, expressive eyes, delicately chiselled nose and chin, a=
nd
wavy, fair moustache.
CHAPTER XXIII--THE CHILDR=
EN
"Where home is a hovel,=
and
dull we grovel, Forgetting the world is
fair."
There is one
beautiful sight in the East End, and only one, and it is the children danci=
ng
in the street when the organ-grinder goes his round. It is fascinating to watch them, t=
he
new-born, the next generation, swaying and stepping, with pretty little
mimicries and graceful inventions all their own, with muscles that move swi=
ftly
and easily, and bodies that leap airily, weaving rhythms never taught in
dancing school.
I have talked with
these children, here, there, and everywhere, and they struck me as being br=
ight
as other children, and in many ways even brighter. They have most active little
imaginations. Their capacity =
for projecting
themselves into the realm of romance and fantasy is remarkable. A joyous life is romping in their
blood. They delight in music,=
and
motion, and colour, and very often they betray a startling beauty of face a=
nd
form under their filth and rags.
But there is a Pi=
ed
Piper of London Town who steals them all away. They disappear. One never sees them again, or anyt=
hing
that suggests them. You may look for them in vain amongst the generation of
grown-ups. Here you will find
stunted forms, ugly faces, and blunt and stolid minds. Grace, beauty,
imagination, all the resiliency of mind and muscle, are gone. Sometimes, however, you may see a =
woman,
not necessarily old, but twisted and deformed out of all womanhood, bloated=
and
drunken, lift her draggled skirts and execute a few grotesque and lumbering
steps upon the pavement. It i=
s a
hint that she was once one of those children who danced to the
organ-grinder. Those grotesqu=
e and
lumbering steps are all that is left of the promise of childhood. In the befogged recesses of her br=
ain
has arisen a fleeting memory that she was once a girl. The crowd closes in. Little girls are dancing beside he=
r,
about her, with all the pretty graces she dimly recollects, but can no more
than parody with her body. Th=
en she
pants for breath, exhausted, and stumbles out through the circle. But the little girls dance on.
The children of t=
he
Ghetto possess all the qualities which make for noble manhood and womanhood;
but the Ghetto itself, like an infuriated tigress turning on its young, tur=
ns
upon and destroys all these qualities, blots out the light and laughter, and
moulds those it does not kill into sodden and forlorn creatures, uncouth,
degraded, and wretched below the beasts of the field.
As to the manner =
in
which this is done, I have in previous chapters described it at length; here
let Professor Huxley describe it in brief:-
"Any one who=
is
acquainted with the state of the population of all great industrial centres,
whether in this or other countries, is aware that amidst a large and increa=
sing
body of that population there reigns supreme . . . that condition which the
French call la misere, a word for which I do not think there is any exact
English equivalent. It is a c=
ondition
in which the food, warmth, and clothing which are necessary for the mere
maintenance of the functions of the body in their normal state cannot be
obtained; in which men, women, and children are forced to crowd into dens
wherein decency is abolished, and the most ordinary conditions of healthful
existence are impossible of attainment; in which the pleasures within reach=
are
reduced to brutality and drunkenness; in which the pains accumulate at comp=
ound
interest in the shape of starvation, disease, stunted development, and moral
degradation; in which the prospect of even steady and honest industry is a =
life
of unsuccessful battling with hunger, rounded by a pauper's grave."
In such condition=
s,
the outlook for children is hopeless.
They die like flies, and those that survive, survive because they
possess excessive vitality and a capacity of adaptation to the degradation =
with
which they are surrounded. Th=
ey
have no home life. In the den=
s and
lairs in which they live they are exposed to all that is obscene and
indecent. And as their minds =
are
made rotten, so are their bodies made rotten by bad sanitation, overcrowdin=
g,
and underfeeding. When a fath=
er and
mother live with three or four children in a room where the children take t=
urn about
in sitting up to drive the rats away from the sleepers, when those children
never have enough to eat and are preyed upon and made miserable and weak by
swarming vermin, the sort of men and women the survivors will make can read=
ily
be imagined.
"Dull despair and miser=
y Lie about them from the=
ir
birth; Ugly curse=
s,
uglier mirth, Are=
their
earliest lullaby."
A man and a woman
marry and set up housekeeping in one room.=
Their income does not increase with the years, though their family d=
oes,
and the man is exceedingly lucky if he can keep his health and his job. A baby comes, and then another.
Fresh in my mind =
is
the picture of a boy in the dock of an East End police court. His head was barely visible above =
the railing. He was being proved guilty of stea=
ling
two shillings from a woman, which he had spent, not for candy and cakes and=
a
good time, but for food.
"Why didn't =
you
ask the woman for food?" the magistrate demanded, in a hurt sort of
tone. "She would surely =
have
given you something to eat."
"If I 'ad ar=
sked
'er, I'd got locked up for beggin'," was the boy's reply.
The magistrate
knitted his brows and accepted the rebuke.=
Nobody knew the boy, nor his father or mother. He was without beginning or antece=
dent,
a waif, a stray, a young cub seeking his food in the jungle of empire, prey=
ing
upon the weak and being preyed upon by the strong.
The people who tr=
y to
help, who gather up the Ghetto children and send them away on a day's outin=
g to
the country, believe that not very many children reach the age of ten witho=
ut
having had at least one day there. Of this, a writer says: "The mental
change caused by one day so spent must not be undervalued. Whatever the circumstances, the ch=
ildren
learn the meaning of fields and woods, so that descriptions of country scen=
ery in
the books they read, which before conveyed no impression, become now intell=
igible."
One day in the fi=
elds
and woods, if they are lucky enough to be picked up by the people who try to
help! And they are being born
faster every day than they can be carted off to the fields and woods for the
one day in their lives. One
day! In all their lives, one
day! And for the rest of the =
days,
as the boy told a certain bishop, "At ten we 'ops the wag; at thirteen=
we
nicks things; an' at sixteen we bashes the copper." Which is to say, at ten they play
truant, at thirteen steal, and at sixteen are sufficiently developed hoolig=
ans
to smash the policemen.
The Rev. J. Cartm=
el
Robinson tells of a boy and girl of his parish who set out to walk to the
forest. They walked and walked
through the never- ending streets, expecting always to see it by-and-by; un=
til
they sat down at last, faint and despairing, and were rescued by a kind wom=
an
who brought them back. Eviden=
tly
they had been overlooked by the people who try to help.
The same gentlema=
n is
authority for the statement that in a street in Hoxton (a district of the v=
ast
East End), over seven hundred children, between five and thirteen years, li=
ve
in eighty small houses. And h=
e adds:
"It is because London has largely shut her children in a maze of stree=
ts
and houses and robbed them of their rightful inheritance in sky and field a=
nd
brook, that they grow up to be men and women physically unfit."
He tells of a mem=
ber
of his congregation who let a basement room to a married couple. "They said they had two child=
ren;
when they got possession it turned out that they had four. After a while a fifth appeared, an=
d the
landlord gave them notice to quit.
They paid no attention to it.
Then the sanitary inspector who has to wink at the law so often, cam=
e in
and threatened my friend with legal proceedings. He pleaded that he could not get t=
hem
out. They pleaded that nobody=
would
have them with so many children at a rental within their means, which is on=
e of
the commonest complaints of the poor, by-the-bye. What was to be done? The landlord was between two
millstones. Finally he applie=
d to the
magistrate, who sent up an officer to inquire into the case. Since that time about twenty days =
have
elapsed, and nothing has yet been done. Is this a singular case? By no means; it is quite common.&q=
uot;
Last week the pol=
ice
raided a disorderly house. In=
one
room were found two young children.
They were arrested and charged with being inmates the same as the wo=
men
had been. Their father appear=
ed at
the trial. He stated that him=
self
and wife and two older children, besides the two in the dock, occupied that
room; he stated also that he occupied it because he could get no other room=
for
the half-crown a week he paid for it.
The magistrate discharged the two juvenile offenders and warned the
father that he was bringing his children up unhealthily.
But there is no n=
eed
further to multiply instances. In
London the slaughter of the innocents goes on on a scale more stupendous th=
an
any before in the history of the world.&nb=
sp;
And equally stupendous is the callousness of the people who believe =
in
Christ, acknowledge God, and go to church regularly on Sunday. For the rest of the week they riot=
about
on the rents and profits which come to them from the East End stained with =
the
blood of the children. Also, =
at
times, so peculiarly are they made, they will take half a million of these
rents and profits and send it away to educate the black boys of the Soudan.=
CHAPTER XXIV--A VISION OF=
THE
NIGHT
All these were years ago lit=
tle
red-coloured, pulpy infants, capable of being kneaded, baked=
, into
any social form you chose.--CARLYLE.
Late last night I
walked along Commercial Street from Spitalfields to Whitechapel, and still
continuing south, down Leman Street to the docks. And as I walked I smiled =
at
the East End papers, which, filled with civic pride, boastfully proclaim th=
at
there is nothing the matter with the East End as a living place for men and
women.
It is rather hard=
to
tell a tithe of what I saw. M=
uch of
it is untenable. But in a gen=
eral
way I may say that I saw a nightmare, a fearful slime that quickened the
pavement with life, a mess of unmentionable obscenity that put into eclipse=
the
"nightly horror" of Piccadilly and the Strand. It was a menagerie of garmented bi=
peds
that looked something like humans and more like beasts, and to complete the=
picture,
brass-buttoned keepers kept order among them when they snarled too fiercely=
.
I was glad the
keepers were there, for I did not have on my "seafaring" clothes,=
and
I was what is called a "mark" for the creatures of prey that prow=
led
up and down. At times, between
keepers, these males looked at me sharply, hungrily, gutter-wolves that they
were, and I was afraid of their hands, of their naked hands, as one may be
afraid of the paws of a gorilla.
They reminded me of gorillas.
Their bodies were small, ill- shaped, and squat. There were no swelling muscles, no
abundant thews and wide-spreading shoulders. They exhibited, rather, an element=
al
economy of nature, such as the cave-men must have exhibited. But there was strength in those me=
agre
bodies, the ferocious, primordial strength to clutch and gripe and tear and
rend. When they spring upon t=
heir
human prey they are known even to bend the victim backward and double its b=
ody till
the back is broken. They poss=
ess
neither conscience nor sentiment, and they will kill for a half-sovereign,
without fear or favour, if they are given but half a chance. They are a new species, a breed of=
city savages. The streets and houses, alleys and
courts, are their hunting grounds.
As valley and mountain are to the natural savage, street and building
are valley and mountain to them.
The slum is their jungle, and they live and prey in the jungle.
The dear soft peo=
ple
of the golden theatres and wonder-mansions of the West End do not see these
creatures, do not dream that they exist.&n=
bsp;
But they are here, alive, very much alive in their jungle. And woe the day, when England is
fighting in her last trench, and her able-bodied men are on the firing
line! For on that day they wi=
ll
crawl out of their dens and lairs, and the people of the West End will see
them, as the dear soft aristocrats of Feudal France saw them and asked one
another, "Whence came they?"&nbs=
p;
"Are they men?"
But they were not=
the
only beasts that ranged the menagerie.&nbs=
p;
They were only here and there, lurking in dark courts and passing li=
ke
grey shadows along the walls; but the women from whose rotten loins they sp=
ring
were everywhere. They whined
insolently, and in maudlin tones begged me for pennies, and worse. They held carouse in every boozing=
ken,
slatternly, unkempt, bleary-eyed, and towsled, leering and gibbering,
overspilling with foulness and corruption, and, gone in debauch, sprawling
across benches and bars, unspeakably repulsive, fearful to look upon.
And there were
others, strange, weird faces and forms and twisted monstrosities that
shouldered me on every side, inconceivable types of sodden ugliness, the wr=
ecks
of society, the perambulating carcasses, the living deaths--women, blasted =
by
disease and drink till their shame brought not tuppence in the open mart; a=
nd
men, in fantastic rags, wrenched by hardship and exposure out of all sembla=
nce
of men, their faces in a perpetual writhe of pain, grinning idiotically,
shambling like apes, dying with every step they took and each breath they
drew. And there were young gi=
rls,
of eighteen and twenty, with trim bodies and faces yet untouched with twist=
and
bloat, who had fetched the bottom of the Abyss plump, in one swift fall.
The unfit and the
unneeded! Industry does not c=
lamour
for them. There are no jobs g=
oing
begging through lack of men and women.&nbs=
p;
The dockers crowd at the entrance gate, and curse and turn away when=
the
foreman does not give them a call.
The engineers who have work pay six shillings a week to their brother
engineers who can find nothing to do; 514,000 textile workers oppose a
resolution condemning the employment of children under fifteen. Women, and plenty to spare, are fo=
und to
toil under the sweat-shop masters for tenpence a day of fourteen hours. Alfred Freeman crawls to muddy dea=
th
because he loses his job. Ell=
en
Hughes Hunt prefers Regent's Canal to Islington Workhouse. Frank Cavilla cuts the throats of =
his
wife and children because he cannot find work enough to give them food and
shelter.
The unfit and the
unneeded! The miserable and
despised and forgotten, dying in the social shambles. The progeny of prostitution--of th=
e prostitution
of men and women and children, of flesh and blood, and sparkle and spirit; =
in
brief, the prostitution of labour.
If this is the best that civilisation can do for the human, then giv=
e us
howling and naked savagery. F=
ar
better to be a people of the wilderness and desert, of the cave and the
squatting-place, than to be a people of the machine and the Abyss.
CHAPTER XXV--THE HUNGER W=
AIL
"My father has more stamina th=
an I,
for he is country-born."
The speaker, a br=
ight
young East Ender, was lamenting his poor physical development.
"Look at my
scrawny arm, will you." =
He
pulled up his sleeve. "N=
ot enough
to eat, that's what's the matter with it.&=
nbsp;
Oh, not now. I have wh=
at I
want to eat these days. But i=
t's
too late. It can't make up fo=
r what
I didn't have to eat when I was a kiddy.&n=
bsp;
Dad came up to London from the Fen Country. Mother died, and there were six of=
us
kiddies and dad living in two small rooms.
"He had hard
times, dad did. He might have
chucked us, but he didn't. He=
slaved
all day, and at night he came home and cooked and cared for us. He was father and mother, both.
"And what's =
the
result? I am undersized, and I
haven't the stamina of my dad. It
was starved out of me. In a c=
ouple
of generations there'll be no more of me here in London. Yet there's my younger brother; he=
's bigger
and better developed. You see=
, dad
and we children held together, and that accounts for it."
"But I don't
see," I objected. "I
should think, under such conditions, that the vitality should decrease and =
the
younger children be born weaker and weaker."
"Not when th=
ey
hold together," he replied.
"Whenever you come along in the East End and see a child of from
eight to twelve, good-sized, well- developed, and healthy-looking, just you=
ask
and you will find that it is the youngest in the family, or at least is one=
of
the younger. The way of it is=
this:
the older children starve more than the younger ones. By the time the younger ones come =
along,
the older ones are starting to work, and there is more money coming in, and
more food to go around."
He pulled down his
sleeve, a concrete instance of where chronic semi-starvation kills not, but
stunts. His voice was but one=
among
the myriads that raise the cry of the hunger wail in the greatest empire in=
the
world. On any one day, over
1,000,000 people are in receipt of poor- law relief in the United Kingdom.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> One in eleven of the whole working=
- class
receive poor-law relief in the course of the year; 37,500,000 people receive
less than 12 pounds per month, per family; and a constant army of 8,000,000
lives on the border of starvation.
A committee of the
London County school board makes this declaration: "At times, when the=
re
is no special distress, 55,000 children in a state of hunger, which makes it
useless to attempt to teach them, are in the schools of London
alone." The italics are
mine. "When there is no =
special
distress" means good times in England; for the people of England have =
come
to look upon starvation and suffering, which they call "distress,"=
; as
part of the social order. Chr=
onic
starvation is looked upon as a matter of course. It is only when acute starvation m=
akes
its appearance on a large scale that they think something is unusual
I shall never for= get the bitter wail of a blind man in a little East End shop at the close of a murky day. He had been the el= dest of five children, with a mother and no father. Being the eldest, he had starved a= nd worked as a child to put bread into the mouths of his little brothers and sisters. Not once in three mo= nths did he ever taste meat. He ne= ver knew what it was to have his hunger thoroughly appeased. And he claimed that this chronic starvation of his childhood had robbed him of his sight. To support the claim, he quoted fr= om the report of the Royal Commission on the Blind, "Blindness is more preval= ent in poor districts, and poverty accelerates this dreadful affliction."<= o:p>
But he went furth=
er,
this blind man, and in his voice was the bitterness of an afflicted man to =
whom
society did not give enough to eat.
He was one of an enormous army of blind in London, and he said that =
in
the blind homes they did not receive half enough to eat. He gave the diet for a day:-
Breakfast--0.75 p=
int
of skilly and dry bread. Dinner
--3 oz. meat. =
1
slice of bread. =
0.5
lb. potatoes. Supper --=
0.75
pint of skilly and dry bread.
Oscar Wilde, God =
rest
his soul, voices the cry of the prison child, which, in varying degree, is =
the
cry of the prison man and woman:-
"The second
thing from which a child suffers in prison is hunger. The food that is given to it consi=
sts of
a piece of usually bad-baked prison bread and a tin of water for breakfast =
at
half-past seven. At twelve o'=
clock
it gets dinner, composed of a tin of coarse Indian meal stirabout (skilly),=
and
at half-past five it gets a piece of dry bread and a tin of water for its
supper. This diet in the case=
of a
strong grown man is always productive of illness of some kind, chiefly of
course diarrhoea, with its attendant weakness. In fact, in a big prison astringen=
t medicines
are served out regularly by the warders as a matter of course. In the case =
of a
child, the child is, as a rule, incapable of eating the food at all. Any one who knows anything about
children knows how easily a child's digestion is upset by a fit of crying, =
or
trouble and mental distress of any kind.&n=
bsp;
A child who has been crying all day long, and perhaps half the night=
, in
a lonely dim-lit cell, and is preyed upon by terror, simply cannot eat food=
of
this coarse, horrible kind. I=
n the case
of the little child to whom Warder Martin gave the biscuits, the child was
crying with hunger on Tuesday morning, and utterly unable to eat the bread =
and
water served to it for its breakfast.
Martin went out after the breakfasts had been served and bought the =
few
sweet biscuits for the child rather than see it starving. It was a beautiful action on his p=
art,
and was so recognised by the child, who, utterly unconscious of the regulat=
ions
of the Prison Board, told one of the senior wardens how kind this junior wa=
rden
had been to him. The result w=
as, of
course, a report and a dismissal."
Robert Blatchford
compares the workhouse pauper's daily diet with the soldier's, which, when =
he
was a soldier, was not considered liberal enough, and yet is twice as liber=
al
as the pauper's.
PAUPER DIET =
SOLDIER 3.25 oz. Meat<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> =
12 oz. 15.5 oz. Bread<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'>
24 oz. 6 oz.
Vegetables
8 oz.
The adult male pa=
uper
gets meat (outside of soup) but once a week, and the paupers "have nea=
rly
all that pallid, pasty complexion which is the sure mark of starvation.&quo=
t;
Here is a table,
comparing the workhouse officer's weekly allowance:-
OFFICER DIET =
PAUPER 7 lb. Bread
6.75 lb. 5 lb. Meat =
1 lb. 2 oz. 12 oz. Bacon
2.5 oz. 8 oz. Cheese 2
oz. 7 lb.
Potatoes 1.5 lb. 6 lb. Vegetables=
none. 1 lb. Flour
none. 2 oz. =
Lard =
none. 12 oz.
Butter 7
oz. none.
Rice Pudding 1 lb.
And as the same
writer remarks: "The officer's diet is still more liberal than the pau=
per's;
but evidently it is not considered liberal enough, for a footnote is added =
to
the officer's table saying that 'a cash payment of two shillings and sixpen=
ce a
week is also made to each resident officer and servant.' If the pauper has ample food, why =
does
the officer have more? And if=
the
officer has not too much, can the pauper be properly fed on less than half =
the
amount?"
But it is not alo=
ne
the Ghetto-dweller, the prisoner, and the pauper that starve. Hodge, of the country, does not kn=
ow
what it is always to have a full belly.&nb=
sp;
In truth, it is his empty belly which has driven him to the city in =
such
great numbers. Let us investi=
gate
the way of living of a labourer from a parish in the Bradfield Poor Law Uni=
on,
Berks. Supposing him to have =
two
children, steady work, a rent-free cottage, and an average weekly wage of
thirteen shillings, which is equivalent to
3.25, then here is
his weekly budget:-
=
&nb=
sp; =
s. d. Bread (5
quarterns) =
1 10 Flour (0.5
gallon) =
0 4 Tea (0.25
lb.) =
&nb=
sp;
0 6 Butter (1
lb.) =
&nb=
sp;
1 3 Lard (1 lb.)=
=
&nb=
sp;
0 6 Sugar (6 lb.=
) =
&nb=
sp;
1 0 Bacon or oth=
er
meat (about 0.25 lb.) 2 8 Cheese (1 lb.) =
&nb=
sp;
0 8 Milk (half-t=
in
condensed) =
0 3.25 Coal =
&nb=
sp;
1 6 Beer =
&nb=
sp;
none Tobacco =
&nb=
sp;
none Insurance ("Prudential") =
0 3 Labourers' Union =
&nb=
sp;
0 1 Wood, tools,
dispensary, &c. =
0 6 Insurance
("Foresters") and margin 1 1.75 =
for
clothes Total =
&nb=
sp;
13 0
The guardians of =
the
workhouse in the above Union pride themselves on their rigid economy. It costs per pauper per week:-
=
s. d. Men =
6 1.5 Wome=
n =
5 6.5 Chil=
dren 5
If the labourer w=
hose
budget has been described should quit his toil and go into the workhouse, he
would cost the guardians for
=
s. d. Himself
5.46
It would require =
more
than a guinea for the workhouse to care for him and his family, which he,
somehow, manages to do on thirteen shillings. And in addition, it is an understo=
od
fact that it is cheaper to cater for a large number of people--buying, cook=
ing,
and serving wholesale--than it is to cater for a small number of people, sa=
y a
family.
Nevertheless, at =
the
time this budget was compiled, there was in that parish another family, not=
of
four, but eleven persons, who had to live on an income, not of thirteen
shillings, but of twelve shillings per week (eleven shillings in winter), a=
nd
which had, not a rent-free cottage, but a cottage for which it paid three
shillings per week.
This must be
understood, and understood clearly: Whatever is true of London in the way of
poverty and degradation, is true of all England. While Paris is not by any
means France, the city of London is England. The frightful conditions which
mark London an inferno likewise mark the United Kingdom an inferno. The argument that the decentralisa=
tion
of London would ameliorate conditions is a vain thing and false. If the 6,000,000 people of London =
were
separated into one hundred cities each with a population of 60,000, misery
would be decentralised but not diminished.=
The sum of it would remain as large.
In this instance,=
Mr.
B. S. Rowntree, by an exhaustive analysis, has proved for the country town =
what
Mr. Charles Booth has proved for the metropolis, that fully one-fourth of t=
he
dwellers are condemned to a poverty which destroys them physically and
spiritually; that fully one- fourth of the dwellers do not have enough to e=
at,
are inadequately clothed, sheltered, and warmed in a rigorous climate, and =
are
doomed to a moral degeneracy which puts them lower than the savage in
cleanliness and decency.
After listening to
the wail of an old Irish peasant in Kerry, Robert Blatchford asked him what=
he
wanted. "The old man lea=
ned
upon his spade and looked out across the black peat fields at the lowering
skies. 'What is it that I'm
wantun?' he said; then in a deep plaintive tone he continued, more to himse=
lf than
to me, 'All our brave bhoys and dear gurrls is away an' over the says, an' =
the
agent has taken the pig off me, an' the wet has spiled the praties, an' I'm=
an
owld man, an' I want the Day av Judgment.'"
The Day of
Judgment! More than he want
it. From all the land rises t=
he hunger
wail, from Ghetto and countryside, from prison and casual ward, from asylum=
and
workhouse--the cry of the people who have not enough to eat. Millions of people, men, women,
children, little babes, the blind, the deaf, the halt, the sick, vagabonds =
and
toilers, prisoners and paupers, the people of Ireland, England, Scotland,
Wales, who have not enough to eat.
And this, in face of the fact that five men can produce bread for a
thousand; that one workman can produce cotton cloth for 250 people, woollens
for 300, and boots and shoes for 1000.&nbs=
p;
It would seem that 40,000,000 people are keeping a big house, and th=
at
they are keeping it badly. The
income is all right, but there is something criminally wrong with the
management. And who dares to =
say
that it is not criminally mismanaged, this big house, when five men can pro=
duce
bread for a thousand, and yet millions have not enough to eat?
CHAPTER XXVI--DRINK,
TEMPERANCE, AND THRIFT
The English working classes may be =
said
to be soaked in beer. They ar=
e made
dull and sodden by it. Their
efficiency is sadly impaired, and they lose whatever imagination, invention,
and quickness may be theirs by right of race. It may hardly be called an acquired
habit, for they are accustomed to it from their earliest infancy. Children are begotten in drunkenne=
ss,
saturated in drink before they draw their first breath, born to the smell a=
nd
taste of it, and brought up in the midst of it.
The public-house =
is
ubiquitous. It flourishes on =
every
corner and between corners, and it is frequented almost as much by women as=
by
men. Children are to be found in it as well, waiting till their fathers and=
mothers
are ready to go home, sipping from the glasses of their elders, listening to
the coarse language and degrading conversation, catching the contagion of i=
t,
familiarising themselves with licentiousness and debauchery.
Mrs. Grundy rules=
as
supremely over the workers as she does over the bourgeoisie; but in the cas=
e of
the workers, the one thing she does not frown upon is the public-house. No disgrace or shame attaches to i=
t, nor
to the young woman or girl who makes a practice of entering it.
I remember a girl=
in
a coffee-house saying, "I never drink spirits when in a
public-'ouse." She was a=
young
and pretty waitress, and she was laying down to another waitress her
pre-eminent respectability and discretion.=
Mrs. Grundy drew the line at spirits, but allowed that it was quite
proper for a clean young girl to drink beer, and to go into a public-house =
to drink
it.
Not only is this =
beer
unfit for the people to drink, but too often the men and women are unfit to
drink it. On the other hand, =
it is
their very unfitness that drives them to drink it. Ill-fed, suffering from innutritio=
n and
the evil effects of overcrowding and squalor, their constitutions develop a
morbid craving for the drink, just as the sickly stomach of the overstrung
Manchester factory operative hankers after excessive quantities of pickles =
and
similar weird foods. Unhealth=
y working
and living engenders unhealthy appetites and desires. Man cannot be worked worse than a =
horse
is worked, and be housed and fed as a pig is housed and fed, and at the same
time have clean and wholesome ideals and aspirations.
As home-life
vanishes, the public-house appears.
Not only do men and women abnormally crave drink, who are overworked,
exhausted, suffering from deranged stomachs and bad sanitation, and deadene=
d by
the ugliness and monotony of existence, but the gregarious men and women who
have no home-life flee to the bright and clattering public-house in a vain =
attempt
to express their gregariousness.
And when a family is housed in one small room, home-life is impossib=
le.
A brief examinati=
on
of such a dwelling will serve to bring to light one important cause of
drunkenness. Here the family =
arises
in the morning, dresses, and makes its toilet, father, mother, sons, and
daughters, and in the same room, shoulder to shoulder (for the room is smal=
l),
the wife and mother cooks the breakfast.&n=
bsp;
And in the same room, heavy and sickening with the exhalations of th=
eir
packed bodies throughout the night, that breakfast is eaten. The father goes to work, the elder=
children
go to school or into the street, and the mother remains with her crawling,
toddling youngsters to do her housework--still in the same room. Here she washes the clothes, filli=
ng the
pent space with soapsuds and the smell of dirty clothes, and overhead she h=
angs
the wet linen to dry.
Here, in the even=
ing,
amid the manifold smells of the day, the family goes to its virtuous
couch. That is to say, as man=
y as
possible pile into the one bed (if bed they have), and the surplus turns in=
on
the floor. And this is the ro=
und of
their existence, month after month, year after year, for they never get a v=
acation
save when they are evicted. When a child dies, and some are always bound to
die, since fifty-five per cent. of the East End children die before they are
five years old, the body is laid out in the same room. And if they are very poor, it is k=
ept for
some time until they can bury it.
During the day it lies on the bed; during the night, when the living
take the bed, the dead occupies the table, from which, in the morning, when=
the
dead is put back into the bed, they eat their breakfast. Sometimes the body is placed on the
shelf which serves as a pantry for their food. Only a couple of weeks ago, an Eas=
t End
woman was in trouble, because, in this fashion, being unable to bury it, she
had kept her dead child three weeks.
Now such a room a=
s I
have described is not home but horror; and the men and women who flee away =
from
it to the public-house are to be pitied, not blamed. There are 300,000 people, in Londo=
n,
divided into families that live in single rooms, while there are 900,000 who
are illegally housed according to the Public Health Act of 1891--a respecta=
ble recruiting-ground
for the drink traffic.
Then there are the
insecurity of happiness, the precariousness of existence, the well-founded =
fear
of the future--potent factors in driving people to drink. Wretchedness squirms for alleviati=
on,
and in the public- house its pain is eased and forgetfulness is obtained. It is unhealthy. Certainly it is, =
but
everything else about their lives is unhealthy, while this brings the obliv=
ion
that nothing else in their lives can bring. It even exalts them, and makes the=
m feel
that they are finer and better, though at the same time it drags them down =
and
makes them more beastly than ever.
For the unfortunate man or woman, it is a race between miseries that
ends with death.
It is of no avail=
to
preach temperance and teetotalism to these people. The drink habit may be t=
he
cause of many miseries; but it is, in turn, the effect of other and prior
miseries. The temperance advo=
cates
may preach their hearts out over the evils of drink, but until the evils th=
at cause
people to drink are abolished, drink and its evils will remain.
Until the people =
who
try to help realise this, their well-intentioned efforts will be futile, and
they will present a spectacle fit only to set Olympus laughing. I have gone through an exhibition =
of
Japanese art, got up for the poor of Whitechapel with the idea of elevating
them, of begetting in them yearnings for the Beautiful and True and Good. Granting (what is not so) that the=
poor
folk are thus taught to know and yearn after the Beautiful and True and Goo=
d,
the foul facts of their existence and the social law that dooms one in thre=
e to
a public-charity death, demonstrate that this knowledge and yearning will be
only so much of an added curse to them.&nb=
sp;
They will have so much more to forget than if they had never known a=
nd
yearned. Did Destiny to-day b=
ind me
down to the life of an East End slave for the rest of my years, and did Des=
tiny
grant me but one wish, I should ask that I might forget all about the Beaut=
iful
and True and Good; that I might forget all I had learned from the open book=
s,
and forget the people I had known, the things I had heard, and the lands I =
had
seen. And if Destiny didn't g=
rant
it, I am pretty confident that I should get drunk and forget it as often as
possible.
These people who =
try
to help! Their college settle=
ments,
missions, charities, and what not, are failures. In the nature of things they canno=
t but
be failures. They are wrongly,
though sincerely, conceived. They approach life through a misunderstanding =
of
life, these good folk. They do not understand the West End, yet they come d=
own
to the East End as teachers and savants.&n=
bsp;
They do not understand the simple sociology of Christ, yet they come=
to
the miserable and the despised with the pomp of social redeemers. They have worked faithfully, but b=
eyond
relieving an infinitesimal fraction of misery and collecting a certain amou=
nt
of data which might otherwise have been more scientifically and less
expensively collected, they have achieved nothing.
As some one has s=
aid,
they do everything for the poor except get off their backs. The very money they dribble out in=
their
child's schemes has been wrung from the poor. They come from a race of successfu=
l and predatory
bipeds who stand between the worker and his wages, and they try to tell the
worker what he shall do with the pitiful balance left to him. Of what use, =
in
the name of God, is it to establish nurseries for women workers, in which, =
for
instance, a child is taken while the mother makes violets in Islington at t=
hree
farthings a gross, when more children and violet-makers than they can cope =
with
are being born right along? T=
his violet-maker
handles each flower four times, 576 handlings for three farthings, and in t=
he
day she handles the flowers 6912 times for a wage of ninepence. She is being robbed. Somebody is on her back, and a yea=
rning
for the Beautiful and True and Good will not lighten her burden. They do
nothing for her, these dabblers; and what they do not do for the mother, un=
does
at night, when the child comes home, all that they have done for the child =
in
the day.
And one and all, =
they
join in teaching a fundamental lie.
They do not know it is a lie, but their ignorance does not make it m=
ore
of a truth. And the lie they preach is "thrift." An instant will demonstrate it.
In short, thrift
negates thrift. If every work=
er in
England should heed the preachers of thrift and cut expenditure in half, the
condition of there being more men to work than there is work to do would
swiftly cut wages in half. An=
d then
none of the workers of England would be thrifty, for they would be living u=
p to
their diminished incomes. The=
short-sighted
thrift-preachers would naturally be astounded at the outcome. The measure of their failure would=
be
precisely the measure of the success of their propaganda. And, anyway, it is sheer bosh and =
nonsense
to preach thrift to the 1,800,000 London workers who are divided into famil=
ies
which have a total income of less than 21s. per week, one quarter to one ha=
lf
of which must be paid for rent.
Concerning the
futility of the people who try to help, I wish to make one notable, noble
exception, namely, the Dr. Barnardo Homes.=
Dr. Barnardo is a child-catcher.&nb=
sp;
First, he catches them when they are young, before they are set,
hardened, in the vicious social mould; and then he sends them away to grow =
up
and be formed in another and better social mould. Up to date he has sent out of the
country 13,340 boys, most of them to Canada, and not one in fifty has
failed. A splendid record, wh=
en it
is considered that these lads are waifs and strays, homeless and parentless=
, jerked
out from the very bottom of the Abyss, and forty-nine out of fifty of them =
made
into men.
Every twenty-four
hours in the year Dr. Barnardo snatches nine waifs from the streets; so the
enormous field he has to work in may be comprehended. The people who try to
help have something to learn from him.&nbs=
p;
He does not play with palliatives.&=
nbsp;
He traces social viciousness and misery to their sources. He removes the progeny of the
gutter-folk from their pestilential environment, and gives them a healthy,
wholesome environment in which to be pressed and prodded and moulded into m=
en.
When the people w=
ho
try to help cease their playing and dabbling with day nurseries and Japanese
art exhibits and go back and learn their West End and the sociology of Chri=
st,
they will be in better shape to buckle down to the work they ought to be do=
ing
in the world. And if they do =
buckle
down to the work, they will follow Dr. Barnardo's lead, only on a scale as
large as the nation is large. They
won't cram yearnings for the Beautiful, and True, and Good down the throat =
of
the woman making violets for three farthings a gross, but they will make
somebody get off her back and quit cramming himself till, like the Romans, =
he
must go to a bath and sweat it out.
And to their consternation, they will find that they will have to get
off that woman's back themselves, as well as the backs of a few other women=
and
children they did not dream they were riding upon. CHAPTER XXVII--THE
MANAGEMENT
In this final chapter it were well =
to
look at the Social Abyss in its widest aspect, and to put certain questions=
to
Civilisation, by the answers to which Civilisation must stand or fall. For instance, has Civilisation bet=
tered
the lot of man? "Man,&qu=
ot; I
use in its democratic sense, meaning the average man. So the question re-shapes itself: =
Has Civilisation
bettered the lot of the average man?
Let us see. In Alaska, along the banks of the =
Yukon
River, near its mouth, live the Innuit folk. They are a very primitive people, =
manifesting
but mere glimmering adumbrations of that tremendous artifice, Civilisation.=
Their capital amounts possibly to 2
pounds per head. They hunt an=
d fish
for their food with bone-headed spews and arrows. They never suffer from lack of
shelter. Their clothes, large=
ly
made from the skins of animals, are warm.&=
nbsp;
They always have fuel for their fires, likewise timber for their hou=
ses,
which they build partly underground, and in which they lie snugly during the
periods of intense cold. In t=
he summer
they live in tents, open to every breeze and cool. They are healthy, and strong, and
happy. Their one problem is
food. They have their times of
plenty and times of famine. I=
n good
times they feast; in bad times they die of starvation. But starvation, as a chronic condi=
tion,
present with a large number of them all the time, is a thing unknown. Further, they have no debts.
In the United
Kingdom, on the rim of the Western Ocean, live the English folk. They are a consummately civilised =
people. Their capital amounts to at least =
300
pounds per head. They gain th=
eir
food, not by hunting and fishing, but by toil at colossal artifices. For the most part, they suffer fro=
m lack
of shelter. The greater numbe=
r of
them are vilely housed, do not have enough fuel to keep them warm, and are
insufficiently clothed. A con=
stant
number never have any houses at all, and sleep shelterless under the
stars. Many are to be found, =
winter
and summer, shivering on the streets in their rags. They have good times and bad. In good times most of them manage =
to get
enough to eat, in bad times they die of starvation. They are dying now, they were dying
yesterday and last year, they will die to-morrow and next year, of starvati=
on;
for they, unlike the Innuit, suffer from a chronic condition of starvation.=
There
are 40,000,000 of the English folk, and 939 out of every 1000 of them die in
poverty, while a constant army of 8,000,000 struggles on the ragged edge of
starvation. Further, each bab=
e that
is born, is born in debt to the sum of 22 pounds. This is because of an artifice cal=
led
the National Debt.
In a fair compari=
son
of the average Innuit and the average Englishman, it will be seen that life=
is
less rigorous for the Innuit; that while the Innuit suffers only during bad
times from starvation, the Englishman suffers during good times as well; th=
at
no Innuit lacks fuel, clothing, or housing, while the Englishman is in
perpetual lack of these three essentials.&=
nbsp;
In this connection it is well to instance the judgment of a man such=
as
Huxley. From the knowledge ga=
ined
as a medical officer in the East End of London, and as a scientist pursuing
investigations among the most elemental savages, he concludes, "Were t=
he
alternative presented to me, I would deliberately prefer the life of the sa=
vage
to that of those people of Christian London."
The creature comf=
orts
man enjoys are the products of man's labour. Since Civilisation has failed to g=
ive
the average Englishman food and shelter equal to that enjoyed by the Innuit,
the question arises: Has Civilisation increased the producing power of the
average man? If it has not
increased man's producing power, then Civilisation cannot stand.
But, it will be
instantly admitted, Civilisation has increased man's producing power. Five men can produce bread for a
thousand. One man can produce
cotton cloth for 250 people, woollens for 300, and boots and shoes for
1000. Yet it has been shown
throughout the pages of this book that English folk by the millions do not
receive enough food, clothes, and boots.&n=
bsp;
Then arises the third and inexorable question: If Civilisation has
increased the producing power of the average man, why has it not bettered t=
he
lot of the average man?
There can be one
answer only--MISMANAGEMENT.
Civilisation has made possible all manner of creature comforts and
heart's delights. In these the
average Englishman does not participate.&n=
bsp;
If he shall be forever unable to participate, then Civilisation
falls. There is no reason for=
the
continued existence of an artifice so avowed a failure. But it is impossible that men shou=
ld
have reared this tremendous artifice in vain. It stuns the intellect. To acknowledge so crushing a defea=
t is
to give the death-blow to striving and progress.
One other
alternative, and one other only, presents itself. Civilisation must be compelled to =
better
the lot of the average men. T=
his
accepted, it becomes at once a question of business management. Things profitable must be continue=
d;
things unprofitable must be eliminated.&nb=
sp;
Either the Empire is a profit to England, or it is a loss. If it is a loss, it must be done a=
way
with. If it is a profit, it m=
ust be
managed so that the average man comes in for a share of the profit.
If the struggle f=
or
commercial supremacy is profitable, continue it. If it is not, if it hurts the work=
er and
makes his lot worse than the lot of a savage, then fling foreign markets and
industrial empire overboard. =
For it
is a patent fact that if 40,000,000 people, aided by Civilisation, possess a
greater individual producing power than the Innuit, then those 40,000,000
people should enjoy more creature comforts and heart's delights than the
Innuits enjoy.
If the 400,000
English gentlemen, "of no occupation," according to their own
statement in the Census of 1881, are unprofitable, do away with them. Set t=
hem
to work ploughing game preserves and planting potatoes. If they are profitable, continue t=
hem by
all means, but let it be seen to that the average Englishman shares somewha=
t in
the profits they produce by working at no occupation.
In short, society
must be reorganised, and a capable management put at the head. That the present management is
incapable, there can be no discussion.&nbs=
p;
It has drained the United Kingdom of its life-blood. It has enfeebled the stay-at-home =
folk
till they are unable longer to struggle in the van of the competing
nations. It has built up a We=
st End
and an East End as large as the Kingdom is large, in which one end is rioto=
us and
rotten, the other end sickly and underfed.
A vast empire is
foundering on the hands of this incapable management. And by empire is meant
the political machinery which holds together the English-speaking people of=
the
world outside of the United States.
Nor is this charged in a pessimistic spirit. Blood empire is greater than polit=
ical
empire, and the English of the New World and the Antipodes are strong and
vigorous as ever. But the pol=
itical
empire under which they are nominally assembled is perishing. The political machine known as the=
British
Empire is running down. In the
hands of its management it is losing momentum every day.
It is inevitable =
that
this management, which has grossly and criminally mismanaged, shall be swept
away. Not only has it been wa=
steful
and inefficient, but it has misappropriated the funds. Every worn-out, pasty- faced paupe=
r,
every blind man, every prison babe, every man, woman, and child whose belly=
is
gnawing with hunger pangs, is hungry because the funds have been
misappropriated by the management.
Nor can one membe=
r of
this managing class plead not guilty before the judgment bar of Man. "The living in their houses, =
and in
their graves the dead," are challenged by every babe that dies of
innutrition, by every girl that flees the sweater's den to the nightly
promenade of Piccadilly, by every worked-out toiler that plunges into the
canal. The food this managing=
class
eats, the wine it drinks, the shows it makes, and the fine clothes it wears,
are challenged by eight million mouths which have never had enough to fill
them, and by twice eight million bodies which have never been sufficiently
clothed and housed.
There can be no
mistake. Civilisation has inc=
reased
man's producing power an hundred-fold, and through mismanagement the men of
Civilisation live worse than the beasts, and have less to eat and wear and
protect them from the elements than the savage Innuit in a frigid climate w=
ho lives
to-day as he lived in the stone age ten thousand years ago.
I have a vague remembrance Of a story that is told=
In some
ancient Spanish legend Or chronicle of old.
It was when brave
King Sanche Was b=
efore
Zamora slain, And his great besieging army Lay encamped upon the p=
lain.
Don Diego de Orde=
nez Sallied forth in front =
of
all, And shouted loud his challenge To the warders on the w=
all.
All the people of
Zamora, Both the =
born
and the unborn, As traitors did he challenge With taunting words of =
scorn.
The living in the=
ir
houses, And in th=
eir
graves the dead, And the waters in their rivers, And their wine, and oil=
, and
bread.
There is a greater
army That besets =
us
round with strife, A starving, numberless army At all the gates of lif=
e.
The poverty-stric=
ken
millions Who chal=
lenge
our wine and bread, And impeach us all as traitors, Both the living and the=
dead.
And whenever I si=
t at
the banquet, Wher=
e the
feast and song are high, Amid the mirth and music I can hear that fearful=
cry.
And hollow and
haggard faces Loo=
k into
the lighted hall, And wasted hands are extended To catch the crumbs tha=
t fall
And within there =
is
light and plenty, And
odours fill the air; But without there is cold and darkness, And hunger and despair.=
And there in the =
camp
of famine, In win=
d, and
cold, and rain, Christ, the great Lord of the Army, Lies dead upon the plai=
n.
LONGFELLOW