diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1688-0.txt | 7078 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1688-0.zip | bin | 0 -> 148626 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1688-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 411731 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1688-h/1688-h.htm | 9464 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 1688-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 259088 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/1688.txt | 6913 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/1688.zip | bin | 0 -> 147922 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/tpota10.txt | 7251 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/tpota10.zip | bin | 0 -> 146732 bytes |
12 files changed, 30722 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1688-0.txt b/1688-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6fb5232 --- /dev/null +++ b/1688-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7078 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The People of the Abyss, by Jack London + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: The People of the Abyss + +Author: Jack London + +Release Date: March, 1999 [eBook #1688] +[Most recently updated: December 1, 2020] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: David Price + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS *** + +[Illustration] + + + + +The People of the Abyss + +by Jack London + + +Contents + + PREFACE + I. THE DESCENT + II. JOHNNY UPRIGHT + III. MY LODGING AND SOME OTHERS + IV. A MAN AND THE ABYSS + V. THOSE ON THE EDGE + VI. FRYING-PAN ALLEY AND A GLIMPSE OF INFERNO + VII. A WINNER OF THE VICTORIA CROSS + VIII. THE CARTER AND THE CARPENTER + IX. THE SPIKE + X. CARRYING THE BANNER + XI. THE PEG + XII. CORONATION DAY + XIII. DAN CULLEN, DOCKER + XIV. HOPS AND HOPPERS + XV. THE SEA WIFE + XVI. PROPERTY VERSUS PERSON + XVII. INEFFICIENCY + XVIII. WAGES + XIX. THE GHETTO + XX. COFFEE-HOUSES AND DOSS-HOUSES + XXI. THE PRECARIOUSNESS OF LIFE + XXII. SUICIDE + XXIII. THE CHILDREN + XXIV. A VISION OF THE NIGHT + XXV. THE HUNGER WAIL + XXVI. DRINK, TEMPERANCE, AND THRIFT + XXVII. THE MANAGEMENT + + +The chief priests and rulers cry:— + +“O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, +We build but as our fathers built; +Behold thine images how they stand +Sovereign and 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, +Still as thou leftest them, thy sheep.” + +Then Christ sought out an artisan, +A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, +And a motherless girl whose fingers thin +Crushed from her faintly 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 have made of me.” + +JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The experiences related in this volume 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. I was open to be +convinced by the evidence of my eyes, rather than by the teachings of +those who had not seen, or by the words of those who had seen and gone +before. Further, I took with me certain simple criteria with which to +measure the life of the under-world. That which made for more life, for +physical and spiritual health, was good; that which made for less life, +which hurt, and dwarfed, and distorted life, was bad. + +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” in England. The starvation and 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 summer 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, writing in the month of January 1903, to the New York +_Independent_, briefly epitomises 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 have exhausted their means in +trying to raise supplies of food for the famishing residents of the +garrets and cellars of London lanes and alleys. The quarters of the +Salvation Army 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 +political aggregations than by individuals. Society grows, while +political machines rack to pieces and become “scrap.” For the English, +so far as manhood and womanhood and health and happiness go, I see a +broad and smiling future. But for a great deal of the political +machinery, which at present mismanages for them, I see nothing else +than the scrap heap. + +JACK LONDON. + + +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. + + + + +CHAPTER I. +THE DESCENT + + +“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 police for a guide,” they added, on +second thought, painfully endeavouring to adjust 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 things 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 going to live there +myself.” + +“You don’t want to _live_ down there!” everybody said, with +disapprobation writ large upon their faces. “Why, it is said there are +places where a man’s life isn’t worth tu’pence.” + +“The very places 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 is over there, somewhere.” And +they waved their hands vaguely in the direction where the sun on rare +occasions may be seen to rise. + +“Then I shall go to Cook’s,” I announced. + +“Oh yes,” they said, with relief. “Cook’s will be sure to know.” + +But O Cook, O Thomas Cook & Son, path-finders and trail-clearers, +living sign-posts to all the 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 distant 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 advance 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.” + +He said it so cheerfully and cold-bloodedly that on the instant I saw +my stark and mutilated cadaver stretched upon a slab where cool waters +trickle ceaselessly, and him 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,” 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 Chief Office hemmed and hawed. “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 and hawed. + +“Of course,” I hastily anticipated, “I know it is unprecedented, but—” + +“As I was about to remark,” he went on steadily, “it is unprecedented, +and I don’t think we can do anything for you.” + +However, I departed 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 and my project, which he +accepted as a matter of course. In the second minute he asked my age, +height, and weight, and looked me over. 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 nobody seemed to +know anything. But at once I encountered a new difficulty in the shape +of my cabby, a grey-whiskered and eminently decorous personage who had +imperturbably driven me for several hours about the “City.” + +“Drive me down 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 pursued 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,” I repeated. “Nowhere in particular. Just drive me around +anywhere.” + +“But wot’s the haddress, sir?” + +“See here!” I thundered. “Drive me down to the East End, and at once!” + +It was evident that 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 region 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 through miles of bricks and squalor, and from each cross +street and alley flashed long vistas of bricks and misery. Here and +there lurched a drunken man or woman, and the air was obscene with +sounds of jangling and squabbling. At a market, tottery old men and +women were searching in the garbage thrown in the mud for rotten +potatoes, beans, and vegetables, while little children clustered like +flies around a festering mass of fruit, thrusting their arms to the +shoulders into the liquid corruption, and drawing forth morsels but +partially 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 and 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; and 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, sir; 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 strynger ’ere,” he managed to articulate. “An’ if yer +don’t want Stepney Station, I’m blessed if I know wotcher do want.” + +“I’ll tell you what I want,” I said. “You drive along and keep your eye +out for a shop where old clothes are sold. Now, when you see such 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 curb and informed me that an old-clothes +shop was to be found a bit of the way back. + +“Won’tcher py me?” he pleaded. “There’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 ragged onlookers had already gathered around the cab, +and I laughed again and walked back to the old-clothes shop. + +Here the chief difficulty was in making the shopman understand that I +really and truly wanted old clothes. But after fruitless 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 man 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 with 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 with 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 coal was shovelled, a thin leather belt, and a very dirty +cloth cap. My underclothing and socks, however, 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 yer 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 ben 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 +singlet an’ hother things.” + +“How much will you give me for them?” I demanded suddenly. “I paid you +ten bob for the lot, 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 aware 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 Town. + +But he drove me only to Highbury Vale, in North London, where my +luggage was waiting for me. Here, next day, I took off my shoes (not +without regret for their lightness and comfort), and my soft, grey +travelling 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 have had to part with such rags for the +pitiable sums obtainable from a dealer. + +Inside my stoker’s singlet, in the armpit, I sewed a gold sovereign (an +emergency sum certainly 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 quite 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 knife, 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 passed out of the door, the +“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 uncouth animal noises we are wont to designate as +“laughter.” + +No sooner was I out on the streets than I was impressed by the +difference in status effected by my clothes. All servility vanished +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 of my class, which was their class. It made me of like +kind, and in place of the fawning and too respectful attention I had +hitherto received, I now shared with them a comradeship. The man in +corduroy and dirty neckerchief 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 man 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,” to a +gentleman whose horse I held, and who dropped a penny into my eager +palm. + +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 cheapened 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?” Also, at the +railway stations, a third-class ticket was now shoved out 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-houses, +talked with me, they talked as one man to another, and they talked as +natural 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 become 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 one +exception of the stoker’s singlet. + + + + +CHAPTER II. +JOHNNY UPRIGHT + + +I shall not give you the address of Johnny Upright. Let it suffice that +he lives in the most respectable street in the East End—a street that +would be considered very mean in America, but a veritable oasis in the +desert of East London. It is surrounded on every side by close-packed +squalor and streets jammed by a young and vile and dirty 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 +the 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 there is but one entrance, +the front door; and each house is about eighteen feet wide, with a bit +of a brick-walled yard behind, where, when it is not raining, one 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 people 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 world. + +To Johnny Upright’s house I came, and to the door came the “slavey.” +Now, mark you, her position in life was pitiable and contemptible, but +it was with pity and contempt that she looked at me. She evinced a +plain desire 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 +lingered, 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. The 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 step in?—no, the lady did not ask me, though I fished +for an invitation by stating 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, +and, 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 tell me that the missus would let me come back and wait +in the kitchen. + +“So many people 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 rags with dignity. “I quite understand, I assure +you. I suppose people looking for work almost worry you to death?” + +“That they do,” she answered, with an eloquent and expressive glance; +and thereupon 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, not too far distant, +into which I could run now and again to assure myself that good clothes +and cleanliness still existed. Also in such port I could receive my +mail, work up my notes, and sally 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 gentleman 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. 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 strange 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 dresses; 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 over with frank curiosity, as though I were some sort of +a strange animal, and then ignored me utterly for the rest of my wait. +Then Johnny Upright himself arrived, and I was summoned upstairs to +confer with him. + +“Speak loud,” he interrupted my opening words. “I’ve got a bad cold, +and I can’t hear well.” + +Shades of Old Sleuth and Sherlock Holmes! I wondered 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 sure: 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 +greeting was cordial enough, and I went down into the dining-room to +join the family at tea. + +“We are humble 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 easier for them. + +“Ha! ha!” 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 indignantly 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 deeming 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 which 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 AND 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 added 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, that though I walked miles in irregular circles +over a large area, I still remained between. Not one empty house could +I find—a conclusive proof that the district was “saturated.” + +It being plain that 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 them, 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 the 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 circumstances, 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 door 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 this 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, sir, 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. It +_is_ shocking, sir; and just to think, only a few years ago all this +neighbourhood was just as nice as it could be.” + +I looked at her. Here was a woman, of the finest grade of the English +working-class, with numerous evidences of refinement, being slowly +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 poor folk are a nomadic +breed; so they migrate eastward, wave upon wave, saturating and +degrading neighbourhood by neighbourhood, driving the better class of +workers before them to pioneer, on the rim of the city, or dragging +them down, if not in the first generation, surely in the second and +third. + +It is only a question 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. He has not put up the rent on any of his houses here, and +this has enabled us to stay. But any day he may sell, or any day he may +die, which is the same thing so far as we are concerned. The house is +bought by a money breeder, who builds a sweat shop on the patch of +ground at the rear where my grapevine is, adds to the house, and rents +it a room to a family. There you are, and Johnny Upright’s gone!” + +And truly I saw Johnny Upright, and his good wife and fair daughters, +and frowzy slavey, like so many ghosts flitting eastward through the +gloom, the monster city roaring at their heels. + +But Johnny Upright is not alone in his flitting. Far, far out, on the +fringe of the city, live the small business men, little managers, and +successful clerks. They dwell in cottages and semi-detached villas, +with bits of flower garden, and elbow room, and breathing space. They +inflate themselves with pride, and throw out their chests when they +contemplate the Abyss from which they have escaped, and they thank God +that they are not as other men. And lo! down upon them comes Johnny +Upright and the monster city at his heels. Tenements spring up like +magic, gardens 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 whose fare I was partaking in a greasy coffee-house +down near the Pool and not very far from Limehouse. + +“Oh yus,” 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 shillings out of my +pocket. The expected result was produced. + +“Yus, sir,” she at once volunteered; “I ’ave nice lodgin’s you’d likely +tyke a fancy to. Back from a voyage, sir?” + +“How much for a room?” I inquired, ignoring her curiosity. + +She looked me up and down with frank surprise. “I don’t let rooms, not +to my reg’lar lodgers, much less casuals.” + +“Then I’ll have 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, respectable +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?” I demanded. + +“’Arf a crown a week, two an’ six, to a regular lodger. You’ll fancy +the men, I’m sure. 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 went on. “A +steady, respectable 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 he’s saving money right along,” I insinuated innocently. + +“Bless you, no! Nor can ’e do as well helsewhere with ’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, paying two dollars and a half +per month for it, and out of his experience adjudging 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 with him. The +human soul is a lonely 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 have you been here?” I asked. + +“Thirteen years, sir; an’ don’t you think you’ll fancy the lodgin’?” + +The while she talked she was shuffling ponderously about the small +kitchen in which she cooked the 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. “Up at half-past five,” “to bed the last thing at night,” +“workin’ fit ter drop,” thirteen years of it, and for reward, grey +hairs, frowzy clothes, stooped shoulders, slatternly figure, unending +toil in a foul and noisome coffee-house that faced on an alley ten feet +between the walls, and a waterside environment that was ugly and +sickening, to say the least. + +“You’ll be hin hagain to ’ave a look?” she questioned wistfully, as I +went out of the door. + +And as I turned and 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 taken a vacation?” I asked. + +“Vycytion!” + +“A trip to the 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 likes o’ me? Just fancy, now!—Mind yer +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 pulled down +across his eyes, and the fit and sag of his clothes whispered +unmistakably 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 drink up +the whole shilling. + +“My mate, ’e cut up rough las’ night,” he explained. “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 slept the night on a miserable bed in a +miserable den, I knew him pretty fairly for 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-born, his father a fireman and a drinker before him. As a +child, his home was the streets and the docks. He had never learned to +read, and had never felt the need for it—a vain and useless +accomplishment, he held, at least for a man of his station in life. + +He had had a mother 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 +went home except at periods when he was unfortunate in procuring his +own food. Petty 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 +live and get the wherewithal), and then the paying off and the big +drunk at the end. After that, haphazard little drunks, 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 repetition of the +beastly cycle. + +“But women,” I suggested, when he had finished proclaiming booze the +sole end of existence. + +“Wimmen!” He thumped his pot upon the bar and orated eloquently. +“Wimmen 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, that +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 money so quick ’e ain’t ’ad ’ardly a glass. I know. I’ve ’ad my +fling, an’ I know wot’s wot. An’ I tell you, where’s wimmen is +trouble—screechin’ an’ carryin’ on, fightin’, cuttin’, 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. “A home of your own, and all +that. Think of it, back from a voyage, little children climbing on your +knee, 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—” + +“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’ll 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’ well glad to be back t’ sea. A missus! Wot for? T’ make you +mis’rable? Kids? Jest take my counsel, matey, an’ don’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.” + +Without going further 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 had never +known. The word “home” aroused nothing but unpleasant associations. In +the low wages of his father, and 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 unmoral and materialistic, he sought the greatest possible +happiness for himself, and 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 terrors for him. From the moment of his birth, all +the forces of his environment had tended to harden him, and he viewed +his wretched, inevitable future with a callousness and unconcern I +could not shake. + +And yet he was not a bad man. He was not inherently vicious and brutal. +He had normal mentality, and a more than average physique. His eyes +were blue and round, shaded 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 weak; I have seen men +sitting in the high places with weaker. + +His head was shapely, and so gracefully was it poised upon a perfect +neck that I was not surprised 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 have 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 sacrilege 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 happier in making both ends meet in a +room shared with two other men, than he would have 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 people of the Abyss to marry. They are the stones by +the builder rejected. There is no place for them, in the social fabric, +while all the forces 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 +does not need them. There are plenty, far fitter than they, clinging to +the steep slope above, and struggling frantically to slide no more. + +In short, the London Abyss is a vast shambles. Year 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 has 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.” 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 Mathieson stated that she +was landlady of the house where deceased lived. Witness last saw her +alive on the previous Monday. She lived quite alone. Mr. Francis Birch, +relieving officer for the Holborn district, stated that deceased had +occupied the room in question for thirty-five years. When witness was +called, on the 1st, he found the old woman in a terrible state, and the +ambulance and coachman had to be disinfected after the removal. Dr. +Chase Fennell said death was due to blood-poisoning from bed-sores, due +to self-neglect and filthy surroundings, and the jury returned a +verdict to that 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 of +bodily strength, or of intelligence, or of fibre, or of all three, they +are inefficient or unwilling workers, and consequently unable to +support themselves . . . They are often so degraded in intellect as to +be incapable of distinguishing their right from their left hand, or of +recognising the numbers 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. 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 EDGE + + +My first impression of East London was naturally a general one. Later +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 rows of houses in little out-of-the-way +streets, where artisans dwell and where a rude sort of family life +obtains. In the evenings the men can be seen at the doors, pipes in +their mouths and children 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 +stupid and heavy, without imagination. The Abyss seems to exude a +stupefying atmosphere of torpor, which wraps about them and deadens +them. Religion passes them by. The Unseen holds for them neither terror +nor delight. They are unaware of the Unseen; and 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. The +satisfied torpor in which they are sunk is the deadly inertia that +precedes dissolution. There is no progress, and with them not to +progress is to fall back and into the Abyss. In their own lives they +may only start to fall, leaving the fall to be completed by their +children and their children’s children. Man always 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. Mind and body are sapped by the undermining +influences ceaselessly at work. Moral and physical stamina are broken, +and the good workman, fresh from the soil, becomes in the first city +generation a poor workman; and by the second city generation, devoid of +push and go and initiative, and actually unable physically to perform +the labour his father did, he is well on the way to the shambles at the +bottom of the Abyss. + +If nothing else, the air he breathes, and from which he never escapes, +is sufficient to weaken him 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 sulphate +of lime. This deposit had been formed 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 virility 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, carriers, +omnibus drivers, corn and timber porters, and all those who require +physical 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 quality of the life is good. All human potentialities are +in it. Given proper conditions, it could live through the centuries, +and great men, heroes and masters, spring from it and make the world +better by having lived. + +I talked with a woman 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 member 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 +enterprise 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, they 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 worth had forthcome the supply +was automatically shut off. “A penny gawn in no time,” she explained, +“an’ the cookin’ not arf done!” + +Incipient starvation had been their portion for years. Month in and +month out, they had arisen from the table able and willing 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 was a hard worker. From 4.30 in the morning till the +last light at night, she said, she had toiled at making cloth +dress-skirts, lined up and with two flounces, for seven shillings a +dozen. Cloth dress-skirts, mark you, lined 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 order to obtain employment, had to belong to the union, +which collected one shilling 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 sixpence per week—37.5 cents per week, or a fraction +over 5 cents per day. However, when the slack season came she was +discharged, though she had been taken on at such low pay with the +understanding that she was to learn the trade and work up. After that +she had been employed in a bicycle store for three years, for which she +received five shillings per week, 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. But what +of the daughters? Living like swine, enfeebled by chronic innutrition, +being sapped mentally, morally, and physically, what chance have 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 reached 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 think 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 heard 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 the +combatants. + +A lull; “You let that child alone!” child, evidently of few years, +screaming in downright 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 exhaustion. + +Voices begin to go up the scale, something like this:— + +“Yes?” + +“Yes!” + +“Yes?” + +“Yes!” + +“Yes?” + +“Yes!” + +“Yes?” + +“Yes!” + +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, blankety, 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 fibre. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +FRYING-PAN ALLEY AND A GLIMPSE OF INFERNO + + +Three of us walked down Mile End Road, 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 +meetings which have vexed the serenity of Merry England these several +years back. Little items he had been imparting to me as he walked +along; of being mobbed in parks and on tram-cars; of climbing on the +platform to lead the forlorn hope, when brother speaker after brother +speaker had been dragged down by the angry crowd and cruelly beaten; of +a siege in a church, where he and three others had taken sanctuary, and +where, amid flying missiles and the crashing of stained glass, they had +fought off the mob till rescued by platoons of constables; of pitched +and giddy battles on stairways, galleries, and balconies; of smashed +windows, collapsed stairways, wrecked lecture halls, and broken heads +and bones—and then, with a regretful sigh, he looked at me and said: +“How I envy you big, strong men! I’m such a little mite I can’t do much +when it comes to fighting.” + +And I, walking head 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 other 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 of 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 prodigiously 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. 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 tadpoles 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 breasts grossly naked and +libelling all the sacredness of motherhood. In the black and narrow +hall behind her we waded through a mess of young life, and essayed an +even narrower and fouler 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. 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 “sweated.” It was seven feet wide by eight long, 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 uppers, 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 the three quarts of +milk he daily required. Further, this son, weak and dying, did not +taste meat oftener than once 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, referring 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 burned nearly all the +day and added its fumes to the over-loaded air, which was breathed, and +breathed, and breathed again. + +In good times, when 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 only the best of us can do it,” he qualified. “An’ then we +work twelve, thirteen, and fourteen hours a day, just as fast as we +can. An’ you should see us sweat! Just running from us! If you could +see us, it’d dazzle your eyes—tacks flyin’ out of mouth like from a +machine. Look at my mouth.” + +I looked. The teeth were worn down by the constant 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,” 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, which +is equivalent to from two dollars and a half to five dollars. The +present week was half gone, and he had earned four bob, or one dollar. +And yet I was given to understand that this was one of the better +grades of sweating. + +I looked out of the 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 which +people lived. The roofs of these 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 fish 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 breasts grossly naked and waded anew through the cheap +young life. + +We next visited the 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 people 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,” 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 Christ’s Church, at three o’clock in the afternoon, I saw +a sight I never wish to see again. There are no flowers in 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 Town, so that homeless men and women may not come +in at night and sleep upon it. + +As we entered the garden, an old woman, between fifty and sixty, passed +us, striding with sturdy 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 home with her. In the two sacking-covered bundles were her +household goods, her wardrobe, linen, and dear feminine possessions. + +We went up the narrow gravelled walk. On the benches on either side +arrayed a mass of miserable and distorted humanity, the sight of which +would have impelled Doré to more diabolical flights of fancy than he +ever succeeded in achieving. It was a welter of rags and filth, of all +manner of loathsome skin diseases, open sores, bruises, grossness, +indecency, leering monstrosities, and bestial faces. A chill, raw wind +was blowing, and these creatures huddled there in their rags, sleeping +for the most part, or trying to sleep. Here were a dozen women, ranging +in age from twenty years to seventy. Next a babe, possibly of nine +months, lying asleep, flat on the hard bench, with neither pillow nor +covering, nor with any one looking after it. Next half-a-dozen men, +sleeping bolt upright or leaning against one another in their sleep. In +one place a family group, a child asleep in its sleeping mother’s arms, +and the husband (or male mate) clumsily mending a dilapidated shoe. On +another bench a woman trimming the frayed strips of her rags with a +knife, and another woman, with thread and needle, sewing up rents. +Adjoining, a man holding a sleeping woman in his arms. Farther on, a +man, his clothing caked with gutter mud, asleep, with head in the lap +of a woman, not more than twenty-five years old, and also asleep. + +It was this sleeping that puzzled me. Why were nine out of ten of them +asleep or trying to sleep? 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_. 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 curious by our intrusion. + +“A lung of London,” 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 sake 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. I have made two attempts now, and I shall shortly make a +third. The first time I started out at seven 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 mistake of +tardiness. Seven o’clock in 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 homeless, 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 friend, 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 line was +formed, which strung out around the corner of the building and out of +sight. + +It was a most woeful 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 might 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 hearty, 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 +eyes; 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 have 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 service . . . ” + + +How correct I was in my surmise, and how peculiarly appropriate the +verse was, you shall learn. + +“I won’t stand it much longer, I won’t,” he was complaining to the man +on the other side of him. “I’ll smash a windy, a big ’un, an’ get run +in for fourteen days. Then I’ll have a good place to sleep, never fear, +an’ better grub than you get here. Though I’d miss my bit of +baccy”—this as an after-thought, and said regretfully and resignedly. + +“I’ve been out 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 come to this. I’m tellin’ +you sure. Seven an’ eighty years am I, an’ served my country like a +man. Three good-conduct stripes and the Victoria Cross, an’ 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 rushed 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 world. + +Given encouragement, 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, dates, 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 quite +in keeping to take notes at the poorhouse door. He had been through the +“First War in China,” as he termed it; had enlisted with the East India +Company and served ten years in India; was back in India again, in the +English navy, at the time of the Mutiny; had served in the Burmese War +and in the Crimea; and all this 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 particular 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 stripes, 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. 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 mind 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 due 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 offence); 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 moved 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 thing: _this being +Wednesday, none of us would be released till Friday morning_. +Furthermore, 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. Sometimes, I was told, it was returned on leaving and +sometimes it was destroyed. + +The old man-of-war’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, went 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 the line moved up, and we were slowly but surely +approaching the wicket. At the moment we happened to be standing on an +iron grating, and a man appearing underneath, the old sailor called +down to him,— + +“How many more 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 about me. It is +not a nice thing, hungry and penniless, to face a sleepless night in +the streets. But we hoped against hope, till, when ten stood outside +the wicket, the porter turned us away. + +“Full up,” 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 casual +wards, as to where we should go. They decided on the Poplar Workhouse, +three miles away, and we started 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, night +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 looked it, lean and wiry, with shrewd, +observant eyes, and hands that had grown twisted to the handles of +tools through forty-seven years’ work at the trade. The chief +difficulty with these men was that they were old, and that their +children, instead of growing up to take care of them, had died. Their +years had 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, turned 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 age, 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! 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 could endure so much and live. Should 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 benches are few and far between; but if rest means sleep, on +you must go, dragging your tired body through the endless streets. +Should you, in desperate slyness, seek some forlorn alley or dark +passageway and lie down, the omnipresent policeman will rout you out +just the same. It is his business to rout you out. It is a law of the +powers that be that you shall be routed out. + +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 admiring 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 sixty, 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 and days—O dear, soft people, full of +meat and blood, how can you ever understand? + +I walked up Mile End Road between the Carter and the Carpenter. Mile +End Road is a wide thoroughfare, cutting the heart of East London, and +there were tens of thousands of people abroad on it. I tell you this so +that you may fully appreciate what I shall describe in the next +paragraph. As I say, we walked along, and when 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 believe, 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 while looking for a ship. This accounted for my +ignorance of English ways in general and casual wards in particular, +and my curiosity concerning the same. + +The Carter was hard put to keep the pace at which we walked (he told me +that he had eaten nothing 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 which reminded me strongly of +the plains wolf or coyote. Both kept their eyes upon the pavement as +they walked and talked, and every now and then one or the other would +stoop and pick something up, never missing the stride the while. I +thought it was cigar and cigarette 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 cracked 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 +chewed 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, +naturally, their guts a-reek with pavement offal, they talked of bloody +revolution. They talked as anarchists, fanatics, and madmen would talk. +And who shall blame them? In spite of my three good meals that day, and +the snug bed I could occupy if I wished, and my social philosophy, and +my evolutionary belief in the slow development and metamorphosis of +things—in spite of all this, I say, I felt impelled to talk rot with +them or hold my tongue. Poor fools! Not of their sort are revolutions +bred. And when they are dead and dust, which will be shortly, other +fools will talk bloody revolution as they gather offal from the +spittle-drenched sidewalk along Mile End Road to Poplar Workhouse. + +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,” 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 make 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. I +go to the casual ward for a bed. Must be there by two or three in the +afternoon or I won’t get in. You saw what happened to-day. What chance +does that give me to look for work? S’pose I do get into the casual +ward? Keep me in all day to-morrow, let me out mornin’ o’ next day. +What then? The law sez I can’t get in another casual ward that night +less’n ten miles distant. Have to hurry an’ walk to be there in time +that day. What chance does that give me to look for a job? S’pose I +don’t walk. S’pose I look for a job? In no time there’s night come, an’ +no bed. No sleep all night, nothin’ to eat, what shape am I in in the +mornin’ to look for work? Got to make up my sleep in the park somehow” +(the vision of Christ’s Church, Spitalfield, was strong on me) “an’ get +something to eat. An’ there I am! Old, down, an’ no chance to get up.” + +“Used to be a toll-gate ’ere,” said the Carter. “Many’s the time I’ve +paid my toll ’ere in my cartin’ days.” + +“I’ve ’ad three ’a’penny rolls in two days,” the Carpenter announced, +after a long pause in the conversation. “Two of them I ate yesterday, +an’ the third to-day,” he concluded, after another long pause. + +“I ain’t ’ad anything to-day,” said the Carter. “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.” + +But what surprised 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. Having taken a cold bath on entering, I +would be given for supper six ounces of bread and “three parts of +skilly.” “Three parts” means three-quarters of a pint, and “skilly” is +a fluid concoction of three quarts of oatmeal stirred into three +buckets and a half of hot water. + +“Milk and sugar, I suppose, and a silver spoon?” I queried. + +“No fear. Salt’s what you’ll get, an’ I’ve seen some places where you’d +not get any spoon. ’Old ’er up an’ let ’er run down, that’s ’ow they do +it.” + +“You do get good skilly at ’Ackney,” said the Carter. + +“Oh, wonderful skilly, that,” praised the Carpenter, and each looked +eloquently at the other. + +“Flour an’ water at St. George’s in the East,” said the Carter. + +The Carpenter nodded. 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 always 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 now 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 blessed day.” + +“Then what?” + +“Then you’ve got to do your task, pick four pounds of oakum, or clean +an’ scrub, or break ten 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. You’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 stones, 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 it 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 task an’ ’ave +supper, same as before, three parts o’ skilly an’ six ounces o’ bread. +Then to bed, six o’clock, an’ next mornin’ you’re turned loose, +provided you’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. And then, as the last light was fading from the +drab-coloured sky, the wind blowing cheerless and cold, we stood, with +our pitiful little bundles in our hands, a forlorn group at the +workhouse door. + +Three working girls came along, and one looked pityingly at me; as she +passed I followed her with my eyes, and she still looked pityingly back +at me. The old men she did not notice. Dear Christ, she pitied me, +young and vigorous and strong, but she had no pity for the two old men +who stood by my side! She was a young woman, and I was a young man, and +what vague sex promptings impelled her to pity me put her sentiment on +the lowest plane. Pity for old men is an altruistic feeling, and +besides, the workhouse door is the accustomed place for old men. So she +showed no pity for them, only for me, who deserved it least or not at +all. Not in honour do grey hairs go down to the grave in London Town. + +On one side the door 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 terrified voice. “Not so ’ard!” + +I let go, and they looked reproachfully at me, as though I had +imperilled their chance for a bed and three parts of skilly. Nobody +came. Luckily it was the wrong bell, and I felt better. + +“Press the button,” I said to the Carpenter. + +“No, no, wait a bit,” the Carter hurriedly interposed. + +From all of which I drew the conclusion that a poorhouse porter, who +commonly draws a yearly salary 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 forefinger 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 coming of the porter. + +He came. He barely looked at us. “Full up,” he said and shut the door. + +“Another night 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 in 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 frightened. + +It will be remembered, 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 gone 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 fortune 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, seeking 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 you 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 they +could understand that I was no pauper. 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!” 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 tea, that,” said the Carpenter. + +They each drank two pints of it, and I assure you that it was slops. It +resembled tea less than lager beer resembles champagne. Nay, it was +“water-bewitched,” and did not resemble tea at all. + +It was curious, after 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 bullet 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 themselves. 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 went to the hospital for three months. Then he was done for. +He came out weak, debilitated, no strong young son to stand by him, his +little business gone glimmering, and not a farthing. The thing had +happened, and the game 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 +were putting up the stands for the first Coronation parade. “An’ I got +fair sick of the answer: ‘No! no! no!’ It rang in my ears 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 gone 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, had +been lost in Egypt. The Carpenter had not gone into the army, so here +he was, still on the planet. + +“But ’ere, give me your ’and,” he said, ripping open his ragged shirt. +“I’m fit for 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 under 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. “A good missus and three bonnie +lassies. But they all died. Scarlet 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 able to eat a workhouse breakfast in the morning.” + +“Nor I,” agreed the Carpenter, and they fell to discussing belly +delights and the fine dishes their respective wives had cooked in the +old days. + +“I’ve gone three days and never broke my fast,” said the Carter. + +“And I, five,” his companion added, turning gloomy with the memory of +it. “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 vitals 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 than 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, +these two men. They were merely old, and their children had undutifully +failed to grow 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 their 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 said, “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 have 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 hand. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +THE SPIKE + + +First of all, I must beg forgiveness of my body for the vileness +through which I have dragged it, and forgiveness of my stomach for the +vileness which I have thrust into it. I have been to the spike, and +slept 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. They did not “let in” till six, but at that +early hour I was number twenty, while the news had gone forth that only +twenty-two were to be admitted. 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.” + +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. But +they made up for it, discussing and comparing the more loathsome +features of their disease in the most cold-blooded, matter-of-fact way. +I learned that the average mortality 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 the other three weeks. Their faces were badly pitted +(though each assured the other that this was not so), and further, they +showed me in their hands and under the nails the smallpox “seeds” still +working out. Nay, one of them worked a seed out for my edification, and +pop it went, right out of his flesh into the air. I tried to shrink up +smaller inside my clothes, and I registered a fervent though silent +hope that it had not popped on me. + +In both instances, I found that the smallpox was the cause of their +being “on the doss,” which means on the tramp. Both 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 found any, and they had come to the spike for a “rest up” +after three days 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 the +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 beside 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 hours, and told him to get along. But 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 to earn a living was by heavy work. He is now +incapable of performing heavy work, and from now until he dies, the +spike, 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 prison to them, a +prison from which there was no hope of escape. It was impossible for +them to get away. They could neither scrape 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. 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 scrape 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 get me out of the +country. These they no longer possessed. Age and English hardship had +broken 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 period he had been +out of work was twelve hours. He had saved his money, grown too +prosperous, and returned to the mother-country. Now he was standing 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 saved, 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 would 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 all of that, in many +ways very human. 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 climb 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 joy of this act lies in +that it was service of love, not hire. The carter was poor, and the man +knew 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 her ear. From +all of which one may conclude many things. He certainly liked her well +enough to wish her to be neat and tidy. He was proud of her, standing +there 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. Plenty of people were too +slow to pick hops and made a failure of it. A man, to succeed, must use +his head 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 mate 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 was quick. ’E was jest nat’rally born to it, ’e was.” + +Two pound ten—twelve dollars and a half—for a month’s work when one is +“jest nat’rally born to it!” And in addition, sleeping out without +blankets and living the Lord knows how. There are moments when I am +thankful that I was not “jest nat’rally born” a genius for anything, +not even 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 should 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’ +wegetables, an’ a bit o’ meat, now an’ again, if you’re goin’ to do +work as is work. Cawn’t do it on cold wittles. Tell you wot you do, +lad. Run around in the mornin’ an’ look in the dust pans. You’ll find +plenty o’ tins to cook in. Fine tins, wonderful good some o’ them. Me +an’ the ole woman got ours that way.” (He pointed at the bundle she +held, while she nodded proudly, beaming on me with good-nature and +consciousness of success and prosperity.) “This overcoat is as good as +a blanket,” he went on, advancing the skirt of it that I might feel its +thickness. “An’ ’oo knows, I may find a blanket before long.” + +Again the old woman 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. 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 wondered 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 which 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 one in the +afternoon till six, our ragged spike line is the principal feature of +the view commanded by their front doors and windows. One workman sat in +his door directly opposite us, taking his rest and a breath of air +after the toil of the day. His wife came to chat with him. The doorway +was too small for two, so she stood up. Their babes sprawled before +them. And here 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 been 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 birth, condition of destitution, +and the previous night’s “doss,” were taken 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 lied every man who entered. As I passed 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 certainly must have been unleavened. + +The light was very dim down in the cellar, and before I knew it some +other man had thrust a pannikin into my other hand. Then I stumbled 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 were suffering from tired feet, and they prefaced the +meal by removing their shoes and unbinding the filthy rags with which +their feet were wrapped. This added to the general noisomeness, while +it took away from my appetite. + +In fact, I found that I had made a mistake. I had eaten a hearty dinner +five hours before, and to have done justice to the fare before 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. The +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 texture, unseasoned, gross, and bitter. This bitterness which +lingered persistently in the mouth after the skilly had passed on, I +found especially repulsive. I struggled manfully, but was mastered by +my qualms, and half-a-dozen mouthfuls of skilly and bread was the +measure of my success. The man beside me ate his own share, 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 spike +goin’. Y’oughto see some of them. Search you to the skin.” + +The pannikins scraped clean, conversation began to spring up. “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 +tellin’ ’ow a mug gets out o’ the spike, wi’ a crust in ’is pockit. An’ +w’en ’e sees a nice ole gentleman 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 darkness 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’ blessed 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 through Kent,” went on the first voice, still more angrily, +“an’ Gawd blimey if I see any tommy. An’ I always 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 chaps 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 London the year ’round. Nor do they think of lookin’ +for a kip [place to sleep], till nine or ten o’clock at night.” + +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 an’ 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 blessed 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 two said they’d be blessed if they do it, an’ they +didn’t; but I kept wearin’ into 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 these men, nay, all of them, I found, do not like the +spike, and only come to it when driven in. After the “rest 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 constitutions, and they realise it, though only in +a vague way; while it is so much the common run of things that they do +not worry about it. + +“On the doss,” they call vagabondage here, which corresponds to “on the +road” in the United States. The agreement 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. 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 hastily 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. This was a long, narrow room, traversed by +two low iron rails. Between these rails were stretched, not hammocks, +but pieces of canvas, six feet long and less than two feet wide. These +were the beds, and they were six inches apart and about eight inches +above the floor. The chief difficulty was that the head was somewhat +higher than the feet, which caused the body constantly to slip down. +Being slung to the same rails, when one man moved, no matter how +slightly, the rest were set rocking; and whenever I dozed somebody was +sure to struggle back to the position from which he had slipped, and +arouse me again. + +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 +sickening, while my imagination broke loose, and my skin crept and +crawled till I was nearly frantic. Grunting, groaning, 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. At any rate, I woke the living, and 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 where 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 other 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 +disinfectant. + +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 clutter the earth with their presence, +and are better out of the way. Broken by hardship, ill fed, and worse +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. We were sprinkling disinfectant by the mortuary, when the +dead waggon drove up and five bodies were packed into it. The +conversation turned to 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 much 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 whether this be actually so or not. The +point is, they have the feeling that it is so, and they have created +the language 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, and the hospital scraps. These were heaped high +on a huge platter in an indescribable mess—pieces of bread, chunks 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. 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 “out 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 into 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 was ‘slingin’ my ’ook’ +[running away]. But jest before ’e got me, I got a ole woman 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 performed 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. 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, let’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. “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,” said I, with an enthusiasm they could not comprehend; and, +dodging out the gate, I sped down the street. + +Straight to my room I hurried, changed my clothes, and less than an +hour from my escape, in a Turkish 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” means 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 falling heavily when the theatres let out, and the +brilliant throng which poured from the places of amusement was hard put +to find cabs. The streets were so many wild rivers 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 took 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 meat for a +week or a month, is about as severe a hardship as a man can undergo. +Well fed and well clad, I have travelled 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 was a mere nothing +compared with carrying the banner for a night, ill fed, ill clad, and +soaking wet. + + [1] This in the Klondike.—J. L. + + +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 and women and boys +taking shelter in the lee of buildings from the wind and rain. +Piccadilly, however, was not quite so deserted. Its pavements were +brightened by well-dressed women without escort, and there was more +life and action there than elsewhere, due to the process of finding +escort. But by three o’clock the last of them 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 the protection of the +buildings, and slouched up and down and everywhere, in order 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 sense 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 progressed 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 one 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 you get some sleep in order +that you may have strength to look for work and to do work in case you +find it. + +So I sat down on the stone steps of a building. Five minutes later a +policeman was looking at me. My eyes were wide open, so he only grunted +and passed on. Ten minutes later my head was on my knees, I was dozing, +and the same policeman was saying gruffly, “’Ere, you, get outa that!” + +I got. And, like the old woman, I continued to get; for every time I +dozed, a policeman was there to rout me along again. Not long after, +when I had given this up, I was walking with a young Londoner (who had +been out to the colonies and wished he were out to them again), when I +noticed an open passage leading under a building and disappearing in +darkness. A low iron gate barred the entrance. + +“Come on,” I said. “Let’s climb over 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 over the fence,” I proposed, “and crawl into the shrubbery +for a sleep. The bobbies couldn’t find us there.” + +“No fear,” he answered. “There’s the park guardians, and they’d run you +in for six months.” + +Times have changed, alas! When I was a youngster I used to read of +homeless boys sleeping in doorways. Already the thing has become a +tradition. As a stock situation it will doubtless linger in literature +for a century to come, but as a cold fact it has ceased to be. Here are +the doorways, and 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 carry 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, entered Green Park. It was +raining again, but they were worn out with the night’s walking, and +they were down on the benches and asleep at once. Many 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 bold only to +criticise the ridiculousness of their decrees. All night long they make +the homeless ones walk up and down. They drive 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 and good, the powers have the +power to deprive them of sleep, or of anything else 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? +If it is their intention to deprive 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? + +In this connection, 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 was +fitfully appearing, and the well-dressed West Enders, with their wives +and progeny, were out by thousands, taking the air. It was not a +pleasant sight for them, those horrible, unkempt, sleeping vagabonds; +while the vagabonds themselves, I know, would rather have done their +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. Know that the powers +that be have kept them walking all the night long, and that in the day +they have nowhere else to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +THE PEG + + +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 penniless +man looking for work, I had to look about me, first for a breakfast, +and next for the work. + +During the night I had heard of a place over on the Surrey side of the +Thames, where the Salvation Army every Sunday morning gave away a +breakfast to the unwashed. (And, by the way, the men who carry the +banner are unwashed in the morning, and unless it is raining they do +not have much show for a wash, either.) This, 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 obtained. + +Here was a motley crowd of woebegone wretches who had spent the night +in the rain. Such prodigious misery! and so much of it! Old men, young +men, all manner of men, and boys to boot, and all manner of boys. Some +were drowsing standing up; half a score of them were stretched out on +the stone steps in most painful postures, 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 occupants, all asleep, +their heads bent forward on their knees. And, it must be remembered, +these are not hard times in England. Things are going on very much as +they ordinarily do, and times are neither hard nor easy. + +And then came the policeman. “Get outa that, 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 passed on, and back we clustered, like flies around a +honey jar. For was there not that wonderful thing, 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, when back came the policeman and away we +scattered only to return again as soon as the coast was clear. + +At half-past seven 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 greatly envied. They were permitted to 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 and 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 somehow, and found +ourselves packed in a courtyard like sardines. On more occasions than +one, as a Yankee tramp in Yankeeland, I have had to work for my +breakfast; but for no breakfast 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 bodies, steaming from pent animal heat, and blocked solidly +about me, nearly turned my stomach. So tightly were we packed, 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 make here is of that particular portion of the +Salvation Army which does business on Blackfriars Road near the Surrey +Theatre. 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 exhausted from our night’s +hardship and lack of sleep, and yet there we stood, and stood, and +stood, without rhyme or reason. + +Sailors were very plentiful in this crowd. It seemed to me that one man +in four was looking for a ship, and I found at least a dozen of them to +be American sailors. In accounting for their being “on the beach,” I +received the same story 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 long 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. Very 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 somewhat 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; for it would be poor +business policy to sign them for any longer time, since seamen’s wages +are low in England, and England is always crowded with sailormen on the +beach. So this fully accounted for the American seamen at the Salvation +Army barracks. To get off the beach in other outlandish places they had +come to England, and gone on the beach in the most outlandish 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.” They were all cheerful, facing things with the pluck which is +their chief characteristic 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 uses on any and every occasion. Far different is the +luminous and varied Western swearing, which runs to blasphemy rather +than indecency. And after all, since men will swear, I think I prefer +blasphemy to indecency; there is 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. When the policeman routed him out, he got up slowly and +deliberately, looked at the policeman, yawned and stretched himself, +looked at the policeman again as much as to say he didn’t know whether +he would or wouldn’t, and then sauntered leisurely down the sidewalk. +At the outset I was sure of the hat, but this made me sure of the +wearer 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 feat of beating his way +three hundred miles on a French railway without being caught at the +finish. Where was I hanging out? he asked. And how did I manage for +“kipping”?—which means sleeping. Did I know the rounds yet? He was +getting on, though the country was “horstyl” and the cities were “bum.” +Fierce, wasn’t it? Couldn’t “batter” (beg) anywhere without being +“pinched.” But he wasn’t going to quit it. Buffalo Bill’s Show was +coming over soon, and a man who could drive eight horses was sure of a +job any time. These mugs over here didn’t know beans about driving +anything more than a span. What was the matter with me hanging on and +waiting for Buffalo Bill? He was sure I could ring in somehow. + +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 hat at sight of it, and he was as solicitous for my +welfare as if we were blood brothers. We swapped all manner of useful +information concerning the country and the ways of its people, methods +by which to obtain food and shelter and what not, and we parted +genuinely sorry 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, looked 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,” was 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 stood quietly in this packed courtyard. Then the men +began to grow restless. There was pushing and shoving forward, and a +mild hubbub of voices. Nothing rough, however, nor violent; merely the +restlessness of weary and hungry men. At this juncture forth came the +adjutant. I did 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, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and +to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.” + +Well, he looked at us in just that way, and those nearest to him +quailed. Then he lifted his voice. + +“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 he was a man in authority, able +to say to half a thousand ragged wretches, “you 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 instantly fell attested +its awfulness. And it was a cowardly threat. We could 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 +adjutant—was not satisfied. In the dead silence 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” washed but unfed. All told, there must have been +nearly seven hundred of us who sat down—not to meat or bread, 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 too +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. 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. And second, weary and exhausted from the +night’s sleeplessness and hardship, suffering from the long wait upon +their feet, and faint from hunger, they were yearning, not for +salvation, but for grub. The “soul-snatchers” (as these men call all +religious propagandists), 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. 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 needed. I gave part of my bread to the tramp royal who was waiting +for Buffalo Bill, and he was as ravenous at the end as 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 the men had been waiting since +five o’clock for it, while all of us had waited at least 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 prayed +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 signs 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. 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 left them to their fate, and +went up to the nearest Salvation Army man. + +“I want to go,” I said. “I came here for breakfast in order that I +might be in shape to look for work. I didn’t think it would take so +long to get breakfast. I think I have a chance for work in Stepney, and +the sooner I start, the better chance I’ll have of getting it.” + +He was really a good fellow, though he was startled by my request. +“Wy,” he said, “we’re goin’ to ’old services, and you’d better sty.” + +“But that will spoil my chances for work,” I urged. “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. “The idea!” he snorted. “The idea!” + +“Do you mean to say that I can’t get out of here?” I demanded. “That +you will keep me here against 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 +me 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 all night, and I needed a breakfast in order to strengthen +me to find work. That is why I came here.” + +“A nice thing 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 backing 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 informed a couple of privates standing there that “’ere is a +fellow that ’as business an’ ’e wants to go before services.” + +They were duly shocked, of course, and they looked unutterable horror +while he went into the 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,” he said. + +It was twelve o’clock 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 that I had done a hard night’s work +walking the streets, and a hard day’s work getting my breakfast; so I +disconnected myself from my working hypothesis of a starving 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 evening when I +closed my eyes. When they opened again, the clocks were striking nine +next morning. I had slept fifteen straight hours. And as I lay there +drowsily, my mind went back to the seven hundred unfortunates I had +left waiting for services. No bath, no shave for them, no clean white +sheets and all clothes off, and fifteen hours’ straight sleep. Services +over, it was the weary streets again, the problem of a crust of bread +ere night, and the long sleepless night in the streets, and the +pondering of the problem of how to obtain a crust at dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +CORONATION DAY + + +O thou that sea-walls sever +From lands unwalled by seas! +Wilt thou endure forever, +O Milton’s England, these? +Thou that wast his Republic, +Wilt thou clasp their knees? +These royalties rust-eaten, +These worm-corroded lies +That keep thy head storm-beaten, +And sun-like strength of eyes +From the open air and heaven +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 never 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 the 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 coming 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. The 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 Trafalgar Square, “the most splendid site in Europe,” and +the very innermost heart of the empire. There were many thousands of +us, all checked and held in order by a superb display of armed power. +The line of march was double-walled with soldiers. The base of the +Nelson Column was triple-fringed with bluejackets. Eastward, at the +entrance to the square, stood the Royal Marine Artillery. In the +triangle of Pall Mall and Cockspur Street, the statue of George 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 the reserves—tall, +well-fed men, with weapons to wield and muscles to wield them in ease +of need. + +And as it was thus at Trafalgar Square, so was it along the whole line +of march—force, overpowering 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 stamp out life. And that they should 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 England, 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 explains the other. We +cannot understand the 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. + + [2] “Runt” in America is the equivalent of the English “crowl,” the + dwarf of a litter. + + +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 Samuel, and said: “Make us a king to judge us like all the +nations.” + + +And the Lord said unto Samuel: 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 words of the Lord unto the people that asked of +him a king, and he said: + +This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you; he will +take your sons, and appoint them unto him, for his chariots, and to be +his horsemen, and they shall run before his chariots. + +And he will appoint them unto him for captains of thousands, and +captains of fifties; and he will set some to plough his ground, and to +reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and the +instruments of his chariots. + +And he will take your daughters 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 menservants, and your maidservants, and your +goodliest young men, and 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 that day because of your king which ye shall +have chosen you; and the 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 chastised you with whips, but I will +chastise you with scorpions.” + +And in these latter 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, which is thirty-two per cent. +of the total wealth produced by all the toilers of the country. + +At the Abbey, clad 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 +presented him by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with these words:— + +Receive this kingly sword brought 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, help 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. Then a royal carriage, filled with ladies +and gentlemen of the household, with powdered footmen and coachmen most +gorgeously arrayed. More carriages, lords, and chamberlains, 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 Town, 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 England, 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 come, 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, princes 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, Australia, New Zealand; from Bermuda, Borneo, Fiji, and the +Gold Coast; from Rhodesia, Cape Colony, Natal, Sierra Leone and Gambia, +Nigeria, and Uganda; from Ceylon, Cyprus, Hong-Kong, Jamaica, and +Wei-Hai-Wei; from Lagos, Malta, St. Lucia, Singapore, Trinidad. And +here the conquered men of Ind, swarthy horsemen and sword wielders, +fiercely barbaric, blazing in crimson and scarlet, Sikhs, Rajputs, +Burmese, province by province, and caste by caste. + +And now the Horse Guards, a glimpse of beautiful cream ponies, and a +golden panoply, a hurricane 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 beside 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 pageant is over. I drift with the crowd +out of the square into a tangle of narrow streets, where the +public-houses are a-roar with drunkenness, men, women, and children +mixed together in colossal debauch. And on every side is rising the +favourite song of the Coronation:— + +“Oh! on Coronation Day, on Coronation Day, +We’ll have a spree, a jubilee, and shout, Hip, hip, hooray, +For we’ll all be merry, drinking whisky, wine, and sherry, +We’ll all be merry on Coronation Day.” + + +The rain is pouring down. Up the street come troops 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 Park. + +“’Ow did I like it? A bloomin’ good chawnce, sez I to myself, for a +sleep, wi’ all the coppers aw’y, so I turned into the corner 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 there 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 flaming gas, was everywhere. The +crowds in the streets increased by hundreds of thousands, and though +the police sternly put down mafficking, drunkenness and rough play +abounded. The tired workers seemed to have gone mad with the relaxation +and excitement, and they surged and danced 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, ennyseckle, Oi em ther bee, +Oi’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 before me poured +the better class of merrymakers, shunning the more riotous streets and +returning home. On the bench beside me sat two ragged creatures, a man +and a woman, nodding and dozing. 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. This 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 passed the bench while I sat upon it, and not one, on +such a jubilee occasion as the 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 Briticism, it was “cruel”; the corresponding Americanism was +more appropriate—it was “fierce.” 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 demonstrate 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 benches 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 +London, 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 poor 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 was 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 belly 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.” + +“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 lumme, look a’ that,” she exclaimed, as we debouched upon the +Strand, choked with the roaring, reeling Coronation crowd, the men +bellowing and the girls singing in high throaty notes:— + +“Oh! on Coronation D’y, on Coronation D’y, +We’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 this d’y, an’ I enjoyed it, +though it was lonesome by myself. An’ the duchesses an’ the lydies ’ad +sich gran’ w’ite dresses. They 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.” + +“H-a-y-t-h-o-r-n-e, Eyethorne.’ + +“Oh,” I said, “Irish Cockney.” + +“Yes, sir, London-born.” + +She had lived happily at home till her father died, killed in an +accident, when she had found herself 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. 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.” + +The last place in which she had worked was a coffee-house, hours from +seven in the morning till eleven at night, and for which she had +received five shillings a week and her food. Then she had fallen sick, +and since emerging from the hospital had been unable to find anything +to do. She wasn’t feeling up to much, and the last two nights had been +spent in the street. + +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 rags good clothes! It +put me to the blush; but, on inspecting them more closely and on +examining the clothes worn 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,” said he. + +“Gawd blimey if I do,” said she. “There’s no ’ope for me, I know, but +I’ll die on the streets. No work’ouse for me, thank you. No, indeed,” +she sniffed in the silence that fell. + +“After you have been out all night in the streets,” I asked, “what do +you do in the morning for something to eat?” + +“Try to get a penny, if you ’aven’t one saved over,” the man explained. +“Then go 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 your tea in little sips,” he went on, “making it last its +longest. An’ you look sharp, an’ there’s some as leaves a bit be’ind +’em.” + +“It’s s’prisin’, 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, +and 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. He was staring out over the water and +thinking, which is not a good thing for a shelterless man with a family +to do. It would not be a pleasant thing to speculate upon his thoughts; +but this I know, and all London knows, that the cases of out-of-works +killing their wives and babies is not an uncommon happening. + +One cannot walk along the Thames Embankment, in the small hours of +morning, from the Houses of Parliament, past Cleopatra’s Needle, to +Waterloo Bridge, without being reminded 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 the fatherless, they take the widow’s ox for +a pledge. + +They turn the needy out of the 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 without clothing, and have no covering in the +cold. + +They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock +for want of a shelter. + +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 all 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 one of the “Municipal Dwellings,” not +far from Leman Street. If I looked into a dreary future and 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 language will no more permit it to +be called a room than it will permit a hovel to be called a mansion. It +was a den, a lair. Seven feet by eight were 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 chair, and a couple +of boxes left little space in which to turn around. Five dollars would +have purchased everything in sight. The floor was bare, while the walls +and ceiling were literally covered with blood marks and splotches. Each +mark represented a violent death—of an insect, for the place swarmed +with vermin, a plague with 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 personality 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 told, and had read history, +sociology, and economics. And he was self-educated. + +On the table, amidst a wonderful disarray, lay a sheet of paper on +which was scrawled: _Mr. Cullen, 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 must be harrowed by the sordidness out of +which it strove vainly to rise. + +It is a brief little 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 +his 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 selected by his fellows to toil hard for them with his brain. +He became a leader of the fruit-porters, 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 means whereby he lived, and he spoke his +mind freely, and fought the good fight. In the “Great Dock Strike” he +was guilty of taking a leading part. And that was the end of Dan +Cullen. From that day he was a marked man, and every day, for ten years +and more, he was “paid off” for what he had done. + +A docker is a casual 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 discriminated 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 not more +than two or three days’ work per week. This is what is called being +“disciplined,” or “drilled.” It means being starved. There is no +politer word. Ten years of it broke his heart, and broken-hearted men +cannot live. + +He took to his bed in his terrible den, which grew more terrible with +his helplessness. He was without kith or kin, a lonely old man, +embittered and pessimistic, fighting vermin the while and looking at +Garibaldi, Engels, and Dan Burns gazing down at him from the +blood-bespattered walls. No one came to see him in that crowded +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 fresh 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 face, shook up his couch, and talked with him. It was +interesting to talk with him—until he learned her name. Oh, yes, Blank +was her name, she replied innocently, and Sir George Blank was her +brother. Sir George Blank, eh? thundered old Dan Cullen on his +death-bed; Sir George Blank, solicitor to the docks at Cardiff, 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. + +Dan Cullen’s feet became swollen with dropsy. He sat up all day on the +side of the bed (to keep the water out of his body), no mat on the +floor, a thin blanket on his legs, and an old coat around his +shoulders. A missionary brought him a pair of paper slippers, worth +fourpence (I saw them), and proceeded to offer 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. He did not care to have Tom, Dick, or +Harry, on the strength of fourpenny slippers, tampering with it. He +asked the 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. + +The cobbler, a brave old hero himself, though unannaled and unsung, +went privily to the head office of the big fruit brokers for whom Dan +Cullen had worked as a casual labourer for thirty years. Their system +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,” said 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 easy 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 that the sweating was hastening his +death; while Bright’s disease, being a wasting 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 body, 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 alive, 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! A Jude the Obscure, who reached out after knowledge; +who toiled with his body in the day and studied in the watches of the +night; who dreamed his dream and struck valiantly for the Cause; a +patriot, a lover of human freedom, and a fighter unafraid; and in the +end, not gigantic enough to beat down the conditions which baffled and +stifled him, a cynic and 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 HOPPERS + + +So far has the divorcement of the worker from the soil proceeded, that +the farming districts, the civilised world over, are dependent upon the +cities for the gathering of the harvests. Then it is, when the land is +spilling its ripe wealth to waste, that the street folk, who have been +driven away from the soil, are called back to it again. 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 that Kent alone requires eighty thousand of the street +people to pick her hops. 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, and ghetto pour them forth, +and the festering contents of slum, stews, and ghetto are undiminished. +Yet they overrun 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 underground. Their very presence, the fact of their +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. For one who sees and thinks +life in terms of shares and coupons, it is certainly overdrawn. But for +one who sees and thinks life in terms of manhood and womanhood, it +cannot be overdrawn. Such hordes of beastly wretchedness and +inarticulate misery are no compensation for a millionaire brewer who +lives in a West End palace, sates himself with the sensuous delights of +London’s golden theatres, hobnobs with lordlings and princelings, and +is knighted by the king. Wins his spurs—God forbid! In old time the +great blonde beasts rode in the battle’s van and won their spurs by +cleaving men from pate to chine. And, after all, it is finer to kill a +strong man with a clean-slicing blow of singing steel than to make a +beast of him, and of his seed through the generations, by the artful +and spidery manipulation of industry and politics. + +But to return to the hops. Here the divorcement from the soil is as +apparent as in every other agricultural line in England. While the +manufacture of beer steadily increases, the growth of hops steadily +decreases. In 1835 the acreage under hops was 71,327. To-day it stands +at 48,024, a decrease of 3103 from the acreage of last year. + +Small as the acreage 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 +with less of the nicer things of life, the pickers with less grub, of +which, in the best of times, they never get enough. For weary weeks +headlines like the following have appeared in the London papers.— + +TRAMPS PLENTIFUL, BUT THE HOPS ARE FEW AND NOT YET READY. + + +Then there have been numberless paragraphs like this:— + +From the neighbourhood of the hop fields comes news of a distressing +nature. The bright outburst of the last two days has sent many hundreds +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 treble +the number there last year at this time, and in other towns the +lateness of the season 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 the stinging hail, +were close to drowning in their huts and camps on the low-lying 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 remained 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 afford 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 meal, would have to go short of food or drink. +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;” “Mr. F---, of brewery fame, who +rents all the land in this parish, loses £10,000;” and “Mr. L---, the +Wateringbury brewer, brother to Mr. Herbert L---, is another heavy +loser.” As for the hoppers, they did not count. Yet I venture to assert +that the several almost-square meals lost by underfed William Buggles, +and underfed Mrs. Buggles, and the underfed Buggles kiddies, was a +greater tragedy than the £10,000 lost by Mr. F---. And in addition, +underfed William Buggles’ tragedy might be multiplied by thousands +where Mr. F---’s could not be multiplied by five. + +To see how William 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 advice, he had brought his “worst rags,” and +as we hiked up the London road out of Maidstone he was worrying greatly +for fear we had come too ill-dressed 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. The natives along the coast were all dubious; and +“bean-feasters” from London, dashing past in coaches, cheered and +jeered and shouted insulting things after us. But before we 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 figure 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 seaman without a +ship, a man on the beach, and very like a craft at low water. + +“Can yer give us a job, governor?” Bert asked the bailiff, a kindly +faced and elderly man 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 bin deserted by two other men, +from what I could learn, because of inability to make living wages. + +“No bad conduct, 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 ourselves earnestly to the task, desiring to learn if we +could at least make our salt. It was simple work, woman’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. In an hour’s time we became as expert as it is possible to +become. As soon as the fingers became accustomed 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 because of their swarming children, each of +which picked with two hands almost as fast as we picked. + +“Don’tcher pick 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, and 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-dozen children who count as a unit, and by their combined capacity +determine the unit’s pay. + +“I say, matey, I’m beastly hungry,” said I to Bert. 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 discussed how much we could “sub,” and were informed that +while we were being 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 five 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 driven, and for the free life in the +open, and the wind and rain and sun all undefiled by city smirches. As +the sea calls to the sailor, so calls the land to them; and, deep down +in their aborted and decaying carcasses, they are stirred strangely by +the peasant memories of their forbears 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 ’ops, matey,” Bert complained. + +It was five o’clock, and the pole-pullers had knocked off, so that +everything could be cleaned up, there being no work on Sunday. For an +hour we were forced idly to wait the coming of the measurers, our feet +tingling 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 little 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 that 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—namely, poor men and broke—then here was +our 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 sixpenn’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 would 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 morrow was Sunday, on which we could do no work, though +our silly stomachs would not knock off on that account. Here, then, 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 villager, 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 that we were not as other +men, especially hoppers, and went down the road to Maidstone, jingling +in our pockets the half-crowns and florins we had brought from London. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. +THE SEA WIFE + + +You might not expect to find the Sea Wife in the heart of Kent, but +that is where I found her, in a mean street, in the 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 evening 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. It seemed that I went +down through the skin and the flesh to the naked soul of it, and in +Thomas Mugridge and his old woman gripped hold of the essence of this +remarkable English breed. I found there the spirit of the wanderlust +which has lured Albion’s sons across the zones; and I found there the +colossal unreckoning which has tricked the English into foolish +squabblings and preposterous fights, and the doggedness and +stubbornness which have brought them blindly through to empire and +greatness; and likewise I found that vast, incomprehensible patience +which has enabled the home population to endure under the burden of it +all, to toil without complaint through the weary years, and docilely to +yield the best of its sons to fight and colonise to the ends of the +earth. + +Thomas Mugridge was seventy-one years old and a little man. 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 connected +with work. He knew nothing else but work. He had worked all his days, +and at seventy-one he still worked. Each morning saw him up with the +lark and afield, a day labourer, for as such he had been born. Mrs. +Mugridge was seventy-three. From seven years of age she had worked in +the fields, doing a boy’s work at first, 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 earn 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, lived 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 they 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 fellow, in soldier’s garb +looked out at me. + +“And which son is this?” I asked. + +They laughed a hearty chorus. Son! Nay, grandson, just back from Indian +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’ rovin’ men + And casts them over sea. + +“And some are drowned in deep water, + And some in sight of shore; +And word goes back to the weary wife, + And ever 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 forth +“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 +through 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 dogs 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, and 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 it up forever. The +average Mrs. Thomas Mugridge has been driven into the city, and she is +not breeding very much of anything save an anæmic and sickly progeny +which cannot find enough to eat. The strength of the English-speaking +race to-day is not in the tight little island, but in the New World +overseas, where 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 +tired 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 VERSUS PERSON + + +In a civilisation frankly materialistic 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. To pound one’s wife to a jelly and break a +few of her ribs is a trivial 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 the 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 Piccadilly and the Strand after midnight, the +police would not have interfered with her, and she would have been able +to pay for her lodging. + +The following illustrative cases are culled from the police-court +reports for a single week:— + + +Widnes Police Court. Before Aldermen Gossage and Neil. Thomas Lynch, +charged with being drunk and disorderly and with assaulting a +constable. Defendant rescued a woman from custody, kicked the +constable, and threw stones at him. Fined 3s. 6d. for the first +offence, and 10s. and costs for the assault. + +Glasgow Queen’s Park Police Court. Before Baillie Norman Thompson. John +Kane pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife. There were five previous +convictions. Fined £2, 2s. + +Taunton County Petty Sessions. John Painter, a big, burly fellow, +described as a labourer, charged with assaulting his wife. The woman +received two severe black eyes, and her face was badly swollen. Fined +£1, 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 and costs, Bestwick £2 and +costs; in default, one month. + +Shaftesbury Police Court. Before the Mayor (Mr. A. T. Carpenter). +Thomas Baker, charged with sleeping out. Fourteen days. + +Glasgow Central Police Court. Before Bailie Dunlop. Edward Morrison, a +lad, convicted of stealing 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 and costs, or one month. + +Dunfermline Sheriff Court. Before Sheriff Gillespie. John Young, a +pit-head worker, pleaded guilty to assaulting Alexander Storrar by +beating him about the head and body with his fists, throwing him on the +ground, and also striking him with a pit prop. Fined £1. + +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. Turner, J. +Whitaker, F. Tidsbury, E. Holmes, and Dr. R. Nesbitt. Joseph Jackson, +charged with assaulting Charles Nunn. Without any provocation, +defendant struck the complainant a violent blow in the face, knocking +him down, and then kicked him on the side of the head. He was rendered +unconscious, and 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 convictions, 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 +Murray, Donald Craig, and James Parkes, charged with poaching. Craig +and Parkes fined £1 each or fourteen days; Murray, £5 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 Sessions. Before the Mayor, Messrs. C. Hoskins, G. +Fullford, E. Alexander, and W. Marlow. James Moore, charged with +stealing a pair of boots from outside a shop. Twenty-one days. + +Horncastle Police Court. Before the Rev. W. F. Massingberd, the Rev. J. +Graham, and Mr. N. Lucas Calcraft. George Brackenbury, a young +labourer, convicted of what the magistrates characterised as an +altogether unprovoked and brutal assault upon James Sargeant Foster, a +man over seventy years of age. Fined £1 and 5s. 6d. costs. + +Worksop Petty Sessions. Before Messrs. F. J. S. Foljambe, R. Eddison, +and S. Smith. John Priestley, charged with assaulting the Rev. Leslie +Graham. Defendant, who was drunk, was wheeling 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 passed over the +perambulator, but the baby was uninjured. Defendant then attacked the +driver of the lorry, and afterwards assaulted the complainant, who +remonstrated with him upon his conduct. In consequence of the injuries +defendant inflicted, complainant had to consult a doctor. Fined 40s. +and costs. + +Rotherham West Riding Police Court. Before Messrs. C. Wright and G. +Pugh and Colonel Stoddart. Benjamin Storey, Thomas Brammer, and Samuel +Wilcock, charged with poaching. One month each. + +Southampton County Police Court. Before Admiral J. C. Rowley, 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. Fowler, 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 George Hall, charged under the +Poaching Prevention Act with being found in possession of a number of +rabbits, and John Sparham, charged with aiding and abetting them. Hall +and Sparham fined £1, 17s. 4d., and Allen £2, 17s. 4d., including +costs; the former committed for fourteen days and the latter for one +month in default of payment. + +South-western Police Court, London. Before Mr. Rose. John Probyn, +charged with doing grievous bodily harm to a constable. Prisoner had +been kicking his wife, and also assaulting another woman who protested +against his brutality. The constable tried to persuade him to go inside +his house, but prisoner suddenly turned upon him, knocking him down by +a blow on the face, 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, described as a chorus girl, charged with obtaining food and +lodging to the value of 5s. by false pretences, and with intent to +defraud Emma Brasier. Emma Brasier, complainant, lodging-house keeper +of Atwell Road. Prisoner took apartments at her house on the +representation that she was employed at the Crown Theatre. After +prisoner 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 labour. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. +INEFFICIENCY + + +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 number, a pleasant-faced man of thirty, and +were giving it to him rather heatedly. + +“But ’ow about this ’ere cheap immigration?” one of them demanded. “The +Jews of Whitechapel, say, a-cutting our throats right along?” + +“You can’t blame 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 about 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 than you and gets your job? Eh? How about his +wife and kiddies? He’s more interested in them than in yours, and he +can’t see them starve. So he cuts the price of labour and out you go. +But you mustn’t blame him, poor devil. He can’t help it. Wages always +come down when two men are after the same job. That’s the fault of +competition, not of the man who cuts the price.” + +“But wyges don’t come down where there’s a union,” the objection was +made. + +“And there you are again, right on the head. The union checks +competition among the labourers, but makes it harder where there 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 further into the argument, this man on the Mile End Waste +pointed the moral that when 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 instanced, just now, by the return and +disbandment of the soldiers from South Africa. 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 down by the strikers. + +Sweating, starvation wages, armies of unemployed, and great numbers of +the homeless and shelterless are inevitable when there are more men to +do work than there is work for men to do. The men and women I have met +upon the streets, and in the spikes and pegs, are not there because as +a mode 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 walks the streets +suffers more, and works harder, for far less return. I have depicted +the nights they spend, and how, driven in by physical exhaustion, they +go to the casual ward for a “rest up.” Nor is the casual ward a soft +snap. To pick 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. On the part of the +authorities it is sheer robbery. They give the men far less for their +labour than do the capitalistic employers. The wage for the same amount +of labour, performed for a private employer, would buy them better +beds, better food, more good cheer, and, above all, greater freedom. + +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 three fair +meals, a bed at night, and leave him a couple of pennies for pocket +money. He would rather work for those two shillings than for the +charity of the casual ward; for he knows that 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 more men than there is work to be done, a sifting-out +process must obtain. In every branch of industry the less efficient are +crowded out. Being crowded out because of inefficiency, they cannot go +up, but must descend, and 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 (which 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 have the construction of the Abyss and the shambles. +Throughout the whole industrial fabric a constant elimination is going +on. The inefficient are weeded out and flung downward. Various things +constitute inefficiency. The engineer who 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 there is little or +no responsibility. Those who are slow and clumsy, who suffer from +weakness of body or mind, 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, with +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-seventh of the total population of the +United Kingdom, and in London, year in and year out, one adult in every +four dies on public charity, either in the workhouse, 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 illustration 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 age, 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 there 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 know what became of me for a day or +two. On the following Sunday night I came to my senses, and found +myself in the hospital. I asked the nurse what 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 +altogether, and have covered the hole up with a piece of sheet iron. . +. . They gave me £25. They didn’t reckon that as compensation; they +said it was only for charity’s sake. Out of that I paid £9 for a +machine by which to wheel myself about. + +I was labouring at the time I got my legs off. I got twenty-four +shillings a week, rather better pay than the other men, because I used +to take shifts. When there was heavy work to be done I used to be +picked out to do it. Mr. Manton, the manager, visited me at the +hospital several times. When I was getting better, I asked him if he +would be able 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 friends 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 he +went into the workhouse. The alternative to the workhouse is to go home +to Ireland and burden his friends for the rest of his life. Comment is +superfluous. + +It must be understood that efficiency is not determined by the workers +themselves, but is determined by the demand for labour. If three men +seek one position, the most efficient man will get it. The other two, +no matter how capable 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 workers from top to bottom would result; and +when equilibrium had been restored, the number 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 efficiency, there would still be as many +inefficients, though each inefficient were twice as capable as he had +been and more capable than many of the efficients had previously been. + +When there are more men to work than there is work for men to do, just +as many men as are in excess of work will be inefficients, and as +inefficients they are doomed to lingering and painful destruction. It +shall 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. +WAGES + + +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 ten 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 +Vegetables 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 ration 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. They will get less of meat per mouth each meal, and still less of +vegetables; while the smaller items become too microscopic for +consideration. On the other hand, these food articles are all bought at +small retail, the most expensive and wasteful method of purchasing. + +While the table given 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’penny gaff” +for cheap vaudeville, join social or benefit clubs, nor can they buy +sweetmeats, tobacco, books, or newspapers. + +And further, should one child (and there are three) require a pair of +shoes, the family must strike meat for a week from its bill of fare. +And since there are five pairs of feet requiring shoes, and five heads +requiring hats, and five bodies requiring clothes, and since there are +laws regulating indecency, the family must constantly impair its +physical efficiency in order to keep warm and out of jail. For notice, +when rent, coals, oil, soap, and firewood are extracted from the weekly +income, there remains a daily allowance for food of 4.5d. to each +person; and that 4.5d. cannot be lessened by buying clothes without +impairing the physical efficiency. + +All of which is hard 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 they 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 there 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 living 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 +question 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 existence 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 maids, 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 telephone girl receives a weekly wage of eleven +shillings. If she be quick and clever, she may, 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:— + + s. d. +Rent, fire, and light 7 6 +Board at home 3 6 +Board at the office 4 6 +Street car fare 1 6 +Laundry 1 0 +Total 18 0 + +This leaves nothing 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 recreation, and— + +Man to Man so oft unjust, +Is always so to Woman. + + +At the Trades Union 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 Parliament 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 workers voted against the resolution, while +the representatives of 535,000 workers voted in favour of it. When +514,000 workers oppose a resolution prohibiting child-labour under +fifteen, it is evident 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 their 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 than 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 three 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 for sickness, rest, or recreation. Each day and every day, +Sundays as well, she toiled fourteen hours. Her day’s stint was seven +gross, for 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 +her paste and thread. + +Last year, Mr. Thomas Holmes, a police-court missionary of note, after +writing about the condition 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 week, cannot earn more than five shillings, and I have a poor +afflicted husband to keep who hasn’t earned a penny for more than ten +years. + + +Imagine a woman, capable of writing such a clear, sensible, grammatical +letter, supporting her 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 husband; 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. There was no space for the missionary to +sit down, save on the bed, which was partially covered with ties and +silk. The sick man’s lungs were in the last stages of decay. He coughed +and expectorated constantly, the woman ceasing from her work to assist +him in his paroxysms. The silken fluff from the ties was not good for +his sickness; nor was his sickness good for the ties, 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. Here 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 tender folk, +imagine yourselves marketing and keeping house on such a scale, setting +a table for five, and keeping an eye on your deputy mother of twelve to +see that 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 + + +Is it well that while we range 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 out 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 fire 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 class, 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 cometh 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 proper are constantly being destroyed, and +the main stream of the unhoused is toward the east. In the last twelve +years, one district, “London over the Border,” as it is called, which +lies well beyond Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Mile End, has increased +260,000, or over sixty 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 Dreadful 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 the intolerable sameness and meanness of it +all. If the East End is worthy of no worse title than The City of +Dreadful Monotony, and if working people are unworthy 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 gigantic slum. From the standpoint of simple decency and +clean manhood and womanhood, any mean street, of all its mean streets, +is a slum. Where sights and sounds abound which neither you nor I would +care to have our children see and hear is a place where no man’s +children should live, and see, and hear. Where you and I would not 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 +childhood is sweet and beautiful: but in East London innocence is a +fleeting thing, and you must catch them before they crawl out of the +cradle, or you will find the 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 have 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 cubic feet of space for each person. In army +barracks each soldier is allowed 600 cubic feet. Professor Huxley, at +one time himself 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 people +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_. It +is of interest to mark what he terms poor. 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 this process, with its jamming and overcrowding, +tends not so much toward immorality as unmorality. Here is an extract +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 East End. In St. Georges-in-the-East 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, and four, +and two sons, aged ten and twelve years, occupied a smaller room. In +Bethnal Green a man and his wife, with four 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 +duty 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 overcrowded folk are +ejected they stray off into some other hole; and, as they move their +belongings by night, on hand-barrows (one hand-barrow accommodating the +entire household goods and the sleeping children), it is next to +impossible to keep track of them. If the Public Health Act of 1891 were +suddenly and completely enforced, 900,000 people would receive notice +to clear out of their houses and go on to the streets, and 500,000 +rooms would 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 that the +existence of it is far more revolting. + +In Devonshire Place, Lisson Grove, a short while back died an old woman +of seventy-five years of age. At the inquest the coroner’s officer +stated that “all he found in the room was a lot of old rags covered +with vermin. He had got himself smothered with the vermin. The room was +in a shocking condition, and he had never seen anything like it. +Everything was absolutely 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 legs, and her stockings were adherent to +those sores. The sores were the result of vermin.” + +A man present at the inquest wrote: “I had the evil fortune to see the +body of the unfortunate woman as it lay in the mortuary; and even now +the memory of that gruesome sight makes me shudder. There she lay 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 rolled 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 that here in the Ghetto the houses of the poor are +greater profit earners than the mansions of the rich. Not only 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 been 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 houses let, but they are sublet, and sub-sublet down to the very +rooms. + +“A part of a room to let.” This notice was posted a short while ago in +a window not five minutes’ walk from St. James’s Hall. The Rev. Hugh +Price Hughes is authority for the statement that beds are let on the +three-relay system—that 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 +officers 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 two 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 bricklayer’s labourer comes in. At seven in the morning he +vacates, and goes to his work, at which time she returns from hers. + +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 crowding is not through inclination, but compulsion. Nearly +fifty per cent. of the workers pay from one-fourth to one-half of their +earnings for rent. The average rent in the larger part of the East End +is from four to six shillings per week for one room, while skilled +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 Stepney 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 rents are going +up. When land is worth from £20,000 to £30,000 an acre, some one must +pay the landlord. + +Mr. W. C. Steadman, 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, and the rent of her +house was fourteen shillings per week. She gets her living by letting +the house to lodgers 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. What could the +woman do? There is no accommodation in Stepney. Every place is taken up +and overcrowded. + + +Class supremacy can 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 created—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 their women and children are pale and +anæmic, 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 +carry on the breed. And year by year, in turn, the best they breed are +taken from them. Wherever a man of vigour and stature manages to grow +up, he is haled forthwith into the army. A soldier, as Bernard Shaw has +said, “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. When they +kill, they kill with their hands, and then stupidly surrender +themselves to the executioners. There is no splendid audacity about +their transgressions. They gouge 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 brass and iron, and when they have polished off the +mother of their children with a black 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 lower Ghetto classes is as much the slave of her husband +as is the Indian squaw. 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 +the bread-winner, and she dare not send him to jail and leave herself +and children to starve. Evidence to convict can rarely be obtained when +such cases come into the courts; as a rule, the trampled wife and +mother is weeping and hysterically beseeching the magistrate to let her +husband off for the kiddies’ sakes. + +The wives become screaming harridans or, broken-spirited and doglike, +lose what little decency and self-respect they have remaining over from +their maiden days, and all sink 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 struck 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 slavery or serfdom, if the permanent condition of +industry were to be that which we behold, that ninety per cent. of the +actual producers of wealth have no home that they can call their own +beyond the end of the week; have no bit of soil, or so much as a room +that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any kind, except as much +old furniture as will go into a cart; have the precarious chance of +weekly wages, which barely suffice to keep them in health; are housed, +for the most part, 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, sickness, 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 whole proletarian population, whose normal condition is one of +sickening wretchedness. If this is to be the permanent arrangement of +modern society, civilization must be held to bring a curse on the great +majority of mankind. + + +Ninety per cent.! The figures are appalling, 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 along the Hammersmith Road. One day there came +along a labourer and his wife, his son and two daughters. Their family +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 on 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 +question 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 bad, and in a short time their health suffered. Work +was hard to get, and its wage was so low that they were soon in debt. +They became more ill and more despairing with the poisonous +surroundings, the darkness, and the long hours of work; and they were +driven forth to seek a cheaper lodging. They found it in a court I knew +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 fell into the +hands of those who sweat the last drop out of man and woman and child, +for wages which are the food only of despair. And the darkness and the +dirt, the bad food and the sickness, and the want of water was worse +than before; and the crowd and the companionship of the court robbed +them of the last shreds of self-respect. The drink demon seized upon +them. Of course there was a public-house at both ends of the court. +There they fled, one and all, for shelter, and warmth, and society, and +forgetfulness. And they came out in deeper debt, with inflamed senses +and burning brains, and an unsatisfied craving 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 +tubs are a thing totally unknown, as mythical as the ambrosia of the +gods. The people themselves are dirty, while any attempt at cleanliness +becomes howling farce, when it is not pitiful and tragic. Strange, +vagrant odours come drifting along the greasy wind, and the rain, when +it falls, is more like 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. +They do not know the significance and the sacredness of home life. Even +the municipal dwellings, where live the better-class workers, are +overcrowded barracks. They have no home life. The very language proves +it. The father returning from work asks his child in the street where +her mother is; and back the answer comes, “In the buildings.” + +A new race has sprung up, a street people. They pass their lives at +work and in the streets. They have dens and lairs into which to crawl +for sleeping purposes, and that is all. One cannot travesty the word by +calling such dens and lairs “homes.” The traditional silent and +reserved Englishman has passed away. The pavement folk are noisy, +voluble, high-strung, excitable—when they are yet young. As they grow +older they become steeped and stupefied in beer. When they 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, for hours, and when +you go away you will leave him still staring into vacancy. 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 +mysteries 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 young are high-strung, nervous, excitable; the +middle-aged are empty-headed, stolid, and stupid. It is absurd to think +for an instant that they can compete with the workers of the New World. +Brutalised, degraded, and dull, the Ghetto folk will be unable to +render efficient service to England in the world struggle for +industrial supremacy which economists declare has already begun. +Neither 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 the world’s industrial orbit, they will perish +like flies at the end of summer. Or, with England critically situated, +and with them made desperate as wild beasts are made desperate, they +may become 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 guns 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, shorn 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 world, 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 will taste it and be disillusioned, +for coffee it certainly is not. + +And what is true of the coffee is true of the coffee-house. +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 débris 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 capable 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 way 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 with +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 his +day’s work. And further, depend upon it, he and 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 the “Hobo” of a California jail, I have been served +better food and drink 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 labourer 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. On the other hand, though, and in return, I +would turn out an amount of work in the course of the day that would +put to shame the amount he turned out. So there are two sides to it. +The man with the high standard of living will always do more work and +better than the man with the low standard of living. + +There is a comparison which sailormen make between the English and +American merchant services. In an English ship, they say, it is poor +grub, poor pay, and easy work; in an American ship, good grub, good +pay, and hard work. And this is applicable to the working populations +of both countries. The ocean greyhounds have to pay for speed and +steam, and so does the workman. But if the workman is not able to pay +for it, he will not have the speed and steam, that is all. The proof of +it is when the English workman comes to America. He will lay more +bricks in New York than he will in London, still more bricks in St. +Louis, and still more bricks when he gets to San Francisco.[3] His +standard of living has been rising all the time. + + [3] The San Francisco bricklayer receives twenty shillings per day, + and at present is on strike for twenty-four shillings. + + +Early in the morning, 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 these, 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 employer and +upon the nation. For some time, now, statesmen have been crying, “Wake +up, England!” It would show more hard-headed common 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 speculative 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 would vouch for the cleanliness of +the single rooms in which many of them and their families lived; yet +they raked, and pawed, and scraped the mess about in their 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. All day long this heap +of scraps was 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 sickness 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, which is a fair criterion, they +never know in all their lives what tea, coffee, or cocoa tastes like. +The slops and water-witcheries of the coffee-houses, varying only in +sloppiness and witchery, 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 the Mile End Road. + +“Cawn yer let 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 woman, 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 waitress of the house. + +I waited, possibly 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 woman hesitated an instant, then brought a large plate of +“stewed lamb and young peas.” I was eating a plate 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 +was sold at sixpence, and the proprietress gave it for a penny, +demonstrating anew the 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, explosively and +most gleefully, she cried out to me,— + +“Hi sold a box o’ matches! Yus,” she confirmed, if anything with +greater and more explosive glee. “Hi sold a box o’ matches! That’s ’ow +Hi got the penny.” + +“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 left 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 you a ha’penny for another lump of sugar in the tea,” I +said. + +“I’ll see you in ’ell first,” came the retort courteous. Also, she +amplified the retort courteous 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 people of London live in one-room tenements, and 900,000 +are illegally and viciously housed, 38,000 more are registered as +living in common lodging-houses—known 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 roofs leak or the +walls are draughty; but what I do mean is that life in them is +degrading and unwholesome. + +“The poor man’s hotel,” they are often called, but the phrase is +caricature. Not to possess a room to one’s self, 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 never to have +any privacy, surely is a mode of existence quite different from that of +hotel life. + +This must not be considered a sweeping condemnation of the big private +and municipal lodging-houses and working-men’s homes. 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 received 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, +Whitechapel, I entered such a house, a place inhabited almost entirely +by working men. The entrance was by way of a flight 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, wrested 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 the not over-clean +table constituted his butter. Into it he dipped his bread, mouthful by +mouthful, and washed it down with tea from a big mug. A piece 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 tables, other +men were eating, just as silently. 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 done +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 paid 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 men were sitting around, +smoking, reading, and mending their clothes. The young men were +hilarious, the old men were gloomy. In fact, there 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 +preposterous and insulting notices regulating the conduct of the +guests, and at ten o’clock 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 best accommodation, each cabin allowing +space for a tiny bed and room alongside of it in which to undress. The +bedding 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 the 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. And this cabin is yours only for a little while. In the morning +out you go. You cannot put your trunk in it, or come and go when you +like, or lock the door behind you, or anything of the sort. In fact, +there is no door at all, only a doorway. If you care to remain a guest +in this poor man’s hotel, you must put up with all this, and with +prison regulations which impress upon you constantly that you are +nobody, with little soul of your own and less to say about it. + +Now I contend that the least a man who does his day’s work should have +is a room to himself, where 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 carries about with him on +his back and in his pockets; where he can hang up pictures 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 floor 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, scores 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. 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 were, +and heard a “harlot’s ginny laugh.” Leman Street, Waterloo Road, +Piccadilly, The Strand, answered me, and 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. “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 rupture, 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’ouse, an’ that’s ’ell. An’ if she don’t go to the work’ouse, it’ll +be a worse ’ell. Come along ’ith me an’ I’ll show you women sleepin’ in +a passage, a dozen of ’em. An’ I’ll show you worse, wot she’ll 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 wife’s +grasp on food and shelter. For 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 thousands 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 London 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 deaths in London (1884):— + +In workhouses 9,909 +In hospitals 6,559 +In lunatic asylums 278 +Total in public refuges 16,746 + + +Commenting on these figures, a Fabian writer says: “Considering that +comparatively few of these are children, it is probable that one in +every three London adults will 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 serve somewhat to indicate the proximity of the average +worker to pauperism. Various things make pauperism. An advertisement, +for instance, such as this, appearing in yesterday morning’s paper:— + +“Clerk wanted, with knowledge of shorthand, typewriting, and invoicing: +wages ten shillings ($2.50) a week. Apply by letter,” &c. + +And in to-day’s paper 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 various 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 implement heavier than a pen, he said. The +magistrate sentenced him and his blistered hands to seven days’ hard +labour. + +Old age, of course, makes pauperism. And then there is the accident, +the thing happening, the death or disablement of the husband, father, +and bread-winner. Here is a man, with a wife and three children, living +on the ticklish security of twenty shillings per week—and there are +hundreds of thousands of such families in London. Perforce, to even +half exist, they must live up to the last penny of it, so that a week’s +wages (one pound) is all that stands between this family and pauperism +or starvation. The thing happens, the father is struck 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 themselves +miserably to support, determine the scale of wages. 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-starvation, 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 indignantly 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 case, 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 the 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 and her three children we are considering have done no +wrong that they should be so punished. They have not sinned. The thing +happened, that 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. The 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 people 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 mortality in South +Africa and the Philippines fades away to insignificance. Here, in the +heart of peace, is where 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 men, 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 where 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 years old. Slaughter! Herod did not do quite so badly. + +That industry causes 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 Medical Officer, which is not applicable +to Liverpool alone:— + +In many instances little if any sunlight could get to the courts, and +the atmosphere within the 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 surroundings, and would not live_. + + +Mr. George Haw has compiled the following table on the three St. +George’s parishes (London parishes):— + +Percentage of Population Overcrowded Death-rate per 1000 St. +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 from the strongest and +most splendidly-built men to be found, live, on an average, less 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 case 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 the white-lead trades. +Here is a description of the typical dissolution of a young, healthy, +well-developed girl who goes to work in a white-lead factory:— + +Here, after a varying degree of exposure, she becomes anæmic. It may be +that her gums show a very faint blue line, or perchance her teeth and +gums are perfectly sound, and no blue line is discernible. Coincidently +with the anaemia she has been getting thinner, but so gradually as +scarcely to impress itself upon her or her friends. Sickness, however, +ensues, and headaches, growing in intensity, are developed. These are +frequently attended by obscuration of vision or temporary blindness. +Such a girl passes into what appears to her friends and medical adviser +as ordinary hysteria. This gradually deepens without warning, until she +is suddenly seized with a convulsion, beginning in one half of the +face, then involving the arm, next the leg of the same side of the +body, until the convulsion, violent and purely epileptic form in +character, becomes universal. This is attended by loss of +consciousness, out of which she passes into a series of convulsions, +gradually increasing in severity, in one of which she dies—or +consciousness, partial or perfect, is regained, either, it may be, for +a few minutes, a few hours, or days, during which violent headache is +complained of, or she is delirious and excited, as in acute mania, or +dull and sullen as in melancholia, and requires to be roused, when she +is found wandering, and her speech is somewhat imperfect. Without +further warning, save that the pulse, which has become soft, with +nearly the normal number of beats, all at once becomes low and hard; +she is suddenly seized with another convulsion, in which she dies, or +passes into a state of coma from which she never rallies. In another +case the convulsions will gradually subside, the headache disappears +and the patient recovers, only to find that she has completely lost her +eyesight, a loss that may be temporary or permanent. + + +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 never 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 her, found the blue line along her gums, +which shows that the system is under the influence of the lead. He knew +that the convulsions would shortly return. They did so, and she died. + +Mary Ann Toler—a girl of seventeen, who had never had a fit in her +life—three times became ill, and had to leave off work in the factory. +Before she was nineteen she showed symptoms of lead poisoning—had fits, +frothed at the mouth, and died. + +Mary A., an unusually vigorous woman, was able to work in the lead +factory for _twenty years_, having colic once only during that time. +Her eight children all died in early infancy from convulsions. One +morning, 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 first one) and worked on uninterruptedly for two years. Then the +former symptoms returned, she was seized with convulsions, and died in +two days of acute lead poisoning. + + +Mr. Vaughan Nash, speaking of the unborn generation, says: “The +children of the white-lead 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 while leading a forlorn hope on the +industrial battlefield. She was employed as an enamelled ware brusher, +wherein lead poisoning is encountered. Her father and brother were both +out 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 trade also plays an important part in hurling the workers +into the Abyss. With a week’s wages between a family and pauperism, a +month’s enforced idleness means hardship and misery almost +indescribable, and from the ravages of which the victims do not always +recover 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 past, have not +averaged a weekly income of more than from four to five shillings. The +stagnated state of the shipping industry in the port of London is held +accountable for this condition of affairs. + +To the young working-man or working-woman, or married couple, there is +no assurance of happy or healthy middle life, nor of solvent old age. +Work as they will, they cannot make their future secure. It is all 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 they 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 away 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 home and children and all that makes life +worth living and old age other than a nightmare. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. +SUICIDE + + +With life so precarious, and opportunity for the happiness of life so +remote, it is inevitable that life shall be cheap 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 half +bewildered by the amazing despatch with which drunks, disorderlies, +vagrants, brawlers, wife-beaters, thieves, fences, gamblers, and women +of the street went through the machine of justice. The dock 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 pondering 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 caught 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. 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 hair rumpled down +his forehead, his face haggard and careworn and boyish still. + +“Yes, sir,” 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 workmen +’appened along, and we got ’im out and turned ’im over to the +constable.” + +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 foreman, or +had been. Alfred was a good boy, but he had had lots of trouble at +home, money matters. And then his mother was sick. He was given to +worrying, and he worried over it till he laid himself out and wasn’t +fit for work. He (the foreman), for the sake of his own reputation, the +boy’s work being bad, had been forced to ask him to resign. + +“Anything to say?” the magistrate demanded abruptly. + +The boy in the dock 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,” said his Worship; and the next case was under way, the +first witness already engaged in taking the oath. The boy, dazed and +unheeding, passed out with the jailer. That was all, five minutes from +start 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 ten 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 prisoners 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 with?” demanded the indignant Mr. R. S---. “Why did you not get +under the water and make an end of it, instead 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 myself before I go into +the workhouse,” said Ellen Hughes Hunt, aged fifty-two. Last Wednesday +they held an inquest on her body at Shoreditch. Her husband came from +the Islington Workhouse to testify. He had been a cheesemonger, but +failure 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 hours later her hat and +jacket were found on the towing path by the Regent’s Canal, 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, convicted, 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 when she went into the Regent’s +Canal. As to which is the preferable sojourning place is a matter of +opinion, of intellectual judgment. I, for one, from what I know of +canals and workhouses, should choose the canal, were I in a similar +position. And I make bold to contend that I am no more insane than +Ellen Hughes Hunt, her husband, and the rest of the human herd. + +Man no longer follows instinct with the old natural fidelity. He has +developed into a reasoning creature, and can intellectually cling to +life or discard life just as life happens to promise great pleasure or +pain. I dare to assert that Ellen 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 dare 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 defrauded and bilked of all the joys +of life which fifty-two years’ service in the world had earned. + +Temporary insanity! Oh, these cursed phrases, these lies of language, +under which people with meat in their bellies and whole shirts on their +backs shelter themselves, and evade the responsibility of their +brothers and sisters, empty of belly and without whole shirts on their +backs. + +From one issue of the _Observer_, an East End paper, I quote the +following commonplace events:— + + +A ship’s fireman, named Johnny King, was charged with attempting to +commit suicide. On Wednesday defendant went to Bow Police Station and +stated that he had swallowed a quantity of phosphor paste, as he was +hard up and unable to obtain work. King was taken inside and an emetic +administered, when he vomited up a quantity of the poison. Defendant +now said he was very sorry. Although he had sixteen years’ good +character, he was unable to obtain work of any kind. Mr. Dickinson 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 Pier, 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-past eight on Sunday +morning Constable 834 K found defendant lying in a doorway in Benworth +Street, and she was in a very drowsy condition. She 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 coffee, ordered that she was to be kept awake. When +defendant was charged, she stated that the reason why she attempted to +take her life was she had 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 insanity among the +living. Costermongers, hawkers, and pedlars, a class of workers who +live from hand to mouth more than those of any other class, form the +highest percentage of those in the lunatic 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, who are at least sure of food and shelter, 13 +per 10,000 go insane; and of farmers and graziers, only 5.1. So a +coster is twice as likely to lose his reason as a soldier, and five +times as likely as a farmer. + +Misfortune and misery are very potent in turning people’s heads, and +drive one person to the lunatic asylum, and another to the morgue or +the gallows. When the thing happens, and the father 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 torn 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, delicately 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 lived 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 and +affectionate husband and father. + +His wife, Hannah Cavilla, was a big, handsome, light-hearted woman. She +saw to it that his children were sent neat and clean (the neighbours +all remarked the fact) to the Childeric Road Board School. And so, with +such a man, so blessed, working steadily and living temperately, all +went well, 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 unruly horse, and, as I say, +it happened. Cavilla had to seek fresh employment and find another +house. + +This occurred eighteen months ago. For eighteen 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 manfully 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 word; but poor folk +know. The housewives of Batavia Road sent them food, but so respectable +were the Cavillas that the 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, Hannah Cavilla, aged +thirty-three. He cut the throat of his first-born, Frank, aged twelve. +He cut the throat of his son, Walter, 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 all day until the evening, when the police came, and he told them +to put a penny in the slot of the gas-meter in order that they might +have light to see. + +Frank Cavilla stood 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, and +wavy, fair moustache. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. +THE CHILDREN + + +“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 dancing in the street when the organ-grinder goes his +round. It is fascinating to watch them, the new-born, the next +generation, swaying and stepping, with pretty little mimicries and +graceful inventions all their own, with muscles that move swiftly 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 bright 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 and form under their filth and rags. + +But there is a Pied Piper of London Town who steals them all away. They +disappear. One never sees them again, or anything 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 is a hint that she was once one of those children +who danced to the organ-grinder. Those grotesque and lumbering steps +are all that is left of the promise of childhood. In the befogged +recesses of her brain has arisen a fleeting memory that she was once a +girl. The crowd closes in. Little girls are dancing beside her, about +her, with all the pretty graces she dimly recollects, but can no more +than parody with her body. Then she pants for breath, exhausted, and +stumbles out through the circle. But the little girls dance on. + +The children of the Ghetto possess all the qualities which make for +noble manhood and womanhood; but the Ghetto itself, like an infuriated +tigress turning on its young, turns 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 increasing body of that population there reigns +supreme . . . that condition which the French call _la misère_, a word +for which I do not think there is any exact English equivalent. It is a +condition 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 compound 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 conditions, 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. They have no home life. In the dens 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, overcrowding, and underfeeding. When a father and +mother live with three or four children in a room where the children +take turn 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 readily be imagined. + +“Dull despair and misery +Lie about them from their birth; +Ugly curses, 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 does, and +the man is exceedingly lucky if he can keep his health and his job. A +baby comes, and then another. This means that more room should be +obtained; but these little mouths and bodies mean additional expense +and make it absolutely impossible to get more spacious quarters. More +babies come. There is not room in which to turn around. The youngsters +run the streets, and by the time they are twelve or fourteen the +room-issue comes to a head, and out they go on the streets for good. +The boy, if he be lucky, can manage to make the common lodging-houses, +and he may have any one of several ends. But the girl of fourteen or +fifteen, forced in this manner to leave the one room called home, and +able to earn at the best a paltry five or six shillings per week, can +have but one end. And the bitter end of that one end is such as that of +the woman whose body the police found this morning in a doorway in +Dorset Street, Whitechapel. Homeless, shelterless, sick, with no one +with her in her last hour, she had died in the night of exposure. She +was sixty-two years old and a match vendor. She died as a wild animal +dies. + +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 stealing 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 arsked ’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 +antecedent, a waif, a stray, a young cub seeking his food in the jungle +of empire, preying upon the weak and being preyed upon by the strong. + +The people who try to help, who gather up the Ghetto children and send +them away on a day’s outing to the country, believe that not very many +children reach the age of ten without 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 children +learn the meaning of fields and woods, so that descriptions of country +scenery in the books they read, which before conveyed no impression, +become now intelligible.” + +One day in the fields 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 hooligans to smash the policemen. + +The Rev. J. Cartmel 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; until they +sat down at last, faint and despairing, and were rescued by a kind +woman who brought them back. Evidently they had been overlooked by the +people who try to help. + +The same gentleman is authority for the statement that in a street in +Hoxton (a district of the vast East End), over seven hundred children, +between five and thirteen years, live in eighty small houses. And he +adds: “It is because London has largely shut her children in a maze of +streets and houses and robbed them of their rightful inheritance in sky +and field and brook, that they grow up to be men and women physically +unfit.” + +He tells of a member of his congregation who let a basement room to a +married couple. “They said they had two children; when they got +possession it turned out that they had four. After a while a fifth +appeared, and 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, came in and threatened my friend with legal proceedings. He +pleaded that he could not get them out. They pleaded that nobody would +have them with so many children at a rental within their means, which +is one of the commonest complaints of the poor, by-the-bye. What was to +be done? The landlord was between two millstones. Finally he applied 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.” + +Last week the police raided a disorderly house. In one room were found +two young children. They were arrested and charged with being inmates +the same as the women had been. Their father appeared at the trial. He +stated that himself 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 need further to multiply instances. In London the +slaughter of the innocents goes on on a scale more stupendous than any +before in the history of the world. 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 little 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 that 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. Much of it is +untenable. But in a general 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 bipeds +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 prowled 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 +elemental economy of nature, such as the cave-men must have exhibited. +But there was strength in those meagre bodies, the ferocious, +primordial strength to clutch and gripe and tear and rend. When they +spring upon their human prey they are known even to bend the victim +backward and double its body till the back is broken. They possess +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 people of the golden theatres and wonder-mansions of the +West End do not see these creatures, do not dream that they exist. 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 will 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?” “Are they men?” + +But they were not the only beasts that ranged the menagerie. They were +only here and there, lurking in dark courts and passing like grey +shadows along the walls; but the women from whose rotten loins they +spring 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 wrecks of society, the perambulating carcasses, +the living deaths—women, blasted by disease and drink till their shame +brought not tuppence in the open mart; and men, in fantastic rags, +wrenched by hardship and exposure out of all semblance 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 girls, 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. And I remember a lad of +fourteen, and one of six or seven, white-faced and sickly, homeless, +the pair of them, who sat upon the pavement with their backs against a +railing and watched it all. + +The unfit and the unneeded! Industry does not clamour for them. There +are no jobs going begging through lack of men and women. 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 found to +toil under the sweat-shop masters for tenpence a day of fourteen hours. +Alfred Freeman crawls to muddy death because he loses his job. Ellen +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 the +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 give us howling +and naked savagery. Far 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 WAIL + + +“My father has more stamina than I, for he is country-born.” + +The speaker, a bright young East Ender, was lamenting his poor physical +development. + +“Look at my scrawny arm, will you.” He pulled up his sleeve. “Not +enough to eat, that’s what’s the matter with it. Oh, not now. I have +what I want to eat these days. But it’s too late. It can’t make up for +what I didn’t have to eat when I was a kiddy. 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. He did his best, but we didn’t have +enough to eat. We rarely saw meat, and then of the worst. And it is not +good for growing kiddies to sit down to a dinner of bread and a bit of +cheese, and not enough of it. + +“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 couple 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 they 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. 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 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 there 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. Chronic starvation is +looked upon as a matter of course. It is only when acute starvation +makes its appearance on a large scale that they think something is +unusual. + +I shall never forget the bitter wail of a blind man in a little East +End shop at the close of a murky day. He had been the eldest of five +children, with a mother and no father. Being the eldest, he had starved +and worked as a child to put bread into the mouths of his little +brothers and sisters. Not once in three months did he ever taste meat. +He never 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 from the report of the +Royal Commission on the Blind, “Blindness is more prevalent in poor +districts, and poverty accelerates this dreadful affliction.” + +But he went further, 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 pint 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 consists 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 +astringent 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. 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. In 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 part, and was so +recognised by the child, who, utterly unconscious of the regulations of +the Prison Board, told one of the senior wardens how kind this junior +warden had been to him. The result was, 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 liberal as the pauper’s. + +PAUPER DIET SOLDIER +3.25 oz. Meat 12 oz. +15.5 oz. Bread 24 oz. +6 oz. Vegetables 8 oz. + +The adult male pauper gets meat (outside of soup) but once a week, and +the paupers “have nearly all that pallid, pasty complexion which is the +sure mark of starvation.” + +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 pauper’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 sixpence 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 alone the Ghetto-dweller, the prisoner, and the pauper +that starve. Hodge, of the country, does not know what it is always to +have a full belly. In truth, it is his empty belly which has driven him +to the city in such great numbers. Let us investigate the way of living +of a labourer from a parish in the Bradfield Poor Law Union, 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:— + + s. d. +Bread (5 quarterns) 1 10 +Flour (0.5 gallon) 0 4 +Tea (0.25 lb.) 0 6 +Butter (1 lb.) 1 3 +Lard (1 lb.) 0 6 +Sugar (6 lb.) 1 0 +Bacon or other meat (about 0.25 lb.) 2 8 +Cheese (1 lb.) 0 8 +Milk (half-tin condensed) 0 3.25 +Coal 1 6 +Beer none +Tobacco none +Insurance (“Prudential”) 0 3 +Labourers’ Union 0 1 +Wood, tools, dispensary, &c. 0 6 +Insurance (“Foresters”) and margin 1 1.75 + for clothes +Total 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 +Women 5 6.5 +Children 5 1.25 + +If the labourer whose budget has been described should quit his toil +and go into the workhouse, he would cost the guardians for + + s. d. +Himself 6 1.5 +Wife 5 6.5 +Two children 10 2.5 +Total 21 10.5 +Or roughly, $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 understood fact that it is cheaper to cater +for a large number of people—buying, cooking, and serving +wholesale—than it is to cater for a small number of people, say 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), and 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 decentralisation 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 the dwellers are condemned to a +poverty which destroys them physically and spiritually; that fully +one-fourth of the dwellers do not have enough to eat, 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 leaned 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 himself 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 the +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. It would seem +that 40,000,000 people are keeping a big house, and that 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 produce +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 are +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 drunkenness, saturated in drink before they draw their first breath, +born to the smell and 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 it, familiarising themselves with +licentiousness and debauchery. + +Mrs. Grundy rules as supremely over the workers as she does over the +bourgeoisie; but in the case of the workers, the one thing she does not +frown upon is the public-house. No disgrace or shame attaches to it, +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 +innutrition 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. +Unhealthy 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 deadened 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 impossible. + +A brief examination 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 small), the +wife and mother cooks the breakfast. And in the same room, heavy and +sickening with the exhalations of their 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, filling the pent space with soapsuds +and the smell of dirty clothes, and overhead she hangs the wet linen to +dry. + +Here, in the evening, amid the manifold smells of the day, the family +goes to its virtuous couch. That is to say, as many as possible pile +into the one bed (if bed they have), and the surplus turns in on the +floor. And this is the round of their existence, month after month, +year after year, for they never get a vacation 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 kept 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 East 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 as 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 London, 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 respectable +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 alleviation, 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 oblivion that nothing else in their +lives can bring. It even exalts them, and makes them 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 the cause of many miseries; but it is, in turn, +the effect of other and prior miseries. The temperance advocates may +preach their hearts out over the evils of drink, but until the evils +that 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 Good, the foul facts of +their existence and the social law that dooms one in three to a +public-charity death, demonstrate that this knowledge and yearning will +be only so much of an added curse to them. They will have so much more +to forget than if they had never known and yearned. Did Destiny to-day +bind me down to the life of an East End slave for the rest of my years, +and did Destiny grant me but one wish, I should ask that I might forget +all about the Beautiful and True and Good; that I might forget all I +had learned from the open books, and forget the people I had known, the +things I had heard, and the lands I had seen. And if Destiny didn’t +grant 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 settlements, missions, +charities, and what not, are failures. In the nature of things they +cannot 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 down to the East End +as teachers and savants. 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 beyond relieving +an infinitesimal fraction of misery and collecting a certain amount of +data which might otherwise have been more scientifically and less +expensively collected, they have achieved nothing. + +As some one has said, 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 successful 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 three farthings a gross, when more +children and violet-makers than they can cope with are being born right +along? This violet-maker handles each flower four times, 576 handlings +for three farthings, and in the day she handles the flowers 6912 times +for a wage of ninepence. She is being robbed. Somebody is on her back, +and a yearning 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, undoes 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 more of a truth. +And the lie they preach is “thrift.” An instant will demonstrate it. In +overcrowded London, the struggle for a chance to work is keen, and +because of this struggle wages sink to the lowest means of subsistence. +To be thrifty means for a worker to spend less than his income—in other +words, to live on less. This is equivalent to a lowering of the +standard of living. In the competition for a chance to work, the man +with a lower standard of living will underbid the man with a higher +standard. And a small group of such thrifty workers in any overcrowded +industry will permanently lower the wages of that industry. And the +thrifty ones will no longer be thrifty, for their income will have been +reduced till it balances their expenditure. + +In short, thrift negates thrift. If every worker 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. And then none of the workers of England would be +thrifty, for they would be living up 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 families which have a total income of less than 21s. per +week, one quarter to one half 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. 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, when 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. He does not play with palliatives. 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 men. + +When the people who 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 Christ, they will be in better shape to +buckle down to the work they ought to be doing 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 bettered the lot of man? “Man,” 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 per head. +They hunt and fish for their food with bone-headed spears and arrows. +They never suffer from lack of shelter. Their clothes, largely made +from the skins of animals, are warm. They always have fuel for their +fires, likewise timber for their houses, which they build partly +underground, and in which they lie snugly during the periods of intense +cold. In the 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. In good times they +feast; in bad times they die of starvation. But starvation, as a +chronic condition, 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 per head. They gain their food, not by hunting +and fishing, but by toil at colossal artifices. For the most part, they +suffer from lack of shelter. The greater number of them are vilely +housed, do not have enough fuel to keep them warm, and are +insufficiently clothed. A constant 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 +starvation; 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 +babe that is born, is born in debt to the sum of £22. This is because +of an artifice called the National Debt. + +In a fair comparison 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; that no Innuit lacks +fuel, clothing, or housing, while the Englishman is in perpetual lack +of these three essentials. In this connection it is well to instance +the judgment of a man such as Huxley. From the knowledge gained as a +medical officer in the East End of London, and as a scientist pursuing +investigations among the most elemental savages, he concludes, “Were +the alternative presented to me, I would deliberately prefer the life +of the savage to that of those people of Christian London.” + +The creature comforts man enjoys are the products of man’s labour. +Since Civilisation has failed to give 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. Then arises the third and inexorable question: _If +Civilisation has increased the producing power of the average man, why +has it not bettered the 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. 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 should have reared this tremendous artifice in +vain. It stuns the intellect. To acknowledge so crushing a defeat 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 man_. +This accepted, it becomes at once a question of business management. +Things profitable must be continued; things unprofitable must be +eliminated. Either the Empire is a profit to England, or it is a loss. +If it is a loss, it must be done away with. If it is a profit, it must +be managed so that the average man comes in for a share of the profit. + +If the struggle for commercial supremacy is profitable, continue it. If +it is not, if it hurts the worker 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 them to work ploughing game preserves and planting +potatoes. If they are profitable, continue them by all means, but let +it be seen to that the average Englishman shares somewhat 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. 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 West End and an +East End as large as the Kingdom is large, in which one end is riotous +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 +political empire, and the English of the New World and the Antipodes +are strong and vigorous as ever. But the political 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 wasteful and +inefficient, but it has misappropriated the funds. Every worn-out, +pasty-faced pauper, 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 member 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 increased 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 who lives to-day as he lived in the stone age ten thousand +years ago. + + + +CHALLENGE + +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 Sanchez + Was before Zamora slain, +And his great besieging army + Lay encamped upon the plain. + +Don Diego de Ordenez + Sallied forth in front of all, +And shouted loud his challenge + To the warders on the wall. + +All the people of Zamora, + Both the born and the unborn, +As traitors did he challenge + With taunting words of scorn. + +The living in their houses, + And in their 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 life. + +The poverty-stricken millions + Who challenge our wine and bread, +And impeach us all as traitors, + Both the living and the dead. + +And whenever I sit at the banquet, + Where the feast and song are high, +Amid the mirth and music + I can hear that fearful cry. + +And hollow and haggard faces + Look into the lighted hall, +And wasted hands are extended + To catch the crumbs that 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 wind, and cold, and rain, +Christ, the great Lord of the Army, +vLies dead upon the plain. + + +LONGFELLOW + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS *** + +***** This file should be named 1688-0.txt or 1688-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/8/1688/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and + most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no + restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it + under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this + eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the + United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where + you are located before using this eBook. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that: + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation's website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without +widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + diff --git a/1688-0.zip b/1688-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3bdbf3d --- /dev/null +++ b/1688-0.zip diff --git a/1688-h.zip b/1688-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8516bde --- /dev/null +++ b/1688-h.zip diff --git a/1688-h/1688-h.htm b/1688-h/1688-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60a821f --- /dev/null +++ b/1688-h/1688-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,9464 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The People of the Abyss, by Jack London</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + + </style> +</head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The People of the Abyss, by Jack London</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The People of the Abyss</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Jack London</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: March, 1999 [eBook #1688]<br /> +[Most recently updated: December 1, 2020]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Price</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:60%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]" /> +</div> + +<h1>The People of the Abyss</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Jack London</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#pref01">PREFACE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">I. THE DESCENT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">II. JOHNNY UPRIGHT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">III. MY LODGING AND SOME OTHERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">IV. A MAN AND THE ABYSS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">V. THOSE ON THE EDGE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">VI. FRYING-PAN ALLEY AND A GLIMPSE OF INFERNO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">VII. A WINNER OF THE VICTORIA CROSS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">VIII. THE CARTER AND THE CARPENTER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">IX. THE SPIKE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">X. CARRYING THE BANNER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">XI. THE PEG</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">XII. CORONATION DAY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">XIII. DAN CULLEN, DOCKER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">XIV. HOPS AND HOPPERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">XV. THE SEA WIFE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">XVI. PROPERTY VERSUS PERSON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">XVII. INEFFICIENCY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">XVIII. WAGES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">XIX. THE GHETTO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">XX. COFFEE-HOUSES AND DOSS-HOUSES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">XXI. THE PRECARIOUSNESS OF LIFE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">XXII. SUICIDE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">XXIII. THE CHILDREN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">XXIV. A VISION OF THE NIGHT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">XXV. THE HUNGER WAIL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">XXVI. DRINK, TEMPERANCE, AND THRIFT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">XXVII. THE MANAGEMENT</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="center"> +The chief priests and rulers cry:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt,<br /> +We build but as our fathers built;<br /> +Behold thine images how they stand<br /> +Sovereign and sole through all our land.<br /> +<br /> +“Our task is hard—with sword and flame,<br /> +To hold thine earth forever the same,<br /> +And with sharp crooks of steel to keep,<br /> +Still as thou leftest them, thy sheep.”<br /> +<br /> +Then Christ sought out an artisan,<br /> +A low-browed, stunted, haggard man,<br /> +And a motherless girl whose fingers thin<br /> +Crushed from her faintly want and sin.<br /> +<br /> +These set he in the midst of them,<br /> +And as they drew back their garment hem<br /> +For fear of defilement, “Lo, here,” said he,<br /> +“The images ye have made of me.” +</p> + +<p class="right"> +JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="pref01"></a>PREFACE</h2> + +<p> +The experiences related in this volume 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. I was +open to be convinced by the evidence of my eyes, rather than by the +teachings of those who had not seen, or by the words of those who had +seen and gone before. Further, I took with me certain simple criteria +with which to measure the life of the under-world. That which +made for more life, for physical and spiritual health, was good; that +which made for less life, which hurt, and dwarfed, and distorted life, +was bad. +</p> + +<p> +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” in England. The starvation +and lack of shelter I encountered constituted a chronic condition of +misery which is never wiped out, even in the periods of greatest prosperity. +</p> + +<p> +Following the summer 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, writing in the month of January 1903, +to the New York <i>Independent</i>, briefly epitomises the situation +as follows:— +</p> + +<p> +“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 have +exhausted their means in trying to raise supplies of food for the famishing +residents of the garrets and cellars of London lanes and alleys. +The quarters of the Salvation Army 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 political aggregations than by individuals. Society grows, +while political machines rack to pieces and become “scrap.” +For the English, so far as manhood and womanhood and health and happiness +go, I see a broad and smiling future. But for a great deal of +the political machinery, which at present mismanages for them, I see +nothing else than the scrap heap. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +JACK LONDON. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /> +THE DESCENT</h2> + +<p> +“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 police +for a guide,” they added, on second thought, painfully endeavouring +to adjust themselves to the psychological processes of a madman who +had come to them with better credentials than brains. +</p> + +<p> +“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 things +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 going to live there myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t want to <i>live</i> down there!” everybody +said, with disapprobation writ large upon their faces. “Why, +it is said there are places where a man’s life isn’t worth +tu’pence.” +</p> + +<p> +“The very places I wish to see,” I broke in. +</p> + +<p> +“But you can’t, you know,” was the unfailing rejoinder. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But we know nothing of the East End. It is over there, +somewhere.” And they waved their hands vaguely in the direction +where the sun on rare occasions may be seen to rise. +</p> + +<p> +“Then I shall go to Cook’s,” I announced. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” they said, with relief. “Cook’s +will be sure to know.” +</p> + +<p> +But O Cook, O Thomas Cook & Son, path-finders and trail-clearers, +living sign-posts to all the 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 distant from Ludgate +Circus, you know not the way! +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 advance +what I intend doing, so that in case of trouble you may be able to identify +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I see! should you be murdered, we would be in position +to identify the corpse.” +</p> + +<p> +He said it so cheerfully and cold-bloodedly that on the instant I +saw my stark and mutilated cadaver stretched upon a slab where cool +waters trickle ceaselessly, and him I saw bending over and sadly and +patiently identifying it as the body of the insane American who <i>would</i> +see the East End. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no,” 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. +</p> + +<p> +“That,” he said, “is a matter for the consideration +of the Chief Office.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is so unprecedented, you know,” he added apologetically. +</p> + +<p> +The man at the Chief Office hemmed and hawed. “We make +it a rule,” he explained, “to give no information concerning +our clients.” +</p> + +<p> +“But in this case,” I urged, “it is the client +who requests you to give the information concerning himself.” +</p> + +<p> +Again he hemmed and hawed. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course,” I hastily anticipated, “I know it +is unprecedented, but—” +</p> + +<p> +“As I was about to remark,” he went on steadily, “it +is unprecedented, and I don’t think we can do anything for you.” +</p> + +<p> +However, I departed 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 and my project, +which he accepted as a matter of course. In the second minute +he asked my age, height, and weight, and looked me over. And in +the third minute, as we shook hands at parting, he said: “All +right, Jack. I’ll remember you and keep track.” +</p> + +<p> +I breathed a sigh of relief. Having burnt my ships behind me, +I was now free to plunge into that human wilderness of which nobody +seemed to know anything. But at once I encountered a new difficulty +in the shape of my cabby, a grey-whiskered and eminently decorous personage +who had imperturbably driven me for several hours about the “City.” +</p> + +<p> +“Drive me down to the East End,” I ordered, taking my +seat. +</p> + +<p> +“Where, sir?” he demanded with frank surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“To the East End, anywhere. Go on.” +</p> + +<p> +The hansom pursued 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. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” he said, “wot plyce yer wanter go?” +</p> + +<p> +“East End,” I repeated. “Nowhere in particular. +Just drive me around anywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“But wot’s the haddress, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“See here!” I thundered. “Drive me down to +the East End, and at once!” +</p> + +<p> +It was evident that he did not understand, but he withdrew his head, +and grumblingly started his horse. +</p> + +<p> +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 region 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 through miles of bricks and squalor, and from each cross +street and alley flashed long vistas of bricks and misery. Here +and there lurched a drunken man or woman, and the air was obscene with +sounds of jangling and squabbling. At a market, tottery old men +and women were searching in the garbage thrown in the mud for rotten +potatoes, beans, and vegetables, while little children clustered like +flies around a festering mass of fruit, thrusting their arms to the +shoulders into the liquid corruption, and drawing forth morsels but +partially decayed, which they devoured on the spot. +</p> + +<p> +Not a hansom did I meet with in all my drive, while mine was like +an apparition from another and 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; and 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Stepney, sir; Stepney Station,” the cabby called down. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +He spluttered unintelligibly, shook his head, and looked very miserable. +“I’m a strynger ’ere,” he managed to articulate. +“An’ if yer don’t want Stepney Station, I’m +blessed if I know wotcher do want.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what I want,” I said. “You +drive along and keep your eye out for a shop where old clothes are sold. +Now, when you see such a shop, drive right on till you turn the corner, +then stop and let me out.” +</p> + +<p> +I could see that he was growing dubious of his fare, but not long +afterwards he pulled up to the curb and informed me that an old-clothes +shop was to be found a bit of the way back. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’tcher py me?” he pleaded. “There’s +seven an’ six owin’ me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I laughed, “and it would be the last I’d +see of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord lumme, but it’ll be the last I see of you if yer +don’t py me,” he retorted. +</p> + +<p> +But a crowd of ragged onlookers had already gathered around the cab, +and I laughed again and walked back to the old-clothes shop. +</p> + +<p> +Here the chief difficulty was in making the shopman understand that +I really and truly wanted old clothes. But after fruitless 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 man 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. +</p> + +<p> +But I disputed with 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 with 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 coal was shovelled, a thin leather belt, and a very dirty +cloth cap. My underclothing and socks, however, were new and warm, +but of the sort that any American waif, down in his luck, could acquire +in the ordinary course of events. +</p> + +<p> +“I must sy yer 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 ben 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 +singlet an’ hother things.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much will you give me for them?” I demanded suddenly. +“I paid you ten bob for the lot, and I’ll sell them back +to you, right now, for eight! Come, it’s a go!” +</p> + +<p> +But he grinned and shook his head, and though I had made a good bargain, +I was unpleasantly aware that he had made a better one. +</p> + +<p> +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 +Town. +</p> + +<p> +But he drove me only to Highbury Vale, in North London, where my +luggage was waiting for me. Here, next day, I took off my shoes +(not without regret for their lightness and comfort), and my soft, grey +travelling 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 have had to part with such rags for the pitiable +sums obtainable from a dealer. +</p> + +<p> +Inside my stoker’s singlet, in the armpit, I sewed a gold sovereign +(an emergency sum certainly 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. +</p> + +<p> +The remainder of my costume was fairly easy to put on, though the brogans, or +brogues, were quite 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 knife, 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 passed out of the door, the “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 uncouth animal noises we are +wont to designate as “laughter.” +</p> + +<p> +No sooner was I out on the streets than I was impressed by the difference +in status effected by my clothes. All servility vanished 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 of +my class, which was their class. It made me of like kind, and +in place of the fawning and too respectful attention I had hitherto +received, I now shared with them a comradeship. The man in corduroy +and dirty neckerchief 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 man 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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,” +to a gentleman whose horse I held, and who dropped a penny into my eager +palm. +</p> + +<p> +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 cheapened 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?” Also, at the railway stations, a third-class +ticket was now shoved out to me as a matter of course. +</p> + +<p> +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-houses, +talked with me, they talked as one man to another, and they talked as +natural men should talk, without the least idea of getting anything +out of me for what they talked or the way they talked. +</p> + +<p> +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 become +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 one exception of the stoker’s singlet. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /> +JOHNNY UPRIGHT</h2> + +<p> +I shall not give you the address of Johnny Upright. Let it +suffice that he lives in the most respectable street in the East End—a +street that would be considered very mean in America, but a veritable +oasis in the desert of East London. It is surrounded on every +side by close-packed squalor and streets jammed by a young and vile +and dirty 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 the people that come and go. +</p> + +<p> +Each house in this street, as in all the streets, is shoulder to +shoulder with its neighbours. To each house there is but one entrance, +the front door; and each house is about eighteen feet wide, with a bit +of a brick-walled yard behind, where, when it is not raining, one 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 people +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 world. +</p> + +<p> +To Johnny Upright’s house I came, and to the door came the +“slavey.” Now, mark you, her position in life was +pitiable and contemptible, but it was with pity and contempt that she +looked at me. She evinced a plain desire 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 lingered, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +A change came over the face of things at once. The gentleman +in question was at church, but would be home in an hour or thereabouts, +when no doubt he could be seen. +</p> + +<p> +Would I kindly step in?—no, the lady did not ask me, though +I fished for an invitation by stating 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, and, in lieu of better, I took a seat on a neighbourly +doorstep and waited. +</p> + +<p> +And here to the doorstep came the “slavey,” very frowzy +and very perplexed, to tell me that the missus would let me come back +and wait in the kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +“So many people come ’ere lookin’ for work,” +Mrs. Johnny Upright apologetically explained. “So I ’ope +you won’t feel bad the way I spoke.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all, not at all,” I replied in my grandest manner, +for the nonce investing my rags with dignity. “I quite understand, +I assure you. I suppose people looking for work almost worry you +to death?” +</p> + +<p> +“That they do,” she answered, with an eloquent and expressive +glance; and thereupon ushered me into, not the kitchen, but the dining +room—a favour, I took it, in recompense for my grand manner. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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, not too far distant, into which I could run +now and again to assure myself that good clothes and cleanliness still existed. +Also in such port I could receive my mail, work up my notes, and sally forth +occasionally in changed garb to civilisation. +</p> + +<p> +But this involved a dilemma. A lodging where my property would +be safe implied a landlady apt to be suspicious of a gentleman 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. +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 strange comings and goings of which I might +be guilty. +</p> + +<p> +His two daughters beat him home from church—and pretty girls +they were in their Sunday dresses; 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. +</p> + +<p> +They looked me over with frank curiosity, as though I were some sort +of a strange animal, and then ignored me utterly for the rest of my +wait. Then Johnny Upright himself arrived, and I was summoned +upstairs to confer with him. +</p> + +<p> +“Speak loud,” he interrupted my opening words. +“I’ve got a bad cold, and I can’t hear well.” +</p> + +<p> +Shades of Old Sleuth and Sherlock Holmes! I wondered 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 sure: 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 +greeting was cordial enough, and I went down into the dining-room to +join the family at tea. +</p> + +<p> +“We are humble here,” he said, “not given to the +flesh, and you must take us for what we are, in our humble way.” +</p> + +<p> +The girls were flushed and embarrassed at greeting me, while he did +not make it any the easier for them. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! ha!” 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!” +</p> + +<p> +This they indignantly 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. +</p> + +<p> +And then, while I ate bread and marmalade, proceeded a play at cross +purposes, the daughters deeming 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 which 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /> +MY LODGING AND SOME OTHERS</h2> + +<p> +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 added 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +My first discovery was that empty houses were few and far between—so +far between, in fact, that though I walked miles in irregular circles +over a large area, I still remained between. Not one empty house +could I find—a conclusive proof that the district was “saturated.” +</p> + +<p> +It being plain that 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 them, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 the basis of a hypothetical +family. +</p> + +<p> +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 circumstances, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 door to learn if I were comfortable, dispelled +my doubts. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes, sir,” she said, in reply to a question. +“This street is the very last. All the other streets were +like this 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!” +</p> + +<p> +And then she explained the process of saturation, by which the rental +value of a neighbourhood went up, while its tone went down. +</p> + +<p> +“You see, sir, 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. It <i>is</i> shocking, sir; and just to think, +only a few years ago all this neighbourhood was just as nice as it could +be.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked at her. Here was a woman, of the finest grade of the +English working-class, with numerous evidences of refinement, being +slowly 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 poor folk +are a nomadic breed; so they migrate eastward, wave upon wave, saturating +and degrading neighbourhood by neighbourhood, driving the better class +of workers before them to pioneer, on the rim of the city, or dragging +them down, if not in the first generation, surely in the second and +third. +</p> + +<p> +It is only a question of months when Johnny Upright’s street +must go. He realises it himself. +</p> + +<p> +“In a couple of years,” he says, “my lease expires. +My landlord is one of our kind. He has not put up the rent on +any of his houses here, and this has enabled us to stay. But any +day he may sell, or any day he may die, which is the same thing so far +as we are concerned. The house is bought by a money breeder, who +builds a sweat shop on the patch of ground at the rear where my grapevine +is, adds to the house, and rents it a room to a family. There +you are, and Johnny Upright’s gone!” +</p> + +<p> +And truly I saw Johnny Upright, and his good wife and fair daughters, +and frowzy slavey, like so many ghosts flitting eastward through the +gloom, the monster city roaring at their heels. +</p> + +<p> +But Johnny Upright is not alone in his flitting. Far, far out, +on the fringe of the city, live the small business men, little managers, +and successful clerks. They dwell in cottages and semi-detached +villas, with bits of flower garden, and elbow room, and breathing space. +They inflate themselves with pride, and throw out their chests when +they contemplate the Abyss from which they have escaped, and they thank +God that they are not as other men. And lo! down upon them comes +Johnny Upright and the monster city at his heels. Tenements spring +up like magic, gardens are built upon, villas are divided and subdivided +into many dwellings, and the black night of London settles down in a +greasy pall. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /> +A MAN AND THE ABYSS</h2> + +<p> +“I say, can you let a lodging?” +</p> + +<p> +These words I discharged carelessly over my shoulder at a stout and +elderly woman, of whose fare I was partaking in a greasy coffee-house +down near the Pool and not very far from Limehouse. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yus,” she answered shortly, my appearance possibly +not approximating the standard of affluence required by her house. +</p> + +<p> +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 shillings +out of my pocket. The expected result was produced. +</p> + +<p> +“Yus, sir,” she at once volunteered; “I ’ave +nice lodgin’s you’d likely tyke a fancy to. Back from +a voyage, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“How much for a room?” I inquired, ignoring her curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +She looked me up and down with frank surprise. “I don’t +let rooms, not to my reg’lar lodgers, much less casuals.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’ll have to look along a bit,” I said, with +marked disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +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, respectable men, an’ steady.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t want to sleep with two other men,” +I objected. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t ’ave to. There’s three beds +in the room, an’ hit’s not a very small room.” +</p> + +<p> +“How much?” I demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“’Arf a crown a week, two an’ six, to a regular +lodger. You’ll fancy the men, I’m sure. 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 went on. “A +steady, respectable 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose he’s saving money right along,” I insinuated +innocently. +</p> + +<p> +“Bless you, no! Nor can ’e do as well helsewhere +with ’is money.” +</p> + +<p> +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, paying two dollars and a half +per month for it, and out of his experience adjudging 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 with +him. The human soul is a lonely thing, but it must be very lonely +sometimes when there are three beds to a room, and casuals with ten +shillings are admitted. +</p> + +<p> +“How long have you been here?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Thirteen years, sir; an’ don’t you think you’ll +fancy the lodgin’?” +</p> + +<p> +The while she talked she was shuffling ponderously about the small +kitchen in which she cooked the 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. +“Up at half-past five,” “to bed the last thing at +night,” “workin’ fit ter drop,” thirteen years +of it, and for reward, grey hairs, frowzy clothes, stooped shoulders, +slatternly figure, unending toil in a foul and noisome coffee-house +that faced on an alley ten feet between the walls, and a waterside environment +that was ugly and sickening, to say the least. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll be hin hagain to ’ave a look?” she +questioned wistfully, as I went out of the door. +</p> + +<p> +And as I turned and looked at her, I realized to the full the deeper +truth underlying that very wise old maxim: “Virtue is its own +reward.” +</p> + +<p> +I went back to her. “Have you ever taken a vacation?” +I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Vycytion!” +</p> + +<p> +“A trip to the country for a couple of days, fresh air, a day +off, you know, a rest.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lor’ lumme!” she laughed, for the first time stopping +from her work. “A vycytion, eh? for the likes o’ me? +Just fancy, now!—Mind yer feet!”—this last sharply, +and to me, as I stumbled over the rotten threshold. +</p> + +<p> +Down near the West India Dock I came upon a young fellow staring +disconsolately at the muddy water. A fireman’s cap was pulled +down across his eyes, and the fit and sag of his clothes whispered unmistakably +of the sea. +</p> + +<p> +“Hello, mate,” I greeted him, sparring for a beginning. +“Can you tell me the way to Wapping?” +</p> + +<p> +“Worked yer way over on a cattle boat?” he countered, +fixing my nationality on the instant. +</p> + +<p> +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 drink up the whole shilling. +</p> + +<p> +“My mate, ’e cut up rough las’ night,” he +explained. “An’ the bobbies got ’m, so you can +bunk in wi’ me. Wotcher say?” +</p> + +<p> +I said yes, and by the time we had soaked ourselves in a whole shilling’s +worth of beer, and slept the night on a miserable bed in a miserable +den, I knew him pretty fairly for 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. +</p> + +<p> +He was London-born, his father a fireman and a drinker before him. +As a child, his home was the streets and the docks. He had never +learned to read, and had never felt the need for it—a vain and +useless accomplishment, he held, at least for a man of his station in +life. +</p> + +<p> +He had had a mother 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 went home except at periods when he was unfortunate in procuring +his own food. Petty 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 live and get the wherewithal), and then the paying +off and the big drunk at the end. After that, haphazard little +drunks, 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 repetition of the beastly cycle. +</p> + +<p> +“But women,” I suggested, when he had finished proclaiming +booze the sole end of existence. +</p> + +<p> +“Wimmen!” He thumped his pot upon the bar and orated +eloquently. “Wimmen 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, that 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 money so quick ’e ain’t ’ad ’ardly +a glass. I know. I’ve ’ad my fling, an’ +I know wot’s wot. An’ I tell you, where’s wimmen +is trouble—screechin’ an’ carryin’ on, fightin’, +cuttin’, bobbies, magistrates, an’ a month’s ’ard +labour back of it all, an’ no pay-day when you come out.” +</p> + +<p> +“But a wife and children,” I insisted. “A +home of your own, and all that. Think of it, back from a voyage, +little children climbing on your knee, 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—” +</p> + +<p> +“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’ll 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’ well glad to +be back t’ sea. A missus! Wot for? T’ +make you mis’rable? Kids? Jest take my counsel, matey, +an’ don’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.” +</p> + +<p> +Without going further 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 had never known. +The word “home” aroused nothing but unpleasant associations. +In the low wages of his father, and 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 +unmoral and materialistic, he sought the greatest possible happiness +for himself, and found it in drink. +</p> + +<p> +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 terrors for him. From the moment +of his birth, all the forces of his environment had tended to harden +him, and he viewed his wretched, inevitable future with a callousness +and unconcern I could not shake. +</p> + +<p> +And yet he was not a bad man. He was not inherently vicious +and brutal. He had normal mentality, and a more than average physique. +His eyes were blue and round, shaded 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 +weak; I have seen men sitting in the high places with weaker. +</p> + +<p> +His head was shapely, and so gracefully was it poised upon a perfect +neck that I was not surprised 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 have 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. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed sacrilege 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 happier in making both ends meet in a +room shared with two other men, than he would have been had he packed +a feeble family along with a couple of men into a cheaper room, and +failed in making both ends meet. +</p> + +<p> +And day by day I became convinced that not only is it unwise, but +it is criminal for the people of the Abyss to marry. They are +the stones by the builder rejected. There is no place for them, +in the social fabric, while all the forces 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 does not need them. +There are plenty, far fitter than they, clinging to the steep slope +above, and struggling frantically to slide no more. +</p> + +<p> +In short, the London Abyss is a vast shambles. Year 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. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. A. C. Pigou has 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.” +As to how they die, I shall take an instance from this morning’s +paper. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +SELF-NEGLECT +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +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 Mathieson stated that she was landlady of the house where +deceased lived. Witness last saw her alive on the previous Monday. She lived +quite alone. Mr. Francis Birch, relieving officer for the Holborn district, +stated that deceased had occupied the room in question for thirty-five years. +When witness was called, on the 1st, he found the old woman in a terrible +state, and the ambulance and coachman had to be disinfected after the removal. +Dr. Chase Fennell said death was due to blood-poisoning from bed-sores, due to +self-neglect and filthy surroundings, and the jury returned a verdict to that +effect. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Of the “submerged tenth” Mr. Pigou has said: “Either +through lack of bodily strength, or of intelligence, or of fibre, or +of all three, they are inefficient or unwilling workers, and consequently +unable to support themselves . . . They are often so degraded in intellect +as to be incapable of distinguishing their right from their left hand, +or of recognising the numbers of their own houses; their bodies are +feeble and without stamina, their affections are warped, and they scarcely +know what family life means.” +</p> + +<p> +Four hundred and fifty thousand is a whole lot of people. 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? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /> +THOSE ON THE EDGE</h2> + +<p> +My first impression of East London was naturally a general one. +Later 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 rows of houses in little out-of-the-way streets, where artisans +dwell and where a rude sort of family life obtains. In the evenings +the men can be seen at the doors, pipes in their mouths and children +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 stupid and heavy, without imagination. The Abyss seems +to exude a stupefying atmosphere of torpor, which wraps about them and +deadens them. Religion passes them by. The Unseen holds +for them neither terror nor delight. They are unaware of the Unseen; +and the full belly and the evening pipe, with their regular “arf +an’ arf,” is all they demand, or dream of demanding, from +existence. +</p> + +<p> +This would not be so bad if it were all; but it is not all. +The satisfied torpor in which they are sunk is the deadly inertia that +precedes dissolution. There is no progress, and with them not +to progress is to fall back and into the Abyss. In their own lives +they may only start to fall, leaving the fall to be completed by their +children and their children’s children. Man always gets +less than he demands from life; and so little do they demand, that the +less than little they get cannot save them. +</p> + +<p> +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. Mind and body are sapped by the +undermining influences ceaselessly at work. Moral and physical +stamina are broken, and the good workman, fresh from the soil, becomes +in the first city generation a poor workman; and by the second city +generation, devoid of push and go and initiative, and actually unable +physically to perform the labour his father did, he is well on the way +to the shambles at the bottom of the Abyss. +</p> + +<p> +If nothing else, the air he breathes, and from which he never escapes, +is sufficient to weaken him 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 sulphate of lime. This deposit had been formed 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. +</p> + +<p> +It is incontrovertible that the children grow up into rotten adults, +without virility 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, carriers, +omnibus drivers, corn and timber porters, and all those who require +physical stamina, are largely drawn from the country; while in the Metropolitan +Police there are, roughly, 12,000 country-born as against 3000 London-born. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +And yet the quality of the life is good. All human potentialities +are in it. Given proper conditions, it could live through the +centuries, and great men, heroes and masters, spring from it and make +the world better by having lived. +</p> + +<p> +I talked with a woman 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 member 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 enterprise necessary to obtain or hold a steady +position. +</p> + +<p> +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, they 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 +worth had forthcome the supply was automatically shut off. “A +penny gawn in no time,” she explained, “an’ the cookin’ +not arf done!” +</p> + +<p> +Incipient starvation had been their portion for years. Month +in and month out, they had arisen from the table able and willing to +eat more. And when once on the downward slope, chronic innutrition +is an important factor in sapping vitality and hastening the descent. +</p> + +<p> +Yet this woman was a hard worker. From 4.30 in the morning +till the last light at night, she said, she had toiled at making cloth +dress-skirts, lined up and with two flounces, for seven shillings a +dozen. Cloth dress-skirts, mark you, lined up with two flounces, +for seven shillings a dozen! This is equal to $1.75 per dozen, +or 14.75 cents per skirt. +</p> + +<p> +The husband, in order to obtain employment, had to belong to the +union, which collected one shilling 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. +</p> + +<p> +One daughter, the elder, had worked as green hand for a dressmaker, +for one shilling and sixpence per week—37.5 cents per week, or +a fraction over 5 cents per day. However, when the slack season +came she was discharged, though she had been taken on at such low pay +with the understanding that she was to learn the trade and work up. +After that she had been employed in a bicycle store for three years, +for which she received five shillings per week, walking two miles to +her work, and two back, and being fined for tardiness. +</p> + +<p> +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. +But what of the daughters? Living like swine, enfeebled by chronic +innutrition, being sapped mentally, morally, and physically, what chance +have they to crawl up and out of the Abyss into which they were born +falling? +</p> + +<p> +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 reached 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. +</p> + +<p> +Drunken women fighting! It is not nice to think of; it is far +worse to listen to. Something like this it runs— +</p> + +<p> +Incoherent babble, shrieked at the top of the lungs of several women; +a lull, in which is heard 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 the combatants. +</p> + +<p> +A lull; “You let that child alone!” child, evidently +of few years, screaming in downright 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 exhaustion. +</p> + +<p> +Voices begin to go up the scale, something like this:— +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” +</p> + +<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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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, blankety, 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 fibre. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /> +FRYING-PAN ALLEY AND A GLIMPSE OF INFERNO</h2> + +<p> +Three of us walked down Mile End Road, 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 meetings which have vexed the serenity of Merry England these +several years back. Little items he had been imparting to me as +he walked along; of being mobbed in parks and on tram-cars; of climbing +on the platform to lead the forlorn hope, when brother speaker after +brother speaker had been dragged down by the angry crowd and cruelly +beaten; of a siege in a church, where he and three others had taken +sanctuary, and where, amid flying missiles and the crashing of stained +glass, they had fought off the mob till rescued by platoons of constables; +of pitched and giddy battles on stairways, galleries, and balconies; +of smashed windows, collapsed stairways, wrecked lecture halls, and +broken heads and bones—and then, with a regretful sigh, he looked +at me and said: “How I envy you big, strong men! I’m +such a little mite I can’t do much when it comes to fighting.” +</p> + +<p> +And I, walking head 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. +</p> + +<p> +But up spoke my other companion, a man of twenty-eight, who eked +out a precarious existence in a sweating den. +</p> + +<p> +“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 of manhood. W’y, d’ ye +know, I weigh ten stone!” +</p> + +<p> +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 prodigiously from long hours of toil, and head hanging +heavily forward and out of place! A “’earty man,’ +’e was!” +</p> + +<p> +“How tall are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Five foot two,” he answered proudly; “an’ +the chaps at the shop . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me see that shop,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +The shop was idle just then, but I still desired to see it. +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 tadpoles 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 breasts grossly naked and libelling all the sacredness of motherhood. +In the black and narrow hall behind her we waded through a mess of young +life, and essayed an even narrower and fouler stairway. Up we +went, three flights, each landing two feet by three in area, and heaped +with filth and refuse. +</p> + +<p> +There were seven rooms in this abomination called a house. +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 “sweated.” It was +seven feet wide by eight long, 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 uppers, and a miscellaneous assortment of materials used in +attaching the uppers of shoes to their soles. +</p> + +<p> +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 the three +quarts of milk he daily required. Further, this son, weak and +dying, did not taste meat oftener than once a week; and the kind and +quality of this meat cannot possibly be imagined by people who have +never watched human swine eat. +</p> + +<p> +“The w’y ’e coughs is somethin’ terrible,” +volunteered my sweated friend, referring to the dying boy. “We +’ear ’im ’ere, w’ile we’re workin’, +an’ it’s terrible, I say, terrible!” +</p> + +<p> +And, what of the coughing and the sweetmeats, I found another menace +added to the hostile environment of the children of the slum. +</p> + +<p> +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 burned nearly +all the day and added its fumes to the over-loaded air, which was breathed, +and breathed, and breathed again. +</p> + +<p> +In good times, when 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! +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s only the best of us can do it,” he qualified. +“An’ then we work twelve, thirteen, and fourteen hours a +day, just as fast as we can. An’ you should see us sweat! +Just running from us! If you could see us, it’d dazzle your +eyes—tacks flyin’ out of mouth like from a machine. +Look at my mouth.” +</p> + +<p> +I looked. The teeth were worn down by the constant friction +of the metallic brads, while they were coal-black and rotten. +</p> + +<p> +“I clean my teeth,” he added, “else they’d +be worse.” +</p> + +<p> +After he had told me that the workers had to furnish their own tools, +brads, “grindery,” cardboard, rent, light, and what not, +it was plain that his thirty bob was a diminishing quantity. +</p> + +<p> +“But how long does the rush season last, in which you receive +this high wage of thirty bob?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“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, which is equivalent to from two dollars +and a half to five dollars. The present week was half gone, and +he had earned four bob, or one dollar. And yet I was given to +understand that this was one of the better grades of sweating. +</p> + +<p> +I looked out of the 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 which +people lived. The roofs of these 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 fish and meat bones, garbage, pestilential rags, old boots, +broken earthenware, and all the general refuse of a human sty. +</p> + +<p> +“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 breasts grossly naked and waded +anew through the cheap young life. +</p> + +<p> +We next visited the 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 +people 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. +</p> + +<p> +“An’ now,” 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. +</p> + +<p> +The shadow of Christ’s Church falls across Spitalfields Garden, +and in the shadow of Christ’s Church, at three o’clock in +the afternoon, I saw a sight I never wish to see again. There +are no flowers in 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 Town, so that homeless +men and women may not come in at night and sleep upon it. +</p> + +<p> +As we entered the garden, an old woman, between fifty and sixty, +passed us, striding with sturdy 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 home with her. In the two sacking-covered +bundles were her household goods, her wardrobe, linen, and dear feminine +possessions. +</p> + +<p> +We went up the narrow gravelled walk. On the benches on either +side arrayed a mass of miserable and distorted humanity, the sight of +which would have impelled Doré to more diabolical flights of +fancy than he ever succeeded in achieving. It was a welter of +rags and filth, of all manner of loathsome skin diseases, open sores, +bruises, grossness, indecency, leering monstrosities, and bestial faces. +A chill, raw wind was blowing, and these creatures huddled there in +their rags, sleeping for the most part, or trying to sleep. Here +were a dozen women, ranging in age from twenty years to seventy. +Next a babe, possibly of nine months, lying asleep, flat on the hard +bench, with neither pillow nor covering, nor with any one looking after +it. Next half-a-dozen men, sleeping bolt upright or leaning against +one another in their sleep. In one place a family group, a child +asleep in its sleeping mother’s arms, and the husband (or male +mate) clumsily mending a dilapidated shoe. On another bench a +woman trimming the frayed strips of her rags with a knife, and another +woman, with thread and needle, sewing up rents. Adjoining, a man +holding a sleeping woman in his arms. Farther on, a man, his clothing +caked with gutter mud, asleep, with head in the lap of a woman, not +more than twenty-five years old, and also asleep. +</p> + +<p> +It was this sleeping that puzzled me. Why were nine out of +ten of them asleep or trying to sleep? But it was not till afterwards +that I learned. <i>It is a law of the powers that be that the +homeless shall not sleep by night</i>. 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 curious by our intrusion. +</p> + +<p> +“A lung of London,” I said; “nay, an abscess, a +great putrescent sore.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, why did you bring me here?” demanded the burning +young socialist, his delicate face white with sickness of soul and stomach +sickness. +</p> + +<p> +“Those women there,” said our guide, “will sell +themselves for thru’pence, or tu’pence, or a loaf of stale +bread.” +</p> + +<p> +He said it with a cheerful sneer. +</p> + +<p> +But what more he might have said I do not know, for the sick man +cried, “For heaven’s sake let us get out of this.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /> +A WINNER OF THE VICTORIA CROSS</h2> + +<p> +I have found that it is not easy to get into the casual ward of the +workhouse. I have made two attempts now, and I shall shortly make +a third. The first time I started out at seven 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 mistake of tardiness. Seven o’clock in the evening +is too late in the day for a pauper to get a pauper’s bed. +</p> + +<p> +For the benefit of gently nurtured and innocent folk, let me explain +what a ward is. It is a building where the homeless, bedless, +penniless man, if he be lucky, may <i>casually</i> rest his weary bones, +and then work like a navvy next day to pay for it. +</p> + +<p> +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 friend, 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 line was formed, which strung +out around the corner of the building and out of sight. +</p> + +<p> +It was a most woeful 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 might 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. +</p> + +<p> +Next to me stood a short, stout man. Hale and hearty, 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 eyes; and at once there came to me a bit of Kipling’s +“Galley Slave”:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel;<br /> +By the welt the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal;<br /> +By eyes grown old with staring through the sun-wash on the brine,<br /> +I am paid in full for service . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +How correct I was in my surmise, and how peculiarly appropriate the +verse was, you shall learn. +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t stand it much longer, I won’t,” +he was complaining to the man on the other side of him. “I’ll +smash a windy, a big ’un, an’ get run in for fourteen days. +Then I’ll have a good place to sleep, never fear, an’ better +grub than you get here. Though I’d miss my bit of baccy”—this +as an after-thought, and said regretfully and resignedly. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been out 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.” +</p> + +<p> +He whirled with fierce passion on me: “Don’t you ever +let yourself grow old, lad. Die when you’re young, or you’ll +come to this. I’m tellin’ you sure. Seven an’ +eighty years am I, an’ served my country like a man. Three +good-conduct stripes and the Victoria Cross, an’ 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.” +</p> + +<p> +The moisture rushed 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 world. +</p> + +<p> +Given encouragement, this is the story he told while waiting in line +at the workhouse after two nights of exposure in the streets. +</p> + +<p> +As a boy he had enlisted in the British navy, and for two score years +and more served faithfully and well. Names, dates, 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 quite +in keeping to take notes at the poorhouse door. He had been through +the “First War in China,” as he termed it; had enlisted +with the East India Company and served ten years in India; was back +in India again, in the English navy, at the time of the Mutiny; had +served in the Burmese War and in the Crimea; and all this in addition +to having fought and toiled for the English flag pretty well over the +rest of the globe. +</p> + +<p> +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 particular day the lieutenant was irritable. +The sailor, with others, was “setting up” the fore rigging. +</p> + +<p> +Now, mark you, the sailor had been over forty years in the navy, +had three good-conduct stripes, 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. +</p> + +<p> +However, the lieutenant called the sailor this name. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 mind 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 due 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 offence); +to receive fifty lashes; and to serve two years in prison. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I had drowned that day, I wish to God I had,” +he concluded, as the line moved up and we passed around the corner. +</p> + +<p> +At last the door came in sight, through which the paupers were being +admitted in bunches. And here I learned a surprising thing: <i>this +being Wednesday, none of us would be released till Friday morning</i>. +Furthermore, and oh, you tobacco users, take heed: <i>we would not be +permitted to take in any tobacco</i>. This we would have to surrender +as we entered. Sometimes, I was told, it was returned on leaving +and sometimes it was destroyed. +</p> + +<p> +The old man-of-war’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, went 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. +</p> + +<p> +Again and again the line moved up, and we were slowly but surely +approaching the wicket. At the moment we happened to be standing +on an iron grating, and a man appearing underneath, the old sailor called +down to him,— +</p> + +<p> +“How many more do they want?” +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty-four,” came the answer. +</p> + +<p> +We looked ahead anxiously and counted. Thirty-four were ahead +of us. Disappointment and consternation dawned upon the faces +about me. It is not a nice thing, hungry and penniless, to face +a sleepless night in the streets. But we hoped against hope, till, +when ten stood outside the wicket, the porter turned us away. +</p> + +<p> +“Full up,” was what he said, as he banged the door. +</p> + +<p> +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 casual +wards, as to where we should go. They decided on the Poplar Workhouse, +three miles away, and we started off. +</p> + +<p> +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, night upon night.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /> +THE CARTER AND THE CARPENTER</h2> + +<p> +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 looked it, lean and wiry, with +shrewd, observant eyes, and hands that had grown twisted to the handles +of tools through forty-seven years’ work at the trade. The +chief difficulty with these men was that they were old, and that their +children, instead of growing up to take care of them, had died. +Their years had 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. +</p> + +<p> +These two men, turned 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 age, had spent the last three nights +without shelter or sleep, while the Carpenter, sixty-five years of age, +had been out five nights. +</p> + +<p> +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! 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 could endure so much and live. Should +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 benches are few and far between; but +if rest means sleep, on you must go, dragging your tired body through +the endless streets. Should you, in desperate slyness, seek some +forlorn alley or dark passageway and lie down, the omnipresent policeman +will rout you out just the same. It is his business to rout you +out. It is a law of the powers that be that you shall be routed +out. +</p> + +<p> +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 admiring friends. It would grow into +a mighty story. Your little eight-hour night would become an Odyssey +and you a Homer. +</p> + +<p> +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 sixty, 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 and days—O +dear, soft people, full of meat and blood, how can you ever understand? +</p> + +<p> +I walked up Mile End Road between the Carter and the Carpenter. +Mile End Road is a wide thoroughfare, cutting the heart of East London, +and there were tens of thousands of people abroad on it. I tell +you this so that you may fully appreciate what I shall describe in the +next paragraph. As I say, we walked along, and when 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 believe, 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 while looking for a ship. +This accounted for my ignorance of English ways in general and casual +wards in particular, and my curiosity concerning the same. +</p> + +<p> +The Carter was hard put to keep the pace at which we walked (he told +me that he had eaten nothing 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 which reminded me strongly of +the plains wolf or coyote. Both kept their eyes upon the pavement +as they walked and talked, and every now and then one or the other would +stoop and pick something up, never missing the stride the while. +I thought it was cigar and cigarette stumps they were collecting, and +for some time took no notice. Then I did notice. +</p> + +<p> +<i>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 cracked 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 chewed 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</i>. +</p> + +<p> +These two men talked. They were not fools, they were merely +old. And, naturally, their guts a-reek with pavement offal, they +talked of bloody revolution. They talked as anarchists, fanatics, +and madmen would talk. And who shall blame them? In spite +of my three good meals that day, and the snug bed I could occupy if +I wished, and my social philosophy, and my evolutionary belief in the +slow development and metamorphosis of things—in spite of all this, +I say, I felt impelled to talk rot with them or hold my tongue. +Poor fools! Not of their sort are revolutions bred. And +when they are dead and dust, which will be shortly, other fools will +talk bloody revolution as they gather offal from the spittle-drenched +sidewalk along Mile End Road to Poplar Workhouse. +</p> + +<p> +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,” 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Actually make 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. I go to the casual ward for a bed. Must be +there by two or three in the afternoon or I won’t get in. You saw what +happened to-day. What chance does that give me to look for work? S’pose I +do get into the casual ward? Keep me in all day to-morrow, let me out +mornin’ o’ next day. What then? The law sez I can’t get in +another casual ward that night less’n ten miles distant. Have to hurry +an’ walk to be there in time that day. What chance does that give me to +look for a job? S’pose I don’t walk. S’pose I look for a job? +In no time there’s night come, an’ no bed. No sleep all night, +nothin’ to eat, what shape am I in in the mornin’ to look for work? +Got to make up my sleep in the park somehow” (the vision of +Christ’s Church, Spitalfield, was strong on me) “an’ get +something to eat. An’ there I am! Old, down, an’ no chance to get +up.” +</p> + +<p> +“Used to be a toll-gate ’ere,” said the Carter. +“Many’s the time I’ve paid my toll ’ere in my +cartin’ days.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve ’ad three ’a’penny rolls in two +days,” the Carpenter announced, after a long pause in the conversation. +“Two of them I ate yesterday, an’ the third to-day,” +he concluded, after another long pause. +</p> + +<p> +“I ain’t ’ad anything to-day,” said the Carter. +“An’ I’m fagged out. My legs is hurtin’ +me something fearful.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +But what surprised me was that he should have the word “cant” +in his vocabulary, a vocabulary that I found was no mean one before +we parted. +</p> + +<p> +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. Having taken a cold bath on entering, I +would be given for supper six ounces of bread and “three parts +of skilly.” “Three parts” means three-quarters +of a pint, and “skilly” is a fluid concoction of three quarts +of oatmeal stirred into three buckets and a half of hot water. +</p> + +<p> +“Milk and sugar, I suppose, and a silver spoon?” I queried. +</p> + +<p> +“No fear. Salt’s what you’ll get, an’ +I’ve seen some places where you’d not get any spoon. +’Old ’er up an’ let ’er run down, that’s +’ow they do it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do get good skilly at ’Ackney,” said the Carter. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, wonderful skilly, that,” praised the Carpenter, +and each looked eloquently at the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Flour an’ water at St. George’s in the East,” +said the Carter. +</p> + +<p> +The Carpenter nodded. He had tried them all. +</p> + +<p> +“Then what?” I demanded +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Tisn’t always six ounces,” corrected the +Carter. +</p> + +<p> +“’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 now I can eat my own an’ another +man’s portion.” +</p> + +<p> +“I could eat three other men’s portions,” said +the Carter. “I ’aven’t ’ad a bit this +blessed day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’ve got to do your task, pick four pounds of +oakum, or clean an’ scrub, or break ten 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. +You’re young an’ strong.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But suppose, after you’ve had your night’s sleep, +you refuse to pick oakum, or break stones, or do any work at all?” +I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No fear you’ll refuse the second time; they’ll +run you in,” answered the Carpenter. “Wouldn’t +advise you to try it on, my lad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then comes dinner,” he went on. “Eight ounces of bread, one +and a arf ounces of cheese, an’ cold water. Then you finish your task +an’ ’ave supper, same as before, three parts o’ skilly +an’ six ounces o’ bread. Then to bed, six o’clock, an’ +next mornin’ you’re turned loose, provided you’ve finished +your task.” +</p> + +<p> +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. And then, as the last light +was fading from the drab-coloured sky, the wind blowing cheerless and +cold, we stood, with our pitiful little bundles in our hands, a forlorn +group at the workhouse door. +</p> + +<p> +Three working girls came along, and one looked pityingly at me; as +she passed I followed her with my eyes, and she still looked pityingly +back at me. The old men she did not notice. Dear Christ, +she pitied me, young and vigorous and strong, but she had no pity for +the two old men who stood by my side! She was a young woman, and +I was a young man, and what vague sex promptings impelled her to pity +me put her sentiment on the lowest plane. Pity for old men is +an altruistic feeling, and besides, the workhouse door is the accustomed +place for old men. So she showed no pity for them, only for me, +who deserved it least or not at all. Not in honour do grey hairs +go down to the grave in London Town. +</p> + +<p> +On one side the door was a bell handle, on the other side a press +button. +</p> + +<p> +“Ring the bell,” said the Carter to me. +</p> + +<p> +And just as I ordinarily would at anybody’s door, I pulled +out the handle and rang a peal. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Oh!” they cried in one terrified voice. +“Not so ’ard!” +</p> + +<p> +I let go, and they looked reproachfully at me, as though I had imperilled +their chance for a bed and three parts of skilly. Nobody came. +Luckily it was the wrong bell, and I felt better. +</p> + +<p> +“Press the button,” I said to the Carpenter. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, wait a bit,” the Carter hurriedly interposed. +</p> + +<p> +From all of which I drew the conclusion that a poorhouse porter, +who commonly draws a yearly salary of from seven to nine pounds, is +a very finicky and important personage, and cannot be treated too fastidiously +by—paupers. +</p> + +<p> +So we waited, ten times a decent interval, when the Carter stealthily +advanced a timid forefinger 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 coming of the porter. +</p> + +<p> +He came. He barely looked at us. “Full up,” +he said and shut the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Another night of it,” groaned the Carpenter. In +the dim light the Carter looked wan and grey. +</p> + +<p> +Indiscriminate charity is vicious, say the professional philanthropists. +Well, I resolved to be vicious. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on; get your knife out and come here,” I said to +the Carter, drawing him into a dark alley. +</p> + +<p> +He glared at me in 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 +frightened. +</p> + +<p> +It will be remembered, 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. +</p> + +<p> +Not until I had gone 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 fortune in +their hungry eyes; and away we stampeded for the nearest coffee-house. +</p> + +<p> +Of course I had to explain to them that I was merely an investigator, +a social student, seeking 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. +</p> + +<p> +“What will you have?” I asked, as the waiter came for +the order. +</p> + +<p> +“Two slices an’ a cup of tea,” meekly said the +Carter. +</p> + +<p> +“Two slices an’ a cup of tea,” meekly said the +Carpenter. +</p> + +<p> +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 they could understand that I was no pauper. 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!” +Each man had given a tu’penny order. “Two slices,” +by the way, means two slices of bread and butter. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“First cup o’ tea I’ve ’ad in a fortnight,” +said the Carter. +</p> + +<p> +“Wonderful tea, that,” said the Carpenter. +</p> + +<p> +They each drank two pints of it, and I assure you that it was slops. +It resembled tea less than lager beer resembles champagne. Nay, +it was “water-bewitched,” and did not resemble tea at all. +</p> + +<p> +It was curious, after 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 bullet was +“’andier,” but how under the sun was he to get hold +of a revolver? That was the rub. +</p> + +<p> +They grew more cheerful as the hot “tea” soaked in, and +talked more about themselves. 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 went to the hospital +for three months. Then he was done for. He came out weak, +debilitated, no strong young son to stand by him, his little business +gone glimmering, and not a farthing. The thing had happened, and +the game 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 were putting up the stands for the first Coronation parade. +“An’ I got fair sick of the answer: ‘No! no! no!’ +It rang in my ears 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.” +</p> + +<p> +The Carpenter had been born in the army, where his father had served +twenty-two years. Likewise, his two brothers had gone 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, +had been lost in Egypt. The Carpenter had not gone into the army, +so here he was, still on the planet. +</p> + +<p> +“But ’ere, give me your ’and,” he said, ripping +open his ragged shirt. “I’m fit for the anatomist, +that’s all. I’m wastin’ away, sir, actually +wastin’ away for want of food. Feel my ribs an’ you’ll +see.” +</p> + +<p> +I put my hand under 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Seven years o’ bliss I ’ad,” he said. +“A good missus and three bonnie lassies. But they all died. +Scarlet fever took the girls inside a fortnight.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 able to eat a workhouse breakfast in the morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor I,” agreed the Carpenter, and they fell to discussing +belly delights and the fine dishes their respective wives had cooked +in the old days. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve gone three days and never broke my fast,” +said the Carter. +</p> + +<p> +“And I, five,” his companion added, turning gloomy with +the memory of it. “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.” +</p> + +<p> +As their poor vitals 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 +than 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, these two men. They were merely old, and their children +had undutifully failed to grow up and give them a place by the fire. +</p> + +<p> +One last incident, as I bade them good-bye on the corner, happy with +a couple of shillings in their 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 said, “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 have a go at the same match. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s wrong to waste,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I said, but I was thinking of the wash-board ribs +over which I had run my hand. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /> +THE SPIKE</h2> + +<p> +First of all, I must beg forgiveness of my body for the vileness +through which I have dragged it, and forgiveness of my stomach for the +vileness which I have thrust into it. I have been to the spike, +and slept in the spike, and eaten in the spike; also, I have run away +from the spike. +</p> + +<p> +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. They did not “let in” till six, +but at that early hour I was number twenty, while the news had gone +forth that only twenty-two were to be admitted. 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +But they made up for it, discussing and comparing the more loathsome +features of their disease in the most cold-blooded, matter-of-fact way. +I learned that the average mortality 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 the other three weeks. +Their faces were badly pitted (though each assured the other that this +was not so), and further, they showed me in their hands and under the +nails the smallpox “seeds” still working out. Nay, +one of them worked a seed out for my edification, and pop it went, right +out of his flesh into the air. I tried to shrink up smaller inside +my clothes, and I registered a fervent though silent hope that it had +not popped on me. +</p> + +<p> +In both instances, I found that the smallpox was the cause of their +being “on the doss,” which means on the tramp. Both +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 found any, and they had +come to the spike for a “rest up” after three days and nights +on the street. +</p> + +<p> +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 the 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 +beside it. +</p> + +<p> +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 hours, and told him to get along. But 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 +to earn a living was by heavy work. He is now incapable of performing +heavy work, and from now until he dies, the spike, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 prison to +them, a prison from which there was no hope of escape. It was +impossible for them to get away. They could neither scrape together +the passage money, nor get a chance to work their passage. The +country was too overrun by poor devils on that “lay.” +</p> + +<p> +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. 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 scrape 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 get me out of the country. These they no longer +possessed. Age and English hardship had broken them, and for them +the game was played and up. +</p> + +<p> +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 +period he had been out of work was twelve hours. He had saved +his money, grown too prosperous, and returned to the mother-country. +Now he was standing in line at the spike. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“But the work and the long hours was killing me,” he +said, “and I had to chuck the job. I had a little money +saved, but I spent it living and looking for another place.” +</p> + +<p> +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 would eventually +get a ship for the States. +</p> + +<p> +But the men in the line were not all of this calibre. Some +were poor, wretched beasts, inarticulate and callous, but for all of +that, in many ways very human. 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 climb 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 joy of this act lies in that it was service of love, not hire. +The carter was poor, and the man knew 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 her ear. From all of which one may conclude +many things. He certainly liked her well enough to wish her to +be neat and tidy. He was proud of her, standing there 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +Plenty of people were too slow to pick hops and made a failure of it. +A man, to succeed, must use his head 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. +</p> + +<p> +“I ’ad a mate 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“There you are,” said the Hopper, a wealth of admiration +in his voice. “’E was quick. ’E was jest +nat’rally born to it, ’e was.” +</p> + +<p> +Two pound ten—twelve dollars and a half—for a month’s +work when one is “jest nat’rally born to it!” +And in addition, sleeping out without blankets and living the Lord knows +how. There are moments when I am thankful that I was not “jest +nat’rally born” a genius for anything, not even hop-picking, +</p> + +<p> +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 should ever be stranded in London Town. +</p> + +<p> +“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’ wegetables, +an’ a bit o’ meat, now an’ again, if you’re +goin’ to do work as is work. Cawn’t do it on cold +wittles. Tell you wot you do, lad. Run around in the mornin’ +an’ look in the dust pans. You’ll find plenty o’ +tins to cook in. Fine tins, wonderful good some o’ them. +Me an’ the ole woman got ours that way.” (He pointed +at the bundle she held, while she nodded proudly, beaming on me with +good-nature and consciousness of success and prosperity.) “This +overcoat is as good as a blanket,” he went on, advancing the skirt +of it that I might feel its thickness. “An’ ’oo +knows, I may find a blanket before long.” +</p> + +<p> +Again the old woman nodded and beamed, this time with the dead certainty +that he <i>would</i> find a blanket before long. +</p> + +<p> +“I call it a ’oliday, ’oppin’,” he +concluded rapturously. “A tidy way o’ gettin’ +two or three pounds together an’ fixin’ up for winter. +The only thing I don’t like”—and here was the rift +within the lute—“is paddin’ the ’oof down there.” +</p> + +<p> +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 wondered how it would be with them. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The street on which 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 one in the afternoon till six, our ragged spike +line is the principal feature of the view commanded by their front doors +and windows. One workman sat in his door directly opposite us, +taking his rest and a breath of air after the toil of the day. +His wife came to chat with him. The doorway was too small for +two, so she stood up. Their babes sprawled before them. +And here 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 been born to the sight of the spike line, and all their brief +days they had seen it. +</p> + +<p> +At six o’clock the line moved up, and we were admitted in groups +of three. Name, age, occupation, place of birth, condition of +destitution, and the previous night’s “doss,” were +taken 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 lied every +man who entered. As I passed 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 certainly must have been unleavened. +</p> + +<p> +The light was very dim down in the cellar, and before I knew it some +other man had thrust a pannikin into my other hand. Then I stumbled +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. +</p> + +<p> +Most of the men were suffering from tired feet, and they prefaced +the meal by removing their shoes and unbinding the filthy rags with +which their feet were wrapped. This added to the general noisomeness, +while it took away from my appetite. +</p> + +<p> +In fact, I found that I had made a mistake. I had eaten a hearty +dinner five hours before, and to have done justice to the fare before +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. +The 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 texture, unseasoned, gross, and bitter. This +bitterness which lingered persistently in the mouth after the skilly +had passed on, I found especially repulsive. I struggled manfully, +but was mastered by my qualms, and half-a-dozen mouthfuls of skilly +and bread was the measure of my success. The man beside me ate +his own share, and mine to boot, scraped the pannikins, and looked hungrily +for more. +</p> + +<p> +“I met a ‘towny,’ and he stood me too good a dinner,” +I explained. +</p> + +<p> +“An’ I ’aven’t ’ad a bite since yesterday +mornin’,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +“How about tobacco?” I asked. “Will the bloke +bother with a fellow now?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no,” he answered me. “No bloomin’ +fear. This is the easiest spike goin’. Y’oughto +see some of them. Search you to the skin.” +</p> + +<p> +The pannikins scraped clean, conversation began to spring up. +“This super’tendent ’ere is always writin’ to +the papers ’bout us mugs,” said the man on the other side +of me. +</p> + +<p> +“What does he say?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“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 tellin’ ’ow a mug gets out o’ the spike, +wi’ a crust in ’is pockit. An’ w’en ’e +sees a nice ole gentleman 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.” +</p> + +<p> +A roar of applause greeted the time-honoured yarn, and from somewhere +over in the deeper darkness came another voice, orating angrily: +</p> + +<p> +“Talk o’ the country bein’ good for tommy [food]; +I’d like to see it. I jest came up from Dover, an’ +blessed little tommy I got. They won’t gi’ ye a drink +o’ water, they won’t, much less tommy.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s mugs never go out of Kent,” spoke a second +voice, “they live bloomin’ fat all along.” +</p> + +<p> +“I come through Kent,” went on the first voice, still +more angrily, “an’ Gawd blimey if I see any tommy. +An’ I always 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s chaps 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 London +the year ’round. Nor do they think of lookin’ for +a kip [place to sleep], till nine or ten o’clock at night.” +</p> + +<p> +A general chorus verified this statement. +</p> + +<p> +“But they’re bloomin’ clever, them chaps,” +said an admiring voice. +</p> + +<p> +“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 an’ 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 blessed bit o’ tommy other than +spike skilly an’ bread.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 +two said they’d be blessed if they do it, an’ they didn’t; +but I kept wearin’ into 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.” +</p> + +<p> +The majority of these men, nay, all of them, I found, do not like +the spike, and only come to it when driven in. After the “rest +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 constitutions, and they realise +it, though only in a vague way; while it is so much the common run of +things that they do not worry about it. +</p> + +<p> +“On the doss,” they call vagabondage here, which corresponds +to “on the road” in the United States. The agreement +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. +</p> + +<p> +By seven o’clock we were called away to bathe and go to bed. +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. +</p> + +<p> +I did no more than make a show of splashing some of this dubious +liquid at myself, while I hastily 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. This was a long, narrow +room, traversed by two low iron rails. Between these rails were +stretched, not hammocks, but pieces of canvas, six feet long and less +than two feet wide. These were the beds, and they were six inches +apart and about eight inches above the floor. The chief difficulty +was that the head was somewhat higher than the feet, which caused the +body constantly to slip down. Being slung to the same rails, when +one man moved, no matter how slightly, the rest were set rocking; and +whenever I dozed somebody was sure to struggle back to the position +from which he had slipped, and arouse me again. +</p> + +<p> +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 sickening, while my imagination broke loose, and my skin crept and +crawled till I was nearly frantic. Grunting, groaning, 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. At any rate, I woke the living, and they cursed me roundly +for my lack of manners. +</p> + +<p> +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 +where 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. +</p> + +<p> +Though we had most revolting tasks to perform, our allotment was +considered the best and the other men deemed themselves lucky in being +chosen to perform it. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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 disinfectant. +</p> + +<p> +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 clutter the +earth with their presence, and are better out of the way. Broken +by hardship, ill fed, and worse nourished, they are always the first +to be struck down by disease, as they are likewise the quickest to die. +</p> + +<p> +They feel, themselves, that the forces of society tend to hurl them out of +existence. We were sprinkling disinfectant by the mortuary, when the dead +waggon drove up and five bodies were packed into it. The conversation turned to +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 much 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 whether this be actually so or not. The point is, +they have the feeling that it is so, and they have created the language with +which to express that feeling—“black jack,” “white +potion,” “polishing off.” +</p> + +<p> +At eight o’clock we went down into a cellar under the infirmary, +where tea was brought to us, and the hospital scraps. These were +heaped high on a huge platter in an indescribable mess—pieces +of bread, chunks 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. +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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 “out 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 into 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 was ‘slingin’ my ’ook’ [running away]. +But jest before ’e got me, I got a ole woman an’ poked ’em +into ’er apron.” +</p> + +<p> +O Charity, O Philanthropy, descend to the spike and take a lesson +from Ginger. At the bottom of the Abyss he performed 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. 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, let’s sling it,” I said to one of my +mates, pointing toward the open gate through which the dead waggon had +come. +</p> + +<p> +“An’ get fourteen days?” +</p> + +<p> +“No; get away.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aw, I come ’ere for a rest,” he said complacently. +“An’ another night’s kip won’t ’urt me +none.” +</p> + +<p> +They were all of this opinion, so I was forced to “sling it” +alone. +</p> + +<p> +“You cawn’t ever come back ’ere again for a doss,” +they warned me. +</p> + +<p> +“No fear,” said I, with an enthusiasm they could not +comprehend; and, dodging out the gate, I sped down the street. +</p> + +<p> +Straight to my room I hurried, changed my clothes, and less than +an hour from my escape, in a Turkish 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br /> +CARRYING THE BANNER</h2> + +<p> +“To carry the banner” means 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. +</p> + +<p> +The rain was falling heavily when the theatres let out, and the brilliant +throng which poured from the places of amusement was hard put to find cabs. The +streets were so many wild rivers 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 took 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 meat for a week or +a month, is about as severe a hardship as a man can undergo. Well fed and well +clad, I have travelled all day with the spirit thermometer down to seventy-four +degrees below zero—one hundred and six degrees of frost<a href="#fn-1" name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a>; +and though I suffered, it was a mere nothing compared with carrying the banner +for a night, ill fed, ill clad, and soaking wet. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a> +This in the Klondike.—J. L. +</p> + +<p> +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 and women and +boys taking shelter in the lee of buildings from the wind and rain. +Piccadilly, however, was not quite so deserted. Its pavements +were brightened by well-dressed women without escort, and there was +more life and action there than elsewhere, due to the process of finding +escort. But by three o’clock the last of them had vanished, +and it was then indeed lonely. +</p> + +<p> +At half-past one the steady downpour ceased, and only showers fell +thereafter. The homeless folk came away from the protection of +the buildings, and slouched up and down and everywhere, in order to +rush up the circulation and keep warm. +</p> + +<p> +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 sense 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 progressed 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. +</p> + +<p> +Now, said I, at one 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 you get some +sleep in order that you may have strength to look for work and to do +work in case you find it. +</p> + +<p> +So I sat down on the stone steps of a building. Five minutes +later a policeman was looking at me. My eyes were wide open, so +he only grunted and passed on. Ten minutes later my head was on +my knees, I was dozing, and the same policeman was saying gruffly, “’Ere, +you, get outa that!” +</p> + +<p> +I got. And, like the old woman, I continued to get; for every +time I dozed, a policeman was there to rout me along again. Not +long after, when I had given this up, I was walking with a young Londoner +(who had been out to the colonies and wished he were out to them again), +when I noticed an open passage leading under a building and disappearing +in darkness. A low iron gate barred the entrance. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on,” I said. “Let’s climb over +and get a good sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wot?” he answered, recoiling from me. “An’ +get run in fer three months! Blimey if I do!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s go over the fence,” I proposed, “and +crawl into the shrubbery for a sleep. The bobbies couldn’t +find us there.” +</p> + +<p> +“No fear,” he answered. “There’s the +park guardians, and they’d run you in for six months.” +</p> + +<p> +Times have changed, alas! When I was a youngster I used to +read of homeless boys sleeping in doorways. Already the thing +has become a tradition. As a stock situation it will doubtless +linger in literature for a century to come, but as a cold fact it has +ceased to be. Here are the doorways, and here are the boys, but +happy conjunctions are no longer effected. The doorways remain +empty, and the boys keep awake and carry the banner. +</p> + +<p> +“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?’” +</p> + +<p> +Among those who carry 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, entered Green Park. It +was raining again, but they were worn out with the night’s walking, +and they were down on the benches and asleep at once. Many 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. +</p> + +<p> +And now I wish to criticise the powers that be. They <i>are</i> +the powers, therefore they may decree whatever they please; so I make +bold only to criticise the ridiculousness of their decrees. All +night long they make the homeless ones walk up and down. They +drive 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 and good, the powers have the power to deprive them of sleep, or +of anything else 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? If it is their intention +to deprive 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? +</p> + +<p> +In this connection, 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 +was fitfully appearing, and the well-dressed West Enders, with their +wives and progeny, were out by thousands, taking the air. It was +not a pleasant sight for them, those horrible, unkempt, sleeping vagabonds; +while the vagabonds themselves, I know, would rather have done their +sleeping the night before. +</p> + +<p> +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. Know +that the powers that be have kept them walking all the night long, and +that in the day they have nowhere else to sleep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br /> +THE PEG</h2> + +<p> +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 penniless man looking for work, I had to look about me, first for +a breakfast, and next for the work. +</p> + +<p> +During the night I had heard of a place over on the Surrey side of +the Thames, where the Salvation Army every Sunday morning gave away +a breakfast to the unwashed. (And, by the way, the men who carry +the banner are unwashed in the morning, and unless it is raining they +do not have much show for a wash, either.) This, thought I, is +the very thing—breakfast in the morning, and then the whole day +in which to look for work. +</p> + +<p> +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 obtained. +</p> + +<p> +Here was a motley crowd of woebegone wretches who had spent the night +in the rain. Such prodigious misery! and so much of it! +Old men, young men, all manner of men, and boys to boot, and all manner +of boys. Some were drowsing standing up; half a score of them +were stretched out on the stone steps in most painful postures, 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 occupants, all asleep, their heads bent forward on their knees. +And, it must be remembered, these are not hard times in England. +Things are going on very much as they ordinarily do, and times are neither +hard nor easy. +</p> + +<p> +And then came the policeman. “Get outa that, 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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The policeman passed on, and back we clustered, like flies around +a honey jar. For was there not that wonderful thing, 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, when back came the policeman and away +we scattered only to return again as soon as the coast was clear. +</p> + +<p> +At half-past seven 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.” +</p> + +<p> +Oh, that breakfast! Nine o’clock! An hour and a +half longer! The men who held tickets were greatly envied. +They were permitted to 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 and +along the Embankment, and the possession of them was not a matter of +merit, but of chance. +</p> + +<p> +At eight-thirty, more men with tickets were admitted, and by nine +the little gate was opened to us. We crushed through somehow, +and found ourselves packed in a courtyard like sardines. On more +occasions than one, as a Yankee tramp in Yankeeland, I have had to work +for my breakfast; but for no breakfast 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 bodies, steaming from pent animal heat, and blocked +solidly about me, nearly turned my stomach. So tightly were we +packed, that a number of the men took advantage of the opportunity and +went soundly asleep standing up. +</p> + +<p> +Now, about the Salvation Army in general I know nothing, and whatever +criticism I shall make here is of that particular portion of the Salvation +Army which does business on Blackfriars Road near the Surrey Theatre. +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 exhausted from our night’s hardship +and lack of sleep, and yet there we stood, and stood, and stood, without +rhyme or reason. +</p> + +<p> +Sailors were very plentiful in this crowd. It seemed to me +that one man in four was looking for a ship, and I found at least a +dozen of them to be American sailors. In accounting for their +being “on the beach,” I received the same story 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 long 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. Very 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 somewhat 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; for it would +be poor business policy to sign them for any longer time, since seamen’s +wages are low in England, and England is always crowded with sailormen +on the beach. So this fully accounted for the American seamen +at the Salvation Army barracks. To get off the beach in other +outlandish places they had come to England, and gone on the beach in +the most outlandish place of all. +</p> + +<p> +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.” They were all cheerful, facing things +with the pluck which is their chief characteristic 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 uses on any and every occasion. +Far different is the luminous and varied Western swearing, which runs +to blasphemy rather than indecency. And after all, since men will +swear, I think I prefer blasphemy to indecency; there is an audacity +about it, an adventurousness and defiance that is better than sheer +filthiness. +</p> + +<p> +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. When the policeman routed him out, he got up +slowly and deliberately, looked at the policeman, yawned and stretched +himself, looked at the policeman again as much as to say he didn’t +know whether he would or wouldn’t, and then sauntered leisurely +down the sidewalk. At the outset I was sure of the hat, but this +made me sure of the wearer of the hat. +</p> + +<p> +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 feat of beating his +way three hundred miles on a French railway without being caught at +the finish. Where was I hanging out? he asked. And how did +I manage for “kipping”?—which means sleeping. +Did I know the rounds yet? He was getting on, though the country +was “horstyl” and the cities were “bum.” +Fierce, wasn’t it? Couldn’t “batter” (beg) +anywhere without being “pinched.” But he wasn’t +going to quit it. Buffalo Bill’s Show was coming over soon, +and a man who could drive eight horses was sure of a job any time. +These mugs over here didn’t know beans about driving anything +more than a span. What was the matter with me hanging on and waiting +for Buffalo Bill? He was sure I could ring in somehow. +</p> + +<p> +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 hat at sight of it, and he was as solicitous for my welfare as if +we were blood brothers. We swapped all manner of useful information +concerning the country and the ways of its people, methods by which +to obtain food and shelter and what not, and we parted genuinely sorry +at having to say good-bye. +</p> + +<p> +One thing particularly conspicuous in this crowd was the shortness +of stature. I, who am but of medium height, looked 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,” was +his reply; “I’ve served my bit in that same, and the way +things are I’ll be back at it before long.” +</p> + +<p> +For an hour we stood quietly in this packed courtyard. Then +the men began to grow restless. There was pushing and shoving +forward, and a mild hubbub of voices. Nothing rough, however, +nor violent; merely the restlessness of weary and hungry men. +At this juncture forth came the adjutant. I did 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, +Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, +Do this, and he doeth it.” +</p> + +<p> +Well, he looked at us in just that way, and those nearest to him +quailed. Then he lifted his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop this ’ere, now, or I’ll turn you the other +wy an’ march you out, an’ you’ll get no breakfast.” +</p> + +<p> +I cannot convey by printed speech the insufferable way in which he +said this. He seemed to me to revel in that he was a man in authority, +able to say to half a thousand ragged wretches, “you may eat or +go hungry, as I elect.” +</p> + +<p> +To deny us our breakfast after standing for hours! It was an +awful threat, and the pitiful, abject silence which instantly fell attested +its awfulness. And it was a cowardly threat. We could 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 adjutant—was not satisfied. +In the dead silence he raised his voice again, and repeated the threat, +and amplified it. +</p> + +<p> +At last we were permitted to enter the feasting hall, where we found +the “ticket men” washed but unfed. All told, there +must have been nearly seven hundred of us who sat down—not to +meat or bread, 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 too 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. 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. And second, weary and exhausted from the night’s +sleeplessness and hardship, suffering from the long wait upon their +feet, and faint from hunger, they were yearning, not for salvation, +but for grub. The “soul-snatchers” (as these men call +all religious propagandists), should study the physiological basis of +psychology a little, if they wish to make their efforts more effective. +</p> + +<p> +All in good time, about eleven o’clock, breakfast arrived. +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 needed. I gave part of my bread to the +tramp royal who was waiting for Buffalo Bill, and he was as ravenous +at the end as 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 the men had been waiting since five +o’clock for it, while all of us had waited at least 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 prayed +for. Nor was that all. +</p> + +<p> +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 signs +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. Heigh-ho, thought +I, time is flying, and I have yet to look for work. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to go,” I said to a couple of waking men near +me. +</p> + +<p> +“Got ter sty fer the service,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want to stay?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +They shook their heads. +</p> + +<p> +“Then let us go and tell them we want to get out,” I +continued. “Come on.” +</p> + +<p> +But the poor creatures were aghast. So I left them to their +fate, and went up to the nearest Salvation Army man. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to go,” I said. “I came here for +breakfast in order that I might be in shape to look for work. +I didn’t think it would take so long to get breakfast. I +think I have a chance for work in Stepney, and the sooner I start, the +better chance I’ll have of getting it.” +</p> + +<p> +He was really a good fellow, though he was startled by my request. +“Wy,” he said, “we’re goin’ to ’old +services, and you’d better sty.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that will spoil my chances for work,” I urged. +“And work is the most important thing for me just now.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“But it cawn’t be done,” he said, waxing virtuously +indignant at such ingratitude. “The idea!” he snorted. +“The idea!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean to say that I can’t get out of here?” +I demanded. “That you will keep me here against my will?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he snorted. +</p> + +<p> +I do not know what might have happened, for I was waxing indignant +myself; but the “congregation” had “piped” the +situation, and he drew me over to a corner of the room, and then into +another room. Here he again demanded my reasons for wishing to +go. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“You ’ave business, eh?” he sneered. “A +man of business you are, eh? Then wot did you come ’ere +for?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was out all night, and I needed a breakfast in order to +strengthen me to find work. That is why I came here.” +</p> + +<p> +“A nice thing 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.” +</p> + +<p> +Which was a lie, for every mother’s son of us had come in. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 backing 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 informed a couple of privates standing there that “’ere +is a fellow that ’as business an’ ’e wants to go before +services.” +</p> + +<p> +They were duly shocked, of course, and they looked unutterable horror +while he went into the 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Didn’t you know you had to stay for services?” +he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +He meditated a moment. “You can go,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +It was twelve o’clock 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 that I had done +a hard night’s work walking the streets, and a hard day’s +work getting my breakfast; so I disconnected myself from my working +hypothesis of a starving young man in search of employment, hailed a +bus, and climbed aboard. +</p> + +<p> +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 evening +when I closed my eyes. When they opened again, the clocks were +striking nine next morning. I had slept fifteen straight hours. +And as I lay there drowsily, my mind went back to the seven hundred +unfortunates I had left waiting for services. No bath, no shave +for them, no clean white sheets and all clothes off, and fifteen hours’ +straight sleep. Services over, it was the weary streets again, +the problem of a crust of bread ere night, and the long sleepless night +in the streets, and the pondering of the problem of how to obtain a +crust at dawn. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br /> +CORONATION DAY</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +O thou that sea-walls sever<br /> +From lands unwalled by seas!<br /> +Wilt thou endure forever,<br /> +O Milton’s England, these?<br /> +Thou that wast his Republic,<br /> +Wilt thou clasp their knees?<br /> +These royalties rust-eaten,<br /> +These worm-corroded lies<br /> +That keep thy head storm-beaten,<br /> +And sun-like strength of eyes<br /> +From the open air and heaven<br /> +Of intercepted skies! +</p> + +<p class="right"> +SWINBURNE. +</p> + +<p> +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 never saw anything to compare with the pageant, +except Yankee circuses and Alhambra ballets; nor did I ever see anything +so hopeless and so tragic. +</p> + +<p> +To have enjoyed the 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 coming +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. The 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. +</p> + +<p> +I saw it at Trafalgar Square, “the most splendid site in Europe,” +and the very innermost heart of the empire. There were many thousands +of us, all checked and held in order by a superb display of armed power. +The line of march was double-walled with soldiers. The base of +the Nelson Column was triple-fringed with bluejackets. Eastward, +at the entrance to the square, stood the Royal Marine Artillery. +In the triangle of Pall Mall and Cockspur Street, the statue of George +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 the reserves—tall, well-fed men, with weapons +to wield and muscles to wield them in ease of need. +</p> + +<p> +And as it was thus at Trafalgar Square, so was it along the whole +line of march—force, overpowering 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 stamp out life. And +that they should 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 England, toils and rots and dies. +</p> + +<p> +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 explains the other. We cannot understand the +starved and runty<a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2" id="fnref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[2]</a> +“Runt” in America is the equivalent of the English +“crowl,” the dwarf of a litter. +</p> + +<p> +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 Samuel, and said: “Make us a king to judge +us like all the nations.” +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> +And the Lord said unto Samuel: Now therefore hearken +unto their voice; howbeit thou shalt show them the manner of the king +that shall reign over them. +</p> + +<p> +And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked +of him a king, and he said: +</p> + +<p> +This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you; he +will take your sons, and appoint them unto him, for his chariots, and +to be his horsemen, and they shall run before his chariots. +</p> + +<p> +And he will appoint them unto him for captains of thousands, and +captains of fifties; and he will set some to plough his ground, and +to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and the instruments +of his chariots. +</p> + +<p> +And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be +cooks, and to be bakers. +</p> + +<p> +And he will take your fields and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, +even the best of them, and give them to his servants. +</p> + +<p> +And he will take a tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and +give to his officers, and to his servants. +</p> + +<p> +And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your +goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. +</p> + +<p> +He will take a tenth of your flocks; and ye shall be his servants. +</p> + +<p> +And ye shall call out in that day because of your king which ye shall +have chosen you; and the Lord will not answer you in that day. +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> +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 chastised you with +whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.” +</p> + +<p> +And in these latter 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, which is thirty-two per +cent. of the total wealth produced by all the toilers of the country. +</p> + +<p> +At the Abbey, clad 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 presented him by the Archbishop of Canterbury, +with these words:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Receive this kingly sword brought now from the altar of God, and delivered to +you by the hands of the bishops and servants of God, though unworthy. +</p> + + +<p> +Whereupon, being girded, he gave heed to the Archbishop’s +exhortation:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +With this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the Holy +Church of God, help 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. Then a royal carriage, +filled with ladies and gentlemen of the household, with powdered footmen +and coachmen most gorgeously arrayed. More carriages, lords, and +chamberlains, 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 Town, 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 England, masters +of destruction, engineers of death! Another race of men from those +of the shops and slums, a totally different race of men. +</p> + +<p> +But here they come, 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, princes 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, Australia, New Zealand; from Bermuda, Borneo, Fiji, and the +Gold Coast; from Rhodesia, Cape Colony, Natal, Sierra Leone and Gambia, +Nigeria, and Uganda; from Ceylon, Cyprus, Hong-Kong, Jamaica, and Wei-Hai-Wei; +from Lagos, Malta, St. Lucia, Singapore, Trinidad. And here the +conquered men of Ind, swarthy horsemen and sword wielders, fiercely +barbaric, blazing in crimson and scarlet, Sikhs, Rajputs, Burmese, province +by province, and caste by caste. +</p> + +<p> +And now the Horse Guards, a glimpse of beautiful cream ponies, and +a golden panoply, a hurricane 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 beside +him likewise crowned. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 pageant is over. I drift with the crowd out of the square into +a tangle of narrow streets, where the public-houses are a-roar with +drunkenness, men, women, and children mixed together in colossal debauch. And +on every side is rising the favourite song of the Coronation:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Oh! on Coronation Day, on Coronation Day,<br /> +We’ll have a spree, a jubilee, and shout, Hip, hip, hooray,<br /> +For we’ll all be merry, drinking whisky, wine, and sherry,<br /> +We’ll all be merry on Coronation Day.” +</p> + +<p> +The rain is pouring down. Up the street come troops 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 <i>slish, +slish, slish</i> 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. +</p> + +<p> +“And how did you like the procession, mate?” I asked +an old man on a bench in Green Park. +</p> + +<p> +“’Ow did I like it? A bloomin’ good chawnce, +sez I to myself, for a sleep, wi’ all the coppers aw’y, +so I turned into the corner 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.” +</p> + +<p> +Why the Lord Chamberlain I could not precisely see, nor could he, but that was +the way he felt, he said conclusively, and there was no more discussion. +</p> + +<p> +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 flaming +gas, was everywhere. The crowds in the streets increased by hundreds +of thousands, and though the police sternly put down mafficking, drunkenness +and rough play abounded. The tired workers seemed to have gone +mad with the relaxation and excitement, and they surged and danced 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:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Yew aw the enny, ennyseckle, Oi em ther bee,<br /> +Oi’d like ter sip ther enny from those red lips, yew see.” +</p> + +<p> +I sat on a bench on the Thames Embankment, looking across the illuminated +water. It was approaching midnight, and before me poured the better +class of merrymakers, shunning the more riotous streets and returning +home. On the bench beside me sat two ragged creatures, a man and +a woman, nodding and dozing. 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. +</p> + +<p> +Every little while boys and young men stopped long enough to go behind +the bench and give vent to sudden and fiendish shouts. This 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 passed the bench while I sat upon it, and +not one, on such a jubilee occasion as the 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. +</p> + +<p> +To use a Briticism, it was “cruel”; the corresponding +Americanism was more appropriate—it was “fierce.” +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 +demonstrate that one in every four adults is destined to die on public +charity, either in the workhouse, the infirmary, or the asylum. +</p> + +<p> +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 benches 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 London, save for five years, when, in 1878, +he saw foreign service in India. +</p> + +<p> +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 poor +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Wot a lot o’ work puttin’ up the lights,” +said the man at sight of some building superbly illuminated. This +was 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But your belly is empty,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know wot you are,” said the girl, “an Eyetalian.” +</p> + +<p> +“No ’e ayn’t,” the man cried heatedly. +“’E’s a Yank, that’s wot ’e is. +I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord lumme, look a’ that,” she exclaimed, as we debouched +upon the Strand, choked with the roaring, reeling Coronation crowd, the men +bellowing and the girls singing in high throaty notes:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Oh! on Coronation D’y, on Coronation D’y,<br /> +We’ll ’ave a spree, a jubilee, an’ shout ’Ip, +’ip, ’ooray;<br /> +For we’ll all be merry, drinkin’ whisky, wine, and sherry,<br /> +We’ll all be merry on Coronation D’y.” +</p> + +<p> +“’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 this d’y, an’ I enjoyed it, though it +was lonesome by myself. An’ the duchesses an’ the +lydies ’ad sich gran’ w’ite dresses. They was +jest bu’ful, bu’ful.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m Irish,” she said, in answer to a question. +“My nyme’s Eyethorne.” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Eyethorne, sir; Eyethorne.” +</p> + +<p> +“Spell it.” +</p> + +<p> +“H-a-y-t-h-o-r-n-e, Eyethorne.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” I said, “Irish Cockney.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir, London-born.” +</p> + +<p> +She had lived happily at home till her father died, killed in an +accident, when she had found herself 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. 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.” +</p> + +<p> +The last place in which she had worked was a coffee-house, hours +from seven in the morning till eleven at night, and for which she had +received five shillings a week and her food. Then she had fallen +sick, and since emerging from the hospital had been unable to find anything +to do. She wasn’t feeling up to much, and the last two nights +had been spent in the street. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Once she reached across and felt the texture of my coat and shirt, +and remarked upon the good clothes the Yanks wore. My rags good +clothes! It put me to the blush; but, on inspecting them more +closely and on examining the clothes worn by the man and woman, I began +to feel quite well dressed and respectable. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you expect to do in the end?” I asked them. +“You know you’re growing older every day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Work’ouse,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“Gawd blimey if I do,” said she. “There’s +no ’ope for me, I know, but I’ll die on the streets. +No work’ouse for me, thank you. No, indeed,” she sniffed +in the silence that fell. +</p> + +<p> +“After you have been out all night in the streets,” I +asked, “what do you do in the morning for something to eat?” +</p> + +<p> +“Try to get a penny, if you ’aven’t one saved over,” +the man explained. “Then go to a coffee-’ouse an’ +get a mug o’ tea.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t see how that is to feed you,” I objected. +</p> + +<p> +The pair smiled knowingly. +</p> + +<p> +“You drink your tea in little sips,” he went on, “making +it last its longest. An’ you look sharp, an’ there’s +some as leaves a bit be’ind ’em.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s s’prisin’, the food wot some people +leaves,” the woman broke in. +</p> + +<p> +“The thing,” said the man judicially, as the trick dawned +upon me, “is to get ’old o’ the penny.” +</p> + +<p> +As we started to leave, Miss Haythorne gathered up a couple of crusts +from the neighbouring tables and thrust them somewhere into her rags. +</p> + +<p> +“Cawn’t wyste ’em, you know,” said she; to +which the docker nodded, tucking away a couple of crusts himself. +</p> + +<p> +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, and 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. He was staring out over the +water and thinking, which is not a good thing for a shelterless man +with a family to do. It would not be a pleasant thing to speculate +upon his thoughts; but this I know, and all London knows, that the cases +of out-of-works killing their wives and babies is not an uncommon happening. +</p> + +<p> +One cannot walk along the Thames Embankment, in the small hours of +morning, from the Houses of Parliament, past Cleopatra’s Needle, +to Waterloo Bridge, without being reminded of the sufferings, seven +and twenty centuries old, recited by the author of “Job”:— +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> +There are that remove the landmarks; they violently take +away flocks and feed them. +</p> + +<p> +They drive away the ass of the fatherless, they take the widow’s +ox for a pledge. +</p> + +<p> +They turn the needy out of the way; the poor of the earth hide themselves +together. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +They cut their provender in the field, and they glean the vintage +of the wicked. +</p> + +<p> +They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in +the cold. +</p> + +<p> +They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock +for want of a shelter. +</p> + +<p> +There are that pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge +of the poor. +</p> + +<p> +So that they go about naked without clothing, and being an hungered +they carry the sheaves.—Job xxiv. 2-10. +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> +Seven and twenty centuries agone! And it is all as true and +apposite to-day in the innermost centre of this Christian civilisation +whereof Edward VII. is king. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br /> +DAN CULLEN, DOCKER</h2> + +<p> +I stood, yesterday, in a room in one of the “Municipal Dwellings,” +not far from Leman Street. If I looked into a dreary future and +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. +</p> + +<p> +It was not a room. Courtesy to the language will no more permit +it to be called a room than it will permit a hovel to be called a mansion. +It was a den, a lair. Seven feet by eight were 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 chair, and a +couple of boxes left little space in which to turn around. Five +dollars would have purchased everything in sight. The floor was +bare, while the walls and ceiling were literally covered with blood +marks and splotches. Each mark represented a violent death—of +an insect, for the place swarmed with vermin, a plague with which no +person could cope single-handed. +</p> + +<p> +The man who had occupied this hole, one Dan Cullen, docker, was dying +in hospital. Yet he had impressed his personality 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 told, and +had read history, sociology, and economics. And he was self-educated. +</p> + +<p> +On the table, amidst a wonderful disarray, lay a sheet of paper on +which was scrawled: <i>Mr. Cullen, please return the large white jug +and corkscrew I lent you</i>—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 must be harrowed by the sordidness +out of which it strove vainly to rise. +</p> + +<p> +It is a brief little 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 his 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 selected by his fellows to +toil hard for them with his brain. He became a leader of the fruit-porters, +represented the dockers on the London Trades Council, and wrote trenchant +articles for the labour journals. +</p> + +<p> +He did not cringe to other men, even though they were his economic +masters, and controlled the means whereby he lived, and he spoke his +mind freely, and fought the good fight. In the “Great Dock +Strike” he was guilty of taking a leading part. And that +was the end of Dan Cullen. From that day he was a marked man, +and every day, for ten years and more, he was “paid off” +for what he had done. +</p> + +<p> +A docker is a casual 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 discriminated 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 not more than two or three days’ work per week. This +is what is called being “disciplined,” or “drilled.” +It means being starved. There is no politer word. Ten years +of it broke his heart, and broken-hearted men cannot live. +</p> + +<p> +He took to his bed in his terrible den, which grew more terrible +with his helplessness. He was without kith or kin, a lonely old +man, embittered and pessimistic, fighting vermin the while and looking +at Garibaldi, Engels, and Dan Burns gazing down at him from the blood-bespattered +walls. No one came to see him in that crowded municipal barracks +(he had made friends with none of them), and he was left to rot. +</p> + +<p> +But from the far reaches of the East End came a cobbler and his son, +his sole friends. They cleansed his room, brought fresh 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. +</p> + +<p> +She washed his face, shook up his couch, and talked with him. It was +interesting to talk with him—until he learned her name. Oh, yes, Blank +was her name, she replied innocently, and Sir George Blank was her brother. Sir +George Blank, eh? thundered old Dan Cullen on his death-bed; Sir George Blank, +solicitor to the docks at Cardiff, 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. +</p> + +<p> +Dan Cullen’s feet became swollen with dropsy. He sat +up all day on the side of the bed (to keep the water out of his body), +no mat on the floor, a thin blanket on his legs, and an old coat around +his shoulders. A missionary brought him a pair of paper slippers, +worth fourpence (I saw them), and proceeded to offer 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. He did not +care to have Tom, Dick, or Harry, on the strength of fourpenny slippers, +tampering with it. He asked the 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. +</p> + +<p> +The cobbler, a brave old hero himself, though unannaled and unsung, went +privily to the head office of the big fruit brokers for whom Dan Cullen had +worked as a casual labourer for thirty years. Their system 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said 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.” +</p> + +<p> +Nor did they do anything, not even sign a letter asking for Dan Cullen’s +admission to a hospital. And it is not so easy 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 that the sweating +was hastening his death; while Bright’s disease, being a wasting +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. +</p> + +<p> +Then his bed was tilted up so that his feet and legs were elevated. +At once dropsy appeared in the body, 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 alive, 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. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Dan Cullen! A Jude the Obscure, who reached out after +knowledge; who toiled with his body in the day and studied in the watches +of the night; who dreamed his dream and struck valiantly for the Cause; +a patriot, a lover of human freedom, and a fighter unafraid; and in +the end, not gigantic enough to beat down the conditions which baffled +and stifled him, a cynic and 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.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br /> +HOPS AND HOPPERS</h2> + +<p> +So far has the divorcement of the worker from the soil proceeded, +that the farming districts, the civilised world over, are dependent +upon the cities for the gathering of the harvests. Then it is, +when the land is spilling its ripe wealth to waste, that the street +folk, who have been driven away from the soil, are called back to it +again. 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. +</p> + +<p> +It is estimated that Kent alone requires eighty thousand of the street +people to pick her hops. 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, and ghetto pour them forth, and the +festering contents of slum, stews, and ghetto are undiminished. +Yet they overrun 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 underground. Their very presence, the fact +of their 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. +</p> + +<p> +Is the picture overdrawn? It all depends. For one who +sees and thinks life in terms of shares and coupons, it is certainly +overdrawn. But for one who sees and thinks life in terms of manhood +and womanhood, it cannot be overdrawn. Such hordes of beastly +wretchedness and inarticulate misery are no compensation for a millionaire +brewer who lives in a West End palace, sates himself with the sensuous +delights of London’s golden theatres, hobnobs with lordlings and +princelings, and is knighted by the king. Wins his spurs—God +forbid! In old time the great blonde beasts rode in the battle’s +van and won their spurs by cleaving men from pate to chine. And, +after all, it is finer to kill a strong man with a clean-slicing blow +of singing steel than to make a beast of him, and of his seed through +the generations, by the artful and spidery manipulation of industry +and politics. +</p> + +<p> +But to return to the hops. Here the divorcement from the soil +is as apparent as in every other agricultural line in England. +While the manufacture of beer steadily increases, the growth of hops +steadily decreases. In 1835 the acreage under hops was 71,327. +To-day it stands at 48,024, a decrease of 3103 from the acreage of last +year. +</p> + +<p> +Small as the acreage 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 with less of the nicer +things of life, the pickers with less grub, of which, in the best of times, +they never get enough. For weary weeks headlines like the following have +appeared in the London papers.— +</p> + +<p class="center"> +TRAMPS PLENTIFUL, BUT THE HOPS ARE FEW AND NOT YET READY. +</p> + +<p> +Then there have been numberless paragraphs like this:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +From the neighbourhood of the hop fields comes news of a distressing nature. +The bright outburst of the last two days has sent many hundreds 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 treble the number there last year at +this time, and in other towns the lateness of the season is responsible for a +large increase in the number of casuals. +</p> + +<p> +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 the +stinging hail, were close to drowning in their huts and camps on the +low-lying 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. +</p> + +<p> +“We ayn’t crossin’-sweepers,” they said, +turning away from the ground, carpeted ankle-deep with hops. +</p> + +<p> +Those that remained 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 afford more. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +All of which was too bad for the owners, certainly; but at the worst, +not one of them, for one meal, would have to go short of food or drink. +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;” “Mr. F---, +of brewery fame, who rents all the land in this parish, loses £10,000;” +and “Mr. L---, the Wateringbury brewer, brother to Mr. Herbert +L---, is another heavy loser.” As for the hoppers, they +did not count. Yet I venture to assert that the several almost-square +meals lost by underfed William Buggles, and underfed Mrs. Buggles, and +the underfed Buggles kiddies, was a greater tragedy than the £10,000 +lost by Mr. F---. And in addition, underfed William Buggles’ +tragedy might be multiplied by thousands where Mr. F---’s could +not be multiplied by five. +</p> + +<p> +To see how William 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 advice, he had brought his “worst +rags,” and as we hiked up the London road out of Maidstone he +was worrying greatly for fear we had come too ill-dressed for the business. +</p> + +<p> +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. The natives along the coast were all dubious; +and “bean-feasters” from London, dashing past in coaches, +cheered and jeered and shouted insulting things after us. But +before we 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you twig?” Bert whispered. “She’s +on to you.” +</p> + +<p> +I twigged. And it must be confessed the figure 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 seaman +without a ship, a man on the beach, and very like a craft at low water. +</p> + +<p> +“Can yer give us a job, governor?” Bert asked the bailiff, +a kindly faced and elderly man who was very busy. +</p> + +<p> +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 bin deserted by +two other men, from what I could learn, because of inability to make +living wages. +</p> + +<p> +“No bad conduct, mind ye,” warned the bailiff, as he +left us at work in the midst of the women. +</p> + +<p> +It was Saturday afternoon, and we knew quitting time would come early; +so we applied ourselves earnestly to the task, desiring to learn if +we could at least make our salt. It was simple work, woman’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. In an hour’s time we became as +expert as it is possible to become. As soon as the fingers became +accustomed automatically to differentiate between hops and leaves and +to strip half-a-dozen blossoms at a time there was no more to learn. +</p> + +<p> +We worked nimbly, and as fast as the women themselves, though their +bins filled more rapidly because of their swarming children, each of +which picked with two hands almost as fast as we picked. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’tcher pick too clean, it’s against the rules,” +one of the women informed us; and we took the tip and were grateful. +</p> + +<p> +As the afternoon wore along, we realised that living wages could +not be made—by men. Women could pick as much as men, and +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-dozen children who count as a unit, and by +their combined capacity determine the unit’s pay. +</p> + +<p> +“I say, matey, I’m beastly hungry,” said I to Bert. +We had not had any dinner. +</p> + +<p> +“Blimey, but I could eat the ’ops,” he replied. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +With him we discussed how much we could “sub,” and were +informed that while we were being 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 five +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 driven, and for the free life +in the open, and the wind and rain and sun all undefiled by city smirches. +As the sea calls to the sailor, so calls the land to them; and, deep +down in their aborted and decaying carcasses, they are stirred strangely +by the peasant memories of their forbears 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. +</p> + +<p> +“No more ’ops, matey,” Bert complained. +</p> + +<p> +It was five o’clock, and the pole-pullers had knocked off, +so that everything could be cleaned up, there being no work on Sunday. +For an hour we were forced idly to wait the coming of the measurers, +our feet tingling 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 little 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 that we had received a penny more than our due, and went his +way. +</p> + +<p> +Granting, for the sake of the argument, that we were what we represented +ourselves to be—namely, poor men and broke—then here was our +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 +sixpenn’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 would 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 morrow was Sunday, on +which we could do no work, though our silly stomachs would not knock off on +that account. Here, then, was the problem: how to get three meals on Sunday, +and two on Monday (for we could not make another “sub” till Monday +evening). +</p> + +<p> +We knew that the casual wards were overcrowded; also, that if we +begged from farmer or villager, 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— +</p> + +<p> +—Not a bit of it. We joyfully thanked God that we were +not as other men, especially hoppers, and went down the road to Maidstone, +jingling in our pockets the half-crowns and florins we had brought from +London. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br /> +THE SEA WIFE</h2> + +<p> +You might not expect to find the Sea Wife in the heart of Kent, but +that is where I found her, in a mean street, in the 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 evening I descended to the semi-subterranean +kitchen, and talked with her and her old man, Thomas Mugridge by name. +</p> + +<p> +And as I talked to them, all the subtleties and complexities of this +tremendous machine civilisation vanished away. It seemed that +I went down through the skin and the flesh to the naked soul of it, +and in Thomas Mugridge and his old woman gripped hold of the essence +of this remarkable English breed. I found there the spirit of +the wanderlust which has lured Albion’s sons across the zones; +and I found there the colossal unreckoning which has tricked the English +into foolish squabblings and preposterous fights, and the doggedness +and stubbornness which have brought them blindly through to empire and +greatness; and likewise I found that vast, incomprehensible patience +which has enabled the home population to endure under the burden of +it all, to toil without complaint through the weary years, and docilely +to yield the best of its sons to fight and colonise to the ends of the +earth. +</p> + +<p> +Thomas Mugridge was seventy-one years old and a little man. +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 +connected with work. He knew nothing else but work. He had +worked all his days, and at seventy-one he still worked. Each +morning saw him up with the lark and afield, a day labourer, for as +such he had been born. Mrs. Mugridge was seventy-three. +From seven years of age she had worked in the fields, doing a boy’s +work at first, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What you earn is sweetest,” quoth Mrs. Mugridge, when +I suggested that it was about time they took a rest. +</p> + +<p> +“No, an’ we don’t want help,” said Thomas +Mugridge, in reply to my question as to whether the children lent them +a hand. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll work till we dry up and blow away, mother an’ +me,” he added; and Mrs. Mugridge nodded her head in vigorous indorsement. +</p> + +<p> +Fifteen children she had borne, and all were away and gone, or dead. +The “baby,” however, lived 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 they 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. +</p> + +<p> +They passed me a photograph. A trim young fellow, in soldier’s +garb looked out at me. +</p> + +<p> +“And which son is this?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +They laughed a hearty chorus. Son! Nay, grandson, just +back from Indian 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. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“There dwells a wife by the Northern Gate,<br /> + And a wealthy wife is she;<br /> +She breeds a breed o’ rovin’ men<br /> + And casts them over sea.<br /> +<br /> +“And some are drowned in deep water,<br /> + And some in sight of shore;<br /> +And word goes back to the weary wife,<br /> + And ever she sends more.” +</p> + +<p> +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 forth “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 through the long nights and gaze at royalty +on the wall. +</p> + +<p> +The true British merchant seaman has passed away. The merchant +service is no longer a recruiting ground for such sea dogs 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, and +the War Office lowers the stature for enlistment. +</p> + +<p> +It could not be otherwise. The most complacent Britisher cannot +hope to draw off the life-blood, and underfeed, and keep it up forever. +The average Mrs. Thomas Mugridge has been driven into the city, and +she is not breeding very much of anything save an anæmic and sickly +progeny which cannot find enough to eat. The strength of the English-speaking +race to-day is not in the tight little island, but in the New World +overseas, where 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 tired 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.<br /> +PROPERTY VERSUS PERSON</h2> + +<p> +In a civilisation frankly materialistic 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. To pound one’s wife to a jelly +and break a few of her ribs is a trivial 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 the 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 Piccadilly and the Strand after +midnight, the police would not have interfered with her, and she would +have been able to pay for her lodging. +</p> + +<p> +The following illustrative cases are culled from the police-court +reports for a single week:— +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> +Widnes Police Court. Before Aldermen Gossage and +Neil. Thomas Lynch, charged with being drunk and disorderly and +with assaulting a constable. Defendant rescued a woman from custody, +kicked the constable, and threw stones at him. Fined 3s. 6d. for +the first offence, and 10s. and costs for the assault. +</p> + +<p> +Glasgow Queen’s Park Police Court. Before Baillie Norman +Thompson. John Kane pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife. +There were five previous convictions. Fined £2, 2s. +</p> + +<p> +Taunton County Petty Sessions. John Painter, a big, burly fellow, +described as a labourer, charged with assaulting his wife. The +woman received two severe black eyes, and her face was badly swollen. +Fined £1, 8s., including costs, and bound over to keep the peace. +</p> + +<p> +Widnes Police Court. Richard Bestwick and George Hunt, charged +with trespassing in search of game. Hunt fined £1 and costs, +Bestwick £2 and costs; in default, one month. +</p> + +<p> +Shaftesbury Police Court. Before the Mayor (Mr. A. T. Carpenter). +Thomas Baker, charged with sleeping out. Fourteen days. +</p> + +<p> +Glasgow Central Police Court. Before Bailie Dunlop. Edward +Morrison, a lad, convicted of stealing fifteen pears from a lorry at +the railroad station. Seven days. +</p> + +<p> +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 and costs, or one month. +</p> + +<p> +Dunfermline Sheriff Court. Before Sheriff Gillespie. +John Young, a pit-head worker, pleaded guilty to assaulting Alexander +Storrar by beating him about the head and body with his fists, throwing +him on the ground, and also striking him with a pit prop. Fined +£1. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Mansfield Police Court. Before the Mayor, Messrs. F. J. Turner, +J. Whitaker, F. Tidsbury, E. Holmes, and Dr. R. Nesbitt. Joseph +Jackson, charged with assaulting Charles Nunn. Without any provocation, +defendant struck the complainant a violent blow in the face, knocking +him down, and then kicked him on the side of the head. He was +rendered unconscious, and he remained under medical treatment for a +fortnight. Fined 21s. +</p> + +<p> +Perth Sheriff Court. Before Sheriff Sym. David Mitchell, +charged with poaching. There were two previous convictions, 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. +</p> + +<p> +Dundee Sheriff Court. Before Hon. Sheriff-Substitute R. C. +Walker. John Murray, Donald Craig, and James Parkes, charged with +poaching. Craig and Parkes fined £1 each or fourteen days; +Murray, £5 or one month. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Salisbury City Petty Sessions. Before the Mayor, Messrs. C. +Hoskins, G. Fullford, E. Alexander, and W. Marlow. James Moore, +charged with stealing a pair of boots from outside a shop. Twenty-one +days. +</p> + +<p> +Horncastle Police Court. Before the Rev. W. F. Massingberd, +the Rev. J. Graham, and Mr. N. Lucas Calcraft. George Brackenbury, +a young labourer, convicted of what the magistrates characterised as +an altogether unprovoked and brutal assault upon James Sargeant Foster, +a man over seventy years of age. Fined £1 and 5s. 6d. costs. +</p> + +<p> +Worksop Petty Sessions. Before Messrs. F. J. S. Foljambe, R. +Eddison, and S. Smith. John Priestley, charged with assaulting +the Rev. Leslie Graham. Defendant, who was drunk, was wheeling +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 passed over the perambulator, but the baby was uninjured. +Defendant then attacked the driver of the lorry, and afterwards assaulted +the complainant, who remonstrated with him upon his conduct. In +consequence of the injuries defendant inflicted, complainant had to +consult a doctor. Fined 40s. and costs. +</p> + +<p> +Rotherham West Riding Police Court. Before Messrs. C. Wright +and G. Pugh and Colonel Stoddart. Benjamin Storey, Thomas Brammer, +and Samuel Wilcock, charged with poaching. One month each. +</p> + +<p> +Southampton County Police Court. Before Admiral J. C. Rowley, +Mr. H. H. Culme-Seymour, and other magistrates. Henry Thorrington, +charged with sleeping out. Seven days. +</p> + +<p> +Eckington Police Court. Before Major L. B. Bowden, Messrs. +R. Eyre, and H. A. Fowler, and Dr. Court. Joseph Watts, charged +with stealing nine ferns from a garden. One month. +</p> + +<p> +Ripley Petty Sessions. Before Messrs. J. B. Wheeler, W. D. +Bembridge, and M. Hooper. Vincent Allen and George Hall, charged +under the Poaching Prevention Act with being found in possession of +a number of rabbits, and John Sparham, charged with aiding and abetting +them. Hall and Sparham fined £1, 17s. 4d., and Allen £2, +17s. 4d., including costs; the former committed for fourteen days and +the latter for one month in default of payment. +</p> + +<p> +South-western Police Court, London. Before Mr. Rose. +John Probyn, charged with doing grievous bodily harm to a constable. +Prisoner had been kicking his wife, and also assaulting another woman +who protested against his brutality. The constable tried to persuade +him to go inside his house, but prisoner suddenly turned upon him, knocking +him down by a blow on the face, 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. +</p> + +<p> +Lambeth Police Court, London. Before Mr. Hopkins. “Baby” +Stuart, aged nineteen, described as a chorus girl, charged with obtaining +food and lodging to the value of 5s. by false pretences, and with intent +to defraud Emma Brasier. Emma Brasier, complainant, lodging-house +keeper of Atwell Road. Prisoner took apartments at her house on +the representation that she was employed at the Crown Theatre. +After prisoner 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 +labour. +</p> +</blockquote> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.<br /> +INEFFICIENCY</h2> + +<p> +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 number, a pleasant-faced man of thirty, +and were giving it to him rather heatedly. +</p> + +<p> +“But ’ow about this ’ere cheap immigration?” +one of them demanded. “The Jews of Whitechapel, say, a-cutting +our throats right along?” +</p> + +<p> +“You can’t blame 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But ’ow about the wife an’ kiddies?” his +interlocutor demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“There you are,” came the answer. “How about +the wife and kiddies of the man who works cheaper than you and gets +your job? Eh? How about his wife and kiddies? He’s +more interested in them than in yours, and he can’t see them starve. +So he cuts the price of labour and out you go. But you mustn’t +blame him, poor devil. He can’t help it. Wages always +come down when two men are after the same job. That’s the +fault of competition, not of the man who cuts the price.” +</p> + +<p> +“But wyges don’t come down where there’s a union,” +the objection was made. +</p> + +<p> +“And there you are again, right on the head. The union checks competition +among the labourers, but makes it harder where there 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.” +</p> + +<p> +Without going further into the argument, this man on the Mile End +Waste pointed the moral that when 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 instanced, just now, by the return +and disbandment of the soldiers from South Africa. 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 down by the strikers. +</p> + +<p> +Sweating, starvation wages, armies of unemployed, and great numbers +of the homeless and shelterless are inevitable when there are more men +to do work than there is work for men to do. The men and women +I have met upon the streets, and in the spikes and pegs, are not there +because as a mode 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 walks +the streets suffers more, and works harder, for far less return. +I have depicted the nights they spend, and how, driven in by physical +exhaustion, they go to the casual ward for a “rest up.” +Nor is the casual ward a soft snap. To pick 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. On the part of the authorities it is sheer robbery. +They give the men far less for their labour than do the capitalistic +employers. The wage for the same amount of labour, performed for +a private employer, would buy them better beds, better food, more good +cheer, and, above all, greater freedom. +</p> + +<p> +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 three fair meals, a bed at night, and leave him +a couple of pennies for pocket money. He would rather work for +those two shillings than for the charity of the casual ward; for he +knows that 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. +</p> + +<p> +When there are more men than there is work to be done, a sifting-out +process must obtain. In every branch of industry the less efficient +are crowded out. Being crowded out because of inefficiency, they +cannot go up, but must descend, and 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 (which +is there because of its weak body) is speedily fouled and contaminated. +</p> + +<p> +The mortality is excessive, but, even then, they die far too lingering +deaths. +</p> + +<p> +Here, then, we have the construction of the Abyss and the shambles. +Throughout the whole industrial fabric a constant elimination is going +on. The inefficient are weeded out and flung downward. Various +things constitute inefficiency. The engineer who 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 there +is little or no responsibility. Those who are slow and clumsy, +who suffer from weakness of body or mind, 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, with failing energy and numbing brain, must begin +the frightful descent which knows no stopping-place short of the bottom +and death. +</p> + +<p> +In this last instance, the statistics of London tell a terrible tale. +The population of London is one-seventh of the total population of the +United Kingdom, and in London, year in and year out, one adult in every +four dies on public charity, either in the workhouse, 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. +</p> + +<p> +As an illustration 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 age, and an inmate of the workhouse. +The extracts are quoted from the annual report of the trade union. +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> +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 there 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 know what became of me for a day or two. +On the following Sunday night I came to my senses, and found myself +in the hospital. I asked the nurse what was to do with my legs, +and she told me both legs were off. +</p> + +<p> +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 altogether, and have covered the hole up with a piece of +sheet iron. . . . They gave me £25. They didn’t reckon +that as compensation; they said it was only for charity’s sake. +Out of that I paid £9 for a machine by which to wheel myself about. +</p> + +<p> +I was labouring at the time I got my legs off. I got twenty-four +shillings a week, rather better pay than the other men, because I used +to take shifts. When there was heavy work to be done I used to +be picked out to do it. Mr. Manton, the manager, visited me at +the hospital several times. When I was getting better, I asked +him if he would be able 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 friends in Ireland. +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> +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 he went into the workhouse. The alternative +to the workhouse is to go home to Ireland and burden his friends for +the rest of his life. Comment is superfluous. +</p> + +<p> +It must be understood that efficiency is not determined by the workers +themselves, but is determined by the demand for labour. If three +men seek one position, the most efficient man will get it. The +other two, no matter how capable 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 workers from top to bottom +would result; and when equilibrium had been restored, the number 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 efficiency, there would +still be as many inefficients, though each inefficient were twice as +capable as he had been and more capable than many of the efficients +had previously been. +</p> + +<p> +When there are more men to work than there is work for men to do, +just as many men as are in excess of work will be inefficients, and +as inefficients they are doomed to lingering and painful destruction. +It shall 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.<br /> +WAGES</h2> + +<p> +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 ten 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. +</p> + +<pre> +Rent $1.50 or 6/0 +Bread 1.00 ” 4/0 +Meat O.87.5 ” 3/6 +Vegetables 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 +</pre> + +<p> +An analysis of one item alone will show how little room there is for waste. +<i>Bread</i>, $1: for a family of five, for seven days, one dollar’s +worth of bread will give each a daily ration 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. They will +get less of meat per mouth each meal, and still less of vegetables; while the +smaller items become too microscopic for consideration. On the other hand, +these food articles are all bought at small retail, the most expensive and +wasteful method of purchasing. +</p> + +<p> +While the table given 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’penny gaff” for cheap vaudeville, join social +or benefit clubs, nor can they buy sweetmeats, tobacco, books, or newspapers. +</p> + +<p> +And further, should one child (and there are three) require a pair +of shoes, the family must strike meat for a week from its bill of fare. +And since there are five pairs of feet requiring shoes, and five heads +requiring hats, and five bodies requiring clothes, and since there are +laws regulating indecency, the family must constantly impair its physical +efficiency in order to keep warm and out of jail. For notice, +when rent, coals, oil, soap, and firewood are extracted from the weekly +income, there remains a daily allowance for food of 4.5d. to each person; +and that 4.5d. cannot be lessened by buying clothes without impairing +the physical efficiency. +</p> + +<p> +All of which is hard 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 they 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. +</p> + +<p> +While in London there 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 living 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 question naturally arises, How do <i>they</i> live? The answer +is that they do not live. They do not know what life is. +They drag out a subterbestial existence until mercifully released by +death. +</p> + +<p> +Before descending to the fouler depths, let the case of the telephone +girls be cited. Here are clean, fresh English maids, 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 telephone girl receives a weekly wage of eleven shillings. +If she be quick and clever, she may, 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:— +</p> + +<pre> + s. d. +Rent, fire, and light 7 6 +Board at home 3 6 +Board at the office 4 6 +Street car fare 1 6 +Laundry 1 0 +Total 18 0 +</pre> + +<p> +This leaves nothing 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 recreation, and— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Man to Man so oft unjust,<br /> +Is always so to Woman. +</p> + +<p> +At the Trades Union 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 Parliament 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 workers voted against the resolution, +while the representatives of 535,000 workers voted in favour of it. +When 514,000 workers oppose a resolution prohibiting child-labour under +fifteen, it is evident that a less-than-living wage is being paid to +an immense number of the adult workers of the country. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +A case recently cropped up of men, in the employ of a wealthy business +house, receiving their 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 than +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. +</p> + +<p> +Conceive of an old woman, broken and dying, supporting herself and four +children, and paying three 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 for sickness, rest, or +recreation. Each day and every day, Sundays as well, she toiled fourteen hours. +Her day’s stint was seven gross, for 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 her paste and thread. +</p> + +<p> +Last year, Mr. Thomas Holmes, a police-court missionary of note, +after writing about the condition of the women workers, received the +following letter, dated April 18, 1901:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +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 week, cannot earn +more than five shillings, and I have a poor afflicted husband to keep who +hasn’t earned a penny for more than ten years. +</p> + +<p> +Imagine a woman, capable of writing such a clear, sensible, grammatical +letter, supporting her 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 husband; 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. There was no space for +the missionary to sit down, save on the bed, which was partially covered +with ties and silk. The sick man’s lungs were in the last +stages of decay. He coughed and expectorated constantly, the woman +ceasing from her work to assist him in his paroxysms. The silken +fluff from the ties was not good for his sickness; nor was his sickness +good for the ties, and the handlers and wearers of the ties yet to come. +</p> + +<p> +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. Here 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 tender folk, imagine yourselves marketing and keeping house on such +a scale, setting a table for five, and keeping an eye on your deputy +mother of twelve to see that 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.<br /> +THE GHETTO</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Is it well that while we range with Science, glorying in the time,<br /> +City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime?<br /> +There among the gloomy alleys Progress halts on palsied feet;<br /> +Crime and hunger cast out maidens by the thousand on the street;<br /> +<br /> +There the master scrimps his haggard seamstress of her daily bread;<br /> +There the single sordid attic holds the living and the dead;<br /> +There the smouldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted floor,<br /> +And the crowded couch of incest, in the warrens of the poor. +</p> + +<p> +At one time the nations of Europe confined the undesirable Jews in +city ghettos. But to-day the dominant economic class, 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 cometh not, and where two million workers swarm, +procreate, and die. +</p> + +<p> +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 proper are constantly being destroyed, +and the main stream of the unhoused is toward the east. In the +last twelve years, one district, “London over the Border,” +as it is called, which lies well beyond Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Mile +End, has increased 260,000, or over sixty per cent. The churches +in this district, by the way, can seat but one in every thirty-seven +of the added population. +</p> + +<p> +The City of Dreadful 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 the intolerable sameness and meanness of it +all. If the East End is worthy of no worse title than The City +of Dreadful Monotony, and if working people are unworthy 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. +</p> + +<p> +While it is not a city of slums, as some people imagine, it may well +be said to be one gigantic slum. From the standpoint of simple +decency and clean manhood and womanhood, any mean street, of all its +mean streets, is a slum. Where sights and sounds abound which +neither you nor I would care to have our children see and hear is a +place where no man’s children should live, and see, and hear. +Where you and I would not 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 childhood is sweet +and beautiful: but in East London innocence is a fleeting thing, and +you must catch them before they crawl out of the cradle, or you will +find the very babes as unholily wise as you. +</p> + +<p> +The application of the Golden Rule determines that East London is +an unfit place in which to live. Where you would not have 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 cubic feet of space for each person. +In army barracks each soldier is allowed 600 cubic feet. Professor +Huxley, at one time himself 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 people living in less than the 400 cubic feet prescribed +by the law. +</p> + +<p> +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 <i>poor</i> and <i>very poor</i>. +It is of interest to mark what he terms poor. By <i>poor</i> he +means families which have a total weekly income of from eighteen to +twenty-one shillings. The <i>very poor</i> fall greatly below +this standard. +</p> + +<p> +The workers, as a class, are being more and more segregated by their economic +masters; and this process, with its jamming and overcrowding, tends not so much +toward immorality as unmorality. Here is an extract from a recent meeting of +the London County Council, terse and bald, but with a wealth of horror to be +read between the lines:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +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 +East End. In St. Georges-in-the-East 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, and four, and two sons, aged ten and twelve +years, occupied a smaller room. In Bethnal Green a man and his wife, with four +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 duty of the various local authorities to prevent such serious +overcrowding. +</p> + +<p> +But with 900,000 people actually living under illegal conditions, +the authorities have their hands full. When the overcrowded folk +are ejected they stray off into some other hole; and, as they move their +belongings by night, on hand-barrows (one hand-barrow accommodating +the entire household goods and the sleeping children), it is next to +impossible to keep track of them. If the Public Health Act of +1891 were suddenly and completely enforced, 900,000 people would receive +notice to clear out of their houses and go on to the streets, and 500,000 +rooms would have to be built before they were all legally housed again. +</p> + +<p> +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 +that the existence of it is far more revolting. +</p> + +<p> +In Devonshire Place, Lisson Grove, a short while back died an old +woman of seventy-five years of age. At the inquest the coroner’s +officer stated that “all he found in the room was a lot of old +rags covered with vermin. He had got himself smothered with the +vermin. The room was in a shocking condition, and he had never +seen anything like it. Everything was absolutely covered with +vermin.” +</p> + +<p> +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 legs, and +her stockings were adherent to those sores. The sores were the +result of vermin.” +</p> + +<p> +A man present at the inquest wrote: “I had the evil fortune +to see the body of the unfortunate woman as it lay in the mortuary; +and even now the memory of that gruesome sight makes me shudder. +There she lay 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 rolled hundreds, thousands, myriads of vermin!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +It is notorious that here in the Ghetto the houses of the poor are +greater profit earners than the mansions of the rich. Not only +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 been 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 houses let, but they are sublet, and sub-sublet down to +the very rooms. +</p> + +<p> +“A part of a room to let.” This notice was posted +a short while ago in a window not five minutes’ walk from St. +James’s Hall. The Rev. Hugh Price Hughes is authority for +the statement that beds are let on the three-relay system—that +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 officers 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 two +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 bricklayer’s labourer comes in. +At seven in the morning he vacates, and goes to his work, at which time +she returns from hers. +</p> + +<p> +The Rev. W. N. Davies, rector of Spitalfields, took a census of some of the +alleys in his parish. He says:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +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. +</p> + +<p> +This Ghetto crowding is not through inclination, but compulsion. +Nearly fifty per cent. of the workers pay from one-fourth to one-half +of their earnings for rent. The average rent in the larger part +of the East End is from four to six shillings per week for one room, +while skilled 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 Stepney 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 rents are +going up. When land is worth from £20,000 to £30,000 +an acre, some one must pay the landlord. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. W. C. Steadman, in the House of Commons, in a speech concerning his +constituency in Stepney, related the following:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +This morning, not a hundred yards from where I am myself living, a widow +stopped me. She has six children to support, and the rent of her house was +fourteen shillings per week. She gets her living by letting the house to +lodgers 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. What could the woman do? There is no +accommodation in Stepney. Every place is taken up and overcrowded. +</p> + +<p> +Class supremacy can 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 created—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 +their women and children are pale and anæmic, with eyes ringed darkly, who +stoop and slouch, and are early twisted out of all shapeliness and beauty. +</p> + +<p> +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 carry on the breed. And year by year, in turn, the +best they breed are taken from them. Wherever a man of vigour +and stature manages to grow up, he is haled forthwith into the army. +A soldier, as Bernard Shaw has said, “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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. When they kill, they kill with their hands, and then +stupidly surrender themselves to the executioners. There is no +splendid audacity about their transgressions. They gouge 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 brass and iron, and +when they have polished off the mother of their children with a black +eye or so, they knock her down and proceed to trample her very much +as a Western stallion tramples a rattlesnake. +</p> + +<p> +A woman of the lower Ghetto classes is as much the slave of her husband +as is the Indian squaw. 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 the bread-winner, and she dare not send him +to jail and leave herself and children to starve. Evidence to +convict can rarely be obtained when such cases come into the courts; +as a rule, the trampled wife and mother is weeping and hysterically +beseeching the magistrate to let her husband off for the kiddies’ +sakes. +</p> + +<p> +The wives become screaming harridans or, broken-spirited and doglike, +lose what little decency and self-respect they have remaining over from +their maiden days, and all sink together, unheeding, in their degradation +and dirt. +</p> + +<p> +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 struck me as being a level-headed, well-controlled +man, and he says:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +To me, at least, it would be enough to condemn modern society as hardly an +advance on slavery or serfdom, if the permanent condition of industry were to +be that which we behold, that ninety per cent. of the actual producers of +wealth have no home that they can call their own beyond the end of the week; +have no bit of soil, or so much as a room that belongs to them; have nothing of +value of any kind, except as much old furniture as will go into a cart; have +the precarious chance of weekly wages, which barely suffice to keep them in +health; are housed, for the most part, 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, sickness, 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 whole +proletarian population, whose normal condition is one of sickening +wretchedness. If this is to be the permanent arrangement of modern society, +civilization must be held to bring a curse on the great majority of mankind. +</p> + +<p> +Ninety per cent.! The figures are appalling, yet Mr. Stopford +Brooke, after drawing a frightful London picture, finds himself compelled +to multiply it by half a million. Here it is:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +I often used to meet, when I was curate at Kensington, families drifting into +London along the Hammersmith Road. One day there came along a labourer and his +wife, his son and two daughters. Their family 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 on 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 question 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 bad, and in a +short time their health suffered. Work was hard to get, and its wage was so low +that they were soon in debt. They became more ill and more despairing with the +poisonous surroundings, the darkness, and the long hours of work; and they were +driven forth to seek a cheaper lodging. They found it in a court I knew +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 fell into the hands of those who +sweat the last drop out of man and woman and child, for wages which are the +food only of despair. And the darkness and the dirt, the bad food and the +sickness, and the want of water was worse than before; and the crowd and the +companionship of the court robbed them of the last shreds of self-respect. The +drink demon seized upon them. Of course there was a public-house at both ends +of the court. There they fled, one and all, for shelter, and warmth, and +society, and forgetfulness. And they came out in deeper debt, with inflamed +senses and burning brains, and an unsatisfied craving 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. <i>Multiply this by +half a million, and you will be beneath the truth</i>. +</p> + +<p> +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 tubs are a thing totally unknown, as mythical +as the ambrosia of the gods. The people themselves are dirty, +while any attempt at cleanliness becomes howling farce, when it is not +pitiful and tragic. Strange, vagrant odours come drifting along +the greasy wind, and the rain, when it falls, is more like grease than +water from heaven. The very cobblestones are scummed with grease. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. They do not know the significance and the +sacredness of home life. Even the municipal dwellings, where live +the better-class workers, are overcrowded barracks. They have +no home life. The very language proves it. The father returning +from work asks his child in the street where her mother is; and back +the answer comes, “In the buildings.” +</p> + +<p> +A new race has sprung up, a street people. They pass their +lives at work and in the streets. They have dens and lairs into +which to crawl for sleeping purposes, and that is all. One cannot +travesty the word by calling such dens and lairs “homes.” +The traditional silent and reserved Englishman has passed away. +The pavement folk are noisy, voluble, high-strung, excitable—when +they are yet young. As they grow older they become steeped and +stupefied in beer. When they 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, for hours, and when you go away you +will leave him still staring into vacancy. 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 +mysteries 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. +</p> + +<p> +As I say, the young are high-strung, nervous, excitable; the middle-aged +are empty-headed, stolid, and stupid. It is absurd to think for +an instant that they can compete with the workers of the New World. +Brutalised, degraded, and dull, the Ghetto folk will be unable to render +efficient service to England in the world struggle for industrial supremacy +which economists declare has already begun. Neither 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 +the world’s industrial orbit, they will perish like flies at the +end of summer. Or, with England critically situated, and with +them made desperate as wild beasts are made desperate, they may become +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 guns and the modern machinery of warfare, +they will perish the more swiftly and easily. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>CHAPTER XX.<br /> +COFFEE-HOUSES AND DOSS-HOUSES</h2> + +<p> +Another phrase gone glimmering, shorn 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 world, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 will taste it +and be disillusioned, for coffee it certainly is not. +</p> + +<p> +And what is true of the coffee is true of the coffee-house. +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 débris 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 capable of eating anything. +</p> + +<p> +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 way 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 with 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 his +day’s work. And further, depend upon it, he and 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. +</p> + +<p> +As a vagrant in the “Hobo” of a California jail, I have +been served better food and drink 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 labourer 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. On the other hand, though, and in return, I would +turn out an amount of work in the course of the day that would put to +shame the amount he turned out. So there are two sides to it. +The man with the high standard of living will always do more work and +better than the man with the low standard of living. +</p> + +<p> +There is a comparison which sailormen make between the English and American +merchant services. In an English ship, they say, it is poor grub, poor pay, and +easy work; in an American ship, good grub, good pay, and hard work. And this is +applicable to the working populations of both countries. The ocean greyhounds +have to pay for speed and steam, and so does the workman. But if the workman is +not able to pay for it, he will not have the speed and steam, that is all. The +proof of it is when the English workman comes to America. He will lay more +bricks in New York than he will in London, still more bricks in St. Louis, and +still more bricks when he gets to San Francisco.<a href="#fn-3" name="fnref-3" id="fnref-3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> +His standard of living has been rising all the time. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-3" id="fn-3"></a> <a href="#fnref-3">[3]</a> +The San Francisco bricklayer receives twenty shillings per day, and at present +is on strike for twenty-four shillings. +</p> + +<p> +Early in the morning, 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 these, 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 employer and upon the nation. For some time, now, +statesmen have been crying, “Wake up, England!” It +would show more hard-headed common sense if they changed the tune to +“Feed up, England!” +</p> + +<p> +Not only is the worker poorly fed, but he is filthily fed. +I have stood outside a butcher-shop and watched a horde of speculative +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 would vouch for +the cleanliness of the single rooms in which many of them and their +families lived; yet they raked, and pawed, and scraped the mess about +in their 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. All day long this heap of scraps was 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 sickness and disease, +the effluvia and vile exhalations of overcrowded and rotten life, and +next day it is carted about again to be sold. +</p> + +<p> +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, which is a fair +criterion, they never know in all their lives what tea, coffee, or cocoa +tastes like. The slops and water-witcheries of the coffee-houses, +varying only in sloppiness and witchery, never even approximate or suggest +what you and I are accustomed to drink as tea and coffee. +</p> + +<p> +A little incident comes to me, connected with a coffee-house not +far from Jubilee Street on the Mile End Road. +</p> + +<p> +“Cawn yer let 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 . . . ” +</p> + +<p> +She was an old woman, 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 waitress of the house. +</p> + +<p> +I waited, possibly 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 woman hesitated an instant, then brought +a large plate of “stewed lamb and young peas.” I was +eating a plate 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 was sold at sixpence, and the proprietress +gave it for a penny, demonstrating anew the old truth that the poor +are the most charitable. +</p> + +<p> +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, explosively +and most gleefully, she cried out to me,— +</p> + +<p> +“Hi sold a box o’ matches! Yus,” she confirmed, +if anything with greater and more explosive glee. “Hi sold +a box o’ matches! That’s ’ow Hi got the penny.” +</p> + +<p> +“You must be getting along in years,” I suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“Seventy-four yesterday,” she replied, and returned with +gusto to her plate. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +* * * * * +</p> + +<p> +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). +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’d you find it?” she at length demanded. +</p> + +<p> +“Some mug left it on the table when he went out, eh, don’t +you think?” I retorted. +</p> + +<p> +“Wot’s yer gyme?” she queried, looking me calmly +in the eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I makes ’em,” quoth I. +</p> + +<p> +She sniffed superciliously and gave me the change in small silver, +and I had my revenge by biting and ringing every piece of it. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you a ha’penny for another lump of sugar +in the tea,” I said. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll see you in ’ell first,” came the retort +courteous. Also, she amplified the retort courteous in divers +vivid and unprintable ways. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +While 300,000 people of London live in one-room tenements, and 900,000 +are illegally and viciously housed, 38,000 more are registered as living +in common lodging-houses—known 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 roofs leak or the walls are draughty; +but what I do mean is that life in them is degrading and unwholesome. +</p> + +<p> +“The poor man’s hotel,” they are often called, +but the phrase is caricature. Not to possess a room to one’s +self, 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 never to have any privacy, surely is a mode of existence +quite different from that of hotel life. +</p> + +<p> +This must not be considered a sweeping condemnation of the big private +and municipal lodging-houses and working-men’s homes. 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 received 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. +</p> + +<p> +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, +Whitechapel, I entered such a house, a place inhabited almost entirely +by working men. The entrance was by way of a flight 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, wrested it from me; +so I contented myself with watching other men cook and eat. +</p> + +<p> +One workman, home from work, sat down opposite me at the rough wooden +table, and began his meal. A handful of salt on the not over-clean +table constituted his butter. Into it he dipped his bread, mouthful +by mouthful, and washed it down with tea from a big mug. A piece +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 +tables, other men were eating, just as silently. 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 done that they should be punished so. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +On my return I paid 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 men were sitting around, +smoking, reading, and mending their clothes. The young men were +hilarious, the old men were gloomy. In fact, there were two types +of men, the cheerful and the sodden or blue, and age seemed to determine +the classification. +</p> + +<p> +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 preposterous and insulting notices regulating the conduct +of the guests, and at ten o’clock 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 best +accommodation, each cabin allowing space for a tiny bed and room alongside +of it in which to undress. The bedding was clean, and with neither +it nor the bed do I find any fault. But there was no privacy about +it, no being alone. +</p> + +<p> +To get an adequate idea of a floor filled with cabins, you have merely +to magnify a layer of the 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. +And this cabin is yours only for a little while. In the morning +out you go. You cannot put your trunk in it, or come and go when +you like, or lock the door behind you, or anything of the sort. +In fact, there is no door at all, only a doorway. If you care +to remain a guest in this poor man’s hotel, you must put up with +all this, and with prison regulations which impress upon you constantly +that you are nobody, with little soul of your own and less to say about +it. +</p> + +<p> +Now I contend that the least a man who does his day’s work +should have is a room to himself, where 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 carries about +with him on his back and in his pockets; where he can hang up pictures +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. +</p> + +<p> +I stood on one floor 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, scores 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. 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 were, and +heard a “harlot’s ginny laugh.” Leman Street, +Waterloo Road, Piccadilly, The Strand, answered me, and I knew where +they were. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>CHAPTER XXI.<br /> +THE PRECARIOUSNESS OF LIFE</h2> + +<p> +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. “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 rupture, or the +rheumatics, or the cholera. Wot’s she goin’ to do, +eh? Wot’s she goin’ to do?” +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head sadly. “No ’ope for ’er. +The best she cawn do is the work’ouse, an’ that’s +’ell. An’ if she don’t go to the work’ouse, +it’ll be a worse ’ell. Come along ’ith me an’ +I’ll show you women sleepin’ in a passage, a dozen of ’em. +An’ I’ll show you worse, wot she’ll come to if anythin’ +’appens to me and the ten shillings.” +</p> + +<p> +The certitude of this man’s forecast is worthy of consideration. +He knew conditions sufficiently to know the precariousness of his wife’s +grasp on food and shelter. For 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 thousands and even millions of men and women living amicably together +and co-operating in the pursuit of food and shelter. +</p> + +<p> +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 London +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. +</p> + +<p> +It is interesting to go more into detail concerning the London people +who die on charity. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +Out of 81,951 deaths in London (1884):— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +In workhouses 9,909<br /> +In hospitals 6,559<br /> +In lunatic asylums 278<br /> +Total in public refuges 16,746 +</p> + +<p> +Commenting on these figures, a Fabian writer says: “Considering +that comparatively few of these are children, it is probable that one +in every three London adults will 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.” +</p> + +<p> +These figures serve somewhat to indicate the proximity of the average +worker to pauperism. Various things make pauperism. An advertisement, +for instance, such as this, appearing in yesterday morning’s paper:— +</p> + +<p> +“Clerk wanted, with knowledge of shorthand, typewriting, and +invoicing: wages ten shillings ($2.50) a week. Apply by letter,” +&c. +</p> + +<p> +And in to-day’s paper 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 various +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 implement heavier than a pen, he said. +The magistrate sentenced him and his blistered hands to seven days’ +hard labour. +</p> + +<p> +Old age, of course, makes pauperism. And then there is the +accident, the thing happening, the death or disablement of the husband, +father, and bread-winner. Here is a man, with a wife and three +children, living on the ticklish security of twenty shillings per week—and +there are hundreds of thousands of such families in London. Perforce, +to even half exist, they must live up to the last penny of it, so that +a week’s wages (one pound) is all that stands between this family +and pauperism or starvation. The thing happens, the father is +struck 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 themselves miserably to support, determine the scale +of wages. 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-starvation, till decay and death end their suffering. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +A father indignantly 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. +</p> + +<p> +In the second case, 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 the 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.” +</p> + +<p> +Yet this mother and her three children we are considering have done +no wrong that they should be so punished. They have not sinned. +The thing happened, that 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. +</p> + +<p> +Sir A. Forwood calculates that— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +1 of every 1400 workmen is killed annually.<br /> +1 of every 2500 workmen is totally disabled.<br /> +1 of every 300 workmen is permanently partially disabled.<br /> +1 of every 8 workmen is temporarily disabled 3 or 4 weeks. +</p> + +<p> +But these are only the accidents of industry. The 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 people 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 mortality in South Africa and the Philippines fades +away to insignificance. Here, in the heart of peace, is where +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 men, women, and children, engaged in the various +industries, are killed and disabled, or are injured to disablement by +disease. +</p> + +<p> +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 where +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 years old. Slaughter! Herod did not do quite so +badly. +</p> + +<p> +That industry causes 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 Medical Officer, which is not applicable +to Liverpool alone:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +In many instances little if any sunlight could get to the courts, and the +atmosphere within the 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, <i>as flowers and plants were susceptible to +the unwholesome surroundings, and would not live</i>. +</p> + + +<p> +Mr. George Haw has compiled the following table on the three St. George’s +parishes (London parishes):— +</p> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td></td><td>Percentage of<br />Population<br />Overcrowded</td><td>Death-rate<br />per 1000</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>St. George’s West</td><td>10</td><td>13.2</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>St. George’s South</td><td>35</td><td>23.7</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td>St. George’s East</td><td>40</td><td>26.4</td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<p class="p2"> +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 +from the strongest and most splendidly-built men to be found, live, on an +average, less than forty-eight years. +</p> + +<p> +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 case of plaster is formed. +Breathing becomes more and more difficult and depressed, and finally +ceases.” +</p> + +<p> +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 the white-lead +trades. Here is a description of the typical dissolution of a +young, healthy, well-developed girl who goes to work in a white-lead +factory:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Here, after a varying degree of exposure, she becomes anæmic. It may be that +her gums show a very faint blue line, or perchance her teeth and gums are +perfectly sound, and no blue line is discernible. Coincidently with the anaemia +she has been getting thinner, but so gradually as scarcely to impress itself +upon her or her friends. Sickness, however, ensues, and headaches, growing in +intensity, are developed. These are frequently attended by obscuration of +vision or temporary blindness. Such a girl passes into what appears to her +friends and medical adviser as ordinary hysteria. This gradually deepens +without warning, until she is suddenly seized with a convulsion, beginning in +one half of the face, then involving the arm, next the leg of the same side of +the body, until the convulsion, violent and purely epileptic form in character, +becomes universal. This is attended by loss of consciousness, out of which she +passes into a series of convulsions, gradually increasing in severity, in one +of which she dies—or consciousness, partial or perfect, is regained, +either, it may be, for a few minutes, a few hours, or days, during which +violent headache is complained of, or she is delirious and excited, as in acute +mania, or dull and sullen as in melancholia, and requires to be roused, when +she is found wandering, and her speech is somewhat imperfect. Without further +warning, save that the pulse, which has become soft, with nearly the normal +number of beats, all at once becomes low and hard; she is suddenly seized with +another convulsion, in which she dies, or passes into a state of coma from +which she never rallies. In another case the convulsions will gradually +subside, the headache disappears and the patient recovers, only to find that +she has completely lost her eyesight, a loss that may be temporary or +permanent. +</p> + +<p> +And here are a few specific cases of white-lead poisoning:— +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> +Charlotte Rafferty, a fine, well-grown young woman with +a splendid constitution—who had never 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 +her, found the blue line along her gums, which shows that the system +is under the influence of the lead. He knew that the convulsions +would shortly return. They did so, and she died. +</p> + +<p> +Mary Ann Toler—a girl of seventeen, who had never had a fit +in her life—three times became ill, and had to leave off work +in the factory. Before she was nineteen she showed symptoms of +lead poisoning—had fits, frothed at the mouth, and died. +</p> + +<p> +Mary A., an unusually vigorous woman, was able to work in the lead +factory for <i>twenty years</i>, having colic once only during that +time. Her eight children all died in early infancy from convulsions. +One morning, whilst brushing her hair, this woman suddenly lost all +power in both her wrists. +</p> + +<p> +Eliza H., aged twenty-five, <i>after five months</i> at lead works, +was seized with colic. She entered another factory (after being +refused by the first one) and worked on uninterruptedly for two years. +Then the former symptoms returned, she was seized with convulsions, +and died in two days of acute lead poisoning. +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> +Mr. Vaughan Nash, speaking of the unborn generation, says: “The +children of the white-lead 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.” +</p> + +<p> +And, finally, let me instance the case of Harriet A. Walker, a young +girl of seventeen, killed while leading a forlorn hope on the industrial +battlefield. She was employed as an enamelled ware brusher, wherein +lead poisoning is encountered. Her father and brother were both +out 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. +</p> + +<p> +Depression in trade also plays an important part in hurling the workers +into the Abyss. With a week’s wages between a family and +pauperism, a month’s enforced idleness means hardship and misery +almost indescribable, and from the ravages of which the victims do not +always recover 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 past, have not averaged a weekly income of more than from four +to five shillings. The stagnated state of the shipping industry +in the port of London is held accountable for this condition of affairs. +</p> + +<p> +To the young working-man or working-woman, or married couple, there +is no assurance of happy or healthy middle life, nor of solvent old +age. Work as they will, they cannot make their future secure. +It is all 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 they 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 away 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 home and children and +all that makes life worth living and old age other than a nightmare. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>CHAPTER XXII.<br /> +SUICIDE</h2> + +<p> +With life so precarious, and opportunity for the happiness of life +so remote, it is inevitable that life shall be cheap 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 half bewildered by the amazing despatch with which drunks, disorderlies, +vagrants, brawlers, wife-beaters, thieves, fences, gamblers, and women +of the street went through the machine of justice. The dock 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. +</p> + +<p> +I was still pondering 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 caught 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. Time, night; +a splash; she ran to the lock and found the prisoner in the water. +</p> + +<p> +I flashed my gaze from her to him. So that was the charge, +self-murder. He stood there dazed and unheeding, his bonny brown +hair rumpled down his forehead, his face haggard and careworn and boyish +still. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” 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 workmen ’appened along, +and we got ’im out and turned ’im over to the constable.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +A man was now in the witness-box, testifying to the boy’s good +character and giving extenuating evidence. He was the boy’s +foreman, or had been. Alfred was a good boy, but he had had lots +of trouble at home, money matters. And then his mother was sick. +He was given to worrying, and he worried over it till he laid himself +out and wasn’t fit for work. He (the foreman), for the sake +of his own reputation, the boy’s work being bad, had been forced +to ask him to resign. +</p> + +<p> +“Anything to say?” the magistrate demanded abruptly. +</p> + +<p> +The boy in the dock mumbled something indistinctly. He was +still dazed. +</p> + +<p> +“What does he say, constable?” the magistrate asked impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Remanded,” said his Worship; and the next case was under +way, the first witness already engaged in taking the oath. The +boy, dazed and unheeding, passed out with the jailer. That was +all, five minutes from start 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 ten cents. +</p> + +<p> +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 prisoners 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 with?” demanded the indignant Mr. R. S---. +“Why did you not get under the water and make an end of it, instead +of giving us all this trouble and bother?” +</p> + +<p> +Poverty, misery, and fear of the workhouse, are the principal causes +of suicide among the working classes. “I’ll drown +myself before I go into the workhouse,” said Ellen Hughes Hunt, +aged fifty-two. Last Wednesday they held an inquest on her body +at Shoreditch. Her husband came from the Islington Workhouse to +testify. He had been a cheesemonger, but failure in business and +poverty had driven him into the workhouse, whither his wife had refused +to accompany him. +</p> + +<p> +She was last seen at one in the morning. Three hours later +her hat and jacket were found on the towing path by the Regent’s +Canal, and later her body was fished from the water. <i>Verdict: +Suicide during temporary insanity</i>. +</p> + +<p> +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, convicted, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 when she went into the Regent’s +Canal. As to which is the preferable sojourning place is a matter +of opinion, of intellectual judgment. I, for one, from what I +know of canals and workhouses, should choose the canal, were I in a +similar position. And I make bold to contend that I am no more +insane than Ellen Hughes Hunt, her husband, and the rest of the human +herd. +</p> + +<p> +Man no longer follows instinct with the old natural fidelity. +He has developed into a reasoning creature, and can intellectually cling +to life or discard life just as life happens to promise great pleasure +or pain. I dare to assert that Ellen 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 dare 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 defrauded and bilked of +all the joys of life which fifty-two years’ service in the world +had earned. +</p> + +<p> +Temporary insanity! Oh, these cursed phrases, these lies of +language, under which people with meat in their bellies and whole shirts +on their backs shelter themselves, and evade the responsibility of their +brothers and sisters, empty of belly and without whole shirts on their +backs. +</p> + +<p> +From one issue of the <i>Observer</i>, an East End paper, I quote the following +commonplace events:— +</p> + +<blockquote> +<p> +A ship’s fireman, named Johnny King, was charged +with attempting to commit suicide. On Wednesday defendant went +to Bow Police Station and stated that he had swallowed a quantity of +phosphor paste, as he was hard up and unable to obtain work. King +was taken inside and an emetic administered, when he vomited up a quantity +of the poison. Defendant now said he was very sorry. Although +he had sixteen years’ good character, he was unable to obtain +work of any kind. Mr. Dickinson had defendant put back for the +court missionary to see him. +</p> + +<p> +Timothy Warner, thirty-two, was remanded for a similar offence. +He jumped off Limehouse Pier, and when rescued, said, “I intended +to do it.” +</p> + +<p> +A decent-looking young woman, named Ellen Gray, was remanded on a +charge of attempting to commit suicide. About half-past eight +on Sunday morning Constable 834 K found defendant lying in a doorway +in Benworth Street, and she was in a very drowsy condition. She +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 coffee, ordered that she was to be kept +awake. When defendant was charged, she stated that the reason +why she attempted to take her life was she had neither home nor friends. +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> +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 insanity +among the living. Costermongers, hawkers, and pedlars, a class +of workers who live from hand to mouth more than those of any other +class, form the highest percentage of those in the lunatic 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, who are at least +sure of food and shelter, 13 per 10,000 go insane; and of farmers and +graziers, only 5.1. So a coster is twice as likely to lose his +reason as a soldier, and five times as likely as a farmer. +</p> + +<p> +Misfortune and misery are very potent in turning people’s heads, +and drive one person to the lunatic asylum, and another to the morgue +or the gallows. When the thing happens, and the father 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 torn by the sight of his +suffering wife and little ones. +</p> + +<p> +“He is a good-looking man, with a mass of black hair, dark, +expressive eyes, delicately 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.” +</p> + +<p> +Frank Cavilla lived 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 +and affectionate husband and father. +</p> + +<p> +His wife, Hannah Cavilla, was a big, handsome, light-hearted woman. +She saw to it that his children were sent neat and clean (the neighbours +all remarked the fact) to the Childeric Road Board School. And +so, with such a man, so blessed, working steadily and living temperately, +all went well, and the goose hung high. +</p> + +<p> +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 +unruly horse, and, as I say, it happened. Cavilla had to seek +fresh employment and find another house. +</p> + +<p> +This occurred eighteen months ago. For eighteen 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 manfully 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 +word; but poor folk know. The housewives of Batavia Road sent +them food, but so respectable were the Cavillas that the food was sent +anonymously, mysteriously, so as not to hurt their pride. +</p> + +<p> +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, Hannah +Cavilla, aged thirty-three. He cut the throat of his first-born, +Frank, aged twelve. He cut the throat of his son, Walter, 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 all day until the evening, when the +police came, and he told them to put a penny in the slot of the gas-meter +in order that they might have light to see. +</p> + +<p> +Frank Cavilla stood 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, and +wavy, fair moustache. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.<br /> +THE CHILDREN</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Where home is a hovel, and dull we grovel,<br /> + Forgetting the world is fair.” +</p> + +<p> +There is one beautiful sight in the East End, and only one, and it +is the children dancing in the street when the organ-grinder goes his +round. It is fascinating to watch them, the new-born, the next +generation, swaying and stepping, with pretty little mimicries and graceful +inventions all their own, with muscles that move swiftly and easily, +and bodies that leap airily, weaving rhythms never taught in dancing +school. +</p> + +<p> +I have talked with these children, here, there, and everywhere, and +they struck me as being bright 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 and form under their filth and rags. +</p> + +<p> +But there is a Pied Piper of London Town who steals them all away. +They disappear. One never sees them again, or anything 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 is a hint that she was +once one of those children who danced to the organ-grinder. Those +grotesque and lumbering steps are all that is left of the promise of +childhood. In the befogged recesses of her brain has arisen a +fleeting memory that she was once a girl. The crowd closes in. +Little girls are dancing beside her, about her, with all the pretty +graces she dimly recollects, but can no more than parody with her body. +Then she pants for breath, exhausted, and stumbles out through the circle. +But the little girls dance on. +</p> + +<p> +The children of the Ghetto possess all the qualities which make for +noble manhood and womanhood; but the Ghetto itself, like an infuriated +tigress turning on its young, turns 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. +</p> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“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 increasing body of that population +there reigns supreme . . . that condition which the French call <i>la +misère</i>, a word for which I do not think there is any exact +English equivalent. It is a condition 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 compound +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.” +</p> + +<p> +In such conditions, 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. They have no home life. In the +dens 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, overcrowding, and underfeeding. +When a father and mother live with three or four children in a room +where the children take turn 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 readily be imagined. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Dull despair and misery<br /> +Lie about them from their birth;<br /> +Ugly curses, uglier mirth,<br /> +Are their earliest lullaby.” +</p> + +<p> +A man and a woman marry and set up housekeeping in one room. Their income does +not increase with the years, though their family does, and the man is +exceedingly lucky if he can keep his health and his job. A baby comes, and then +another. This means that more room should be obtained; but these little mouths +and bodies mean additional expense and make it absolutely impossible to get +more spacious quarters. More babies come. There is not room in which to turn +around. The youngsters run the streets, and by the time they are twelve or +fourteen the room-issue comes to a head, and out they go on the streets for +good. The boy, if he be lucky, can manage to make the common lodging-houses, +and he may have any one of several ends. But the girl of fourteen or fifteen, +forced in this manner to leave the one room called home, and able to earn at +the best a paltry five or six shillings per week, can have but one end. And the +bitter end of that one end is such as that of the woman whose body the police +found this morning in a doorway in Dorset Street, Whitechapel. Homeless, +shelterless, sick, with no one with her in her last hour, she had died in the +night of exposure. She was sixty-two years old and a match vendor. She died as +a wild animal dies. +</p> + +<p> +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 stealing two shillings from a woman, which +he had spent, not for candy and cakes and a good time, but for food. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I ’ad arsked ’er, I’d got locked up for +beggin’,” was the boy’s reply. +</p> + +<p> +The magistrate knitted his brows and accepted the rebuke. Nobody +knew the boy, nor his father or mother. He was without beginning +or antecedent, a waif, a stray, a young cub seeking his food in the +jungle of empire, preying upon the weak and being preyed upon by the +strong. +</p> + +<p> +The people who try to help, who gather up the Ghetto children and +send them away on a day’s outing to the country, believe that +not very many children reach the age of ten without 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 children learn the meaning of fields and woods, so +that descriptions of country scenery in the books they read, which before +conveyed no impression, become now intelligible.” +</p> + +<p> +One day in the fields 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 hooligans to smash the policemen. +</p> + +<p> +The Rev. J. Cartmel 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; until +they sat down at last, faint and despairing, and were rescued by a kind +woman who brought them back. Evidently they had been overlooked +by the people who try to help. +</p> + +<p> +The same gentleman is authority for the statement that in a street +in Hoxton (a district of the vast East End), over seven hundred children, +between five and thirteen years, live in eighty small houses. +And he adds: “It is because London has largely shut her children +in a maze of streets and houses and robbed them of their rightful inheritance +in sky and field and brook, that they grow up to be men and women physically +unfit.” +</p> + +<p> +He tells of a member of his congregation who let a basement room +to a married couple. “They said they had two children; when +they got possession it turned out that they had four. After a +while a fifth appeared, and 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, came in and threatened my friend with +legal proceedings. He pleaded that he could not get them out. +They pleaded that nobody would have them with so many children at a +rental within their means, which is one of the commonest complaints +of the poor, by-the-bye. What was to be done? The landlord +was between two millstones. Finally he applied 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.” +</p> + +<p> +Last week the police raided a disorderly house. In one room +were found two young children. They were arrested and charged +with being inmates the same as the women had been. Their father +appeared at the trial. He stated that himself 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. +</p> + +<p> +But there is no need further to multiply instances. In London +the slaughter of the innocents goes on on a scale more stupendous than +any before in the history of the world. 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.<br /> +A VISION OF THE NIGHT</h2> + +<blockquote> +<p> +All these were years ago little red-coloured, pulpy infants, +capable of being kneaded, baked, into any social form you chose.—CARLYLE. +</p> +</blockquote> + +<p> +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 that there is nothing the +matter with the East End as a living place for men and women. +</p> + +<p> +It is rather hard to tell a tithe of what I saw. Much of it +is untenable. But in a general 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 <i>was</i> a menagerie of garmented +bipeds 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 prowled 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 elemental economy of nature, such as the +cave-men must have exhibited. But there was strength in those +meagre bodies, the ferocious, primordial strength to clutch and gripe +and tear and rend. When they spring upon their human prey they +are known even to bend the victim backward and double its body till +the back is broken. They possess 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. +</p> + +<p> +The dear soft people of the golden theatres and wonder-mansions of +the West End do not see these creatures, do not dream that they exist. +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 will 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?” “Are they men?” +</p> + +<p> +But they were not the only beasts that ranged the menagerie. +They were only here and there, lurking in dark courts and passing like +grey shadows along the walls; but the women from whose rotten loins +they spring 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. +</p> + +<p> +And there were others, strange, weird faces and forms and twisted +monstrosities that shouldered me on every side, inconceivable types +of sodden ugliness, the wrecks of society, the perambulating carcasses, +the living deaths—women, blasted by disease and drink till their +shame brought not tuppence in the open mart; and men, in fantastic rags, +wrenched by hardship and exposure out of all semblance 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 girls, 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. And I remember a lad of +fourteen, and one of six or seven, white-faced and sickly, homeless, +the pair of them, who sat upon the pavement with their backs against +a railing and watched it all. +</p> + +<p> +The unfit and the unneeded! Industry does not clamour for them. +There are no jobs going begging through lack of men and women. +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 found to toil under the sweat-shop masters for tenpence a +day of fourteen hours. Alfred Freeman crawls to muddy death because +he loses his job. Ellen 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. +</p> + +<p> +The unfit and the unneeded! The miserable and despised and +forgotten, dying in the social shambles. The progeny of prostitution—of +the 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 give +us howling and naked savagery. Far 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>CHAPTER XXV.<br /> +THE HUNGER WAIL</h2> + +<p> +“My father has more stamina than I, for he is country-born.” +</p> + +<p> +The speaker, a bright young East Ender, was lamenting his poor physical +development. +</p> + +<p> +“Look at my scrawny arm, will you.” He pulled up +his sleeve. “Not enough to eat, that’s what’s +the matter with it. Oh, not now. I have what I want to eat +these days. But it’s too late. It can’t make +up for what I didn’t have to eat when I was a kiddy. 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +He did his best, but we didn’t have enough to eat. We rarely +saw meat, and then of the worst. And it is not good for growing +kiddies to sit down to a dinner of bread and a bit of cheese, and not +enough of it. +</p> + +<p> +“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 couple 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not when they 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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. 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 per month, per family; and a constant +army of 8,000,000 lives on the border of starvation. +</p> + +<p> +A committee of the London County school board makes this declaration: “At +times, <i>when there is no special distress</i>, 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. Chronic starvation is +looked upon as a matter of course. It is only when acute starvation makes its +appearance on a large scale that they think something is unusual. +</p> + +<p> +I shall never forget the bitter wail of a blind man in a little East +End shop at the close of a murky day. He had been the eldest of +five children, with a mother and no father. Being the eldest, +he had starved and worked as a child to put bread into the mouths of +his little brothers and sisters. Not once in three months did +he ever taste meat. He never 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 from the report of the Royal Commission on the Blind, “Blindness +is more prevalent in poor districts, and poverty accelerates this dreadful +affliction.” +</p> + +<p> +But he went further, 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:— +</p> + +<pre> +Breakfast—0.75 pint 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. +</pre> + +<p> +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:— +</p> + +<p> +“The second thing from which a child suffers in prison is hunger. +The food that is given to it consists 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 astringent 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. +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. In 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 part, and was so recognised by the child, who, utterly unconscious +of the regulations of the Prison Board, told one of the senior wardens +how kind this junior warden had been to him. The result was, of +course, a report and a dismissal.” +</p> + +<p> +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 liberal as the pauper’s. +</p> + +<pre> +PAUPER DIET SOLDIER +3.25 oz. Meat 12 oz. +15.5 oz. Bread 24 oz. +6 oz. Vegetables 8 oz. +</pre> + +<p> +The adult male pauper gets meat (outside of soup) but once a week, +and the paupers “have nearly all that pallid, pasty complexion +which is the sure mark of starvation.” +</p> + +<p> +Here is a table, comparing the workhouse officer’s weekly allowance:— +</p> + +<pre> +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. +</pre> + +<p> +And as the same writer remarks: “The officer’s diet is +still more liberal than the pauper’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 sixpence +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?” +</p> + +<p> +But it is not alone the Ghetto-dweller, the prisoner, and the pauper +that starve. Hodge, of the country, does not know what it is always +to have a full belly. In truth, it is his empty belly which has +driven him to the city in such great numbers. Let us investigate +the way of living of a labourer from a parish in the Bradfield Poor +Law Union, 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:— +</p> + +<pre> + s. d. +Bread (5 quarterns) 1 10 +Flour (0.5 gallon) 0 4 +Tea (0.25 lb.) 0 6 +Butter (1 lb.) 1 3 +Lard (1 lb.) 0 6 +Sugar (6 lb.) 1 0 +Bacon or other meat (about 0.25 lb.) 2 8 +Cheese (1 lb.) 0 8 +Milk (half-tin condensed) 0 3.25 +Coal 1 6 +Beer none +Tobacco none +Insurance (“Prudential”) 0 3 +Labourers’ Union 0 1 +Wood, tools, dispensary, &c. 0 6 +Insurance (“Foresters”) and margin 1 1.75 + for clothes +Total 13 0 +</pre> + +<p> +The guardians of the workhouse in the above Union pride themselves +on their rigid economy. It costs per pauper per week:— +</p> + +<pre> + s. d. +Men 6 1.5 +Women 5 6.5 +Children 5 1.25 +</pre> + +<p> +If the labourer whose budget has been described should quit his toil +and go into the workhouse, he would cost the guardians for +</p> + +<pre> + s. d. +Himself 6 1.5 +Wife 5 6.5 +Two children 10 2.5 +Total 21 10.5 +Or roughly, $5.46 +</pre> + +<p> +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 understood fact that it is cheaper to cater +for a large number of people—buying, cooking, and serving wholesale—than +it is to cater for a small number of people, say a family. +</p> + +<p> +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), and which had, not a rent-free +cottage, but a cottage for which it paid three shillings per week. +</p> + +<p> +This must be understood, and understood clearly: <i>Whatever is true +of London in the way of poverty and degradation, is true of all England</i>. +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 decentralisation +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 the dwellers are condemned +to a poverty which destroys them physically and spiritually; that fully +one-fourth of the dwellers do not have enough to eat, 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. +</p> + +<p> +After listening to the wail of an old Irish peasant in Kerry, Robert +Blatchford asked him what he wanted. “The old man leaned +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 himself 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, <i>an’ +I want the Day av Judgment</i>.’” +</p> + +<p> +The Day of Judgment! More than he want it. From all the +land rises the 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. It would seem that 40,000,000 people are keeping +a big house, and that 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 produce bread for a thousand, and yet millions +have not enough to eat? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.<br /> +DRINK, TEMPERANCE, AND THRIFT</h2> + +<p> +The English working classes may be said to be soaked in beer. +They are 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 drunkenness, saturated in drink before they +draw their first breath, born to the smell and taste of it, and brought +up in the midst of it. +</p> + +<p> +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 it, familiarising themselves with licentiousness +and debauchery. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Grundy rules as supremely over the workers as she does over +the bourgeoisie; but in the case of the workers, the one thing she does +not frown upon is the public-house. No disgrace or shame attaches +to it, nor to the young woman or girl who makes a practice of entering +it. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 innutrition 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. +Unhealthy 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 deadened 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 impossible. +</p> + +<p> +A brief examination 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 small), the wife and mother cooks the breakfast. And in the +same room, heavy and sickening with the exhalations of their 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, +filling the pent space with soapsuds and the smell of dirty clothes, +and overhead she hangs the wet linen to dry. +</p> + +<p> +Here, in the evening, amid the manifold smells of the day, the family +goes to its virtuous couch. That is to say, as many as possible +pile into the one bed (if bed they have), and the surplus turns in on +the floor. And this is the round of their existence, month after +month, year after year, for they never get a vacation 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 kept 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 East +End woman was in trouble, because, in this fashion, being unable to +bury it, she had kept her dead child three weeks. +</p> + +<p> +Now such a room as 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 London, 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 +respectable recruiting-ground for the drink traffic. +</p> + +<p> +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 alleviation, +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 oblivion that nothing else +in their lives can bring. It even exalts them, and makes them +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. +</p> + +<p> +It is of no avail to preach temperance and teetotalism to these people. +The drink habit may be the cause of many miseries; but it is, in turn, +the effect of other and prior miseries. The temperance advocates +may preach their hearts out over the evils of drink, but until the evils +that cause people to drink are abolished, drink and its evils will remain. +</p> + +<p> +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 Good, the foul facts of their +existence and the social law that dooms one in three to a public-charity +death, demonstrate that this knowledge and yearning will be only so +much of an added curse to them. They will have so much more to +forget than if they had never known and yearned. Did Destiny to-day +bind me down to the life of an East End slave for the rest of my years, +and did Destiny grant me but one wish, I should ask that I might forget +all about the Beautiful and True and Good; that I might forget all I +had learned from the open books, and forget the people I had known, +the things I had heard, and the lands I had seen. And if Destiny +didn’t grant it, I am pretty confident that I should get drunk +and forget it as often as possible. +</p> + +<p> +These people who try to help! Their college settlements, missions, +charities, and what not, are failures. In the nature of things +they cannot 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 down to the East End as teachers and savants. 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 beyond relieving an infinitesimal fraction of +misery and collecting a certain amount of data which might otherwise +have been more scientifically and less expensively collected, they have +achieved nothing. +</p> + +<p> +As some one has said, 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 +successful 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 three farthings +a gross, when more children and violet-makers than they can cope with +are being born right along? This violet-maker handles each flower +four times, 576 handlings for three farthings, and in the day she handles +the flowers 6912 times for a wage of ninepence. She is being robbed. +Somebody is on her back, and a yearning 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, undoes at night, when +the child comes home, all that they have done for the child in the day. +</p> + +<p> +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 more of +a truth. And the lie they preach is “thrift.” +An instant will demonstrate it. In overcrowded London, the struggle +for a chance to work is keen, and because of this struggle wages sink +to the lowest means of subsistence. To be thrifty means for a +worker to spend less than his income—in other words, to live on +less. This is equivalent to a lowering of the standard of living. +In the competition for a chance to work, the man with a lower standard +of living will underbid the man with a higher standard. And a +small group of such thrifty workers in any overcrowded industry will +permanently lower the wages of that industry. And the thrifty +ones will no longer be thrifty, for their income will have been reduced +till it balances their expenditure. +</p> + +<p> +In short, thrift negates thrift. If every worker 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. And then none of the workers of England +would be thrifty, for they would be living up 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 families which have a total income of less than 21s. per +week, one quarter to one half of which must be paid for rent. +</p> + +<p> +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. 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, when 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. He +does not play with palliatives. 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 men. +</p> + +<p> +When the people who 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 Christ, they will be in better shape to +buckle down to the work they ought to be doing 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.<br /> +THE MANAGEMENT</h2> + +<p> +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 bettered the lot of man? “Man,” I +use in its democratic sense, meaning the average man. So the question +re-shapes itself: <i>Has Civilisation bettered the lot of the average +man</i>? +</p> + +<p> +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 per head. They hunt and fish for their +food with bone-headed spears and arrows. They never suffer from lack of +shelter. Their clothes, largely made from the skins of animals, are warm. They +always have fuel for their fires, likewise timber for their houses, which they +build partly underground, and in which they lie snugly during the periods of +intense cold. In the 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. In good times they feast; in bad +times they die of starvation. But starvation, as a chronic condition, present +with a large number of them all the time, is a thing unknown. Further, they +have no debts. +</p> + +<p> +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 per head. They gain +their food, not by hunting and fishing, but by toil at colossal artifices. +For the most part, they suffer from lack of shelter. The greater +number of them are vilely housed, do not have enough fuel to keep them +warm, and are insufficiently clothed. A constant 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 starvation; 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 babe that is born, is born in debt to the sum of £22. +This is because of an artifice called the National Debt. +</p> + +<p> +In a fair comparison 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; that no Innuit lacks fuel, clothing, +or housing, while the Englishman is in perpetual lack of these three +essentials. In this connection it is well to instance the judgment +of a man such as Huxley. From the knowledge gained as a medical +officer in the East End of London, and as a scientist pursuing investigations +among the most elemental savages, he concludes, “Were the alternative +presented to me, I would deliberately prefer the life of the savage +to that of those people of Christian London.” +</p> + +<p> +The creature comforts man enjoys are the products of man’s +labour. Since Civilisation has failed to give the average Englishman +food and shelter equal to that enjoyed by the Innuit, the question arises: +<i>Has Civilisation increased the producing power of the average man</i>? +If it has not increased man’s producing power, then Civilisation +cannot stand. +</p> + +<p> +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. Then arises the third and inexorable +question: <i>If Civilisation has increased the producing power of the +average man, why has it not bettered the lot of the average man</i>? +</p> + +<p> +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. +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 should have reared this +tremendous artifice in vain. It stuns the intellect. To +acknowledge so crushing a defeat is to give the death-blow to striving +and progress. +</p> + +<p> +One other alternative, and one other only, presents itself. <i>Civilisation +must be compelled to better the lot of the average man</i>. This accepted, it +becomes at once a question of business management. Things profitable must be +continued; things unprofitable must be eliminated. Either the Empire is a +profit to England, or it is a loss. If it is a loss, it must be done away with. +If it is a profit, it must be managed so that the average man comes in for a +share of the profit. +</p> + +<p> +If the struggle for commercial supremacy is profitable, continue +it. If it is not, if it hurts the worker 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. +</p> + +<p> +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 them to work ploughing game preserves and +planting potatoes. If they are profitable, continue them by all +means, but let it be seen to that the average Englishman shares somewhat +in the profits they produce by working at no occupation. +</p> + +<p> +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. 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 West End and an East End as large as the Kingdom is large, in which +one end is riotous and rotten, the other end sickly and underfed. +</p> + +<p> +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 political empire, and the English of the New World and the Antipodes +are strong and vigorous as ever. But the political 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. +</p> + +<p> +It is inevitable that this management, which has grossly and criminally +mismanaged, shall be swept away. Not only has it been wasteful +and inefficient, but it has misappropriated the funds. Every worn-out, +pasty-faced pauper, 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. +</p> + +<p> +Nor can one member 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. +</p> + +<p> +There can be no mistake. Civilisation has increased 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 who lives to-day as he lived in the stone age ten thousand years +ago. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3>CHALLENGE</h3> + +<p class="poem"> +I have a vague remembrance<br /> + Of a story that is told<br /> +In some ancient Spanish legend<br /> + Or chronicle of old.<br /> +<br /> +It was when brave King Sanchez<br /> + Was before Zamora slain,<br /> +And his great besieging army<br /> + Lay encamped upon the plain.<br /> +<br /> +Don Diego de Ordenez<br /> + Sallied forth in front of all,<br /> +And shouted loud his challenge<br /> + To the warders on the wall.<br /> +<br /> +All the people of Zamora,<br /> + Both the born and the unborn,<br /> +As traitors did he challenge<br /> + With taunting words of scorn.<br /> +<br /> +The living in their houses,<br /> + And in their graves the dead,<br /> +And the waters in their rivers,<br /> + And their wine, and oil, and bread.<br /> +<br /> +There is a greater army<br /> + That besets us round with strife,<br /> +A starving, numberless army<br /> + At all the gates of life.<br /> +<br /> +The poverty-stricken millions<br /> + Who challenge our wine and bread,<br /> +And impeach us all as traitors,<br /> + Both the living and the dead.<br /> +<br /> +And whenever I sit at the banquet,<br /> + Where the feast and song are high,<br /> +Amid the mirth and music<br /> + I can hear that fearful cry.<br /> +<br /> +And hollow and haggard faces<br /> + Look into the lighted hall,<br /> +And wasted hands are extended<br /> + To catch the crumbs that fall.<br /> +<br /> +And within there is light and plenty,<br /> + And odours fill the air;<br /> +But without there is cold and darkness,<br /> + And hunger and despair.<br /> +<br /> +And there in the camp of famine,<br /> + In wind, and cold, and rain,<br /> +Christ, the great Lord of the Army,<br /> +vLies dead upon the plain. +</p> + +<p> +LONGFELLOW +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 1688-h.htm or 1688-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/8/1688/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for +copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very +easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation +of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project +Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away--you may +do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected +by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark +license, especially commercial redistribution. +</div> + +<div style='margin:0.83em 0; font-size:1.1em; text-align:center'>START: FULL LICENSE<br /> +<span style='font-size:smaller'>THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br /> +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</span> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person +or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the +Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when +you share it without charge with others. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country other than the United States. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work +on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the +phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: +</div> + +<blockquote> + <div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most + other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions + whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms + of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online + at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you + are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws + of the country where you are located before using this eBook. + </div> +</blockquote> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project +Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg™ License. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format +other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain +Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +provided that: +</div> + +<div style='margin-left:0.7em;'> + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation.” + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ + works. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + </div> + + <div style='text-indent:-0.7em'> + • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. + </div> +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of +the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set +forth in Section 3 below. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right +of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, +Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up +to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website +and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread +public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state +visit <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/donate/">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate +</div> + +<div style='display:block; font-size:1.1em; margin:1em 0; font-weight:bold'> +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Most people start at our website which has the main PG search +facility: <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. +</div> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/1688-h/images/cover.jpg b/1688-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..91fec5a --- /dev/null +++ b/1688-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0642598 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #1688 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1688) diff --git a/old/1688.txt b/old/1688.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b704c5c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1688.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6913 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The People of the Abyss, by Jack London + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + + + + +Title: The People of the Abyss + +Author: Jack London + +Release Date: March 20, 2005 [eBook #1688] +[Last updated May 3, 2011] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS*** + + + + +Transcribed from the Thomas Nelson and Sons edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS + + +The chief priests and rulers cry:- + + "O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, + We build but as our fathers built; + Behold thine images how they stand + Sovereign and 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, + Still as thou leftest them, thy sheep." + + Then Christ sought out an artisan, + A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, + And a motherless girl whose fingers thin + Crushed from her faintly 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 have made of me." + + JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. + + + + +PREFACE + + +The experiences related in this volume 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. I was open to be convinced by +the evidence of my eyes, rather than by the teachings of those who had +not seen, or by the words of those who had seen and gone before. Further, +I took with me certain simple criteria with which to measure the life of +the under-world. That which made for more life, for physical and +spiritual health, was good; that which made for less life, which hurt, +and dwarfed, and distorted life, was bad. + +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" in England. The starvation and 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 summer 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, writing in the month of January 1903, to the New York +_Independent_, briefly epitomises 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 have exhausted their means + in trying to raise supplies of food for the famishing residents of the + garrets and cellars of London lanes and alleys. The quarters of the + Salvation Army 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 +political aggregations than by individuals. Society grows, while +political machines rack to pieces and become "scrap." For the English, +so far as manhood and womanhood and health and happiness go, I see a +broad and smiling future. But for a great deal of the political +machinery, which at present mismanages for them, I see nothing else than +the scrap heap. + +JACK LONDON. +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE DESCENT + + +"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 police for a guide," they added, on +second thought, painfully endeavouring to adjust 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 things 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 going to live there myself." + +"You don't want to _live_ down there!" everybody said, with +disapprobation writ large upon their faces. "Why, it is said there are +places where a man's life isn't worth tu'pence." + +"The very places 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 is over there, somewhere." And +they waved their hands vaguely in the direction where the sun on rare +occasions may be seen to rise. + +"Then I shall go to Cook's," I announced. + +"Oh yes," they said, with relief. "Cook's will be sure to know." + +But O Cook, O Thomas Cook & Son, path-finders and trail-clearers, living +sign-posts to all the 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 distant 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 advance 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." + +He said it so cheerfully and cold-bloodedly that on the instant I saw my +stark and mutilated cadaver stretched upon a slab where cool waters +trickle ceaselessly, and him 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," 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 Chief Office hemmed and hawed. "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 and hawed. + +"Of course," I hastily anticipated, "I know it is unprecedented, but--" + +"As I was about to remark," he went on steadily, "it is unprecedented, +and I don't think we can do anything for you." + +However, I departed 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 and my project, which he accepted as a matter +of course. In the second minute he asked my age, height, and weight, and +looked me over. 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 nobody seemed to know +anything. But at once I encountered a new difficulty in the shape of my +cabby, a grey-whiskered and eminently decorous personage who had +imperturbably driven me for several hours about the "City." + +"Drive me down 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 pursued 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," I repeated. "Nowhere in particular. Just drive me around +anywhere." + +"But wot's the haddress, sir?" + +"See here!" I thundered. "Drive me down to the East End, and at once!" + +It was evident that 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 region 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 through miles of bricks and squalor, and from each cross street and +alley flashed long vistas of bricks and misery. Here and there lurched a +drunken man or woman, and the air was obscene with sounds of jangling and +squabbling. At a market, tottery old men and women were searching in the +garbage thrown in the mud for rotten potatoes, beans, and vegetables, +while little children clustered like flies around a festering mass of +fruit, thrusting their arms to the shoulders into the liquid corruption, +and drawing forth morsels but partially 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 and 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; and 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, sir; 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 strynger 'ere," he managed to articulate. "An' if yer don't want +Stepney Station, I'm blessed if I know wotcher do want." + +"I'll tell you what I want," I said. "You drive along and keep your eye +out for a shop where old clothes are sold. Now, when you see such 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 curb and informed me that an old-clothes +shop was to be found a bit of the way back. + +"Won'tcher py me?" he pleaded. "There'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 ragged onlookers had already gathered around the cab, and +I laughed again and walked back to the old-clothes shop. + +Here the chief difficulty was in making the shopman understand that I +really and truly wanted old clothes. But after fruitless 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 man 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 with 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 with 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 coal was +shovelled, a thin leather belt, and a very dirty cloth cap. My +underclothing and socks, however, 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 yer 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 ben 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 singlet +an' hother things." + +"How much will you give me for them?" I demanded suddenly. "I paid you +ten bob for the lot, 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 aware 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 Town. + +But he drove me only to Highbury Vale, in North London, where my luggage +was waiting for me. Here, next day, I took off my shoes (not without +regret for their lightness and comfort), and my soft, grey travelling +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 have had to part with such rags for the pitiable sums +obtainable from a dealer. + +Inside my stoker's singlet, in the armpit, I sewed a gold sovereign (an +emergency sum certainly 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 quite 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 knife, 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 +"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 uncouth animal noises we are wont to designate as "laughter." + +No sooner was I out on the streets than I was impressed by the difference +in status effected by my clothes. All servility vanished 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 of my class, +which was their class. It made me of like kind, and in place of the +fawning and too respectful attention I had hitherto received, I now +shared with them a comradeship. The man in corduroy and dirty +neckerchief 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 man 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," to a +gentleman whose horse I held, and who dropped a penny into my eager palm. + +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 cheapened 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?" Also, at the railway +stations, a third-class ticket was now shoved out 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-houses, talked +with me, they talked as one man to another, and they talked as natural +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 become 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 one +exception of the stoker's singlet. + + + + +CHAPTER II--JOHNNY UPRIGHT + + +I shall not give you the address of Johnny Upright. Let it suffice that +he lives in the most respectable street in the East End--a street that +would be considered very mean in America, but a veritable oasis in the +desert of East London. It is surrounded on every side by close-packed +squalor and streets jammed by a young and vile and dirty 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 the +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 there is but one entrance, the front +door; and each house is about eighteen feet wide, with a bit of a brick- +walled yard behind, where, when it is not raining, one 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 people 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 world. + +To Johnny Upright's house I came, and to the door came the "slavey." Now, +mark you, her position in life was pitiable and contemptible, but it was +with pity and contempt that she looked at me. She evinced a plain desire +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 lingered, +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. The 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 step in?--no, the lady did not ask me, though I fished for +an invitation by stating 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, and, 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 tell me that the missus would let me come back and wait in +the kitchen. + +"So many people 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 rags with dignity. "I quite understand, I assure you. I +suppose people looking for work almost worry you to death?" + +"That they do," she answered, with an eloquent and expressive glance; and +thereupon 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, not too far distant, +into which could run now and again to assure myself that good clothes and +cleanliness still existed. Also in such port I could receive my mail, +work up my notes, and sally 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 gentleman 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. 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 +strange 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 dresses; 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 over with frank curiosity, as though I were some sort of a +strange animal, and then ignored me utterly for the rest of my wait. Then +Johnny Upright himself arrived, and I was summoned upstairs to confer +with him. + +"Speak loud," he interrupted my opening words. "I've got a bad cold, and +I can't hear well." + +Shades of Old Sleuth and Sherlock Holmes! I wondered 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 sure: +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 greeting was cordial +enough, and I went down into the dining-room to join the family at tea. + +"We are humble 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 easier for them. + +"Ha! ha!" 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 indignantly 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 deeming 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 +which 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 AND 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 added 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, that though I walked miles in irregular circles over a +large area, I still remained between. Not one empty house could I find--a +conclusive proof that the district was "saturated." + +It being plain that 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 them, 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 the 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 circumstances, 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 +door 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 this 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, sir, 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. It +_is_ shocking, sir; and just to think, only a few years ago all this +neighbourhood was just as nice as it could be." + +I looked at her. Here was a woman, of the finest grade of the English +working-class, with numerous evidences of refinement, being slowly +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 poor folk are a nomadic +breed; so they migrate eastward, wave upon wave, saturating and degrading +neighbourhood by neighbourhood, driving the better class of workers +before them to pioneer, on the rim of the city, or dragging them down, if +not in the first generation, surely in the second and third. + +It is only a question 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. He has not put up the rent on any of his houses here, and +this has enabled us to stay. But any day he may sell, or any day he may +die, which is the same thing so far as we are concerned. The house is +bought by a money breeder, who builds a sweat shop on the patch of ground +at the rear where my grapevine is, adds to the house, and rents it a room +to a family. There you are, and Johnny Upright's gone!" + +And truly I saw Johnny Upright, and his good wife and fair daughters, and +frowzy slavey, like so many ghosts flitting eastward through the gloom, +the monster city roaring at their heels. + +But Johnny Upright is not alone in his flitting. Far, far out, on the +fringe of the city, live the small business men, little managers, and +successful clerks. They dwell in cottages and semi-detached villas, with +bits of flower garden, and elbow room, and breathing space. They inflate +themselves with pride, and throw out their chests when they contemplate +the Abyss from which they have escaped, and they thank God that they are +not as other men. And lo! down upon them comes Johnny Upright and the +monster city at his heels. Tenements spring up like magic, gardens 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 whose fare I was partaking in a greasy coffee-house +down near the Pool and not very far from Limehouse. + +"Oh yus," 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 shillings out of my +pocket. The expected result was produced. + +"Yus, sir," she at once volunteered; "I 'ave nice lodgin's you'd likely +tyke a fancy to. Back from a voyage, sir?" + +"How much for a room?" I inquired, ignoring her curiosity. + +She looked me up and down with frank surprise. "I don't let rooms, not +to my reg'lar lodgers, much less casuals." + +"Then I'll have 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, respectable 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?" I demanded. + +"'Arf a crown a week, two an' six, to a regular lodger. You'll fancy the +men, I'm sure. 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 went on. "A +steady, respectable 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 he's saving money right along," I insinuated innocently. + +"Bless you, no! Nor can 'e do as well helsewhere with '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, paying two dollars and a half per month for +it, and out of his experience adjudging 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 with him. The human soul is +a lonely 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 have you been here?" I asked. + +"Thirteen years, sir; an' don't you think you'll fancy the lodgin'?" + +The while she talked she was shuffling ponderously about the small +kitchen in which she cooked the 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. "Up at half-past five," "to bed the last thing at night," +"workin' fit ter drop," thirteen years of it, and for reward, grey hairs, +frowzy clothes, stooped shoulders, slatternly figure, unending toil in a +foul and noisome coffee-house that faced on an alley ten feet between the +walls, and a waterside environment that was ugly and sickening, to say +the least. + +"You'll be hin hagain to 'ave a look?" she questioned wistfully, as I +went out of the door. + +And as I turned and 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 taken a vacation?" I asked. + +"Vycytion!" + +"A trip to the 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 likes o' me? Just fancy, now!--Mind yer +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 pulled down +across his eyes, and the fit and sag of his clothes whispered +unmistakably 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 drink up +the whole shilling. + +"My mate, 'e cut up rough las' night," he explained. "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 slept the night on a miserable bed in a miserable den, +I knew him pretty fairly for 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-born, his father a fireman and a drinker before him. As a +child, his home was the streets and the docks. He had never learned to +read, and had never felt the need for it--a vain and useless +accomplishment, he held, at least for a man of his station in life. + +He had had a mother 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 went home +except at periods when he was unfortunate in procuring his own food. +Petty 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 live and +get the wherewithal), and then the paying off and the big drunk at the +end. After that, haphazard little drunks, 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 repetition of the beastly cycle. + +"But women," I suggested, when he had finished proclaiming booze the sole +end of existence. + +"Wimmen!" He thumped his pot upon the bar and orated eloquently. "Wimmen +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, that 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 money so quick 'e +ain't 'ad 'ardly a glass. I know. I've 'ad my fling, an' I know wot's +wot. An' I tell you, where's wimmen is trouble--screechin' an' carryin' +on, fightin', cuttin', 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. "A home of your own, and all +that. Think of it, back from a voyage, little children climbing on your +knee, 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--" + +"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'll 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' well +glad to be back t' sea. A missus! Wot for? T' make you mis'rable? +Kids? Jest take my counsel, matey, an' don'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." + +Without going further 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 had never known. The +word "home" aroused nothing but unpleasant associations. In the low +wages of his father, and 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 unmoral and +materialistic, he sought the greatest possible happiness for himself, and +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 terrors for him. From the moment of his birth, all the +forces of his environment had tended to harden him, and he viewed his +wretched, inevitable future with a callousness and unconcern I could not +shake. + +And yet he was not a bad man. He was not inherently vicious and brutal. +He had normal mentality, and a more than average physique. His eyes were +blue and round, shaded 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 weak; I have seen men +sitting in the high places with weaker. + +His head was shapely, and so gracefully was it poised upon a perfect neck +that I was not surprised 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 have 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 sacrilege 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 happier in making both ends meet in a room +shared with two other men, than he would have 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 people of the Abyss to marry. They are the stones by +the builder rejected. There is no place for them, in the social fabric, +while all the forces 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 does not need +them. There are plenty, far fitter than they, clinging to the steep +slope above, and struggling frantically to slide no more. + +In short, the London Abyss is a vast shambles. Year 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 has 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." 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 Mathieson stated that she + was landlady of the house where deceased lived. Witness last saw her + alive on the previous Monday. She lived quite alone. Mr. Francis + Birch, relieving officer for the Holborn district, stated that + deceased had occupied the room in question for thirty-five years. When + witness was called, on the 1st, he found the old woman in a terrible + state, and the ambulance and coachman had to be disinfected after the + removal. Dr. Chase Fennell said death was due to blood-poisoning from + bed-sores, due to self-neglect and filthy surroundings, and the jury + returned a verdict to that 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 of +bodily strength, or of intelligence, or of fibre, or of all three, they +are inefficient or unwilling workers, and consequently unable to support +themselves . . . They are often so degraded in intellect as to be +incapable of distinguishing their right from their left hand, or of +recognising the numbers 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. 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 EDGE + + +My first impression of East London was naturally a general one. Later +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 rows of houses in little out-of-the-way streets, where artisans +dwell and where a rude sort of family life obtains. In the evenings the +men can be seen at the doors, pipes in their mouths and children 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 +stupid and heavy, without imagination. The Abyss seems to exude a +stupefying atmosphere of torpor, which wraps about them and deadens them. +Religion passes them by. The Unseen holds for them neither terror nor +delight. They are unaware of the Unseen; and 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. The +satisfied torpor in which they are sunk is the deadly inertia that +precedes dissolution. There is no progress, and with them not to +progress is to fall back and into the Abyss. In their own lives they may +only start to fall, leaving the fall to be completed by their children +and their children's children. Man always 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. Mind and body are sapped by the undermining +influences ceaselessly at work. Moral and physical stamina are broken, +and the good workman, fresh from the soil, becomes in the first city +generation a poor workman; and by the second city generation, devoid of +push and go and initiative, and actually unable physically to perform the +labour his father did, he is well on the way to the shambles at the +bottom of the Abyss. + +If nothing else, the air he breathes, and from which he never escapes, is +sufficient to weaken him 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 sulphate of lime. This +deposit had been formed 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 virility 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, carriers, omnibus +drivers, corn and timber porters, and all those who require physical +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 quality of the life is good. All human potentialities are in +it. Given proper conditions, it could live through the centuries, and +great men, heroes and masters, spring from it and make the world better +by having lived. + +I talked with a woman 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 member 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 +enterprise 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, they 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 worth had forthcome the supply +was automatically shut off. "A penny gawn in no time," she explained, +"an' the cookin' not arf done!" + +Incipient starvation had been their portion for years. Month in and +month out, they had arisen from the table able and willing 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 was a hard worker. From 4.30 in the morning till the last +light at night, she said, she had toiled at making cloth dress-skirts, +lined up and with two flounces, for seven shillings a dozen. Cloth dress- +skirts, mark you, lined 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 order to obtain employment, had to belong to the union, +which collected one shilling 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 sixpence per week--37.5 cents per week, or a fraction +over 5 cents per day. However, when the slack season came she was +discharged, though she had been taken on at such low pay with the +understanding that she was to learn the trade and work up. After that +she had been employed in a bicycle store for three years, for which she +received five shillings per week, 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. But what +of the daughters? Living like swine, enfeebled by chronic innutrition, +being sapped mentally, morally, and physically, what chance have 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 reached 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 think 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 heard 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 the +combatants. + +A lull; "You let that child alone!" child, evidently of few years, +screaming in downright 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 exhaustion. + +Voices begin to go up the scale, something like this:- + +"Yes?" + +"Yes!" + +"Yes?" + +"Yes!" + +"Yes?" + +"Yes!" + +"Yes?" + +"Yes!" + +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, blankety, 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 fibre. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--FRYING-PAN ALLEY AND A GLIMPSE OF INFERNO + + +Three of us walked down Mile End Road, 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 meetings which +have vexed the serenity of Merry England these several years back. Little +items he had been imparting to me as he walked along; of being mobbed in +parks and on tram-cars; of climbing on the platform to lead the forlorn +hope, when brother speaker after brother speaker had been dragged down by +the angry crowd and cruelly beaten; of a siege in a church, where he and +three others had taken sanctuary, and where, amid flying missiles and the +crashing of stained glass, they had fought off the mob till rescued by +platoons of constables; of pitched and giddy battles on stairways, +galleries, and balconies; of smashed windows, collapsed stairways, +wrecked lecture halls, and broken heads and bones--and then, with a +regretful sigh, he looked at me and said: "How I envy you big, strong +men! I'm such a little mite I can't do much when it comes to fighting." + +And I, walking head 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 other 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 of 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 +prodigiously 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. 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 tadpoles 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 breasts grossly naked and +libelling all the sacredness of motherhood. In the black and narrow hall +behind her we waded through a mess of young life, and essayed an even +narrower and fouler 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. 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 +"sweated." It was seven feet wide by eight long, 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 uppers, 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 the three quarts of +milk he daily required. Further, this son, weak and dying, did not taste +meat oftener than once 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, +referring 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 burned nearly all the day +and added its fumes to the over-loaded air, which was breathed, and +breathed, and breathed again. + +In good times, when 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 only the best of us can do it," he qualified. "An' then we +work twelve, thirteen, and fourteen hours a day, just as fast as we can. +An' you should see us sweat! Just running from us! If you could see us, +it'd dazzle your eyes--tacks flyin' out of mouth like from a machine. +Look at my mouth." + +I looked. The teeth were worn down by the constant 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," 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, which is +equivalent to from two dollars and a half to five dollars. The present +week was half gone, and he had earned four bob, or one dollar. And yet I +was given to understand that this was one of the better grades of +sweating. + +I looked out of the 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 which people +lived. The roofs of these 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 fish 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 breasts grossly naked and waded anew through the cheap young +life. + +We next visited the 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 people 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," 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 Christ's Church, at three o'clock in the afternoon, I saw a +sight I never wish to see again. There are no flowers in 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 Town, so that homeless men and women may not come in at night +and sleep upon it. + +As we entered the garden, an old woman, between fifty and sixty, passed +us, striding with sturdy 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 home +with her. In the two sacking-covered bundles were her household goods, +her wardrobe, linen, and dear feminine possessions. + +We went up the narrow gravelled walk. On the benches 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 was a welter of rags and filth, of all manner +of loathsome skin diseases, open sores, bruises, grossness, indecency, +leering monstrosities, and bestial faces. A chill, raw wind was blowing, +and these creatures huddled there in their rags, sleeping for the most +part, or trying to sleep. Here were a dozen women, ranging in age from +twenty years to seventy. Next a babe, possibly of nine months, lying +asleep, flat on the hard bench, with neither pillow nor covering, nor +with any one looking after it. Next half-a-dozen men, sleeping bolt +upright or leaning against one another in their sleep. In one place a +family group, a child asleep in its sleeping mother's arms, and the +husband (or male mate) clumsily mending a dilapidated shoe. On another +bench a woman trimming the frayed strips of her rags with a knife, and +another woman, with thread and needle, sewing up rents. Adjoining, a man +holding a sleeping woman in his arms. Farther on, a man, his clothing +caked with gutter mud, asleep, with head in the lap of a woman, not more +than twenty-five years old, and also asleep. + +It was this sleeping that puzzled me. Why were nine out of ten of them +asleep or trying to sleep? 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_. 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 curious by our intrusion. + +"A lung of London," 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 sake 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. I have made two attempts now, and I shall shortly make a +third. The first time I started out at seven 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 mistake of +tardiness. Seven o'clock in 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 homeless, 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 friend, 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 line was formed, which +strung out around the corner of the building and out of sight. + +It was a most woeful 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 might 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 hearty, 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 eyes; +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 have 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 service . . . " + +How correct I was in my surmise, and how peculiarly appropriate the verse +was, you shall learn. + +"I won't stand it much longer, I won't," he was complaining to the man on +the other side of him. "I'll smash a windy, a big 'un, an' get run in +for fourteen days. Then I'll have a good place to sleep, never fear, an' +better grub than you get here. Though I'd miss my bit of bacey"--this as +an after-thought, and said regretfully and resignedly. + +"I've been out 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 come to this. I'm tellin' +you sure. Seven an' eighty years am I, an' served my country like a man. +Three good-conduct stripes and the Victoria Cross, an' 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 rushed 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 world. + +Given encouragement, 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, dates, 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 quite in keeping to take +notes at the poorhouse door. He had been through the "First War in +China," as he termed it; had enlisted with the East India Company and +served ten years in India; was back in India again, in the English navy, +at the time of the Mutiny; had served in the Burmese War and in the +Crimea; and all this 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 +particular 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 stripes, 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. 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 mind 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 due 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 offence); 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 moved 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 thing: _this being +Wednesday, none of us would be released till Friday morning_. +Furthermore, 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. Sometimes, I was told, it was returned on leaving and sometimes +it was destroyed. + +The old man-of-war'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, went 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 the line moved up, and we were slowly but surely +approaching the wicket. At the moment we happened to be standing on an +iron grating, and a man appearing underneath, the old sailor called down +to him,-- + +"How many more 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 about me. It is +not a nice thing, hungry and penniless, to face a sleepless night in the +streets. But we hoped against hope, till, when ten stood outside the +wicket, the porter turned us away. + +"Full up," 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 casual wards, as to +where we should go. They decided on the Poplar Workhouse, three miles +away, and we started 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, night +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 looked it, lean and wiry, with shrewd, observant eyes, +and hands that had grown twisted to the handles of tools through forty- +seven years' work at the trade. The chief difficulty with these men was +that they were old, and that their children, instead of growing up to +take care of them, had died. Their years had 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, turned 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 age, +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! 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 could endure so much and live. Should 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 benches are few and far between; but if rest means sleep, on +you must go, dragging your tired body through the endless streets. Should +you, in desperate slyness, seek some forlorn alley or dark passageway and +lie down, the omnipresent policeman will rout you out just the same. It +is his business to rout you out. It is a law of the powers that be that +you shall be routed out. + +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 admiring 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 sixty, 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 and days--O dear, soft people, full of meat +and blood, how can you ever understand? + +I walked up Mile End Road between the Carter and the Carpenter. Mile End +Road is a wide thoroughfare, cutting the heart of East London, and there +were tens of thousands of people abroad on it. I tell you this so that +you may fully appreciate what I shall describe in the next paragraph. As +I say, we walked along, and when 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 believe, 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 while +looking for a ship. This accounted for my ignorance of English ways in +general and casual wards in particular, and my curiosity concerning the +same. + +The Carter was hard put to keep the pace at which we walked (he told me +that he had eaten nothing 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 which reminded me strongly of the plains +wolf or coyote. Both kept their eyes upon the pavement as they walked +and talked, and every now and then one or the other would stoop and pick +something up, never missing the stride the while. I thought it was cigar +and cigarette 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 cracked 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 chewed 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, +naturally, their guts a-reek with pavement offal, they talked of bloody +revolution. They talked as anarchists, fanatics, and madmen would talk. +And who shall blame them? In spite of my three good meals that day, and +the snug bed I could occupy if I wished, and my social philosophy, and my +evolutionary belief in the slow development and metamorphosis of +things--in spite of all this, I say, I felt impelled to talk rot with +them or hold my tongue. Poor fools! Not of their sort are revolutions +bred. And when they are dead and dust, which will be shortly, other +fools will talk bloody revolution as they gather offal from the spittle- +drenched sidewalk along Mile End Road to Poplar Workhouse. + +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," 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 make 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. I go to the +casual ward for a bed. Must be there by two or three in the afternoon or +I won't get in. You saw what happened to-day. What chance does that +give me to look for work? S'pose I do get into the casual ward? Keep me +in all day to-morrow, let me out mornin' o' next day. What then? The +law sez I can't get in another casual ward that night less'n ten miles +distant. Have to hurry an' walk to be there in time that day. What +chance does that give me to look for a job? S'pose I don't walk. S'pose +I look for a job? In no time there's night come, an' no bed. No sleep +all night, nothin' to eat, what shape am I in the mornin' to look for +work? Got to make up my sleep in the park somehow" (the vision of +Christ's Church, Spitalfield, was strong on me) "an' get something to +eat. An' there I am! Old, down, an' no chance to get up." + +"Used to be a toll-gate 'ere," said the Carter. "Many's the time I've +paid my toll 'ere in my cartin' days." + +"I've 'ad three 'a'penny rolls in two days," the Carpenter announced, +after a long pause in the conversation. "Two of them I ate yesterday, +an' the third to-day," he concluded, after another long pause. + +"I ain't 'ad anything to-day," said the Carter. "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." + +But what surprised 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. Having taken a cold bath on entering, I would be +given for supper six ounces of bread and "three parts of skilly." "Three +parts" means three-quarters of a pint, and "skilly" is a fluid concoction +of three quarts of oatmeal stirred into three buckets and a half of hot +water. + +"Milk and sugar, I suppose, and a silver spoon?" I queried. + +"No fear. Salt's what you'll get, an' I've seen some places where you'd +not get any spoon. 'Old 'er up an' let 'er run down, that's 'ow they do +it." + +"You do get good skilly at 'Ackney," said the Carter. + +"Oh, wonderful skilly, that," praised the Carpenter, and each looked +eloquently at the other. + +"Flour an' water at St. George's in the East," said the Carter. + +The Carpenter nodded. 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 always 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 now 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 blessed day." + +"Then what?" + +"Then you've got to do your task, pick four pounds of oakum, or clean an' +scrub, or break ten 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. +You'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 stones, 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 it 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 task an' 'ave +supper, same as before, three parts o' skilly any six ounces o' bread. +Then to bed, six o'clock, an' next mornin' you're turned loose, provided +you'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. And then, as the last light was fading from the drab-coloured +sky, the wind blowing cheerless and cold, we stood, with our pitiful +little bundles in our hands, a forlorn group at the workhouse door. + +Three working girls came along, and one looked pityingly at me; as she +passed I followed her with my eyes, and she still looked pityingly back +at me. The old men she did not notice. Dear Christ, she pitied me, +young and vigorous and strong, but she had no pity for the two old men +who stood by my side! She was a young woman, and I was a young man, and +what vague sex promptings impelled her to pity me put her sentiment on +the lowest plane. Pity for old men is an altruistic feeling, and +besides, the workhouse door is the accustomed place for old men. So she +showed no pity for them, only for me, who deserved it least or not at +all. Not in honour do grey hairs go down to the grave in London Town. + +On one side the door 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 terrified voice. "Not so 'ard!" + +I let go, and they looked reproachfully at me, as though I had imperilled +their chance for a bed and three parts of skilly. Nobody came. Luckily +it was the wrong bell, and I felt better. + +"Press the button," I said to the Carpenter. + +"No, no, wait a bit," the Carter hurriedly interposed. + +From all of which I drew the conclusion that a poorhouse porter, who +commonly draws a yearly salary 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 forefinger 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 coming +of the porter. + +He came. He barely looked at us. "Full up," he said and shut the door. + +"Another night 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 in 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 frightened. + +It will be remembered, 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 gone 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 fortune 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, seeking 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 you 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 they could +understand that I was no pauper. 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!" 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 tea, that," said the Carpenter. + +They each drank two pints of it, and I assure you that it was slops. It +resembled tea less than lager beer resembles champagne. Nay, it was +"water-bewitched," and did not resemble tea at all. + +It was curious, after 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 bullet 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 +themselves. 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 went to the hospital for three months. Then he was done for. +He came out weak, debilitated, no strong young son to stand by him, his +little business gone glimmering, and not a farthing. The thing had +happened, and the game 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 +were putting up the stands for the first Coronation parade. "An' I got +fair sick of the answer: 'No! no! no!' It rang in my ears 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 gone 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, had +been lost in Egypt. The Carpenter had not gone into the army, so here he +was, still on the planet. + +"But 'ere, give me your 'and," he said, ripping open his ragged shirt. +"I'm fit for 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 under 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. "A good missus and three bonnie +lassies. But they all died. Scarlet 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 able to eat a workhouse breakfast in the morning." + +"Nor I," agreed the Carpenter, and they fell to discussing belly delights +and the fine dishes their respective wives had cooked in the old days. + +"I've gone three days and never broke my fast," said the Carter. + +"And I, five," his companion added, turning gloomy with the memory of it. +"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 vitals 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 than +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, these two men. +They were merely old, and their children had undutifully failed to grow +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 their 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 said, "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 have 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 hand. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--THE SPIKE + + +First of all, I must beg forgiveness of my body for the vileness through +which I have dragged it, and forgiveness of my stomach for the vileness +which I have thrust into it. I have been to the spike, and slept 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. They did not "let in" till six, but at that early hour +I was number twenty, while the news had gone forth that only twenty-two +were to be admitted. 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." + +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. But they made +up for it, discussing and comparing the more loathsome features of their +disease in the most cold-blooded, matter-of-fact way. I learned that the +average mortality 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 the +other three weeks. Their faces were badly pitted (though each assured +the other that this was not so), and further, they showed me in their +hands and under the nails the smallpox "seeds" still working out. Nay, +one of them worked a seed out for my edification, and pop it went, right +out of his flesh into the air. I tried to shrink up smaller inside my +clothes, and I registered a fervent though silent hope that it had not +popped on me. + +In both instances, I found that the smallpox was the cause of their being +"on the doss," which means on the tramp. Both 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 found any, and they had come to the spike for a "rest up" after three +days 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 the +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 beside 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 hours, and told him to get along. But 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 to earn a living was by heavy work. He is now incapable of +performing heavy work, and from now until he dies, the spike, 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 prison to them, a +prison from which there was no hope of escape. It was impossible for +them to get away. They could neither scrape 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. 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 +scrape 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 get me out of the country. +These they no longer possessed. Age and English hardship had broken +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 period he had been out of +work was twelve hours. He had saved his money, grown too prosperous, and +returned to the mother-country. Now he was standing 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 saved, 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 would 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 all of that, in many +ways very human. 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 climb 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 joy of this act lies in that +it was service of love, not hire. The carter was poor, and the man knew +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 her ear. From all of which one may +conclude many things. He certainly liked her well enough to wish her to +be neat and tidy. He was proud of her, standing there 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. Plenty of people were too +slow to pick hops and made a failure of it. A man, to succeed, must use +his head 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 mate 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 was quick. 'E was jest nat'rally born to it, 'e was." + +Two pound ten--twelve dollars and a half--for a month's work when one is +"jest nat'rally born to it!" And in addition, sleeping out without +blankets and living the Lord knows how. There are moments when I am +thankful that I was not "jest nat'rally born" a genius for anything, not +even 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 should 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' +wegetables, an' a bit o' meat, now an' again, if you're goin' to do work +as is work. Cawn't do it on cold wittles. Tell you wot you do, lad. Run +around in the mornin' an' look in the dust pans. You'll find plenty o' +tins to cook in. Fine tins, wonderful good some o' them. Me an' the ole +woman got ours that way." (He pointed at the bundle she held, while she +nodded proudly, beaming on me with good-nature and consciousness of +success and prosperity.) "This overcoat is as good as a blanket," he +went on, advancing the skirt of it that I might feel its thickness. "An' +'oo knows, I may find a blanket before long." + +Again the old woman 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. 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 wondered 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 which 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 one in the +afternoon till six, our ragged spike line is the principal feature of the +view commanded by their front doors and windows. One workman sat in his +door directly opposite us, taking his rest and a breath of air after the +toil of the day. His wife came to chat with him. The doorway was too +small for two, so she stood up. Their babes sprawled before them. And +here 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 been 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 birth, condition of destitution, +and the previous night's "doss," were taken 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 +lied every man who entered. As I passed 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 +certainly must have been unleavened. + +The light was very dim down in the cellar, and before I knew it some +other man had thrust a pannikin into my other hand. Then I stumbled 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 were suffering from tired feet, and they prefaced the +meal by removing their shoes and unbinding the filthy rags with which +their feet were wrapped. This added to the general noisomeness, while it +took away from my appetite. + +In fact, I found that I had made a mistake. I had eaten a hearty dinner +five hours before, and to have done justice to the fare before 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. The +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 texture, unseasoned, gross, and bitter. This bitterness which +lingered persistently in the mouth after the skilly had passed on, I +found especially repulsive. I struggled manfully, but was mastered by my +qualms, and half-a-dozen mouthfuls of skilly and bread was the measure of +my success. The man beside me ate his own share, 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 spike +goin'. Y'oughto see some of them. Search you to the skin." + +The pannikins scraped clean, conversation began to spring up. "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 +tellin' 'ow a mug gets out o' the spike, wi' a crust in 'is pockit. An' +w'en 'e sees a nice ole gentleman 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 darkness 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' blessed 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 through Kent," went on the first voice, still more angrily, "an' +Gawd blimey if I see any tommy. An' I always 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 chaps 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 London the year 'round. Nor do they think of lookin' for a kip +[place to sleep], till nine or ten o'clock at night." + +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 an' 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 blessed 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 two said they'd be blessed if they do it, an' they +didn't; but I kept wearin' into 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 these men, nay, all of them, I found, do not like the +spike, and only come to it when driven in. After the "rest 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 constitutions, and they realise it, though only in a +vague way; while it is so much the common run of things that they do not +worry about it. + +"On the doss," they call vagabondage here, which corresponds to "on the +road" in the United States. The agreement 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. 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 hastily 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. This was a long, narrow room, traversed by two +low iron rails. Between these rails were stretched, not hammocks, but +pieces of canvas, six feet long and less than two feet wide. These were +the beds, and they were six inches apart and about eight inches above the +floor. The chief difficulty was that the head was somewhat higher than +the feet, which caused the body constantly to slip down. Being slung to +the same rails, when one man moved, no matter how slightly, the rest were +set rocking; and whenever I dozed somebody was sure to struggle back to +the position from which he had slipped, and arouse me again. + +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 +sickening, while my imagination broke loose, and my skin crept and +crawled till I was nearly frantic. Grunting, groaning, 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. At any rate, I +woke the living, and 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 where 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 other 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 +disinfectant. + +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 clutter the earth with their presence, and +are better out of the way. Broken by hardship, ill fed, and worse +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. We were sprinkling disinfectant by the mortuary, when the +dead waggon drove up and five bodies were packed into it. The +conversation turned to 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 much 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 whether this be actually so or not. The point +is, they have the feeling that it is so, and they have created the +language 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, and the hospital scraps. These were heaped high +on a huge platter in an indescribable mess--pieces of bread, chunks 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. 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 "out 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 into 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 was 'slingin' my 'ook' [running away]. +But jest before 'e got me, I got a ole woman 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 performed 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. 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, let'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. "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," said I, with an enthusiasm they could not comprehend; and, +dodging out the gate, I sped down the street. + +Straight to my room I hurried, changed my clothes, and less than an hour +from my escape, in a Turkish 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" means 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 falling heavily when the theatres let out, and the brilliant +throng which poured from the places of amusement was hard put to find +cabs. The streets were so many wild rivers 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 took 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 meat for a week or a month, is about as +severe a hardship as a man can undergo. Well fed and well clad, I have +travelled 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 was a mere nothing compared with carrying the banner for a +night, ill fed, ill clad, 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 and women and boys taking +shelter in the lee of buildings from the wind and rain. Piccadilly, +however, was not quite so deserted. Its pavements were brightened by +well-dressed women without escort, and there was more life and action +there than elsewhere, due to the process of finding escort. But by three +o'clock the last of them 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 the protection of the +buildings, and slouched up and down and everywhere, in order 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 sense 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 progressed 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 one 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 you get some sleep in order +that you may have strength to look for work and to do work in case you +find it. + +So I sat down on the stone steps of a building. Five minutes later a +policeman was looking at me. My eyes were wide open, so he only grunted +and passed on. Ten minutes later my head was on my knees, I was dozing, +and the same policeman was saying gruffly, "'Ere, you, get outa that!" + +I got. And, like the old woman, I continued to get; for every time I +dozed, a policeman was there to rout me along again. Not long after, +when I had given this up, I was walking with a young Londoner (who had +been out to the colonies and wished he were out to them again), when I +noticed an open passage leading under a building and disappearing in +darkness. A low iron gate barred the entrance. + +"Come on," I said. "Let's climb over 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 over the fence," I proposed, "and crawl into the shrubbery for +a sleep. The bobbies couldn't find us there." + +"No fear," he answered. "There's the park guardians, and they'd run you +in for six months." + +Times have changed, alas! When I was a youngster I used to read of +homeless boys sleeping in doorways. Already the thing has become a +tradition. As a stock situation it will doubtless linger in literature +for a century to come, but as a cold fact it has ceased to be. Here are +the doorways, and 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 carry 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, entered Green Park. It was raining +again, but they were worn out with the night's walking, and they were +down on the benches and asleep at once. Many 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 bold only to +criticise the ridiculousness of their decrees. All night long they make +the homeless ones walk up and down. They drive 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 and good, the powers have the +power to deprive them of sleep, or of anything else 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? If it is +their intention to deprive 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? + +In this connection, 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 was fitfully +appearing, and the well-dressed West Enders, with their wives and +progeny, were out by thousands, taking the air. It was not a pleasant +sight for them, those horrible, unkempt, sleeping vagabonds; while the +vagabonds themselves, I know, would rather have done their 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. Know that the powers +that be have kept them walking all the night long, and that in the day +they have nowhere else to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--THE PEG + + +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 penniless man +looking for work, I had to look about me, first for a breakfast, and next +for the work. + +During the night I had heard of a place over on the Surrey side of the +Thames, where the Salvation Army every Sunday morning gave away a +breakfast to the unwashed. (And, by the way, the men who carry the +banner are unwashed in the morning, and unless it is raining they do not +have much show for a wash, either.) This, 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 obtained. + +Here was a motley crowd of woebegone wretches who had spent the night in +the rain. Such prodigious misery! and so much of it! Old men, young +men, all manner of men, and boys to boot, and all manner of boys. Some +were drowsing standing up; half a score of them were stretched out on the +stone steps in most painful postures, 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 occupants, all asleep, their heads +bent forward on their knees. And, it must be remembered, these are not +hard times in England. Things are going on very much as they ordinarily +do, and times are neither hard nor easy. + +And then came the policeman. "Get outa that, 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 passed on, and back we clustered, like flies around a honey +jar. For was there not that wonderful thing, 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, when back came the policeman and away we scattered only to return +again as soon as the coast was clear. + +At half-past seven 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 greatly envied. They were permitted to 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 and 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 somehow, and found +ourselves packed in a courtyard like sardines. On more occasions than +one, as a Yankee tramp in Yankeeland, I have had to work for my +breakfast; but for no breakfast 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 +bodies, steaming from pent animal heat, and blocked solidly about me, +nearly turned my stomach. So tightly were we packed, 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 make here is of that particular portion of the +Salvation Army which does business on Blackfriars Road near the Surrey +Theatre. 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 exhausted from our night's +hardship and lack of sleep, and yet there we stood, and stood, and stood, +without rhyme or reason. + +Sailors were very plentiful in this crowd. It seemed to me that one man +in four was looking for a ship, and I found at least a dozen of them to +be American sailors. In accounting for their being "on the beach," I +received the same story 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 long 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. Very 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 somewhat 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; for it would be poor business +policy to sign them for any longer time, since seamen's wages are low in +England, and England is always crowded with sailormen on the beach. So +this fully accounted for the American seamen at the Salvation Army +barracks. To get off the beach in other outlandish places they had come +to England, and gone on the beach in the most outlandish 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." +They were all cheerful, facing things with the pluck which is their chief +characteristic 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 uses on +any and every occasion. Far different is the luminous and varied Western +swearing, which runs to blasphemy rather than indecency. And after all, +since men will swear, I think I prefer blasphemy to indecency; there is +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. When the policeman routed him out, he got up slowly and +deliberately, looked at the policeman, yawned and stretched himself, +looked at the policeman again as much as to say he didn't know whether he +would or wouldn't, and then sauntered leisurely down the sidewalk. At +the outset I was sure of the hat, but this made me sure of the wearer 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 feat of beating his way three +hundred miles on a French railway without being caught at the finish. +Where was I hanging out? he asked. And how did I manage for +"kipping"?--which means sleeping. Did I know the rounds yet? He was +getting on, though the country was "horstyl" and the cities were "bum." +Fierce, wasn't it? Couldn't "batter" (beg) anywhere without being +"pinched." But he wasn't going to quit it. Buffalo Bill's Show was +coming over soon, and a man who could drive eight horses was sure of a +job any time. These mugs over here didn't know beans about driving +anything more than a span. What was the matter with me hanging on and +waiting for Buffalo Bill? He was sure I could ring in somehow. + +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 hat at sight of it, and he was as solicitous for my welfare +as if we were blood brothers. We swapped all manner of useful +information concerning the country and the ways of its people, methods by +which to obtain food and shelter and what not, and we parted genuinely +sorry 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, looked 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," was 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 stood quietly in this packed courtyard. Then the men +began to grow restless. There was pushing and shoving forward, and a +mild hubbub of voices. Nothing rough, however, nor violent; merely the +restlessness of weary and hungry men. At this juncture forth came the +adjutant. I did 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, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he +cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it." + +Well, he looked at us in just that way, and those nearest to him quailed. +Then he lifted his voice. + +"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 he was a man in authority, able +to say to half a thousand ragged wretches, "you 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 instantly fell attested its +awfulness. And it was a cowardly threat. We could 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 +adjutant--was not satisfied. In the dead silence 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" washed but unfed. All told, there must have been nearly +seven hundred of us who sat down--not to meat or bread, 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 too 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. 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. And second, weary and exhausted from the night's +sleeplessness and hardship, suffering from the long wait upon their feet, +and faint from hunger, they were yearning, not for salvation, but for +grub. The "soul-snatchers" (as these men call all religious +propagandists), 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. 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 +needed. I gave part of my bread to the tramp royal who was waiting for +Buffalo Bill, and he was as ravenous at the end as 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 the men had been waiting since five +o'clock for it, while all of us had waited at least 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 prayed 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 signs 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. 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 left them to their fate, and +went up to the nearest Salvation Army man. + +"I want to go," I said. "I came here for breakfast in order that I might +be in shape to look for work. I didn't think it would take so long to +get breakfast. I think I have a chance for work in Stepney, and the +sooner I start, the better chance I'll have of getting it." + +He was really a good fellow, though he was startled by my request. "Wy," +he said, "we're goin' to 'old services, and you'd better sty." + +"But that will spoil my chances for work," I urged. "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. "The idea!" he snorted. "The idea!" + +"Do you mean to say that I can't get out of here?" I demanded. "That you +will keep me here against 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 me +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 all night, and I needed a breakfast in order to strengthen me +to find work. That is why I came here." + +"A nice thing 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 backing 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 +informed a couple of privates standing there that "'ere is a fellow that +'as business an' 'e wants to go before services." + +They were duly shocked, of course, and they looked unutterable horror +while he went into the 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," he said. + +It was twelve o'clock 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 that I had done a hard night's work walking the streets, +and a hard day's work getting my breakfast; so I disconnected myself from +my working hypothesis of a starving 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 evening when I closed +my eyes. When they opened again, the clocks were striking nine next +morning. I had slept fifteen straight hours. And as I lay there +drowsily, my mind went back to the seven hundred unfortunates I had left +waiting for services. No bath, no shave for them, no clean white sheets +and all clothes off, and fifteen hours' straight sleep. Services over, +it was the weary streets again, the problem of a crust of bread ere +night, and the long sleepless night in the streets, and the pondering of +the problem of how to obtain a crust at dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--CORONATION DAY + + + O thou that sea-walls sever + From lands unwalled by seas! + Wilt thou endure forever, + O Milton's England, these? + Thou that wast his Republic, + Wilt thou clasp their knees? + These royalties rust-eaten, + These worm-corroded lies + That keep thy head storm-beaten, + And sun-like strength of eyes + From the open air and heaven + 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 never 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 the 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 coming 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. The 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 Trafalgar Square, "the most splendid site in Europe," and the +very innermost heart of the empire. There were many thousands of us, all +checked and held in order by a superb display of armed power. The line +of march was double-walled with soldiers. The base of the Nelson Column +was triple-fringed with bluejackets. Eastward, at the entrance to the +square, stood the Royal Marine Artillery. In the triangle of Pall Mall +and Cockspur Street, the statue of George 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 the reserves--tall, +well-fed men, with weapons to wield and muscles to wield them in ease of +need. + +And as it was thus at Trafalgar Square, so was it along the whole line of +march--force, overpowering 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 stamp out life. And that they should 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 +England, 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 explains the other. We cannot +understand the 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 Samuel, and said: "Make us a king to judge us like all the +nations." + + And the Lord said unto Samuel: 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 words of the Lord unto the people that asked + of him a king, and he said: + + This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you; he will + take your sons, and appoint them unto him, for his chariots, and to be + his horsemen, and they shall run before his chariots. + + And he will appoint them unto him for captains of thousands, and + captains of fifties; and he will set some to plough his ground, and to + reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and the + instruments of his chariots. + + And he will take your daughters 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 menservants, and your maidservants, and your + goodliest young men, and 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 that day because of your king which ye shall + have chosen you; and the 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 chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you +with scorpions." + +And in these latter 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 produced by all the toilers of the country. + +At the Abbey, clad 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 presented him +by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with these words:- + + Receive this kingly sword brought 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, help 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. Then a royal carriage, filled with ladies and +gentlemen of the household, with powdered footmen and coachmen most +gorgeously arrayed. More carriages, lords, and chamberlains, 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 Town, 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 England, 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 come, 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, princes 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, Australia, +New Zealand; from Bermuda, Borneo, Fiji, and the Gold Coast; from +Rhodesia, Cape Colony, Natal, Sierra Leone and Gambia, Nigeria, and +Uganda; from Ceylon, Cyprus, Hong-Kong, Jamaica, and Wei-Hai-Wei; from +Lagos, Malta, St. Lucia, Singapore, Trinidad. And here the conquered men +of Ind, swarthy horsemen and sword wielders, fiercely barbaric, blazing +in crimson and scarlet, Sikhs, Rajputs, Burmese, province by province, +and caste by caste. + +And now the Horse Guards, a glimpse of beautiful cream ponies, and a +golden panoply, a hurricane 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 beside 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 with the crowd +out of the square into a tangle of narrow streets, where the +public-houses are a-roar with drunkenness, men, women, and children mixed +together in colossal debauch. And on every side is rising the favourite +song of the Coronation:- + + "Oh! on Coronation Day, on Coronation Day, + We'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 pouring down. Up the street come troops 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 Park. + +"'Ow did I like it? A bloomin' good chawnce, sez I to myself, for a +sleep, wi' all the coppers aw'y, so I turned into the corner 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 flaming gas, was everywhere. The +crowds in the streets increased by hundreds of thousands, and though the +police sternly put down mafficking, drunkenness and rough play abounded. +The tired workers seemed to have gone mad with the relaxation and +excitement, and they surged and danced 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, ennyseckle, Oi em ther bee, + Oi'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 before me poured the better +class of merrymakers, shunning the more riotous streets and returning +home. On the bench beside me sat two ragged creatures, a man and a +woman, nodding and dozing. 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. This 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 passed the bench while I sat upon it, and not one, on such a +jubilee occasion as the 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 Briticism, it was "cruel"; the corresponding Americanism was +more appropriate--it was "fierce." 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 demonstrate 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 benches 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 +London, 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 poor 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 was 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 belly 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." + +"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 singing in high throaty notes:- + + "Oh! on Coronation D'y, on Coronation D'y, + We'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 this d'y, an' I enjoyed it, though +it was lonesome by myself. An' the duchesses an' the lydies 'ad sich +gran' w'ite dresses. They 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." + +"H-a-y-t-h-o-r-n-e, Eyethorne.' + +"Oh," I said, "Irish Cockney." + +"Yes, sir, London-born." + +She had lived happily at home till her father died, killed in an +accident, when she had found herself 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. 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." + +The last place in which she had worked was a coffee-house, hours from +seven in the morning till eleven at night, and for which she had received +five shillings a week and her food. Then she had fallen sick, and since +emerging from the hospital had been unable to find anything to do. She +wasn't feeling up to much, and the last two nights had been spent in the +street. + +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 rags good clothes! It +put me to the blush; but, on inspecting them more closely and on +examining the clothes worn 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," said he. + +"Gawd blimey if I do," said she. "There's no 'ope for me, I know, but +I'll die on the streets. No work'ouse for me, thank you. No, indeed," +she sniffed in the silence that fell. + +"After you have been out all night in the streets," I asked, "what do you +do in the morning for something to eat?" + +"Try to get a penny, if you 'aven't one saved over," the man explained. +"Then go 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 your tea in little sips," he went on, "making it last its +longest. An' you look sharp, an' there's some as leaves a bit be'ind +'em." + +"It's s'prisin', 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, and 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. He was staring out over the water and thinking, +which is not a good thing for a shelterless man with a family to do. It +would not be a pleasant thing to speculate upon his thoughts; but this I +know, and all London knows, that the cases of out-of-works killing their +wives and babies is not an uncommon happening. + +One cannot walk along the Thames Embankment, in the small hours of +morning, from the Houses of Parliament, past Cleopatra's Needle, to +Waterloo Bridge, without being reminded 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 the fatherless, they take the widow's ox + for a pledge. + + They turn the needy out of the 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 without clothing, and have no covering in the + cold. + + They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock + for want of a shelter. + + 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 all 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 one of the "Municipal Dwellings," not +far from Leman Street. If I looked into a dreary future and 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 language will no more permit it to be +called a room than it will permit a hovel to be called a mansion. It was +a den, a lair. Seven feet by eight were 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 chair, and a couple of boxes +left little space in which to turn around. Five dollars would have +purchased everything in sight. The floor was bare, while the walls and +ceiling were literally covered with blood marks and splotches. Each mark +represented a violent death--of an insect, for the place swarmed with +vermin, a plague with 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 personality 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 told, and had read history, +sociology, and economics. And he was self-educated. + +On the table, amidst a wonderful disarray, lay a sheet of paper on which +was scrawled: _Mr. Cullen, 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 must be harrowed by the sordidness out of which +it strove vainly to rise. + +It is a brief little 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 his +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 selected by his fellows to toil hard for them with his brain. He +became a leader of the fruit-porters, 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 means whereby he lived, and he spoke his mind +freely, and fought the good fight. In the "Great Dock Strike" he was +guilty of taking a leading part. And that was the end of Dan Cullen. +From that day he was a marked man, and every day, for ten years and more, +he was "paid off" for what he had done. + +A docker is a casual 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 discriminated 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 not more than +two or three days' work per week. This is what is called being +"disciplined," or "drilled." It means being starved. There is no +politer word. Ten years of it broke his heart, and broken-hearted men +cannot live. + +He took to his bed in his terrible den, which grew more terrible with his +helplessness. He was without kith or kin, a lonely old man, embittered +and pessimistic, fighting vermin the while and looking at Garibaldi, +Engels, and Dan Burns gazing down at him from the blood-bespattered +walls. No one came to see him in that crowded 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 fresh 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 face, shook up his conch, and talked with him. It was +interesting to talk with him--until he learned her name. Oh, yes, Blank +was her name, she replied innocently, and Sir George Blank was her +brother. Sir George Blank, eh? thundered old Dan Cullen on his death- +bed; Sir George Blank, solicitor to the docks at Cardiff, 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. + +Dan Cullen's feet became swollen with dropsy. He sat up all day on the +side of the bed (to keep the water out of his body), no mat on the floor, +a thin blanket on his legs, and an old coat around his shoulders. A +missionary brought him a pair of paper slippers, worth fourpence (I saw +them), and proceeded to offer 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. He did not care to have Tom, Dick, or Harry, on the strength +of fourpenny slippers, tampering with it. He asked the 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. + +The cobbler, a brave old hero himself, though unaneled and unsung, went +privily to the head office of the big fruit brokers for whom Dan Cullen +had worked as a casual labourer for thirty years. Their system 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," said 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 easy 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 that the sweating was hastening his death; while Bright's +disease, being a wasting 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 body, 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 alive, 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! A Jude the Obscure, who reached out after knowledge; +who toiled with his body in the day and studied in the watches of the +night; who dreamed his dream and struck valiantly for the Cause; a +patriot, a lover of human freedom, and a fighter unafraid; and in the +end, not gigantic enough to beat down the conditions which baffled and +stifled him, a cynic and 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 HOPPERS + + +So far has the divorcement of the worker from the soil proceeded, that +the farming districts, the civilised world over, are dependent upon the +cities for the gathering of the harvests. Then it is, when the land is +spilling its ripe wealth to waste, that the street folk, who have been +driven away from the soil, are called back to it again. 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 that Kent alone requires eighty thousand of the street +people to pick her hops. 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, and ghetto pour them forth, and the +festering contents of slum, stews, and ghetto are undiminished. Yet they +overrun 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 +underground. Their very presence, the fact of their 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. For one who sees and thinks +life in terms of shares and coupons, it is certainly overdrawn. But for +one who sees and thinks life in terms of manhood and womanhood, it cannot +be overdrawn. Such hordes of beastly wretchedness and inarticulate +misery are no compensation for a millionaire brewer who lives in a West +End palace, sates himself with the sensuous delights of London's golden +theatres, hobnobs with lordlings and princelings, and is knighted by the +king. Wins his spurs--God forbid! In old time the great blonde beasts +rode in the battle's van and won their spurs by cleaving men from pate to +chine. And, after all, it is finer to kill a strong man with a clean- +slicing blow of singing steel than to make a beast of him, and of his +seed through the generations, by the artful and spidery manipulation of +industry and politics. + +But to return to the hops. Here the divorcement from the soil is as +apparent as in every other agricultural line in England. While the +manufacture of beer steadily increases, the growth of hops steadily +decreases. In 1835 the acreage under hops was 71,327. To-day it stands +at 48,024, a decrease of 3103 from the acreage of last year. + +Small as the acreage 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 with +less of the nicer things of life, the pickers with less grub, of which, +in the best of times, they never get enough. For weary weeks headlines +like the following have appeared in the London papers.- + + TRAMPS PLENTIFUL, BUT THE HOPS ARE FEW AND NOT YET READY. + +Then there have been numberless paragraphs like this:- + + From the neighbourhood of the hop fields comes news of a distressing + nature. The bright outburst of the last two days has sent many + hundreds 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 treble the number there last year at this time, and in other towns + the lateness of the season 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 the stinging hail, were +close to drowning in their huts and camps on the low-lying 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 remained 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 afford 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 meal, would have to go short of food or drink. 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 the land in this parish, loses 10,000 pounds;" and "Mr. L---, +the Wateringbury brewer, brother to Mr. Herbert L---, is another heavy +loser." As for the hoppers, they did not count. Yet I venture to assert +that the several almost-square meals lost by underfed William Buggles, +and underfed 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 +thousands where Mr. F---'s could not be multiplied by five. + +To see how William 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 advice, he had brought his "worst rags," and as we +hiked up the London road out of Maidstone he was worrying greatly for +fear we had come too ill-dressed 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. The natives along the coast were all dubious; and "bean- +feasters" from London, dashing past in coaches, cheered and jeered and +shouted insulting things after us. But before we 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 figure 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 seaman without a ship, +a man on the beach, and very like a craft at low water. + +"Can yer give us a job, governor?" Bert asked the bailiff, a kindly faced +and elderly man 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 bin deserted by two other men, +from what I could learn, because of inability to make living wages. + +"No bad conduct, 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 ourselves earnestly to the task, desiring to learn if we could +at least make our salt. It was simple work, woman'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. In an +hour's time we became as expert as it is possible to become. As soon as +the fingers became accustomed 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 because of their swarming children, each of which +picked with two hands almost as fast as we picked. + +"Don'tcher pick 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, and 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-dozen +children who count as a unit, and by their combined capacity determine +the unit's pay. + +"I say, matey, I'm beastly hungry," said I to Bert. 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 discussed how much we could "sub," and were informed that +while we were being 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 five 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 driven, and for the free life in the open, and the wind +and rain and sun all undefiled by city smirches. As the sea calls to the +sailor, so calls the land to them; and, deep down in their aborted and +decaying carcasses, they are stirred strangely by the peasant memories of +their forbears 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 'ops, matey," Bert complained. + +It was five o'clock, and the pole-pullers had knocked off, so that +everything could be cleaned up, there being no work on Sunday. For an +hour we were forced idly to wait the coming of the measurers, our feet +tingling 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 little 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 that 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--namely, 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 +sixpenn'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 would 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 morrow +was Sunday, on which we could do no work, though our silly stomachs would +not knock off on that account. Here, then, 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 villager, 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 that we were not as other +men, especially hoppers, and went down the road to Maidstone, jingling in +our pockets the half-crowns and florins we had brought from London. + + + + +CHAPTER XV--THE SEA WIFE + + +You might not expect to find the Sea Wife in the heart of Kent, but that +is where I found her, in a mean street, in the 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 evening 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. It seemed that I went +down through the skin and the flesh to the naked soul of it, and in +Thomas Mugridge and his old woman gripped hold of the essence of this +remarkable English breed. I found there the spirit of the wanderlust +which has lured Albion's sons across the zones; and I found there the +colossal unreckoning which has tricked the English into foolish +squabblings and preposterous fights, and the doggedness and stubbornness +which have brought them blindly through to empire and greatness; and +likewise I found that vast, incomprehensible patience which has enabled +the home population to endure under the burden of it all, to toil without +complaint through the weary years, and docilely to yield the best of its +sons to fight and colonise to the ends of the earth. + +Thomas Mugridge was seventy-one years old and a little man. 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 connected with +work. He knew nothing else but work. He had worked all his days, and at +seventy-one he still worked. Each morning saw him up with the lark and +afield, a day labourer, for as such he had been born. Mrs. Mugridge was +seventy-three. From seven years of age she had worked in the fields, +doing a boy's work at first, 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 earn 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, lived 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 they 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 fellow, in soldier's garb +looked out at me. + +"And which son is this?" I asked. + +They laughed a hearty chorus. Son! Nay, grandson, just back from Indian +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' rovin' men + And casts them over sea. + + "And some are drowned in deep water, + And some in sight of shore; + And word goes back to the weary wife, + And ever 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 forth "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 through 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 dogs 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, and 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 it up forever. The +average Mrs. Thomas Mugridge has been driven into the city, and she is +not breeding very much of anything save an anaemic and sickly progeny +which cannot find enough to eat. The strength of the English-speaking +race to-day is not in the tight little island, but in the New World +overseas, where 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 tired +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 VERSUS PERSON + + +In a civilisation frankly materialistic 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. To pound one's wife to a jelly and break a few of +her ribs is a trivial 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 the 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 Piccadilly and the Strand after midnight, the police would not +have interfered with her, and she would have been able to pay for her +lodging. + +The following illustrative cases are culled from the police-court reports +for a single week:- + + Widnes Police Court. Before Aldermen Gossage and Neil. Thomas Lynch, + charged with being drunk and disorderly and with assaulting a + constable. Defendant rescued a woman from custody, kicked the + constable, and threw stones at him. Fined 3s. 6d. for the first + offence, and 10s. and costs for the assault. + + Glasgow Queen's Park Police Court. Before Baillie Norman Thompson. + John Kane pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife. There were five + previous convictions. Fined 2 pounds, 2s. + + Taunton County Petty Sessions. John Painter, a big, burly fellow, + described as a labourer, charged with assaulting his wife. The woman + received two severe black eyes, and her face was badly swollen. Fined + 1 pound, 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. Before the Mayor (Mr. A. T. Carpenter). + Thomas Baker, charged with sleeping out. Fourteen days. + + Glasgow Central Police Court. Before Bailie Dunlop. Edward Morrison, + a lad, convicted of stealing 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 month. + + Dunfermline Sheriff Court. Before Sheriff Gillespie. John Young, a + pit-head worker, pleaded guilty to assaulting Alexander Storrar by + beating him about the head and body with his fists, throwing him on + the ground, and also striking 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. Turner, J. + Whitaker, F. Tidsbury, E. Holmes, and Dr. R. Nesbitt. Joseph Jackson, + charged with assaulting Charles Nunn. Without any provocation, + defendant struck the complainant a violent blow in the face, knocking + him down, and then kicked him on the side of the head. He was + rendered unconscious, and 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 convictions, 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 Murray, 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 Sessions. Before the Mayor, Messrs. C. Hoskins, + G. Fullford, E. Alexander, and W. Marlow. James Moore, charged with + stealing a pair of boots from outside a shop. Twenty-one days. + + Horncastle Police Court. Before the Rev. W. F. Massingberd, the Rev. + J. Graham, and Mr. N. Lucas Calcraft. George Brackenbury, a young + labourer, convicted of what the magistrates characterised as an + altogether unprovoked and 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, charged with assaulting the Rev. Leslie + Graham. Defendant, who was drunk, was wheeling 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 passed over + the perambulator, but the baby was uninjured. Defendant then attacked + the driver of the lorry, and afterwards assaulted the complainant, who + remonstrated with him upon his conduct. In consequence of the + injuries defendant inflicted, complainant had to consult a doctor. + Fined 40s. and costs. + + Rotherham West Riding Police Court. Before Messrs. C. Wright and G. + Pugh and Colonel Stoddart. Benjamin Storey, Thomas Brammer, and + Samuel Wilcock, charged with poaching. One month each. + + Southampton County Police Court. Before Admiral J. C. Rowley, 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. Fowler, 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 George Hall, charged under the + Poaching Prevention Act with being found in possession of a number of + rabbits, and John Sparham, charged with aiding and abetting them. Hall + and Sparham fined 1 pound, 17s. 4d., and Allen 2 pounds, 17s. 4d., + including costs; the former committed for fourteen days and the latter + for one month in default of payment. + + South-western Police Court, London. Before Mr. Rose. John Probyn, + charged with doing grievous bodily harm to a constable. Prisoner had + been kicking his wife, and also assaulting another woman who protested + against his brutality. The constable tried to persuade him to go + inside his house, but prisoner suddenly turned upon him, knocking him + down by a blow on the face, 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, described as a chorus girl, charged with obtaining food + and lodging to the value of 5s. by false pretences, and with intent to + defraud Emma Brasier. Emma Brasier, complainant, lodging-house keeper + of Atwell Road. Prisoner took apartments at her house on the + representation that she was employed at the Crown Theatre. After + prisoner 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 labour. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--INEFFICIENCY + + +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 number, a pleasant-faced man of thirty, and were +giving it to him rather heatedly. + +"But 'ow about this 'ere cheap immigration?" one of them demanded. "The +Jews of Whitechapel, say, a-cutting our throats right along?" + +"You can't blame 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 about 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 than you and gets your job? Eh? How about his +wife and kiddies? He's more interested in them than in yours, and he +can't see them starve. So he cuts the price of labour and out you go. +But you mustn't blame him, poor devil. He can't help it. Wages always +come down when two men are after the same job. That's the fault of +competition, not of the man who cuts the price." + +"But wyges don't come down where there's a union," the objection was +made. + +"And there you are again, right on the head. The union cheeks +competition among the labourers, but makes it harder where there 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 further into the argument, this man on the Mile End Waste +pointed the moral that when 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 instanced, just now, by the return and disbandment of the +soldiers from South Africa. 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 down by the strikers. + +Sweating, starvation wages, armies of unemployed, and great numbers of +the homeless and shelterless are inevitable when there are more men to do +work than there is work for men to do. The men and women I have met upon +the streets, and in the spikes and pegs, are not there because as a mode +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 walks the streets +suffers more, and works harder, for far less return. I have depicted the +nights they spend, and how, driven in by physical exhaustion, they go to +the casual ward for a "rest up." Nor is the casual ward a soft snap. To +pick 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. On the part of the authorities it is sheer +robbery. They give the men far less for their labour than do the +capitalistic employers. The wage for the same amount of labour, +performed for a private employer, would buy them better beds, better +food, more good cheer, and, above all, greater freedom. + +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 three fair meals, a bed at +night, and leave him a couple of pennies for pocket money. He would +rather work for those two shillings than for the charity of the casual +ward; for he knows that 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 more men than there is work to be done, a sifting-out +process must obtain. In every branch of industry the less efficient are +crowded out. Being crowded out because of inefficiency, they cannot go +up, but must descend, and 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 (which 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 have the construction of the Abyss and the shambles. +Throughout the whole industrial fabric a constant elimination is going +on. The inefficient are weeded out and flung downward. Various things +constitute inefficiency. The engineer who 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 there is little or +no responsibility. Those who are slow and clumsy, who suffer from +weakness of body or mind, 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, with +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-seventh of the total population of the United +Kingdom, and in London, year in and year out, one adult in every four +dies on public charity, either in the workhouse, 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 illustration 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 age, 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 there 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 know what became of me for a + day or two. On the following Sunday night I came to my senses, and + found myself in the hospital. I asked the nurse what 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 altogether, and have covered the hole up with a piece of sheet + iron. . . . They gave me 25 pounds. They didn't reckon that as + compensation; they said it was only for charity's sake. Out of that I + paid 9 pounds for a machine by which to wheel myself about. + + I was labouring at the time I got my legs off. I got twenty-four + shillings a week, rather better pay than the other men, because I used + to take shifts. When there was heavy work to be done I used to be + picked out to do it. Mr. Manton, the manager, visited me at the + hospital several times. When I was getting better, I asked him if he + would be able 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 friends 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 he +went into the workhouse. The alternative to the workhouse is to go home +to Ireland and burden his friends for the rest of his life. Comment is +superfluous. + +It must be understood that efficiency is not determined by the workers +themselves, but is determined by the demand for labour. If three men +seek one position, the most efficient man will get it. The other two, no +matter how capable 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 workers from top to bottom would result; and when equilibrium +had been restored, the number 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 +efficiency, there would still be as many inefficients, though each +inefficient were twice as capable as he had been and more capable than +many of the efficients had previously been. + +When there are more men to work than there is work for men to do, just as +many men as are in excess of work will be inefficients, and as +inefficients they are doomed to lingering and painful destruction. It +shall 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--WAGES + + +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 ten 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 +Vegetables 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 ration 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. They will get less of meat per mouth each meal, and still less of +vegetates; while the smaller items become too microscopic for +consideration. On the other hand, these food articles are all bought at +small retail, the most expensive and wasteful method of purchasing. + +While the table given 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'penny gaff" for cheap +vaudeville, join social or benefit clubs, nor can they buy sweetmeats, +tobacco, books, or newspapers. + +And further, should one child (and there are three) require a pair of +shoes, the family must strike meat for a week from its bill of fare. And +since there are five pairs of feet requiring shoes, and five heads +requiring hats, and five bodies requiring clothes, and since there are +laws regulating indecency, the family must constantly impair its physical +efficiency in order to keep warm and out of jail. For notice, when rent, +coals, oil, soap, and firewood are extracted from the weekly income, +there remains a daily allowance for food of 4.5d. to each person; and +that 4.5d. cannot be lessened by buying clothes without impairing the +physical efficiency. + +All of which is hard 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 they 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 there 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 living 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 +question 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 existence 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 maids, 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 telephone girl receives a weekly wage of eleven shillings. If +she be quick and clever, she may, 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:- + + s. d. +Rent, fire, and light 7 6 +Board at home 3 6 +Board at the office 4 6 +Street car fare 1 6 +Laundry 1 0 +Total 18 0 + +This leaves nothing 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 recreation, and-- + + Man to Man so oft unjust, + Is always so to Woman. + +At the Trades Union 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 Parliament 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 workers voted against the resolution, while +the representatives of 535,000 workers voted in favour of it. When +514,000 workers oppose a resolution prohibiting child-labour under +fifteen, it is evident 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 their 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 than 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 three 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 for +sickness, rest, or recreation. Each day and every day, Sundays as well, +she toiled fourteen hours. Her day's stint was seven gross, for 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. Thomas Holmes, a police-court missionary of note, after +writing about the condition 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 week, cannot earn more than five shillings, and I have a poor + afflicted husband to keep who hasn't earned a penny for more than ten + years. + +Imagine a woman, capable of writing such a clear, sensible, grammatical +letter, supporting her 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 husband; 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. There was no space for the missionary to +sit down, save on the bed, which was partially covered with ties and +silk. The sick man's lungs were in the last stages of decay. He coughed +and expectorated constantly, the woman ceasing from her work to assist +him in his paroxysms. The silken fluff from the ties was not good for +his sickness; nor was his sickness good for the ties, 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. Here 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 tender folk, +imagine yourselves marketing and keeping house on such a scale, setting a +table for five, and keeping an eye on your deputy mother of twelve to see +that 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 + + + Is it well that while we range 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 out 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 fire 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 class, 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 cometh 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 proper are constantly being destroyed, and the +main stream of the unhoused is toward the east. In the last twelve +years, one district, "London over the Border," as it is called, which +lies well beyond Aldgate, Whitechapel, and Mile End, has increased +260,000, or over sixty 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 Dreadful 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 the intolerable sameness and meanness of it +all. If the East End is worthy of no worse title than The City of +Dreadful Monotony, and if working people are unworthy 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 gigantic slum. From the standpoint of simple decency and +clean manhood and womanhood, any mean street, of all its mean streets, is +a slum. Where sights and sounds abound which neither you nor I would +care to have our children see and hear is a place where no man's children +should live, and see, and hear. Where you and I would not 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 childhood is sweet +and beautiful: but in East London innocence is a fleeting thing, and you +must catch them before they crawl out of the cradle, or you will find the +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 have 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 cubic feet of space for each person. In army barracks +each soldier is allowed 600 cubic feet. Professor Huxley, at one time +himself 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 people 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_. It is of +interest to mark what he terms poor. 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 this process, with its jamming and overcrowding, +tends not so much toward immorality as unmorality. Here is an extract +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 East End. In St. Georges-in-the-East 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, and four, and two sons, aged ten and twelve + years, occupied a smaller room. In Bethnal Green a man and his wife, + with four 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 duty 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 overcrowded folk are ejected +they stray off into some other hole; and, as they move their belongings +by night, on hand-barrows (one hand-barrow accommodating the entire +household goods and the sleeping children), it is next to impossible to +keep track of them. If the Public Health Act of 1891 were suddenly and +completely enforced, 900,000 people would receive notice to clear out of +their houses and go on to the streets, and 500,000 rooms would 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 that the +existence of it is far more revolting. + +In Devonshire Place, Lisson Grove, a short while back died an old woman +of seventy-five years of age. At the inquest the coroner's officer +stated that "all he found in the room was a lot of old rags covered with +vermin. He had got himself smothered with the vermin. The room was in a +shocking condition, and he had never seen anything like it. Everything +was absolutely 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 legs, and her stockings were adherent to those +sores. The sores were the result of vermin." + +A man present at the inquest wrote: "I had the evil fortune to see the +body of the unfortunate woman as it lay in the mortuary; and even now the +memory of that gruesome sight makes me shudder. There she lay 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 rolled 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 that here in the Ghetto the houses of the poor are +greater profit earners than the mansions of the rich. Not only 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 been 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 +houses let, but they are sublet, and sub-sublet down to the very rooms. + +"A part of a room to let." This notice was posted a short while ago in a +window not five minutes' walk from St. James's Hall. The Rev. Hugh Price +Hughes is authority for the statement that beds are let on the +three-relay system--that 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 +officers 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 two 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 bricklayer's labourer comes in. At seven in the morning he +vacates, and goes to his work, at which time she returns from hers. + +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 crowding is not through inclination, but compulsion. Nearly +fifty per cent. of the workers pay from one-fourth to one-half of their +earnings for rent. The average rent in the larger part of the East End +is from four to six shillings per week for one room, while skilled +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 Stepney 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 rents are going up. When land is worth from +20,000 to 30,000 pounds an acre, some one must pay the landlord. + +Mr. W. C. Steadman, 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, and the rent of + her house was fourteen shillings per week. She gets her living by + letting the house to lodgers 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. What + could the woman do? There is no accommodation in Stepney. Every + place is taken up and overcrowded. + +Class supremacy can 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 created--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 their 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 carry on the +breed. And year by year, in turn, the best they breed are taken from +them. Wherever a man of vigour and stature manages to grow up, he is +haled forthwith into the army. A soldier, as Bernard Shaw has said, +"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. When they +kill, they kill with their hands, and then stupidly surrender themselves +to the executioners. There is no splendid audacity about their +transgressions. They gouge 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 +brass and iron, and when they have polished off the mother of their +children with a black 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 lower Ghetto classes is as much the slave of her husband +as is the Indian squaw. 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 the +bread-winner, and she dare not send him to jail and leave herself and +children to starve. Evidence to convict can rarely be obtained when such +cases come into the courts; as a rule, the trampled wife and mother is +weeping and hysterically beseeching the magistrate to let her husband off +for the kiddies' sakes. + +The wives become screaming harridans or, broken-spirited and doglike, +lose what little decency and self-respect they have remaining over from +their maiden days, and all sink 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 struck 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 slavery or serfdom, if the permanent condition of + industry were to be that which we behold, that ninety per cent. of the + actual producers of wealth have no home that they can call their own + beyond the end of the week; have no bit of soil, or so much as a room + that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any kind, except as + much old furniture as will go into a cart; have the precarious chance + of weekly wages, which barely suffice to keep them in health; are + housed, for the most part, 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, sickness, 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 whole proletarian population, whose normal + condition is one of sickening wretchedness. If this is to be the + permanent arrangement of modern society, civilization must be held to + bring a curse on the great majority of mankind. + +Ninety per cent.! The figures are appalling, 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 along the Hammersmith Road. One day there came + along a labourer and his wife, his son and two daughters. Their + family 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 on 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 question 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 bad, and in a short time + their health suffered. Work was hard to get, and its wage was so low + that they were soon in debt. They became more ill and more despairing + with the poisonous surroundings, the darkness, and the long hours of + work; and they were driven forth to seek a cheaper lodging. They + found it in a court I knew 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 fell into the hands of those who sweat the last + drop out of man and woman and child, for wages which are the food only + of despair. And the darkness and the dirt, the bad food and the + sickness, and the want of water was worse than before; and the crowd + and the companionship of the court robbed them of the last shreds of + self-respect. The drink demon seized upon them. Of course there was + a public-house at both ends of the court. There they fled, one and + all, for shelter, and warmth, and society, and forgetfulness. And + they came out in deeper debt, with inflamed senses and burning brains, + and an unsatisfied craving 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 +tubs are a thing totally unknown, as mythical as the ambrosia of the +gods. The people themselves are dirty, while any attempt at cleanliness +becomes howling farce, when it is not pitiful and tragic. Strange, +vagrant odours come drifting along the greasy wind, and the rain, when it +falls, is more like 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. +They do not know the significance and the sacredness of home life. Even +the municipal dwellings, where live the better-class workers, are +overcrowded barracks. They have no home life. The very language proves +it. The father returning from work asks his child in the street where +her mother is; and back the answer comes, "In the buildings." + +A new race has sprung up, a street people. They pass their lives at work +and in the streets. They have dens and lairs into which to crawl for +sleeping purposes, and that is all. One cannot travesty the word by +calling such dens and lairs "homes." The traditional silent and reserved +Englishman has passed away. The pavement folk are noisy, voluble, high- +strung, excitable--when they are yet young. As they grow older they +become steeped and stupefied in beer. When they 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, for hours, and when you go away +you will leave him still staring into vacancy. 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 mysteries 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 young are high-strung, nervous, excitable; the middle-aged +are empty-headed, stolid, and stupid. It is absurd to think for an +instant that they can compete with the workers of the New World. +Brutalised, degraded, and dull, the Ghetto folk will be unable to render +efficient service to England in the world struggle for industrial +supremacy which economists declare has already begun. Neither 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 the +world's industrial orbit, they will perish like flies at the end of +summer. Or, with England critically situated, and with them made +desperate as wild beasts are made desperate, they may become 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 guns 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, shorn 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 world, 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 will taste it and be disillusioned, for +coffee it certainly is not. + +And what is true of the coffee is true of the coffee-house. 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 debris 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 capable 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 way 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 with 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 and 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 the "Hobo" of a California jail, I have been served +better food and drink 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 labourer 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. On the other hand, though, and in return, I would turn out +an amount of work in the course of the day that would put to shame the +amount he turned out. So there are two sides to it. The man with the +high standard of living will always do more work and better than the man +with the low standard of living. + +There is a comparison which sailormen make between the English and +American merchant services. In an English ship, they say, it is poor +grub, poor pay, and easy work; in an American ship, good grub, good pay, +and hard work. And this is applicable to the working populations of both +countries. The ocean greyhounds have to pay for speed and steam, and so +does the workman. But if the workman is not able to pay for it, he will +not have the speed and steam, that is all. The proof of it is when the +English workman comes to America. He will lay more bricks in New York +than he will in London, still more bricks in St. Louis, and still more +bricks when he gets to San Francisco. {3} His standard of living has +been rising all the time. + +Early in the morning, 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 these, 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 employer and upon the nation. For some +time, now, statesmen have been crying, "Wake up, England!" It would show +more hard-headed common 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 speculative 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 would vouch for the cleanliness of the single +rooms in which many of them and their families lived; yet they raked, and +pawed, and scraped the mess about in their 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. All day long this heap of scraps was 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 sickness 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, which is a fair criterion, they +never know in all their lives what tea, coffee, or cocoa tastes like. The +slops and water-witcheries of the coffee-houses, varying only in +sloppiness and witchery, 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 the Mile End Road. + +"Cawn yer let 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 woman, 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 waitress of the house. + +I waited, possibly 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 woman hesitated an instant, then brought a large plate of +"stewed lamb and young peas." I was eating a plate 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 was sold +at sixpence, and the proprietress gave it for a penny, demonstrating anew +the 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, explosively and +most gleefully, she cried out to me,-- + +"Hi sold a box o' matches! Yus," she confirmed, if anything with greater +and more explosive glee. "Hi sold a box o' matches! That's 'ow Hi got +the penny." + +"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 left 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 you a ha'penny for another lump of sugar in the tea," I said. + +"I'll see you in 'ell first," came the retort courteous. Also, she +amplified the retort courteous 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 people of London live in one-room tenements, and 900,000 +are illegally and viciously housed, 38,000 more are registered as living +in common lodging-houses--known 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 roofs leak or the walls are draughty; but what I do mean is +that life in them is degrading and unwholesome. + +"The poor man's hotel," they are often called, but the phrase is +caricature. Not to possess a room to one's self, 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 never to have +any privacy, surely is a mode of existence quite different from that of +hotel life. + +This must not be considered a sweeping condemnation of the big private +and municipal lodging-houses and working-men's homes. 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 received 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, +Whitechapel, I entered such a house, a place inhabited almost entirely by +working men. The entrance was by way of a flight 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, wrested 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 the not over-clean table +constituted his butter. Into it he dipped his bread, mouthful by +mouthful, and washed it down with tea from a big mug. A piece 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 tables, other +men were eating, just as silently. 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 done 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 paid 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 men were sitting around, smoking, reading, and +mending their clothes. The young men were hilarious, the old men were +gloomy. In fact, there 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 +preposterous and insulting notices regulating the conduct of the guests, +and at ten o'clock 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 best accommodation, each cabin allowing space for a +tiny bed and room alongside of it in which to undress. The bedding 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 the 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. And this cabin +is yours only for a little while. In the morning out you go. You cannot +put your trunk in it, or come and go when you like, or lock the door +behind you, or anything of the sort. In fact, there is no door at all, +only a doorway. If you care to remain a guest in this poor man's hotel, +you must put up with all this, and with prison regulations which impress +upon you constantly that you are nobody, with little soul of your own and +less to say about it. + +Now I contend that the least a man who does his day's work should have is +a room to himself, where 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 carries about with him on his +back and in his pockets; where he can hang up pictures 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 floor 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, scores 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. 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 were, +and heard a "harlot's ginny laugh." Leman Street, Waterloo Road, +Piccadilly, The Strand, answered me, and 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. "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 rupture, 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'ouse, an' that's 'ell. An' if she don't go to the work'ouse, it'll +be a worse 'ell. Come along 'ith me an' I'll show you women sleepin' in +a passage, a dozen of 'em. An' I'll show you worse, wot she'll 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 wife's grasp on +food and shelter. For 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 thousands +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 London 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 deaths in London (1884):- + +In workhouses 9,909 +In hospitals 6,559 +In lunatic asylums 278 +Total in public refuges 16,746 + +Commenting on these figures, a Fabian writer says: "Considering that +comparatively few of these are children, it is probable that one in every +three London adults will 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 serve somewhat to indicate the proximity of the average +worker to pauperism. Various things make pauperism. An advertisement, +for instance, such as this, appearing in yesterday morning's paper:- + +"Clerk wanted, with knowledge of shorthand, typewriting, and invoicing: +wages ten shillings ($2.50) a week. Apply by letter," &c. + +And in to-day's paper 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 various 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 implement heavier than a pen, he said. The +magistrate sentenced him and his blistered hands to seven days' hard +labour. + +Old age, of course, makes pauperism. And then there is the accident, the +thing happening, the death or disablement of the husband, father, and +bread-winner. Here is a man, with a wife and three children, living on +the ticklish security of twenty shillings per week--and there are +hundreds of thousands of such families in London. Perforce, to even half +exist, they must live up to the last penny of it, so that a week's wages +(one pound) is all that stands between this family and pauperism or +starvation. The thing happens, the father is struck 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 themselves +miserably to support, determine the scale of wages. 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-starvation, 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 indignantly 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 the 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 and her three children we are considering have done no +wrong that they should be so punished. They have not sinned. The thing +happened, that 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. The 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 people 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 mortality in South Africa +and the Philippines fades away to insignificance. Here, in the heart of +peace, is where 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 men, 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 where 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 years old. +Slaughter! Herod did not do quite so badly. + +That industry causes 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 Medical Officer, which is not applicable +to Liverpool alone:- + + In many instances little if any sunlight could get to the courts, and + the atmosphere within the 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 surroundings, and would not live_. + +Mr. George Haw has compiled the following table on the three St. George's +parishes (London parishes):- + + Percentage of + Population Death-rate + Overcrowded per 1000 +St. 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 from the strongest and most splendidly-built +men to be found, live, on an average, less 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 case 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 the white-lead trades. +Here is a description of the typical dissolution of a young, 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 gums show a very faint blue line, or perchance her teeth + and gums are perfectly sound, and no blue line is discernible. + Coincidently with the anaemia she has been getting thinner, but so + gradually as scarcely to impress itself upon her or her friends. + Sickness, however, ensues, and headaches, growing in intensity, are + developed. These are frequently attended by obscuration of vision or + temporary blindness. Such a girl passes into what appears to her + friends and medical adviser as ordinary hysteria. This gradually + deepens without warning, until she is suddenly seized with a + convulsion, beginning in one half of the face, then involving the arm, + next the leg of the same side of the body, until the convulsion, + violent and purely epileptic form in character, becomes universal. + This is attended by loss of consciousness, out of which she passes + into a series of convulsions, gradually increasing in severity, in one + of which she dies--or consciousness, partial or perfect, is regained, + either, it may be, for a few minutes, a few hours, or days, during + which violent headache is complained of, or she is delirious and + excited, as in acute mania, or dull and sullen as in melancholia, and + requires to be roused, when she is found wandering, and her speech is + somewhat imperfect. Without further warning, save that the pulse, + which has become soft, with nearly the normal number of beats, all at + once becomes low and hard; she is suddenly seized with another + convulsion, in which she dies, or passes into a state of coma from + which she never rallies. In another case the convulsions will + gradually subside, the headache disappears and the patient recovers, + only to find that she has completely lost her eyesight, a loss that + may be temporary or permanent. + +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 never 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 her, found the blue line along her + gums, which shows that the system is under the influence of the lead. + He knew that the convulsions would shortly return. They did so, and + she died. + + Mary Ann Toler--a girl of seventeen, who had never had a fit in her + life--three times became ill, and had to leave off work in the + factory. Before she was nineteen she showed symptoms of lead + poisoning--had fits, frothed at the mouth, and died. + + Mary A., an unusually vigorous woman, was able to work in the lead + factory for _twenty years_, having colic once only during that time. + Her eight children all died in early infancy from convulsions. One + morning, 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 first one) and worked on uninterruptedly for two years. Then + the former symptoms returned, she was seized with convulsions, and + died in two days of acute lead poisoning. + +Mr. Vaughan Nash, speaking of the unborn generation, says: "The children +of the white-lead 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 while leading a forlorn hope on the industrial +battlefield. She was employed as an enamelled ware brusher, wherein lead +poisoning is encountered. Her father and brother were both out 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 trade also plays an important part in hurling the workers +into the Abyss. With a week's wages between a family and pauperism, a +month's enforced idleness means hardship and misery almost indescribable, +and from the ravages of which the victims do not always recover 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 past, have not averaged a weekly +income of more than from four to five shillings. The stagnated state of +the shipping industry in the port of London is held accountable for this +condition of affairs. + +To the young working-man or working-woman, or married couple, there is no +assurance of happy or healthy middle life, nor of solvent old age. Work +as they will, they cannot make their future secure. It is all 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 they 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 away +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 home +and children and all that makes life worth living and old age other than +a nightmare. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII--SUICIDE + + +With life so precarious, and opportunity for the happiness of life so +remote, it is inevitable that life shall be cheap 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 half bewildered +by the amazing despatch with which drunks, disorderlies, vagrants, +brawlers, wife-beaters, thieves, fences, gamblers, and women of the +street went through the machine of justice. The dock 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 pondering 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 caught 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. 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 hair rumpled down his +forehead, his face haggard and careworn and boyish still. + +"Yes, sir," 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 workmen +'appened along, and we got 'im out and turned 'im over to the constable." + +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 foreman, or had been. +Alfred was a good boy, but he had had lots of trouble at home, money +matters. And then his mother was sick. He was given to worrying, and he +worried over it till he laid himself out and wasn't fit for work. He +(the foreman), for the sake of his own reputation, the boy's work being +bad, had been forced to ask him to resign. + +"Anything to say?" the magistrate demanded abruptly. + +The boy in the dock 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," said his Worship; and the next case was under way, the first +witness already engaged in taking the oath. The boy, dazed and +unheeding, passed out with the jailer. That was all, five minutes from +start 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 ten 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 prisoners 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 with?" demanded +the indignant Mr. R. S---. "Why did you not get under the water and make +an end of it, instead 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 myself before I go into +the workhouse," said Ellen Hughes Hunt, aged fifty-two. Last Wednesday +they held an inquest on her body at Shoreditch. Her husband came from +the Islington Workhouse to testify. He had been a cheesemonger, but +failure 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 hours later her hat and +jacket were found on the towing path by the Regent's Canal, 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, convicted, 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 when she went into the Regent's Canal. As to +which is the preferable sojourning place is a matter of opinion, of +intellectual judgment. I, for one, from what I know of canals and +workhouses, should choose the canal, were I in a similar position. And I +make bold to contend that I am no more insane than Ellen Hughes Hunt, her +husband, and the rest of the human herd. + +Man no longer follows instinct with the old natural fidelity. He has +developed into a reasoning creature, and can intellectually cling to life +or discard life just as life happens to promise great pleasure or pain. I +dare to assert that Ellen 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 dare 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 defrauded and bilked of all the joys of life which +fifty-two years' service in the world had earned. + +Temporary insanity! Oh, these cursed phrases, these lies of language, +under which people with meat in their bellies and whole shirts on their +backs shelter themselves, and evade the responsibility of their brothers +and sisters, empty of belly and without whole shirts on their backs. + +From one issue of the _Observer_, an East End paper, I quote the +following commonplace events:- + + A ship's fireman, named Johnny King, was charged with attempting to + commit suicide. On Wednesday defendant went to Bow Police Station and + stated that he had swallowed a quantity of phosphor paste, as he was + hard up and unable to obtain work. King was taken inside and an + emetic administered, when he vomited up a quantity of the poison. + Defendant now said he was very sorry. Although he had sixteen years' + good character, he was unable to obtain work of any kind. Mr. + Dickinson 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 Pier, 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-past eight on + Sunday morning Constable 834 K found defendant lying in a doorway in + Benworth Street, and she was in a very drowsy condition. She 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 coffee, ordered that she was to be kept awake. When + defendant was charged, she stated that the reason why she attempted to + take her life was she had 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 insanity among the +living. Costermongers, hawkers, and pedlars, a class of workers who live +from hand to mouth more than those of any other class, form the highest +percentage of those in the lunatic 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, who are at least sure of food and shelter, 13 per 10,000 go +insane; and of farmers and graziers, only 5.1. So a coster is twice as +likely to lose his reason as a soldier, and five times as likely as a +farmer. + +Misfortune and misery are very potent in turning people's heads, and +drive one person to the lunatic asylum, and another to the morgue or the +gallows. When the thing happens, and the father 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 torn 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, delicately 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 lived 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 and +affectionate husband and father. + +His wife, Hannah Cavilla, was a big, handsome, light-hearted woman. She +saw to it that his children were sent neat and clean (the neighbours all +remarked the fact) to the Childeric Road Board School. And so, with such +a man, so blessed, working steadily and living temperately, all went +well, 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 unruly horse, and, as I say, it +happened. Cavilla had to seek fresh employment and find another house. + +This occurred eighteen months ago. For eighteen 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 +manfully 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 word; but poor folk know. The +housewives of Batavia Road sent them food, but so respectable were the +Cavillas that the 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, Hannah Cavilla, aged thirty- +three. He cut the throat of his first-born, Frank, aged twelve. He cut +the throat of his son, Walter, 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 all day +until the evening, when the police came, and he told them to put a penny +in the slot of the gas-meter in order that they might have light to see. + +Frank Cavilla stood 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, and wavy, fair +moustache. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--THE CHILDREN + + + "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 dancing in the street when the organ-grinder goes his round. It +is fascinating to watch them, the new-born, the next generation, swaying +and stepping, with pretty little mimicries and graceful inventions all +their own, with muscles that move swiftly 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 bright 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 and form under their filth and rags. + +But there is a Pied Piper of London Town who steals them all away. They +disappear. One never sees them again, or anything 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 is a hint that she was once one of those children who +danced to the organ-grinder. Those grotesque and lumbering steps are all +that is left of the promise of childhood. In the befogged recesses of +her brain has arisen a fleeting memory that she was once a girl. The +crowd closes in. Little girls are dancing beside her, about her, with +all the pretty graces she dimly recollects, but can no more than parody +with her body. Then she pants for breath, exhausted, and stumbles out +through the circle. But the little girls dance on. + +The children of the Ghetto possess all the qualities which make for noble +manhood and womanhood; but the Ghetto itself, like an infuriated tigress +turning on its young, turns 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 increasing 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 +condition 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 compound 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 conditions, 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. They have no home life. In the dens 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, overcrowding, and underfeeding. When a father and mother +live with three or four children in a room where the children take turn +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 readily be imagined. + + "Dull despair and misery + Lie about them from their birth; + Ugly curses, 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 does, and +the man is exceedingly lucky if he can keep his health and his job. A +baby comes, and then another. This means that more room should be +obtained; but these little mouths and bodies mean additional expense and +make it absolutely impossible to get more spacious quarters. More babies +come. There is not room in which to turn around. The youngsters run the +streets, and by the time they are twelve or fourteen the room-issue comes +to a head, and out they go on the streets for good. The boy, if he be +lucky, can manage to make the common lodging-houses, and he may have any +one of several ends. But the girl of fourteen or fifteen, forced in this +manner to leave the one room called home, and able to earn at the best a +paltry five or six shillings per week, can have but one end. And the +bitter end of that one end is such as that of the woman whose body the +police found this morning in a doorway in Dorset Street, Whitechapel. +Homeless, shelterless, sick, with no one with her in her last hour, she +had died in the night of exposure. She was sixty-two years old and a +match vendor. She died as a wild animal dies. + +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 stealing 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 arsked '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 +antecedent, a waif, a stray, a young cub seeking his food in the jungle +of empire, preying upon the weak and being preyed upon by the strong. + +The people who try to help, who gather up the Ghetto children and send +them away on a day's outing to the country, believe that not very many +children reach the age of ten without 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 children learn +the meaning of fields and woods, so that descriptions of country scenery +in the books they read, which before conveyed no impression, become now +intelligible." + +One day in the fields 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 hooligans to smash the policemen. + +The Rev. J. Cartmel 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; until they sat down +at last, faint and despairing, and were rescued by a kind woman who +brought them back. Evidently they had been overlooked by the people who +try to help. + +The same gentleman is authority for the statement that in a street in +Hoxton (a district of the vast East End), over seven hundred children, +between five and thirteen years, live in eighty small houses. And he +adds: "It is because London has largely shut her children in a maze of +streets and houses and robbed them of their rightful inheritance in sky +and field and brook, that they grow up to be men and women physically +unfit." + +He tells of a member of his congregation who let a basement room to a +married couple. "They said they had two children; when they got +possession it turned out that they had four. After a while a fifth +appeared, and 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, came in and threatened my friend with legal proceedings. He +pleaded that he could not get them out. They pleaded that nobody would +have them with so many children at a rental within their means, which is +one of the commonest complaints of the poor, by-the-bye. What was to be +done? The landlord was between two millstones. Finally he applied 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." + +Last week the police raided a disorderly house. In one room were found +two young children. They were arrested and charged with being inmates +the same as the women had been. Their father appeared at the trial. He +stated that himself 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 need further to multiply instances. In London the +slaughter of the innocents goes on on a scale more stupendous than any +before in the history of the world. 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 little 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 that 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. Much of it is +untenable. But in a general 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 bipeds 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 +prowled 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 elemental economy +of nature, such as the cave-men must have exhibited. But there was +strength in those meagre bodies, the ferocious, primordial strength to +clutch and gripe and tear and rend. When they spring upon their human +prey they are known even to bend the victim backward and double its body +till the back is broken. They possess 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 people of the golden theatres and wonder-mansions of the +West End do not see these creatures, do not dream that they exist. 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 will 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?" "Are they men?" + +But they were not the only beasts that ranged the menagerie. They were +only here and there, lurking in dark courts and passing like grey shadows +along the walls; but the women from whose rotten loins they spring 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 wrecks of society, the perambulating carcasses, the +living deaths--women, blasted by disease and drink till their shame +brought not tuppence in the open mart; and men, in fantastic rags, +wrenched by hardship and exposure out of all semblance 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 girls, 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. And I remember a lad of fourteen, +and one of six or seven, white-faced and sickly, homeless, the pair of +them, who sat upon the pavement with their backs against a railing and +watched it all. + +The unfit and the unneeded! Industry does not clamour for them. There +are no jobs going begging through lack of men and women. 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 found to toil under the +sweat-shop masters for tenpence a day of fourteen hours. Alfred Freeman +crawls to muddy death because he loses his job. Ellen 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 the +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 give us howling and +naked savagery. Far 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 WAIL + + +"My father has more stamina than I, for he is country-born." + +The speaker, a bright young East Ender, was lamenting his poor physical +development. + +"Look at my scrawny arm, will you." He pulled up his sleeve. "Not +enough to eat, that's what's the matter with it. Oh, not now. I have +what I want to eat these days. But it's too late. It can't make up for +what I didn't have to eat when I was a kiddy. 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. He did his best, but we didn't have enough +to eat. We rarely saw meat, and then of the worst. And it is not good +for growing kiddies to sit down to a dinner of bread and a bit of cheese, +and not enough of it. + +"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 couple 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 they 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. 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 there 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. Chronic starvation is looked +upon as a matter of course. It is only when acute starvation makes its +appearance on a large scale that they think something is unusual + +I shall never forget the bitter wail of a blind man in a little East End +shop at the close of a murky day. He had been the eldest of five +children, with a mother and no father. Being the eldest, he had starved +and worked as a child to put bread into the mouths of his little brothers +and sisters. Not once in three months did he ever taste meat. He never +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 from the report of the Royal +Commission on the Blind, "Blindness is more prevalent in poor districts, +and poverty accelerates this dreadful affliction." + +But he went further, 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 pint 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 consists 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 astringent +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. 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. In 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 part, and was so recognised by the child, who, utterly unconscious of +the regulations of the Prison Board, told one of the senior wardens how +kind this junior warden had been to him. The result was, 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 liberal as the pauper's. + +PAUPER DIET SOLDIER +3.25 oz. Meat 12 oz. +15.5 oz. Bread 24 oz. +6 oz. Vegetables 8 oz. + +The adult male pauper gets meat (outside of soup) but once a week, and +the paupers "have nearly all that pallid, pasty complexion which is the +sure mark of starvation." + +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 pauper'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 sixpence 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 alone the Ghetto-dweller, the prisoner, and the pauper that +starve. Hodge, of the country, does not know what it is always to have a +full belly. In truth, it is his empty belly which has driven him to the +city in such great numbers. Let us investigate the way of living of a +labourer from a parish in the Bradfield Poor Law Union, 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:- + + s. d. +Bread (5 quarterns) 1 10 +Flour (0.5 gallon) 0 4 +Tea (0.25 lb.) 0 6 +Butter (1 lb.) 1 3 +Lard (1 lb.) 0 6 +Sugar (6 lb.) 1 0 +Bacon or other meat (about 0.25 lb.) 2 8 +Cheese (1 lb.) 0 8 +Milk (half-tin condensed) 0 3.25 +Coal 1 6 +Beer none +Tobacco none +Insurance ("Prudential") 0 3 +Labourers' Union 0 1 +Wood, tools, dispensary, &c. 0 6 +Insurance ("Foresters") and margin 1 1.75 + for clothes +Total 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 +Women 5 6.5 +Children 5 1.25 + +If the labourer whose budget has been described should quit his toil and +go into the workhouse, he would cost the guardians for + + s. d. +Himself 6 1.5 +Wife 5 6.5 +Two children 10 2.5 +Total 21 10.5 +Or roughly, $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 understood fact that it is cheaper to cater for a +large number of people--buying, cooking, and serving wholesale--than it +is to cater for a small number of people, say 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), and 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 decentralisation 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 the dwellers are condemned to a +poverty which destroys them physically and spiritually; that fully one- +fourth of the dwellers do not have enough to eat, 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 leaned 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 himself 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 the +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. It would seem +that 40,000,000 people are keeping a big house, and that 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 produce 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 are +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 +drunkenness, saturated in drink before they draw their first breath, born +to the smell and 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 it, familiarising themselves with licentiousness and +debauchery. + +Mrs. Grundy rules as supremely over the workers as she does over the +bourgeoisie; but in the case of the workers, the one thing she does not +frown upon is the public-house. No disgrace or shame attaches to it, 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 +innutrition 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. Unhealthy +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 deadened 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 impossible. + +A brief examination 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 small), the wife +and mother cooks the breakfast. And in the same room, heavy and +sickening with the exhalations of their 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, filling the pent space with soapsuds +and the smell of dirty clothes, and overhead she hangs the wet linen to +dry. + +Here, in the evening, amid the manifold smells of the day, the family +goes to its virtuous couch. That is to say, as many as possible pile +into the one bed (if bed they have), and the surplus turns in on the +floor. And this is the round of their existence, month after month, year +after year, for they never get a vacation 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 kept +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 +East 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 as 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 London, 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 respectable +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 alleviation, 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 oblivion that nothing else in their lives can +bring. It even exalts them, and makes them 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 the cause of many miseries; but it is, in turn, +the effect of other and prior miseries. The temperance advocates may +preach their hearts out over the evils of drink, but until the evils that +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 Good, the foul facts of their existence +and the social law that dooms one in three to a public-charity death, +demonstrate that this knowledge and yearning will be only so much of an +added curse to them. They will have so much more to forget than if they +had never known and yearned. Did Destiny to-day bind me down to the life +of an East End slave for the rest of my years, and did Destiny grant me +but one wish, I should ask that I might forget all about the Beautiful +and True and Good; that I might forget all I had learned from the open +books, and forget the people I had known, the things I had heard, and the +lands I had seen. And if Destiny didn't grant 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 settlements, missions, +charities, and what not, are failures. In the nature of things they +cannot 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 down to the East End +as teachers and savants. 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 beyond relieving an +infinitesimal fraction of misery and collecting a certain amount of data +which might otherwise have been more scientifically and less expensively +collected, they have achieved nothing. + +As some one has said, 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 successful 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 three farthings a gross, when more children and +violet-makers than they can cope with are being born right along? This +violet-maker handles each flower four times, 576 handlings for three +farthings, and in the day she handles the flowers 6912 times for a wage +of ninepence. She is being robbed. Somebody is on her back, and a +yearning 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, undoes 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 more of a truth. +And the lie they preach is "thrift." An instant will demonstrate it. In +overcrowded London, the struggle for a chance to work is keen, and +because of this struggle wages sink to the lowest means of subsistence. +To be thrifty means for a worker to spend less than his income--in other +words, to live on less. This is equivalent to a lowering of the standard +of living. In the competition for a chance to work, the man with a lower +standard of living will underbid the man with a higher standard. And a +small group of such thrifty workers in any overcrowded industry will +permanently lower the wages of that industry. And the thrifty ones will +no longer be thrifty, for their income will have been reduced till it +balances their expenditure. + +In short, thrift negates thrift. If every worker 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. And then none of the workers of England would be thrifty, +for they would be living up 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 families which have a total income of less than 21s. per week, one +quarter to one half 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. 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, when 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. He does not +play with palliatives. 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 men. + +When the people who 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 Christ, they will be in better shape to buckle down +to the work they ought to be doing 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 bettered the lot of man? "Man," 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 and fish for their food with bone-headed spews and arrows. They +never suffer from lack of shelter. Their clothes, largely made from the +skins of animals, are warm. They always have fuel for their fires, +likewise timber for their houses, which they build partly underground, +and in which they lie snugly during the periods of intense cold. In the +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. In good times they feast; in +bad times they die of starvation. But starvation, as a chronic +condition, 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 their food, not by hunting +and fishing, but by toil at colossal artifices. For the most part, they +suffer from lack of shelter. The greater number of them are vilely +housed, do not have enough fuel to keep them warm, and are insufficiently +clothed. A constant 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 starvation; 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 babe that is born, is born in +debt to the sum of 22 pounds. This is because of an artifice called the +National Debt. + +In a fair comparison 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; that no Innuit lacks fuel, clothing, +or housing, while the Englishman is in perpetual lack of these three +essentials. In this connection it is well to instance the judgment of a +man such as Huxley. From the knowledge gained as a medical officer in +the East End of London, and as a scientist pursuing investigations among +the most elemental savages, he concludes, "Were the alternative presented +to me, I would deliberately prefer the life of the savage to that of +those people of Christian London." + +The creature comforts man enjoys are the products of man's labour. Since +Civilisation has failed to give 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. Then arises the third and inexorable question: _If +Civilisation has increased the producing power of the average man, why +has it not bettered the 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. 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 should have reared this tremendous artifice in vain. +It stuns the intellect. To acknowledge so crushing a defeat 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_. This accepted, +it becomes at once a question of business management. Things profitable +must be continued; things unprofitable must be eliminated. Either the +Empire is a profit to England, or it is a loss. If it is a loss, it must +be done away with. If it is a profit, it must be managed so that the +average man comes in for a share of the profit. + +If the struggle for commercial supremacy is profitable, continue it. If +it is not, if it hurts the worker 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 them to work ploughing game preserves and planting potatoes. If they +are profitable, continue them by all means, but let it be seen to that +the average Englishman shares somewhat 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. 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 West End and an +East End as large as the Kingdom is large, in which one end is riotous +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 +political empire, and the English of the New World and the Antipodes are +strong and vigorous as ever. But the political 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 wasteful and +inefficient, but it has misappropriated the funds. Every worn-out, pasty- +faced pauper, 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 member 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 increased 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 who +lives to-day as he lived in the stone age ten thousand years ago. + + + + +CHALLENGE + + +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 before Zamora slain, +And his great besieging army + Lay encamped upon the plain. + +Don Diego de Ordenez + Sallied forth in front of all, +And shouted loud his challenge + To the warders on the wall. + +All the people of Zamora, + Both the born and the unborn, +As traitors did he challenge + With taunting words of scorn. + +The living in their houses, + And in their 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 life. + +The poverty-stricken millions + Who challenge our wine and bread, +And impeach us all as traitors, + Both the living and the dead. + +And whenever I sit at the banquet, + Where the feast and song are high, +Amid the mirth and music + I can hear that fearful cry. + +And hollow and haggard faces + Look into the lighted hall, +And wasted hands are extended + To catch the crumbs that 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 wind, and cold, and rain, +Christ, the great Lord of the Army, + Lies dead upon the plain. + +LONGFELLOW + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{1} This in the Klondike.--J. L. + +{2} "Runt" in America is the equivalent of the English "crowl," the +dwarf of a litter. + +{3} The San Francisco bricklayer receives twenty shillings per day, and +at present is on strike for twenty-four shillings. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS*** + + +******* This file should be named 1688.txt or 1688.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/8/1688 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.net/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.net), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.net/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.net/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.net/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.net/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.net + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/1688.zip b/old/1688.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e01bcf0 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1688.zip diff --git a/old/tpota10.txt b/old/tpota10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e36d2c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tpota10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7251 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of The People of the Abyss by Jack London +#70 in our series by Jack London + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +The People of the Abyss + +by Jack London + +March, 1999 [Etext #1688] + + +Project Gutenberg Etext of The People of the Abyss by Jack London +******This file should be named tpota10.txt or tpota10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, tpota11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, tpota10a.txt + + +This etext was prepared from the Thomas Nelson and Sons edition +by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions, +all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a +copyright notice is included. Therefore, we do NOT keep these books +in compliance with any particular paper edition, usually otherwise. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text +files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+ +If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the +total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we +manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly +from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an +assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few +more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we +don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person. + +We need your donations more than ever! + + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. (CMU = Carnegie- +Mellon University). + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails try our Executive Director: +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +We would prefer to send you this information by email. + +****** + +To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser +to view http://promo.net/pg. This site lists Etexts by +author and by title, and includes information about how +to get involved with Project Gutenberg. You could also +download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here. This +is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com, +for a more complete list of our various sites. + +To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any +Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror +sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed +at http://promo.net/pg). + +Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better. + +Example FTP session: + +ftp sunsite.unc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg +cd etext90 through etext99 +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET GUTINDEX.?? [to get a year's listing of books, e.g., GUTINDEX.99] +GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books] + +*** + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** + +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG- +tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word pro- + cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Carnegie-Mellon University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared from the Thomas Nelson and Sons edition +by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS + +by Jack London + + + + +The chief priests and rulers cry:- + +"O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt, +We build but as our fathers built; +Behold thine images how they stand +Sovereign and 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, +Still as thou leftest them, thy sheep." + +Then Christ sought out an artisan, +A low-browed, stunted, haggard man, +And a motherless girl whose fingers thin +Crushed from her faintly 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 have made of me." + +JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. + + + +PREFACE + + + +The experiences related in this volume 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. I was open +to be convinced by the evidence of my eyes, rather than by the +teachings of those who had not seen, or by the words of those who +had seen and gone before. Further, I took with me certain simple +criteria with which to measure the life of the under-world. That +which made for more life, for physical and spiritual health, was +good; that which made for less life, which hurt, and dwarfed, and +distorted life, was bad. + +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" in England. The starvation and 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 summer 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, writing in the month of January 1903, +to the New York Independent, briefly epitomises 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 have exhausted their +means in trying to raise supplies of food for the famishing +residents of the garrets and cellars of London lanes and alleys. +The quarters of the Salvation Army 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 political aggregations than by individuals. Society grows, while +political machines rack to pieces and become "scrap." For the +English, so far as manhood and womanhood and health and happiness +go, I see a broad and smiling future. But for a great deal of the +political machinery, which at present mismanages for them, I see +nothing else than the scrap heap. + +JACK LONDON. +PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA. + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE DESCENT + + + +"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 police for a guide," they added, on +second thought, painfully endeavouring to adjust 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 things 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 going to +live there myself." + +"You don't want to LIVE down there!" everybody said, with +disapprobation writ large upon their faces. "Why, it is said there +are places where a man's life isn't worth tu'pence." + +"The very places 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 is over there, somewhere." +And they waved their hands vaguely in the direction where the sun on +rare occasions may be seen to rise. + +"Then I shall go to Cook's," I announced. + +"Oh yes," they said, with relief. "Cook's will be sure to know." + +But O Cook, O Thomas Cook & Son, path-finders and trail-clearers, +living sign-posts to all the 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 distant 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 advance 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." + +He said it so cheerfully and cold-bloodedly that on the instant I +saw my stark and mutilated cadaver stretched upon a slab where cool +waters trickle ceaselessly, and him 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," 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 Chief Office hemmed and hawed. "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 and hawed. + +"Of course," I hastily anticipated, "I know it is unprecedented, +but--" + +"As I was about to remark," he went on steadily, "it is +unprecedented, and I don't think we can do anything for you." + +However, I departed 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 and my project, which +he accepted as a matter of course. In the second minute he asked my +age, height, and weight, and looked me over. 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 nobody seemed +to know anything. But at once I encountered a new difficulty in the +shape of my cabby, a grey-whiskered and eminently decorous personage +who had imperturbably driven me for several hours about the "City." + +"Drive me down 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 pursued 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," I repeated. "Nowhere in particular. Just drive me +around anywhere." + +"But wot's the haddress, sir?" + +"See here!" I thundered. "Drive me down to the East End, and at +once!" + +It was evident that 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 region 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 through miles of bricks and squalor, +and from each cross street and alley flashed long vistas of bricks +and misery. Here and there lurched a drunken man or woman, and the +air was obscene with sounds of jangling and squabbling. At a +market, tottery old men and women were searching in the garbage +thrown in the mud for rotten potatoes, beans, and vegetables, while +little children clustered like flies around a festering mass of +fruit, thrusting their arms to the shoulders into the liquid +corruption, and drawing forth morsels but partially 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 and 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; and 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, sir; 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 strynger 'ere," he managed to articulate. "An' +if yer don't want Stepney Station, I'm blessed if I know wotcher do +want." + +"I'll tell you what I want," I said. "You drive along and keep your +eye out for a shop where old clothes are sold. Now, when you see +such 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 curb and informed me that an old- +clothes shop was to be found a bit of the way back. + +"Won'tcher py me?" he pleaded. "There'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 ragged onlookers had already gathered around the cab, +and I laughed again and walked back to the old-clothes shop. + +Here the chief difficulty was in making the shopman understand that +I really and truly wanted old clothes. But after fruitless 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 man 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 with 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 with 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 coal was shovelled, a thin leather belt, +and a very dirty cloth cap. My underclothing and socks, however, +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 yer 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 ben 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 singlet an' hother things." + +"How much will you give me for them?" I demanded suddenly. "I paid +you ten bob for the lot, 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 aware 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 Town. + +But he drove me only to Highbury Vale, in North London, where my +luggage was waiting for me. Here, next day, I took off my shoes +(not without regret for their lightness and comfort), and my soft, +grey travelling 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 have had to part with such +rags for the pitiable sums obtainable from a dealer. + +Inside my stoker's singlet, in the armpit, I sewed a gold sovereign +(an emergency sum certainly 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 quite 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 knife, 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 "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 uncouth animal noises +we are wont to designate as "laughter." + +No sooner was I out on the streets than I was impressed by the +difference in status effected by my clothes. All servility vanished +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 of my class, which was their class. It made me of +like kind, and in place of the fawning and too respectful attention +I had hitherto received, I now shared with them a comradeship. The +man in corduroy and dirty neckerchief 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 man 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," to +a gentleman whose horse I held, and who dropped a penny into my +eager palm + +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 cheapened 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?" Also, at the railway stations, a third-class ticket +was now shoved out 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- +houses, talked with me, they talked as one man to another, and they +talked as natural 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 become 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 one exception of the stoker's singlet. + + + +CHAPTER II--JOHNNY UPRIGHT + + + +I shall not give you the address of Johnny Upright. Let it suffice +that he lives in the most respectable street in the East End--a +street that would be considered very mean in America, but a +veritable oasis in the desert of East London. It is surrounded on +every side by close-packed squalor and streets jammed by a young and +vile and dirty 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 the 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 there is but one +entrance, the front door; and each house is about eighteen feet +wide, with a bit of a brick-walled yard behind, where, when it is +not raining, one 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 people 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 world. + +To Johnny Upright's house I came, and to the door came the "slavey." +Now, mark you, her position in life was pitiable and contemptible, +but it was with pity and contempt that she looked at me. She +evinced a plain desire 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 lingered, 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. The 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 step in?--no, the lady did not ask me, though I +fished for an invitation by stating 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, and, 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 tell me that the missus would let me come back and +wait in the kitchen. + +"So many people 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 rags with dignity. "I quite understand, I assure +you. I suppose people looking for work almost worry you to death?" + +"That they do," she answered, with an eloquent and expressive +glance; and thereupon 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, not too +far distant, into which could run now and again to assure myself +that good clothes and cleanliness still existed. Also in such port +I could receive my mail, work up my notes, and sally 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 gentleman 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. 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 strange 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 dresses; 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 over with frank curiosity, as though I were some sort +of a strange animal, and then ignored me utterly for the rest of my +wait. Then Johnny Upright himself arrived, and I was summoned +upstairs to confer with him. + +"Speak loud," he interrupted my opening words. "I've got a bad +cold, and I can't hear well." + +Shades of Old Sleuth and Sherlock Holmes! I wondered 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 sure: 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 greeting was cordial enough, and I +went down into the dining-room to join the family at tea. + +"We are humble 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 easier for them. + +"Ha! ha!" 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 indignantly 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 deeming 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 which 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 AND 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 added 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, that though I walked miles in irregular +circles over a large area, I still remained between. Not one empty +house could I find--a conclusive proof that the district was +"saturated." + +It being plain that 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 them, 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 the 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 circumstances, 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 door 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 this 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, sir, 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. It IS shocking, sir; and just to think, only a few +years ago all this neighbourhood was just as nice as it could be." + +I looked at her. Here was a woman, of the finest grade of the +English working-class, with numerous evidences of refinement, being +slowly 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 poor +folk are a nomadic breed; so they migrate eastward, wave upon wave, +saturating and degrading neighbourhood by neighbourhood, driving the +better class of workers before them to pioneer, on the rim of the +city, or dragging them down, if not in the first generation, surely +in the second and third. + +It is only a question 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. He has not put up the rent on any of his houses +here, and this has enabled us to stay. But any day he may sell, or +any day he may die, which is the same thing so far as we are +concerned. The house is bought by a money breeder, who builds a +sweat shop on the patch of ground at the rear where my grapevine is, +adds to the house, and rents it a room to a family. There you are, +and Johnny Upright's gone!" + +And truly I saw Johnny Upright, and his good wife and fair +daughters, and frowzy slavey, like so many ghosts flitting eastward +through the gloom, the monster city roaring at their heels. + +But Johnny Upright is not alone in his flitting. Far, far out, on +the fringe of the city, live the small business men, little +managers, and successful clerks. They dwell in cottages and semi- +detached villas, with bits of flower garden, and elbow room, and +breathing space. They inflate themselves with pride, and throw out +their chests when they contemplate the Abyss from which they have +escaped, and they thank God that they are not as other men. And lo! +down upon them comes Johnny Upright and the monster city at his +heels. Tenements spring up like magic, gardens 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 whose fare I was partaking in a greasy coffee- +house down near the Pool and not very far from Limehouse. + +"Oh yus," 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 shillings out +of my pocket. The expected result was produced. + +"Yus, sir," she at once volunteered; "I 'ave nice lodgin's you'd +likely tyke a fancy to. Back from a voyage, sir?" + +"How much for a room?" I inquired, ignoring her curiosity. + +She looked me up and down with frank surprise. "I don't let rooms, +not to my reg'lar lodgers, much less casuals." + +"Then I'll have 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, +respectable 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?" I demanded. + +"'Arf a crown a week, two an' six, to a regular lodger. You'll +fancy the men, I'm sure. 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 went on. "A steady, respectable 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 he's saving money right along," I insinuated innocently. + +"Bless you, no! Nor can 'e do as well helsewhere with '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, paying two dollars +and a half per month for it, and out of his experience adjudging 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 with him. The human soul is a lonely 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 have you been here?" I asked. + +"Thirteen years, sir; an' don't you think you'll fancy the lodgin'?" + +The while she talked she was shuffling ponderously about the small +kitchen in which she cooked the 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. "Up at half-past five," "to bed the last thing at +night," "workin' fit ter drop," thirteen years of it, and for +reward, grey hairs, frowzy clothes, stooped shoulders, slatternly +figure, unending toil in a foul and noisome coffee-house that faced +on an alley ten feet between the walls, and a waterside environment +that was ugly and sickening, to say the least. + +"You'll be hin hagain to 'ave a look?" she questioned wistfully, as +I went out of the door. + +And as I turned and 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 taken a vacation?" I asked. + +"Vycytion!" + +"A trip to the 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 likes o' me? Just fancy, now!--Mind +yer 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 pulled down +across his eyes, and the fit and sag of his clothes whispered +unmistakably 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 drink up the whole shilling. + +"My mate, 'e cut up rough las' night," he explained. "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 slept the night on a miserable bed in +a miserable den, I knew him pretty fairly for 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-born, his father a fireman and a drinker before him. +As a child, his home was the streets and the docks. He had never +learned to read, and had never felt the need for it--a vain and +useless accomplishment, he held, at least for a man of his station +in life. + +He had had a mother 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 +went home except at periods when he was unfortunate in procuring his +own food. Petty 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 live and get the wherewithal), and then the paying off and +the big drunk at the end. After that, haphazard little drunks, +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 +repetition of the beastly cycle. + +"But women," I suggested, when he had finished proclaiming booze the +sole end of existence. + +"Wimmen!" He thumped his pot upon the bar and orated eloquently. +"Wimmen 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, that 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 money so quick 'e ain't +'ad 'ardly a glass. I know. I've 'ad my fling, an' I know wot's +wot. An' I tell you, where's wimmen is trouble--screechin' an' +carryin' on, fightin', cuttin', 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. "A home of your own, and all +that. Think of it, back from a voyage, little children climbing on +your knee, 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--" + +"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'll 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' well glad to be back t' sea. A +missus! Wot for? T' make you mis'rable? Kids? Jest take my +counsel, matey, an' don'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." + +Without going further 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 had +never known. The word "home" aroused nothing but unpleasant +associations. In the low wages of his father, and 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 unmoral and materialistic, he sought +the greatest possible happiness for himself, and 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 terrors for him. From the moment of +his birth, all the forces of his environment had tended to harden +him, and he viewed his wretched, inevitable future with a +callousness and unconcern I could not shake. + +And yet he was not a bad man. He was not inherently vicious and +brutal. He had normal mentality, and a more than average physique. +His eyes were blue and round, shaded 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 weak; I have seen men sitting in the high places with weaker. + +His head was shapely, and so gracefully was it poised upon a perfect +neck that I was not surprised 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 have +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 sacrilege 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 happier in making both +ends meet in a room shared with two other men, than he would have +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 people of the Abyss to marry. They are the +stones by the builder rejected. There is no place for them, in the +social fabric, while all the forces 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 does not need them. There +are plenty, far fitter than they, clinging to the steep slope above, +and struggling frantically to slide no more. + +In short, the London Abyss is a vast shambles. Year 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 has 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." 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 Mathieson stated +that she was landlady of the house where deceased lived. Witness +last saw her alive on the previous Monday. She lived quite alone. +Mr. Francis Birch, relieving officer for the Holborn district, +stated that deceased had occupied the room in question for thirty- +five years. When witness was called, on the 1st, he found the old +woman in a terrible state, and the ambulance and coachman had to be +disinfected after the removal. Dr. Chase Fennell said death was due +to blood-poisoning from bed-sores, due to self-neglect and filthy +surroundings, and the jury returned a verdict to that 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 +of bodily strength, or of intelligence, or of fibre, or of all +three, they are inefficient or unwilling workers, and consequently +unable to support themselves . . . They are often so degraded in +intellect as to be incapable of distinguishing their right from +their left hand, or of recognising the numbers 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. 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 EDGE + + + +My first impression of East London was naturally a general one. +Later 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 rows of houses in little out-of-the-way +streets, where artisans dwell and where a rude sort of family life +obtains. In the evenings the men can be seen at the doors, pipes in +their mouths and children 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 stupid and heavy, without imagination. The Abyss seems to +exude a stupefying atmosphere of torpor, which wraps about them and +deadens them. Religion passes them by. The Unseen holds for them +neither terror nor delight. They are unaware of the Unseen; and 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. The +satisfied torpor in which they are sunk is the deadly inertia that +precedes dissolution. There is no progress, and with them not to +progress is to fall back and into the Abyss. In their own lives +they may only start to fall, leaving the fall to be completed by +their children and their children's children. Man always 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. Mind and body are sapped by the +undermining influences ceaselessly at work. Moral and physical +stamina are broken, and the good workman, fresh from the soil, +becomes in the first city generation a poor workman; and by the +second city generation, devoid of push and go and initiative, and +actually unable physically to perform the labour his father did, he +is well on the way to the shambles at the bottom of the Abyss. + +If nothing else, the air he breathes, and from which he never +escapes, is sufficient to weaken him 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 sulphate of lime. This deposit had +been formed 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 virility 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, +carriers, omnibus drivers, corn and timber porters, and all those +who require physical 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 quality of the life is good. All human potentialities +are in it. Given proper conditions, it could live through the +centuries, and great men, heroes and masters, spring from it and +make the world better by having lived. + +I talked with a woman 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 +member 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 enterprise 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, they 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 +worth had forthcome the supply was automatically shut off. "A penny +gawn in no time," she explained, "an' the cookin' not arf done!" + +Incipient starvation had been their portion for years. Month in and +month out, they had arisen from the table able and willing 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 was a hard worker. From 4.30 in the morning till the +last light at night, she said, she had toiled at making cloth dress- +skirts, lined up and with two flounces, for seven shillings a dozen. +Cloth dress-skirts, mark you, lined 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 order to obtain employment, had to belong to the +union, which collected one shilling 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 sixpence per week--37.5 cents per week, or a +fraction over 5 cents per day. However, when the slack season came +she was discharged, though she had been taken on at such low pay +with the understanding that she was to learn the trade and work up. +After that she had been employed in a bicycle store for three years, +for which she received five shillings per week, 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. +But what of the daughters? Living like swine, enfeebled by chronic +innutrition, being sapped mentally, morally, and physically, what +chance have 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 reached 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 think 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 heard 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 the combatants. + +A lull; "You let that child alone!" child, evidently of few years, +screaming in downright 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 exhaustion. + +Voices begin to go up the scale, something like this:- + +"Yes?" + +"Yes!" + +"Yes?" + +"Yes!" + +"Yes?" + +"Yes!" + +"Yes?" + +"Yes!" + +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, blankety, 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 fibre. + + + +CHAPTER VI--FRYING-PAN ALLEY AND A GLIMPSE OF INFERNO + + + +Three of us walked down Mile End Road, 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 meetings which have vexed the serenity of Merry +England these several years back. Little items he had been +imparting to me as he walked along; of being mobbed in parks and on +tram-cars; of climbing on the platform to lead the forlorn hope, +when brother speaker after brother speaker had been dragged down by +the angry crowd and cruelly beaten; of a siege in a church, where he +and three others had taken sanctuary, and where, amid flying +missiles and the crashing of stained glass, they had fought off the +mob till rescued by platoons of constables; of pitched and giddy +battles on stairways, galleries, and balconies; of smashed windows, +collapsed stairways, wrecked lecture halls, and broken heads and +bones--and then, with a regretful sigh, he looked at me and said: +"How I envy you big, strong men! I'm such a little mite I can't do +much when it comes to fighting." + +And I, walking head 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 other 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 of 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 prodigiously 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. 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 tadpoles 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 +breasts grossly naked and libelling all the sacredness of +motherhood. In the black and narrow hall behind her we waded +through a mess of young life, and essayed an even narrower and +fouler 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. 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 "sweated." It was seven feet wide by eight +long, 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 uppers, 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 the +three quarts of milk he daily required. Further, this son, weak and +dying, did not taste meat oftener than once 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, referring 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 burned nearly +all the day and added its fumes to the over-loaded air, which was +breathed, and breathed, and breathed again. + +In good times, when 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 only the best of us can do it," he qualified. "An' then +we work twelve, thirteen, and fourteen hours a day, just as fast as +we can. An' you should see us sweat! Just running from us! If you +could see us, it'd dazzle your eyes--tacks flyin' out of mouth like +from a machine. Look at my mouth." + +I looked. The teeth were worn down by the constant 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," 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, +which is equivalent to from two dollars and a half to five dollars. +The present week was half gone, and he had earned four bob, or one +dollar. And yet I was given to understand that this was one of the +better grades of sweating. + +I looked out of the 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 +which people lived. The roofs of these 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 fish 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 breasts grossly naked and waded anew through the +cheap young life. + +We next visited the 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 people 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," 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 Christ's Church, at three o'clock in the afternoon, +I saw a sight I never wish to see again. There are no flowers in +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 Town, so that homeless men +and women may not come in at night and sleep upon it. + +As we entered the garden, an old woman, between fifty and sixty, +passed us, striding with sturdy 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 home with her. In the two sacking- +covered bundles were her household goods, her wardrobe, linen, and +dear feminine possessions. + +We went up the narrow gravelled walk. On the benches 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 was a welter of rags and +filth, of all manner of loathsome skin diseases, open sores, +bruises, grossness, indecency, leering monstrosities, and bestial +faces. A chill, raw wind was blowing, and these creatures huddled +there in their rags, sleeping for the most part, or trying to sleep. +Here were a dozen women, ranging in age from twenty years to +seventy. Next a babe, possibly of nine months, lying asleep, flat +on the hard bench, with neither pillow nor covering, nor with any +one looking after it. Next half-a-dozen men, sleeping bolt upright +or leaning against one another in their sleep. In one place a +family group, a child asleep in its sleeping mother's arms, and the +husband (or male mate) clumsily mending a dilapidated shoe. On +another bench a woman trimming the frayed strips of her rags with a +knife, and another woman, with thread and needle, sewing up rents. +Adjoining, a man holding a sleeping woman in his arms. Farther on, +a man, his clothing caked with gutter mud, asleep, with head in the +lap of a woman, not more than twenty-five years old, and also +asleep. + +It was this sleeping that puzzled me. Why were nine out of ten of +them asleep or trying to sleep? 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. 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 curious by our +intrusion. + +"A lung of London," 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 sake 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. I have made two attempts now, and I shall shortly make a +third. The first time I started out at seven 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 mistake of tardiness. Seven o'clock in 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 homeless, 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 friend, 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 line was formed, which strung out around the corner of +the building and out of sight. + +It was a most woeful 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 might 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 hearty, 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 eyes; 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 have 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 service . . . " + + +How correct I was in my surmise, and how peculiarly appropriate the +verse was, you shall learn. + +"I won't stand it much longer, I won't," he was complaining to the +man on the other side of him. "I'll smash a windy, a big 'un, an' +get run in for fourteen days. Then I'll have a good place to sleep, +never fear, an' better grub than you get here. Though I'd miss my +bit of bacey"--this as an after-thought, and said regretfully and +resignedly. + +"I've been out 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 come to this. I'm +tellin' you sure. Seven an' eighty years am I, an' served my +country like a man. Three good-conduct stripes and the Victoria +Cross, an' 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 rushed 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 world. + +Given encouragement, 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, dates, +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 quite in keeping to take notes at the poorhouse door. +He had been through the "First War in China," as he termed it; had +enlisted with the East India Company and served ten years in India; +was back in India again, in the English navy, at the time of the +Mutiny; had served in the Burmese War and in the Crimea; and all +this 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 particular 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 stripes, 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. 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 mind 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 due 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 +offence); 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 moved 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 thing: THIS +BEING WEDNESDAY, NONE OF US WOULD BE RELEASED TILL FRIDAY MORNING. +Furthermore, 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. Sometimes, I was told, it was returned on leaving +and sometimes it was destroyed. + +The old man-of-war'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, went 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 the line moved up, and we were slowly but surely +approaching the wicket. At the moment we happened to be standing on +an iron grating, and a man appearing underneath, the old sailor +called down to him, - + +"How many more 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 about +me. It is not a nice thing, hungry and penniless, to face a +sleepless night in the streets. But we hoped against hope, till, +when ten stood outside the wicket, the porter turned us away. + +"Full up," 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 +casual wards, as to where we should go. They decided on the Poplar +Workhouse, three miles away, and we started 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, night 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 looked it, lean and wiry, +with shrewd, observant eyes, and hands that had grown twisted to the +handles of tools through forty-seven years' work at the trade. The +chief difficulty with these men was that they were old, and that +their children, instead of growing up to take care of them, had +died. Their years had 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, turned 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 age, 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! 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 could endure so much and live. +Should 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 benches are few and far between; +but if rest means sleep, on you must go, dragging your tired body +through the endless streets. Should you, in desperate slyness, seek +some forlorn alley or dark passageway and lie down, the omnipresent +policeman will rout you out just the same. It is his business to +rout you out. It is a law of the powers that be that you shall be +routed out. + +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 admiring 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 sixty, 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 and +days--O dear, soft people, full of meat and blood, how can you ever +understand? + +I walked up Mile End Road between the Carter and the Carpenter. +Mile End Road is a wide thoroughfare, cutting the heart of East +London, and there were tens of thousands of people abroad on it. I +tell you this so that you may fully appreciate what I shall describe +in the next paragraph. As I say, we walked along, and when 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 believe, 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 while looking +for a ship. This accounted for my ignorance of English ways in +general and casual wards in particular, and my curiosity concerning +the same. + +The Carter was hard put to keep the pace at which we walked (he told +me that he had eaten nothing 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 which reminded me +strongly of the plains wolf or coyote. Both kept their eyes upon +the pavement as they walked and talked, and every now and then one +or the other would stoop and pick something up, never missing the +stride the while. I thought it was cigar and cigarette 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 CRACKED 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 CHEWED 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, naturally, their guts a-reek with pavement offal, they talked +of bloody revolution. They talked as anarchists, fanatics, and +madmen would talk. And who shall blame them? In spite of my three +good meals that day, and the snug bed I could occupy if I wished, +and my social philosophy, and my evolutionary belief in the slow +development and metamorphosis of things--in spite of all this, I +say, I felt impelled to talk rot with them or hold my tongue. Poor +fools! Not of their sort are revolutions bred. And when they are +dead and dust, which will be shortly, other fools will talk bloody +revolution as they gather offal from the spittle-drenched sidewalk +along Mile End Road to Poplar Workhouse. + +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," 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 make 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. I go to the casual ward for a bed. Must be there by two or +three in the afternoon or I won't get in. You saw what happened to- +day. What chance does that give me to look for work? S'pose I do +get into the casual ward? Keep me in all day to-morrow, let me out +mornin' o' next day. What then? The law sez I can't get in another +casual ward that night less'n ten miles distant. Have to hurry an' +walk to be there in time that day. What chance does that give me to +look for a job? S'pose I don't walk. S'pose I look for a job? In +no time there's night come, an' no bed. No sleep all night, nothin' +to eat, what shape am I in the mornin' to look for work? Got to +make up my sleep in the park somehow" (the vision of Christ's +Church, Spitalfield, was strong on me) "an' get something to eat. +An' there I am! Old, down, an' no chance to get up." + +"Used to be a toll-gate 'ere," said the Carter. "Many's the time +I've paid my toll 'ere in my cartin' days." + +"I've 'ad three 'a'penny rolls in two days," the Carpenter +announced, after a long pause in the conversation. "Two of them I +ate yesterday, an' the third to-day," he concluded, after another +long pause. + +"I ain't 'ad anything to-day," said the Carter. "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." + +But what surprised 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. Having taken a cold bath on +entering, I would be given for supper six ounces of bread and "three +parts of skilly." "Three parts" means three-quarters of a pint, and +"skilly" is a fluid concoction of three quarts of oatmeal stirred +into three buckets and a half of hot water. + +"Milk and sugar, I suppose, and a silver spoon?" I queried. + +"No fear. Salt's what you'll get, an' I've seen some places where +you'd not get any spoon. 'Old 'er up an' let 'er run down, that's +'ow they do it." + +"You do get good skilly at 'Ackney," said the Carter. + +"Oh, wonderful skilly, that," praised the Carpenter, and each looked +eloquently at the other. + +"Flour an' water at St. George's in the East," said the Carter. + +The Carpenter nodded. 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 always 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 now 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 blessed day." + +"Then what?" + +"Then you've got to do your task, pick four pounds of oakum, or +clean an' scrub, or break ten 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. You'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 stones, 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 it 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 task an' +'ave supper, same as before, three parts o' skilly any six ounces o' +bread. Then to bed, six o'clock, an' next mornin' you're turned +loose, provided you'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. And then, as the last light was +fading from the drab-coloured sky, the wind blowing cheerless and +cold, we stood, with our pitiful little bundles in our hands, a +forlorn group at the workhouse door. + +Three working girls came along, and one looked pityingly at me; as +she passed I followed her with my eyes, and she still looked +pityingly back at me. The old men she did not notice. Dear Christ, +she pitied me, young and vigorous and strong, but she had no pity +for the two old men who stood by my side! She was a young woman, +and I was a young man, and what vague sex promptings impelled her to +pity me put her sentiment on the lowest plane. Pity for old men is +an altruistic feeling, and besides, the workhouse door is the +accustomed place for old men. So she showed no pity for them, only +for me, who deserved it least or not at all. Not in honour do grey +hairs go down to the grave in London Town. + +On one side the door 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 terrified voice. "Not so 'ard!" + +I let go, and they looked reproachfully at me, as though I had +imperilled their chance for a bed and three parts of skilly. Nobody +came. Luckily it was the wrong bell, and I felt better. + +"Press the button," I said to the Carpenter. + +"No, no, wait a bit," the Carter hurriedly interposed. + +From all of which I drew the conclusion that a poorhouse porter, who +commonly draws a yearly salary 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 forefinger 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 coming of the porter. + +He came. He barely looked at us. "Full up," he said and shut the +door. + +"Another night 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 in 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 frightened. + +It will be remembered, 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 gone 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 fortune 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, seeking 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 you 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 they could understand that I was no pauper. 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!" 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 tea, that," said the Carpenter. + +They each drank two pints of it, and I assure you that it was slops. +It resembled tea less than lager beer resembles champagne. Nay, it +was "water-bewitched," and did not resemble tea at all. + +It was curious, after 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 bullet 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 themselves. 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 went to the hospital for three +months. Then he was done for. He came out weak, debilitated, no +strong young son to stand by him, his little business gone +glimmering, and not a farthing. The thing had happened, and the +game 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 were +putting up the stands for the first Coronation parade. "An' I got +fair sick of the answer: 'No! no! no!' It rang in my ears 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 gone 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, had been lost in Egypt. The Carpenter had not gone into +the army, so here he was, still on the planet. + +"But 'ere, give me your 'and," he said, ripping open his ragged +shirt. "I'm fit for 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 under 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. "A good missus and three +bonnie lassies. But they all died. Scarlet 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 able to eat a workhouse breakfast in the +morning." + +"Nor I," agreed the Carpenter, and they fell to discussing belly +delights and the fine dishes their respective wives had cooked in +the old days. + +"I've gone three days and never broke my fast," said the Carter. + +"And I, five," his companion added, turning gloomy with the memory +of it. "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 vitals 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 than 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, these two men. They were merely old, and their +children had undutifully failed to grow 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 their 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 said, "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 have 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 hand. + + + +CHAPTER IX--THE SPIKE + + + +First of all, I must beg forgiveness of my body for the vileness +through which I have dragged it, and forgiveness of my stomach for +the vileness which I have thrust into it. I have been to the spike, +and slept 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. They did not "let in" till six, but +at that early hour I was number twenty, while the news had gone +forth that only twenty-two were to be admitted. 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." + +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. But they made up for it, discussing and comparing the +more loathsome features of their disease in the most cold-blooded, +matter-of-fact way. I learned that the average mortality 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 the other three +weeks. Their faces were badly pitted (though each assured the other +that this was not so), and further, they showed me in their hands +and under the nails the smallpox "seeds" still working out. Nay, +one of them worked a seed out for my edification, and pop it went, +right out of his flesh into the air. I tried to shrink up smaller +inside my clothes, and I registered a fervent though silent hope +that it had not popped on me. + +In both instances, I found that the smallpox was the cause of their +being "on the doss," which means on the tramp. Both 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 found any, and they had come to the +spike for a "rest up" after three days 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 the 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 beside 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 hours, and told him to get along. But 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 to earn a living was +by heavy work. He is now incapable of performing heavy work, and +from now until he dies, the spike, 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 prison to +them, a prison from which there was no hope of escape. It was +impossible for them to get away. They could neither scrape 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. 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 scrape 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 get me out of the country. These they no longer +possessed. Age and English hardship had broken 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 period he +had been out of work was twelve hours. He had saved his money, +grown too prosperous, and returned to the mother-country. Now he +was standing 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 saved, 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 would +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 all of +that, in many ways very human. 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 climb 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 joy of this act lies in that it was service of love, +not hire. The carter was poor, and the man knew 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 her ear. From all of which one may conclude many +things. He certainly liked her well enough to wish her to be neat +and tidy. He was proud of her, standing there 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. +Plenty of people were too slow to pick hops and made a failure of +it. A man, to succeed, must use his head 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 mate 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 was quick. 'E was jest nat'rally born to it, 'e was." + +Two pound ten--twelve dollars and a half--for a month's work when +one is "jest nat'rally born to it!" And in addition, sleeping out +without blankets and living the Lord knows how. There are moments +when I am thankful that I was not "jest nat'rally born" a genius for +anything, not even 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 should 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' wegetables, an' a bit o' meat, now an' again, if you're goin' to +do work as is work. Cawn't do it on cold wittles. Tell you wot you +do, lad. Run around in the mornin' an' look in the dust pans. +You'll find plenty o' tins to cook in. Fine tins, wonderful good +some o' them. Me an' the ole woman got ours that way." (He pointed +at the bundle she held, while she nodded proudly, beaming on me with +good-nature and consciousness of success and prosperity.) "This +overcoat is as good as a blanket," he went on, advancing the skirt +of it that I might feel its thickness. "An' 'oo knows, I may find a +blanket before long." + +Again the old woman 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. 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 wondered 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 which 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 one in the afternoon till six, our ragged spike line is the +principal feature of the view commanded by their front doors and +windows. One workman sat in his door directly opposite us, taking +his rest and a breath of air after the toil of the day. His wife +came to chat with him. The doorway was too small for two, so she +stood up. Their babes sprawled before them. And here 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 +been 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 birth, condition of +destitution, and the previous night's "doss," were taken 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 lied every man who entered. As I +passed 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 certainly must have been +unleavened. + +The light was very dim down in the cellar, and before I knew it some +other man had thrust a pannikin into my other hand. Then I stumbled +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 were suffering from tired feet, and they prefaced +the meal by removing their shoes and unbinding the filthy rags with +which their feet were wrapped. This added to the general +noisomeness, while it took away from my appetite. + +In fact, I found that I had made a mistake. I had eaten a hearty +dinner five hours before, and to have done justice to the fare +before 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. The 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 texture, unseasoned, gross, and bitter. This +bitterness which lingered persistently in the mouth after the skilly +had passed on, I found especially repulsive. I struggled manfully, +but was mastered by my qualms, and half-a-dozen mouthfuls of skilly +and bread was the measure of my success. The man beside me ate his +own share, 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 +spike goin'. Y'oughto see some of them. Search you to the skin." + +The pannikins scraped clean, conversation began to spring up. "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 tellin' 'ow a mug gets out o' the spike, wi' a crust in +'is pockit. An' w'en 'e sees a nice ole gentleman 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 darkness 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' blessed 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 through Kent," went on the first voice, still more angrily, +"an' Gawd blimey if I see any tommy. An' I always 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 chaps 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 London the year 'round. Nor do they think of +lookin' for a kip [place to sleep], till nine or ten o'clock at +night." + +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 an' 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 blessed 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 two said they'd be blessed if they do it, an' +they didn't; but I kept wearin' into 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 these men, nay, all of them, I found, do not like +the spike, and only come to it when driven in. After the "rest 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 constitutions, and they +realise it, though only in a vague way; while it is so much the +common run of things that they do not worry about it. + +"On the doss," they call vagabondage here, which corresponds to "on +the road" in the United States. The agreement 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. 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 hastily 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. This was a long, narrow +room, traversed by two low iron rails. Between these rails were +stretched, not hammocks, but pieces of canvas, six feet long and +less than two feet wide. These were the beds, and they were six +inches apart and about eight inches above the floor. The chief +difficulty was that the head was somewhat higher than the feet, +which caused the body constantly to slip down. Being slung to the +same rails, when one man moved, no matter how slightly, the rest +were set rocking; and whenever I dozed somebody was sure to struggle +back to the position from which he had slipped, and arouse me again. + +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 sickening, while my imagination broke loose, and my skin crept +and crawled till I was nearly frantic. Grunting, groaning, 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. At any rate, I woke the living, +and 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 where 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 other 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 disinfectant. + +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 clutter the earth with +their presence, and are better out of the way. Broken by hardship, +ill fed, and worse 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. We were sprinkling disinfectant by the mortuary, +when the dead waggon drove up and five bodies were packed into it. +The conversation turned to 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 much 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 whether this be +actually so or not. The point is, they have the feeling that it is +so, and they have created the language 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, and the hospital scraps. These were +heaped high on a huge platter in an indescribable mess--pieces of +bread, chunks 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. 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 "out 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 into 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 was 'slingin' my 'ook' [running away]. But jest before 'e got me, +I got a ole woman 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 performed 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. 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, let'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. "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," said I, with an enthusiasm they could not comprehend; +and, dodging out the gate, I sped down the street. + +Straight to my room I hurried, changed my clothes, and less than an +hour from my escape, in a Turkish 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" means 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 falling heavily when the theatres let out, and the +brilliant throng which poured from the places of amusement was hard +put to find cabs. The streets were so many wild rivers 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 took 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 meat for a week or a month, is about as severe a +hardship as a man can undergo. Well fed and well clad, I have +travelled 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 was a mere nothing compared with carrying the +banner for a night, ill fed, ill clad, 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 and women and +boys taking shelter in the lee of buildings from the wind and rain. +Piccadilly, however, was not quite so deserted. Its pavements were +brightened by well-dressed women without escort, and there was more +life and action there than elsewhere, due to the process of finding +escort. But by three o'clock the last of them 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 the protection of the +buildings, and slouched up and down and everywhere, in order 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 sense 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 progressed 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 one 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 you get some sleep +in order that you may have strength to look for work and to do work +in case you find it. + +So I sat down on the stone steps of a building. Five minutes later +a policeman was looking at me. My eyes were wide open, so he only +grunted and passed on. Ten minutes later my head was on my knees, I +was dozing, and the same policeman was saying gruffly, "'Ere, you, +get outa that!" + +I got. And, like the old woman, I continued to get; for every time +I dozed, a policeman was there to rout me along again. Not long +after, when I had given this up, I was walking with a young Londoner +(who had been out to the colonies and wished he were out to them +again), when I noticed an open passage leading under a building and +disappearing in darkness. A low iron gate barred the entrance. + +"Come on," I said. "Let's climb over 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 over the fence," I proposed, "and crawl into the shrubbery +for a sleep. The bobbies couldn't find us there." + +"No fear," he answered. "There's the park guardians, and they'd run +you in for six months." + +Times have changed, alas! When I was a youngster I used to read of +homeless boys sleeping in doorways. Already the thing has become a +tradition. As a stock situation it will doubtless linger in +literature for a century to come, but as a cold fact it has ceased +to be. Here are the doorways, and 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 carry 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, entered Green Park. It was +raining again, but they were worn out with the night's walking, and +they were down on the benches and asleep at once. Many 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 +bold only to criticise the ridiculousness of their decrees. All +night long they make the homeless ones walk up and down. They drive +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 and +good, the powers have the power to deprive them of sleep, or of +anything else 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? If it is their intention to +deprive 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? + +In this connection, 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 was fitfully appearing, and the well-dressed West Enders, with +their wives and progeny, were out by thousands, taking the air. It +was not a pleasant sight for them, those horrible, unkempt, sleeping +vagabonds; while the vagabonds themselves, I know, would rather have +done their 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. Know that +the powers that be have kept them walking all the night long, and +that in the day they have nowhere else to sleep. + + + +CHAPTER XI--THE PEG + + + +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 +penniless man looking for work, I had to look about me, first for a +breakfast, and next for the work. + +During the night I had heard of a place over on the Surrey side of +the Thames, where the Salvation Army every Sunday morning gave away +a breakfast to the unwashed. (And, by the way, the men who carry +the banner are unwashed in the morning, and unless it is raining +they do not have much show for a wash, either.) This, 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 obtained. + +Here was a motley crowd of woebegone wretches who had spent the +night in the rain. Such prodigious misery! and so much of it! Old +men, young men, all manner of men, and boys to boot, and all manner +of boys. Some were drowsing standing up; half a score of them were +stretched out on the stone steps in most painful postures, 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 occupants, all asleep, their heads bent forward on their +knees. And, it must be remembered, these are not hard times in +England. Things are going on very much as they ordinarily do, and +times are neither hard nor easy. + +And then came the policeman. "Get outa that, 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 passed on, and back we clustered, like flies around a +honey jar. For was there not that wonderful thing, 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, when back came the policeman and +away we scattered only to return again as soon as the coast was +clear. + +At half-past seven 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 greatly envied. They were permitted to 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 and 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 somehow, and +found ourselves packed in a courtyard like sardines. On more +occasions than one, as a Yankee tramp in Yankeeland, I have had to +work for my breakfast; but for no breakfast 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 bodies, steaming from pent animal +heat, and blocked solidly about me, nearly turned my stomach. So +tightly were we packed, 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 make here is of that particular portion +of the Salvation Army which does business on Blackfriars Road near +the Surrey Theatre. 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 exhausted +from our night's hardship and lack of sleep, and yet there we stood, +and stood, and stood, without rhyme or reason. + +Sailors were very plentiful in this crowd. It seemed to me that one +man in four was looking for a ship, and I found at least a dozen of +them to be American sailors. In accounting for their being "on the +beach," I received the same story 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 long 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. +Very 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 somewhat 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; for it would be +poor business policy to sign them for any longer time, since +seamen's wages are low in England, and England is always crowded +with sailormen on the beach. So this fully accounted for the +American seamen at the Salvation Army barracks. To get off the +beach in other outlandish places they had come to England, and gone +on the beach in the most outlandish 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." They were all cheerful, facing things with the pluck +which is their chief characteristic 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 uses on any and every occasion. +Far different is the luminous and varied Western swearing, which +runs to blasphemy rather than indecency. And after all, since men +will swear, I think I prefer blasphemy to indecency; there is 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. When the policeman routed him out, +he got up slowly and deliberately, looked at the policeman, yawned +and stretched himself, looked at the policeman again as much as to +say he didn't know whether he would or wouldn't, and then sauntered +leisurely down the sidewalk. At the outset I was sure of the hat, +but this made me sure of the wearer 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 feat of beating his +way three hundred miles on a French railway without being caught at +the finish. Where was I hanging out? he asked. And how did I +manage for "kipping"?--which means sleeping. Did I know the rounds +yet? He was getting on, though the country was "horstyl" and the +cities were "bum." Fierce, wasn't it? Couldn't "batter" (beg) +anywhere without being "pinched." But he wasn't going to quit it. +Buffalo Bill's Show was coming over soon, and a man who could drive +eight horses was sure of a job any time. These mugs over here +didn't know beans about driving anything more than a span. What was +the matter with me hanging on and waiting for Buffalo Bill? He was +sure I could ring in somehow. + +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 hat at sight of it, and he was as solicitous for my +welfare as if we were blood brothers. We swapped all manner of +useful information concerning the country and the ways of its +people, methods by which to obtain food and shelter and what not, +and we parted genuinely sorry 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, looked 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," was 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 stood quietly in this packed courtyard. Then the men +began to grow restless. There was pushing and shoving forward, and +a mild hubbub of voices. Nothing rough, however, nor violent; +merely the restlessness of weary and hungry men. At this juncture +forth came the adjutant. I did 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, Go, and he goeth; +and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and +he doeth it." + +Well, he looked at us in just that way, and those nearest to him +quailed. Then he lifted his voice. + +"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 he was a man in +authority, able to say to half a thousand ragged wretches, "you 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 instantly fell +attested its awfulness. And it was a cowardly threat. We could 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 adjutant--was not satisfied. In the dead +silence 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" washed but unfed. All told, there must have been +nearly seven hundred of us who sat down--not to meat or bread, 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 +too 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. 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. And second, weary and exhausted from the night's +sleeplessness and hardship, suffering from the long wait upon their +feet, and faint from hunger, they were yearning, not for salvation, +but for grub. The "soul-snatchers" (as these men call all religious +propagandists), 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. 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 needed. I gave part of my bread to the tramp +royal who was waiting for Buffalo Bill, and he was as ravenous at +the end as 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 the men had been waiting since five o'clock for it, while +all of us had waited at least 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 prayed 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 signs +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. 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 left them to their fate, +and went up to the nearest Salvation Army man. + +"I want to go," I said. "I came here for breakfast in order that I +might be in shape to look for work. I didn't think it would take so +long to get breakfast. I think I have a chance for work in Stepney, +and the sooner I start, the better chance I'll have of getting it." + +He was really a good fellow, though he was startled by my request. +"Wy," he said, "we're goin' to 'old services, and you'd better sty." + +"But that will spoil my chances for work," I urged. "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. "The idea!" he snorted. "The idea!" + +"Do you mean to say that I can't get out of here?" I demanded. +"That you will keep me here against 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 me 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 all night, and I needed a breakfast in order to +strengthen me to find work. That is why I came here." + +"A nice thing 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 backing 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 informed a couple of privates standing there that +"'ere is a fellow that 'as business an' 'e wants to go before +services." + +They were duly shocked, of course, and they looked unutterable +horror while he went into the 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 m 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," he said. + +It was twelve o'clock 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 that I had done a hard +night's work walking the streets, and a hard day's work getting my +breakfast; so I disconnected myself from my working hypothesis of a +starving 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 evening +when I closed my eyes. When they opened again, the clocks were +striking nine next morning. I had slept fifteen straight hours. +And as I lay there drowsily, my mind went back to the seven hundred +unfortunates I had left waiting for services. No bath, no shave for +them, no clean white sheets and all clothes off, and fifteen hours' +straight sleep. Services over, it was the weary streets again, the +problem of a crust of bread ere night, and the long sleepless night +in the streets, and the pondering of the problem of how to obtain a +crust at dawn. + + + +CHAPTER XII--CORONATION DAY + + + +O thou that sea-walls sever +From lands unwalled by seas! +Wilt thou endure forever, +O Milton's England, these? +Thou that wast his Republic, +Wilt thou clasp their knees? +These royalties rust-eaten, +These worm-corroded lies +That keep thy head storm-beaten, +And sun-like strength of eyes +From the open air and heaven +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 never 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 the 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 coming 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. The 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 Trafalgar Square, "the most splendid site in Europe," +and the very innermost heart of the empire. There were many +thousands of us, all checked and held in order by a superb display +of armed power. The line of march was double-walled with soldiers. +The base of the Nelson Column was triple-fringed with bluejackets. +Eastward, at the entrance to the square, stood the Royal Marine +Artillery. In the triangle of Pall Mall and Cockspur Street, the +statue of George 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 +the reserves--tall, well-fed men, with weapons to wield and muscles +to wield them in ease of need. + +And as it was thus at Trafalgar Square, so was it along the whole +line of march--force, overpowering 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 stamp out life. And +that they should 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 England, 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 explains the +other. We cannot understand the 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 Samuel, and said: +"Make us a king to judge us like all the nations." + + +And the Lord said unto Samuel: 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 words of the Lord unto the people that asked +of him a king, and he said: + +This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you; he +will take your sons, and appoint them unto him, for his chariots, +and to be his horsemen, and they shall run before his chariots. + +And he will appoint them unto him for captains of thousands, and +captains of fifties; and he will set some to plough his ground, and +to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and the +instruments of his chariots. + +And he will take your daughters 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 menservants, and your maidservants, and your +goodliest young men, and 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 that day because of your king which ye +shall have chosen you; and the 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 chastised you with +whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." + +And in these latter 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 produced by all the toilers +of the country. + +At the Abbey, clad 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 presented him by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with +these words:- + + +Receive this kingly sword brought 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, help 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. Then a royal carriage, +filled with ladies and gentlemen of the household, with powdered +footmen and coachmen most gorgeously arrayed. More carriages, +lords, and chamberlains, 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 Town, 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 England, 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 come, 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, princes 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, Australia, New Zealand; from Bermuda, +Borneo, Fiji, and the Gold Coast; from Rhodesia, Cape Colony, Natal, +Sierra Leone and Gambia, Nigeria, and Uganda; from Ceylon, Cyprus, +Hong-Kong, Jamaica, and Wei-Hai-Wei; from Lagos, Malta, St. Lucia, +Singapore, Trinidad. And here the conquered men of Ind, swarthy +horsemen and sword wielders, fiercely barbaric, blazing in crimson +and scarlet, Sikhs, Rajputs, Burmese, province by province, and +caste by caste. + +And now the Horse Guards, a glimpse of beautiful cream ponies, and a +golden panoply, a hurricane 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 +beside 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 +with the crowd out of the square into a tangle of narrow streets, +where the public-houses are a-roar with drunkenness, men, women, and +children mixed together in colossal debauch. And on every side is +rising the favourite song of the Coronation:- + + +"Oh! on Coronation Day, on Coronation Day, +We'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 pouring down. Up the street come troops 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 Park. + +"'Ow did I like it? A bloomin' good chawnce, sez I to myself, for a +sleep, wi' all the coppers aw'y, so I turned into the corner 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 flaming gas, was +everywhere. The crowds in the streets increased by hundreds of +thousands, and though the police sternly put down mafficking, +drunkenness and rough play abounded. The tired workers seemed to +have gone mad with the relaxation and excitement, and they surged +and danced 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, ennyseckle, Oi em ther bee, +Oi'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 before me +poured the better class of merrymakers, shunning the more riotous +streets and returning home. On the bench beside me sat two ragged +creatures, a man and a woman, nodding and dozing. 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. This +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 passed the bench while I sat upon +it, and not one, on such a jubilee occasion as the 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 Briticism, it was "cruel"; the corresponding Americanism +was more appropriate--it was "fierce." 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 demonstrate 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 benches 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 London, 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 poor +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 was the keynote of his +being. All his fife 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 belly 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." + +"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 singing in high throaty notes:- + + +"Oh! on Coronation D'y, on Coronation D'y, +We'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 this d'y, an' I +enjoyed it, though it was lonesome by myself. An' the duchesses an' +the lydies 'ad sich gran' w'ite dresses. They 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." + +"H-a-y-t-h-o-r-n-e, Eyethorne.' + +"Oh," I said, "Irish Cockney." + +"Yes, sir, London-born." + +She had lived happily at home till her father died, killed in an +accident, when she had found herself 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. 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." + +The last place in which she had worked was a coffee-house, hours +from seven in the morning till eleven at night, and for which she +had received five shillings a week and her food. Then she had +fallen sick, and since emerging from the hospital had been unable to +find anything to do. She wasn't feeling up to much, and the last +two nights had been spent in the street. + +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 rags good +clothes! It put me to the blush; but, on inspecting them more +closely and on examining the clothes worn 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," said he. + +"Gawd blimey if I do," said she. "There's no 'ope for me, I know, +but I'll die on the streets. No work'ouse for me, thank you. No, +indeed," she sniffed in the silence that fell. + +"After you have been out all night in the streets," I asked, "what +do you do in the morning for something to eat?" + +"Try to get a penny, if you 'aven't one saved over," the man +explained. "Then go 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 your tea in little sips," he went on, "making it last its +longest. An' you look sharp, an' there's some as leaves a bit +be'ind 'em." + +"It's s'prisin', 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, and 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. He was staring +out over the water and thinking, which is not a good thing for a +shelterless man with a family to do. It would not be a pleasant +thing to speculate upon his thoughts; but this I know, and all +London knows, that the cases of out-of-works killing their wives and +babies is not an uncommon happening. + +One cannot walk along the Thames Embankment, in the small hours of +morning, from the Houses of Parliament, past Cleopatra's Needle, to +Waterloo Bridge, without being reminded 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 the fatherless, they take the widow's ox +for a pledge. + +They turn the needy out of the 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 without clothing, and have no covering in +the cold. + +They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock +for want of a shelter. + +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 all 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 one of the "Municipal Dwellings," +not far from Leman Street. If I looked into a dreary future and 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 language will no more permit it +to be called a room than it will permit a hovel to be called a +mansion. It was a den, a lair. Seven feet by eight were 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 chair, and a couple of boxes left little space in which to +turn around. Five dollars would have purchased everything in sight. +The floor was bare, while the walls and ceiling were literally +covered with blood marks and splotches. Each mark represented a +violent death--of an insect, for the place swarmed with vermin, a +plague with 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 personality 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 told, +and had read history, sociology, and economics. And he was self- +educated. + +On the table, amidst a wonderful disarray, lay a sheet of paper on +which was scrawled: Mr. Cullen, 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 must be +harrowed by the sordidness out of which it strove vainly to rise. + +It is a brief little 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 his 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 selected by his fellows to toil hard for +them with his brain. He became a leader of the fruit-porters, +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 means whereby he lived, and he spoke his +mind freely, and fought the good fight. In the "Great Dock Strike" +he was guilty of taking a leading part. And that was the end of Dan +Cullen. From that day he was a marked man, and every day, for ten +years and more, he was "paid off" for what he had done. + +A docker is a casual 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 discriminated 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 not more than two or three days' work per week. This is what +is called being "disciplined," or "drilled." It means being +starved. There is no politer word. Ten years of it broke his +heart, and broken-hearted men cannot live. + +He took to his bed in his terrible den, which grew more terrible +with his helplessness. He was without kith or kin, a lonely old +man, embittered and pessimistic, fighting vermin the while and +looking at Garibaldi, Engels, and Dan Burns gazing down at him from +the blood-bespattered walls. No one came to see him in that crowded +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 fresh 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 face, shook up his conch, and talked with him. It +was interesting to talk with him--until he learned her name. Oh, +yes, Blank was her name, she replied innocently, and Sir George +Blank was her brother. Sir George Blank, eh? thundered old Dan +Cullen on his death-bed; Sir George Blank, solicitor to the docks at +Cardiff, 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. + +Dan Cullen's feet became swollen with dropsy. He sat up all day on +the side of the bed (to keep the water out of his body), no mat on +the floor, a thin blanket on his legs, and an old coat around his +shoulders. A missionary brought him a pair of paper slippers, worth +fourpence (I saw them), and proceeded to offer 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. He did not care to have +Tom, Dick, or Harry, on the strength of fourpenny slippers, +tampering with it. He asked the 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. + +The cobbler, a brave old hero himself, though unaneled and unsung, +went privily to the head office of the big fruit brokers for whom +Dan Cullen had worked as a casual labourer for thirty years. Their +system 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," said 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 easy 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 that the sweating was +hastening his death; while Bright's disease, being a wasting 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 body, 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 alive, 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! A Jude the Obscure, who reached out after +knowledge; who toiled with his body in the day and studied in the +watches of the night; who dreamed his dream and struck valiantly for +the Cause; a patriot, a lover of human freedom, and a fighter +unafraid; and in the end, not gigantic enough to beat down the +conditions which baffled and stifled him, a cynic and 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 HOPPERS + + + +So far has the divorcement of the worker from the soil proceeded, +that the farming districts, the civilised world over, are dependent +upon the cities for the gathering of the harvests. Then it is, when +the land is spilling its ripe wealth to waste, that the street folk, +who have been driven away from the soil, are called back to it +again. 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 that Kent alone requires eighty thousand of the +street people to pick her hops. 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, and ghetto pour them +forth, and the festering contents of slum, stews, and ghetto are +undiminished. Yet they overrun 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 underground. Their very +presence, the fact of their 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. For one who sees and +thinks life in terms of shares and coupons, it is certainly +overdrawn. But for one who sees and thinks life in terms of manhood +and womanhood, it cannot be overdrawn. Such hordes of beastly +wretchedness and inarticulate misery are no compensation for a +millionaire brewer who lives in a West End palace, sates himself +with the sensuous delights of London's golden theatres, hobnobs with +lordlings and princelings, and is knighted by the king. Wins his +spurs--God forbid! In old time the great blonde beasts rode in the +battle's van and won their spurs by cleaving men from pate to chine. +And, after all, it is finer to kill a strong man with a clean- +slicing blow of singing steel than to make a beast of him, and of +his seed through the generations, by the artful and spidery +manipulation of industry and politics. + +But to return to the hops. Here the divorcement from the soil is as +apparent as in every other agricultural line in England. While the +manufacture of beer steadily increases, the growth of hops steadily +decreases. In 1835 the acreage under hops was 71,327. To-day it +stands at 48,024, a decrease of 3103 from the acreage of last year. + +Small as the acreage 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 with less of the nicer things of life, the pickers with less +grub, of which, in the best of times, they never get enough. For +weary weeks headlines like the following have appeared in the London +papers.- + + +TRAMPS PLENTIFUL, BUT THE HOPS ARE FEW AND NOT YET READY. + + +Then there have been numberless paragraphs like this:- + + +From the neighbourhood of the hop fields comes news of a distressing +nature. The bright outburst of the last two days has sent many +hundreds 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 treble the number there last year at this time, and in +other towns the lateness of the season 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 the +stinging hail, were close to drowning in their huts and camps on the +low-lying 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 remained 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 afford 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 meal, would have to go short of food +or drink. 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 the land in this parish, loses 10,000 +pounds;" and "Mr. L-, the Wateringbury brewer, brother to Mr. +Herbert L-, is another heavy loser." As for the hoppers, they did +not count. Yet I venture to assert that the several almost-square +meals lost by underfed William Buggles, and underfed 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 thousands where Mr. F-'s +could not be multiplied by five. + +To see how William 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 advice, he had brought his "worst +rags," and as we hiked up the London road out of Maidstone he was +worrying greatly for fear we had come too ill-dressed 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. The natives along the coast were all +dubious; and "bean-feasters" from London, dashing past in coaches, +cheered and jeered and shouted insulting things after us. But +before we 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 figure 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 seaman without a ship, a man on the beach, and very like a +craft at low water. + +"Can yer give us a job, governor?" Bert asked the bailiff, a kindly +faced and elderly man 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 bin deserted by two other men, from what I could learn, because +of inability to make living wages. + +"No bad conduct, 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 ourselves earnestly to the task, desiring to +learn if we could at least make our salt. It was simple work, +woman'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. In an hour's time we became as expert as +it is possible to become. As soon as the fingers became accustomed +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 because of their swarming children, each of +which picked with two hands almost as fast as we picked. + +" Don'tcher pick 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, and 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-dozen children who count as a unit, and by their +combined capacity determine the unit's pay. + +"I say, matey, I'm beastly hungry," said I to Bert. 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 discussed how much we could "sub," and were informed +that while we were being 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 five 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 driven, and for the free life in the +open, and the wind and rain and sun all undefiled by city smirches. +As the sea calls to the sailor, so calls the land to them; and, deep +down in their aborted and decaying carcasses, they are stirred +strangely by the peasant memories of their forbears 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 'ops, matey," Bert complained. + +It was five o'clock, and the pole-pullers had knocked off, so that +everything could be cleaned up, there being no work on Sunday. For +an hour we were forced idly to wait the coming of the measurers, our +feet tingling 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 little 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 +that 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--namely, 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 sixpenn'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 would 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 morrow was Sunday, +on which we could do no work, though our silly stomachs would not +knock off on that account. Here, then, 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 over-crowded; also, that if we +begged from farmer or villager, 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 that we were not as +other men, especially hoppers, and went down the road to Maidstone, +jingling in our pockets the half-crowns and florins we had brought +from London. + + + +CHAPTER XV--THE SEA WIFE + + + +You might not expect to find the Sea Wife in the heart of Kent, but +that is where I found her, in a mean street, in the 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 evening 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. It seemed that I +went down through the skin and the flesh to the naked soul of it, +and in Thomas Mugridge and his old woman gripped hold of the essence +of this remarkable English breed. I found there the spirit of the +wanderlust which has lured Albion's sons across the zones; and I +found there the colossal unreckoning which has tricked the English +into foolish squabblings and preposterous fights, and the doggedness +and stubbornness which have brought them blindly through to empire +and greatness; and likewise I found that vast, incomprehensible +patience which has enabled the home population to endure under the +burden of it all, to toil without complaint through the weary years, +and docilely to yield the best of its sons to fight and colonise to +the ends of the earth. + +Thomas Mugridge was seventy-one years old and a little man. 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 connected +with work. He knew nothing else but work. He had worked all his +days, and at seventy-one he still worked. Each morning saw him up +with the lark and afield, a day labourer, for as such he had been +born. Mrs. Mugridge was seventy-three. From seven years of age she +had worked in the fields, doing a boy's work at first, 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 earn 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, lived 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 they 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 fellow, in soldier's garb +looked out at me. + +"And which son is this?" I asked. + +They laughed a hearty chorus. Son! Nay, grandson, just back from +Indian 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' rovin' men +And casts them over sea. + +"And some are drowned in deep water, +And some in sight of shore; +And word goes back to the weary wife, +And ever 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 forth "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 through 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 dogs 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, and +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 it up +forever. The average Mrs. Thomas Mugridge has been driven into the +city, and she is not breeding very much of anything save an anaemic +and sickly progeny which cannot find enough to eat. The strength of +the English-speaking race to-day is not in the tight little island, +but in the New World overseas, where 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 tired 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 VERSUS PERSON + + + +In a civilisation frankly materialistic 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. To pound one's wife to a jelly and +break a few of her ribs is a trivial 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 +the 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 Piccadilly and +the Strand after midnight, the police would not have interfered with +her, and she would have been able to pay for her lodging. + +The following illustrative cases are culled from the police-court +reports for a single week:- + + +Widnes Police Court. Before Aldermen Gossage and Neil. Thomas +Lynch, charged with being drunk and disorderly and with assaulting a +constable. Defendant rescued a woman from custody, kicked the +constable, and threw stones at him. Fined 3s. 6d. for the first +offence, and 10s. and costs for the assault. + + +Glasgow Queen's Park Police Court. Before Baillie Norman Thompson. +John Kane pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife. There were five +previous convictions. Fined 2 pounds, 2s. + + +Taunton County Petty Sessions. John Painter, a big, burly fellow, +described as a labourer, charged with assaulting his wife. The +woman received two severe black eyes, and her face was badly +swollen. Fined 1 pound, 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. Before the Mayor (Mr. A. T. Carpenter). +Thomas Baker, charged with sleeping out. Fourteen days. + + +Glasgow Central Police Court. Before Bailie Dunlop. Edward +Morrison, a lad, convicted of stealing 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 month. + + +Dunfermline Sheriff Court. Before Sheriff Gillespie. John Young, a +pit-head worker, pleaded guilty to assaulting Alexander Storrar by +beating him about the head and body with his fists, throwing him on +the ground, and also striking 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. Turner, J. +Whitaker, F. Tidsbury, E. Holmes, and Dr. R. Nesbitt. Joseph +Jackson, charged with assaulting Charles Nunn. Without any +provocation, defendant struck the complainant a violent blow in the +face, knocking him down, and then kicked him on the side of the +head. He was rendered unconscious, and 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 convictions, 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 Murray, 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 Sessions. Before the Mayor, Messrs. C. +Hoskins, G. Fullford, E. Alexander, and W. Marlow. James Moore, +charged with stealing a pair of boots from outside a shop. Twenty- +one days. + + +Horncastle Police Court. Before the Rev. W. F. Massingberd, the +Rev. J. Graham, and Mr. N. Lucas Calcraft. George Brackenbury, a +young labourer, convicted of what the magistrates characterised as +an altogether unprovoked and 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, charged with assaulting the +Rev. Leslie Graham. Defendant, who was drunk, was wheeling 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 passed over the perambulator, but the baby was uninjured. +Defendant then attacked the driver of the lorry, and afterwards +assaulted the complainant, who remonstrated with him upon his +conduct. In consequence of the injuries defendant inflicted, +complainant had to consult a doctor. Fined 40s. and costs. + + +Rotherham West Riding Police Court. Before Messrs. C. Wright and G. +Pugh and Colonel Stoddart. Benjamin Storey, Thomas Brammer, and +Samuel Wilcock, charged with poaching. One month each. + + +Southampton County Police Court. Before Admiral J. C. Rowley, 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. Fowler, 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 George Hall, charged +under the Poaching Prevention Act with being found in possession of +a number of rabbits, and John Sparham, charged with aiding and +abetting them. Hall and Sparham fined 1 pound, 17s. 4d., and Allen +2 pounds, 17s. 4d., including costs; the former committed for +fourteen days and the latter for one month in default of payment. + + +South-western Police Court, London. Before Mr. Rose. John Probyn, +charged with doing grievous bodily harm to a constable. Prisoner +had been kicking his wife, and also assaulting another woman who +protested against his brutality. The constable tried to persuade +him to go inside his house, but prisoner suddenly turned upon him, +knocking him down by a blow on the face, 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, described as a chorus girl, charged with obtaining +food and lodging to the value of 5s. by false pretences, and with +intent to defraud Emma Brasier. Emma Brasier, complainant, lodging- +house keeper of Atwell Road. Prisoner took apartments at her house +on the representation that she was employed at the Crown Theatre. +After prisoner 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 labour. + + + +CHAPTER XVII--INEFFICIENCY + + + +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 number, a pleasant-faced man of +thirty, and were giving it to him rather heatedly. + +"But 'ow about this 'ere cheap immigration?" one of them demanded. +"The Jews of Whitechapel, say, a-cutting our throats right along?" + +"You can't blame 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 about 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 than you and gets your job? Eh? How +about his wife and kiddies? He's more interested in them than in +yours, and he can't see them starve. So he cuts the price of labour +and out you go. But you mustn't blame him, poor devil. He can't +help it. Wages always come down when two men are after the same +job. That's the fault of competition, not of the man who cuts the +price." + +"But wyges don't come down where there's a union," the objection was +made. + +"And there you are again, right on the head. The union cheeks +competition among the labourers, but makes it harder where there 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 further into the argument, this man on the Mile End +Waste pointed the moral that when 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 instanced, just now, by +the return and disbandment of the soldiers from South Africa. 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 down by the strikers. + +Sweating, starvation wages, armies of unemployed, and great numbers +of the homeless and shelterless are inevitable when there are more +men to do work than there is work for men to do. The men and women +I have met upon the streets, and in the spikes and pegs, are not +there because as a mode 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 +walks the streets suffers more, and works harder, for far less +return. I have depicted the nights they spend, and how, driven in +by physical exhaustion, they go to the casual ward for a "rest up." +Nor is the casual ward a soft snap. To pick 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. On the part of the authorities it is sheer robbery. They give +the men far less for their labour than do the capitalistic +employers. The wage for the same amount of labour, performed for a +private employer, would buy them better beds, better food, more good +cheer, and, above all, greater freedom. + +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 three fair meals, a bed at night, and leave him +a couple of pennies for pocket money. He would rather work for +those two shillings than for the charity of the casual ward; for he +knows that 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 more men than there is work to be done, a sifting-out +process must obtain. In every branch of industry the less efficient +are crowded out. Being crowded out because of inefficiency, they +cannot go up, but must descend, and 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 (which 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 have the construction of the Abyss and the shambles. +Throughout the whole industrial fabric a constant elimination is +going on. The inefficient are weeded out and flung downward. +Various things constitute inefficiency. The engineer who 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 there is little or no responsibility. Those who are +slow and clumsy, who suffer from weakness of body or mind, 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, with 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-seventh of the total +population of the United Kingdom, and in London, year in and year +out, one adult in every four dies on public charity, either in the +workhouse, 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 illustration 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 age, 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 there 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 know what became +of me for a day or two. On the following Sunday night I came to my +senses, and found myself in the hospital. I asked the nurse what +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 altogether, and have covered the hole up with a piece of +sheet iron. . . . They gave me 25 pounds. They didn't reckon that +as compensation; they said it was only for charity's sake. Out of +that I paid 9 pounds for a machine by which to wheel myself about. + +I was labouring at the time I got my legs off. I got twenty-four +shillings a week, rather better pay than the other men, because I +used to take shifts. When there was heavy work to be done I used to +be picked out to do it. Mr. Manton, the manager, visited me at the +hospital several times. When I was getting better, I asked him if +he would be able 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 friends 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 he went into the workhouse. The alternative to the +workhouse is to go home to Ireland and burden his friends for the +rest of his life. Comment is superfluous. + +It must be understood that efficiency is not determined by the +workers themselves, but is determined by the demand for labour. If +three men seek one position, the most efficient man will get it. +The other two, no matter how capable 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 +workers from top to bottom would result; and when equilibrium had +been restored, the number 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 efficiency, there would still be as many +inefficients, though each inefficient were twice as capable as he +had been and more capable than many of the efficients had previously +been. + +When there are more men to work than there is work for men to do, +just as many men as are in excess of work will be inefficients, and +as inefficients they are doomed to lingering and painful +destruction. It shall 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. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--WAGES + + + +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 ten 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 +Vegetables 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 ration 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. They will get less of meat per mouth +each meal, and still less of vegetates; while the smaller items +become too microscopic for consideration. On the other hand, these +food articles are all bought at small retail, the most expensive and +wasteful method of purchasing. + +While the table given 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'penny gaff" for cheap vaudeville, join +social or benefit clubs, nor can they buy sweetmeats, tobacco, +books, or newspapers. + +And further, should one child (and there are three) require a pair +of shoes, the family must strike meat for a week from its bill of +fare. And since there are five pairs of feet requiring shoes, and +five heads requiring hats, and five bodies requiring clothes, and +since there are laws regulating indecency, the family must +constantly impair its physical efficiency in order to keep warm and +out of jail. For notice, when rent, coals, oil, soap, and firewood +are extracted from the weekly income, there remains a daily +allowance for food of 4.5d. to each person; and that 4.5d. cannot be +lessened by buying clothes without impairing the physical +efficiency. + +All of which is hard 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 they 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 there 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 living 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 question 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 existence 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 maids, 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 telephone girl receives a +weekly wage of eleven shillings. If she be quick and clever, she +may, 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:- + + s. d. +Rent, fire, and light 7 6 +Board at home 3 6 +Board at the office 4 6 +Street car fare 1 6 +Laundry 1 0 +Total 18 0 + + +This leaves nothing 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 recreation, and - + + +Man to Man so oft unjust, +Is always so to Woman. + + +At the Trades Union 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 Parliament +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 workers +voted against the resolution, while the representatives of 535,000 +workers voted in favour of it. When 514,000 workers oppose a +resolution prohibiting child-labour under fifteen, it is evident +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 their 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 than 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 three 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 clay off, either for sickness, rest, or recreation. Each day and +every day, Sundays as well, she toiled fourteen hours. Her day's +stint was seven gross, for 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. Thomas Holmes, a police-court missionary of note, +after writing about the condition 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 week, cannot earn more than five shillings, and I have a +poor afflicted husband to keep who hasn't earned a penny for more +than ten years. + + +Imagine a woman, capable of writing such a clear, sensible, +grammatical letter, supporting her 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 husband; 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. +There was no space for the missionary to sit down, save on the bed, +which was partially covered with ties and silk. The sick man's +lungs were in the last stages of decay. He coughed and expectorated +constantly, the woman ceasing from her work to assist him in his +paroxysms. The silken fluff from the ties was not good for his +sickness; nor was his sickness good for the ties, 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. Here 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 tender folk, imagine yourselves marketing +and keeping house on such a scale, setting a table for five, and +keeping an eye on your deputy mother of twelve to see that 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 + + + +Is it well that while we range 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 out 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 fire 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 class, 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 cometh 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 proper are constantly +being destroyed, and the main stream of the unhoused is toward the +east. In the last twelve years, one district, "London over the +Border," as it is called, which lies well beyond Aldgate, +Whitechapel, and Mile End, has increased 260,000, or over sixty 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 Dreadful 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 the intolerable sameness +and meanness of it all. If the East End is worthy of no worse title +than The City of Dreadful Monotony, and if working people are +unworthy 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 gigantic slum. From the standpoint of simple +decency and clean manhood and womanhood, any mean street, of all its +mean streets, is a slum. Where sights and sounds abound which +neither you nor I would care to have our children see and hear is a +place where no man's children should live, and see, and hear. Where +you and I would not 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 childhood is sweet and beautiful: +but in East London innocence is a fleeting thing, and you must catch +them before they crawl out of the cradle, or you will find the 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 have 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 cubic feet of space for each person. +In army barracks each soldier is allowed 600 cubic feet. Professor +Huxley, at one time himself 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 people 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. It +is of interest to mark what he terms poor. 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 this process, with its jamming and +overcrowding, tends not so much toward immorality as unmorality. +Here is an extract 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 East End. In St. Georges-in-the-East 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, and four, and two sons, aged ten and +twelve years, occupied a smaller room. In Bethnal Green a man and +his wife, with four 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 duty 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 overcrowded folk +are ejected they stray off into some other hole; and, as they move +their belongings by night, on hand-barrows (one hand-barrow +accommodating the entire household goods and the sleeping children), +it is next to impossible to keep track of them. If the Public +Health Act of 1891 were suddenly and completely enforced, 900,000 +people would receive notice to clear out of their houses and go on +to the streets, and 500,000 rooms would 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 +that the existence of it is far more revolting. + +In Devonshire Place, Lisson Grove, a short while back died an old +woman of seventy-five years of age. At the inquest the coroner's +officer stated that "all he found in the room was a lot of old rags +covered with vermin. He had got himself smothered with the vermin. +The room was in a shocking condition, and he had never seen anything +like it. Everything was absolutely 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 legs, and her stockings +were adherent to those sores. The sores were the result of vermin." + +A man present at the inquest wrote: "I had the evil fortune to see +the body of the unfortunate woman as it lay in the mortuary; and +even now the memory of that gruesome sight makes me shudder. There +she lay 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 +rolled 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 that here in the Ghetto the houses of the poor are +greater profit earners than the mansions of the rich. Not only 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 been 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 houses let, but they are +sublet, and sub-sublet down to the very rooms. + +"A part of a room to let." This notice was posted a short while ago +in a window not five minutes' walk from St. James's Hall. The Rev. +Hugh Price Hughes is authority for the statement that beds are let +on the three-relay system--that 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 officers 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 two 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 bricklayer's labourer comes in. At seven in +the morning he vacates, and goes to his work, at which time she +returns from hers. + +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 crowding is not through inclination, but compulsion. +Nearly fifty per cent. of the workers pay from one-fourth to one- +half of their earnings for rent. The average rent in the larger +part of the East End is from four to six shillings per week for one +room, while skilled 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 Stepney 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 rents are going up. When land is +worth from 20,000 pounds to 30,000 pounds an acre, some one must pay +the landlord. + +Mr. W. C. Steadman, 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, and the rent of +her house was fourteen shillings per week. She gets her living by +letting the house to lodgers 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. +What could the woman do? There is no accommodation in Stepney. +Every place is taken up and overcrowded. + + +Class supremacy can 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 created--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 their 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 carry on the breed. And year +by year, in turn, the best they breed are taken from them. Wherever +a man of vigour and stature manages to grow up, he is haled +forthwith into the army. A soldier, as Bernard Shaw has said, +"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. When they kill, they kill with their hands, and then +stupidly surrender themselves to the executioners. There is no +splendid audacity about their transgressions. They gouge 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 brass and +iron, and when they have polished off the mother of their children +with a black 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 lower Ghetto classes is as much the slave of her +husband as is the Indian squaw. 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 the breadwinner, and she dare not +send him to jail and leave herself and children to starve. Evidence +to convict can rarely be obtained when such cases come into the +courts; as a rule, the trampled wife and mother is weeping and +hysterically beseeching the magistrate to let her husband off for +the kiddies' sakes. + +The wives become screaming harridans or, broken-spirited and +doglike, lose what little decency and self-respect they have +remaining over from their maiden days, and all sink 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 struck +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 slavery or serfdom, if the permanent condition +of industry were to be that which we behold, that ninety per cent. +of the actual producers of wealth have no home that they can call +their own beyond the end of the week; have no bit of soil, or so +much as a room that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any +kind, except as much old furniture as will go into a cart; have the +precarious chance of weekly wages, which barely suffice to keep them +in health; are housed, for the most part, 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, sickness, 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 whole proletarian +population, whose normal condition is one of sickening wretchedness. +If this is to be the permanent arrangement of modern society, +civilization must be held to bring a curse on the great majority of +mankind. + + +Ninety per cent.! The figures are appalling, 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 along the Hammersmith Road. One day there came +along a labourer and his wife, his son and two daughters. Their +family 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 on 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 question 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 bad, +and in a short time their health suffered. Work was hard to get, +and its wage was so low that they were soon in debt. They became +more ill and more despairing with the poisonous surroundings, the +darkness, and the long hours of work; and they were driven forth to +seek a cheaper lodging. They found it in a court I knew 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 fell +into the hands of those who sweat the last drop out of man and woman +and child, for wages which are the food only of despair. And the +darkness and the dirt, the bad food and the sickness, and the want +of water was worse than before; and the crowd and the companionship +of the court robbed them of the last shreds of self-respect. The +drink demon seized upon them. Of course there was a public-house at +both ends of the court. There they fled, one and all, for shelter, +and warmth, and society, and forgetfulness. And they came out in +deeper debt, with inflamed senses and burning brains, and an +unsatisfied craving 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 tubs are a thing totally unknown, as +mythical as the ambrosia of the gods. The people themselves are +dirty, while any attempt at cleanliness becomes howling farce, when +it is not pitiful and tragic. Strange, vagrant odours come drifting +along the greasy wind, and the rain, when it falls, is more like +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. They do not know the significance and the sacredness of home +life. Even the municipal dwellings, where live the better-class +workers, are overcrowded barracks. They have no home life. The +very language proves it. The father returning from work asks his +child in the street where her mother is; and back the answer comes, +"In the buildings." + +A new race has sprung up, a street people. They pass their lives at +work and in the streets. They have dens and lairs into which to +crawl for sleeping purposes, and that is all. One cannot travesty +the word by calling such dens and lairs "homes." The traditional +silent and reserved Englishman has passed away. The pavement folk +are noisy, voluble, high-strung, excitable--when they are yet young. +As they grow older they become steeped and stupefied in beer. When +they 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, for hours, and when you go away you will leave him still +staring into vacancy. 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 mysteries 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 young are high-strung, nervous, excitable; the middle- +aged are empty-headed, stolid, and stupid. It is absurd to think +for an instant that they can compete with the workers of the New +World. Brutalised, degraded, and dull, the Ghetto folk will be +unable to render efficient service to England in the world struggle +for industrial supremacy which economists declare has already begun. +Neither 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 the world's industrial orbit, they will +perish like flies at the end of summer. Or, with England critically +situated, and with them made desperate as wild beasts are made +desperate, they may become 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 guns 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, shorn 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 world, 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 will taste it +and be disillusioned, for coffee it certainly is not. + +And what is true of the coffee is true of the coffee-house. +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 debris 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 capable 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 way +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 with 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 and 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 the "Hobo" of a California jail, I have been served +better food and drink 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 labourer 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. On the other +hand, though, and in return, I would turn out an amount of work in +the course of the day that would put to shame the amount he turned +out. So there are two sides to it. The man with the high standard +of living will always do more work and better than the man with the +low standard of living. + +There is a comparison which sailormen make between the English and +American merchant services. In an English ship, they say, it is +poor grub, poor pay, and easy work; in an American ship, good grub, +good pay, and hard work. And this is applicable to the working +populations of both countries. The ocean greyhounds have to pay for +speed and steam, and so does the workman. But if the workman is not +able to pay for it, he will not have the speed and steam, that is +all. The proof of it is when the English workman comes to America. +He will lay more bricks in New York than he will in London, still +more bricks in St. Louis, and still more bricks when he gets to San +Francisco. {3} His standard of living has been rising all the time. + +Early in the morning, along the streets frequented by workmen on the +way to work, many women sit on the side-walk with sacks of bread +beside them. No end of workmen purchase these, 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 employer and upon the nation. For some time, now, +statesmen have been crying, "Wake up, England!" It would show more +hard-headed common 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 speculative +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 would vouch for the +cleanliness of the single rooms in which many of them and their +families lived; yet they raked, and pawed, and scraped the mess +about in their 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. All day long this heap of scraps was 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 sickness +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, which is a fair +criterion, they never know in all their lives what tea, coffee, or +cocoa tastes like. The slops and water-witcheries of the coffee- +houses, varying only in sloppiness and witchery, 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 the Mile End Road. + +"Cawn yer let 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 woman, 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 waitress of the house. + +I waited, possibly 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 woman hesitated an instant, then brought +a large plate of "stewed lamb and young peas." I was eating a plate +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 was sold at sixpence, and the +proprietress gave it for a penny, demonstrating anew the 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, +explosively and most gleefully, she cried out to me, - + +"Hi sold a box o' matches! Yus," she confirmed, if anything with +greater and more explosive glee. "Hi sold a box o' matches! That's +'ow Hi got the penny." + +"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 left 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 you a ha'penny for another lump of sugar in the tea," I +said. + +"I'll see you in 'ell first," came the retort courteous. Also, she +amplified the retort courteous 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 people of London live in one-room tenements, and +900,000 are illegally and viciously housed, 38,000 more are +registered as living in common lodging-houses--known 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 roofs leak or the walls are draughty; but what I do mean is that +life in them is degrading and unwholesome. + +"The poor man's hotel," they are often called, but the phrase is +caricature. Not to possess a room to one's self, 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 +never to have any privacy, surely is a mode of existence quite +different from that of hotel life. + +This must not be considered a sweeping condemnation of the big +private and municipal lodging-houses and working-men's homes. 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 received 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, Whitechapel, I entered such a house, a place +inhabited almost entirely by working men. The entrance was by way +of a flight of steps descending from the side-walk 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, wrested 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 the not +over-clean table constituted his butter. Into it he dipped his +bread, mouthful by mouthful, and washed it down with tea from a big +mug. A piece 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 tables, other men were eating, just as silently. 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 done 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 paid 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 men were sitting +around, smoking, reading, and mending their clothes. The young men +were hilarious, the old men were gloomy. In fact, there 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 preposterous and insulting notices regulating +the conduct of the guests, and at ten o'clock 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 best +accommodation, each cabin allowing space for a tiny bed and room +alongside of it in which to undress. The bedding 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 the 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. And this cabin is yours only +for a little while. In the morning out you go. You cannot put your +trunk in it, or come and go when you like, or lock the door behind +you, or anything of the sort. In fact, there is no door at all, +only a doorway. If you care to remain a guest in this poor man's +hotel, you must put up with all this, and with prison regulations +which impress upon you constantly that you are nobody, with little +soul of your own and less to say about it. + +Now I contend that the least a man who does his day's work should +have is a room to himself, where 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 carries +about with him on his back and in his pockets; where he can hang up +pictures 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 floor 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, scores 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. 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 were, and heard a +"harlot's ginny laugh." Leman Street, Waterloo Road, Piccadilly, +The Strand, answered me, and 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. "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 rupture, 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'ouse, an' that's 'ell. An' if she don't go to the +work'ouse, it'll be a worse 'ell. Come along 'ith me an' I'll show +you women sleepin' in a passage, a dozen of 'em. An' I'll show you +worse, wot she'll 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 +wife's grasp on food and shelter. For 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 thousands 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 London 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 deaths in London (1884):- + + +In workhouses 9,909 +In hospitals 6,559 +In lunatic asylums 278 +Total in public refuges 16,746 + + +Commenting on these figures, a Fabian writer says: "Considering +that comparatively few of these are children, it is probable that +one in every three London adults will 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 serve somewhat to indicate the proximity of the +average worker to pauperism. Various things make pauperism. An +advertisement, for instance, such as this, appearing in yesterday +morning's paper:- + +"Clerk wanted, with knowledge of shorthand, typewriting, and +invoicing: wages ten shillings ($2.50) a week. Apply by letter," +&c. + +And in to-day's paper 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 various +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 implement heavier than a pen, he +said. The magistrate sentenced him and his blistered hands to seven +days' hard labour. + +Old age, of course, makes pauperism. And then there is the +accident, the thing happening, the death or disablement of the +husband, father, and bread-winner. Here is a man, with a wife and +three children, living on the ticklish security of twenty shillings +per week--and there are hundreds of thousands of such families in +London. Perforce, to even half exist, they must live up to the last +penny of it, so that a week's wages (one pound) is all that stands +between this family and pauperism or starvation. The thing happens, +the father is struck 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 themselves +miserably to support, determine the scale of wages. 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-starvation, +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 indignantly 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 the 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 and her three children we are considering have done +no wrong that they should be so punished. They have not sinned. +The thing happened, that 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. The 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 people 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 mortality in South Africa and the Philippines fades away +to insignificance. Here, in the heart of peace, is where 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 men, 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 where +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 years old. Slaughter! Herod did not do quite so +badly. + +That industry causes 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 Medical Officer, which is not +applicable to Liverpool alone:- + + +In many instances little if any sunlight could get to the courts, +and the atmosphere within the 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 SURROUNDINGS, AND +WOULD NOT LIVE. + +Mr. George Haw has compiled the following table on the three St. +George's parishes (London parishes):- + + + Percentage of + Population Death-rate + Overcrowded per 1000 +St. 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 +from the strongest and most splendidly-built men to be found, live, +on an average, less 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 case 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 the white-lead +trades. Here is a description of the typical dissolution of a +young, 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 gums show a very faint blue line, or perchance her +teeth and gums are perfectly sound, and no blue line is discernible. +Coincidently with the anaemia she has been getting thinner, but so +gradually as scarcely to impress itself upon her or her friends. +Sickness, however, ensues, and headaches, growing in intensity, are +developed. These are frequently attended by obscuration of vision +or temporary blindness. Such a girl passes into what appears to her +friends and medical adviser as ordinary hysteria. This gradually +deepens without warning, until she is suddenly seized with a +convulsion, beginning in one half of the face, then involving the +arm, next the leg of the same side of the body, until the +convulsion, violent and purely epileptic form in character, becomes +universal. This is attended by loss of consciousness, out of which +she passes into a series of convulsions, gradually increasing in +severity, in one of which she dies--or consciousness, partial or +perfect, is regained, either, it may be, for a few minutes, a few +hours, or days, during which violent headache is complained of, or +she is delirious and excited, as in acute mania, or dull and sullen +as in melancholia, and requires to be roused, when she is found +wandering, and her speech is somewhat imperfect. Without further +warning, save that the pulse, which has become soft, with nearly the +normal number of beats, all at once becomes low and hard; she is +suddenly seized with another convulsion, in which she dies, or +passes into a state of coma from which she never rallies. In +another case the convulsions will gradually subside, the headache +disappears and the patient recovers, only to find that she has +completely lost her eyesight, a loss that may be temporary or +permanent. + + +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 never 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 her, found the blue line +along her gums, which shows that the system is under the influence +of the lead. He knew that the convulsions would shortly return. +They did so, and she died. + +Mary Ann Toler--a girl of seventeen, who had never had a fit in her +life--three times became ill, and had to leave off work in the +factory. Before she was nineteen she showed symptoms of lead +poisoning--had fits, frothed at the mouth, and died. + +Mary A., an unusually vigorous woman, was able to work in the lead +factory for TWENTY YEARS, having colic once only during that time. +Her eight children all died in early infancy from convulsions. One +morning, 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 first one) and worked on uninterruptedly for two years. Then +the former symptoms returned, she was seized with convulsions, and +died in two days of acute lead poisoning. + + +Mr. Vaughan Nash, speaking of the unborn generation, says: "The +children of the white-lead 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 while leading a forlorn hope on the +industrial battlefield. She was employed as an enamelled ware +brusher, wherein lead poisoning is encountered. Her father and +brother were both out 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 trade also plays an important part in hurling the +workers into the Abyss. With a week's wages between a family and +pauperism, a month's enforced idleness means hardship and misery +almost indescribable, and from the ravages of which the victims do +not always recover 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 past, have not averaged a weekly income of more than from +four to five shillings. The stagnated state of the shipping +industry in the port of London is held accountable for this +condition of affairs. + +To the young working-man or working-woman, or married couple, there +is no assurance of happy or healthy middle life, nor of solvent old +age. Work as they will, they cannot make their future secure. It +is all 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 they 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 away 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 home +and children and all that makes life worth living and old age other +than a nightmare. + + + +CHAPTER XXII--SUICIDE + + + +With life so precarious, and opportunity for the happiness of life +so remote, it is inevitable that life shall be cheap 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 +half bewildered by the amazing despatch with which drunks, +disorderlies, vagrants, brawlers, wife-beaters, thieves, fences, +gamblers, and women of the street went through the machine of +justice. The dock 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 pondering 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 caught 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. 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 hair +rumpled down his forehead, his face haggard and careworn and boyish +still. + +"Yes, sir," 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 +workmen 'appened along, and we got 'im out and turned 'im over to +the constable." + +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 +foreman, or had been. Alfred was a good boy, but he had had lots of +trouble at home, money matters. And then his mother was sick. He +was given to worrying, and he worried over it till he laid himself +out and wasn't fit for work. He (the foreman), for the sake of his +own reputation, the boy's work being bad, had been forced to ask him +to resign. + +"Anything to say?" the magistrate demanded abruptly. + +The boy in the dock 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," said his Worship; and the next case was under way, the +first witness already engaged in taking the oath. The boy, dazed +and unheeding, passed out with the jailer. That was all, five +minutes from start 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 ten 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 prisoners 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 with?" demanded the indignant Mr. +R. S-. "Why did you not get under the water and make an end of it, +instead 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 myself before I +go into the workhouse," said Ellen Hughes Hunt, aged fifty-two. +Last Wednesday they held an inquest on her body at Shoreditch. Her +husband came from the Islington Workhouse to testify. He had been a +cheesemonger, but failure 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 hours later her hat +and jacket were found on the towing path by the Regent's Canal, 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, convicted, 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 when she went into +the Regent's Canal. As to which is the preferable sojourning place +is a matter of opinion, of intellectual judgment. I, for one, from +what I know of canals and workhouses, should choose the canal, were +I in a similar position. And I make bold to contend that I am no +more insane than Ellen Hughes Hunt, her husband, and the rest of the +human herd. + +Man no longer follows instinct with the old natural fidelity. He +has developed into a reasoning creature, and can intellectually +cling to life or discard life just as life happens to promise great +pleasure or pain. I dare to assert that Ellen 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 dare 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 +defrauded and bilked of all the joys of life which fifty-two years' +service in the world had earned. + +Temporary insanity! Oh, these cursed phrases, these lies of +language, under which people with meat in their bellies and whole +shirts on their backs shelter themselves, and evade the +responsibility of their brothers and sisters, empty of belly and +without whole shirts on their backs. + +From one issue of the Observer, an East End paper, I quote the +following commonplace events:- + + +A ship's fireman, named Johnny King, was charged with attempting to +commit suicide. On Wednesday defendant went to Bow Police Station +and stated that he had swallowed a quantity of phosphor paste, as he +was hard up and unable to obtain work. King was taken inside and an +emetic administered, when he vomited up a quantity of the poison. +Defendant now said he was very sorry. Although he had sixteen +years' good character, he was unable to obtain work of any kind. +Mr. Dickinson 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 Pier, 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-past eight on +Sunday morning Constable 834 K found defendant lying in a doorway in +Benworth Street, and she was in a very drowsy condition. She 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 coffee, ordered that she was to be kept +awake. When defendant was charged, she stated that the reason why +she attempted to take her life was she had 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 +insanity among the living. Costermongers, hawkers, and pedlars, a +class of workers who live from hand to mouth more than those of any +other class, form the highest percentage of those in the lunatic +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, who are at +least sure of food and shelter, 13 per 10,000 go insane; and of +farmers and graziers, only 5.1. So a coster is twice as likely to +lose his reason as a soldier, and five times as likely as a farmer. + +Misfortune and misery are very potent in turning people's heads, and +drive one person to the lunatic asylum, and another to the morgue or +the gallows. When the thing happens, and the father 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 torn 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, delicately 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 lived 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 and affectionate husband and father. + +His wife, Hannah Cavilla, was a big, handsome, light-hearted woman. +She saw to it that his children were sent neat and clean (the +neighbours all remarked the fact) to the Childeric Road Board +School. And so, with such a man, so blessed, working steadily and +living temperately, all went well, 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 unruly horse, +and, as I say, it happened. Cavilla had to seek fresh employment +and find another house. + +This occurred eighteen months ago. For eighteen 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 manfully 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 +word; but poor folk know. The housewives of Batavia Road sent them +food, but so respectable were the Cavillas that the 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, Hannah +Cavilla, aged thirty-three. He cut the throat of his first-born, +Frank, aged twelve. He cut the throat of his son, Walter, 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 all day until the evening, when the +police came, and he told them to put a penny in the slot of the gas- +meter in order that they might have light to see. + +Frank Cavilla stood 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, and +wavy, fair moustache. + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--THE CHILDREN + + + +"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 dancing in the street when the organ-grinder goes +his round. It is fascinating to watch them, the new-born, the next +generation, swaying and stepping, with pretty little mimicries and +graceful inventions all their own, with muscles that move swiftly +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 bright 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 and form under their filth and +rags. + +But there is a Pied Piper of London Town who steals them all away. +They disappear. One never sees them again, or anything 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 +is a hint that she was once one of those children who danced to the +organ-grinder. Those grotesque and lumbering steps are all that is +left of the promise of childhood. In the befogged recesses of her +brain has arisen a fleeting memory that she was once a girl. The +crowd closes in. Little girls are dancing beside her, about her, +with all the pretty graces she dimly recollects, but can no more +than parody with her body. Then she pants for breath, exhausted, +and stumbles out through the circle. But the little girls dance on. + +The children of the Ghetto possess all the qualities which make for +noble manhood and womanhood; but the Ghetto itself, like an +infuriated tigress turning on its young, turns 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 increasing 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 condition 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 compound 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 conditions, 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. They have no home life. In the +dens 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, overcrowding, and +underfeeding. When a father and mother live with three or four +children in a room where the children take turn 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 readily be imagined. + + +"Dull despair and misery +Lie about them from their birth; +Ugly curses, 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 does, +and the man is exceedingly lucky if he can keep his health and his +job. A baby comes, and then another. This means that more room +should be obtained; but these little mouths and bodies mean +additional expense and make it absolutely impossible to get more +spacious quarters. More babies come. There is not room in which to +turn around. The youngsters run the streets, and by the time they +are twelve or fourteen the room-issue comes to a head, and out they +go on the streets for good. The boy, if he be lucky, can manage to +make the common lodging-houses, and he may have any one of several +ends. But the girl of fourteen or fifteen, forced in this manner to +leave the one room called home, and able to earn at the best a +paltry five or six shillings per week, can have but one end. And +the bitter end of that one end is such as that of the woman whose +body the police found this morning in a doorway in Dorset Street, +Whitechapel. Homeless, shelterless, sick, with no one with her in +her last hour, she had died in the night of exposure. She was +sixty-two years old and a match vendor. She died as a wild animal +dies. + +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 stealing 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 arsked '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 +antecedent, a waif, a stray, a young cub seeking his food in the +jungle of empire, preying upon the weak and being preyed upon by the +strong. + +The people who try to help, who gather up the Ghetto children and +send them away on a day's outing to the country, believe that not +very many children reach the age of ten without 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 children learn the meaning of fields and woods, +so that descriptions of country scenery in the books they read, +which before conveyed no impression, become now intelligible." + +One day in the fields 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 +hooligans to smash the policemen. + +The Rev. J. Cartmel 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; +until they sat down at last, faint and despairing, and were rescued +by a kind woman who brought them back. Evidently they had been +overlooked by the people who try to help. + +The same gentleman is authority for the statement that in a street +in Hoxton (a district of the vast East End), over seven hundred +children, between five and thirteen years, live in eighty small +houses. And he adds: "It is because London has largely shut her +children in a maze of streets and houses and robbed them of their +rightful inheritance in sky and field and brook, that they grow up +to be men and women physically unfit." + +He tells of a member of his congregation who let a basement room to +a married couple. "They said they had two children; when they got +possession it turned out that they had four. After a while a fifth +appeared, and 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, came in and threatened my friend with legal +proceedings. He pleaded that he could not get them out. They +pleaded that nobody would have them with so many children at a +rental within their means, which is one of the commonest complaints +of the poor, by-the-bye. What was to be done? The landlord was +between two millstones. Finally he applied 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." + +Last week the police raided a disorderly house. In one room were +found two young children. They were arrested and charged with being +inmates the same as the women had been. Their father appeared at +the trial. He stated that himself 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 need further to multiply instances. In London the +slaughter of the innocents goes on on a scale more stupendous than +any before in the history of the world. 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 little 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 that 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. Much of it is +untenable. But in a general 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 +bipeds 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 prowled 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 elemental economy of nature, +such as the cave-men must have exhibited. But there was strength in +those meagre bodies, the ferocious, primordial strength to clutch +and gripe and tear and rend. When they spring upon their human prey +they are known even to bend the victim backward and double its body +till the back is broken. They possess 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 people of the golden theatres and wonder-mansions of +the West End do not see these creatures, do not dream that they +exist. 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 +will 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?" "Are they men?" + +But they were not the only beasts that ranged the menagerie. They +were only here and there, lurking in dark courts and passing like +grey shadows along the walls; but the women from whose rotten loins +they spring 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 wrecks of society, the perambulating +carcasses, the living deaths--women, blasted by disease and drink +till their shame brought not tuppence in the open mart; and men, in +fantastic rags, wrenched by hardship and exposure out of all +semblance 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 girls, 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. And I remember a lad of fourteen, and one of six or +seven, white-faced and sickly, homeless, the pair of them, who sat +upon the pavement with their backs against a railing and watched it +all. + +The unfit and the unneeded! Industry does not clamour for them. +There are no jobs going begging through lack of men and women. 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 found to toil under the sweat-shop masters for tenpence a day of +fourteen hours. Alfred Freeman crawls to muddy death because he +loses his job. Ellen 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 the 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 give us howling and naked savagery. Far 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 WAIL + + + +"My father has more stamina than I, for he is country-born." + +The speaker, a bright young East Ender, was lamenting his poor +physical development. + +"Look at my scrawny arm, will you." He pulled up his sleeve. "Not +enough to eat, that's what's the matter with it. Oh, not now. I +have what I want to eat these days. But it's too late. It can't +make up for what I didn't have to eat when I was a kiddy. 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. He did his best, but +we didn't have enough to eat. We rarely saw meat, and then of the +worst. And it is not good for growing kiddies to sit down to a +dinner of bread and a bit of cheese, and not enough of it. + +"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 couple 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 they 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. 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 THERE 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. Chronic starvation is looked upon as a matter of course. It +is only when acute starvation makes its appearance on a large scale +that they think something is unusual + +I shall never forget the bitter wail of a blind man in a little East +End shop at the close of a murky day. He had been the eldest of +five children, with a mother and no father. Being the eldest, he +had starved and worked as a child to put bread into the mouths of +his little brothers and sisters. Not once in three months did he +ever taste meat. He never 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 from the report of the Royal Commission on the Blind, +"Blindness is more prevalent in poor districts, and poverty +accelerates this dreadful affliction." + +But he went further, 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 pint 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 consists 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 astringent 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. 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. In +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 part, and was so +recognised by the child, who, utterly unconscious of the regulations +of the Prison Board, told one of the senior wardens how kind this +junior warden had been to him. The result was, 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 liberal as the pauper's. + + +PAUPER DIET SOLDIER +3.25 oz. Meat 12 oz. +15.5 oz. Bread 24 oz. +6 oz. Vegetables 8 oz. + + +The adult male pauper gets meat (outside of soup) but once a week, +and the paupers "have nearly all that pallid, pasty complexion which +is the sure mark of starvation." + +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 pauper'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 sixpence 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 alone the Ghetto-dweller, the prisoner, and the pauper +that starve. Hodge, of the country, does not know what it is always +to have a full belly. In truth, it is his empty belly which has +driven him to the city in such great numbers. Let us investigate +the way of living of a labourer from a parish in the Bradfield Poor +Law Union, 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:- + + s. d. +Bread (5 quarterns) 1 10 +Flour (0.5 gallon) 0 4 +Tea (0.25 lb.) 0 6 +Butter (1 lb.) 1 3 +Lard (1 lb.) 0 6 +Sugar (6 lb.) 1 0 +Bacon or other meat (about 0.25 lb.) 2 8 +Cheese (1 lb.) 0 8 +Milk (half-tin condensed) 0 3.25 +Coal 1 6 +Beer none +Tobacco none +Insurance ("Prudential") 0 3 +Labourers' Union 0 1 +Wood, tools, dispensary, &c. 0 6 +Insurance ("Foresters") and margin 1 1.75 + for clothes +Total 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 +Women 5 6.5 +Children 5 1.25 + + +If the labourer whose budget has been described should quit his toil +and go into the workhouse, he would cost the guardians for + + s. d. +Himself 6 1.5 +Wife 5 6.5 +Two children 10 2.5 +Total 21 10.5 +Or roughly, $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 understood fact that it is +cheaper to cater for a large number of people--buying, cooking, and +serving wholesale--than it is to cater for a small number of people, +say 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), and 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 +decentralisation 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 the dwellers are condemned +to a poverty which destroys them physically and spiritually; that +fully one-fourth of the dwellers do not have enough to eat, 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 leaned 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 himself 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 +the 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. It would seem that 40,000,000 people +are keeping a big house, and that 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 produce 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 +are 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 drunkenness, saturated in drink before they draw +their first breath, born to the smell and 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 it, familiarising themselves +with licentiousness and debauchery. + +Mrs. Grundy rules as supremely over the workers as she does over the +bourgeoisie; but in the case of the workers, the one thing she does +not frown upon is the public-house. No disgrace or shame attaches +to it, 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 innutrition 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. Unhealthy 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 deadened 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 impossible. + +A brief examination 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 small), the wife and mother cooks the breakfast. And in the same +room, heavy and sickening with the exhalations of their 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, +filling the pent space with soapsuds and the smell of dirty clothes, +and overhead she hangs the wet linen to dry. + +Here, in the evening, amid the manifold smells of the day, the +family goes to its virtuous couch. That is to say, as many as +possible pile into the one bed (if bed they have), and the surplus +turns in on the floor. And this is the round of their existence, +month after month, year after year, for they never get a vacation +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 kept 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 East 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 as 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 London, 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 +respectable 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 alleviation, 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 oblivion that nothing else +in their lives can bring. It even exalts them, and makes them 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 the cause of many miseries; but it +is, in turn, the effect of other and prior miseries. The temperance +advocates may preach their hearts out over the evils of drink, but +until the evils that 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 Good, the foul facts of their existence and the social law +that dooms one in three to a public-charity death, demonstrate that +this knowledge and yearning will be only so much of an added curse +to them. They will have so much more to forget than if they had +never known and yearned. Did Destiny to-day bind me down to the +life of an East End slave for the rest of my years, and did Destiny +grant me but one wish, I should ask that I might forget all about +the Beautiful and True and Good; that I might forget all I had +learned from the open books, and forget the people I had known, the +things I had heard, and the lands I had seen. And if Destiny didn't +grant 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 settlements, missions, +charities, and what not, are failures. In the nature of things they +cannot 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 +down to the East End as teachers and savants. 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 beyond relieving an infinitesimal +fraction of misery and collecting a certain amount of data which +might otherwise have been more scientifically and less expensively +collected, they have achieved nothing. + +As some one has said, 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 +successful 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 three +farthings a gross, when more children and violet-makers than they +can cope with are being born right along? This violet-maker handles +each flower four times, 576 handlings for three farthings, and in +the day she handles the flowers 6912 times for a wage of ninepence. +She is being robbed. Somebody is on her back, and a yearning 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, undoes 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 more of a +truth. And the lie they preach is "thrift." An instant will +demonstrate it. In overcrowded London, the struggle for a chance to +work is keen, and because of this struggle wages sink to the lowest +means of subsistence. To be thrifty means for a worker to spend +less than his income--in other words, to live on less. This is +equivalent to a lowering of the standard of living. In the +competition for a chance to work, the man with a lower standard of +living will underbid the man with a higher standard. And a small +group of such thrifty workers in any overcrowded industry will +permanently lower the wages of that industry. And the thrifty ones +will no longer be thrifty, for their income will have been reduced +till it balances their expenditure. + +In short, thrift negates thrift. If every worker 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. And then none of the workers of +England would be thrifty, for they would be living up 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 families which have a +total income of less than 21s. per week, one quarter to one half 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. 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, when 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. He does not play with palliatives. 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 men. + +When the people who 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 Christ, they will be in better +shape to buckle down to the work they ought to be doing 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 bettered the lot of man? "Man," 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 and fish for their food with bone-headed spews +and arrows. They never suffer from lack of shelter. Their clothes, +largely made from the skins of animals, are warm. They always have +fuel for their fires, likewise timber for their houses, which they +build partly underground, and in which they lie snugly during the +periods of intense cold. In the 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. In good times they feast; in bad times they die of +starvation. But starvation, as a chronic condition, 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 their +food, not by hunting and fishing, but by toil at colossal artifices. +For the most part, they suffer from lack of shelter. The greater +number of them are vilely housed, do not have enough fuel to keep +them warm, and are insufficiently clothed. A constant 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 starvation; 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 +babe that is born, is born in debt to the sum of 22 pounds. This is +because of an artifice called the National Debt. + +In a fair comparison 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; that +no Innuit lacks fuel, clothing, or housing, while the Englishman is +in perpetual lack of these three essentials. In this connection it +is well to instance the judgment of a man such as Huxley. From the +knowledge gained as a medical officer in the East End of London, and +as a scientist pursuing investigations among the most elemental +savages, he concludes, "Were the alternative presented to me, I +would deliberately prefer the life of the savage to that of those +people of Christian London." + +The creature comforts man enjoys are the products of man's labour. +Since Civilisation has failed to give 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. Then arises the third and +inexorable question: IF CIVILISATION HAS INCREASED THE PRODUCING +POWER OF THE AVERAGE MAN, WHY HAS IT NOT BETTERED THE 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. 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 should have reared this +tremendous artifice in vain. It stuns the intellect. To +acknowledge so crushing a defeat 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. +This accepted, it becomes at once a question of business management. +Things profitable must be continued; things unprofitable must be +eliminated. Either the Empire is a profit to England, or it is a +loss. If it is a loss, it must be done away with. If it is a +profit, it must be managed so that the average man comes in for a +share of the profit. + +If the struggle for commercial supremacy is profitable, continue it. +If it is not, if it hurts the worker 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 them to work ploughing game preserves and planting +potatoes. If they are profitable, continue them by all means, but +let it be seen to that the average Englishman shares somewhat 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. 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 +West End and an East End as large as the Kingdom is large, in which +one end is riotous 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 political empire, and the English of +the New World and the Antipodes are strong and vigorous as ever. +But the political 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 +wasteful and inefficient, but it has misappropriated the funds. +Every worn-out, pasty-faced pauper, 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 member 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 increased 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 who lives to-day as he lived in the stone age ten +thousand years ago. + + +CHALLENGE + + +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 before Zamora slain, +And his great besieging army +Lay encamped upon the plain. + +Don Diego de Ordenez +Sallied forth in front of all, +And shouted loud his challenge +To the warders on the wall. + +All the people of Zamora, +Both the born and the unborn, +As traitors did he challenge +With taunting words of scorn. + +The living in their houses, +And in their 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 life. + +The poverty-stricken millions +Who challenge our wine and bread, +And impeach us all as traitors, +Both the living and the dead. + +And whenever I sit at the banquet, +Where the feast and song are high, +Amid the mirth and music +I can hear that fearful cry. + +And hollow and haggard faces +Look into the lighted hall, +And wasted hands are extended +To catch the crumbs that 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 wind, and cold, and rain, +Christ, the great Lord of the Army, +Lies dead upon the plain. + +LONGFELLOW + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} This in the Klondike.--J. L. + +{2} "Runt" in America is the equivalent of the English "crowl," the +dwarf of a litter. + +{3} The San Francisco bricklayer receives twenty shillings per day, +and at present is on strike for twenty-four shillings. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of The People of the Abyss, by Jack London + diff --git a/old/tpota10.zip b/old/tpota10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..52d487d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tpota10.zip |
