Now just look at my friend over there beside one of the palms, her feet resting so naturally on the Turkey carpet! You observe she sits majestically in a commodious chair; she needs one! For she is five feet eleven inches in height, and weighs sixteen stone. I call her "The Queen," for when she stands up she is erect and queenly with a noble head and pleasing countenance.
She makes no secret about her age; "I am sixty, and I have been here four times, and, please God, I'll come forty-four more times," and she looks like it. But what if there had been no Singholm to look forward to year by year? Why, then she would have been heavy in heart as well as in body, and her erect form would have been bent, for she is a hard worker from Bethnal Green.
The idea of coming forty-four more times to Singholm, and she sixty-six, was the signal for more laughter, and again Singholm was tested; but our builder had done his work well.
"Turn on the electric light, matron!" There is a transformation scene for you! Now you see the delicate art colours in the Turkey carpets, and the subdued colours in the Medici Society's reproduced pictures.
See how they have ranged their chairs all round by the walls, and the centre of the room is unoccupied, saving here and there maidenhair ferns and growing flowers. Now look at the picture in its fulness! and we see poor old bent and feeble bodies bowed with toil, and faces furrowed by unceasing anxiety; but the sun, the east wind, the sea air and Singholm have brightened and browned them.
There is my poor old friend, long past threescore and ten, to whom Singholm for a time is verily Heaven; but—"Turn on the gramophone, please, matron." Thanks to a kind friend, we have a really good one, with a plentiful supply of records. The matron, in the wickedness of her heart, turns on an orchestral "cakewalk." The band plays, old bodies begin to move and sway, and seventy pair of feet begin unconsciously to beat the floor. Laughter again resounds; our Quaker himself enters into the spirit of it, so I invite him to lead off with the "Queen" for his partner, at which he was dismayed, although he is a veritable son of Anak.
But to my dismay the bent and feeble septuagenarian offered to lead off with myself as partner, at which I collapsed, for alas, I cannot dance. Then our trustee led the roars of laughter that testified to my discomfiture.
So we had no dancing, only a cakewalk. But we had more merriment and music, and then our little evening service. "What hymn shall we have?" Many voices called out, "Sun of my soul," so the matron went to the piano, and I listened while they sang "Watch by the sick, enrich the poor," which for me, whenever the poor, the feeble and aged sing it, has a power and a meaning that I never realise when the organ leads a well-trained choir and a respectable church congregation to blend their voices.
Then I read to them a few words from the old, but ever new, Book, and closed with a few simple, well-known prayers, and then—as old Pepys has it—"to bed."
We watch them file up the great staircase one by one, watch them disappear into their sweet little rooms and clean sheets. To me, at any rate, the picture was more comforting and suggestive than Burne Jones's "Golden Stairs." In fifteen minutes the electric light was switched off, and Singholm was in darkness and in peace. But outside the stars were shining, the flowers still blooming, the garden was full of the mystery of sweet odours; close by the sea was singing its soothing lullaby, and God was over all!
But let us get back to the underworld!
"How long have we lived together, did you ask? well, ever since we were born, and she is sixty-seven," pointing to a paralysed woman, who was sitting in front of the window. "I am two years younger," she continued, "and we have never been separated; we have lived together, worked together, and slept together, and if ever we did have a holiday, we spent it together. And now we are getting old, just think of it! I am sixty-five, isn't it terrible? They always used to call us 'the girls' when mother, father and my brothers were alive, but they have all gone—not one of them left. But we 'girls' are left, and now we are getting old—sixty-five—isn't it terrible? We ought to be ashamed of it, I suppose, but we are not, are we, dear? For we are just 'the girls' to each other, and sometimes I feel as strong and as young as a girl."
"How long have you lived in the top of this four-storey house?" I asked. "Sixteen years," came the reply. "All alone?" "No, sir, we have been together." "And your sister, how long has she been paralysed?" "Before we came to this house." "Does she ever go out?" "Of course she does; don't I take her out in the bath-chair behind you?" "Can she wash and dress herself, do her hair, and make herself as clean and tidy as she is?" "I do it for her."
"But how do you get her down these interminable stairs?" I asked.
"She does that herself, sitting down and going from step to step," she said, and then added, "but it is hard work for her, and it takes her a very long time."
"Now tell me," I said, "have you ever had a holiday?" "Yes, we have had one since my sister became paralysed, and we went to Herne Bay." "Did you take the bath-chair with you?" "Of course we did; how could she go without it?" "And you pushed her about Herne Bay, and took her on the sands in it?" I said. "Of course," she said quite naturally, as if she was surprised at my question. "Now tell me how much rent do you pay for these two rooms?" "Seven shillings and sixpence per week; I know it is too much, but I must have a good window for her, where she can sit and look out." "How do you do your washing?" "I pay the landlady a shilling a week to do it." "How long have you worked at umbrella covering?" "Ever since we left school, both of us; we have never done anything else." "How long have your parents been dead" "More than forty years," was the answer.
To every one of the replies made by the younger sister, the paralytic at the window nodded her head in confirmation as though she would say, "Quite true, quite true!"
"Forgive me asking so many questions, but I want to understand how you live; you pay seven-and-six rent, and one shilling for washing every week; that comes to eight shillings and sixpence before you buy food, coal, and pay for gas; and you must burn a lot of gas, for I am sure that you work till a very late hour," and the elder sister nodded her head. "Yes, gas is a big item, but I manage it," and then the elder one spoke. "Yes, she is a wonderful manager! a wonderful manager! she is better than I ever was." "Well, dear, you managed well, you know you did, and we saved some money then, didn't we!"
"Ah! we did, but mine is all gone, and I can't work now; but you are a good manager, better than I ever was."
I looked at the aged and brave couple, and took stock of their old but still good furniture that told its own story, and said, "You had two accounts in the Post-Office Savings Bank, and when you both worked you saved all you could?" "Yes, sir, we worked hard, and never wasted anything." Again the sixty-seven old girl broke in: "But mine is all gone, all gone, but she is a wonderful manager." "And mine is nearly all gone, too," said the younger, "but I can work for both of us," and the elder sister nodded her head as if she would say, "And she can, too!" I looked at the dozen umbrellas before me, and said, "What do you get for covering these?" "Ah! that's what's called, vulgarly speaking, a bit of jam! they are gents' best umbrellas, and I shall get three shillings for them. I got them out yesterday from the warehouse, after waiting there for two hours. I shall work till twelve to-night and finish them by midday to-morrow; they are my very best work." Three shillings for a dozen! her very best work! and she finding machine and thread, and waiting two hours at the factory!
"Come," I said, "tell me what you earned last week, and how many hours you worked?" "I earned ten shillings and sixpence; but don't ask me how many hours I worked, for I don't know; I begin when it is light, because that saves gas, and I work as long as I can, for I am strong and have good health." "But," I said, "you paid eight shillings and sixpence for rent and washing; that left you with two shillings. Does your sister have anything from the parish?" I felt sorry that I had put the question, for I got a proud "No, sir," followed by some tears from the sixty-five-year-old "girl." Presently I said, "However do you spend it?" "Didn't I tell you that I had saved some, and was drawing it? But I manage, and get a bit of meat, too!" Again from the window came the words, "She is a good manager."
"What will you do when you have drawn all your savings?" "Oh! I shall manage, and God is good," was all I could get.
A brave, heroic soul, surely, dwells in that aged girl, for in her I found no bitterness, no repining; nay, I found a sense of humour and the capability of a hearty laugh as we talked on and on, for I was in wonderland.
When I rose to leave, she offered to accompany us—for a friend was with me—downstairs to the door; I said, "No, don't come down, we will find our way; stop and earn half-a-crown, and please remember that you are sixty-five." "Hush!" she said, "the landlady will hear you; don't tell anybody, isn't it awful? and we were called the girls," and she burst into a merry laugh. During our conversation the paralysed sister had several times assured me that she "would like to have a ride in a motor-car." This I am afraid I cannot promise her, much as I would like to do so; but the exact object of my visit was to make arrangements for "the girls" to go to our home of rest for a whole fortnight.
And they went, bath-chair as well. For sixteen long years they had not seen the sea or listened to its mighty voice, but for a whole fortnight they enjoyed its never-ending wonder and inhaled its glorious breath. And the younger "girl" pushed the chair, and the older "girl" sat in it the while they prattled, and talked and managed, till almost the days of their real girlhood came back to them. Dull penury and sordid care were banished for a whole fortnight and appetite came by eating. The older "girl" said, "If I stop here much longer, I know I shall walk," and she nearly managed it too, for when helped out of her chair, she first began to stand, and then to progress a little step by step by holding on to any friendly solid till she almost became a child again. But the fortnight ended all too soon, and back to their upper room, the window and the umbrellas they came, to live that fortnight over and over again, and to count the days, weeks and months that are to elapse before once again the two old girls and an old—so old—bath-chair will revel and joy, eat and rest, prattle and laugh by the sea.
But they have had their "motor ride," too! and the girls sat side by side, and although it was winter time they enjoyed it, and they have a new theme for prattle.
I have since ascertained that the sum of ten shillings, and ten shillings only, remained in the Post-Office Savings Bank to the credit of the managing sister.
But I have also learned something else quite as pitiful—it is this: the allowance of coal during the winter months for these heroic souls was one half-hundredweight per week, fifty-six lb., which cost them eightpence-halfpenny.
Young folk marry and are given in marriage at a very early age in the underworld. Their own personal poverty and thousands of warning examples are not sufficient to deter them. Strange to say, their own parents encourage them, and, more strange still, upperworld people of education and experience lend a willing hand in what is at the best a deplorable business.
Under their conditions it is perhaps difficult to say what other course can or ought to be taken, for their homes are like beehives, and "swarming" time inevitably comes. That oftentimes comes when young people of either sex are midway in their "teens." The cramped little rooms or room that barely sufficed for the parents and small children are altogether out of the question when the children become adolescent. The income of the family is not sufficient to allow the parents, even if they were desirous of doing so, taking larger premises with an extra bedroom. Very few parents brace themselves to this endeavour, for it means not only effort but expense. So the young folks swarm either to lodgings, or to marriage, and the pretence of home life.
Private lodgings for girls are dangerous and expensive, while public lodgings for youths are probably a shade worse. So marriage it is, and boys of nineteen unite with girls one or two years younger.
I have no doubt that the future looks very rosy to the young couple whose united earnings may amount to as much as thirty shillings weekly, for it is an axiom of the poor that two can live cheaper than one.
It is so easy to pay a deposit on a single room, and so easy, so very easy, to purchase furniture on the hire system. Does not the youth give his mother ten shillings weekly? Why not give it to a wife? Does not the girl contribute to her mother's exchequer? Why may not she become a wife and spend her own earnings? Both are heartily sick of their present home life, any change must be for the better! So marriage it is! But they have saved nothing, they are practically penniless beyond the current week's wages. Never mind, they can get their wedding outfit on the pay weekly rule, the parson will marry them for nothing. "Here's a church, let's go in and get married." Christmas, Easter or Bank Holiday comes to their aid, and they do it! and, heigho! for life's romance.
The happy bride continues at the factory, and brings her shillings to make up the thirty. They pay three shillings and sixpence weekly for their room, one-and-six weekly for their household goods, two more shillings weekly are required for their wedding clothes, that is all! Have they not twenty-three shillings left!
They knew that they could manage it! All goes merrily as a marriage bell! Hurrah! They can afford a night or two a week at a music-hall; why did they not get married before? how stupid they had been!
But something happens, for the bride becomes a mother. Her wages cease, and thirty shillings weekly for two is a very different matter to twenty shillings for three!
They had to engage an old woman for nurse for one week only. But that cost seven shillings and sixpence. A number of other extras are incurred, all to be paid out of his earnings. They have not completed the hire purchase business; they have even added to that expense by the purchase of a bassinet at one shilling weekly for thirty weeks. The bassinet, however, serves one useful purpose, it saves the expense of a cradle.
In less than a fortnight the girl mother is again knocking at the factory door. She wishes to become an "out-worker"; the manager, knowing her to be a capable machinist, gives her work, and promises her a constant supply.
Now they are all right again! Are they? Why, she has no sewing-machine! Stranded again! not a bit of it. The hire purchase again comes to her help. Eighteenpence deposit is paid, a like weekly payment promised, signed for and attended to; and lo! a sparkling new sewing-machine is deposited in their one room. Let us take an inventory of their goods: one iron bedstead, flock mattress, two pairs of sheets, two blankets and a common counterpane, a deal chest of drawers, a deal table, two Windsor chairs, a bassinet carriage, a sewing-machine, fire-shovel, fender and poker, some few crocks, a looking-glass, a mouth-organ and a couple of towels, some knives, forks and spoons, a tea-pot, tea-kettle, saucepan and frying-pan. But I have been very liberal! They stand close together, do those household goods; they crowd each other, and if one moves, it jostles the other. The sewing-machine stands in front of the little window, for it demands the light. It took some scheming to arrange this, but husband and wife ultimately managed it. The bassinet stands close to the machine, that the girl mother may push it gently when baby is cross, and that she may reach the "soother" and replace it when it falls from baby's mouth.
Now she is settled down! off she goes! She starts on a life of toil, compared to which slavery is light and pleasant. Oh, the romance of it; work from morn till late at night. The babe practically unwashed, the house becomes grimy, and the bed and bassinet nasty. The husband's wages have not risen, though his expenses have; other children come and some go; they get behind with their rent; an "ejectment order" is enforced. The wretched refuse of the home is put on the street pavement, the door is locked against them, and the wretched couple with their children are on the pavement too! The only thing to survive the wreck is the sewing-machine. The only thing that I know among the many things supplied to the poor on the hire system that is the least bit likely to stand the wear and tear is the machine. Doubtless the poor pay highly for it; still it is comforting to know that in this one direction the poor are supplied with good articles. And the poor respect their machines, as the poor always respect things that are not shoddy.
I have drawn no fancy picture, but one that holds true with regard to thousands. Evils that I cannot enumerate and that imagination cannot exaggerate wait upon and attend these unfortunate, nay, criminal marriages; which very largely are the result of that one great all-pervading cause—the housing of the poor.
But in the underworld there are much worse kinds of married life than the one I have pictured, for those young people did start life with some income and some hopes. But what can be said about, and what new condemnation can be passed upon, the marriage of feeble-minded, feeble-bodied, homeless wanderers? United in the bonds of holy matrimony by an eager clergy, and approved in this deplorable step by an all-wise State, thousands of crazy, curious, wretched, penniless individuals, to whom even the hire system is impossible, join their hopeless lives.
Half idiots of both sexes in our workhouses look at each other, and then take their discharge after a mutual understanding. They experience no difficulty in finding clergymen ready to marry them and unite them in the bonds of poverty and the gall of wretchedness. The blessing of the Church is pronounced upon this coupling, and away they go!
Over their lives and means of living I will draw a veil, for common decency forbids me to speak, as common decency ought to have forbidden their marriage.
But down in the underworld, and very low down, too, are numberless couples whose plight is perhaps worse, for they have at any rate known the refined comfort of good homes, but remembrance only adds poignancy to suffering and despair.
Read the following story, and after condemnation upon condemnation has been passed upon the thoughtless or wicked marriages of the poor, tell me, if you will, what condemnation shall be passed upon the educated when they, through marriage, drag down into this inferno innocent, loving and pure women?
It was Boxing Day in a London police-court. Twenty-five years have passed, but that day is as fresh in my memory as though it were yesterday. The prisoners' rooms were filled, the precincts of the court were full, and a great crowd of witnesses and friends, or of the curious public, were congregated in the street.
Yesterday had been the great Christian festival, the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace, when the bells had rang out the old story "Peace on earth, good-will to men." To-day it looked as though Hell had been holding carnival!
Nearly one hundred prisoners had to come before the magistrate. I can see them now! as one by one they passed before him, for time has not dimmed the vivid picture of that procession. I remember their stories, and think still of their cuts and wounds. Outside the court the day was dull, and inside the light was bad and the air heavy with the fumes of stale debauch and chloride of lime. And yesterday had been Christmas Day in the metropolis of Christendom.
Hours passed, and the kindly magistrate sat on apportioning punishment, fitting the sentence as it were by instinct. At two o'clock he rose for a short recess, a hasty luncheon, and then back to his task.
At the end of the long procession came a smitten woman. Darkness and fog now enveloped the court as the woman stood in the dock. Her age was given as twenty-eight; her occupation pickle-making. First let me picture that woman and then tell her story, for she represents a number of women into whose forlorn faces I have looked and of whose hopeless hearts I have an intimate knowledge.
Some men have conquered evil habits, helped by the love of a pure woman, without which they would have vainly struggled or have readily succumbed. But while I know this, I think of the women who have fastened the tendrils of their heart's affection round unworthy men, and have married them, hoping, trusting and believing that their love and influence would be powerful enough to win the men to sobriety and virtue. Alas! how mistaken they have been! What they have endured! Of such was this woman! There she stood, the embodiment of woe. A tall, refined woman, her clothing poor and sparse, her head enveloped in surgical bandages.
In the darkness of the Christmas night she had leaped from the wall of a canal bridge into the murky gloom, her head had struck the bank, and she rolled into the thick, black water.
It was near the basin of the Surrey Canal, and a watchman on duty had pulled her out; she had been taken to a hospital and attended to. Late in the afternoon the policeman brought her to the court, where a charge of attempted suicide was brought against her. But little evidence was taken, and the magistrate ordered a week's remand. In the cells I had a few moments' conversation with her, but all I could get from her was the pitiful moan, "Why didn't they let me die? why didn't they let me die?"
In a week's time I saw her again; surgical bandages were gone, medical attention and a week's food and rest had done something for her, but still she was the personification of misery.
I offered to take charge of her, and as she quietly promised not to repeat the attempt, the magistrate kindly committed her to my care. So we went to her room: it was a poor place, and many steps we climbed before we entered it. High up as the room was, and small as were its dimensions, she, out of the nine shillings she earned at the pickle factory paid three and sixpence weekly for it. I had gathered from what she had told me that she was in poverty and distress. So on our way I brought a few provisions; leaving these and a little money with her, I left her promising to see her again after a few days. But before leaving she briefly told me her story, a sad, sad story, but a story to be read and pondered.
She was the only daughter of a City merchant, and had one brother. While she was quite a child her mother died, and at an early age she managed her father's household. She made the acquaintance of a clever and accomplished man who was an accountant. He was older than she, and of dissipated habits. Her father had introduced him to his home and daughter, little thinking of the consequences that ensued. She had no mother to guide her, she was often lonely, for her father was immersed in his business.
In a very short time she had fixed her heart on to the man, and when too late her father expostulated, and finally forbade the man the house. This only intensified her love and led to quarrels with her father. Ultimately they married, and had a good home and two servants. In a little over three years two children added to her joys and sorrows. Still her husband's faults were not amended, but his dissipation increased. Monetary difficulties followed, and to avoid disgrace her father was called upon to provide a large sum of money.
This did not add to his sympathy, but it estranged the father and child.
Then difficulties followed, and soon her husband stood in the dock charged with embezzlement. Eighteen months' imprisonment was awarded him, but the greater punishment fell upon the suffering wife. Her father refused to see her, so with her two little ones she was left to face the future. Parting with most of her furniture, jewellery, servant, she gave up her house, took two small rooms, and waited wearily for the eighteen months to pass.
They passed, and her husband came back to her. But his character was gone, the difficulty of finding employment stared him in the face.
He joined the ranks of the shabby-genteel to live somehow by bits of honest work, mixed with a great deal of dishonest work. Four years of this life, two more children for the mother, increasing drunkenness, degenerating into brutality on her husband's part. Her father's death and some little money left to her gave momentary respite. But the money soon went. Her brother had taken the greater portion and had gone into a far country. This was the condition of affairs when her husband was again arrested; this time for forgery. There was no doubt about his guilt, and a sentence of five years' penal servitude followed. Again she parted with most of her home, reducing it to one room.
With her four children round her she tried to eke out an existence. She soon became penniless, and ultimately with her children took refuge in a London workhouse. After a time the guardians sent the four children to their country school and nursing home, when she was free to leave the workhouse and get her own living.
She came out with a letter of introduction to the pickle factory, and obtained employment at nine shillings a week. The weeks and months passed, her daily task and common round being a mile walk to the factory, ten hours' work, and then the return journey. One week-end on her homeward journey she was attracted and excited by a fire; when she resumed her journey she was penniless, her week's wages had been stolen from her. Her only warm jacket and decent pair of boots then had to be pawned, for the rent must be paid. Monday found her again at the monotonous round, but with added hardships.
She missed the jacket and the boots, and deprived herself of food that she might save enough money wherewith to take them out of pawn. Christmas Eve came, and she had not recovered them. She sat in her room lonely and with a sad heart, but there was mirth and noise below her, for even among the poor Bacchus must be worshipped at Christmas time.
One of the women thought of the poor lone creature up at the top of the house, and fetched her down. They had their bottles of cheap spirits, for which they had paid into the publican's Christmas club. She drank, and forgot her misery. Next morning, when the bells of a neighbouring church were ringing out, they awoke her as she lay fully dressed on her little bed. She felt ill and dazed, and by and by the consciousness came to her of fast night's drinking. Christmas Day she spent alone, ill, miserable and ashamed. "I must have been drunk!" she kept repeating to herself, and on Christmas night she sought her death.
I wrote to kind friends, and interested some ladies in her welfare. Plenty of clothing was sent for her; a better room, not quite so near the sky, was procured for her. Her daily walk to the factory was stopped, for more profitable work was given to her. Finally I left her in the hands of kind friends that I knew would care for her.
Two years passed, and on Christmas Eve I called with a present and a note sent her by a friend. She was gone—her husband had been released on ticket-of-leave, had found her and joined her, and for a time she kept him as well as herself. He was more brutal than before, and in his fury, either drunk or sober, he frequently beat her, so that the people of the house had to send them away. Where they had moved to, I failed to find out, but they had vanished!
Fourteen months passed, and one bitterly cold day in February at the end of a long row of prisoners, waiting their turn to appear before the magistrate, stood the woman wretched and ill, with a puling bit of mortality in her arms.
She was a "day charge," having been arrested for stealing a pot of condensed milk. At length she stood before the magistrate, and the evidence was given that she was seen to take the milk and hurry away. She was arrested with the milk on her.
It was believed that she had taken milk from the same place at other times. When asked what she had to say in extenuation, she held her child up and said, "I did not take it for myself, I took it for this!" She did not call it her child. The magistrate looked, shuddered, and sentenced her to one day.
So once again I stood face to face with her, and face to face with a big man who had been waiting for her, who insolently asked me what I wanted with his wife. I turned from him to the woman, and asked if she would leave him, for if so I would provide for her.
Mournfully she shook her head; leave him, no!—to the bitter end she stood by him.
So they passed from my view, the educated brute and the despairing, battered, faithful drudge of a woman, to migrate from lodging-house to lodging-house, to suffer and to die!
If all the girls of England could see what I have seen, if they could take, as I have taken, some measure of the keen anguish and sorrow that comes from such a step, they would never try the dangerous experiment of marrying a man in the hope of reforming him. Should, perchance, young women read this story, let me tell them it is true in every particular, but not the whole truth, for there are some things that cannot be told.
Again and again I have heard poor stricken women cry: "How can you! how can you!" More than once my manhood has been roused, and I have struck a blow in their defence.
If there is one piece of advice that, in the light of my experience, I would like to burn into the very consciousness of young women, it is this: if they have fastened their heart's love about a man, and find that thorough respect does not go with that love, then, at whatever cost, let them crush that love as they would crush a serpent's egg.
And the same holds good with men: I have known men in moments of passion marry young women, trusting that a good home and an assured income would restore them to decency and womanhood—but in vain! I saw a foul-looking woman far from old sent again to prison, where she had been more than a hundred times. She had also served two years in an inebriate reformatory. Fifteen years ago, when I first met her, she was a fair-looking young woman. Needless to say, I met her in the police-court. A short time afterwards she came to tell me that she was married. She had a good home, her husband was in good circumstances, and knew of her life. A few years of home life, two little children to call her mother; then back to her sensual ways. Prisons, rescue homes, workhouses, inebriate reformatories, all have failed to reclaim her, and she lives to spread moral corruption.
I hope that, in some of my chapters, I have made it clear that a large proportion of the underworld people are industrious and persevering. I want in this chapter to show that many of them have also ability and brains, gifts and graces. This is a pleasant theme, and I would revel in it, but for the sorrowful side of it.
It may seem strange that people living under their conditions should possess these qualities, but in reality there is nothing strange about it, for Nature laughs at us, and bestows her gifts upon whom she pleases, though I have no doubt that she works to law and order if we only understood.
But we do not understand, and therefore she appears whimsical and capricious. I rather expect that even when eugenists get their way and the human race is born to order, that Dame Nature, the mother of us all, will not consent to be left out of the reckoning. Be that as it may, it is certain she bestows her personal gifts among the very poor equally with the rich. She is a true socialist, and, like Santa Claus, she visits the homes of the very poor and bestows gifts upon their children.
Some of the most perfect ladies I have ever met have been uneducated women living in poverty and gloom. I do not say the most beautiful, for suffering and poverty are never beautiful. Neither can rings of care beneath the eyes, and countless furrows upon the face be considered beautiful. But, apart from this, I have found many personal graces and the perfection of behaviour among some of the poorest. All this I consider more wonderful than the possession of brains, though of brains they are by no means deficient.
Have you ever noticed how pretty the healthy children of the very poor are? I am not speaking of unhealthy and feeble children, who are all too numerous, but of the healthy; for, strange as it may appear, there are many such, even in the underworld. Where do you find such beautiful curly hair as they possess? in very few places! It is perfect in its freedom, texture, colour and curl. Dame Nature has not forgotten them! Where do you find prettier faces, more sparkling eyes and eager expressions? Nowhere! And though their faces become prematurely old, and their eyes become hard, still Dame Nature had not forgotten them at birth; she, at any rate, had done her best for them.
Search any families, bring out the hundreds of pretty children, and I will bring hundreds of children from below the line that will compare with them in beauty of body, face and hair. But they must be under four years of age! No! no! the children of the upperworld have not a monopoly of Dame Nature's gifts.
And it is so with mental gifts and graces; the poor get a good share of them, but the pity is they get so little chance of exercising them. For many splendid qualities wither from disuse or perish from lack of development. But some survive, as the following stories will prove.
It was a hot day in June, and, in company with a friend who wished to learn something about the lives of the very poor, I was visiting in the worst quarters of East London.
As we moved from house to house, the thick air within, and the dirt within and without were almost too much for us. The box-like rooms, the horrible backyards, the grime of the men, women and children, combined with the filth in the streets and gutters, made us sick and faint. We asked ourselves whether it was possible that anything decent, virtuous or intelligent could live under such conditions?
The "place" was dignified by the name of a street, although in reality it was a blind alley, for a high wall closed one end of it. It was very narrow, and while infants played in the unclean gutters, frowsy women discussed domestic or more exciting matters with women on the opposite side.
They discussed us too as we passed, and audibly commented, though not favourably, on our business. I had visited the street scores of times, and consequently I was well known. Unfortunately my address was also well known, for every little act of kindness that I ventured to do in that street had been followed by a number of letters from jealous non-recipients.
I venture to say that from every house save one I had received begging or unpleasant letters, for jealousy of each other's benefits was a marked characteristic of that unclean street. As we entered the house from which no letter had been received, we heard a woman call to her neighbour, "They are going to see the old shoemaker." She was correct in her surmise, and right glad we were to make the old man's acquaintance; not that he was very old, but then fifty-nine in a London slum may be considered old age. He sat in a Windsor arm-chair in a very small kitchen; a window at his back revealed that abomination of desolation, a Bethnal Green backyard. He sat as he had sat for years, bent and doubled up, for some kind of paralysis had overtaken him.
He had a fine head and a pointed beard, his thin and weak neck seemed hardly able to bear its heavy burden. He was not overclean, and his clothes were, to say the least, shabby. But there he sat, his wife at work to maintain him. We stood, for there was no sitting room for us. Grime, misery and poverty were in evidence.
He told us that his forefathers were Huguenots, who fled from France and settled as silk weavers in Spitalfields. He had been apprenticed to boot- and shoe-making, his particular branch of work having been boots and shoes for actresses and operatic singers. That formerly he had earned good money, but the trade declined as he had grown older, and now for some years he had been crippled and unable to work, and dependent upon his wife, who was a machinist.
There did not seem much room for imagination and poetry in his home and life, but the following conversation took place—
"It is a very hard life for you sitting month after month on that chair, unable to do anything!" "It is hard, I do not know what I should do if I could not think." "Oh, you think, do you well, thinking is hard work." "Not to me, it is my pleasure and occupation." "What do you think about?" "All sorts of things, what I have read mostly." "What have you read" "Everything that I could get hold of, novelists, poetry, history and travel." "What novelist do you like best" The answer came prompt and decisive: "Dickens," "Why?" "He loved the poor, he shows a greater belief in humanity than Thackeray." "How do you prove that?" "Well, take Thackeray's VANITY FAIR, it is clever and satirical, but there is only one good character, and he was a fool; but in Dickens you come across character after character that you can't help loving."
"Which of his books do you like best?" "A TALE OF TWO CITIES." "Why?" "Well, because the French Revolution always appeals to me, and secondly because I think the best bit of writing in all his books is the description of Sydney Carton's ride on the tumbrel to the guillotine." "Have you ever read Carlyle's FRENCH REVOLUTION?" "No" "I will lend it to you." "If you do, I will read it."
"How about poetry, what poets do you like?" "The minor poets of two hundred years ago, Herrick, Churchill, Shenstone and others." "Why do you like them?" "They are so pretty, so easy to understand, you know what they mean; they speak of beauty, and flowers and love, their language is tuneful and sweet." Thus the grimy old shoemaker spoke, but I continued: "What about the present-day poets?" Swift came the reply, "We have got none." This was a staggerer, but I suggested: "What about Kipling?" "Too slangy and Coarse!" "Austin?" "Don't ask me." "What of Wordsworth, Tennyson and Browning?" "Well, Wordsworth is too prosy, you have to read such a lot to get a little; Tennyson is a bit sickly and too sentimental, I mean with washy sentiment; Browning I cannot understand, he is too hard for me."
"Now let us talk: about dramatists; you have read Shakespeare?" "Yes, every play again and again." "Which do you like best?" "I like them all, the historical and the imaginative; I have never seen one acted, but to me King Lear is his masterpiece."
So we left him doubled up in his chair, in his grime and poverty, lighting up his poor one room with great creations, bearing his heavy burdens, never repining, thinking great thoughts and re-enacting great events, for his mind to him was a kingdom.
The next day my friend sent a dozen well-selected books, but the old shoemaker never sought or looked for any assistance.
Only a few doors away we happened on a slum tragedy. We stood in a queer little house of one room up and one down stairs. Let me picture the scene! A widow was seated at her machine sewing white buckskin children's boots. Time, five o'clock in the afternoon; she had sat there for many hours, and would continue to sit till night was far advanced.
Suddenly a girl of twelve burst in and threw herself into her mother's arms, crying, "Oh, mother, mother, I have lost the scholarship! Oh, mother, the French was too hard for me!" To our surprise the mother seemed intensely relieved, and said, "Thank God for that!"
But the girl wept! After a time we inquired, and found that the girl, having passed the seventh standard at an elementary school, had been attending a higher grade school, where she had been entered for a competitive examination at a good class secondary school. If she obtained it, the widow would have been compelled to sign an agreement for the girl to remain at school for at least three years. But the widow was practically starving, although working fourteen hours daily. Verily, the conflict of duties forms the tragedy of everyday life. The widow was saved by the advanced French; poor mother and poor girl!
By and by the girl was comforted as we held the prospective of a bright future before her, and got her to talk of her studies; she recited for us a scene from AS YOU LIKE IT, and also Portia's speech, "The quality of mercy is not strained."
Standing near was a boy of not more than ten years, who looked as if he would like to recite for us, and I asked him what standard he was in. "The sixth, sir." "And do you like English Literature?" He did not answer the question exactly, but said, "I know the 'Deserted Village,' by Oliver Goldsmith."
"Where was the 'Deserted Village'?" "Sweet Auburn was supposed to be in Ireland, but it is thought that some of the scenes are taken from English villages."
"Can you give us the 'Village Schoolmaster'?" And he did, with point and emphasis. "Now for the 'Village Parson.'" His memory did not fail or trip, and the widow sat there machining; so we turned to her for more information, and found that she was a Leicester woman, and her parents Scots; she had been a boot machinist from her youth.
Her husband was a "clicker" from Stafford; he had been dead eight years. She was left with four children. She had another daughter of fourteen who had done brilliantly at school, having obtained many distinctions, and at twelve years had passed her "Oxford Local." This girl had picked up typewriting herself, and as she was good at figures and a splendid writer, she obtained a junior clerk's place in the City at seven shillings and sixpence per week. Every day this girl walked to and from her business, and every day the poor widow managed to find her fourpence that the girl might have a lunch in London City.
I felt interested in this girl, so I wrote asking her to come to lunch with me on a certain day. She came with a book in her hand, one of George Eliot's, one of her many prizes. A fourpenny lunch may be conducive to high thinking, may even lead to an appreciation of great novels: it certainly leaves plenty of time for the improvement of the mind, though it does not do much for nourishing the body. I found her exceedingly interesting and intelligent, with some knowledge of "political economy," well up in advanced arithmetic, and quite capable of discussing the books she had read. Yet the family had been born in an apology of a house, they had graduated in the slums, but not in the gutter. Their widowed mother had worked interminable hours and starved as she worked, but no attendance officer had ever been required to compel her children to school. It would have taken force to keep them away. But what of their future? Who can say? But of one thing I am very sure, and it is this: that, given fair opportunity, the whole family will adorn any station of life that they may be called to fill.
But will they have that opportunity? Well, the friend that was with me says they will, and he has commissioned me to act for him, promising me that if I am taken first and he is left, the cultured family of the slums shall not go uncared for. And amidst the sordid life of our mean streets, there are numbers of brilliant children whose God-given talents not only run to waste, but are actually turned into evil for lack of opportunity.
Here and there one and another rise superior to their environment, and with splendid perseverance fight their way to higher and better life. And some of them rise to eminence, for genius is not rare even in Slumdom.
One of our greatest artists, lately dead, whose work all civilisation delights to honour, played in a slum gutter, and climbed a lamp-post that he might get a furtive look into a school of art.
All honour and good wishes to the rising young, but all glory to the half-starved widows who shape their characters and form their tastes. To the old shoemaker good wishes; may the small pension that a friend of mine has settled on him add to his comfort and his health, may his beloved minor poets with Dickens and Shakespeare long be dear to him, and may his poor little home long continue to be peopled with bright creations that defy the almost omnipotent power of the underworld.
If any who may read these words would like to do a kind action that will not be void of good results and sure reward, I would say lend a helping hand to some poor family where, in spite of their poverty and surroundings, the children are clean and intelligent, and have made progress at school. For they are just needing a hand, it may be to help with their education, or it may be to give them a suitable start in life. If the mother happens to be a widow, you cannot do wrong.
If one half of the money that is spent trying to help unhelpable people was spent in helping the kind of families I refer to in the manner I describe, the results would be surprising.
If there is any difficulty in finding such families, I would say apply to the head mistress or master of a big school in a poor neighbourhood, they can find them for you. If they cannot, why then I will from among my self-supporting widow friends.
But do not, I beseech you, apply to the clergyman of the parish, for he will naturally select some poor family to whom he has charitably acted the part of relieving officer. Remember it is brains and grit that you are in search of, and not poor people only.
If in every neighbourhood a few people would band themselves together for this purpose and spend money for this one charitable purpose, it would of itself, and in reasonable time, effect mighty results. Believe me, there is plenty of brain power and grit in the underworld that never gets a chance of developing in a useful direction. Boys and girls possessing such talents are doomed, unless a miracle happens, for they have to start in life anyhow and anywhere.
Nothing is of more importance than a correct start in life for any boy or girl; but a false start, a bad beginning for the children of the very poor who happen to possess brain power is fatal. Their talents get no chance, for they are never used, consequently they atrophy, or, worse still, are used in a wrong direction and possibly for evil. Good is changed into evil, bright and useful life is frustrated, and the State loses the useful power and influence that should result from brains and grit.
How can my widow friends, who are unceasingly at work, have either the time, opportunity or knowledge to find proper openings for their children? The few shillings that a boy or girl can earn at anything, or anyhow that is honest, are a great temptation. The commencement dominates the future! Prospective advantage must needs give place to present requirements.
So we all lose! The upperworld loses the children's gifts, character and service. The underworld retains their poor service for life.
"It is better," said Milton, "to kill a man than a book." Which may be true, but probably the truth depends upon the quality of the man and the book. But what about killing mind, soul, heart, aspirations and every quality that goes to make up a man? "Their angels do always behold the face of my Father"; yes, but we compel them to withdraw that gaze, and look contentedly into the face of evil.
I am now pleading for the gifted boys and girls of the underworld, not the weaklings, for of them I speak elsewhere. But I will say, that while the weaklings are the more hopeless, it is the talented that are the most dangerous. Let us see to it that their powers have some chance of developing in a right direction. When by some extraordinary concurrence of circumstances a Council School boy passes on to a university and takes a good degree, it is chronicled all over the world; the school, the teacher, the boy and his parents are all held up for show and admiration. I declare it makes me ill! Why? Because I know that in the underworld thousands of men are grubbing, burrowing and grovelling who, as boys, possessed phenomenal abilities, but whose parents were poor, so poor that their gifted children had no chance of developing the talent that was in them. Let us give them a chance! Sometimes here and there one and another bursts his bonds, and, rejoicing in his freedom, does brilliant things. But in spite of Samuel Smiles and his self-help they are but few, though, if the centuries are searched, the catalogue will be impressive enough.
Of course there must be self-help. But there must be opportunity also. There is a great deal of talk about the children of the poor being "over-educated," and the delinquencies of the youthful poor are attributed to this bogy. It is because they are under-educated, not over-educated, that the children of the very poor so often go wrong.
But the attempt to cast them all in the same mould is disastrous; there is an over-education going on in this direction. Not all the children of the poor can be great scholars, but some of them can! Let us give them a chance. Not all of them can be scientists and engineers, etc., but some of them have talents for such things! Give them a chance! A good many of them have unmistakably artistic gifts! Why not give them a chance too! And the mechanically inclined should have a chance! Why can we not differentiate according to their tastes and gifts?
For even then we shall have enough left to be our hewers of wood and carriers of water; an abundance will remain to do all the work that requires neither brains nor gifts.
But let us stop at once and for ever trying to cram thick heads and poor brains with stuff that cannot possibly be appreciated or understood. Let us teach their mechanical fingers to do something useful, and give them, even the degenerates, some chance!
And we must stop our blind alley occupation for growing lads, for at the end of the alley stands an open door to the netherworld, and through it youthful life passes with little prospect of return.