The best qualified officials will, however, be comparatively helpless without a proper system; true, they can make the best of a bad system, but with a good system their work would be powerful for good. They too, themselves, would profit, for it would interest them, and call into activity their better qualities, many of which must lie dormant under the present condition of affairs. We want a system that will help to humanize the prisoner, not to brutalize him. It will, I know, pass the wit of man to devise any plan by which the whole of our prisoners can be ‘cured’; it is impossible to invent any system that will be suitable for every prisoner, for they are varied as nature itself. But it is practicable, and it would be wise, to have a system that, while punishing the prisoner, shall not by its punishments defeat the object it has in view. The‘terrors of the law’ have little effect upon brutalized men, for they feel themselves at war with society, and, by the treatment meted out to them in prison, society has declared itself at war with them. Consequently they come out of prison more hardened than when they entered it, and a repetition of crime is most likely to result.
Briefly, then, I would suggest: Short sentences; abolition of ticket-of-leave; interesting work and more of it; less time alone, and more with the schoolmaster; gradual improvements in conditions as a reward for industry and good behaviour; some relaxation at intervals, such as lectures with magic lanterns, concerts, etc. The Home Secretary now allows lay officers of religious organizations to conduct missions in various prisons. I would go much further, for I would have lecturers who can speak well and interestingly upon various subjects invited to speak to the prisoners. I would have good singers and first-class musicians invited occasionally to give the prisoners a concert. I would have also the prisons supplied plentifully with books, and constant additions made to the library. I would have a looking-glass in every cell, that prisoners might at any time take knowledge of themselves. I would have every warder master of a trade, or able to teach something useful, for work that interests must be the great factor in the reformation of intelligent prisoners.
I may be asked, ‘What kind of work would you suggest?’ I reply at once, ‘Any kind of interesting work for which a market can be found.’ ‘But you become a competitor in the labour market.’ This cry, I know, would be raised, but it is a very stupid cry. See how the present system works. Numbers of men and women are detained in prison for long periods. During their detention they work at stale, uninteresting tasks, upon which there is no profit; consequently the community has to keep them. When released, numbers of them enter the ‘Arks,’ ‘Elevators,’ or ‘Bridges’ of the Salvation Army, or the labour homes of the Church Army, and proceed to workfor nothing, becoming indeed and truth very serious competitors in the labour market, as the wood-cutters and mat-makers will tell you.
I cannot conceive how it can be wrong for a man to earn his own living while in prison. Neither can I conceive the wisdom of allowing to great trading organizations rights and privileges which we would withhold from the State. But I can see the absurdity of keeping a man in prison for years, during those years giving him unremunerative work, and handing him over when released to some society, to continue working for nothing. The cheapness of his labour when at liberty is the danger, not the work he may do in prison. The absurdity is seen to be the greater when we remember that a large proportion of the male prisoners are married, and ought when released to set to work to keep, or, at any rate, try to keep, their families. During their detention society has in many instances been maintaining or assisting those families, and it certainly seems hard that society should have to continue doing so when the husbands are at liberty, but are working for large trading organizations. The place for the married man when discharged from prison is his home; there his battle for social salvation will best be fought, and there it will have to be fought if fought at all. A half-year’s, or even a whole year’s sojourn in a shelter or labour home will not help him, for he has to come out and face the world, and by some means make a beginning. The recommendation of the shelter, or labour home, is by no means superior to the recommendation of prison—in fact, they are of equal value.
I look with something approaching dismay at the multiplication of these institutions throughout the length and breadth of our land. To the loafing vagrant class—a very large class, I know, but a class not worthy of much consideration—they are a boon. These men tramp from one to another, and a week or two in each suits them admirably, till the warm weather and light nights arrive, and then they are off. Thisportion of the ‘submerged’ will always be submerged till some power takes hold of them and compels them to work out their own salvation. But there is such a procession of them that the labour homes, etc., get continual recruits, and the managers are enabled to contract for a great deal of work. In all our large towns there are numbers of self-respecting men—men who have committed no crime save the unpardonable sin of growing old. Time was when such men could get odd clerical work, envelope and circular addressing, and a variety of light but irregular employment, at which, by economy and the help of their wives, they made some sort of a living. But these men are now driven to the wall, for their poorly-paid and irregular employment is taken from them.1‘Too old to live!’ is the cry, and the labour home has no pity for such men; indeed, these places are as pitiless as commercial life itself, for no one over forty need apply.
Now, it needs no saying that the healthy single man under forty is of all men the best able to help himself; his wants should be small, and if he cannot supply them, then there is something wrong with him. No one can help such men till they know what that something is. The shelter, labour home, or elevator are of no possible use to the intelligent, industrious, and enterprising criminal. Yet these are the dangerous men; but, after all, they are the men of whom there is hope; for where there is industry and enterprise there is backbone, andmen with backbone can be saved—many of them, if not all; but they must not have the prison brand or the brand of any organization upon them.
Four years ago such a man came and claimed my help. I had seen him in the cells when he was committed for trial. I knew he would get a sentence of some years. He said: ‘Will you help me when I come out?’ I told him that if I was alive when his sentence expired he had better come and see me. I heard nothing of him while he served his three years, but one morning he was waiting for me and reminded me of our conversation. He evidently had some faith in me, so I returned the compliment and gave him a decent rig-out. I had no work to give him, but I supplied him with lodgings for a fortnight. He ultimately got work for himself, and passed from my knowledge till three weeks ago, when he called on me, exceedingly well dressed and evidently thriving. He had left his situation and was going to a superior one; he showed me a testimonial that his employer had given him, stating that for three years he had been a good and faithful servant.
A more remarkable case was that of a man who had undergone several terms for making counterfeit coin. He wrote to me from prison reminding me that I had spoken with him in the cells, telling me when his time would expire and asking for an appointment. I did not remember him, and had not much faith in his intentions, so I did not reply to him. But he came to see me, and I was rather impressed in his favour, so I took him up. I found he was a clever tinsmith, without wife or friends. I could not get him work, so I bought him tools and metal and hired a small place for him to work in. He went straight, and got on fairly, for he has now a little shop front in which he displays his wares. This happened four years ago, and I believe him to be living honestly. He has paid me for the tools, and though he lives miles away he sometimes looks me up.
I might tell of others, but I refrain. I tell of these becauseI know, in spite of my brilliant failures, that many criminals can be saved; and I would not have it inferred, because I tell in this chapter of the failures, that success has not smiled upon me. It has; but it required effort and the application of common-sense to bring it about. There is no royal road to save them; for it is individually, not in the mass, that such can be redeemed, and any plan for rescuing them which does not give scope for individuality and does not allow for the temperament, characteristics, and abilities of these men is sure to be a failure in the long-run. The attempt to deter men from crime by squeezing all of them into the same mould while they are in prison is a dismal and disastrous failure; it deters them not. The attempt to redeem them when at liberty by pressing them into another mould in any institution is equally certain to result in failure. Destroy a man’s individuality and you destroy the man.
With a wise prison system and properly qualified prison officials, societies for the aid of discharged prisoners would be unnecessary, for their occupation would be gone. Each prison ought to contain its own Prisoners’ Aid Society, and what is to hinder the governor, chaplain, and doctor being at the head of it? But we want, first, a system that will be sufficiently elastic, and, secondly, officials who will seek to understand it before much good can be done in this direction. Given a system that seeks to humanize, that prepares prisoners for their liberty by a gradual improvement in their conditions, approximating more and more closely to a state of freedom as the day of release draws nigh, a system that shall not convert the eyes of men into the eyes of hunted animals, and that shall not make his heart a sealed book, a system that shall deliver men from senseless drudgery and damning monotony—then, and not till then, will prisoners, officials, and aid societies have a fair chance, for this must be the keynote of any reform.
Listen: ‘I know how many nails there are in the floorwithin reach of my eye, and the number of the seams also; I am familiar with the stained spots, the splintered furrows, the scratches, and the uneven surface of the planks. The floor is a well-known map to me—the map of monotony—and I con its queer geography all day and at night in dreary dreams. I know the splotches on the whitened wall as well as I know the warts and moles on the hopeless faces opposite me. My mind is a mill that grinds nothing. Give me work—work for heart and mind—or my heart will lose its last spark of hope, and my brain its last remnant of reason.’ Can these words be beaten for lucidity and pathos? I think not. They are the reputed words of a prisoner, and have appeared in one of our London papers.
To-day in the cells at the police court sits a young man with the ‘hunted eyes’; he has been brought from one of Her Majesty’s prisons by two warders, where he was serving a term of imprisonment. He had been charged at this court, and committed for trial and sentenced, but now he is brought back and charged with a more serious offence. He is only twenty-eight, intelligent, and a clever workman. His young wife, soon to be a mother, is unaware of this second and more serious charge. I know him, and know that he has served seven years in a convict prison, where he made the acquaintance of my burgling bookbinder. So I ask him how he spends his time in prison, and what work has been given him during that portion of the present sentence he has served. ‘Oakum-picking in my cell for the first month, and I sit and curse myself and everybody all the day long. I wonder I am not mad; perhaps I am,’ was the reply I got from him, and I wonder too.
I ask for no maudlin sympathy for these men; I do not want them ‘coddled’ or patronized. I do not ask for the abolition of severe punishment in their case, but I do ask that their punishment shall be grounded on common-sense principles, and that humanity and science shall play some part in their treatment. I have visited but few prisons; from personalobservation I know little of their inner working, but of men who have been released from prison I have a large experience, and for them I have some right to speak. I have made personal friends of them; I have worked and hoped, planned and schemed, for them. I have studied them, and I have suffered for them, and I know that the convict whose letter to the press I have quoted voices the cry of all intelligent criminals, and that they join with him in the plea, ‘Give us work—work for hand and mind; work—intelligent work—or our hearts will lose all hope. Work—interesting work—or our brains will lose the last remnant of reason.’
With a humanized prison system many of these men might be lifted up, but alas! when they come into the hands of any society or individual who purposes helping them, not only has their crime and its consequences to be considered, but the work of the prison has to be undone before success can be achieved. To undo this in some cases is, I believe, an impossible task; the stain has become part and parcel of themselves, and though they may have good instincts, intentions, and desires, they cannot carry them out, for the dead hand of the prison is upon them, and to crime they go with automatic certainty. But I have given instances of criminals that possess a mania for one particular kind of crime only, and who rarely, if ever, commit any other. Such are by no means few in number, but how to deal with them is beyond my comprehension, for though it is possible to trace their crime to its cause, it is impossible for me to say how that cause can be removed. One thing, however, I do feel sure about, and it is this, that the present method of dealing with them while in prison intensifies the proclivity. Medical and scientific men ought to succeed where I fail; they can go deeper down into the wonders of the human body and mind. I can but pity such criminals, and in my blind way try to help here and there one of them. But to the Faculty I point out the undoubted fact that otherwise decent and estimable men and women have amania for a particular sort of crime, and that at intervals an almost irresistible impulse towards its commission comes upon them.
Probably this is not a new discovery; others beside myself must have noticed it. They may have noticed it, but very few can have had the same opportunities as myself of seeing the reality and force of this mania, and possibly no one has ever racked their brains or searched their mind as I have in the vain endeavour to find some method of saving these people from themselves, and of helping them in the strenuous but fruitless battle that many of them fight. To the Faculty I point it out, and to the Faculty I look for help. Shall I look in vain? Are we to be for ever impotent before diseases of the mind? I hope not, and I believe it will not always be so. The wondrous and varied organisms of the human body are now made visible to us, its diseases are traced and located, treated and often cured. But the abyss of the human mind is still unexplored, its diseases are still unclassified, and its peculiarities but little noticed.
Science and human sympathy in combination may do much for such criminals, but compassionate men, though full of religious zeal, can of themselves do nothing. I wish to be plainly understood; I do not undervalue the power of religious influence. God forbid! I do not depreciate the power of religious conviction. But the Almighty works by human means, and it is His will that men be saved by men. If these men are to be saved from their crimes, some means of dealing with the cause of those crimes must be found. Is this too much to hope for? Twelve years ago I was noting this peculiar kind of insanity, for such it appears to me. One man I then knew was undoubtedly a deeply religious man, yet he was constantly in trouble for a peculiar kind of trumpery theft. His remorse was intense, and at every failure his agony and repentance was sincere. One day he called on me, and he seemed very happy and confident. ‘Thank God!’ he said,‘it’s all right now. I have got full salvation, and I am simply trusting.’ He had joined another religious body, and was in constant attendance at prayer-meetings; but a month later he was in the cells again for a repetition of his old offence. He was no hypocrite, for it was not a matter of sin, but of disease in his case, and he is typical of many.
Numbers of people seem to be possessed of a strange kind of mania that only manifests itself in action when they have taken a little drink. It may be, and it frequently is, a very small drop of drink that does the mischief; but it leads to surprising results, for some weak spot, some peculiar trait, or some secret longing is operated upon at once. Poor old Cakebread used to say: ‘It is the argument that does it.’ Inordinately fond of talking when free from alcohol, a very small dose of it made her tongue-power ten times greater, and she became ‘argumentative,’ and the police were required.
In vino veritasis often true, though more often the reverse holds good. Most people that are worth their salt have a hobby of some sort, and though ‘cranks’ are sneered at, yet the possession of a hobby is not to be despised, for it shows, at any rate, that the possessor is in earnest about some object, and is not the aimless, indifferent, and apathetic individual that lives like a vegetable, and goes through life without his pulses stirred, his heart warmed, or his brain-power excited. Don Quixotes are more estimable than cabbages, but they had best let drink alone, or they may share the fate of some I have seen and wish to tell of in this chapter.
Patriotism—and we are all patriots nowadays—is an excellent quality, but patriotism plus a dose of alcohol is not always a blessing, as a well-educated young stalwart found one morning to his cost. It was near the polling-day, andthe previous night he had been at a smoking concert, and truth compels to say in connection with a branch of the Primrose League. The smoking had been accompanied by drinking, and there were several speeches. The candidate for Parliamentary honours was present, and made a stirring speech on the protection of British industries. He waxed eloquent about the evils of foreign competition, and drew a dark picture of the future of the working-classes if the influx of foreigners was allowed to continue.
It was Saturday night, dark and wet; the shops were just about closing when the young patriot wended his way home. All at once he stopped, for something on the other side of the street attracted his attention; so he crossed over to a tailor and outfitter’s establishment, in the doorway of which there stood ten little nigger boys, dummies, nicely dressed, to show the public the quality and cheapness of the goods. A shopman was just in the act of removing them for the night, when the patriot called out, ‘Halt!’ and the shopman halted.
‘Why do you bring those foreign boys here? There are plenty of little English boys to do that job. Do you call yourself an Englishman?’ The shopman said it was ‘the governor’s business,’ and he could please himself whether he had English boys or nigger boys. This answer did not please, so, cursing the shopman, he rushed up to the dummies, smote each of them, and kicked them into the mud of the gutter, and rushed into the shop.
‘Where’s the governor?’ he demanded, and the governor was pointed out. ‘Look here. I have whopped all your niggers, and if you’ll come outside, I’ll punch your head for bringing them here to do English boys’ work.’ The governor went out and saw his broken figures and spoiled goods, and promptly sent for a policeman. Well pleased with himself, the patriot pursued his homeward way, followed by the governor. As some evil spirit would have it, he had not gone many yards before he came upon another clothing establishment andsome more dummies. He drew up in astonishment, rubbed his eyes, and called out, ‘I thought I had settled you! I’ll make sure of you this time.’ At them he went. Into the gutter they went, where he was in the act of kicking them to pieces when a policeman arrived, and he was taken into custody. When he stood in the police-court dock, charged with being drunk and committing wilful damage, piled up in front of the witness-box were the broken figures, arms disjointed, heads severed from bodies, torn and muddy clothing, all beautifully commingled. Their evidence was overwhelming, and combined with the evidence of the shopman, given as above, made a conviction certain. When asked for his defence, he stated that he had been to a political smoking concert, and Mr. —— had been speaking about foreigners in England, so, having had a drink or two, he got confused; but he begged his worship not to convict him of drunkenness, for he absolutely denied having been drunk. The damage he admitted, and he was prepared to pay for it.
The magistrate, who loved a joke, and had a keen sense of the ridiculous, said, ‘You are a second Don Quixote among the marionettes. I am sorry to have to fine you. Such heroic victories as yours deserve a better result, but you must pay five shillings for being drunk and two pounds for damage; and if I may be permitted a word of advice to a patriot like you, it is this: “Don’t try to protect British industry after you have been at a smoking concert.”’ The man had plenty of money, and paid his fine, but went away very indignant at being fined for drunkenness. I don’t think he ever troubled much about the British workman after that.
But some men repeat, time after time, experiences quite as absurd. I know a well-dressed gentleman, who paid at least £120 a year rent, who was charged four times in as many months for going in search of ‘a black kitten with a blue ribbon round its neck.’ Really, he was charged with annoyance, ringing the bell and kicking the front-door of some othergentleman’s house. The story was always the same—a little drink, and then he would go to a house, ring the bell, and, when the servant came, he would demand his kitten. In vain would the servant assure him that there was no kitten in their house. If the door was closed, he would continue ringing, and would ultimately proceed to kicking the door, and would refuse to budge till he had got his kitten. As the kitten was a purely imaginary one, a constable had to be fetched and the gentleman taken into custody. He was bound over in his own recognizances twice, and ultimately fined; but when I suggested that if he would put a bit of blue ribbon on his own coat it would prevent him seeing an imaginary kitten with an imaginary blue ribbon, he was most angry, and wanted to know if I accused him of being drunk. Possibly he has taken my advice, for I have not seen him since.
A very little drink will make some men who are naturally modest and diffident very assertive, and they become, mentally, very large indeed; in fact, for the time, it would appear that all knowledge and wisdom are centred in them; but it has a similar effect, physically, upon other men, whom I have found imagining themselves to be veritable sons of Anak. Such was little Ebbs. Nature had denied him much stature, for in his boots he only stood five feet three. I don’t know whether he had an intense longing to be tall, or whether his ambition was to be a policeman; but this I do know, that no sooner had he partaken of a glass of beer than he became a six-foot policeman. The change in his stature and profession would not have mattered but for the fact that he insisted on doing policeman’s duty, and this led to unpleasant results, and necessitated his frequent appearances before the magistrate. He was always a welcome visitor at the court, and it was an understood thing among the different magistrates that he was to be allowed to have his head when he stood in the dock.
His appearance was always enough to create laughter. The charge, always the same—being drunk, imagining himself apoliceman, and creating obstruction by directing the traffic in the streets—made the laughter more pronounced; but most amusing of all was the way in which he cross-examined the officer who arrested him, and the familiar assurance with which he addressed the magistrate. He had a round, clean-shaven face, wore glasses, his head was totally devoid of hair, and looked like a bladder of lard; his face was just visible over the dock railing. He had been a hard-working man, and could earn good wages. His wife—well for him—was a most careful woman; as they had no children, she had saved money, and they owned a row of cottages in the suburbs. Besides the ambition of becoming a big policeman, he was in possession of another, or, rather, another was in possession of him. He loved flowers generally, but dahlias were his especial pride, and he would spare no trouble in his desire to have the best and choicest that could be obtained. His love for flowers never got him into trouble—in fact, he remembered flowers no more when he had taken a glass; but then his other ambition became rampant. He was a bit of a humorist, and quite a logician, as the various magistrates found.
He had been charged several times before I made his acquaintance. The particular morning when I first saw him, a big policeman, quite young and fresh from the country, had found him in the street, putting up his hand and stopping the traffic in a very busy thoroughfare. A collision ensued, and the traffic got into a complete tangle. As the little man refused to leave his post of duty, the officer took him into custody, and he was charged. The officer, fresh to giving evidence in a London court, was nervous and confused, and spoke in a very low tone of voice. Ebbs watched him closely for a time, and then called out to the officer: ‘Speak out and speak plainly. Don’t be afraid of me. I want to hear the evidence.’ ‘Do speak up, officer,’ said the magistrate; ‘I want to hear myself.’ This made the officer more nervous still. He made a sorry mess of his evidence, but there was no doubt as to the mainfacts. ‘What have you to say to it?’ asked Mr. G. Chance, who was then sitting. ‘Well, your worship, you have heard the evasive way in which the officer has given his evidence. He is but an unsophisticated countryman. What can he know? Your experience and judgment, I am sure, will not allow you to take his word in preference to mine.’ ‘I think it will,’ said his worship. ‘You see, you were here last week on a similar charge, and I fined you ten shillings. To-day I must fine you twenty.’ He was taken to the cells, but his wife came and paid the money, taking him home with her.
The following week he was in the dock again on a similar charge, and similar evidence was given. Mr. Biron was sitting, and asked him for his defence, which Ebbs commenced by asking: ‘Would half a pint of four-ale make your worship drunk?’ ‘I don’t think so,’ said his worship. ‘No, nor I don’t think so either.’ He said this in such a knowing way as to intimate that it would take a good many half-pints to do it. Even the magistrate laughed, but, trying to look severe, he said: ‘I don’t see that that has anything to do with the matter.’ ‘Oh yes, your worship, it has, for I will show you, and it is this way. I came out yesterday morning with twopence in my pocket; my old woman won’t let me have more.’ ‘Quite right, too,’ interposed the magistrate. ‘Well, I have got twopence. I come out; I meet with an old friend. Now, what is my duty as an Englishman?’ ‘Oh, I can’t say,’ said his worship. ‘Yes, you can, Mr. Biron—yes, you can. You know, for you are an Englishman: half a pint for him and half a pint for me. Now, I assure you honestly that I had no more, and if half a pint of four-ale won’t make you drunk, why should it make me drunk? See? And if you are not to be punished for drinking several half-pints, how can it be right or just for you to punish me for drinking one?’ ‘Well, I think I can answer that,’ said Mr. Biron, ‘by admitting that the law gives me no power or right to punish you for drinking half a pint, but it does give me the power and the right topunish you for the effects of that half-pint, and it is my duty to do so. You must pay twenty shillings, and, mind, if you come here again on a similar charge, I’ll make it forty.’ Again his wife took him out of pawn and saw him home.
The next week he was there again; same kind of charge and evidence. But this time Ebbs stood in the dock looking solemn and serious. ‘Now, Ebbs, what have you to say?’ Looking quite pathetic, he said: ‘I am very, very sorry, your worship, but I have been a fool this time.’ ‘Hold!’ said his worship; ‘don’t say any more, or you will spoil it. You have made the best speech you ever made in this court. I am glad you are coming to your senses. I meant to fine you forty shillings, but now you are realizing your folly, I shall only fine you five.’ As the gaoler took him out of the court he put his hand to the side of his mouth, and called out, loud enough for all in court to hear: ‘Didn’t I draw the feather over Mr. Biron’s eyes nicely!’ And everybody laughed, Mr. Biron included.
It took a collision to cure him of his noble ambition, and the last time I saw him in court he was fined heavily, and afterwards the police court knew him no more. But I saw him several times, and he told me that he was no longer going to be a fool for half a pint of four-ale.
Occasionally the drink, acting on some pet belief, brings the individual into more serious trouble, and ruins his character and prospects for life. An intelligent artisan that I knew something of, and upon whose honesty there did not rest a shadow of doubt, got a reputation as a burglar, and twelve months’ imprisonment beside, owing to the combination of drink and decided Socialistic views. He was a tall man with a very long nose. I have heard that men with big noses have a great deal of character. I can’t say if it is true generally, but, anyhow, this man had plenty of both. I had seen him at the court several times when some question about working men’s clubs had to be settled. Any question of this sort, or of thefreedom of speech, or Socialism, was sure to bring him, and he was an attentive listener.
One day, to my surprise, he stood in the dock on a serious charge of burglary. A policeman stood on each side of him holding him up, for he was half asleep, and half insensible from drink. He was remanded for a week, that he might have time to get sober and to waken up. When he came up on the remand, I had a long conversation with him, and from what he told me and from what I gathered from the prosecutor, I offer the following as a fair account of what took place.
The prosecutor, who lived in a good neighbourhood, went to bed about 1 a.m. As he was last up, he closed and bolted the doors, and fastened the windows. He was of the opinion that he did not bolt one of the doors, but he knew it was closed, and it could only be opened from the outside with a latch-key that fitted it. The prisoner had been at his club all day on Sunday and Monday, and had been drinking heavily. He started homeward about half-past one on Tuesday morning. He had some recollection of opening a house-door with his latch-key; he knew it was not his own, but he felt somehow that he had a perfect right to go in, so he went in and lit the gas. He did not remember anything more till he found himself in Holloway. It was a singular thing that his latch-key should fit the prosecutor’s door, but it was more singular that he, in his muddled condition, should walk up to that one particular house, and that the door of that house should not be bolted; but so it was. He entered, and lit the gas in the hall. A nice gray overcoat was hanging in the hall; he put it on. A silk hat was with it; he threw away his cap and put on the hat. A silk hat demands a silk umbrella, so he appropriated one. He went into the dining-room and lit the gas—all four lights on the chandelier. On the mantelpiece lay a silver cigar-case; that, after he had lit a cigar, went into the overcoat pocket, and other valuables went in to keep it company. He then proceeded to explore the house, and found the larder;again he lit the gas, and discovered cold meat, pickles, etc. These he brought into the dining-room and invited himself to supper. On the principle that ‘good eating deserveth good drinking,’ he helped himself to a half-gallon can full of beer from a barrel which he found in the larder, left the tap running and the gas burning, and, having thought for the future, he filled the coat-pockets from a dish of uncooked sausages. Then he returned to the dining-room, where he drew a couch close to the table, and proceeded to smoke and drink till blissful sleep came upon him.
At seven the next morning, when the servant came down, she was surprised to find the gas burning, the passage flooded with beer, and the front-door ajar. When she went into the dining-room her surprise was turned into terror, for strange guttural sounds proceeded from the couch. She recognised the master’s overcoat, but she was quite sure that the long red nose that pointed to the ceiling did not belong to the master, so she screamed and fainted. When the master came down he tried to awaken and question the man, but it was of no use. He therefore went for the police, who also tried to awaken him. Neither could they succeed, so they fetched an ambulance, upon which he was lifted bodily—silk hat, overcoat, sausages, umbrella, and all—and taken to the police station. He was charged and taken up to the court, where he still had the coat on and the et ceteras in the pockets when he stood in the dock.
It was not till he returned from Holloway to stand again before the magistrate that he knew what he was charged with. He was sent for trial, and received a sentence of twelve months’ imprisonment. But from my conversations with him I believe that he had not the slightest idea that he was doing any wrong, and I believe he was as innocent of any criminal intentions as anyone could be.
If a man has a love for classical poetry, drink will also set him going regardless of time or place. I once saw a tramp about thirty-five years of age standing in the dock chargedwith being drunk and disorderly in the small hours of the morning; although clothed almost in rags, he had a clean-shaven and refined face. The officer who had him in custody said that he heard the prisoner using very bad language—‘unseen language’—that he went to him and told him to go home, but that he refused and kept on shouting and swearing, stamping his feet and waving his hand; it being a quiet street and everyone in bed, he took him into custody.
The prisoner asked permission to cross-examine the officer before he stated his own case. ‘Officer, do you say I was using bad language?’ he asked. ‘Very bad; the worst I ever heard,’ was the reply. ‘Will you give me your definition of good language?’ The officer could not. ‘Do you still say that I was using obscene words?’ ‘Very bad words,’ said the officer. ‘Do you still say that I was swearing?’ ‘I do.’ ‘Well, then, I pity your ignorance,’ he said, and the officer stood down. Turning to the magistrate, he said, ‘Your worship, I want to deny this charge most emphatically, and I want to explain how this charge was made, and what led up to it. All my life I have been fond of holding communion with the greatest minds of all ages, and I have committed to memory the greater parts of Homer and Dante, Shakespeare and Milton, as well as many other poets. If your worship will quote me a line from any of them, I will take it up and continue.’ ‘Oh no, no!’ said his worship; ‘I will take it for granted.’ ‘Well, your worship, when I have been walking about the country it has been my delight, when I have been alone, to recite aloud choice portions from the poets, and last night as I was going to my lodgings I saw the moon at full. I stopped and looked at it, and I thought it was the sun. I thought of Satan’s address to that luminary; to think of it was, with me, to recite it, so I began, “O thou that with surpassing glory crowned!” when Shakespeare comes in with Hamlet’s soliloquy. I did not want to recite from Shakespeare, so began again, “O thou——” At the end of the firstline in comes Homer, so I began again with Milton: then in comes Dante. I suppose I had recited the one line from Milton twenty times, and each time was interrupted by one of the others; perhaps I did get a little loud and emphatic, but bad language I could not be guilty of, and as to obscene language, my very gorge rises at it. The ignorance of the officer prevents him understanding good language; I am quite sure your worship understands how the mistake arose.’ ‘Yes, I do,’ said his worship: ‘you had been mixing your drinks.’ ‘I had a glass of gin, a bitter-and-mild, and a Scotch whisky,’ said the tramp. ‘Ah! I thought so, and I must fine you three shillings for mixing your drinks, for that was the reason your poets got mixed; and look, when you want to “hold communion with the greatest minds of all ages,” you stick toaqua pura, and your poets will run straight.’ ‘Oh, don’t fine me! your worship, don’t fine me! I have a wife and three children outside.’ He was taken to the cells, where, in conversation, he told me that he was a public-school boy. Outside I saw a poor, weary-faced, bedraggled woman and three young children who tramped the country with him and whose home in London was the cheap lodging-house.
I met another classical scholar under very pitiful circumstances. He, too, had been picked up in the street by a policeman whilst holding communion with great minds. He gave no name and no address, and no one knew anything about him. When I saw him first he was crouching in a corner of the prisoners’ room among a lot of coarse men and vicious women. He was a splendid-looking fellow and well-dressed. When I spoke to him, he said: ‘Water.’ I got some for him, and he emptied the can. He then stood up, and raising his hands and eyes, as if in invocation, he said: ‘O heavenly Muse, inspire me now!’ And the inspiration came. For two hours he perambulated that room, and an unbroken stream of words flowed from him. Such language and such utterance I had never listened to, beautiful thoughts in beautiful language; nowtender and soft, now declamatory and full of passion. Action and utterance were perfect, as on and on he went. The vicious women and coarse men looked at him in wonder; the police looked on, and did not know what to make of him; I stood and listened and looked as on and on he went, now in English, now in languages that I did not understand, and anon dropping into Scotch; the action of his hands and the play of his features were perfect. I could almost understand his unknown tongues. He was taken before the magistrate, and in the dock the stream of words flowed on; he was oblivious of everything and everybody but his poets. He was taken by the policeman to the workhouse, and the stream rolled on. After a few days I went up to the workhouse to see him, but he had taken his discharge, and was gone. One couplet I remember he uttered, and it describes him to me—‘Like a snowflake on a river,Seen a moment, gone for ever’—for I have never seen him since, and I never learned who he was or whence he came.
One University-trained gentleman I saw too much of, for he stuck to me with a pertinacity that was more than troublesome—it was a nuisance. Just at that particular time Jane Cakebread was at large, and was paying us far too many visits. It was no uncommon thing to see Jane approaching the house from one end of the street and my University friend from the other; no uncommon thing, either, for my courage to evaporate and for me to take myself off by the back way and leave my wife to tell them I had gone to the court. Thither Jane would come, but not my other friend. ‘I will come in and wait,’ he would invariably say; and if once in, wait he would the whole day, and at midnight would show no disposition to go. ‘I am going to live with you,’ he said on one occasion, and argument had no effect on him. It took the united strength of myself and two sons to convince him that he was mistaken, for late at night we had to carry him gently out.Outside he gave us operatic selections on his piccolo. He had been a Foundation scholar of Dublin University, and had also taken a musical scholarship. He was about forty-five when one of our magistrates kindly introduced him to me. I invited him to see me, and he made himself comfortable at once. He was at the pianoforte in a very few minutes without any invitation, and kept on playing and singing for a long time. He was homeless and penniless; his wife had left him; his friends had cast him off. ‘I will be musical instructor to your family,’ he said. It was no use my telling him that I could not afford to pay for a person of his distinguished ability. ‘We will waive the question of payment,’ he said; ‘the home and congenial company are what I require.’ I took him out, presumably for a walk, but I left him at some lodgings near by, for which I promised to pay. He was at my house the next morning by nine o’clock, and he had a good-sized package with him, wrapped in oilcloth. ‘I want to show you this,’ he said; so in he came, bringing his lumber with him. ‘What have you got?’ I asked him. ‘Wait a bit before I uncover it,’ he said. ‘I want to explain.’
He explained for about half an hour, and the sum of it was that the present methods of teaching music were wrong, absolutely wrong, and that he had discovered a true way. The sol-fa system had a germ of truth in it, inasmuch as it was based on ‘mental effect’; but his way was to teach music by colour. Down to the piano he went and struck a note. ‘How many vibrations make up that note?’ I could not tell him. He told me. He uncovered his package. It was the keyboard of a pianoforte, or, rather, an imitation of one, but painted in all the colours imaginable—blue and green, yellow and red, and all their shades following one after the other. Touching a brilliant C, he asked: ‘How many vibrations of light does it take to make up that colour?’ I could not tell him. Again he enlightened me: ‘The same number that it took to make up the C that I struck on the instrument. Now I’ll proceedto verify it with my piccolo.’ He blew a shrill note. ‘How many——’ I stopped him, telling him that I was not a scientific man, and was quite of the same opinion as himself. I got him out by promising him a breakfast, and left him and his key-board at a neighbouring coffee-shop. I gave him money for his breakfast, but I heard afterwards that he played his piccolo for them by way of payment, and wanted his dinner on the same terms; but they ejected him. I paid his lodgings for a month.
He and old Jane paid us many visits. If I had been a clever man, I should have gone on tour with the pair. I am sure there was money in them; such a pair were well worth knowing.
At length I told him he must look out for himself, and that I should not pay for his lodgings any longer. I missed him for some days, and flattered myself that he was gone, so I went to his lodgings to make sure. As I stood in the passage the shrill tones of the piccolo and the strains of the ‘Bohemian Girl’ came downstairs to greet me. The landlady besought me to take him away. ‘He’ll be the death of me. He has not left his bed for five days, and has been blowing that thing all the time,’ she said. I went up to him. There he lay, happy as a king. A bed to lie upon, a piccolo to play, some tea-leaves to smoke, he was all right; nothing put him out—nothing but physical force ever did. He put his instrument down and filled and lit his pipe when I entered. I wanted him to get up and dress, offering him a dinner if he would do so. ‘And find the door closed against me when I come back? No thanks!’ he said. I had taken the room, and was morally bound to get the fellow out. I could not dress him against his will, I could not put him in the street, so I told him that I should come round at five o’clock with the relieving-officer and a conveyance to take him to the workhouse. He got up, dressed, put his piccolo in his pocket and his keyboard under his arm, and went. He did not wait for a dinner, but I noticed that he put the dried tea-leaves in his pockets. Some weeks afterwards he was atmy door again. It was the morning of the day on which our only daughter was buried. I went to speak to him, and, telling him of our sorrow, I gave him half a crown, and told him to go quietly away. He did so, but returned, bringing some choice flowers, a pretty card, and some ‘In Memoriam’ verses written by himself. He had spent the half-crown, and was again penniless. I saw him bareheaded in the cemetery, and I saw him and my burglar friend approach the grave after we had left it; but he came to the house no more. Twelve months afterwards I again had a sight of him. From the top of an omnibus I saw him walking along the Strand with the keyboard under his arm.
Unappreciated genius is a very common thing, but if in despair the possessor seeks comfort from drink, then tragedy more often than comedy ensues. A man about fifty-five years of age was picked up on London Fields with his throat cut, a razor in his hand, and his breath smelling strongly of spirits. The police considered it a case of attempted suicide, for he was not dead. After detention at the hospital, he was charged, so I made his acquaintance. After the law had done with him, I made friends with him, hoping to help and cheer him a bit, for he was quite friendless—his wife dead and no children. I found him a most intelligent and clever man. He had been a commercial traveller in a good way of business. He owned frankly to me that when a traveller he drank heavily, but strenuously denied that drink was the cause of his present position, though he admitted that, when under the influence of drink, years ago, he had been attacked and robbed of a large sum of money, and received at the time severe injuries to his head. He was of a mechanical turn of mind, and for more than thirty years he had been working at a problem that approached perpetual motion, which, he said, was absurd. He lived in a very poor neighbourhood, and had a small room in a miserable house. In his room were a very small truckle-bed, one chair and table, and a little lathe. The rest of the room was covered with models of his machinery, some finished,some in course of construction, while the walls were covered with drawings and designs. After the death of his wife, he determined to give up his calling, and go in for mechanics altogether, and this was the result—disappointment, poverty, starvation, and would-be suicide.
I gave him a suit of clothes, of which he stood in sore need, sent him for a short holiday to recruit his health, and then induced him to do some travelling on commission in the timber trade. This he did for a short time, but his heart and his thoughts were ever on his models. I have sat by him in his little room, and have seen him glow with excitement and become as one inspired as he expatiated on his invention, which, he contended, would, if properly utilized, dispense with steam and electricity as motive powers, do away with horses in trams and cabs, work the sewing-machine for the tired woman and the knife-cleaning machine for the hotel porter, while cyclists might adopt it to carry them over hill and dale; the possibilities were infinite.
Years of failure and suffering had only made him the more certain of success. His plan was novel and interesting, and if he could not get much force out of it, he certainly could get motion. His room was full of wheels, all of different sizes, but built on much the same lines. The spokes of the wheels were of a peculiar serpentine pattern, and each spoke formed a trough. In each trough was placed an iron or brass ball, which was correctly turned and polished. He had made his wheels with a flat, broad rim, and they would, when placed on the floor, stand upright of themselves. The hubs were peculiar. I cannot explain them, but sure enough, when he just touched a wheel, it ran gently across the room. The balls formed his motive power, and the arms and hub were his secret. As the wheel moved, I noticed that three balls were always on the down-side and at the outside edge of the wheel; two balls were on the upside of the wheel, but as soon as they began to ascend they ran at once to the centre of the wheel,the hub, a peculiar arrangement of the spoke-troughs, compelling them to do this. Thus, with three balls on the outside down grade and two balls on the up grade, but close to the hub, he undoubtedly got some little power. His argument was, that if only the wheels were large enough, and the balls heavy enough, any amount of power and speed could be obtained. He begged me to go into partnership with him, so that we jointly could patent it. As my faith and finances were not equal to this, he gave up his work, and declared the glory and profit should be all his own. I am afraid they will, for the last time I saw him he was starving in his little room. To give him money, I found, was useless, for he spent it either on his models or in drink.
My lack of faith has, I am afraid, been a great financial loss to my family, for before ‘Sherlock Holmes’ died a lady in Kensington wrote to me repeatedly, thinking evidently that I had some connection with that astute detective. She had lost, or had been robbed of, one hundred thousand pounds’ worth of diamonds and jewellery, and had come to the conclusion that I was the man to recover it. She had not much of a clue, but in sixteen pages, closely-written, she gave me a detailed and elaborate description of her jewels, and finished by offering me ten per cent. of the value I recovered. It was a tempting offer, but I kept a discreet silence, knowing I should get better terms. After a time she wrote again, offering twenty per cent. I waited on, and about that time the death of the famous detective was announced, and I have since had no chance of earning that £20,000.
But the world loses more than I do, for the wonderful and beneficent discoveries and inventions that go unapplied can only be appreciated by those who, like myself, mix much with humanity, or by the doctors at lunatic asylums. There need no longer be ‘confusion of tongues.’ A gentleman I met in the cells—a cultured, educated gentleman, too—has devoted years of study, and sacrificed everything, to perfect a plan bywhich everybody can understand everybody in every clime and nation; it is as simple as A B C, and it only needs adopting. Many years he has been trying to induce his countrymen to adopt it, but he has no honour in his own country. So he is trying princes and potentates abroad, to whom he writes long letters, offering his simple plan. Somehow they fail to see the advantage of it, and, of course, he starves. He was as gaunt as a famished wolf when I first met him, and his sufferings brought him into the police court. I thought some food and a rest at the seaside would benefit his health, and they did. But renewed health brought increased faith in his discovery, for which he is prepared to die, and no doubt will die, for he is again becoming gaunt and weird-looking, and, I am afraid, seeks consolation from the bottle. The friends of such men shun them as if they had the plague; for the wealth of Crœsus and the wisdom of Solomon cannot save a man who to his devotion to some cherished delusion adds a devotion to drink; and though one feels an infinite pity for, and a great interest in, such men, yet, if one essays to help them, it is soon apparent that the task is hopeless, and the advice of the seer of old is followed: ‘Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone.’
Yet this class of men is very numerous. I have a number of them on my list of friends. One by one, from different walks of life, they have gathered round me, and they have infinitely more faith in me than I have in myself, for they look to me to see them righted, and I know the impossibilities which they cannot realize. A powerful and clever man of this description comes very often to learn how I am getting on with his affairs. He believes himself the true heir to the throne of England, and I have to take his word for it, for of argument he will have none; it is too real with him. By a process of inductive reasoning he has come to the conclusion that I am the one to get him crowned. He reasons thus: He is the King. The Archbishop of Canterbury crowns the King. The Archbishop belongs to the Church of England. I belong to the Church of England. Iknow him to be the true King. Therefore it is my duty to see that the Archbishop does his duty and crowns him.
He can converse rationally and with point on any other subject. He can see the failings and follies of others, but his devotion to this idea has ruined him, and he has become a penniless wanderer. He too seeks spirituous consolation, and gets into the hands of the police at varying intervals, when he defends himself with the skill of an accomplished lawyer, but also makes use of his opportunity to declare to the magistrate his kingship. Sometimes the magistrate has doubts of his sanity, and remands him to prison for a medical report. He wrote me from Holloway once, telling me that he was on a week’s remand and on such a day would be again at Westminster police court. He expected me to be there and give evidence on his behalf. ‘The magistrate thinks I am mad, and the prison doctor has orders to report on me,’ he wrote. ‘You can testify to my sanity as well as to other important matters, but as you have not seen me lately, I must now give you proof of my sanity. I prove it thus: Mad people think themselves sane. All the world beside may be mad, but they never doubt in the least their own sanity, but I find myself entertaining doubts as to my sanity. I sometimes say to myself, “Are you going mad?” Ergo, the very fact that I question my own sanity proves that sanity beyond doubt.’ I did not go to give the evidence asked for; he established his sanity without my aid, and he came to see me. Fortunately, he bears the deprivation of his rights with philosophic patience and imperturbable good-humour. He knows ‘it is only for a time!’ It is no use to say with regard to these men, ‘Get them to give up the drink,’ for they cannot, neither is drink the cause of their condition. Drink is the effect, not the cause, a symptom of something wrong, not the wrong itself. I confess my inability to get down to the bed-rock of their condition.
That primitive life and manners simple, if not innocent, continue even now amongst us was brought startlingly to light in North London. A man, presumably young, stood in the dock, charged with stealing nine shillings and sixpence. A strange-looking fellow he was, with his upright hair uncut and uncombed for many a day. Unwashed in body, and tattered in clothing, he looked the image of fantastic fear. The prosecutor, not quite so fearsome-looking, was also a strange specimen of humanity, for he was a midget; his head was scarcely higher than the desk of the witness-box, and had it not been for his face and clothing, he might have passed for a child. His evidence did not amount to much. He knew that he lay down in his tent at twelve o’clock on Saturday night, with the money in his pocket, and when his sister woke him up at four, his money was gone. Following him came the sister, still less in stature, and still more strange in appearance. In her arms she held something wrapped in an old shawl. No sound proceeded from this shawl, but from the way in which she held it and the maternal manner in which she swayed herself as she gave evidence, it was plain there was something in it alive.
She might have been nine years of age; she said she was nineteen. She saw the prisoner at two o’clock on Sunday morning crawl into her brother’s tent, feel in his pockets, take the money and go away. ‘Where were you?’ asked the magistrate. ‘Sitting outside, sir.’ ‘What were you doing?’‘Keeping company with my young man, sir.’ ‘Why did you not stop him?’ ‘Please, sir, my young man had gone to sleep, and I did not want to disturb him.’ This being all the evidence, and no money being found on the prisoner, he was discharged. Outside the court I found the little people crying bitterly, for every penny they possessed had gone. They were wood-choppers: buying old boards, splitting them up, and hawking the firewood at a penny a basket, for which purpose they hired a hand-barrow at a shilling per week. A financial catastrophe had overtaken them; they had no money for stock, food, or barrow, so they were in despair.
‘Let me see what you have got in that shawl,’ I said, and opened it. A shock followed, for the tiniest bit of mortality I ever saw was revealed—not only small, but so strange in colour and appearance, that had I been told it was a little monkey I could not have disputed it. I gave them a few shillings for food, etc., and, asking where their tent was, told them to be ‘at home’ in the afternoon, for I was coming to see them. I went, and stumbled into Arcadia.
Imagine, if you please, about three-quarters of an acre of waste land, bounded on one side by an unsavoury canal, on another by chemical works, which were closed in by a high wooden fence, at the back by the streets of Hackney Wick, whilst on another side a huge workhouse frowned. Here and there upon the ground were heaps of ashes and general rubbish. Decaying vegetable matter, a dead dog far gone in decomposition, and two cats in a similar condition, all contributed their sweetness to the desert air. A couple of melancholy-looking horses of extreme age were trying to eat a handful of hay, which the condition of their poor old teeth prevented. Here was salubrious Arcadia and its inhabitants, of whom I counted eighty-seven.
There were twelve tents and six caravans to house the Arcadians. The caravans need no description, for they were of the ordinary gipsy kind, but the nature of the tents needssome explanation. Four of these were of the usual kind, made out of old sheeting, shaped like half an orange, and standing about four feet in height. The other tents were ranged along by the wooden fence. A description of one will stand for them all: Four feet from the fence a low wall three feet high had been built of stones, bricks, or clods loosely piled together; some old boards had been placed on the little wall, and allowed to fall against the fence, to which they were secured by nails. One end of the tent was made of old sacks, etc., which were secured at the top and loose at the bottom, allowing for ingress and egress. The other end was formed of pieces of wood, scraps of rusty sheet-iron, etc.; there was no attempt, so far as I could see, to make any of them impervious to wind or wet. It was April when I visited them, but all these people had lived under these conditions since the beginning of the previous November. It was dinner-time, for I saw family parties, and there was a strong scent of fried bacon in the air.
I was just about to inquire which was Brown’s tent, when I saw coming towards me a little woman very like the one I had seen at the court, but a trifle bigger. She carried a babe in each arm, and I saw at a glance that one of them was the little thing I had seen at the court, minus the shawl. ‘Are you the gentleman that spoke to my sister this morning?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I was just looking for your tent. Which is it?’ She pointed it out, the one I have described. ‘Good gracious! you don’t mean to say that you live there! How many are there of you?’ ‘Three of us and the children.’ ‘Have you a husband?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Has your sister?’ ‘No.’ ‘How many children have you?’ ‘Two, and my sister one.’ ‘Any of them born here in this tent?’ ‘No, sir; we go into the “house” to have them.’ ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘Red Lion Street, Holborn.’ ‘Are your parents alive?’ ‘No, sir; both dead.’ ‘What was your father?’ ‘A colour-grinder. We lived in a house when he was alive.’ ‘How old are you?’ ‘Twenty-five; my brotheris twenty-two and my sister nineteen.’ ‘How do you all manage to sleep in there?’ ‘We have to take it in turns, sir.’ Here we were joined by the younger sister, who took charge of her own babe. ‘What are you going to do with it?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know, sir.’ ‘I will tell you, then: carry it about till it dies; then there will be an inquest, and you will be in trouble. What are you going to do with your two?’ I asked the elder. She had not the slightest idea. I tried hard to persuade them both to go into the workhouse. The younger ultimately consented, but the elder would have none of it, and went rather sulkily to her tent, as I declined to give them any further assistance. I asked the younger for the tent of the fellow who had robbed her brother, and she said: ‘He has not got a tent; he lives in the dust-shoot over there.’ I promised myself a visit to the dust-shoot.
After telling her that if she would go into the ‘house,’ and let her little one die decently, I would help her to a better life, I went to explore the other ‘tents.’ Three young women were at the door of one, and they were not disposed to be communicative, for they wanted to know who I was, what I was inquiring about, and what business it was of mine; so I tried my luck at another. Husband and wife here—at least, so they told me; but they had no children. They came from Holloway, had been here three months, and meant to stop till the Vestry moved them, which they thought would not be long first. They lived by making letter-racks and flower-pots of scallop-shells, and then hawking them. This was the first time they had lived in this manner, but what were they to do when their home had gone? No, they would not go into the workhouse for me or anyone else; and when they got moved off they supposed they would have to find another place.
I espied a dinner-party; father, mother, and seven children were seated on the ground busy with their mid-day meal of bacon and potatoes. An old bucket, with some holes knocked in the sides and the bottom well perforated, was their cooking-stove;an iron pot and a rusty frying-pan their only utensils. A piece of bacon in one hand and a potato in the other, they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. The man I found to be an old acquaintance, for he had been charged with cruelty to a donkey. The donkey, I believe, died, though I did not see it; but I have the word of the police and that of a respected veterinary for the fact that the donkey did die.
‘Hello, Gamble!’ I said. ‘You seem to be having a good time of it. All these children yours?’ ‘Yes, all born in that caravan.’ ‘But you don’t all sleep in it?’ ‘Oh no; only missus and myself and one or two of ’em.’ ‘Where do the others sleep?’ ‘Oh, we take the shafts off the van, and put these sheets all round, and they sleep under it; it is better than a tent.’ ‘How do you get on for clean water?’ I asked, for I knew that the East London Water Company had served notices upon the people living in the neighbourhood against supplying the Arcadians with water. Gamble looked a bit shy, and said: ‘Oh, we manage it;’ but he was not disposed to tell me how.
At another caravan I found three generations—a very old couple, husband and wife evidently; a younger man, with his wife and four children; these children also slept under the van in which they were born. The old couple had a gipsy tent, and the younger couple the van, the outside of which was covered with their merchandise. Not a single child at either van could read or write; none of them had ever been to school. I went on to the gipsy tents.
At the door of one a middle-aged woman sat on an empty packing-case tying up bundles of grass, which had been previously dyed a startling colour. She had no children, and said her husband had died a year ago. They had lived in that tent together, and had two children; but both of them died. ‘I suppose you will be married again soon?’ I said, looking at her. She said she thought not, for she did not have a very good time with the first.
I thought it time to go, so I took a walk to the ‘dust-shoot.’ Year after year the ashes and refuse from the dust-bins of Hackney had been shot here—mountains of it. Here were boys and girls with sacks picking up bits of coal, cinders, or coke to take home, and young fellows collecting all the meat tins, salmon and lobster tins, etc. I watched the latter for a time, and saw they were placing the tins on coke fires, which were burning in several places. At one of these fires I saw the fellow with the upright hair, the man I was in search of, so I drew near and watched him awhile. He recognised me, but did not say anything. I soon saw why the tins were collected and put on the fire, for as soon as they became thoroughly red-hot he lifted them off, threw them away, and replaced them by others, a heap of which had been collected, his object being to melt the solder and tin, which ran quickly to the bottom of the fire, where a hole was made in the ground to receive it. ‘I suppose you get a tidy lot of metal in this way?’ I said to him. ‘Pretty well,’ he said. ‘The sardine-boxes are the best.’ ‘Let me look at some of your metal.’ He disappeared for a minute, and then brought me some rough-shaped pieces to look at. They were full of bits of cinder, etc., and not very saleable, even to marine-store dealers. I said, ‘You have got good metal, but it is very dirty. Have you got an old saucepan about here?’ He brought one, and I melted the metal over again, this time in the saucepan, and with the aid of a bit of wood skimmed off all the dross. ‘Now for some clay.’ He found some. We tempered it and flattened it as level as possible on the ground. A piece of cane about a foot long was found, a number of impressions of half the cane lengthways were made. Into these I poured his metal, and soon a number of sticks of solder, white, clear, and shining, were in his possession. ‘Now you have got something worth having,’ I said. ‘You can get a good price for it. Now I have shown you how to do this, won’t you give that little fellow his nine and sixpence back?’ ‘You must think I’m a mug. Why, I neverhad it.’ ‘Come,’ I said, ‘you must think me a mug if you ask me to believe that. You know you had it. Hand it over, and I will take it to him. One good turn deserves another.’ ‘What do you think!’ he said. I could get nothing from him, and I did not want to offend him, for I wanted to learn something from him. Presently I asked him how long he had lived in the ‘dust-shoot.’ He said five weeks, but I am inclined to believe he had been there much longer. After some persuasion he took me to his cave, which was on the other side of the ‘shoot.’ Here he had, in the side of the ‘shoot,’ excavated a short tunnel, at the end of which was his cave, not very commodious or comfortable; quite dark, except for his candle. Here he had his store of metal and anything else he picked up that was of any value. Here he had lived among all the festering rottenness for at least five weeks. On my asking him how many more lived in the ‘shoot,’ he said: ‘Only five or six.’ ‘Any women here?’ ‘No fear!’ I was told by another ‘Gubbin’ afterwards that at least twelve had caves, and that a woman came sometimes to one of them.
My method of dealing with the sardine boxes and other tins seems to have created quite an industry, but led two ‘Gubbins’ into trouble, for, quite three months after my visit to the shoot, two young fellows were charged with the unlawful possession of a number of ‘sticks of solder.’ A detective had followed them into a marine-store dealer’s, where they offered the metal for sale. In vain they said that they had obtained it at the shoot; the detective’s experience told him that the metal was not found there, so they were charged. I happened to be in court when they were before the magistrate. The youths told the magistrate how they had obtained it, and said that the missionary from the court had shown them how to do it. When the magistrate looked inquiringly at me, I had to own up, and the youths were discharged. Their metal was, of course, given back to them, so, while they were signing the ‘Prisoners’ Property Book,’ and acknowledging receipt of their knives, etc.,I examined the metal, and also came to the conclusion that it had not been procured from the ‘shoot,’ and that in all probability it had been stolen. I did not tell the police, but I took the young fellows aside, and asked them what they knew about me, and they said: ‘Didn’t you come on to the shoot and show us how to do it?’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I did not, for I have never seen you in my life before.’ ‘Well, we saw you.’ ‘No lies!’ I said. ‘This metal has never been on the shoot. You vagabonds have stolen it, and then tell this tale, and it’s pretty clever of you, for it has got you off.’ I found on further inquiry that they had lived for a time in the shoot, and knew about my visit there, but they had never obtained any metal from the old tins.
I paid no further visits to the ‘Gubbins’; they knew too much for me, and my last visit has been paid to Arcadia, for Hackney Wick knows it no more. I saw the last of it, and a sad and singular sight it was. The inhabitants were being ‘moved off.’ For months they had lived in their unclean simplicity, with no sanitary arrangements, and cut off from clean water. It was one dull day at the latter end of April; the rain fell gently all the day long, and the atmosphere was of a leaden hue. They had struck their tents, and were packing up when I got there, so I waited to see the last of them. My friends the midgets had packed their few boards, some sacking, an old kettle and saucepan, etc., on the barrow, and the little man pushing it, with his sister carrying her two babes—for the younger one had kept her word, and, with her bit of humanity, had gone into the workhouse—moved off in the dull mist, but where I never knew, for they would give me no information on the subject. The three young women had already gone. The poor fellow and his wife had their belongings on a wheelbarrow, and were ‘moving off.’ The caravans, with their ancient horses and numerous children, ‘moved off.’ Tent after tent was struck; in different directions the occupants ‘moved off,’ and Arcadia was no more.