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15 LONDON'S UNDERWORLD
by Thomas Holmes
(Secretary of the Howard Association)
(1912)
*
PREFACE
I am hopeful that some of the experiences given in the following
chapters may throw a little light upon some curious but very
serious social problems. Corporate humanity always has had, and
always will have, serious problems to consider.
The more civilised we become the more complex and serious will be
our problems--unless sensible and merciful yet thorough methods
are adopted for dealing with the evils. I think that my pages
will show that the methods now in use for coping with some of our
great evils do not lessen, but considerably increase the evils
they seek to cure.
With great diffidence I venture to point out what I conceive to
be reasons for failure, and also to offer some suggestions that,
if adopted, will, I believe, greatly minimise, if not remove,
certain evils.
I make no claim to prophetic wisdom; I know no royal road to
social salvation, nor of any specific to cure all human sorrow
and smart.
But I have had a lengthened and unique experience. I have
closely observed, and I have deeply pondered. I have seen,
therefore I ask that the experiences narrated, the statements
made, and the views expressed in this book may receive earnest
consideration, not only from those who have the temerity to read
it, but serious consideration also from our Statesmen and local
authorities, from our Churches and philanthropists, from our men
of business and from men of the world.
For truly we are all deeply concerned in the various matters
which are dealt with in "London's Underworld."
THOMAS HOLMES.
12, Bedford Road,
Tottenham, N.
*
CONTENTS
CHAP.
I MY FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES
II LONDON'S UNDERWORLD
III THE NOMADS.
IV LODGING-HOUSES
V FURNISHED APARTMENTS
VI THE DISABLED
VII WOMEN IN THE UNDERWORLD
VIII MARRIAGE IN THE UNDERWORLD
IX BRAINS IN THE UNDERWORLD
X PLAY IN THE UNDERWORLD
XI ON THE VERGE OF THE UNDERWORLD
XII IN PRISONS OFT
XIII UNEMPLOYED AND UNEMPLOYABLE
XIV SUGGESTIONS.
*
LONDON'S UNDERWORLD
CHAPTER I
MY FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES
The odds and ends of humanity, so plentiful in London's great
city, have for many years largely constituted my circle of
friends and acquaintances.
They are strange people, for each of them is, or was, possessed
of some dominating vice, passion, whim or weakness which made him
incapable of fulfilling the ordinary duties of respectable
citizenship.
They had all descended from the Upper World, to live out strange
lives, or die early deaths in the mysterious but all pervading
world below the line.
Some of them I saw, as it were, for a moment only; suddenly out
of the darkness they burst upon me; suddenly the darkness again
received them out of my sight.
But our acquaintance was of sufficient duration to allow me to
acquire some knowledge, and to gain some experience of lives more
than strange, and of characters far removed from the ordinary.
But with others I spent many hours, months, or years as
circumstances warranted, or as opportunities
permitted. Some of them became my intimates; and though seven
long years have passed since I gave up police-court duties, our
friendship bears the test of time, for they remain my friends and
acquaintances still.
But some have passed away, and others are passing; one by one my
list of friends grows less, and were it not that I, even now,
pick up a new friend or two, I should run the risk of being a
lonely old man. Let me confess, however, that my friends have
brought me many worries, have caused me much disappointment, have
often made me very angry. Sometimes, I must own, they have
caused me real sorrow and occasionally feelings of utter despair.
But I have had my compensations, we have had our happy times, we
have even known our merry moments.
Though pathos has permeated all our intercourse, humour and
comedy have never been far away; though sometimes tragedy has
been in waiting.
But over one and all of my friends hung a great mystery, a
mystery that always puzzled and sometimes paralysed me, a mystery
that always set me to thinking.
Now many of my friends were decent and good-hearted fellows; yet
they were outcasts. Others were intelligent, clever and even
industrious, quite capable of holding their own with respectable
men, still they were helpless.
Others were fastidiously honest in some things, yet they were
persistent rogues who could not see the wrong or folly of
dishonesty; many of them were clear-headed in ninety-nine
directions, but in the hundredth they were muddled if not
mentally blind.
Others had known and appreciated the comforts of refined life,
yet they were happy and content amidst the horror and dirt of a
common lodging-house! Why was it that these fellows failed, and
were content to fail in life?
What is that little undiscovered something that determines their
lives and drives them from respectable society?
What compensations do they get for all the suffering and
privations they undergo? I don't know! I wish that I did! but
these things I have never been able to discover.
Many times I have put the questions to myself; many times I have
put the questions to my friends, who appear to know about as much
and just as little upon the matter as myself.
They do not realise that in reality they do differ from ordinary
citizens; I realise the difference, but can find no reason for
it.
No! it is not drink, although a few of them were dipsomaniacs,
for generally they were sober men.
I will own my ignorance, and say that I do not know what that
little something is that makes a man into a criminal instead of
constituting him into a hero. This I do know: that but for the
possession of a little something, many of my friends, now
homeless save when they are in prison, would be performing life's
duties in settled and comfortable homes, and would be quite as
estimable citizens as ordinary people.
Probably they would prove better citizens than the majority of
people, for while they possess some inherent weakness, they also
possess in a great degree many estimable qualities which are of
little use in their present life.
These friends of mine not only visit my office and invade my
home, but they turn up at all sorts of inconvenient times and
places.--There is my friend the dipsomaniac, the pocket Hercules,
the man of brain and iron constitution.
Year after year he holds on to his own strange course, neither
poverty nor prison, delirium tremens nor physical injuries serve
to alter him. He occupies a front seat at a men's meeting on
Sunday afternoon when the bills announce my name. But he comes
half drunk and in a talkative mood, sometimes in a contradictory
mood, but generally good tempered. He punctuates my speech with
a loud and emphatic "Hear! hear!" and often informs the
audience that "what Mr. Holmes says is quite true!" The
attendants cannot keep him silent, he tells them that he is my
friend; he makes some claim to being my patron.
Poor fellow! I speak to him kindly, but incontinently give him
the slip, for I retire by a back way, leaving him to argue my
disappearance in no friendly spirit with the attendants. Yet I
have spent many happy hours with him when, as sometimes happened,
he was "in his right mind."
I, would like to dwell on the wonders of this man's strange and
fearsome life, but I hasten on to tell of a contrast, for my
friends present many contrasts.
I was hurrying down crowded Bishopsgate at lunch time, lost in
thought, when I felt my hand grasped and a well-known voice say,
"Why! Mr. Holmes, don't you know me?"
Know him! I should think I do know him; I am proud to know him,
for I venerate him. He is only a french polisher and by no means
handsome, his face is furrowed and seamed by care and sorrow, his
hands and clothing are stained with varnish. Truly he is not
much to look at, but if any one wants an embodiment of pluck and
devotion, of never-failing patience and magnificent love, in my
friend you shall find it!
Born in the slums, he sold matches at seven years of age; at
eight he was in an industrial school; his father was dead, his
mother a drunkard; home he had none!
Leaving school at sixteen he became first a gardener's assistant,
then a gentleman's servant; in this occupation he saved some
money with which he apprenticed himself to french polishing.
From apprentice to journeyman, from journeyman to business on his
own account, were successive steps; he married, and that brought
him among my many acquaintances.
He had a nice home, and two beautiful children, and then that
great destroyer of home life, drink! had to be reckoned with.
So he came to consult me. She was a beautiful and cultured woman
and full of remorse.
The stained hands of the french polisher trembled as he signed a
document by which he agreed to pay L1 per week for his wife's
maintenance in an inebriate home for twelve months where she
might have her babe with her. Bravely he did his part, and at
the end of the year he brought her back to a new and better home,
where the neighbours knew nothing of her past.
For twelve months there was joy in the home, and then a new life
came into it; but with the babe came a relapse; the varnish-
stained man was again at his wits' end. Once more she entered a
home, for another year he worked and toiled to pay the charges,
and again he provided a new home. And she came back to a house
that he had bought for her in a new neighbourhood; they now lived
close to me, and my house was open to them. The story of the
following years cannot be told, for she almost ruined him. Night
after night after putting the children to bed, he searched the
streets and public-houses for her; sometimes I went with him.
She pawned his clothes, the children's clothing, and even the
boy's fiddle. He cleaned the house, he cooked the food, he cared
for the children, he even washed and ironed their clothing on
Saturday evening for the coming Sunday. He marked all the
clothing, he warned all the pawnbrokers. At length he obtained a
separation order, but tearing it up he again took her home with
him. She went from bad to worse; even down to the deepest depths
and thence to a rescue home. He fetched her out, and they
disappeared from my neighbourhood.
So I lost them and often wondered what the end had been. To-day
he was smiling; he had with him a youth of twenty, a scholarship
boy, the violinist. He said, "I am just going to pay for his
passage to Canada; he is going to be the pioneer, and perhaps we
shall all join him, she will do better in a new country!" On
further inquiry I found that she was trying hard, and doing
better than when I lost them.
Thinking she needed greater interest in life, he had bought a
small business for her, but "Mr. Holmes, she broke down!"
Alas! I knew what "breaking down" meant to the poor fellow, the
heroic fellow I ought to have said. And so for her he will leave
his kindred, home and friends; he will forsake the business that
he has so slowly and laboriously built up, he will sacrifice
anything in the hope that the air of Canada "will do her good."
let us hope that it may, for her good is all he lives for, and
her good is his religion.
Twenty years of heartbreaking misery have not killed his love or
withered his hope. Surely love like his cannot fail of its
reward. And maybe in the new world he will have the happiness
that has been denied him in the old world, and in the evening of
his life he may have the peaceful calm that has hitherto been
denied him. For this he is seeking a place in the new world
where the partner of his life and the desire of his eyes may not
find it easy to yield to her besetting temptation, where the air
and his steadfast love will "do her good."
But all my acquaintances are not heroes, for I am sorry to say
that my old friend Downy has served his term of penal servitude,
and is at liberty once more to beg or steal. He is not ashamed
to beg, but I know that he prefers stealing, for he richly enjoys
anything obtained "on the cross," and cares little for the fruits
of honest labour.
Downy therefore never crosses my doorstep, and when I hold
communication with him he stands on the doorstep where I bar his
entrance.
Yet I like the vagabond, for he is a humorous rascal, and though
I know that I ought to be severe with him, I fail dismally when I
try to exhort him. "Now, look here, old man," he will say, "stop
preaching; what are you going to do to help a fellow; do you
think I live this life for fun" and his eyes twinkle! When I
tell him that I am sure of it, he roars. Yes, I am certain of
it, Downy is a thief for the fun of it; he is the worst and
cleverest sneak I have the privilege of knowing; and yet there is
such audacity about him and his actions that even his most
reprehensible deeds do not disgust me.
He is of the spare and lean kind, but were he fatter he might
well pose as a modern Jack Falstaff, for his one idea is summed
up in Falstaff's words: "Where shall we take a purse to-night?"
Downy, of course, obtained full remission of his sentence; he did
all that was required of him in prison, and so reduced his five
years' sentence by fifteen months. But I feel certain that he
did nor spend three years and nine months in a convict
establishment without robbing a good many, and the more difficult
he found the task, the more he would enjoy it.
I expect his education is now complete, so I have to beware of
Downy, for he would glory in the very thought of "besting" me, so
I laugh and joke with the rascal, but keep him at arm's length.
We discuss matters on the doorstep; if he looks ill I have pity
on him, and subsidise him. Sometimes his merry look changes to a
half-pathetic look, and he goes away to his "doss house,"
realising that after all his "besting" he might have done
better.
Some of my friends have crossed the river, but as I think of them
they come back and bid me tell their stories. Here is my old
friend the famous chess-player, whose books are the poetry of
chess, but whose life was more than a tragedy. I need not say
where I met him; his face was bruised and swollen, his jawbone
was fractured, he was in trouble, so we became friends. He was a
strange fellow, and though he visited my house many times, he
would neither eat nor drink with us. He wore no overcoat even in
the most bitter weather, he carried no umbrella, neither would he
walk under one, though the rains descended and the floods came!
He was a fatalist pure and simple, and took whatever came to him
in a thoroughly fatalist spirit. "My dear Holmes," he would say,
"why do you break your heart about me? Let me alone, let us be
friends; you are what you are because you can't help it; you
can't be anything else even if you tried. I am what I am for the
same reason. You get your happiness, I get mine. Do me a good
turn when you can, but don't reason with me; let us enjoy each
other's company and take things as they are."
I took him on his own terms; I saw much of him, and when he was
in difficulties I helped him out.
For a time I became his keeper, and when he had chess engagements
to fulfil I used to deliver him carriage paid to his destination
wherever it might be. He always and most punctiliously repaid
any monetary obligation I had conferred upon him, for in that
respect I found him the soul of honour, poor though he was! As I
think of him I see him dancing and yelling in the street,
surrounded by a crowd of admiring East Enders, I see him bruised
and torn hurried off to the police station, I see him standing
before the magistrate awaiting judgment. What compensation
dipsomania gave him I know not, but that he did get some kind of
wild joy I am quite sure. For I see him feverish from one
debauch, but equally feverish with the expectation of another.
With his wife it was another story, and I can see her now full of
anxiety and dread, with no relief and no hope, except, dreadful
as it may seem, his death! For then, to use her own expression,
"she would know the worst." Poor fellow! the last time I saw
him he was nearing the end. In an underground room I sat by his
bedside, and a poor bed it was!
As he lay propped up by pillows he was working away at his
beloved chess, writing chess notes, and solving and explaining
problems for very miserable payments,
I knew the poverty of that underground room; and was made
acquainted with the intense disappointment of both husband and
wife when letters were received that did not contain the much-
desired postal orders. And so passed a genius; but a
dipsomaniac! A man of brilliant parts and a fellow of infinite
jest, who never did justice to his great powers, but who crowded
a continuous succession of tragedies into a short life. I am
glad to think that I did my best for him, even though I failed.
He has gone! but he still has a place in my affections and
occupies a niche in the hall of my memory.
I very much doubt whether I am able to forget any one of the
pieces of broken humanity that have companied with me. I do not
want to forget them, for truth to tell they have been more
interesting to me than merely respectable people, and infinitely
more interesting than some good people.
But I am afraid that my tastes are bad, and my ideals low, for I
am always happier among the very poor or the outcasts than I am
with the decent and well behaved.
A fellow named Reid has been calling on me repeatedly; an
Australian by birth, he outraged the law so often that he got a
succession of sentences, some of them being lengthy. He tried
South Africa with a like result; South Africa soon had enough of
him, and after two sentences he was deported to England, where he
looked me up.
He carries with him in a nice little case a certified and
attested copy of all his convictions, more than twenty in number.
He produces this without the least shame, almost with pride, and
with the utmost confidence that it would prove a ready passport
to my affection.
I talk to him; he tells me of his life, of Australia and South
Africa; he almost hypnotises me, for he knows so much. We get on
well together till he produces the "attested copy," and then the
spell is broken, and the humour of it is too much for me, so I
laugh.
He declares that he wants work, honest work, and he considers
that his "certificate" vouches for his bona fides. This is
undoubtedly true, but nevertheless I expect that it will be
chiefly responsible for his free passage back to Australia after
he has sampled the quality of English prisons.
My friends and acquaintances meet me or rather I meet them, in
undesirable places; I never visit a prison without coming across
one or more of them, and they embarrass me greatly.
A few Sundays ago I was addressing a large congregation of men in
a London prison. As I stood before them I was dismayed to see
right in the front rank an old and persistent acquaintance whom I
thoroughly and absolutely disliked, and he knew it, for on more
than one occasion I had good reason for expressing a decided
opinion about him. A smile of gleeful but somewhat mischievous
satisfaction spread over his face; he folded his arms across his
breast, he looked up at me and quite held me with his glittering
eye.
I realised his presence, I felt that his eye was upon me, I saw
that he followed every word. He quite unnerved me till I
stumbled and tripped. Then he smiled in his evil way.
I could not get rid of his eyes, and sometimes I half appealed to
him with a pitiful look to take them off me. But it was no use,
he still gazed at me and through me. So thinking of him and
looking at him I grew more and more confused.
The clock fingers would not move fast enough for me. I had
elected to speak on sympathy, brotherhood and mutual help. And
this fellow to whom I had refused help again and again knew my
feelings, and made the most of his opportunity.
But my friend will come and see me when he is once more out of
prison. He will want to discuss my address of that particular
Sunday afternoon. He will quote my words, he will remind me
about sympathy and mutual help, he will hope to leave me
rejoicing in the possession of a few shillings.
But that will be the hour of my triumph; for then I will rejoice
in the contemplation of his disappointment as my door closes upon
him. But if I understand him aright his personal failure will
not lead him to despair, for he will appear again and again and
sometimes by deputy, and he will put others as cunning as himself
on my track.
Some time ago I was tormented with a succession of visitors of
this description; my door was hardly free of one when another
appeared. They all told the same tale: "they had been advised
to come to me, for I was kind to men who had been in prison."
They got no practical kindness from me, but rather some wholesome
advice. I found afterwards from a lodging-house habitue that
this man had been taking his revenge by distributing written
copies of my name and address to all the lodging-house inmates,
and advising them to call on me. And I have not the slightest
doubt that the rascal watched them come to my door, enjoyed their
disappointment, and gloried in my irritation.
Yes, I have made the acquaintance of many undesirable fellows.
and our introduction to each other has sometimes been brought
about in a very strange manner. Sometimes they have forced
themselves upon me and insisted upon my seeing much of them, and
"knowing all about them" they would tell me of their struggles
and endeavours to "go straight" and would put their difficulties
and hopes before me. Specious clever rascals many of them were,
far too clever for me, as I sometimes found out to my cost. One
young fellow who has served a well-earned and richly merited
sentence of five years' penal servitude, quite overpowered me
with his good intentions and professions of rectitude. "No more
prison for me," he would say; he brought his wife and children to
see me, feeling sure that they would form a passport to my
sympathy and pocket.
He was not far wrong, for I substantially and regularly helped
the wife. I had strong misgivings about the fellow, consequently
what help I gave I took care went direct to his wife.
Sometimes he would call at my office, and with tears would thank
me for the help given to his wife and children. I noticed a
continual improvement in his clothing and appearance till he
became quite a swell. I felt a bit uneasy, for I knew that he
was not at work. I soon discovered, or rather the police
discovered that he had stolen a lot of my office note-paper of
which he had made free use, and when arrested on another charge
several blank cheques which had been abstracted from my cheque
book were found upon him. He had made himself so well known to
and familiar with the caretaker of the chambers, that one night
when he appeared with a bag of tools to put "Mr. Holmes' desk
right," no questions were asked, and he coolly and quite
deliberately, with the office door open, operated in his own
sweet way. Fortunately, when trying the dodge in another set of
chambers, he was arrested in the act, and my blank cheques among
many others were found upon him.
Another term of penal servitude has stopped his career and put an
end to, I will not say a friendship but an acquaintance, that I
am not at any rate anxious to renew.
They come a long way to see me do some of my friends, and put
themselves to some trouble in the matter, and not a little
expense if they are to be believed. Why they do so I cannot
imagine, for sometimes after a long and close questioning I fail
to find any satisfactory reason for their doing so. I have
listened to many strange stories, and have received not a few
startling confessions! Some of my friends have gone comforted
away when they had made a clean breast and circumstantially given
me the details of some great crime or evil that they had
committed. I never experienced any difficulty, or felt the least
compunction in granting them plenary absolution; I never betrayed
them to the police, for I knew that of the crime confessed they
were as guiltless as myself. Of course there is a good deal of
pathos about their actions, but I always felt a glow of pleasure
when I could send poor deluded people away comforted; and I am
sure that they really believed me when I told them that under no
circumstances would I betray their confidence, or acquaint the
police without first consulting them. I never had any difficulty
in keeping my promise, though sometimes my friends would, after a
long absence, remind me of it.
But occasionally one of my friends has compelled me to seek the
advice of an astute detective, for very clever rogues, real and
dangerous criminals, have been my companions and have boasted of
my friendship, whilst pursuing a deplorably criminal course. But
I never had the slightest compunction with regard to them when I
knew beyond doubt what they were at. Friends and associates of
criminals have more than once waited on me for the purpose of
enlisting my sympathy and help for one of their colleagues who
was about to be released from prison, and the vagabonds have
actually informed detectives that "Mr. Holmes was going to take
him in hand." What they really meant was, that they had taken
Mr. Holmes in hand for the purpose of lulling the just
suspicions of the police. One day not long ago a woman,
expensively dressed and possessed of a whole mass of flaxen hair,
burst into my office. She was very excited, spoke good English
with an altogether exaggerated French accent, and her action was
altogether grotesque and stereotyped. She informed me that she
had that morning come from Paris to consult me. When I inquired
what she knew about me and how she got my address, she said that
a well-known journalist and a member of Parliament whom she had
met in Paris had advised her to consult with me about the future
of a man shortly to be discharged from prison. As during the
whole of my life I had not met or corresponded with the brilliant
gentleman she referred to, I felt doubtful, but kept silent. So
on she went with her story, first, however, offering me a sum of
money for the benefit of as consummate a villain as ever
inhabited a prison cell.
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