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I suppose that if the four children all over eight years of age,
belonging to a widow machinist well known to me, had died, their
death would have been attributed to "natural causes." She had
dined them upon one pennyworth of stewed tapioca without either
sugar or milk. Sometimes the children had returned to school
without even that insult to their craving stomachs. But "natural
causes" is the euphonious name given by intelligent juries to
starvation, when inquests are held in the underworld. Herein is
a mystery: in the land of plenty, whose granaries, depots,
warehouses are full to repletion, and whose countless ships are
traversing every ocean, bringing the food and fruits of the earth
to its shores, starvation is held to be a natural cause of death.
Here let me say, and at once, that the two widows referred to are
but specimens of a very large company, and that from among my own
acquaintances I can with a very short notice assemble one
thousand women whose lives are as pitiful, whose food is as
limited, whose burdens are as heavy, but whose hearts are as
brave as those I have mentioned.
The more I know of these women and their circumstances, the more
and still more I am amazed. How they manage to live at all is a
puzzle, but they do live, and hang on to life like grim death
itself. I believe I should long for death were I placed under
similar conditions to those my underworld friends sustain without
much complaining.
They have, of course, some interests in life, especially when the
children are young, but for themselves they are largely content
to be, to do, and to suffer.
Very simple and very limited are their ambitions; they are
expressed in the wish that their children may rise somehow or
other from the world below to the world above, where food is more
plentiful and labour more remunerative. But my admiration and
love for the honest workers below the line are leading me to
forget the inhabitants that are far removed from honesty, and to
whom industry is a meaningless word.
There are many of them, and a mixed lot they are. The deformed,
the crippled and the half-witted abound. Rogues and rascals,
brutes in human form, and human forms that are harking back to
the brute abound also. With some we may sound the lowest depths,
with others we may ascend to glorious heights. This is the
wonder of underworld. Some of its inhabitants have come down,
and are going lower still. Others are struggling with slippery
feet to ascend the inclined plane that leads to the world above.
Some in their misery are feebly hoping for a hand that will
restore them to the world they have for ever lost!
And there are others who find their joy in this netherworld! For
here every restraint may be abandoned and every decency may be
outraged. Here are men and women whose presence casts a blight
upon everything fresh and virtuous that comes near them.
Here the children grow old before their time, for like little
cubs they lie huddled upon each other when the time for sleep
comes. Not for them the pretty cot, the sweet pillow and clean
sheets! but the small close room, the bed or nest on the floor,
the dirty walls and the thick air. Born into it, breathing it as
soon as their little lungs begin to operate, thick, dirty air
dominates their existence or terminates their lives.
"Glorious childhood" has no place here, to sweet girlhood it is
fatal, and brave boyhood stands but little chance.
Though here and there one and another rise superior to
environment and conditions, the great mass are robbed of the full
stature of their bodies, of their health, their brain power and
their moral life.
But their loss is not the nation's gain, for the nation loses
too! For the nation erects huge buildings falsely called
workhouses, tremendous institutions called prisons. Asylums in
ever-increasing numbers are required to restrain their feeble
bodies, and still feebler minds!
Let us look at the contrasts! Their houses are so miserably
supplied with household goods that even a rash and optimistic man
would hesitate before offering a sovereign for an entire home,
yet pawnshops flourish exceedingly, although the people possess
nothing worth pawning. Children are half fed, for the earnings
of parents are too meagre to allow a sufficient quantity of
nourishing food; but public-houses do a roaring trade on the
ready-money principle, while the chandler supplies scraps of food
and half-ounces of tea on very long credit.
Money, too, is scarce, very scarce, yet harpies grow rich by
lending the inhabitants small sums from a shilling up to a pound
at a rate of interest that would stagger and paralyse the
commercial world. Doctors must needs to content with a miserable
remuneration for their skilled and devoted services, when paid at
all! but burial societies accumulate millions from a weekly
collection of ill-spared coppers. Strangest of all, undertakers
thrive exceedingly, but the butcher and baker find it hard work
to live.
Yes, the underworld of London is full of strange anomalies and
queer contradictions. When I survey it I become a victim to
strange and conflicting emotions.
Sometimes I am disgusted with the dirt and helplessness of the
people. Sometimes I burn with indignation at their wrongs. But
when I enter their houses I feel that I would like to be an
incendiary on a wholesale scale. Look again! I found the boot-
machinist widow that I have mentioned, in Bethnal Green; she was
ill in bed, lying in a small room; ill though she was, and
miniature as the room was, two girls aged twelve and fourteen
slept with her and shared her bed, while a youth and a boy slept
in a coal-hole beneath the stairs. Nourishment and rest somewhat
restored the woman, and to give her and the children a chance I
took for them a larger house. I sent them bedding and furniture,
the house being repaired and repainted, for the previous tenant
had allowed it to take fire, but the fire had not been successful
enough! I called on the family at midday, and as I stood in the
room, bugs dropped from the ceiling upon me. The widow's work
was covered with them; night and day the pests worried the
family, there was no escaping them; I had to fly, and again
remove the family. How can the poor be clean and self-respecting
under such conditions!
For be it known this is the normal condition of thousands of
human habitations in London's great underworld. How can
cleanliness and self-respect survive? Yet sometimes they do
survive, but at a terrible cost, for more and still more of the
weekly income must go in rent, which means less and still less
for food and clothing. Sometimes the grossness and impurity, the
ignorance and downright wickedness of the underworld appal and
frighten me.
But over this I must draw a veil, for I dare not give
particulars; I think, and think, and ask myself again and again
what is to be the end of it all! Are we to have two distinct
races! those below and those above? Is Wells' prophecy to come
true; will the one race become uncanny, loathsome abortions with
clammy touch and eyes that cannot face the light? Will the other
become pretty human butterflies? I hope not, nay, I am sure that
Wells is wrong! For there is too much real goodness in the upper
world and too much heroism and endurance in the underworld to
permit such an evolution to come about.
But it is high time that such a possibility was seriously
considered. It is high time, too, that the lives and
necessities, the wrongs and the rights of even the gross poor in
the underworld were considered.
For the whole social and industrial system is against them.
Though many of them are parasites, preying upon society or upon
each other, yet even they become themselves the prey of other
parasites, who drain their blood night and day.
So I ask in all seriousness, is it not high time that the
exploitation of the poor, because they are poor, should cease.
See how it operates: a decent married woman loses her husband;
his death leaves her dependent upon her own labour. She has
children who hitherto have been provided with home life, food and
clothing; in fact the family had lived a little above the poverty
line, though not far removed from it.
She had lived in the upper world, but because her husband dies,
she is precipitated into the lower world, to seek a new home and
some occupation whereby she and her children may live.
Because she is a widow, and poor and helpless, she becomes the
prey of the sweater. Henceforth she must work interminable hours
for a starvation wage. Because she is a mother, poor and
helpless, she becomes the prey of the house farmer. Henceforward
half her earnings must go in rent, though her house and its
concomitants are detestable beyond words.
But though she is poor, her children must be fed, and though she
is a widowed mother, she, even she, must eat sometimes.
Henceforward she must buy food of a poor quality, in minute
quantities, of doubtful weight, at the highest price. She is
afraid that death may enter her home and find her unprepared for
a funeral, so she pays one penny weekly for each of her children
and twopence for herself to some collection society.
All through this procedure her very extremities provide
opportunities to others for spoliation, and so her continued life
in the underworld is assured. But her children are ill-
nourished, ill-clothed, ill-lodged and ill-bathed, and the gutter
is their playground. They do not develop properly in mind or
body, when of age they are very poor assets considered
financially or industrially. They become permanent residents of
the underworld and produce after their kind.
So the underworld is kept populated from many sources. Widows
with their children are promptly kicked into it, others descend
into it by a slow process of social and industrial gravitation.
Some descend by the downward path of moral delinquency, and some
leap into it as if to commit moral and social death.
And surely 'tis a mad world! How can it be otherwise with all
this varied and perplexed humanity seething it, with all these
social and industrial wrongs operating upon it. But I see the
dawn of a brighter day! when helpless widow mothers will no
longer be the spoil of the sweater and the house "farmer." The
dawn has broke! before these words are printed thousands of
toiling women in London's underworld will rejoice! for the wages
of cardboard box-makers will be doubled. The sun is rising! for
one by one all the terrible industries in which the women of the
underworld are engaged will of a certainty come within the
operations of a law that will stay the hand of the oppressors.
And there will be less toil for the widows and more food for the
children in the days that are to be.
But before that day fully comes, let me implore the women of the
upper world to be just if not generous to the women below. Let
me ask them not to exact all their labours, nor to allow the
extremities of their sisters to be a reason for under-payment
when useful service is rendered. Again I say, and I say it with
respect and sorrow, that many women are thoughtless if not unjust
in their business dealings with other women.
I am more concerned for the industrial and social rights of women
than I am for their political rights; votes they may have if you
please. But by all that is merciful let us give them justice!
For the oppression of women, whether by women or men, means a
perpetuation of the underworld with all its sorrows and horrors;
and the under-payment of women has a curse that smites us all the
way round.
And if a word of mine can reach the toiling sisters in the
netherworld, I would say to them: Be hopeful! Patient I know
you to be! enduring you certainly are! brave beyond expression
I have found you. Now add to your virtues, hope!
For you have need of it, and you have cause for it. I rejoice
that so many of you are personally known to me! You and I, my
sisters, have had much communion, and many happy times together;
for sometimes we have had surcease from toil and a breath of
God's fresh air together.
Be hopeful! endure a little longer; for a new spirit walks this
old world to bless it, and to right your long-continued wrongs.
Oh! how you have suffered, sisters mine! and while I have been
writing this chapter you have all been around me. But you are
the salt of the underworld; you are much better than the ten just
men that were not found in Sodom. And when for the underworld
the day of redemption arrives, it will be you, my sisters, the
simple, the suffering, enduring women that will have hastened it!
So I dwell upon the good that is in the netherworld, in the sure
and certain hope, whether my feeble words and life help forward
the time or not, that the day is not far distant when the dead
shall rise! When justice, light and sweetness will prevail, and
in prevailing will purify the unexplored depths of the sad
underworld.
I offer no apology for inserting the following selections from
London County Council proceedings. Neither do I make any
comment, other than to say that the statements made present
matters in a much too favourable light.
"LONDON'S CHILD SLAVES
"OVERWORK AND BAD NUTRITION
"Disclosures in L.C.C. Report.
(From the Daily Press, December 1911)
"The comments passed by members of the L.C.C. at the Education
Committee meeting upon the annual report of the medical officer
of that committee made it clear that many very interesting
contents of the report had not been made public.
"The actual report, which we have now seen, contains much more
that deserves the serious attention of all who are interested in
the problem of the London school child.
"There is, for example, a moving page on child life in a north-
west poverty area, where, among other conditions, it is not
uncommon to find girls of ten doing a hard day's work outside
their school work; they are the slaves of their mothers and
grandmothers.
"The great amount of anaemia and malnutrition among the children
in this area (says the report) is due to poverty, with its
resultant evils of dirt, ill-feeding and under-feeding, neglect
and female labour.
"Cheap food.--The necessity for buying cheap food results in the
purchasing of foodstuffs which are deficient in nutrient
properties. The main articles of diet are indifferent bread and
butter, the fag ends of coarse meat, the outside leaves of green
vegetables, and tea, and an occasional pennyworth of fried fish
and potatoes. Children who are supplied with milk at school, or
who are given breakfast and dinner, respond at once to the better
feeding, and show distinct improvement in their class work. The
unemployment among the men obliges the women to seek for work
outside the home, and the under-payment of female labour has its
effect upon the nutrition of the family.
"'Investigation in the senior departments of one school showed
that 144 children were being supported by their mothers only, 57
were living on their sisters, 68 upon the joint earnings of elder
brothers and sisters, while another 130 had mothers who went out
to work in order to supplement the earnings of the father.
"'Approximately one-third of the children in this neighbourhood
are supported by female labour. With the mother at work the
children rapidly become neglected, the boys get out of control,
they play truant, they learn to sleep out, and become known to
the police while they are still in the junior mixed department.'
"The Girl Housewife.--The maintenance of the home, the cooking
and catering, is done by an elderly girl who sometimes may not be
more than ten years of age. The mother's earnings provide bread
and tea for the family and pay the rent, but leave nothing over
for clothing or boots.
"Many of the boys obtain employment out of school hours, for
which they are paid and for which they may receive food; others
learn to hang about the gasworks and similar places, and get
scraps of food and halfpence from the workmen. In consequence
they may appear to be better nourished than the girls 'who work
beyond their strength at domestic work, step cleaning, baby
minding, or carrying laundry bundles and running errands.' For
this labour they receive no remuneration, since it is done for
the family.
"A remarkable paragraph of the report roundly declares--
"'The provision generally at cost price of school meals for all
who choose to pay for them would be a national economy, which
would do much to improve the status of the feeding centres and
the standard of feeding. This principle is applied most
successfully in schools of a higher grade, and might well be
considered in connection with the ordinary elementary schools of
the Council. Such a provision would probably be of the greatest
benefit to the respectable but very poor, who are too proud to
apply for charity meals, and whose children are often penalised
by want, and the various avoidable defects or ailments that come
in its train.'
"Feeding wanted.--Of the children of a Bethnal Green school, the
school doctor is quoted as reporting that 'it was not hospital
treatment but feeding that was wanted.'
"Among curious oddments of information contained in the report,
it is mentioned that the children of widows generally show
superior physique.
"The teeth are often better in children from the poorer homes,
'perhaps from use on rougher food materials which leaves less
DEBRIS to undergo fermentation.'
"'Children of poorer homes also often have the advantage of the
fresh air of the streets, whilst the better-off child is kept
indoors and becomes flabby and less resistant to minor ailments.
The statistics of infantile mortality suggest that the children
of the poorer schools have also gone through a more severe
selection; disease weeding out by natural selection, and the less
fit having succumbed before school age, the residue are of
sturdier type than in schools or classes where such selection has
been less intense.'"
CHAPTER III
THE NOMADS
A considerable portion of the inhabitants of the world below the
line are wanderers, without home, property, work or any visible
means of existence. For twenty years it has been the fashion to
speak of them as the "submerged," and a notable philanthropist
taught the public to believe that they formed one-tenth of our
population.
It was currently reported in the Press that the philanthropist I
have referred to offered to take over and salve this mass of
human wreckage for the sum of one million pounds. His offer was
liberally responded to; whether he received the million or not
does not matter, for he has at any rate been able to call to his
assistance thousands of men and women, and to set them to work in
his own peculiar way to save the "submerged."
From a not unfriendly book just published, written by one who was
for more than twenty years intimately associated with him, and
one of the chief directors of his salvage work, we learn that the
result has largely been a failure.
To some of us this failure had been apparent for many years, and
though we hoped much from the movement, we could not close our
eyes to facts, and reluctantly had to admit that the number of
the "submerged" did not appreciably lessen.
True, shelters, depots, bridges, homes and labour homes were
opened with astonishing celerity. Wood was chopped and paper
sorted in immense quantities, but shipwrecked humanity passed
over bridges that did not lead to any promised land, and abject
humanity ascended with the elevators that promptly lowered them
to depths on the other side.
Stimulated by the apparent success or popularity of the Salvation
Army, the Church Army sprang into existence, and disputed with
the former the claim to public patronage, and the right to save!
It adopted similar means, it is certain with similar results, for
the "submerged" are still with us.
I say that both these organisations pursued the same methods and
worked practically on the same lines, for both called into their
service a number of enthusiastic young persons, clothed them in
uniforms, horribly underpaid them, and set them to work to save
humanity and solve social and industrial problems, problems for
which wiser and more experienced people fail to find a solution.
It would be interesting to discover what has become of the tens
of thousands of enthusiastic men and women who have borne the
uniform of these organisations for periods longer or shorter, and
who have disappeared from the ranks.
How many of them are "submerged" I cannot say, but I know that
some have been perilously near it.
I am persuaded that this is a dangerous procedure, very dangerous
procedure, and the subscribing public has some right to ask what
has become of all the "officers" who, drawn from useful work to
these organisations, have disappeared.
But as a continual recruiting keeps up the strength, the
subscribing public does not care to ask, for the public is quite
willing to part with its vested interests in human wreckage. All
this leads me to say once more that the "submerged" are still
with us. Do you doubt it? Then come with me; let us take a
midnight walk on the Thames Embankment; any night will do, wet or
dry, winter or summer!
Big Ben is striking the hour as we commence our walk at
Blackfriars; we have with us a sack of food and a number of
second-hand overcoats. The night is cold, gusty and wet, and we
think of our warm and comfortable beds and almost relinquish our
expedition. The lights on Blackfriars Bridge reveal the murky
waters beneath, and we see that the tide is running out.
We pass in succession huge buildings devoted to commerce,
education, religion and law; we pass beautiful gardens, and
quickly we arrive at the Temple. The lamps along the roadway
give sufficient light for our purpose, for they enable us to see
that here and there on the seats and in the recesses of the
Embankment are strange beings of both sexes.
Yonder are two men, unkempt and unshaven, their heads bent
forward and their hands thrust deep into their trousers pockets
and, to all appearance, asleep.
Standing in a sheltered corner of the Temple Station we see
several other men, who are smoking short pipes which they
replenish from time to time with bits of cigars and cigarettes
that they have gathered during the day from the streets of
London.
I know something of the comedy and tragedy of cigar ends, for
times and again I have seen a race and almost a struggle for a
"fat end" when some thriving merchant has thrown one into the
street or gutter. Suddenly emerging from obscurity and showing
unexpected activity, two half-naked fellows have made for it; I
have seen the satisfaction of the fellow who secured it, and I
have heard the curse of the disappointed; but there! at any
time, on any day, near the Bank, or the Mansion House, in
Threadneedle Street, or in Cheapside such sights may be seen by
those who have eyes to see.
These two fellows have been successful, for they are assuaging
the pangs of hunger by smoking their odds and ends. They look at
us as we pass to continue our investigation. Here on a seat we
find several men of motley appearance; one is old and bent, his
white beard covers his chest, he has a massive head, he is a
picturesque figure, and would stand well for a representation of
Old Father Thames, for the wet streams from his hair, his beard
and his ample moustache. Beside him sits a younger man, weak and
ill. His worn clothing tells us of better days, and we
instinctively realise that not much longer will he sit out the
midnight hours on the cold Embankment.
Before we distribute our clothes and food, we continue our
observation. What strikes us most is the silence, for no one
speaks to us, no hand is held out for a gift, no requests are
made for help.
They look at us unconcernedly as we pass; they appear to bear
their privations with indifference or philosophy. Yonder is a
woman leaning over the parapet looking into the mud and water
below; we speak to her, and she turns about and faces us. Then
we realise that Hood's poem comes into our mind; we offer her a
ticket for a "shelter," which she declines; we offer her food,
but she will have none of it; she asks us to leave her, and we
pass on.
Here is a family group, father and mother with two children;
their attire and appearance tell us that they are tramps; the
mother has a babe close to her breast, and round it she has wrapt
her old shawl; a boy of five sits next to her, and the father is
close up.
The parents evidently have been bred in vagrancy, and the
children, and, unless the law intervenes, their children are
destined to continue the species. The whining voice of the woman
and the outstretched hands of the boy let us know that they are
eager and ready for any gift that pity can bestow.
But we give nothing, and let me say that after years of
experience, I absolutely harden my heart and close my pocket
against the tramping beggar that exploits little children. And
to those who drag children, droning out hymns through our quiet
streets on Sunday, my sympathies extend to a horsewhip.
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