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We know that he retains his position because of his strength and
the unscrupulous way in which he uses it. He knows us too, but
he is not well pleased to see us! Nevertheless, he accedes to
our request for "just a look round." So through a large passage
we pass, and he ushers us into the lodging-house kitchen. As the
door opens a babel of many voices greets us, a rush of warm air
comes at us, and the evidence of our noses proclaims that
bloaters and bacon, liver and onions, sausages and fresh fish are
being cooked. We look and see, we see and taste! Strange eyes
are turned upon us just for a moment, but we are not "'tecs," so
the eyes are turned back to the different frying-pans or
roasting-forks, as the case may be. See how they crowd round the
huge and open fire, for there is no cooking range. See how they
elbow each other as they want space for this pan or that fork.
See how the bloaters curl and twist as if trying to escape from
the forks and the fire. See how the sausages burst and splutter
in their different pans. See how stolidly the tough steaks
brown, refusing either to splutter, yield fat, or find gravy to
assist in their own undoing.
Listen to the sizzling that pervades the place, acting as an
orchestral accompaniment to the chorus of human voices. Listen
to it all, breathe it all, let your noses and your ears take it
all in. Then let your eyes and your imagination have their turn
before the pungency of rank tobacco adds to the difficulty of
seeing and breathing. And so we look, and we find there are
sixty human beings of both sexes and various ages in that
kitchen. Some of them we know, for have we not seen them in
Cheapside, St. Paul's Churchyard, or elsewhere acting as gutter
merchants. Yonder sit an old couple that we have seen selling
matches or laces for many years past! It is not a race day, and
there being no "test match" or exciting football match, a youth
of sixteen who earns a precarious living by selling papers in the
streets sits beside them. To-day papers are at a discount, so he
has given up business for the day and sought warmth and company
in his favourite lodging-house.
Ah! there is our old friend, the street ventriloquist! You see
the back of his hand is painted in vivid colours to resemble the
face of an old woman. We know that he has a bundle that contains
caps and bonnets, dresses and skirts that will convert his hand
and arm into a quaint human figure. Many a droll story can he
tell, for he has "padded the hoof" from one end of England to the
other; he knows every lodging-house from Newcastle-on-Tyne to
Plymouth. He is a graceless dog, fond of a joke, a laugh and a
story; he is honest enough and intelligent enough for anything.
But of regular life, discipline and work he will have none. By
and by, after the cooking is all done, he will want to give a
performance and take up a collection.
There are a couple, male and female, who tramp the country lanes;
the farm haystacks or outbuildings have been their resting-places
during the summer, but approaching winter has sent them back to
London.
You see that they have got a tattered copy of Moody and Sankey's
hymns, which is their stock-in-trade. They have at different
lodging-house "services" picked up some slight knowledge of a
limited number of tunes, now they are trying to commit the words
to memory.
To-morrow they will in quiet streets be whining out "Oh, where is
my boy to-night?" or "Will you meet me at the Fountain?"
Look again--here is a shabby-genteel man who lives by his wits.
He is fairly educated and can write a plausible letter. He is
dangerous; his stock-in-trade comprises local directories, WHO'S
WHO, annual reports of charitable societies, clergymen's lists,
etc. He is a begging-letter writer, and moves from lodging-house
to lodging-house; he writes letters for any of the inmates who
have some particular tale of woe to unfold, or some urgent appeal
to make, and he receives the major part of the resultant charity.
He is drunken and bestial, he is a parasite of the worst
description, for he preys alike on the benevolent and upon the
poor wretches whose cause he espouses.
He assumes many names, he changes his addresses adroitly, and
ticks off very carefully the names and addresses of people he has
defrauded. In fact, he is so clever and slippery that the police
and the Charity Organisation Society cannot locate him. So he
thrives, a type of many, for every one of London's common
lodging-houses can provide us with one or more such cunning
rogues.
Yonder sits a "wandering boy" about twenty-eight years of age.
He is not thriving, and he must needs be content with simple
bread and cheese. A roll of cheap "pirated" music lies on his
knee and proclaims his method of living. His life has its
dangers, for he has great difficulty in providing five shillings
for his pedlar's licence, and he runs great risk of having his
stock seized by the police, and being committed to prison for a
fine he cannot pay.
He has brought sorrow and disgrace upon his parents, no eye
brightens at the mention of his name. Alas! he is a specimen of
the "homeless boy" of whom his neighbours the minstrels will sing
to-morrow. He is silent and moody, for he is not in funds. Are
there none among the company whom sheer misfortune has brought
down into this underworld? we ask. Aye, there are, for in this
kitchen there are representatives of all sorts and conditions.
See that man in the corner by himself, speaking to no one,
cooking nothing, eating nothing; he is thinking, thinking! This
is his first night in a common lodging-house; it is all new to
him, he thinks it all so terrible and disgusting.
He seems inclined to run and spend his night in the streets, and
perhaps it will be well for him to do so. He looks decent,
bewildered and sorrowful; we know at a glance that some
misfortune has tripped him up, we see that self-respect is not
dead within him. We know that if he stays the night, breathing
the foul air, listening to the horrid talk, seeing much and
realising more, feeling himself attacked on every side by the
ordinary pests of common lodging-houses, we know that tomorrow
morning his self-respect will be lessened, his moral power
weakened, and his hope of social recovery almost gone. Let him
stay a few weeks, then the lodging-house will become his home and
his joy. So we feel inclined to cry out and warn him to escape
with his life. This is the great evil and danger of common
lodging-houses; needful as they undoubtedly are for the homeless
and the outcast, they place the unfortunate on an inclined plane
down which they slide to complete demoralisation.
I am told that there are four hundred large common lodging-houses
in London, many of them capable of holding several hundred
lodgers, and which night after night are filled with a weird
collection of humanity. And they cast a fatal spell upon all who
get accustomed to them. Few, very few who have become
acclimatised ever go back to settled home life. For the
decencies, amenities and restraints of citizenship become
distasteful. And truly there is much excitement in the life for
excitement, at any rate, abounds in common lodging-houses.
Nothing happens in them but the unexpected, and that brings its
joys and terrors, its laughter and its tears. Here a great deal
of unrestrained human nature is given free play, and the results
are exciting if not edifying. Let us spend an evening, but not a
night--that is too much to ask-with the habitues.
We sit apart and listen to the babel of voices, but we listen in
vain for the lodging-house slang of which we are told so much.
They speak very much like other people, and speak on subjects
upon which other people speak. They get as excited as ordinary
people, too.
Yonder is a lewd fellow shouting obscenities to a female, who, in
an equally loud voice and quite as unmistakable language, returns
him a Roland for every Oliver.
Here are a couple of wordy excitable fellows who are arguing the
pros and cons of Free Trade and Tariff Reform. They will keep at
it till the lights are put out, for both are supplied with a
plentiful supply of contradictory literature. Both have fluent
tongues, equally bitter, and, having their audience, they, like
other people, must contend for mastery. Not that they care for
the rights or wrongs of either question, for both are prepared,
as occasion serves, to take either side. Religion, too, is
excitedly discussed, for an animated couple are discussing
Christian Evidences, while the ventriloquist gives parsons
generally and bishops in particular a very warm time; even the
Pope and General Booth do not escape his scurrilous but witty
indictments.
Meanwhile the street singers are practising songs, sacred and
secular, and our friend the street minstrel produces an old flute
and plays an obbligato, whilst the quivering voice of his poor
old wife again wants to know the whereabouts of her wandering
boy.
There will be a touching scene when they do meet--may I be there!
but I hope they will not meet in a common lodging-house. Another
street minstrel is practising new tunes upon a mouth-organ,
wherewith to soften the hearts of a too obdurate public.
What a babel it all makes; now groups of card-players are getting
quarrelsome, for luck has been against some, or cheating has been
discovered; blows are exchanged, and blood flows! As the night
advances, men and women under the influence of drink arrive.
Some are merry, others are quarrelsome, some are moody and
lachrymose. The latter become the butt of the former, the noise
increases, confusion itself becomes confounded, and we leave to
avoid the general MELEE, and to breathe the night air, which we
find grateful and reviving. Phew! but it was hot and thick, we
don't want to breathe it again. It is astonishing that people
get used to it, and like it too! But it leaves its taint upon
them, for it permeates their clothing; they carry it about with
them, and any one who gets a whiff of it gets some idea of the
breath of a common lodging-house. And its moral breath has its
effect, too! Woe to all that is fresh and fair, young and
hopeful, that comes within its withering influence. Farewell! a
long farewell to honour, truth and self-respect, for the hot
breath of a common lodging-house will blast those and every other
good quality in young people of either sex that inhale it. Its
breath comes upon them, and lo! they become foul without and
vile within, carrying their moral and physical contagion with
them wherever they go.
A moral sepulchre, or rather crematorium, is the common lodging-
house, for when its work is done, nothing is left but ashes. For
the old habitues I am not much concerned, and though generally I
hold a brief for old sinners, criminals and convicts, I hold no
brief for the old and middle-aged habitues of a common lodging-
house.
Can any one call the dead to life? Can any one convert cold
flesh into warm pulsing life? Nay, nay! Talk about being turned
into a pillar of salt! the common lodging-house can do more and
worse than that! It can turn men and women into pillars of moral
death, for even the influence of a long term of penal servitude,
withering as it is, cannot for one moment be compared with the
corrupting effect of common lodging-house life.
So the old minstrels may go seeking their wandering boy! and the
begging-letter writers may go hang!
The human vultures that prey upon the simple and good-natured
may, if middle-aged, continue in their evil ways. But what of
the young people of whom there ought to be hope? What of them?
how long are these "lazar houses" to stand with open door waiting
to receive, swallow, transform and eject young humanity? But
there is money in them, of course there is; there always is money
to be made out of sin and misery if the community permits.
Human wreckage pays, and furnishes a bigger profit than more
humdrum investments. I am told by an old habitue with whom I
have had endless talks and who has taught me much, although he is
a graceless rascal, that one man owns eight of these large
establishments, and that he and his family live in respectability
and wealth.
I have no reason to doubt his statement, for these places are
mines of wealth, but the owners take precious good care not to
live in them. And infinite care that their families do not
inhabit them. Some day when we are wise--but wisdom comes so
slowly--these things will not be left to private enterprise, for
municipalities will provide and own them at no loss to the
ratepayers either.
Then decency, though homeless, will have a chance of survival,
and moral and physical cleanliness some chance to live, even in a
common lodging-house.
Sadly we need a modern St.George who will face and destroy this
monstrous dragon with the fiery breath.
Let it not be said that I am unduly hard upon them who from
choice or misfortune inhabit these places. From my heart I pity
them, but one cannot be blind to the general consequences. And
these things must be taken into consideration when efforts are
made, as undoubtedly efforts will some day be made, to tackle
this question in a reasonable way.
It is high time, too, that the public understood the difficulties
that attend any effort to lift lodging-house habitues to a higher
form of existence.
I am bold enough to hazard the statement that the number of these
people increases year by year, and that no redemptive effort has
had the slightest effect in checking the continual increase. As
Secretary of the Howard Association, it is my business year by
year to make myself acquainted with the criminal statistics, and
all matters connected with our prisons. These statistics more
than confirm my statement, for they tell us that while
drunkenness, brutality, crimes of violence show a steady
decrease, vagabondage, sleeping out, begging, etc., show a
continual increase as years roll by.
Of course many of them appear again and again in the prison
statistics, nevertheless they form a great and terrible army,
whose increase bodes ill for dear and fair old England.
Like birds they are migratory, but they pour no sweetness on the
morning or evening air. Like locusts they leave a blight behind.
Like famished wolves when winter draws near they seek the
habitations of men. Food they must have! There is corn in
Egypt!
When gentle spring returns, then heigho! for the country lanes,
villages and provincial towns, and as they move from place to
place they leave their trail behind them.
And what a trail it is! ask the governors of our local prisons,
ask the guardians of any country districts, ask the farmers, aye,
and ask the timid women and pretty children, and, my word for it,
they will be able to tell you much of these strange beings that
returning summer brings unfailingly before them. Their lodging
is sometimes the cold hard ground, or the haystack, or perchance,
if in luck, an outbuilding.
The prisons are their sanatoria, the workhouses their homes of
rest, and the casual ward their temporary conveniences. But
always before them is one objective, for a common lodging-house
is open to them, and its hypnotism draws them on and on.
So on they go, procreating as they go. Carrying desolation with
them, leaving desolation behind them. The endurance of these
people--I suppose they must be called people--is marvellous and
their rate of progression is sometimes astonishing; weary and
footsore, maimed, halt or blind they get over the ground at a
good uniform pace.
Look at that strange being that has just passed us as we sat on
the bank of a country lane; he goes along with slouching gait and
halting steps; he has no boots worthy of the name, his tattered
trousers, much too long, give us glimpses of his flesh. He wears
an old frock-coat that hangs almost to his heels, and a cloth
cap, greasy and worn, upon his head. His beard is wild and
abundant, and his hair falls upon his shoulders in a way worthy
of an artist or poet.
Follow him, but not too closely, and you will find it hard to
keep up with him, he knows what he is making for. Neither George
Borrow nor Runciman would hold him for a week, for George would
want to stop and talk, but this fellow is silent and grim. A
lazar house draws him on, and he needs must reach it, weak and
ill-fed though he is! And he will reach others too, for he is on
a circular tour. But next winter will find him in a Westminster
lodging-house if he has luck, on the Embankment if he has not.
He has an easy philosophy: "All the things in the world belong
to all the men in the world," is his outspoken creed, so he
steals when he can, and begs when he cannot steal.
But think of this life when women share it, and children are born
into it, and lads and lassies are on the tramp. Dare we think of
it? We dare not! If we did, it would not be tolerated for a
day. Neither dare I write about it, for there are many things
that cannot be written. So I leave imagination to supply what
words must not convey.
But it is all so pitiful, it is too much for me, for sometimes I
feel that I am living with them, tramping with them, sleeping
with them, eating with them; I am become as one of them. I feel
the horror, yet I do not realise the charms.
I am an Englishman! I love liberty! I must be free, or die! I
want to order my own life, to control my own actions, to run on
my own lines; I would that all men should have similar rights.
But, alas! it cannot be--civilisation claims and enchains us; we
have to submit to its discipline, and it is well that it should
be so. We do not, cannot live to ourselves, and for ourselves.
Those days have long passed, and for ever. Orderly life and
regular duties are good for us, and necessary for the well-being
of the nation.
A strong robust: nation demands and requires a large amount of
freedom, and this it must have, or perish! The individual man,
too, requires a fair amount if he is to be a man. But we may,
and we do in some things extend freedom beyond the legitimate
bounds. For in a country of limited area where the bulk of the
people live onerous lives, and manfully perform their duties, we
allow a host of parasites to thrive and swarm.
The more this host increases, the weaker the nation becomes, and
its existence may ultimately become not a sign of freedom but a
proof of national decay. For parasites thrive on weakly life, be
it individual or national. So while we have a profound pity for
the nomads, let us express it with a strong hand. They cannot
care for themselves in any decent way. Let us care for them, and
detain them in places that will allow permanent detention and
segregation. And the results will be surprising, for prisons
will be less numerous, workhouses, casual wards and asylums less
necessary, lazar houses with their pestilential breath will pass
away, and England will be happier, sweeter and more free!
CHAPTER V
FURNISHED APARTMENTS
What fell power decreed that certain streets in London should be
devoted to the purpose of providing "furnished apartments" for
the submerged I do not know. But I do know that some streets are
entirely devoted to this purpose, and that a considerable amount
of money is made out of such houses.
I ask my readers to accompany me for a visit to one of these
streets, and make some acquaintance with the houses, the
furniture and the inhabitants.
The particular streets we select run at a right-angle from a main
thoroughfare, a railway divides them from a beautiful park, and
on this railway City merchants pass daily to and from their
suburban homes.
I question whether in the whole of London more misery, vice and
poverty can be found located in one limited area than in the
streets we are about to visit. I know them, and I have every
reason for knowing them. We make our visit in summer time, when
poverty is supposed to be less acute. As we enter the street we
notice at once that a commodious public-house stands and thrives
at the entrance. We also notice that there are in the street
several "general" shops, where tea and margarine, firewood,
pickles, paraffin oil and cheese, boiled ham and vinegar, corned
beef and Spanish onions, bread and matches are to be obtained.
We stand in the middle of the roadway, in the midst of dirt and
refuse, and look up and down the street. Innumerable children
are playing in the gutter or on the pavements, and the whole
place teems with life. We observe that the houses are all alike,
the shops excepted. They stand three-storey high; there are nine
rooms in each house. We look in vain for bright windows and for
clean and decent curtains.
Every room seems occupied, for there is no card in any window
announcing "furnished apartments." The street is too well known
to require advertisement, consequently the "furnished apartments"
are seldom without tenants.
The street is a cave of Adullam to which submerged married
couples resort when their own homes, happy or otherwise, are
broken up.
We notice that it is many days since the doors and window-frames
of the different houses made acquaintance with the painter. We
notice that all doors stand open, for it is nobody's business to
answer a knock, friendly or otherwise. We look in the various
doorways and see in each case the same sort of staircase and the
same unclean desolation.
Who would believe that Adullam Street is a veritable Tom
Tiddler's Ground? Would any one believe that a colony of the
submerged could prove a source of wealth?
Let us count the houses on both sides of the street. Forty-five
houses! Leave out the two "general" shops, the greengrocer's and
the "off licence"; leave out also the one where the agent and
collector lives, that leaves us forty-one houses of nine rooms
let out as furnished apartments.
If let to married couples that means a population of seven
hundred and thirty-eight, if all the rooms are occupied, and
supposing that no couple occupies more than one room. As for the
children--but we dare not think of them--we realise the advantage
of the open street of which we freely grant them the freehold.
But we make the acquaintance of a tenant and ask some questions.
We find that she has two children, that they have but one
furnished room, for which they pay seven shillings and sixpence
weekly in advance! Always in advance!
She further tells us that their room is one of the best and
largest; it faces the street, and is on the first floor. She
says that some rooms are let at six shillings, others at six
shillings and sixpence, and some at seven shillings. We ask her
why she lives in Adullam Street, and she tells us that her own
furniture was obtained on the "hire system," and when it was
seized they came to Adullam Street, and they do not know how they
are to get out of it.
That sets us thinking and calculating; three hundred and sixty-
nine rooms, rent always payable in advance-- from the submerged,
too!--average six shillings and sixpence per week per room, why,
that is L120 per week, or L6,240 annually from forty-one houses,
if they are regularly occupied. Truly furnished apartments
specially provided for the submerged are extra specially adapted
to the purpose of keeping them submerged.
As no deputy disputes our entrance, we enter and proceed to gain
some knowledge of the tenants, and take some stock of their rooms
and furniture.
The rooms are simply but by no means sweetly furnished! Here is
an inventory and a mental picture of one room. A commodious bed
with dirty appointments that makes us shudder! A dirty table on
which are some odds and ends of unclean crockery, a couple of
cheap Windsor chairs, a forbidding-looking chest of drawers, a
rusty frying-pan, a tin kettle, a teapot and a common quart jug.
He would be a bold man that bid ten shillings for the lot, unless
he bought them as a going concern. A cheap and nasty paper
covers the wall, excepting where pieces have been torn away, and
the broken walls are made of lath and plaster, to provide
splendid cover for innumerable insects which remain in undisputed
possession.
One floor much resembles another, but the basement and the top
storey rooms are the worst of all. We look through the window of
a second floor back room, and see the out premises, but one look
is sufficient.
We want to know something of the tenants, so we enter into
conversation with them, and find them by no means reserved.
Room 1. Husband and wife about thirty-five years of age, no
children; husband has been ill for some months, during which the
rent got behind. When he was taken to the infirmary they lost
their home altogether; she did washing and charing for a time,
but ultimately got into the "House."
When her husband got better, and was discharged from the
infirmary, his old mates collected ten shillings for him, he took
the room in which they now lived, and of course she joined him.
How did they live? Well, it was hardly living; her husband
looked round every day and managed to "pick up something," and
she got a day or two days' work every week--their rent was always
paid in advance. What happened when her husband did not "pick up
something" she did not say, but semi-starvation seemed the only
alternative.
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