II. In a Northern City.
When shall we apply common sense to the daily matters of town life? Not till we recognise that a community is a unit, composed of many parts, but when one suffers, all suffer.
Having occasion to visit a northern city to address important gatherings on social questions, I determined to devote one evening, previous to speaking, to social investigation. I desired to find a woman, if possible a lady, living in the district, willing to dress up and go with me. As, however, my friends failed to find me one, I had to be content to go alone, shadowed by a policeman in plain clothes. My object was to find out where I should have to sleep if I arrived at night as a stranger able to pay 6d. for my bed. The city is a very old one, and, as usual, in the ancient parts houses are huddled together. I visited some of the worst streets, and have never anywhere before seen such closely packed humanity. Streets of houses back to back were huddled under the shelter of a large flour mill working day and night, and filling the air with dust. Some houses could never have daylight. Most of the workers in the mills and factories came, I was told, from these narrow streets, and some of the firms were very rich. It seemed to me likely to be a hot-bed of consumption, to say nothing of vice and crime. At the hour at which I went, between nine and ten, most of the houses were closely shuttered, and few people were in the streets, except a few lads and lasses who were courting at street corners. The friendly "bobby" told me, however, of turbulent times and sudden brawls, making this the worst quarter of the city. After public-house closing was probably a lively time. He informed me that there were in the city but two lodging-houses where women were taken at all. Both were common lodging-houses, and very low places. It required a guide to find them. One was in a court up an entry out of a narrow main street. I had to go alone, for it would have roused suspicion had my guide accompanied me. After knocking at one or two wrong doors I found it at last. The door opened into a large kitchen packed full of men and women. I enquired timidly if a bed was to be had. "No, we are quite full," shouted some one. "Come in, you can have half my bed," shouted a man. This raised a laugh. The company gazed curiously at me. I asked if there was anywhere else where a woman could get a lodging, declining the proffered honour. I was told a name previously heard from the policeman, and thanking the informant turned away gladly. "You'd better share along of me," sang out the man, and rather hurriedly I beat a retreat to my friendly "shadow." The other house was still harder to find. I could not have retraced my way through the maze of lanes and entries. My companion said he would walk down the street in front of me to indicate the door, and then would return and wait. A narrow dirty lane with houses on one side only, had in it some of the smallest cottages I have ever seen. One of these had a few sweets and eatables in the window, and was indicated as the place where "the landlady" lived. Knocking, I was told to come in, and in the minute room, shop and living room, lying on a wooden couch was a very dirty woman with a still dirtier child. She was "the landlady"! She looked at me and said she would take me in. I was to go two doors lower down the street. I found I had to pay her 6d. for a bed. There was only accommodation for five single women.
Going down the street to the house indicated, I found myself in a moderate-sized kitchen such as you find in a house of the olden times, low but fairly large. A sink was partitioned off in the corner. A man was cutting up wood, and one or two women and children were there. They were talking about a man who had gone away deserting his wife and children. One asked if I had not my man with me. I said "No." They had seen my "bobby" friend pass. They said a man had passed. I said "I thought he was a bobby." They said, "Right you are," and appeared to accept me. I got a tea-pot and made myself some tea, and cut (with a borrowed knife) some bread and butter. Thus making myself at home I could observe the place and company. It was fairly clean for such places; the company, both in appearance and language was low, and I was glad I was not going to stay the night. It would probably have proved much the same as the lodging-house in which I spent the second night when on five days' tramp.[135] Having used my eyes well, after about half an hour, I said I was going out, and left not to return, joining my policeman friend. He told me this was the only other accommodation in all that large city for women. He added that there was, however, a charitable home or shelter, and if they found friendless women on the streets at night they usually sent them there.
It was the same old story, absence of decent sanitary self-respecting accommodation for women. No "charity" can replace this. Rescue homes pick up those who have fallen.
The policeman told me much about the general condition of the city. He said a municipal lodging-house was much wanted; that there was no accommodation for travellers save common lodgings, often dreadfully crowded and unsanitary. "I will let you have a look round one," he said. "I will introduce you, and you must have a good look to see if your 'man' is there!"
Accordingly he took me into an ordinary dwelling house at the corner of a street. A boarded-off sanded passage led to a small room hardly as large as in an ordinary dwelling house. The wooden seating round the walls was filled with men, most smoking. They stood up and stared at me and I at them. "You can't see your man," said the bobby. "No, he isn't here," I replied. So I followed him elsewhere. He told me all the lodging-houses were of this character, and insufficient in number. A good lodging-house would be a boon, for in the holes and corners and narrow lanes where those common lodging-houses are found, police discipline is very difficult. By this time it was about 9.30 p.m., and I returned to my friends for ablution and a change of raiment, able to give point from personal experience to my remarks on the following day.
CHAPTER VII.
LONDON INVESTIGATIONS.
I. London Lodgings.
I have been deterred from specimening women's lodgings in London by this difficulty—that one could not be sure of emerging in a fit condition to be received into the house of respectable friends.
Being anxious, however, to find out something about them, previous to speaking at a public meeting, at about 8 p.m. one evening, I started from near one of the principal stations, with my son to shadow me. He was dressed as a working man, and I as a woman of the vagrant class, fairly decent. I was supposed to have arrived in London and to be seeking a night's shelter. I crossed the street to enquire of an old applewoman where a bed was to be had. Her answer was not very encouraging. "There is a lodging-house for women at —— Street, but it's a bad place. I wouldn't advise you to go there if you are respectable. There is another in —— Street, it's a charity place." We determined to try to find both. We found the bad one with difficulty, and were again warned by a neighbour. So I did not venture there. Some low streets near appeared to be frequented by doubtful characters. We sought the "charity place." It was respectable, but, for one who was an investigator, not desirable. I might have tried it, but found on enquiry the price was above my purse, 8d. a night! Hardly a "charity," therefore, though doubtless a boon to more wealthy women.
We determined next to find out (as after repeated enquiry we could hear of no other lodging-house) whether if I had happened to be really stranded in London, I could at that hour get into the tramp ward. I passed down through a crowded street with booths and a market. "Poor thing," said one woman, whom I asked for the "Spital." "Have you got to go there." I escaped questioning, and further on asked again.
"Yes, you can get in,"—but again the look of pity. I thought it argued badly for my treatment if I went in. I found the place, but did not apply. I found I should have to walk a considerable distance to the tramp ward. I could not on that day enter, not having time to spare for two nights detention, but it was this tramp ward which I afterwards specimened, and my experiences in it justified the pity.[136]
I rejoined my son; we had satisfied ourselves that respectable lodgings for women at my price were at any rate not easily found. Time was passing; we heard there were lodgings in the city. We had already spent over an hour in search, so to save time, we did what a tramp would not, took 'bus to the heart of London. There by the simple expedient of "asking a bobby," I at once found what I wanted. Up a narrow entry from one of London's well-known thoroughfares was a lodging-house for men, side by side with a lodging-house for "women only." So far good. I need not have my son with me. So about 10 p.m. I sent him for a walk to return before 11 p.m., and entered the court alone. I found that to secure a bed I must go into the men's lodging-house and pay my money—6d.—to a man who was playing cards with several others. No rude language was used, the men eyed me, that was all. I paid and passed in next door. Upstairs was a small room in which a number of women, all with their hats on save one—the "deputy"—were sitting. Some passed in and out, but being a stranger I was not welcome, and was told to "go forward." This was downstairs; and I found myself, after some turns I cannot remember, in a long low cellar room, with concrete floor, very dirty looking. A window at one end was half underground. A fireplace on the right had bars and hobs, but no oven or range or proper kitchen convenience. This was, however, the living and cooking room. Plenty of garments were hanging up to dry on strings. Under the tables were heaps of dirt and débris. A number of women were present sitting on forms, who seemed to be hawkers, or women gaining some scanty livelihood. The general conditions were much the same as in northern lodging-houses, where 4d. is charged for a bed, only the cooking facilities were poorer and the price was higher. I learned that in London a bed was not easily got under 6d. "It took a good bit of getting," one woman said. The sanitary state was no better than in the north, and I was thankful I had not to stay the night. Towards eleven the deputy came with a bunch of keys, calling out "Anyone for bed." I thought it best to escape, and making an excuse rejoined my son.
My remarks on this adventure at a subsequent meeting led to enquiry into the state of this lodging-house. It was reported to be "regularly inspected twice a week and nothing wrong with it." All I can say is that either the visits of the inspector must be expected and prepared for, or, as I have frequently remarked, inspection leads to purblindness. "Anything is good enough for such inmates" comes to be the official view.[137]
Wishing to satisfy myself that I had not been mistaken, and as I had that time no fellow-workers, I got my son subsequently to enter the male side of the same lodging-house. His account not only confirmed mine, but he found things worse than I had stated. The men's side had the same low half cellar, not properly lighted or ventilated, deficient cooking accommodation, dirty floor and débris. In addition, the habit of smoking and spitting rendered the place abominable. The deputy appeared to have no control, indeed, he laughed at extra filthy jests as if they were to be enjoyed. My son said he should have been afraid to specimen the sleeping accommodation. He has visited other lodging-houses—one where a notice is up "Gents are requested not to sleep in their boots"!—a notice often disobeyed. He is acquainted with Rowton Houses. He says this is a particularly bad specimen. So after all my judgment does not appear to have been at fault. A low standard of inspection prevails in many places besides London; but the place itself was unfit for the purpose for which it was used.[138]
II. In a London Tramp Ward.[139]
Towards six o'clock on a pleasant evening in March, my companion and I found our way to the casual ward of a London workhouse, selected because, on the testimony of Guardians, it was supposed to be well-regulated and ideal. Real beds and porcelain baths, perfect cleanliness and good management would surely afford comfortable conditions. We did not go together, as I was announced to speak publicly and known to take a companion, and it might therefore be difficult to escape detection. But we were, as it happened, the only inmates, save a woman going out in the morning.
The ward was spotlessly clean. The brown bread and gruel, at first glance, not unappetising. Alas! the bread was sour. Food first, and hot bath to follow, wet hair, though more time than usual to dry. Clean nightgown, and actually a bed. So far good.
Locked in at about seven o'clock to solitary meditation, I rejoiced to have found better conditions. Alas! I had not reckoned on the physical effects of the unwholesome combination of the sour bread, followed by hot bath, and backed up by imperfectly dried hair. Before long I was violently sick, and every portion of my first meal returned. In the darkness it was impossible to see if there was any means of communication to beg a welcome drink of water. Presently my friend began coughing and groaning. It seems the effect of the bath and wet head on her was to produce a violent cold, headache, and sore throat. Then in another cell a woman began retching and coughing badly. In the morning we learned she also had been upset by the bath when she entered, but no complaints were noticed. Her cough sounded like asthma or bronchitis, and very bad. We asked her why she did not see a doctor. "No tramps were allowed a doctor," she said.[140] She intended when out to try to get into an infirmary. She had been in three days, and could not eat.
This information, received after we had got up at 5.30, was somewhat disheartening, for we were both ill. Breakfast none of us touched. Our fellow tramp played with hers, pointing at the thick scum on the unappetising gruel (very salt), served in a worn enamel mug, with no spoon. "God alone knows," she said. "They will have to answer for it." She told us she was detained a third night because she had been in another casual ward during the month, and the officer "spotted" her.[141] She was evidently a regular casual. "They all have to do it" (i.e., to go from ward to ward), she said, describing how other wards were better and how harsh this one was—and no one came in who could help it. We asked how it was she came in herself. She said she had had "business" in that part of the town, and could not reach another ward. She said she was quite clean, as she had "been down" the previous week-end. She said the treatment had made her ill; at the time we hardly believed her. Later we knew. Seven o'clock, and a summons to work. We began cheerfully under charge of an old woman. But already some conception that we were under a hard taskmistress was dawning upon us. "Be sure you only do what you are told," said the woman. The ward was apparently clean, but the whole must be scrubbed. My portion was to do four cells and a long, long passage leading past eighteen cells (nine on a side), and two bath-rooms, and a lavatory with two w.c.'s. Cloths, bucket, and soda were provided, no aprons till later. I had a kneeling pad, my friend none. She was told off to the bath-rooms.
It seems such a simple thing to tell that it is hard to convey the real conditions. Presently our taskmistress came round. She was not unkind, but one of those women to whom, in ordinary health, work is a joy in itself, and the utmost scrupulosity of finicking cleanliness a thing to be exacted as a matter of course. For every single detail a standard was to be attained, at whatever cost to flesh and blood. For instance, all blankets to be re-folded to an exact shape, and laid so—no otherwise. To work hard, all day and every day, would probably be to her no task, and the difference between working hard on a full and on a meagre diet had never dawned upon her. Sickness was to be discredited—probably a "dodge"—in any case, the fault of previous misdoings. Work was to be exacted to the very last farthing. Faithfully she did her duty—as she knew it. Nine hours' solid work (five in the morning, four in the afternoon)—that was what the law exacted—and she got it.
Now, to work as a charwoman on a comfortable breakfast, with a pause for lunch, and prospective dinner, and the opportunity to chat and "take your own time" is one thing. To work for a taskmistress with prison in prospect for the slightest shirking—with no pause and no food—is quite another. The matron knew I had been very sick—her assistant told her—and also that I had had no food. "That old tramp, whom she couldn't bear," as she told my friend, "had been eating stale fish; that was what made her sick. She could tell that sort, she always knew what people were like." This was so humorous that it decidedly relieved the situation! We compared notes as we refilled buckets, but did not dare to loiter or show knowledge of one another. Walls had ears, or, at any rate, keyholes were handy. So we worked steadily, my friend's fate being worse, as she worked under the taskmistress's eye. She won prime favour, but never, never, in all her working days, had she worked so hard.[142] She cleaned the bath-rooms and a whole flight of stairs, and then was put on the private sitting-room, to be done most particularly, not even the old woman attendant could be trusted to do it, it was usually the matron's own work; but she had been ill, and it had "got neglected." How hard my friend laboured she alone can tell. Every inch was gone over many times under the vigilant eyes. Meanwhile, the "old tramp" laboured as diligently as possible—when the eyes were upon her! They detected some signs of "scamping," when her back was turned, so doubtless I was "an old hand!" The fact of the matter was, that without such careful "scamping" I positively could not have sustained the long, long hours of labour. Four bucketsful of water—one for each cell—seven for the long passage, two for lavatory and w.c.'s, brasses to clean, paint to dust. It seemed a Sisyphean task, no sooner ended than a new one was exacted. I wondered if by carefully husbanding strength I could hold out. At dinner-time, twelve o'clock, we stopped for an hour. I could not touch food. My friend, though fresh from the tantalising smell of beef steak and onions, managed to eat a small portion of bread and cheese, washed down by cold water. Our tea and sugar had been confiscated.
Tired! That is no word for it! We had already done a charwoman's day's work. My friend could hardly speak, and I had no strength save to lay my head on the table and wonder how I should survive the afternoon.
One o'clock and hard labour. My friend, on finishing two bedrooms, was put to clean the store-room. So weary was she, that towards the close even her taskmistress saw that she had overrated her strength, and gave a sign of grace by saying she would help her to finish. Meanwhile, the "old tramp" must do the day-room—it only served her right for the way she "tickled the boards!"
Five long and very ornamental forms and two long tables, to be scrubbed on every inch of surface to immaculate whiteness with soap and water. The floor to be scrubbed and every place dusted. Kneeling had become such torture that the straining of the body up to scrub the under-surface of the forms almost produced faintness. It must be remembered that all this work was exacted without a particle of food. The matron had come in at dinner-time and seen my food untasted. I told her I could not touch it. She looked at it as if it was some rejected dainty. "What a pity," she said—not at all as if it was a pity I could not eat, but a pity to leave such good food!
Flesh and blood found it hard to bear the long four hours' labour; over and over again I failed quite to please my taskmistress and tried her patience. She confided to my friend that she should have to keep out of the room or lose her temper. She did not recognise the arm growing weary, the heart sick and faint. But she did recognise the work of my friend, and rewarded it by a cup of tea and two slices of bread and butter. To eat these she was shut up in the store-room, and was by no means to tell "that tramp" how she had been favoured! She did, however, manage to run in and give me a drink of tea, but such was my internal state, that it made me immediately violently sick. This was when work was over, fortunately. For one blessed three-quarters of an hour before I finished the taskmistress was away. She was very suspicious as to how I had done the work in her absence. It passed muster. I did not dare to stop, but certainly "hurried." It was necessary to survive.
At last—five o'clock and respite. We both were more dead than alive. It must be felt to be realised.
Again we could not touch the food, but my friend had had a little. Again no notice was taken of any symptoms of illness on my part, but a lozenge was given my friend for her throat, as she was "prime favourite."
At last 5.30, and we might seek bed. My friend was allowed to wear some of her underlinen, as she had been very cold the previous night. The "old tramp" must do as best as she could. What happened was another night of long misery, desperate sickness on an empty stomach—no sounds save the London sounds without, and the groaning and sighing of my tortured friend within, close by in another cell.
Long, long hours; would God it were morning! The cross-bars of the window faintly seen against the sky spoke of the cross that is never absent, of the woes of men and of Him Who is crucified in the least of these, His brethren. When will the long torture of the ages end, and men care for the poor? At last the torment ended—6.30. It was possible to rinse the mouth with water. Oh, what it is to know thirst and sickness combined!
Every limb ached; my poor friend was no better; her knees were too sore to touch. But soon there would be freedom. We ate no food, of course,—but welcome liberty! To me the worst agony was the last half-hour of patient waiting. No words can tell the passionate longing that seized me to breathe free breaths. No such inward struggle may come to those inured to hard conditions. Yet for them, also, the summer life is free, and for freedom they sacrifice much. Who knows how a tramp feels, save God? At last we are free; our money, tea, and sugar are returned. Shelter and friends are near.
But for them? At this hour a procession of women issues from our casual wards—hundreds, perhaps thousands, all over our land. Their faces are set in the grey dawn—whither? Not to the tramp ward again—not at once—it cannot be borne immediately; later it may be again a necessity. Now anything is preferable. Prison? It has lost its terrors—it cannot be harder.[143] It is only an incident in life to "go down." Sin? What's the odds? It may pay for a decent bed and food. The river? That is best of all, if one could manage to face it. Silence, oblivion, and the mercy of the God above Who knows. Yet life is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing to behold the sun. To be a beggar is best—spring stirs already—God opens hearts. Food and shelter may be begged as "charity." It is best to fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of man. The vagrant life is sweetest. This is how tramps are made.[144]
Note.
The severity of the treatment experienced in this tramp ward was such that it brought on hæmorrhage, from which the author had not suffered for years. She was obliged to remain in London ill, and to have medical attendance. Dr. Jane Walker and Mrs. Percy Bunting can vouch for the facts. Her fellow tramp was also ill and did not recover until she had had a complete rest. It was a month before the author regained her strength. If the effects of the treatment were such on those going in with full health and strength (from a life in which food and rest had continued till the last moment) able to return to good food and every comfort, how must the destitute suffer under such treatment? They drift and die, as the awful mortality from common lodging-houses proves.[145]
CHAPTER VIII.
A SYMPOSIUM IN A COMMON LODGING-HOUSE.
I.
My friend and I have the rights of friendship in a lodging-house which we frequently visit. The inmates of lodging-houses are often very dull on Sundays. They cannot walk the streets, full of well-dressed people. No one can have any idea who has not tried, how they welcome a friendly visit, appreciate the gift of some magazines, and how often one or another is in want of food, or even a few pence short of a bed. Few beg on Sunday except from sheer necessity. This particular lodging-house therefore, we tried to visit every Sunday, to sing for or with them, and talk—not preach—to them. It was the "married and single quarters," which consisted of two long low rooms in an old building in very bad repair. I do not know whether it has anything to do with our frequent visits, but the place is a great deal cleaner and tidier than when first we went. It has been painted and whitewashed, and the floor seems to be kept cleaner. But this leaves much to be desired! The women's sitting-room upstairs (which always contains as many men as women) is a room with a coke fire, the fumes from which are often almost overpowering. A bench round the room, and tables covered with metal for protection constitute the only furniture. The claim to be a "sitting-room" consists in the fact that no cooking is done there, but plenty of eating. There is but one gas-jet, and you can hardly see in the farthest corners. A stair out of the room leads upstairs, where, I am assured there are "good clean beds," a room for single women, and cubicles for married folk, who pay 6d., and 1d. for each child who sleeps with them, the unmarried paying 4d.
Poor as it is, this room contains "the aristocracy," for though both rooms appear to be free to all, you find above the regular residents who are residing some time, though some of these even have a preference for the democracy. Yet one can hardly understand why, for the room below must be uncomfortable in the extreme. It is, to begin with, a half cellar room approached by a stair, but leading out into the yard which contains the sanitary arrangements. The roof is in such bad repair that the laths of the ceiling are giving way, and water often drips from an imperfect pipe. The position of the doors ensures a through draught when they are opened, which is constantly happening. A dark entry with no door gives access to a room containing the lavatory accommodation—a set of wash-basins, above each of which is inscribed the motto, "Be just." This room, which is quite open to everyone, is the sole lavatory accommodation for both men and women. In the centre of the room is a huge stove, the heat from which is terrific, and makes this part of the room near the solitary gas-jet almost unbearable. Yet these two rooms accommodate about sixty inmates, and I am assured that the cooking arrangements are so deficient that they cannot get their food except in turns, and dinner is often delayed till very late in the afternoon for this reason. The place is, however, always full, for it is the cheapest place in town, and the beds, I am told, are far better than many others where the sitting room and lavatory accommodation is superior. There are clean sheets once a week! A woman can keep herself respectable, as the deputy and his wife endeavour to exclude prostitutes.
In these rooms are gathered every Sunday a motley assembly of men, women, and usually a few children. The inmates change, but there are always enough of the old to carry on the tradition of friendship, and some few are permanent. There is a living to be had in a lodging-house for a woman who can repair clothes, or earn a little by cleaning the rooms, or do a little washing.
To this lodging-house I took one Sunday night a letter "On Tramps, by a Tramp," which appeared in The Daily News, and reads as follows:—
"Sir,—I am a tramp, a man without a habitat. No outcry uprose in winter while the East End sheltered the tramp. When he trudges west after waste food and a grassy couch, the press rises up in arms. Each one of these 'bundles of rags' on the grass has a history, some an interesting one. I have been despoiled of the fruitage of my labours; have acted the role of errand lad, shop assistant, clerk, traveller, market-man, barber, canvasser, entertainer, mummer, song-writer, and playwright. I have dwelt within workhouse, asylum, and prison-walls; have scrubbed the filthy, tonsured the imbecile, tended the aged, soothed the dying. A pedlar of toys, many a time I have enjoyed a night on a turfy bed, the stars my coverlet, the hedge fruit my morning meal, my bath the shallow stream. Nature suns the nomad as well as the traveller. Derelicts, wastrels, paupers, pests, vagrants, bundles of rags! dub us what men will, we are human. There are tramps and loafing tramps; ill-clad and well-tailored loafers. Make all work, west and east. Loafing is infectious.
"Rowton House.
"O. Quiz."
We visited downstairs first, and, sitting on the table, as the cleanest place, giving a view of the company, I read it in a tone of voice calculated to reach the further corners of the room. It elicited great admiration. "That chap knows what he's writing about"; "He's put it well together." I joined in the praise, and told them I had come to get their opinion on tramp wards. I wanted them to help me for a speech I was going to give on vagrancy, and I had in my mind a good many things to say, and wanted to know if they were all right. One man burst out about detention. He wanted to know what chaps were to do if they were kept in till eleven if they went for a night's shelter. He said a man couldn't get work, and all he could do was to walk ten or fifteen miles to another workhouse, and then he was no better off. I mentioned a neighbouring workhouse where they were detained two nights, and let out at an early hour. But they appeared to dislike two nights' detention upon such poor diet, and said they had "no right" to keep a man more than one night. One said that by favour he had got out at 5.30, and that was much better; it gave a man a chance.
I next proposed discussion on the diet. One and all waxed eloquent on this topic. They declared it was "starvation," bread and water, scalded meal in some workhouses. "It wouldn't hurt them to give us a drink of tea." Most of the gruel went to the pigs and there wasn't bread enough to keep a man from being hungry. Prison fare was better. "What about the tasks set?" I said. "Three sleepers to saw," said one man; "15 cwt. of stone to break," said another. "It isn't good enough." One man reckoned you could earn 3s. 6d. for sawing that amount of wood (two saw together). "How much do you reckon the bed and food is worth?" I said. "Bed!" broke out one, "you gets two blankets and bare boards; sometimes three in a cell. Twopence is all it's worth, and 3d. the food." "Then you think they make something out of you?" "Yes," replied another, "you could get 2s. 6d. in the roads for less stone-breaking. A chap goes in tired and hungry, because he's nowhere to go, and they set him hard work, and he comes out worse." "What about the bath?" "The bath's all right, but they stove your clothes, and they come out all soft and creased." "Then they can tell you've been in the workhouse?" I said. "Yes, or in jail." "And that doesn't help a man to get work." "I should think not!" was the response. One man waxed eloquent with indignation. "I was passing a workhouse when the chaps was coming out," he said. "I hadn't been in myself, but I seed one or two I knew and they had on good clothes the day before, they were all crumpled" (here he took hold of his trouser leg and creased it up), "and burnt in places. One man showed me his shoes; they had even put them in the oven, and the toes was turned up with the heat; he couldn't get them on his feet and had to walk barefoot." There was a chorus of indignation. The verdict was that tramp wards were to be avoided. The open was better, but a "cold shop" any night of the year, but a man could go on his way any time he liked.[146]
I then explained to them the German system of Relief Stations and Workmen's Homes. They were much interested and thought it excellent. They gave appreciative particulars of experiments in this direction in Manchester, and of an "ex-convict" who "knowed what a chap's feelings were," who had during the last winter opened a large room every night and let in as many men as it would hold, and let them stay till morning. I had not heard of this before. They said hundreds were turned away from the Church Army Shelter, where they could chop wood for bed and board.
I then introduced the subject of Colonies to set a man on his feet. Opinion seemed in favour, but not enthusiastic. Thanking them for their frankness, we left them after singing "Abide with me," the tramp's favourite hymn, and went upstairs.
II.
We spent an hour over a lively discussion which would have done credit to any debating society. I read the letter as before, and it was received with admiration. "That chap's a champion writer." They told me about one part of London that was "sleeping-out" quarters; one park went by the significant name of "The Lousy Park." I wondered if its frequenters by day knew this. I asked them why a man preferred to sleep out to going to the tramp ward. A man got up and stood in the middle of the room and waxed indignant. Food and detention, as below, came in for scorn. "The Local Government Board will give you 2s. 6d. for breaking 10 cwt. of stone, and they gives you 15 cwt. and prison if you don't do your task." "A man comes in who has walked fifteen miles, and they give him bare boards to sleep on," broke in another. "How is a fellow to get work when he's let out at eleven, I should like to know; he can only tramp to another workhouse." "There was a councillor once," broke in another, "he met a chap in the road, and he says, 'Young man, change clothes with me. I've got plenty of good clothes at home,' then he changes clothes and goes in the tramp ward; he's quite upset by what he sees, and when he's coming out he says, 'You can have my share, I'm going to have a good breakfast.'" "Yes," said another, "that was Councillor S—— of S——, and he did give it to the guardians." "What about prison fare?" I said. "Prison is better; you get good soup, better food all round."[147] "And what about the work?" I said. "They don't make you work harder than you're able. Hard work may be oakum picking." "The worst of prison is the being kept in," broke in another. "You can do with a week, but a fortnight is too much of it." Then it suddenly seemed to occur to them that they had been "giving themselves away." "We're a nice lot," he said, "prison and workhouse, but I've been in prison more than once; I'm not ashamed to own it." Wishing to "save their face," as the Chinese say, I suggested that it was not hard for a man who was down to get into prison. "That's true for you," he replied. "I got a month once for sleeping out.[148] I was going to N——, where they keep a week at May day" [He is a cripple who gets his living by singing] "and I went the night before. The workhouse was full and the lodging-houses were full, so we had to sleep out. We goes to a heath that was common ground, but there was a bit of private ground near it, and we gets among the bushes. A bobby comes round. 'You might let us stop,' I says; 'we can't get in.' 'Keep where you are and don't let any other police see you,' he says. In about five minutes he comes back; 'Come along of me,' he says, and locks us up. I gets a month for that, 'trespassing and sleeping out.'" I remarked that in court the prisoner's side was often not properly heard. "Yes," he said, waxing indignant. "When they says, 'Any questions to ask the officer?' I says, 'Didn't you tell me to stay where I was and not let the officers see me?' 'No, I did not,' he says. 'Very well,' I said, but I knowed what he had been after—he had been down to the police-station and told on us, and the superintendent had told him to lock us up." We all agreed it was a mean trick. "They'll kiss the book and swear themselves red in the face," said another. "I've seen 'em, they know they're not telling truth, but it's 'We must believe an officer,' and if you say a word it's 'Wow, wow, wow'"—and with a significant gesture he showed how the magistrates put down a man who attempted self-defence, and all the room laughed in sympathy. "Perhaps you've had a drop of drink," he said, "but you're walking steady; an officer puts his hand on your shoulder and gives you a shove, if you say anything he has you, 'Drunk and disorderly!' A magistrate once saw an officer take a man who was quite quiet, and he followed him. The man got let off."
I was able to cap their story by a true incident that had come under my own observation. A quiet little man, devoted to his wife and children, and decidedly henpecked and without vices, was taking a country walk one Sunday and saw a knot of men in a quarry. Interested in their proceedings he got on a hill and watched them. He and they were raided in by the police; they were gambling and he was charged with "aiding and abetting." The police swore he was signalling! As a matter of fact when suddenly arrested he lifted his arms and said, "My God!" This was interpreted as a "warning." It was only through the good character given him by his parson that he got off. The room appreciated the story. "What about relieving officers?" I said, feeling the way was open. A look of unutterable disgust crept into their faces. A woman came forward and began to relate how they treated an old man, but she was not allowed to speak, for everyone had something at the tip of his tongue. "If the public knew their carryings on and how they blackguards you," one summed up, "there'd be a stop put to it, it's shameful." Evidently if a policeman's reputation was bad, that of a poor law officer was worse. "They've no right to do it," was the general verdict. Prison again came in for preference. "You've nothing to do but walk up to an officer and hit him in the ear-hole, and you'll get sent down for free lodgings. Breaking plate-glass windows is the way they do it in London."[149]
I asked some questions about preference with regard to plank, chain, or straw beds to change the subject, but all agreed that "they weren't worth calling beds." "You do get a shelter," said one, raising his hand and arching it to imply there was something over your head, "but beds! You get the floor and two blankets, perhaps three in a cell if they are full.[150] I think they ought to give you that free; it's not worth 2d. The Salvation Army give you what they call a bunk—like a coffin, and oilcloth to put over you—for 2d.! That's charity for you and religion!"
I propounded the German Relief Station system as below. It was received with great attention and warm appreciation. "It would be ever so much better," they all agreed. "The Salvation Army has a metropole at Leeds," one volunteered. Another referred appreciatively to Central Hall, Manchester. "You can go in at 3.0 and work and get out in the morning early." I mentioned earning tickets for food and shelter. "That would do for us men," he said, "but not for women—they'd give anything for drink." A chorus of protest and laughter greeted him. "You're very hard on the ladies," I said. "You're wife won't thank you for a character." "But it's true," he said. It was a warm subject, so I changed it by asking about accommodation for women. I learnt in reply some startling facts. It was stated that in some towns, notably Leeds, women could not get sleeping accommodation. Lodging-houses had been pulled down where women used to be taken, and they actually could not get shelter. "It's harder on them than us; we can protect ourselves, but a woman gets run in." Evidently here is a great social lack. Women's lodging-houses—and what can be more needful for the morals of the community? I asked about accommodation in this town. "They take women everywhere," was the reply. "Not everywhere," said another; "there are not so many that take women as there used to be." All agreed that accommodation was short for women in many towns, and might be for men, but of that they were not sure, only they knew numbers were taken up for sleeping out. "Four men were taken up for sleeping in a hole near a coal-pit the other day," they said. I suggested prices of beds might go up, but this did not seem to have happened. 4d. a bed was the standard, but 6d. for a married couple was not always accepted, and children were charged for. "I have two children in an Industrial Home," said one.
I mentioned the Labour Colony, but though I sang its praises, it did not seem to be very acceptable, though tolerable if a step to better things. Regular tramps known by the name of "hedge sparrows" could always get a living. Either "he" or "she" hawked or "did some'at" and got a living for both. They never went into the workhouse, they "knew better." It was "us poor folks that was hard up had to go in."[151]
"How about the regular workhouse diet," I said. "No one gets fat on it." "See them come out, they can hardly crawl." "The pigs get most of the porridge." "Porridge and skim till we're sick of it." "They're very hard on us young men." "'Marjery Jane'—that's what we calls it—and bread." "Bread and cheese for your Sunday dinner." A chorus of disapprobation! Evidently to be an inmate was not inviting. One told a legendary story of a guardian who stood by when a man complained of his porridge and argued with another guardian who wished to change his food. "What would become of the pigs?" the guardian was reported to have said as a clinching argument! The humane guardian was reported to have gone off the Board in disgust! One woman began to relate that a workhouse existed where they were allowed rations freely and it didn't cost the guardians half so much, but she was promptly put down by two others, a man and a woman. Such a thing was out of the question. He had been in the union she mentioned and it was no such thing. Finally she had to admit she had "heard tell of it" but "had not been in herself." I thanked them for their stories and information. I ventured to inquire into a practice I knew existed in the workhouse of selling food.
"A man will do anything for baccy," said one; "if you've been used to it, and are sitting with a roomful of men all smoking you fair crave for it. I'll tell you what. I went into the workhouse for sickness, and all I had was 3d. I laid it out 1½d. on sugar, 1½d. on tea, and I kept selling a bit. I sold my cheese too, eating the dry bread, and when I came out I had half a sovereign! It was cold and wet the day I was going out, and knowing I had been ill the officer said, 'What are you doing, going out such a day; you haven't got nothing to go with.' 'Look here! I've got that!' says I, and shows him the half-sovereign, but he couldn't take it off me!"
Having myself been offered a halfpenny for a screw of sugar in the Tramp Ward I could believe him. I thanked them again for their information, and told them I should try to make a good use of it, and couldn't "give them away," not knowing any names. We closed our interview by singing "Light in the darkness, sailor," and I spoke a few words about my sincere desire that some change in our country's laws should create a better "life-boat" than the present Tramp Ward.
CHAPTER IX.
VAGRANCY AND THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
If you stand, in the clear fresh dawn of an early summer morning, on a hill-top in the northern country where I live, and look towards the dawn, you see outspread before you a wide stretch of bare green hills, intersected by the dark stone lines of fields. Your eye follows caressingly each dip and fold of the bosom of Mother Earth, beautiful in bareness, the outline clear against the sky. In each nook and hollow lie grey patches, clumps of stone houses, witnesses to human habitation, and blue spires of smoke ascend revealing the hidden lights of homes. From each group arises the tall spire of a mill chimney, not yet belching smoke, and in the valley cluster the giant mills of to-day, each larger than his brother. As the eye takes in each feature, the mind can by a "bird's-eye view" reconstruct history. There far away is the hill top whereon our Celtic forefathers worshipped when all the British were rude dwellers on hills and in dales—Short shrift to the vagrant of another tribe in those days! There, over yonder hill, lies a Roman camp, to which leads an old Roman road, civilisation was imposed on barbarism; now roads intersect the landscape on every side. With communication comes travel, and the vagrant becomes possible. But vagrancy is not a problem of unsettled and warlike times.
On yonder hillsides, if the snow lay thinly on them, you could trace even now by disused furrows the patches of arable land, amid fields for pasture, lying round each little clump of houses, speaking of the day of village communities and communal rights. Between the scattered hamlets lay wide stretches of moor. There would then exist survivals of the past savagery, nomads living a wild life like gipsies; or the marks of the new era, pilgrims bound to shrines making use of the roads, roving soldiers, travelling merchants, here and there a vagrant, made so probably by crime, slipping out of his place in society, but with all the wide stretches of country between villages to choose from if he would. Such a man, an involuntary vagrant, was looked on with suspicion, his hand against every man. Bands might gather and live in the forests, like Robin Hood and his merry men.
But yet again, you may watch in thought the spread of those grey lines which speak of ownership of the soil. The village sucks in the surrounding country, the very moors become enclosed, small space is left for the nomad life.
Watch! The clustering cottages develop into industrial communities, yonder village bears a name borrowed from Holland, and there still stand the loom cottages empty of looms. Now the landscape is crowded with busy hives of industry, town and country go hand in hand, the farmer and the weaver live side by side or combine the two occupations. Agriculture gives place to pasture for sheep, as wool is needed. The displaced husbandman, after a period of restlessness in which the vagrant problem first arose, settles to weaving or kindred industry. None need now wander save by choice, from hereditary nomad taste for liberty, and the bold life of soldier, sailor, or smuggler lies open for such.
But again comes change. The small grey mill rises in the landscape, the clustering village becomes the small town, houses thicken, land grows scarce—what now is to become of the nomad? He must "take to the road" for nowhere else is left him. Society no longer wants him, and barely tolerates him. Hospitality, a virtue of scattered communities, dwindles to—the Tramp Ward!! He must needs, if he would travel, turn to prey on the communities who will not recognise him otherwise. He becomes hawker, tinker, pedlar, beggar and thus in his turn acquires a trade. We might let him survive as an interesting relic of the past, and die a natural death, by the catching and cultivation of his children.
But hark! A sudden noise breaks the stillness of morning. A noise like nothing else on earth, a whistle and a boom combined. It is the "buzzer." The landscape has changed again, and there, the landmark of the Industrial Revolution, stands the giant mill; and now comes a rush of human life, clank, clank, clank, the stream of mill-hands in clattering wooden clogs is hastening to work. It is the daily migration of labour, the tide morning and night ebbs and flows. Yet no two days will the stream be alike. Accident, sickness, misfortune, or fault, will each day leave some units stranded, and others take their place, and if you look you see another feature in the landscape, a long line of railway stretches as a link for swift travel between town and town. Here is something altogether new. These human units, divorced from native communities, cannot be expected to be readily anchored, and accordingly you see around each ancient community and interspersed with it, crowds of workmen's cottages, each a tent rather than a home, taken to-day, and left in a month or two. If you could uncover life and watch it as you do an anthill, you would find that it had attained a new and fresh activity. On every side Humanity is becoming organic. Huge conglomerations which we call cities blacken whole stretches of country, and the feature of the life of most men is daily migration. By train, tram, or road, tides of humanity move to toil; every holiday sees crowds covering green fields in pleasure parties, or transported by train. The whole of life has grown migratory. Is it not evident that we have here not the ancient problem of the Tramp, but the modern problem of the Fluidity of labour! To expect our Tramp Ward—the repressive provision of a stationary society for the sparse survivals of a previous age—to cope with the needs of Migration of Labour is about as reasonable as it would be to expect the ancient windmill to grind corn for our modern population!
Let us examine the new state of things in reference to that citadel of national life—the home. I shall place before you the problem in a startling light, if I ask you whether the present Vagrancy problem is not to a large extent the disintegration of the home; and whether, therefore, we are not face to face with the root problem on which the very existence of our civilisation depends, since by the preservation or extinction of the home a nation stands or falls.
Right down through all the changes but the last, you would have found the population mainly stationary. Even now the existence of local names, so widely spread that you may have fourteen or fifteen families in a small district of the same surname, reveals the remains of the stationary life. But for good or for evil it has gone. Examine any family you like and it will be the exception to find it whole. Individuals are scattered far and wide when up-grown, perhaps in England, perhaps over the world. Only the stagnating slum population is stationary. And this is not their virtue. If they had a little more initiative they would not stagnate; they form a pool of underfed and ill-paid labour, and constitute by far the largest part of the modern problem of the unemployed. The alert and well-trained workman is migratory—at the news of a "better shop" he will be off to another town, with or without wife and family. The young man will desert the country side to try his luck in some great centre—the girl may go to service. We no longer expect families to stay whole. Greater freedom has brought greater travel, and a relaxing of the bonds of parental discipline. Our streets are crowded nightly by the young, on whom the restless activity of our age has taken such effect that they cannot and will not seek sleep till evening is far advanced. The very "day of rest" is a day of travel.
What is the result of all this increase of migration? The old inn has become the modern hotel, the occasional "apartment to let" has multiplied a thousand-fold, the seaside resort has sprung up with apparatus of pier and promenade, since we must move about even on a holiday. The whole world is on wheels or on a walking tour. But what about the destitute pedestrian? Is it fair to dub him a tramp? Travel he must if he is to live, but truly he is between Scylla and Charybdis. For, unmoored from home and friends, he has on the one side the tender mercies of the Tramp Ward, which are often cruel, and on the other the horrors of the common lodging-house. Society hustles him hither and thither, throwing him a dole; or offering him a prison, if he ventures to sleep out. He can hardly exist at all, unless he is clever enough to prey on the community; he becomes a bundle of rags, fain to lie all night in a London park, or sleep near a brick-kiln. It is "hard lines." If he would die out quietly it would be all right for Society; he would not be missed, no one wants him, and this he feels bitterly. But, unfortunately, his class, in the absence of any provision of Society for his needs, is constantly being recruited. It is no longer a question of the suppression of hereditary vagrancy. The vagrant class is microscopic by the side of the stranded inefficient labourer, who recruits the necessarily migratory class of the "unemployed." Unless Society will take into account this new factor, it will be the worse for Society. For every member of a community who is not living a wholesome life is a danger to it, and the increase and propagation of an underfed, ill-bred, uneducated offspring is the menace of civilisation.
Let me sound the alarm note as loud as I can, for already evil has gone far. While we have been elaborating costly tramp wards, erecting baths and stoving apparatus, and frightening the genuine tramp away, common lodging-houses have been increasing on every side. The following is the testimony of the Rev. Arthur Dale, of Manchester, and it is not one whit exaggerated:—"The men who habitually live there are almost universally morally bad. Many are married, but have left their wives and families; nearly all are the victims of drink. A few, but very few, are honest. Some are idle, and profess their inability to get up early enough to go to work. Some will work for a day or two and then 'slack.' There are large numbers out of work simply for this cause. Fornication and gambling are both practised largely."[152] Yet in every large town these men are now counted by hundreds, sometimes by thousands, every night. Has not the disintegration of the home proceeded very far? For, by common experience, prosecutions for child maintenance and separation orders as between husband and wife are granted daily, and with terrible facility the marriage bond is practically annulled, and yet the individual is not freed. What is the consequence? The man removes to another town and lives in nominal celibacy. Vice and idleness may make him a tramp. He can no longer have a home; for if he takes a partner and rears children they have all the fatal taint of illegitimacy, they will not respect or obey him. The whole of our lower working class is thus becoming leavened with immorality. And what about the woman? The life and death of our nation depends on an awakening to the gravity of the menace that threatens the true home on every side. An unstable society has brought about fear. People fear to fall out of employment and be thrust down into the abyss, and hence the custom of limitation of family, with all its consequences, is spreading to the upper stratum of the working classes. I cannot recall any one of the many respectable young couples I have known married during the last sixteen years with a large family of living children. Fear has also postponed marriage, except in the improvident. Many spend the flower of their youth in gathering for a home. The improvident alone rush to marriage as boys and girls, and rear an unhealthy offspring, to whom they can never teach self-control.
Hence to the male vagrant problem is added the corresponding half, the female. Since the balance of the sexes is in England already against women, what becomes of those who in our large towns correspond to the hundreds or thousands of men who live in lodging-houses or lodgings, homeless? The answer has been becoming ever more plain to me, but it has only been demonstrated by personal suffering. I could not have believed had I not seen. Our streets contain an army of prostitutes, and there has arisen over against the male problem a vast female problem with which our increasing Homes and Refuges and Shelters are unable to cope. The correlative of the male wanderer is the female prostitute. A woman must "get her living," and she does it "on the streets." The man who should support her honourably as a wife is himself a wanderer, afraid to incur family ties, but bound by no wholesome home influence to self-restraint. In 1904 I spent three nights in so-called respectable female lodging-houses.[153] They contained between them close on a hundred women, and, with few exceptions, they were all living by prostitution. The hour when a decent woman retires found almost all perambulating the streets. No rest was possible till the early morning, as at all hours they were admitted, many of them drunk. Those not admitted spent the night in hotels, or in some of those "furnished rooms for married couples," which are multiplying in districts near common lodging-houses with fatal rapidity.
Men and women are making fortunes out of this state of things. To my knowledge, a man who was a barman is said now to own sixteen lodging-houses, and a cobbler has risen to be proprietor of lodgings for 600 and two public-houses. A man can rent a house at 4s., and get a little furniture in, and can then let each room for more than the house-rent per week. To places like this drift many young men or women who are stranded far away from home. A girl gets out of a situation; she seeks a women's lodging-house, and if she enters one where the management connives or winks at vice, in three weeks, or less, she may be manufactured into a full-blown prostitute. This state of things is such as should shock every right-thinking English man and woman. In one street in a northern town a young man of eighteen, fresh from home, who was with a companion who unfortunately "knew too much," passed in a short walk seventy-five prostitutes. With these problems on our hands in such magnitude, can we stop to tinker at our Tramp Ward and ask if we are to amend it by giving coffee instead of gruel? The wonder is that any one seeks it; that it is used at all shows the stern pressure of destitution more than anything else. For, as I have stated, and must state repeatedly, the Tramp Ward is itself a factor in national degradation, the mockery of a provision for need; meaning often semi-starvation, weary toil and unrest. A man or woman must emerge from it more unfit for toil, and learn to avoid such a place if possible in future. The tramp uses it as an occasional disinfectant; the genuine working man or woman who is stranded may be forced into it temporarily and learn to be a tramp. Mr. Long recently stated that not more than 25 per cent. of the vagrants of the country were in any way within reach of the Local Government Board. The remainder were not paupers, for somehow or other they got a living for themselves. I believe his percentage is too high, owing to the number who simply sample a Tramp Ward and never again enter it. A recent census in Lancashire revealed that out of 936 persons reported only thirty-three were habitual vagrants.[154] Why should they go there? A man who "keeps" (?) a woman can live in idleness on the produce of her industry or sin; a woman can live "on the streets." This has a great deal to do with two features of present-day life—the number of incorrigibly idle, worthless men, who apparently can exist to loaf and drink, side by side with the deplorable increase of drunkenness among women.
I am convinced that many of the lower public-houses simply play into the hands of the harlot, and that the marked development of the public-house is due to the homelessness of our people. Alderman Thompson has pointed out in "The Housing Handbook" the existence of a universal house famine. He says: "Putting the case in its simplest form, we find, in the first place, that if every room, good and bad, occupied or unoccupied, in all the workmen's dwellings in the country be reckoned as existing accommodation, there are not enough of any sort to house the working population without unhealthy overcrowding.... In the second place, we find that, so far from new rooms being built in sufficient quantities to make up the deficiency, there is a distinct lessening in the rate of increase" ("Housing Handbook," W. Thompson, pp. 1-2). This total overcrowding accounts for the pressure on Shelters and common lodging-houses and tramp wards. Numbers in London are refused admission to tramp wards; numbers sleep out.[155] Inevitably the class that can pay least, or cannot pay at all, will be crowded out, if house accommodation is scanty, and this will especially be the case with the migrating "out-of-work" who has no particular claim on any one. Even if he has money in his pocket, it is difficult to say whether he is not in as grave danger, moral and sanitary, if forced to be a lodger in some already overcrowded home, as if forced into the common lodging-house. Like a sponge, a slum neighbourhood sucks up by overcrowding in winter those who in summer obtain varied occupation far and wide. Is it any wonder that the children of such overcrowded homes, deprived of the joys of nature, succumb to the attractions of the brilliantly lighted street? If the predatory female nightly angles there, in all the attraction of her tawdry finery; if large numbers of men, divorced from home ties, are there to be angled for, and money can freely be obtained, the customary "drink" being proffered; what wonder if the home itself becomes insipid, if the husband seeks the flaring and enticing public-house or not less fatal club, and the wife seeks him—or some other man—in the same places, while the children, never at home if they can help it (for home means unpleasantness, or inconvenient toil), walk out with one another in the dangerous thoroughfare, and learn in mere boyhood and girlhood the fascination of passion without responsibility?
How must we face such grave national issues? The home must be made the centre of all our thought, the focus of national consciousness. We must educate each boy and girl to be primarily father and mother; we must worship at the cradle of the child. The community must assume fatherhood and motherhood, and enforce a right conception of their duties on its subsidiary units. To counteract the restlessness of modern life we must make of our Fatherland a Home, where every man, woman and child will be rightly cared for, disciplined if need be, but embraced in the wide brotherhood of Humanity.
We cannot turn back the hour-glass of time and stay the new-born activity, but we can utilise the new energy of Humanity as we have learned to utilise steam and electricity. The units divorced from true use in our social system may, nay must, become a desolating flood, unless we dig channels and build reservoirs, and so direct the living stream back to the formation of true homes, utilising the resources of the smiling acres of our native land, spreading out our cities, and afforesting our barren moors.
The Fluidity of Labour is a fact that has come to stay. Modern subdivided employment depends on the ready supply at particular places of necessary workmen. If a man is destitute through remaining too long where work is not to be had, he must travel, and we need to facilitate, not to hinder, his rapid transit to the right place, and to furnish him with all information as to whither he should go. We need to provide him, in fair return for a moderate task of work, with bed and board on the journey. Except in exchange for work we should give neither State aid nor charity to the traveller, since, if he cannot work enough to find bed and board, he belongs to the incapable, for whom a special provision is required, or the "won't work" for whom compulsion is best. The universal provision of a proper remedy for migrating destitution would soon avail to sort men into the three classes of refractory, incapable, or simply "unemployed." The Relief station method of Germany is the key to the situation.
But the Relief station alone will not cope with the evil unless the common lodging-house is reformed from top to bottom. It is necessary to recognise the existence not only of destitute homelessness, but of migratory homelessness. It is necessary to get into safe and sanitary surroundings the whole of the outcasts who sleep out, and to purify our parks and streets. One thousand four hundred and sixty-three men walking London streets in one night constitute a social danger. In addition to this we have on the same night 21,058 single men under the undesirable conditions of the common lodging-house. London common lodging-houses are only required to find 240 cubic feet of air for each lodger, as against 300 cubic feet in the provinces, and 350 cubic feet in an ordinary dwelling house. Alderman Thompson says (p. 22): "Anything less than 350 cubic feet per head ought to result in a conviction before the most reactionary justices." Add the number crowded into London slums, what an army of homelessness!
The one thing in the finding of the Vagrancy Committee with which the author does not agree is the stricture on Shelters. The Shelter reveals the magnitude of the problem that is upon us. It is the provision that has arisen over against this grave national danger. It is insufficient, it is not always well managed. But it is seldom less sanitary and well managed than the common lodging-house. The dangers it replaces are largely out of sight, but they are none the less real. It is true that the lowest class gravitate to the Shelter. Let us be thankful that it is so. "Out of sight is out of mind," but not out of existence. How real and keen the competition for bed and board is, is demonstrated by the pressure on prisons. It has come to something serious in our national history when the last social deterrent to crime has been removed and men seek prison as their only home. Even girls "do not mind being pinched," it "gives them a rest."[156]
It is absolutely necessary that good and sufficient Workmen's Homes, municipal or State, should supersede the common lodging-house. Glasgow has been able to make its seven lodging-houses, accommodating 2,166 men and 248 women, pay a reasonable interest on capital. London has only one, and accommodates but 324.[157] The cost per head of 68l. per bed, as against 39l. per bed in Glasgow, militates against financial success, though the charge is 6d. per night as against 3½d. and 4½d. Nevertheless receipts appear to more than cover expenditure (2,942l. against 2,844l.), and the benefit to the community must be reckoned an asset. London has 611 common lodging-houses, Manchester 268. In Glasgow the provision of municipal lodging-houses has reduced the total to 81; most of the old insanitary ones have disappeared, and those newly built are superior even to the municipal ones. Thus Glasgow has demonstrated the way out. The Glasgow Women's Lodging-house pays 5 per cent., is orderly, closes at a decent hour, and is well managed and sanitary. The pressure on its accommodation shows that another is required, as women are turned away for want of room. Where do they sleep?