From Workhouse to Westminster Part 17

"What did you steal?"

"Some stockings outside a shop."

"Why?"

"To get money for sweets."

"Where did you sell the stockings?"

"In a pub."

"Have you ever stolen before?"

"Yes."

"How often?"

"A good many times, but never been caught before."

Two of the oldest lads approached, and we questioned them.

"I was took up for begging," said No. 1. "But I weren't begging--on'y looking for work."

"Where?"

"At King's Cross--me and him," pointing to his neighbour. "We was offering to carry people's bags when the copper come and took us up."

The teacher explained that boys soliciting pa.s.sengers around the big railway stations were becoming such a nuisance that the police sometimes had to take them into custody.

"We didn't get hold of a man's arm and say, 'Give us threepence,' as the copper said," the youthful informant went on. "We was on'y looking for work."

"How long have you been looking for this kind of work?"

"We goes an' looks for it every day," said No. 2 (in s.h.i.+rt sleeves, like his pal). "And sometimes we makes half a crown, and sometimes three s.h.i.+llings a day, carrying gentlemen's bags. I've been a-doing of it five months. It pays better than reg'lar work, where I used to make ten s.h.i.+llings a week."

No. 1 could not forget his grievance against the police.

"Puts us in the cell all night," he interposed, "and gives us coffee and two thick slices of bread for supper. And takes us in a b.u.mpy ole van to the police court in the morning along of a lot of others. Then we was sent here, where we has to write and read--just like going back to school again."

Another lad was there for "stopping out all night," according to his own rendering. When we asked "Why?" the answer came prompt enough, "'Cos I likes it."

"How many nights did you stay out?"

"Me and them," indicating others higher up the room, "we slept behind the fire station four nights and then went home."

"What happened then?"

"Mother said nofink, but she got a stick----"

He paused sufficiently long for us to take the sequel for granted, then added quietly:--

"So I stopped out the next night."

"And then?"

"Then the copper came."

Yes, they need "homes," indeed, these wayward youngsters, ensnared by the temptations of London's streets. Some are here for gambling in the gutter, many for playing truant, some for sleeping out, and others for felony. Generally they are sent home if it be a first offence, or to a reformatory if the case be a bad one.

There are girls here, too. What of them?

"Me and my sister was taken up by the police for sleeping on a doorstep," said one sad-eyed little maid in a blue frock.

"Why on a doorstep?"

"Father left us, and when mother died the landlord turned us out."

True enough, and the sisters will be sent to a girls' home shortly.

That is the best that can be done for the girls, especially the large number that are brought away from houses of ill-repute.

The boys who get committed to reformatories still find themselves under Crooks's eye. While the Asylums Board looks after them when under remand, the London County Council becomes responsible once the lads are committed. This dual control Crooks is trying to get rid of, in the hope that the duty will be given wholly into the hands of one authority.

For several years he was a member and at one time Chairman of the L.C.C.

Committee that looks after the industrial and reformatory schools. The committee meets at Feltham, where is the largest of the inst.i.tutions under its charge. It was rare for Crooks to be absent during his members.h.i.+p of the committee.

He and Colonel Rotton, who was also Chairman for a period, could generally make the lads on arrival understand them without much parleying. Every lad, on being committed to the school by a magistrate, had to appear before the committee. Here are some characteristic dialogues:--

"Well, my boy, what are you here for?"

"Burglary." The burglar was nine years of age.

"Well, you can't be a burglar here, but you can be a good lad. Everyone can be a good lad here if he likes. If he doesn't like we make him. What will you do?"

"I fink I'll like, sir."

Generally the lads do not admit their offence so readily. They are not always so frank as you find them in the Remand Homes. Most of them, when before the Committee, find excuses, like the boy who was caught with others stealing in a railway goods yard.

"Please, sir, it weren't me at all."

"We always get the wrong boy. What are you supposed to be here for?"

"Fieving, sir. But I didn't do it. I were on'y sitting on the fence."

"Then let this be a lesson to you. Never sit on the fence. Do you know the Ten Commandments?"

"No, sir."