Glimpses into the Abyss Part 12

At last it was bed time once more, we were "officered" to our uneasy couches. We were allowed to remove our shawls to the room where we slept--a great boon, as I smuggled mine into bed, covering my bare arms, and securing a little more comfort. But I was sore from the night before, and no position gave ease. Being near the week-end few came in, as it meant an extra day's detention, but the same ordering and b.u.mping went on. I shall never forget my next door neighbour who came in rather late and was near enough to touch. She was a respectable woman of the barmaid cla.s.s, slightly grey, and therefore rather old for employment.

She was well dressed. She was out of a place, and had applied at a Shelter too late to be admitted, and was sent here. She had never been in such a place before, and her astonishment at the conditions amounted almost to horror. We told her how to make the most of her bed--none of us near her were asleep. She twisted and turned her wet, grey head on the hard pillow, sneezing with a commencing cold. She sat up and lay down. "My G.o.d!" I heard her say, "one can't sleep in this place." And with reason, for though the interruptions were not so numerous, they were sufficient to effectually break sleep. Grannie did not groan so much, but she got out of bed, was scolded, and had to be helped in.

"Don't be so soft," I heard the hard official say, as she gave an involuntary small scream when one of her aching limbs was touched. It was true she had given trouble, but she was old, feeble, and ailing. It would not have been hard to be kind. I was myself by this time ill. The last meal of gruel coming as a distasteful meal on a tired body had not been digested. Sickness came upon me, and I had to be a disturber of the peace by three times getting up, and parting with my hardly-earned supper. Each time, paddling over great bare s.p.a.ces in scanty attire, I grew colder, but I was in terror of attracting the attention of the officer, being considered ill and detained. Anything rather than another day in such a place of torture. As on the night before, some slept the sleep of utter weariness, most groaned and twisted, some lay awake. I never understood so well the joy of the first dim daylight, the longing of those who "wait for the morning." A woman sat up. "I'm dying of hunger," she said. It was the poor woman condemned to stay five days.

What would she be at the end? I felt a mere wreck. Only two days ago I was in full health and vigour. It was no absolute cruelty, only the cruel system, the meagre and uneatable diet, the lack of sufficient moisture to make up for loss by perspiration, two almost sleepless nights, "hard labour" under the circ.u.mstances. Before me lay home and friends, a loving welcome, good food, sympathy, and rest. What about my poor sisters? "I have n.o.body, n.o.body in the wide world; I wish I had,"

said the poor soul next me, new to such treatment. A good-looking woman beyond had never been in before. I shuddered for those I should leave behind, new to such conditions.

Is this the treatment England gives in Christ's name to His dest.i.tute poor? What if some are "sinners." He chose such, and "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these my brethren, yet did it not to me."

My heart burned within me. Thank G.o.d for every bit of suffering that I may bring home the truth. A public newspaper states, "The guardians only hear _ex-parte_ statements, those of the men themselves." Supposing they speak _true_!

During the afternoon one poor woman had said, "If only the rich guardians, and the heavy ratepayers, knew how their money was spent, and how us poor things had to live, they wouldn't allow it." They felt bitterly the irony of so many officials being paid to order them about, and get the maximum of work out of them while they were practically starved. The conclusion of the whole matter is, the more rigidly the system is enforced in its entirety, the more hardly it presses on the dest.i.tute poor, while it makes no provision for their need. It is not even preventive, and it is costly.[91] Morning dawned slowly as I pondered, and the welcome call came. My neighbour slept, her face drawn in sleep as if with suffering, her profile and grey, tossed hair as she lay on her back, as the easiest position, an appeal of sorrow to the eye of the Watcher of men. She woke with a start and moan.

No help for it. "You women all get up, be quick now; be quick and hurry up, Grannie." Short, sharp, decisive marching orders. Sick and s.h.i.+vering, with aching head and body sore from head to foot, I did my best to hide any sign of illness that might come between me and liberty.

My companion suffered also from violent headache, neuralgic pains, and an aggravated cold.[92] Pollie's face was drawn and tired. No one complained much. I heard only one grumble at having to wash an already smarting face with soft soap. One produced a precious bit of white soap and lent it--a kindly deed. Grannie got under weigh with many a groan, very slowly. "Hurry up, women; three of you have not put your boards up.

Now then, Granny, don't be all day." We will pardon her, for she has been on duty all night, and is also tired; but surely the woman who said, "Come, now, you needn't be so knotty with us," spoke true. We had little chance or time to speak much. It was only the early cold grey dawn of a winter morning, but already the message had come up that husbands were waiting. Gruel and bread for the fourth time. No one going out did more than pretend to eat it, some pocketed the bread. Neither my friend nor I could have touched it if you had offered us a sovereign--my soul loathed it so I could hardly bear to look at it.

The poor woman condemned vainly hoped for release; she wept, but this only hardened the officer. She was not to be "come over" this way.

"Don't you believe her." Grannie must swathe her poor old legs and go; she had better get into the workhouse. We had to leave them to their fate. I shall never forget the last few moments of waiting. A raging pa.s.sion for freedom took possession of me. I dare not ask to go a moment before I was ordered to for fear lest it should be construed as "impudence." May be I wrong the officer, but she interpreted so easily any appeal as interference. Oh, to be free! Oh, to lie down anywhere under G.o.d's free sky, to suffer cold and hunger at His hand. "It is better to fall into the hand of G.o.d than the hand of man." We both agreed we would face a common lodging-house and its pests, or even the danger of prison for "sleeping out," rather than pa.s.s again through such an experience.[93]

Do I exaggerate? It must be _felt_ to be realised.

At length we escaped with "Pollie," leaving Grannie and the victim with the newcomers. It was very early, and about two hours lay between us and succour; my friend was almost too tired to walk. But G.o.d's free air was round us. Thank G.o.d for a fine morning! We are "on the road," and nothing in front can be so bad as what lies behind. We are tramps and "mouchers"; we can beg, for we need pity; sing for our living, sell bootlaces, and turn over the money; even if we steal, prison only waits us, and it cannot be worse--our companions, who have tried it, prefer it.[94] One thing we could not do--we could not at this moment work for an honest living. It is physically impossible. By hook or by crook one or two restful nights must be put between us and the past. Strength to work has gone. One might perhaps tramp, for the air is reviving, and people are kind to a wayfarer. Do you wonder at our _national tramp manufactories_?

For this is what it amounts to. An obsolete system adapted to the times when population was stationary, is supposed to meet the needs of a population necessarily increasingly fluid.

Labour s.h.i.+fts from place to place where it is needed. Individuals drop out or are thrust out. There is never, on any one night, in our great centres of population, sufficient provision for this ebb and flow. The houseless and the homeless are a great mult.i.tude, as sheep without a shepherd. Day by day they make a moving procession.[95] The decent man or woman who is stranded joins them, at first with the honest intention of gaining a livelihood. If it cannot be obtained, what is he to do?

The common lodging-house can never be a sufficient provision for this need. It would never pay the private owner to provide the maximum number of beds required.[96] Our friend "Pollie" grumbled that in many lodging-houses the price of a decent bed was 6_d_., and "then you could not be sure it was clean."

What is needed may take away the breath of a conservative public. It is nothing less than the entire sweeping away of the tramp ward, and the subst.i.tution of munic.i.p.al lodging-houses, coupled with strict supervision of all private ones. The maximum need with regard to sleeping accommodation on any one night in a great city must be met.

Shelters, sanitary and humane, not charitable inst.i.tutions, but simply well-managed "working people's hotels," must be run privately and supplemented publicly, providing accommodation for everyone.[97] To meet dest.i.tution, these should be supplemented by "relief stations" on the German plan, where supper, bed, and breakfast can be earned. Freedom need not be interfered with beyond demanding work sufficient to pay.[98]

Payment should be on the graduated ticket system. The tramp proper hates work. If once a national system sufficient for dest.i.tution was inaugurated, the man who will not work could be penalised. A labour colony is his natural destination. The cla.s.sification of workhouses and their adaptation to various necessarily dest.i.tute cla.s.ses, such as epileptics, feeble minded and aged, might remove much dest.i.tution, placing it under humane conditions. But the immediate and crying need is for the abolition of an old, inhumane and insufficient provision for suppression of vagrancy, in favour of adequate provision for the modern fluidity of labour, coupled with honourable relief of dest.i.tution, neither degrading nor charitable.[99]

FOOTNOTES:

[85] First published in _The Contemporary Review_ May, 1904, under t.i.tle "The Tramp Ward."

[86] See previous chapter.

[87] Probably it was not known. News filters from one to another slowly.

Besides, a man may not return to the tramp ward, after seeking work, for another night.

[88] Official regulations say the bath should come first, "as soon as possible after admission." This means giving food in bed, and is, no doubt, often evaded.

[89] See p. 26.

[90] See p. 137.

[91] See p. 78.

[92] My companion was a "working woman," used to a hard day's work.

[93] See p. 51.

[94] See p. 28.

[95] See p. 30.

[96] See p. 49.

[97] See p. 50.

[98] See p. 75.

[99] See p. 64.

CHAPTER IV.

A NIGHT IN A SALVATION ARMY SHELTER.

Having occasion to spend a week in a southern city, I determined to do what I could to ascertain the condition of its common lodging-houses, in order to find out whether the same problems existed as in the northern towns.

I was willing to go into a women's lodging-house, but, not having my fellow tramp, it was desirable to make enquiries. These enquiries revealed a state of things so bad that I did not feel it was safe to sample any of the common lodging-houses alone. Briefly, what had happened in this old town was this: A certain quarter possessed houses, which, having once been occupied by the better cla.s.ses, would be fairly roomy, but would, of course, only have the sanitary arrangements intended for one family. These houses had courts at the back, which perhaps had been long ago gardens, but were now built over, access being through the house. A number of these houses had gradually become common lodging-houses. So profitable is this trade, that the successful owner of one, even if only of the same low cla.s.s as frequent the houses, could go on annexing others, till, as I was told, a whole street had fallen into the possession of one person, who was quite unconcerned about anything but private gain. The most speedy way of gaining wealth was to let rooms, in connection with the lodging-house, "for married couples."

The buildings in the back courts could easily be so let, and the police had no access. Therefore the whole of this district was honeycombed with immorality, while even in the more respectable houses the conditions must be filthy and insanitary.

But my surprise was greatest at finding that in H---- _there did not exist a lodging-house for women only_ apart from the charitable inst.i.tutions. The only refuge for a dest.i.tute woman, therefore, was the common lodging-house with men and women (ostensibly married). I felt that to go alone into one of these would be like putting my head into a lion's den, for I was told that one of the men had put his arm round the waist of a lady visitor with the easy freedom born of s.e.x relations there prevailing. What must have been the conditions for women in a town of this size before the erection of the Army Shelter some four years ago? The common lodging-houses, poor as they were, afforded shelter, I was a.s.sured, only for about seventy women, including those really married. But _between_ service, or respectable occupation of any kind, and the common lodging-house, existed in all its ramifications, like a spider's web, "the life," as a way out of dest.i.tution. Only those who fell out of this life through illness or from other causes, as a rule descended to the "lowest depths," the common lodging-houses, which therefore contained only the most abandoned women. Some efforts to reach these were being made, but the helpers despaired of really raising them, and with good cause. It is evident that though hope must not be abandoned for anyone, a woman who has sunk into poverty even out of a life of vice, and who still retains all her desire for it (which she indulges in if it is obtainable) must be a woman out of whom womanhood is peris.h.i.+ng, love of drink taking hold in most instances. Yet G.o.d forbid that we should judge these poor creatures, often capable of love to one another, and of kindnesses which might make us blush. We do not know what circ.u.mstances, for which we may be responsible in G.o.d's sight, gave them the push downward.[100]

But, evidently, unless in this town there were charitable inst.i.tutions dealing with the problem of dest.i.tution among women, a life of vice would be their only alternative, simply from the fact that a certain degree of poverty would force them to lodge with those to whom it was familiar, and they would naturally succ.u.mb.[101]

I had no means of ascertaining what other homes or remedial agencies existed, except that I was told there did exist one other semi-charitable refuge to which the police took girls found on the streets. I gathered, however, that this was more of the nature of a home than of a lodging-house. The munic.i.p.ality was building a large men's lodging-house, but not one for women.

It appeared, therefore, that the only real attempt to tackle the problem was that of the Salvation Army, and, thinking that I should probably hear something from the women themselves about the lodging-houses, I resolved to "try the Army," as so many poor dest.i.tute women have done--not in vain.

I obtained the requisite clothing to be one of the poor, and set out, about nine o'clock, to find the street where the Army Shelter was. One thing was agitating my mind, which doubtless, though for a different reason, weighs in the mind of many poor women against entering any kind of charitable Shelter. What questions would they ask? I had determined, if absolutely necessary, to reveal my real ident.i.ty. But how much should I be forced to tell? Would it be possible to escape personal interrogation? The "bullying" in the Workhouse was fresh in my mind, and in contrast with this the perfect freedom of the common lodging-house has its attractions. You may come and go, and "mind your own business."

No one has any right to interfere with you as long as you "pay your way." I did not, of course, expect anything but kindness, but I thought I might be interrogated "personally," questioned as to my antecedents, and possibly about my soul. It would then, of course, be impossible for me to preserve my "incognito."

In thus thinking I was probably sharing the feelings of my poor sisters (your feelings undergo a curious a.s.similation to those of the cla.s.s you represent). Many a woman may be deterred from entering a suitable Home by fear of cross-questioning. Poor thing! The only thing that belongs to her is her past.

However, my fears were needless. I only relate them to ill.u.s.trate the reasons why a woman may hold back from places where she might find friends.

I asked several women the way to the Shelter, whom I met in the street.

One said it was "right enough," another said, "I should think it was better than going into the common lodging-house among a lot of 'riff-raff;' you can put up with it for a night anyhow." A third, with a child in her arms, said she had lived there some time, and "was very comfortable." So encouraged, I found the place. It was a large, clean-looking building, fronting the street, with apparently two doors.

While I was hesitating as to which was the right one, and as to whether I must ring or enter, a man on the other side of the street came and offered me a drink. I, of course, refused. But at the very door of salvation a poor tempted woman might be lost.

There was a large notice, "Clean, comfortable beds," but not an open door as in most common lodging-houses. I feel diffident in recommending anything to the Army, their methods are so tried and proved, even to minute particulars, but it struck me that it would be well to have an inside and an outer door--the latter standing open, as a clear indication of the place of entry. You can walk into a common lodging-house as far as the deputy's room or office without ringing. It is a small matter, but a timid woman might not have the courage to knock or ring.

The door was opened by a pleasant-faced young woman in uniform, who asked me in. One word went to my heart. She called me "my dear!" She said in reply to my request for a bed, "Yes, my dear, we have twopenny bunks, but I should recommend you to try the fourpenny beds with nice, clean sheets."