properly under the fine exclusive label of War Work; but these are the
neurotics whose only idea of doing their bit is that of twisting their
soiling fingers about anything that carries a message of grace; who fume
at a young man because he isn't in khaki, and, when he is in uniform,
kill him with a look because he isn't in hospital blue, and, when he is
in hospital, regard him askance because he isn't eager to go back.
"Flowers!" they snort or wheeze. "Fiddling with flowers in war-time! It
ought to be stopped. Look at the waste of labour. Look at the press on
transport. Will the people never realize," etc.
Yet, good troglodytes, because the world is at war, shall we then wipe
from the earth everything that links us, however lightly, to God--and
save Germany the trouble? Must everything be lead and steel? Old
Man--dost thou think, because thou art old, that glory and loveliness
have passed away with the corroding of thy bones? Nay, youth shall
still take or make its pleasure; fair girls shall still adorn their
limbs with silks, and flowers shall still be sweet to the nose.
Old Man--on many occasions when I could get no food--not even
war-bread--the sight and smell of bunches of violets have furnished
sustenance for mind and body. So fill thy belly, if thou wilt, with the
waxy potato; put the Army cheese where the soldier puts the pudding;
shovel into thy mouth the frozen beef and offal that may renew thy
energies for further war-work; but, if there be any grace of God still
left in thee, if there be any virtue, any charity--leave, for those who
are shielding thy senescent body, the flower-girls about Piccadilly
Circus on a May morning.
"Vi'lerts! Swee' Vi'lerts! Pennyer bunch!"
Good morning, Jane! How sweet you and your violets look in the tangle of
traffic that laces and interlaces itself about Alfred Gilbert's Mercury.
Morning by morning, fair or foggy, she stands by the fountain; and if
you give her more than a passing glance you will note that her tumbled
hair is of just the right shade of red, and in her eyes are the very
violets that she holds to your indifferent nose, and under her lucent
skin beat the imperious pulses of youth.
Jane is fourteen, and Jane is always smiling; not because she is
fourteen, but because it's such fun to be alive and to be selling
flowers. Indeed, she looks herself like a little posy, sweet and demure.
Times may be bad, but they are not reflected in Jane's appearance.
Of education she has only what the Council School gave her in the odd
hours when she choose to attend; of religion she has none, but she has a
philosophy of her own, which, in a sentence, is To Get All The Fun You
Can Out of Things.
That's why Jane's smile is a smile that certain people look for every
morning as they alight from their bus in the Circus. But you must not
imagine that Jane is good in the respectable sense of the word. Let
anyone annoy her, or try to "dish" her of one of her customers. Then,
when it comes to back-chat, Jane can more than hold her own in the
matter of language; and once I saw an artillery officer's face turn
livid during a discussion between her and a rival flower-girl.
The war has hit Jane very badly. The young bloods who frequented her
stall in the old days, and bought the most expensive buttonholes every
morning, are now in khaki, and a thoughtless Army Order forbids an
officer to decorate his tunic with a spray of carnations or a moss-rose.
There are only the old bounders remaining, and their custom depends so
much on such a number of things--the morning's news, the fact that they
are not ten years younger, the weather, and the state of their
digestions.
Jane always reads the paper before she starts work, because, as she
says, then you know what to expect. She doesn't believe in meeting
trouble halfway, but she believes in being prepared for it. When there's
good news, stout old gentlemen will buy a bunch of violets for
themselves, and perhaps a cluster of blossoms for the typist. But when
the news is bad, nobody is in the mood for flowers. They want to band
themselves together and tell one another how awful it is; which, as Jane
says, is all wrong.
"If they'd only buy a bunch of violets and stick it in their coats,
other people would feel better by looking at them, and they'd forget the
bad news in the jolly old smell in their buttonhole."
Yes, Jane's fourteen years have given her much wisdom, and she is doing
as fine war-work as any admiral or field-marshal.
While in Stepney we mustn't forget good Mrs. Joplin. Mrs. Joplin lives
up a narrow court of menacing aspect, and in her window is a printed
card, bearing the cryptic legend--"Mangling Done Here"--which, to an
American friend of mine, suggested that atrocities of a German kind were
going on downstairs. But I calmed his fears by assuring him that Mrs.
Joplin's business card was a simple indication of her willingness to
receive from her neighbours bundles of newly-washed clothes, and put
them through a machine called a mangle, from which they were discharged
neatly pressed and folded. The remuneration for this service is usually
but a few coppers--beer-money, nothing more; so to procure the decencies
of existence Mrs. Joplin lets her basement rooms for--What's that? Yes,
I daresay you've had a few pewter half-crowns and florins passed on you
lately, but what's that to do with me--or Mrs. Joplin? Do you want me to
suggest that good Mrs. Joplin is a twister; a snide-merchant? Never let
it be said. Good Mrs. Joplin, unlike so many of her neighbours, has
never seen the inside of a police-court, much less a prison.
Speaking of prisons, it was in Stepney that I was told how to carry
myself if ever I came within the grip of the law on frequent occasions.
The English prison is not an establishment to which one turns with
anticipation of happiness; but there is one prison which is as good as a
home of rest for those suffering from the pain of the world. There is
but one condition of eligibility: you must be a habitual criminal.
If you fulfilled that condition, you were dispatched to the Camp Hill
Detention Prison in the Isle of Wight.
A most comfortable affair, this Camp Hill. It stands in pleasant
grounds, near Newport; and the walls are not the grey, scowling things
that enclose Holloway, or Reading, or Wandsworth, but walls of warm
brown stone, such as any good fellow of reputable fame might build about
his mansion. Close-shaven lawns and flower-beds delight the eye, and the
cells are roomy apartments with real windows. The guests do not dine in
solitude; they are marched together to the dining-hall, and there
nourished, not with skilly or stew, with its hunk of bread and a pewter
platter, but with meat and plum-duff, sometimes fish, greenstuffs, and
cocoa. This, of course, in peace-time; the menu has no doubt suffered
variations in these latter days. The tables are covered. After the meal
the good fellows may sit for a few minutes and enjoy a pipe of tobacco,
even as the respectable citizen. A fair number of marks for good
behaviour carries with it the privilege of smoking after the night meal
as well, and one of the most severe punishments is the docking of this
smoking privilege.
Also, a canteen is provided. Not only do they wallow in luxury; they are
paid for it. Twopence a day is given to each prisoner for exceptional
conduct, and one penny of this may be spent at the canteen. This is by
way of payment for work done--the work being of a much lighter kind than
that given to ordinary "second division" prisoners. In cases where
conduct fulfils every expectation of the authorities, the good lad is
rewarded, every six months, with a stripe. Six stripes entitle the
holder to a cash reward, half of which he may spend, the other half
being banked. The canteen sells sweets, mineral waters, cigarettes,
apples, oranges, nuts etc. Those inclined to the higher forms of
nourishment may use the library. There are current magazines, novels of
popular "healthy" writers (it would be unfair to give their names; they
might not appreciate the epithet), and--uplifting thought--the works of
Spencer, Huxley, Darwin, and some French highbrows.
On special occasions bioscope shows of an educative kind are given. Oh,
I do love my virtue, but I wish I were a habitual criminal. Why wasn't I
born in Stepney, and born a vagabond?
Whether the prison is still running on the old lines I know not. Most
likely the British habitual convicts have been served with ejectment
notices to make room for German prisoners. I wouldn't wonder.
THE KIDS' MAN
"I'll learn yeh, y' little wretch!"
"Oowh! Don't--don't!"
The lady, savagely wielding a decayed carpet-beater, bent over the
shrinking form of the child--a little storm of short skirts and black
hair. Her arm ached and her face steamed, but she continued to shower
blows wherever she could get them in, until suddenly the storm limply
subsided into a small figure which doubled up and fell.
A step sounded in the doorway, and the lady looked up, frayed at the
edges and panting. A small, slight man, in semi-official dress, stood
just inside the room, which gave directly on to a byway of Homerton.
"Na then, Feet--mind yer dirty boots on my carpet, cancher? What's
the----"
"N.S.P.C.C.," replied Feet. He stooped over the child, lifted her, and
set her on a slippery sofa. "Had my eye on you for some time. Thought
there were something dicky with this child."
"'Ere, look 'ere--I mean, can't 'er muvver 'it 'er----"
"Steady, please. Let me warn you----"
The lady threatened with glances, but Kids' Man met them.
She fumed. "Ow! You waltz in, do yeh? Well, strikes me yeh'll waltz out
quicker'n yeh came in. 'Ere--Arfer!" Her raucous voice scraped up the
narrow stairway leading from the room, and in answer came a misty voice,
suggesting revelries by night. The lady roared again: "Ar-ferr! Get up
an' come daown. 'Ere's a little swab insultin' yer wife! Kids' Man
insultin' yer wife!"
Kids' Man made no move, but stood over the sofa with sober face,
ministering to the heavily breathing bundle. Overhead came bumps and a
prayer for delivery from women.
Then on the lower step of the stairway appeared a symbol of Aurora in
velveteen breeches and a shirt of indeterminate colour. His braces hung
dolefully at the rear as he bleared on the situation. His furry head
moved from side to side. "Wodyeh want me t'do?"
"Cosh 'im! Insultin' yer wife!"
He stared. Then his lip moved and he grinned. He hitched up his
trousers, belted them with braces, and expectorated on both hands with
gusto. "Git aout, else I'll split yer faice!"
No answer. "Righto!" He descended from the stair, and, hands down, fists
closed, chin protruded, advanced on the bending Inspector with that
slow, insidious movement proper to street-fighters. "Won't git aout,
woncher? Grrr--yeh!"
Kids' Man looked up and met him with a steady stare. But the stare
annoyed him, so he lifted up his fist and smote Kids' Man between the
eyes. Then things happened. He towered over the Inspector. "Want
another?" The Inspector lifted a short and apparently muscleless arm.
Bk! Aurora reeled as the fist met his jaw, and was followed by a swift
one under the ear. For a moment astonishment seemed to hold him as he
bleared at the slight figure; then he seemed about to burst with wrath;
then he became a cold sportsman. The wife screamed for aid.
"Aoutside--come on!" He shoved Kids' Man before him into the walk,
which, torpid a moment ago, now flashed with life and movement. Quickly
the auditorium was filled with a moist, unlovely crowd of sloppy rags
and towzled heads. While Kids' Man ministered to his nose, Arfer hitched
his trousers, fingered his shirt-sleeves, and talked in staccato to his
seconds, about a dozen in number. The crowd grunted and grinned. It
seemed evident that Kids' Man was about to get it in the neck. One or
two went to his side as he quietly turned back his sleeves, not for
purposes of encouragement, but merely in order to preserve the correct
niceties of the scrap.
A light tap on the body from either party, and then more things
happened. "Go it, Arfer, flatten 'im! Cosh 'im! Rip 'im back, Arfer.
Give 'im naughty-naughty, Arfer!"
But, as the crowd scraped and shuffled this way and that, they gave a
panicky clearing to a spry retreat by Kids' Man. He was done for; Arfer
was chasing him. They capered and chi-iked. Then, with a smart turn, he
landed beautifully on the point, and sent the pursuing Arfer flat to the
ground. The crowd murmured and oathfully exhorted Arfer to fink what he
was doin' of. Flatten the Kids' Man--that was his job. They met again,
and this time the Society received one on the mouth and another on the
nose. He sat heavily down, and his seconds flashed wet handkerchiefs.
The crowd cheered. "'Ad enough?"
But with a sudden spurt he came up again. His right landed on Arfer's
nose, a natty upper-cut followed it. He got in another with his right,
and pressed his man. The lady screamed, and disregarding the ethics of
the ring, splurged in and seized the Society's coat-tails. But the crowd
begged her to desist. Then the child, who, with the toughness of her
class, had found her legs again, flitted fearfully about the fringe of
the crowd.
"Wade in, mister! 'It the old woman--fetch 'er a swipe across the
snitch!"
Now Kids' Man began to take an interest in the affair. Dodging a
swinging blow of his lumbering opponent, he got in a half-arm jab. They
closed, and embraced each other, and swayed, and the crowd chanted "Dear
Old Pals." For a moment they strained; then Kids' Man lifted his enemy
bodily held him, and with a peculiar twist dropped him. He lay still....
A murmur of wonder swelled quickly to a broad roar. The crowd surged in,
squirming and hustling. For a moment it seemed that Kids' Man would get
torn. It was just a hair's-breadth question between lynching and
triumphal chairing. The sporting spirit prevailed, and: "Raaay! Good on
yeh, mate! Well done th' S'ciety!" The lads swung in and gathered
admiringly around the victor, who tenderly caressed a damaged beetroot
of a face, while half a dozen helpers impeded each other's efforts to
render first aid to the prostrate Arfer.
"Where's the blankey twicer? Lemme git 'old of 'im. Lemme git 'old of
'im!" implored the lady. But she was no longer popular, and they hustled
her aside, so that in impotent rage she smote her prostrate husband with
her foot for failing to uphold her honour before a measly little Kids'
Man what she could have torn in two wiv one hand.
"Well, 'e's gotter nerve, ain't 'e?"
"Firs' chap ever I knew stand up t'old Arfer. Fac'!"
"Yerce--'e's--e's gotter nerve!"
"Tell yeh what I say, boys--three cheers for th' Kids' Man!"
And as the bruised and discoloured Kids' Man gripped the hand of Orphan
Dora and led her, brave with new importance, from the Walk to
headquarters, a round of beery cheering made sweet music in their rear.
"Well, fancy a little chap like that.... Well, 'e's gotter blasted
nerve!"
* * * * *
The Kids' Man. That is his title--used sometimes affectionately and
sometimes bitterly. He is the children's champion, and often he is met
with curses, and that plea of parenthood which is supposed to justify
all manner of gross and unnameable abominations: "Can't a farver do what
he likes wiv his own child?"
The Society employs two hundred and fifty Inspectors, whose work is to
watch over the welfare of the children in their allotted district. But,
since most ill-treatment takes place behind closed doors, it is
difficult for an outsider to obtain direct evidence, and neighbours,
even when they know that children are being starved and daily tortured,
are shy of lodging information, lest it may lead to the publicity of the
police-court and the newspapers, and subsequently to open permanent
enmity from the people next whom they have to live.
The Kids' Man is usually an old Army or Navy man, accustomed to making
himself heard, and able to hold his own. The chief qualities for such a
post are: a real love of children; tact and knowledge of men; and
ability to deal with a hostile reception. It is by no means pleasant, as
you have seen, to pay a warning visit to a house up a narrow alley,
whose inhabitants form something of a clan or freemasonry lodge.
The motto of the Society, however, is persuasion. Prosecutions are
extremely distasteful, and are only used when all other means have
failed. In any case that comes to the Inspector's knowledge, his first
thought is the children's well-being. If they are being starved, he
provides them with food, clothes, bedding and baths, or sees that the
parish does so without any of the delays incident to parish charity.
Then he has a quiet talk with the parents, and gives a warning. Usually
this is enough. In cases where the neglect is due to lack of work, he is
sometimes an employment agency, and finds work for the father. But, if
necessary, there are more warnings, and then, with great reluctance, an
appearance in court is called for.
Cruelty is of two kinds--active and passive. The passive cruelty is the
cruelty of neglect--lack of proper food, clothing, sanitation, etc. The
other kind--the active cruelty of a diabolical nature--comes curiously
enough, not so much from the lower, but from the upper classes. It is
seldom that the rough navvy is deliberately cruel to his children; but
Inspectors can tell you some appalling stories of torture inflicted on
children by leisured people of means and breeding. Among their
convictions are doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and many women of position.
There was one terrible case of a woman in county society--you will
remember her Cornish name--who had been guilty of atrocious cruelty to a
little girl of twelve. The Kids' Man called. The woman maintained that a
mother had a perfect right to correct her own child. She called the
child and fondled it to prove that rumour of tortures was wrong. But the
Kids' Man knows children; and the look in the child's eyes told him of
terrorizing. He demanded a medical examination.
The case was proved in court. A verdict of "Guilty" was given. And the
punishment for this fair degenerate--£50 fine! The punishment for the
Kids' Man was a kind of social ostracism. There lies the difficulty of
the work. The woman's position had saved her.
The Kids' Man needs to have his eyes open everywhere and at every time
for signs of suffering among the little ones. And often, where a father
won't listen to advice from him, he is found amenable to suggestions
from Mrs. Inspector.
In every big town in this country you will find the N.S.P.C.C. bureau,
but, in spite of their efforts, too much cruelty is going on that might
be stopped if the British people, as a race, were not too fond of
"minding their own business" and shutting their eyes to everyday evils.
If you still think England a Christian and enlightened country, you had
better accompany an N.S.P.C.C. man on his daily round. Before you do so,
inspect the record at their offices. Read the verbatim reports of some
of their cases. Look at their "museum" which Mr. Parr, the secretary,
will show you; a museum more hideous than any collection of inquisition
relics or than anything in the Tower. You will then know something of
the hideous conditions of child-life in "this England of ours," and you
will be prepared for what you shall see on your tour with the Kids' Man.
CROWDED HOURS
What does the Cockney's mind first register when, far from home, he
visualizes the London that he loves with the casual devotion of his
type? To the serious tourist London is the shrine of England's history;
to the ordinary artist, who sees life in line and colour, it is a city
of noble or delicate "bits"; to the provincial it is a playground; to
the business man a market; but to the Cockney it is one big club,
odourous of the goodly fellowship that blossoms from contact with
human-kind.
"Far from the madding crowd" may express the longings of the modern
Simeon Stylites, but your Cockney is no Simeon. He doesn't pray to be
put upon an island where the crowds are few. The thicker the crowd, the
more elbows that delve into his ribs, the hotter the steam of
human-kind, the happier he is. Far from the madding crowd be blowed!
Man's place, he holds, is among his fellows; and he sniffs with contempt
at this widespread desire to escape from other people. To him it is a
sign of an unhealthy mind, if not pure blasphemy.
So, when he thinks of London, he does not think of a city of palaces, or
serene architectural triumphs; of a huckster's mart or a playground. At
the word "London" he sees people: the crowds in the Strand, in Walworth
Road, Lavender Hill, Whitechapel Road, Camden Town High Street.
Your moods may be various, and London will respond. You may work, you
may idly dream away the hours, or you may actively enjoy yourself in
play; but if you wish that supreme enjoyment--the enjoyment of other
people--then London affords opportunities in larger measure than any
city that I know.
I discovered the magic and allure of crowds when I was fourteen years
old and worked as office-boy in those filthy alleys marked in the Postal
Directory as "E.C." Streets and crowds became my refreshment and
entertainment then, and my palate is not yet blunted to their savour. I
do not want the flowery mead or the tree-covered lane or the
insect-ridden glade--at least, not for long; and I hate that dreadful
hollow behind the little wood. Give me six o'clock in the evening and a
walk from the City to Oxford Circus, through the soft Spring or the
darkling Autumn, with festive feet whispering all around you, and your
heart filled with that grey-green romance which is London.
Once out of Newgate Street and across Holborn Viaduct I was happy, for I
was, so to speak, in a foreign country; so wholly different were the
people of Holborn from the people of Cheapside. The crowds of the City
had always to me, a mean, craven air about them. They walked homeward
with lagging steps and worn faces. They seemed always preoccupied with
paltry problems. They carried the stamp of their environment: a dusty
market-place, in which things made by more adept hands and brains are
passed from wholesale place to wholesale place with sorry bargaining on
the odd halfpenny.
But West and West Central were a pleasuance of the finer essences, and
involuntarily body and soul assumed there a transient felicity of gait.
One walked and thought suavely. There were noble shops, brilliant
theatres, dainty restaurants, highways whose sole business was pleasure,
rent with gay lights and oh! so many delightful people. At restaurant
and theatre doors one might pause pensively and touch finger-tips, as it
were, with rose-leaf grace and beauty and fine comradeship; a refreshing
exercise after encounters with the sordid and the uncouth in Gracechurch
Street. Then, when the hoofs clattered and the motors hooted and the
whistles blew, and streets were drenched with festal light and festal
folk, I was, I felt, abroad. Figure to yourself that you are walking
through the streets of Teheran, or Stamboul, or Moscow, surrounded by
strange bazaars and people who seem to have stepped from some book of
magic so far removed are they from your daily interests. So did I feel
as I walked down Piccadilly. It was suffocating to think that there were
so many streets to explore, so many types to meet and to know. I wanted
then to make heaps and heaps of friends--not, I must confess, for
friendship--but just for the sake of meeting people who did interesting
and gracious things, and for the sake of knowing that I _had_ a host of
friends. The plashing of the fountains in Trafalgar Square, the lights
of the Alhambra and Empire seen through the green trees of Leicester
Square, the procession of 'buses along Holborn and Oxford Streets, the
alluring teashops of Piccadilly and the scornful opulence of the
hotels--these things sank into me and became part of me.