|The ladies and gentlemen whom I had the pleasure of introducing to you
in the last chapter had, most of them, some good and sufficient excuse
for the non-attendance of their children at school. Before the 'B'
meeting at which we assisted was over, more than one case was examined
which left the official no option but to take out a summons and run the
risk of one of those amiable lectures which unthinking magistrates now
and again see fit to bestow upon the luckless officer of the Board who
has done what the law compels him to do, and no more.
The parents summoned are in many instances dissolute or careless people,
who utterly neglect their offspring, and take no pains to ensure their
attending school, or they are crafty, cunning wretches, who see in the
law a means of attaining a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Here is a woman who, when asked why her boy of nine has not been to
school for a month, declares that he plays truant, and that he is quite
beyond her control. Now, the result of such a complaint is, that the
young gentleman will, if the parent reiterates in court her statement,
be sent to a reformatory for five years.
That is just what the good lady wants. Her story is one that may be
instructive if not edifying.
Two years ago her husband got ten years' penal servitude for a heavy
fracture of his country's laws, leaving her with three children, two
boys and a girl. There is a custom in such districts as that of which
I write which shortens the period of mourning for a lost mate very
considerably: Directly husband 'No. 1' gets forcibly removed from
the domestic hearth, his place is almost invariably taken by another
gentleman, who is 'master of the situation,' and _locum tenons_ with
full family honours.
I cannot resist telling a little story _apropos_ of this domestic phase
of slum life, which illustrates it rather forcibly. A little girl of
eight at one of the schools near the Mint came one morning with a pair
of boots on her little feet. This was the first pair of boots she had
ever been seen in, and the unwonted magnificence naturally attracted
attention.
'Why, Annie, you've got a pair of boots at last, then!' exclaimed the
governess.
'Yes, mistress,' the child replied, glancing proudly at the battered,
second-hand shoes, three times too large for her.
'And where did you get them?'
'One of my fathers gave 'em to me, mistress--the one what's at home this
week.'
This 'father' was evidently a better fellow than most of the nomadic
husbands who wander about from family circle to family circle, ready
to replace its absent head at a moment's notice. He must have been more
generous to another man's child than the 'husband' of the lady whose
history I have so unceremoniously interrupted, and who wants her boy put
away in a reformatory.
Husband 'No. 2,' I gather from one who knows the history of the case, is
a young fellow who objects to 'brats,' and the 'brats' are being got
out of the way one by one. The eldest boy was put to thieving, and he
is being kept now by the State; the girl took to something worse, and
a benevolent society relieved the mother of any future liability on her
behalf. And now the good lady comes to the 'B' meeting and declares the
youngest boy is incorrigible, and hints as broadly as she dare that she
should be glad to have him put away as well. She will have her wish,
and the boy, whom in all probability she has wilfully kept away and
encouraged in his incorrigibleness, will be sent to a reformatory within
a fortnight.
Thus you see a wholesale clearance has been made of one family, and the
room they took up at home will soon be utilized by new-comers, in the
shape of family number two.
A more charming and ingenious way of disposing of incumbrances it is
difficult to imagine. It is not, however, by any means uncommon.
Marriage, as an institution, is not fashionable in these districts. Yet
so long as cohabitation is possible--that is to say, so long as neither
the hospital, the prison, nor the churchyard effects a separation--the
couples are fairly faithful, and look upon themselves as man and wife,
with the usual marital obligations.
Both parties to the arrangement exhibit great reluctance to 'break' of
their own free will, and it is marvellous to see the tenacity with
which a decent hard-working woman will cling to a ruffian who spends
her earnings and blackens her eye, as regularly as Saturday night comes
round, although he has not the slightest legal claim on her allegiance.
If you ask the couples who live happily together why they don't get
married, some will tell you frankly that they never gave it a thought,
others that it's a lot of trouble and they haven't had time. A
clergyman's wife who took intense interest in a young couple living
together in a room in the Mint determined to make them get married. The
young fellow earned fair wages, and was sober and steady; the girl kept
her room and her two little children clean and decent, and was always
civil-spoken and pleasant. The good lady who had the _entrée_ of the
place talked to the young man whenever she saw him, and he admitted at
last that, perhaps, the union might as well be made a legal one: 'Not
that me and Sall 'ull get on any better, you know, mum--we couldn't; but
since you've been on at her she seems to have a bit o' fancy like for
to have the marridge lines, and if you'll tell us how, we'll get it done
and over, missis.'
Delighted with the promise, the lady set to work and prepared
everything. She gave the bride a new gown to be married in, and made
frocks for the two little ones to come and see their father married; she
arranged with her husband to perform the ceremony; and last, but most
important, she got the young man a day's holiday without loss of pay
from his employers.
The eventful day arrived; the good soul beaming and elated, waited, with
a few friends invited to see the interesting ceremony, at the church.
The clergyman stood with his book at the altar, but no young couple.
Twelve o'clock struck, the clergyman went into the vestry, and put his
coat on; and bitterly disappointed at the failure of her little scheme,
the good lady sat on for an hour, thinking some delay might have
occurred; but after awhile she gave it up as a bad job, and departed
also.
That evening, in as towering a rage as a clergyman's wife could decently
be, she marched off to the Mint, and tackled the delinquents at once.
What did they mean by it?
The young man was very civil and very apologetic.
'He didn't mean to be rude, but the fact was, a mate hearin' he'd got
a day off offered him a job at carting as was worth five bob; and,
you know, mum, I couldn't lose five bob just for the sake o' getting
married.'
I am happy to say that the energetic lady set to work again, got another
holiday for the man a week after, and this time 'personally conducted'
the wedding-party to the church, which they did not leave till the young
woman was the proud possessor of that by no means common property in the
locality--a marriage certificate.
But to return to the 'B' meeting. The lady who wants her little boy put
away having been disposed of, a decent-looking woman takes her place.
She is nursing a baby, and by her side stands a small boy, with staring
eyes that seem fixed upon nothing in particular--a strange, uncanny,
big-headed child, who attracts attention directly.
Mrs. Jones, the mother, is called upon to say why this lad's sister,
aged ten, has been absent three weeks.
'Well, I'm very sorry, gen'lemen, but I've had to keep her at home. Ye
see, gen'lemen, I haves ruematics, which takes me all of a nunplush in
the joints o' the knees and the ankles of the feet, and then I can't
move.'
'Yes, but that needn't keep the girl at home. You can nurse the baby
even if you have rheumatics.'
'Yes, sir, I know; but it's that boy as is the trouble. Ye see, sir, he
can't be lef' not a minnit without somebody as can get after him
quick. He 's allers settin' hisself afire. He gets the matches wherever
we 'ides 'em, and he lights anything he sees--the bed, the baby, hisself.
Bless you, gen'lemen, it's orful; he can't be off settin' somethin'
alight not five minnits together. He ain't right in 'is 'ed, sir.'
The idiot incendiary paid not the slightest attention; his wild, strange
eyes were wandering about the room, probably for a box of matches with
which to set us alight, and make one big blaze of the 'B' meeting,
chairman, officers, himself, and all.
'And that ain't all, sir. My 'usband's dead, sir; and all we've got for
a livin's a little shop, sir, where we sells drippin', and matches,
and candles, and odds and ends; and I can't run in and out when I'm so
queer, and the gal's all I've got to do things. I wish you would give
her half-time, sir.' The poor woman certainly had her work cut out, with
the rheumatics, the baby, the shop, and the idiot incendiary; and the
chairman, after a little consultation with the officer, finding the case
was a deserving one, granted the half-time; and the woman left evidently
considerably relieved, dragging the young gentleman with a tendency to
commit hourly arson after her.
The next to put in an appearance was a lady with a wretched-looking
face, and a shabby, draggled, out-all-night and drunk-in-the-morning
appearance generally. Her profession was stated with official bluntness
in the paper handed to the chairman. It is generally translated
'street-walker' in family circles.
But, whatever she might be, she had children, and the law required them
to come to school. Instead of making their attendances, learning to read
and write, the children were street Arabs. The woman was meek and quiet
enough. She promised 'she'd see to it,' and was reminded that she had
made the same promise before. This time it was not accepted, and the
woman was informed that she would have to appear before a magistrate.
Meekly and quietly she said, 'Thank you, sir,' as if the chairman had
presented her with a medal or a pound of tea, and went out.
The women poured in one after the other---there were very few men, most
of them, I suppose, being 'at work,' whatever that term might imply in
their particular case--and they were of all sizes, sorts and conditions.
There were respectable, decent, motherly-looking souls, drunken
outcasts, slatternly trollops, half-starved and sickly-looking women,
and fat, overwhelming women, who came not to be crushed, but to crush.
One gaunt, fierce-looking lady, with the voice of a man and the fist of
a prize-fighter, gave the company a bit of her mind. 'Her "gal" warn't
a-coming to be worrited with a lot o' stuff. She was delikit, her gal
was, and the School Board was murderin' of her.'
'What's the matter with her?' asked the chairman.
'Well, it's nervis system, and her teeth growin' out.'
'Where's the doctor's certificate that she's too ill to attend?'
'Sitifkit? d'ye think I've got time to go a-gettin' sitifkits--not
me--ain't my word good ernuff?'
The School Board officer knows this lady's circumstances, and he
whispers something to the chairman. The girl's 'nervis system' and
dental eccentricities have not prevented her affectionate mother from
sending her out hawking every day while she stops at home and drinks.
'Where's your husband?' asked the officer. 'I haven't seen him lately.
He'll have to be summoned, you know, as you can't get a certificate.'
The officer in question has good reason to ask affectionately after
the husband. Last year the worthy gentleman got a month for playfully
tossing the officer down a flight of stairs on to his head.
'Where's my husband? Ah!' says she, purple with passion, 'you want to
summon him, do you? Well, then, you jolly well carn't. Gord's got him.'
'Dead?' asked the chairman.
'Yes--didn't I say so?'
'Then you will be summoned instead.'
The lady didn't retire--she had to be diplomatically crowded out, and
the last sounds that reached the room as she receded along the corridor,
under gentle pressure, were wishes that the chairman and all concerned
might go where--at least, if her estimate of his whereabouts was
correct--they would not have the pleasure of meeting her late lamented
consort.
There are some rough customers to deal with in this district--so rough
that it is a wonder the Act works so smoothly as it does. The fiercest
and most reckless of the lawless classes have to be bearded in their
dens by the devoted, ill-paid officers, who ferret out the children and
insist upon their coming to school. Up to the topmost garret and down to
the lowest cellar, in dens and hovels given over to thieves and wantons,
I have accompanied a School Board officer on his rounds, and I frankly
confess that I have passed a few bad quarters of an hour.
There are dozens of these places where the blow follows the word in a
moment, where life is held of the least account, and where assaults are
so common that the victims would as soon think of asking the police to
notice their broken windows as to take cognizance of their broken heads.
There is a legend that in one of these cellars in the Mint--it fetches
three shillings a week rent, by-the-bye--a man killed a woman and left
her; and that nobody took any notice until the body got unpleasant, and
then they threw it out into the street.
The ''appy dossers' are the wretched people who roam about the street
houseless, and creep in to sleep on the stairs, in the passages and
untenanted cellars of the lodging-houses, with the doors open night
and day. No policeman's lantern is ever turned on them, and they crowd
together in their rags and make a jolly night of it. Sometimes in among
them creeps a starving woman, to die from want and exposure, and she
dies while the foul oath and the ribald jests go on; and the 'dossers'
who are well enough to be ''appy' make such a noise that a lodger,
disturbed in his legitimate rest for which he has paid, comes out and
lays about him vigorously at the 'varmints,' and kicks them downstairs,
if he can.
Thus not only are many of the licensed lodging-houses and homes of the
poor breeding-houses in themselves for crime, disease, and filth,
but they are, for lack of supervision, receptacles for that which has
already been bred elsewhere, and which is deposited gratis, to swell the
collection.
A ''appy dosser' can make himself comfortable anywhere. I heard of one
who used to crawl into the dust-bin, and pull the lid down; but I know
that to be an untruth, from the simple fact that none of the dust-bins
on this class of property have a lid. The contents are left, too, for
months to decompose, not only under the eyes of the authorities, but
under the noses of the inhabitants. The sanitary inspection of these
houses is a farce, and in many cases the vestrymen, who ought to put the
law in motion, are themselves the owners of the murder-traps.
How foul, how awful some of these places, where the poor have found
their last refuge from Artisans' Dwelling Acts and Metropolitan
improvements, are, I dare not tell you. I have been told that the
readers of a shilling book don't care to know, and the difficulties of
dealing with this subject are increased by my knowledge of the fact that
in a truthful account of 'How the Poor Live' there can be but little to
attract those who read for pleasure only. Rags--that is to say, the rags
of our cold, sunless clime--are never picturesque; squalor and misery
can only be made tolerable by the touch of the romancist--and here I
dare not romance.
Bad, however, as things are, shocking as is the condition in which
thousands and thousands of our fellow-citizens live from the cradle to
the grave, it is not an unmixed evil if out of its very repulsiveness
grows a remedy for it.
It has got now into a condition in which it cannot be left. For very
shame England must do something--nay, for self-preservation, which is
the most powerful of all human motives. This mighty mob of famished,
diseased, and filthy helots is getting dangerous, physically, morally,
politically dangerous. The barriers that have kept it back are rotten
and giving way, and it may do the State a mischief if it be not looked
to in time. Its fevers and its filth may spread to the homes of the
wealthy; its lawless armies may sally forth and give us a taste of the
lesson the mob has tried to teach now and again in Paris, when long
years of neglect have done their work.
Happily, there is a brighter side. Education--compulsory education--has
done much. The new generation is learning at least to be clean if not
to be honest. The young mothers of the slums--the girls who have been at
the Board Schools--have far tidier homes already than their elders. The
old people born and bred in filth won't live out of it. If you gave
some of the slumites Buckingham Palace they would make it a pigsty in
a fortnight. These people are irreclaimable, but they will die out,
and the new race can be worked for with hope and with a certainty of
success. Hard as are some of the evils of the Education Act, they are
outbalanced by the good, and it is that Act above all others which will
eventually bring about the new order of things so long desired.
So important a bearing on the home question has the schooling of the
children who are to be the rent-payers of the next generation, that I
propose to devote the next chapter to some sketches of School Board
life and character; and I will take it in one of the worst districts in
London, where the parents are sunk in a state of misery almost beyond
belief.
I will show you the children at school who come daily to their work from
the foulest and dirtiest dens in London--that awful network of hovels
which lie about the Borough and the Mint.