|If I were asked to say off-hand what was the greatest curse of the poor
and what was the greatest blessing, I think my answer to the first query
would be the public-house, and to the second the hospital. Of course,
I might be wrong. There are some people who will contend that in these
islands the greatest blessing of the natives of all degrees is that they
are Great Britons. Our patriotic songs bid us all rejoice greatly at
the fact, and patriotism is not a class privilege. The starved outcast,
crouching for shelter on a wild March night in one of the stone recesses
of London Bridge, has a right to exclaim with the same pride as the
Marquis of Westminster--=
```'Far as the breeze can bear the billows' foam,
```Survey our empire and behold our home.'=
His soul, for all we know, may rejoice greatly that Britannia rules
the waves, and in spite of the fact that a policeman, spying him out as
'without the visible means of subsistence,' may seize him and consign
him to durance vile, he--the outcast, not the policeman--may ponder with
much national vanity on the fact that Britons never shall be slaves.
Out upon the parochial-minded disciples of the Birmingham school, who
pretend that a nation can be very great abroad and yet very small at
home! 'Survey our empire' is a noble line, and there is another about
the Queen's morning drum which has a magnificent ring about it, and
crops up in patriotic leading articles about twice a week all the year
round. It is, however, just possible that the vast extent of British
rule does not come home so pleasurably to my friend on the bridge as it
does to the well-fed, prosperous citizen of Jingo proclivities who
believes that Heaven's first command to an Englishman was, 'Thou shalt
remove thy neighbour's landmark.' The poor wretch may 'survey' his
'empire' with a feeling of anything but contentment, and he may be
tempted to wish that we had a little less empire to look after abroad in
order that a little attention might be bestowed upon the place where
charity begins.
Even at the risk of being pronounced unpatriotic, I shall, therefore,
maintain my contention that the greatest blessing of the poor is the
hospital--that noble institution of which Englishmen of all classes and
all creeds may reasonably be proud.
Sickness, disease, and accident enter very largely into the annals
of the poor. Overcrowding and unsanitary dwellings--all the ghastly
surroundings of poor life in a great city, which I have attempted feebly
to describe in this book--render the masses peculiarly susceptible to
illness in every shape and form. Epidemics of some sort or other are
rarely absent from the poorer districts, and many painful diseases and
deformities are transmitted regularly from parent to child. To be
sound of limb and well in health in these dens is bad enough, but
the existence of an invalid under such circumstances is pitiable to a
degree. The hospitals are the heavens-upon-earth of the poor. I
have heard little children--their poor pinched faces wrinkled with
pain--murmur that they didn't mind it, because if they had been well
they would never have come to 'the beautiful place.' Beautiful,
indeed, by contrast with their wretched homes are the clean wards, the
comfortable beds, and the kind faces of the nurses. Step across from
the home of a sick child in the slums of the Borough to the Evelina
Hospital, and it is like passing from the infernal regions to Paradise.
To this noble charity little sufferers are often brought dirty,
neglected, starving; and even the nurses, used as they are to
such sights, will tell you their hearts ache at the depth of baby
wretchedness revealed in some of the cases brought to them.
Passing from cot to cot, and hearing the histories of the little ones
lying there so clean, and, in spite of their suffering, so happy, one
is inclined to think that the charity is a mistake--that to nurse these
children back to health only to send them again to their wretched homes
is a species of refined cruelty. It were better in dozens of cases that
the children were left to die now, while they are young and innocent,
than that death should be wrestled with and its prize torn from it only
to be cast back into a state of existence which is worse than death.
The children have some dim inkling of this themselves. Many of them cry
when they are well, and cling to the kind nurses, asking piteously not
to be sent back to the squalor and dirt, and often, alas! cruelty, from
which they have been snatched for a brief spell.
The elder people doubtless appreciate the blessings of the hospital as
much as the children. The poor generally speak in the highest terms of
such institutions. They could not, as a rule, lie ill at home; care
and attention would be impossible; and for a sick person the atmosphere
would mean certain death. Doctors they cannot afford to pay. The
class of practitioners who lay themselves out for business in
these neighbourhoods are not, as a rule, much more than nostrum and
patent-medicine vendors, and their charges are generally extortionate.
If you could bring yourself to imagine truthfully the condition of the
sick poor without the hospitals to go to, you would see a picture of
human misery so appalling that you would cover your eyes and turn away
from it with a shudder.
Yet there are such pictures to be seen. There are cases which, from
varying circumstances, do not go to the hospital. There are men and
women who lie and die day by day in these wretched single rooms, sharing
all the family trouble, enduring the hunger and the cold, and waiting
without hope, without a single ray of comfort, until God curtains their
staring eyes with the merciful film of death.
It was such a case we came upon once in our wanderings, and which,
without unduly harrowing up the reader's feelings, I will endeavour to
describe.
The room was no better and no worse than hundreds of its class. It was
dirty and dilapidated, with the usual bulging blackened ceiling and the
usual crumbling greasy walls. Its furniture was a dilapidated four-post
bedstead, a chair, and a deal table. On the bed lay a woman, young,
and with features that, before hourly anguish contorted them, had been
comely. The woman was dying slowly of heart disease. Death was 'writ
large' upon her face. At her breast she held her child, a poor little
mite of a baby that was drawing the last drain of life from, its
mother's breast. The day was a bitterly cold one; through the broken
casement the wind came ever and anon in icy gusts, blowing the hanging
end of the ragged coverlet upon the bed to and fro like a flag in a
breeze. The wind roared in the chimney, too, eddying down into the
fireless grate with a low howling noise like the moan of a Banshee round
a haunted house. To protect the poor woman from the cold her husband
had flung on it his tattered great-coat--a garment that the most ancient
four-wheel night cabman would have spurned as a knee-protector. 'He was
a plumber,' she whispered to us in a weak, hollow voice; 'he had been
out of work for a week, and he had gone out to try and look for a job.'
One shivered to think of him wearily trudging the streets this bitter
day, half clad and wholly starved; what must have been his torture as he
failed at place after place, and the day wore on and brought the night
when he would have to return to the poor dying wife with the old sad
story?
As one realized the full meaning of this little domestic tragedy, and
knew that it was only one of many daily enacted in the richest city in
the world--the scene of it laid not a mile from the full tide of all
the pomps and vanities of fashion, of all the notorious luxury and
extravagances which is the outward show of our magnificence and
wealth, it was hard to repress a feeling of something akin to shame and
anger--shame for the callous indifference which bids one half the
world ignore the sufferings of the other--anger that, with all the gold
annually borne along on the broad stream of charity, so little of it
ever reaches the really deserving and necessitous poor.
The house this poor woman lay dying in was one of a block which would
have been a prize to a sanitary inspector anxious to make a sensational
report. For the room in question the plumber out of work had to pay four
and sixpence, and the broken pane of glass the landlord had refused to
replace. The man was told 'he must do it himself, or if he didn't like
it as it was he could go.'
Such stories as this are painful, but they should be told. It is good
for the rich that now and again they should be brought face to face
with misery, or they might doubt its existence. These people--our
fellow-citizens--cannot be neglected with impunity. These fever
and pestilence-breeding dens that are still allowed to exist, these
deathtraps out of which vestrymen and capitalists make large annual
incomes, are a danger to the whole community.
While I am on this subject, I may as well quote an instance which bears
directly upon the interest--the selfish interest--which the better
classes have in lending their voices to swell the chorus of complaints
which is going up about the present state of things.
Here is an 'interior' to which I would call the special attention of
ladies who employ nurse-girls for their children.
This room when we entered it was in a condition beyond description. The
lady was washing the baby, and she made that an excuse for the dirt of
everything else. Two ragged boys were sitting on the filthy floor, a
dirty little girl was in a corner pulling a dirty kitten's tail, and
the smoke from the untidiest grate I ever saw in my life was making
the half-washed baby sneeze its little head nearly off. The family, all
told, that slept in this room was seven. There was a bed and there was a
sofa--so I concluded the floor must have been the resting-place of some
of them. 'The eldest girl'--materfamilias informed us in answer to our
questions--'was gone out. She slept on the sofa.' We knew somebody had
slept there, because some rags were on it, which had evidently done duty
as bed-clothes.
Outside this room, which opened on to a back-yard, was a dust-bin. We
didn't want eyesight to know that--it appealed with sufficient power
to another sense. Inside was an odour which made the dust-bin rather a
relief.
I have described this place a little graphically for the sake of that
eldest girl. It is not from any gallantry to the fair sex that I have
done this, but because the young woman in question was, I ascertained, a
domestic servant. She was a nursemaid just home from a place at Norwood,
and in a week she was going to a place at Clapham. I remembered, as I
gazed on the scene, a certain vigorous letter from Mr. Charles Reade
which appeared in the _Daily Telegraph_ some years ago about servants
'pigging with their relations at home,' and wanting the best bedroom
and a feather-bed with damask furniture when in service. I never so
thoroughly realized what 'pigging with their relations' meant before.
Now, if you will take the trouble to think out the possible result
of girls going from such pigsties as these straight into well-to-do
families, where they will nurse the children and be constantly in the
closest contact with the younger members of the family, I think you
will see that the dangers of unhealthy homes for the poor may be equally
dangerous to a better class. I should like to know how many families
now mourning the loss of a little child from fever, or the death of some
dear one from small-pox, would have been spared their sorrow had the
existence of such places as I have described been rendered impossible by
the action of the law!
I do not imagine for one moment that I have seen, or that I am likely
to see, the worst phases of the evil which has become one of the burning
questions of the hour. But what I have written about I have in every
case seen with my own eyes, and in no case have I exaggerated; and yet
more than one of my kindly correspondents doubt my story of the dead
body being kept, and eventually put out into the street.
With regard to this, let the reader in doubt ask any sanitary inspector
or officer of health to whom he can get an introduction, if it is not
an appalling fact that the poor have grown so used to discomfort and
horrors that they do not look upon a corpse in the room they live, and
eat, and sleep in as anything very objectionable!
It often happens there is no money to pay for the funeral, and so, with
that inertness and helplessness bred of long years of neglect, nothing
at all is done, no steps are taken, and the body stops exactly where it
was when the breath left it.
The following incident I take haphazard from the reports of Dr. Liddell,
whose recent statement has even attracted Parliamentary attention and
led to a question in the House:
Prolonged Retention of a Dead Body in a Room occupied by a Family.
Mr. Wrack reports that, on visiting No. 17, Hope Street, Spitalfields,
he found in the room of the second floor the dead body of a child who
had died fifteen days before the time of his visit. The room, which
contained 1,176 cubic feet of space, was occupied by the parents of
the dead child and a daughter aged thirteen years. The body was in a
decomposed state. The reason assigned for not burying the child at an
earlier period was that the father had no means to do so, and that his
friends had failed to render him the assistance which they had promised.
Mr. Wrack having pointed out the danger of keeping a dead body so long
in the only room occupied by the family, application was made to the
relieving officer, and the body was buried on the following day.
Fifteen days! Fancy that! with the knowledge you have by this time of
the size and condition of the room in which the corpse remains mixed up
with the living inmates day and night. Here are two more cases. Note
the fact that in the first the child has died of scarlet fever, and that
tailoring work is going on around it--work which when finished will be
carried, in all human probability, with the germs of disease in it
to the homes of well-to-do and prosperous people--a class which too
frequently objects to be worried with revelations of the miseries of the
masses.
Prolonged Retention op a Dead Body in a Room occupied by a Family.
Mr. Wrack reports that, upon visiting No. 28, Church Street,
Spital-fields, on the 5th December last, he found in the second floor
front room the dead body of a child which had died of scarlet fever on
the 1st of the month. The body was not coffined, and it lay exposed on
a table in one corner of the room. The room was occupied as a living and
sleeping room by five persons, viz., the father and mother, their child,
a girl about three years old, and by two adults, viz., the grandfather
and grandmother of the child, who were engaged at tailors' work. The
child was playing on the floor. The room was about fourteen feet square
and eight feet high, thus affording only 260 cubic feet of space to
each person. The smell on entering the room was most sickening. Upon
remonstrating with the people for keeping the body so long unburied,
and especially for not having it coffined, they replied that they were
waiting to raise the means for burying it; and, being Irish, said
that it was not their custom to coffin their dead until the day of the
funeral. The body was not buried until the 9th of December, and then it
had to be buried by the parish authorities.
Mr. Wrack also visited No. 24, Princes Street, Spitalfields, on the 5th
January, and found in the second floor front room the dead body of an
aged woman, who died on Christmas Day. The room was occupied by the
daughter of the deceased, a person about forty years of age, who lived
and slept in the same room. Upon asking the reason of her keeping the
body so long unburied, she stated that she had been waiting for suitable
things to be made for the funeral; and upon asking when the funeral
would take place, she stated that the body would not be buried until the
8th January, a period of fifteen days from the death. The Board had
no power to compel the removal of the corpse, as there is no mortuary
belonging to the Board in the district.
I want to drive this nail home, though it is the practice itself I
should prefer to knock on the head. Here are three more cases. Let me
quote them, and have done with the subject.
Prolonged Retention of Dead Bodies.
There have been three cases of prolonged retention of the dead in rooms
occupied as living and sleeping rooms. One of these cases was that of a
child who died at No. 26, King Street, Spitalfields, and whose body was
retained for nine days, the parents stating that they were unable to
raise sufficient money to bury it. During the time the body was kept it
became so offensive that it was necessary to remove it to a shed at
the rear of the house. Eventually the father applied to the relieving
officer, and obtained an order for the burial of the body.
Another case was that of a young man who died of consumption at 120,
Royal Mint Street. The body of this young man was kept for eight days in
the room in which his father and mother lived and slept.
The third case was that of a child three weeks old, who died at No. 5,
Devonshire Place, Whitechapel. The body of this child was kept in the
room occupied by its parents for a period of twelve days, and at the
time of the visit of the inspector the smell from it was most offensive.
Although in each of these cases everything was done by the officer
of this Board, and by the relieving officer, to induce the respective
parties to bury their dead before a nuisance was occasioned, yet to a
certain extent their efforts were unavailing.
As such cases are of frequent occurrence, it is certainly full time
that power was given to magistrates to order the burial without delay
of every corpse which is certified to be a nuisance or dangerous to the
public health.
It is necessary a great many things were done. It is necessary, above
all, that the direct attention of the State should be given to the whole
question, but the Home Secretary says there is 'no time' to attend
to such matters. The question which led to this answer and the Home
Secretary's statement in full were as follows:
Sanitary Condition of Whitechapel.
Mr. Bryce asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether
his attention had been called to the two last reports presented to the
Whitechapel District Board of Works by the Medical Officer of Health
on the sanitary condition of the Whitechapel district, in which he
condemned, as unsanitary and ill-arranged, several new buildings
recently erected in that district, and expressed the opinion that
amendments in the existing Building Acts were urgently required; and
whether, if sufficient powers to prevent the erection or order
the closing of unsanitary dwelling were not now possessed by local
authorities, he would undertake to bring in a Bill to amend the Building
Acts in this important particular, by investing the proper local
authorities with such powers.
Sir W. Harcourt said he would be glad to introduce Bills upon this and
many other subjects, but there was no time for them.--Evening Standard,
June 18, 1883.
'No time!'
It is well, with that answer ringing in our ears, to turn to the
Parliamentary proceedings and discover what the important questions
are which are engrossing the entire attention of the Legislature, and
leaving 'no time' for such a matter as the constant menace to public
health which exists in the present system of 'Housing the Poor.' I will
not enumerate them, or I might be tempted into a political disquisition,
which would be out of place; but the reader can, with considerable
profit to himself, find them and make a note of them.
The list of important measures which have consumed the session and left
'no time' for this question will be instructive and amusing--amusing
because the discussions which have taken up the time of the House
contain in themselves all the elements of screaming farce.
And, talking of screaming farce, I am reminded that we met Mr. J. L.
Toole, and that he has not been introduced yet.
Room by all means, and at once for Mr. J. L. Toole--not the Toole of
Toole's Theatre--the popular comedian who has made tomfoolery a fine art
and burlesque a science, but his living, breathing image as he appeared
to us, 'Mug,' voice, and gesture, at the door of a house at which we
lately knocked in search of information as to the profits of hat-box
making.
Our J. L. Toole didn't tell us anything as to these profits, though he
was very funny--he cracked wheezes that even John Laurence himself might
give off without blushing.
He suggested that while we were about it perhaps 'he might as well tell
us who he worked for as how much he got, and then we could go round and
offer to make hat-boxes a halfpenny a dozen under.' We didn't get much
out of our J. L. Toole.