The only refuge for the houseless now open which is really a home
for the homeless, is that in Playhouse-yard, Cripplegate. The doors
open into a narrow by-street, and the neighbourhood needs no other
announcement that the establishment is open for the reception of
the houseless, than the assembly of a crowd of ragged shivering
people, certain to be seen on the night of opening, as if they knew
by instinct where they might be housed under a warm and comfortable
roof. The crowd gathers in Playhouse-yard, and many among them look
sad and weary enough. Many of the women carry infants at the breast,
and have children by their sides holding by their gowns. The cries
of these, and the wrangling of the hungry crowds for their places,
is indeed disheartening to hear. The only sounds of merriment come
from the errand-boys, as they call themselves, whom even starvation
cannot make sorrowful for two hours together. The little struggle
that there usually is among the applicants is not for a rush when the
doors are opened, but for what they call the “front rank.” They are
made to stand clear of the footpath; and when five o’clock--the hour
of admission--comes, an officer of the Refuge steps out, and quietly,
by a motion of his hand, or a touch on the shoulder, sends in about
150 men and boys, and about 50 women and girls. He knows the great
majority of those who have tickets which entitle them to one or two
nights’ further lodging (the tickets are generally for three nights),
and these are commonly in the foremost rank. The number thus admitted
show themselves more or less at home. Some are quiet and abashed; but
some proceed briskly, and in a business-like way, to the first process,
to wash themselves. This is done in two large vessels, in what may
be called the hall or vestibule of the building. A man keeps pumping
fresh water into the vessels as fast as that used is drained off, and
soap and clean towels are supplied when thought necessary; the clean
towels, which are long, and attached to rollers, soon becoming, in
truth, exceedingly dirty. I noticed some little contention--whether
to show an anxiety to conform to the rules of the Refuge, or to
hurry through a disagreeable but inevitable task, or really for the
comfort of ablution, I will not pretend to determine--but there was
some little contention for the first turn among the young men at the
washing. To look down upon them from the main staircase, as I did, was
to survey a very motley scene. There they were--the shirtless, the
shoeless, the coatless, the unshaven, the uncouth, ay, and the decent
and respectable. There were men from every part of the United Kingdom,
with a coloured man or two, a few seamen, navigators, agricultural
labourers, and artizans. There were no foreigners on the nights that
I was there; and in the returns of those admitted there will not be
found one Jew. It is possible that Jews may be entered under the heads
of “Germans” or “Poles”--I mean, foreign Jews; but on my visits I did
not see so much as any near approach to the Hebrew physiognomy. To
attempt to give an account of anything like a prevailing garb among
these men is impossible, unless I described it as rags. As they were
washing, or waiting for a wash, there was some stir, and a loud buzz
of talk, in which “the brogue” strongly predominated. There was some
little fun, too, as there must be where a crowd of many youths is
assembled. One in a ragged, coarse, striped shirt, exclaimed as he
shoved along, “By your leave, gentlemen!” with a significant emphasis
of his “gentlemen.” Another man said to his neighbour, “The bread’s
fine, Joe; but the sleep, isn’t that plummy?” Some few, I say, seemed
merry enough, but that is easily accounted for. Their present object
was attained, and your real professional vagabond is always happy
by that--for a forgetfulness of the past, or an indifference to it,
and a recklessness as to the future, are the primary elements of a
vagrant’s enjoyment. Those who had tickets were of course subjected
to no further examination, unless by the surgeon subsequently; but
all the new candidates for admission--and the officers kept admitting
fresh batches as they were instructed--were not passed before a rigid
examination, when a ticket for three nights was given to each fresh
applicant. On the right hand, as you enter the building, is the office.
The assistant-superintendant sits before a large ledger, in which
he enters every name and description. His questions to every fresh
candidate are:--“Your name?” “How old are you?” “What trade?” “How do
you live (if no trade)?” “Where did you sleep last night?” “To what
parish do you belong?” In order to answer these questions, each fresh
applicant for admission stands before the door of the office, a portion
of the upper division of the door being thrown open. Whilst I was
present, there was among a portion of the male applicants but little
hesitation in answering the inquiries glibly and promptly. Others
answered reluctantly. The answers of some of the boys, especially the
Irish boys, were curious. “Where did you sleep last night?” “Well,
then, sir, I sleep walking about the streets all night, and very cowld
it was, sir.” Another lad was asked, after he had stated his name and
age, how he lived? “I beg, or do anything,” he answered. “What’s your
parish?” “Ireland.” (Several pronounced their parish to be the “county
Corruk.”) “Have you a father here?” “He died before we left Ireland.”
“How did you get here, then?” “I came with my mother.” “Well, and
where’s she?” “She died after we came to England.” So the child had the
streets for a stepmother.
Some of the women were as glib and systematic in their answers as
the men and boys. Others were much abashed. Among the glib-tongued
women, there seemed no shamefacedness. Some of the women admitted
here, however, have acquitted themselves well when provided (through
charitable institutions) with situations. The absence of shame which
I have remarked upon is the more notable, because these women were
questioned by men, with other men standing by. Some of the women were
good-looking; and when asked how old they were, they answered at once,
and, judging by their appearance, never understated their years.
Many I should have pronounced younger than they stated. Vanity, even
with silliness and prettiness, does not seem to exist in their utter
destitution.
All the regular processes having been observed (and the women have
a place for their ablutions after the same fashion as the men), the
applicants admitted enter their several wards. The women’s ward is at
the top of the building. It supplies accommodation, or berths, for 95
women in an apartment 35 yards in length and 6 in width. At one corner
of this long chamber, a few steps lead down to what is called “the
nursery,” which has 30 berths. Most of these berths may be described
as double, and are large enough to accommodate a mother and her
children. The children, when I saw them, were gambolling about in some
of the berths as merry as children elsewhere, or perhaps merrier, for
they were experiencing the unwonted luxuries of warmth and food. The
matron can supply these women and their children with gruel at her
discretion; and it appeared to be freely given. Some who had children
seemed to be the best of all there in point of physiognomy. They had
not, generally, the stolid, stupid, indifferent, or shameless look of
many of the other women; it was as though the motherly feeling had
somewhat humanized them. Some of the better sort of women spoke so low
as to be hardly audible. Among them were, indeed, many decent-looking
females.
The men’s wards are the Chapel Ward (for the better sort of persons),
containing 90 berths, one line being ranged 2 berths deep; the Lower
Ward, containing 120 berths; the Boys’ Ward, containing 60 berths; and
the Straw Loft, 40. There is a walk alongside the berths in each ward.
What is called the Boys’ Ward is not confined to boys: it used to be
so, but they were found so noisy that they could no longer be allowed
a separate apartment. They are now scattered through the several wards
with the men, the officers arranging them, and varying the arrangements
as they consider best. Before there can be any retirement to rest,
each man, woman, and child must be examined by a surgeon. Whilst
I was present, a young assistant conducted the investigation in a
careful, yet kindly and gentlemanly manner. Indeed, I was much struck
with the sympathy and gentleness he displayed; and it was evident
from the respect of the people, that kindness and consideration are
the very qualities to impress and control the class he has to deal
with. All afflicted with cutaneous disorders (and there were but five
men so afflicted) were lodged apart from the others. Bronchitis and
rheumatism are the prevalent disorders, occasioned by their exposure
to the weather, and their frequent insufficiency of food. Ninety per
cent of them, I was told by Mr. Gay, the intelligent surgeon of the
establishment, might have coughs at some periods, but of that they
thought nothing. Women advanced in pregnancy, and men with any serious
(especially any infectious) ailment, are not permitted to sleep in the
Refuge; but the institution, if they have been admitted, finds them
lodgings elsewhere.
Each person admitted receives in the evening half-a-pound of the best
bread. Every child has the same allowance. If a woman be admitted with
four children, she receives two half-pounds of bread--a half-pound for
every one, no matter if one be at the breast, as is not unfrequently
the case. The same quantity of bread is given in the mornings. In
the night that I was present, 430 were admitted, and consequently
(including the evening and morning allowances), 430 lbs. of bread
were disposed of. On Sundays, when Divine Service is celebrated by a
clergyman of the Church of England, three half-pounds of bread and
three ounces of cheese are distributed to each inmate, children and
babies included. I witnessed a number of young men eating the bread
administered to them. They took it with a keen appetite; nothing was
heard among them but the champing of the teeth, as they chewed large
mouthfuls of the food.
The berths, both in the men’s and women’s wards, are on the ground,
and divided one from another only by a wooden partition about a foot
high; a similar partition is at the head and feet; so that in all
the wards it looks as if there were a series of coffins arranged in
long catacombs. This burial-like aspect is the more striking when the
inmates are all asleep, as they were, with the rarest exceptions,
when I walked round at ten o’clock at night. Each sleeper has for
covering a large basil (dressed sheep-skin), such as cobblers use for
aprons. As they lie in long rows, in the most profound repose, with
these dark brown wrappers about them, they present the uniform look
and arrangement of a long line of mummies. Each bed in the coffin, or
trough-like division, is made of waterproof cloth, stuffed with hay,
made so as to be easily cleaned. It is soft and pleasant to the touch.
Formerly the beds were plain straw, but the present plan has been in
use for seven years. In this Refuge only three men have died since it
was established, thirty years ago. One fell dead at the sink-stone
while washing himself; the other two were found dead in their berths
during the prevalence of the cholera.
Every part of the building was scrupulously clean. On the first night
of the opening, the matron selects from the women who have sought an
asylum there, three, who are engaged for the season to do the household
work. This is done during the day when the inmates are absent. All must
leave by eight in the morning, the doors being open for their departure
at five, in case any wish to quit early--as some do for the chance
of a job at Covent-garden, Farringdon, or any of the early markets.
The three women-helpers receive 7_s._ a-week each, the half of that
sum being paid them in money every Saturday, and the other half being
retained and given to each of them, in a round sum, at the closing of
the Refuge. The premises in which this accommodation to the houseless
is now supplied were formerly a hat manufactory on a large scale; but
the lath and plaster of the ceilings, and the partitions, have been
removed, so that what was a suite of apartments on one floor is now a
long ward. The rafters of the ceilings are minutely whitewashed, as are
the upright beams used in the construction of the several rooms before
the place was applied to its present charitable end. Those now are in
the nature of pillars, and add to the catacomb-like aspect that I have
spoken of. In different parts of each ward are very large grates, in
which bright fires are kept glowing and crackling; and as these are
lighted some time before the hour of opening, the place has a warmth
and cosiness which must be very grateful to those who have encountered
the cold air all the day, and perhaps all the night before.
In order to arrive at a correct estimate as to the number of the really
poor and houseless who availed themselves of the establishment (to
afford nightly shelter to whom the refuge was originally instituted by
the benevolent founder, Mr. Hick, the City mace-bearer) I consulted
with the superintendent as to the class of persons he found most
generally seeking refuge there. These were--among the men--mostly
labourers out of work--agricultural, railway, and dock; discharged
artisans, chiefly carpenters and painters; sailors, either cast away
or without their registry tickets; broken-down tradesmen, clerks,
shopmen, and errand-boys, who either through illness or misfortune had
been deprived of their situations; and, above all, Irish immigrants,
who had been starved out of their own country. These he considered
the really deserving portion of the inmates for whom the institution
was designed. Among the females, the better and largest class of poor
were needlewomen, servants, charwomen, gardenwomen, sellers of laces
in the street, and occasionally a beggar-woman. Under his guidance I
selected such as appeared the most meritorious among the classes he had
enumerated, and now subjoin the statements of a portion of the number.
The first of the houseless that I saw was a railway navigator. He was
a fine, stoutly-built fellow, with a fresh-coloured open countenance,
and flaxen hair--indeed, altogether a splendid specimen of the Saxon
labourer. He was habited in a short blue smockfrock, yellow in parts
with clay, and he wore the heavy high lace-up boots, so characteristic
of the tribe. These were burst, and almost soleless with long wear.
The poor fellow told the old story of the labourer compelled to
squander the earnings at the public-house of his master:--
“I have been a navvy for about eighteen years. The first work that I
done was on the Manchester and Liverpool. I was a lad then. I used to
grease the railway waggons, and got about 1_s._ 6_d._ a-day. There we
had a tommy-shop, and we had to go there to get our bit of victuals,
and they used to charge us an extra price. The next place I had after
that was on the London and Brummagem. There I went as horse-driver,
and had 2_s._ 6_d._ a-day. Things was dear then, and at the tommy-shop
they was much dearer; for there was tommy-shops on every line then; and
indeed every contractor and sub-contractor had his shop that he forced
his men to deal at, or else he wouldn’t have them in his employ. At
the tommy-shop we was charged half as much again as we should have had
to pay elsewhere; and it’s the same now, wherever these tommy-shops
is. What the contractors, you see, can’t make out of the company, they
fleeces out of the men. Well, sir, I worked on that line through all
the different contracts till it was finished: sometimes I was digging,
sometimes shovelling. I was mostly at work at open cuttings. All this
time I was getting from 2_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ and 3_s._ 6_d._ a-day;
that was the top price; and if I’d had the ready-money to lay out
myself, I could have done pretty well, and maybe have put a penny or
two by against a rainy day: but the tommy-shop and the lodging-house
took it all out of us. You see, the tommy-shop found us in beer, and
they would let us drink away all our earnings there if we pleased, and
when pay-time came we should have nothing to take. If we didn’t eat and
drink at the tommy-shop we should have no work. Of an evening, we went
to the tommy-shop after the drink, and they’d keep drawing beer for
us there as long as we’d have anything coming to us next pay-day (we
were paid every fortnight, and sometimes every month), and when we had
drunk away all that would be coming to us, why they’d turn us out. The
contractor, who keeps these tommy-shops, is generally a gentleman, a
man of great property, who takes some four, five, or seven lengths to
do. Well, with such goings on, in course there wasn’t no chance in the
world for us to save a halfpenny. We had a sick fund among ourselves,
but our masters never cared nothing about us further than what they
could get out of us at their tommy-shops. They were never satisfied
if a man didn’t spend all his money with them; if we had a penny to
take at the month’s end, they didn’t like it; and now the half of us
has to walk about and starve, or beg, or go to the union. After I left
the Brummagem line, I went on to the Great Western. I went to work at
Maidenhead. There it was on the same system, and on the same rules--the
poor man being fleeced and made drunk by his master. Sometimes the
contractor would lot the work out to some sub-contractor, and he, after
the men had worked for a month, would run away, and we should never
see the colour of his money. After the Great Western, I went into
Lancashire, on the Manchester and Oldham branch. I started there to
work at nights, and there I worked a month for the contractors, when
they went bankrupt, and we never received a farthing but what we had
got out of the tommy-shop. Well, I came away from there, and got on to
the London and Brighton, and I worked all up and down that, saving the
tunnels; and it was the same there--the tommy-shop and imposition was
wherever we went. Well, from there I went on to the London and Dover.
It was monthly payments on that. There, too, I worked for a month,
when the sub-contractor runned away with all the men’s money--900_l._,
sir, it were calculated. After that another party took it, and it was
the same all the way up and down--the tommy-shop and beer as much as
we liked, on credit. Then I went on to the London and Cambridge, and
there it was the same story over and over again. Just about this time,
railway work began to get slack, and then farmers’ work was slack too;
and you see that made things worse for the navvies, for all came to
look for employment on the railroads. This is about seven years ago.
After that some more fresh lines started throughout Lancashire and
Yorkshire, and trade being bad in them parts, all the weavers applied
for work on the railways, and the regular navvies had a hard time of
it then. But we managed to get on somehow--kept lingering on--till
about three years agone, when trade got a little bit better. That was
about the time when things was very dear, and our wages was rose to
3_s._ 6_d._ a-day: they’d been only 2_s._ 6_d._ and 3_s._ before that;
and we did much better when our pay was increased, because we had the
ready-money then, and there was no tommy-shops that summer, for the
company wouldn’t have them on that line. At the end of that year the
work was all stopped, on account of the Chartist rising, and then
there was hundreds of men walking about begging their bread from door
to door, with nothing to do. After this, (that’s two years ago, the
back end of this year,) I went to work on the London and York. Here
we had only 2_s._ 9_d._ a-day, and we had only four days’ work in the
week to do besides; and then there was a tommy-shop, where we were
forced to get our victuals and drink: so you see we were very bad off
then. I stopped on this line (for work was very scarce, and I thought
myself lucky to have any) till last spring. Then all the work on it
stopped, and I dare say 2000 men were thrown out of employ in one day.
They were all starving, the heap of them, or next door to it. I went
away from there over to the Brummagem and Beechley branch line. But
there I found things almost as bad as what I left before. Big, strong,
able-bodied men were working for 1_s._ 8_d._ a-day, and from that to
2_s._: that was the top price; for wages had come down, you see, about
one-half, and little or no work to do at that price; and tommy-shop and
beer, sir, as before, out of the little we did get. The great cause of
our wages being cut down was through the work being so slack in the
country; everybody was flocking to them parts for employment, and the
contractors, seeing a quantity of men walking backwards and forwards,
dropped the wages: if one man wouldn’t work at the price, there was
hundreds ready to do it. Besides, provisions was very cheap, and the
contractors knew we could live on less, and do their work quite as
well. Whenever provisions goes down our wages does, too; but when they
goes up, the contractors is very slow in rising them. You see, when
they find so many men walking about without work, the masters have
got the chance of the poor man. Three year agone this last winter--I
think it was ’46--provisions was high and wages was good; and in the
summer of the very same year, food got cheap again, and our wages
dropped from 3_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ and 2_s._ 9_d._ The fall in our wages
took place immediately the food got cheaper. The contractors said,
as we could live for less, we must do the work for less. I left the
Brummagem and Beechley line, about two months before the Christmas
before last, and then I came to Copenhagen-fields, on the London and
York--the London end, sir; and there I was till last March, when we
were all paid off, about 600 on us; and I went back to Barnet, and
there I worked till the last seven weeks, and had 2_s._ 9_d._ a-day
for what, four years ago, I had 3_s._ 6_d._ for; and I could only have
three or four days’ work in the week then. Whilst I was there, I hurted
my leg, and was laid up a month. I lived all that time on charity;
on what the chaps would come and give me. One would give a shilling,
another sixpence, another a shilling, just as they could spare it; and
poorly they could do that, God knows! I couldn’t declare on to the sick
fund, because I hadn’t no bones broken. Well, when I come to look for
work, and that’s three weeks agone, when I could get about again, the
work was all stopped, and I couldn’t get none to do. Then I come to
London, and I’ve looked all about for a job, and I can’t find nothing
to do. I went to a lodging-house in the Borough, and I sold all my
things--shovel and grafting-tool and all, to have a meal of food. When
all my things was gone, I didn’t know where to go. One of my mates told
me of this Refuge, and I have been here two nights. All that I have had
to eat since then is the bread night and morning they gives us here.
This will be the last night I shall have to stop here, and after that I
don’t know what I shall do. There’s no railway work--that is, there’s
none to speak of, seeing the thousands of men that’s walking about with
nothing to do, and not knowing where to lay their heads. If I could
get any interest, I should like to go away as an emigrant. I shouldn’t
like to be sent out of my native country as a rogue and a vagabone;
but I’m tired of stopping here, and if I can’t get away, why I must go
home and go to the parish, and it’s hard for a young man that’s willing
and able like me to work, and be forced to want because he can’t get
it. I know there is thousands--thousands, sir, like I am--I know there
is, in the very same condition as I am at this moment: yes, I know
there is.” [This he said with very great feeling and emphasis.] “We
are all starving. We are all willing to work, but it ain’t to be had.
This country is getting very bad for labour; it’s so overrun with Irish
that the Englishman hasn’t a chance in his own land to live. Ever since
I was nine years old I’ve got my own living, but now I’m dead beat,
though I’m only twenty-eight next August.”
The next man to whom I spoke was tall and hale-looking, except that
his features were pinched, and his eyes had a dull lack-lustre look,
common to men suffering from cold and hunger. His dress was a coarse
jacket, fustian trousers, and coarse, hard-worn shoes. He spoke without
any very provincial accent.
“I am now forty-eight, and have been a farm-labourer all my life. I
am a single man. When I was a boy of twelve, I was put to dig, or see
after the birds, or break clods, or anything, on a farm at Croland, in
Lancashire. I had very little school before that, and can neither read
nor write. I was then living with my parents, poor people, who worked
on the land whenever they could get a day’s work. We had to live very
hard, but at hay and harvest times we had meat, and lived better. I
had 3_s._ a-week as a boy. When I grew up to fourteen I left home. I
thought my father didn’t use me well: perhaps it was my own fault. I
might have been a bad boy; but he was severe when he did begin with
me, though he was generally quiet. When his passion was up, there was
no bearing it. Anyhow, I started into the world at fourteen to do the
best I could for myself--to make my fortune if I could. Since then, I
have had work in all sorts of counties; Midland counties, principally.
When a boy, I got employment readily enough at bird-scaring, or
hay-making; but I soon grew up, and took a man’s place very early,
and I could then do any kind of farmer’s work, except ploughing or
seeding. They have men on purpose for that. Farm work was far better
in my younger days than it is now. For a week, when hired by the day,
I never get more than 15_s._, regular work. For taken work (by the
job), I have made as much as 42_s._ in a week; that is, in reaping and
mowing, when I could drop on such jobs in a difficult season, when
the weather was uncertain. I talk of good times. The last good job I
had was three years ago, come next summer. Now I should be glad to
get 9_s._ a-week, constant work: anything but what I’m doing now. As
I went about from place to place, working for farmers, I generally
lodged at the shepherds’ houses, or at some labourer’s. I never was
in a lodging-house when I was in work, only when money runs low one
must have shelter. At some lodging-houses I’ve had a good feather-bed;
others of them are bad enough: the best, I think, are in Norfolk. I
have saved a bit of money several times--indeed, year after year, until
the last three or four years; but what I saved in the summer, went in
the winter. In some summers, I could save nothing. It’s how the season
comes. I never cared for drink. I’ve done middling till these last two
seasons. My health was good, to be sure; but when a man’s in health his
appetite is good also; and when I’m at regular work I don’t eat half so
much as when I’m knocking about idle, and get hold of a meal. I often
have to make up for three or four days then. The last job I had was six
weeks before Christmas, at Boston, in Lincolnshire. I couldn’t make
1_s._ 6_d._ a-day on account of the weather. I had 13_s._, however,
to start with, and I went on the road, not standing for a straight
road, but going where I heard there was a chance of a job, up or down
anywhere, here or there, but there was always the same answer, ‘Nobody
wanted--no work for their own constant men.’ I was so beat out as soon
as my money was done--and it lasted ten days--that I parted with my
things one by one. First my waistcoat, then my stockings (three pair
of them), then three shirts. I got 2_s._ 4_d._ for three shirts, and
6_d._ a pair for my stockings. My clothes were done, and I parted with
my pocket-knife for 2_d._, and with my ’bacco-box for 1-1/2_d._ After
I left Boston, I got into Leicestershire, and was at Cambridge, and
Wisbeach, and Lynn, and Norwich; and I heard of a job among brickmakers
at Low Easthrop, in Suffolk, but it was no go. The weather was against
it, too. It was when the snow set in. And then I thought I would come
to London, as God in his goodness might send me something to do. I
never meant anything slinking. I’m only happy when I’m at work, but
here I am destitute. Some days as I walked up I had nothing to eat. At
others I got halfpennies or pennies from men like myself that I saw at
work. I’ve given shillings away that way myself at times. Sometimes
I had to take to the road, but I’m a very poor beggar. When I got
to London I was a stranger, and lodged here the first night--that’s
a week ago. A policeman sent me here. I’ve tried every day to get
work--labouring-work for builders, or about manure-carts, or anything
like that, as there’s no farming in London, but got none; so but for
this place I had starved. When this place is closed I must tramp into
the country. There are very many farm-labourers now going from farm to
farm, and town to town, to seek work, more than ever I saw before. I
don’t know that the regular farm-workmen come so much to London. As I
travelled up from Suffolk I lay rough often enough. I got into stables,
or any places. Such places as this save many a man’s life. It’s saved
mine, for I might have been found dead in the street, as I didn’t know
where to go.”
This man appeared to me to be a very decent character.
The large number of Irish found among the inmates of these
establishments is one of the peculiar features of the Refuges. By the
returns above given, it will be seen that they constitute more than
one-half of the total applicants. Such being the fact, I selected two
from the more decent, as types of the better class of immigrants, and
subjoin their narratives.
One of these men had a half-shrewd, half-stolid look, and was clad in
very dirty fustian. His beard was some days old, and he looked ill-fed
and wretched. His children--for he had two boys with him, ten and
twelve years old--were shoeless, their white skins being a contrast to
their dirty dress, as the former appeared through the holes in their
jackets. They looked on with a sort of vacant wonder, motionless, and
without a word. The father said:--
“I’ve been knocking about in England these four years from place to
place. I’m telling you the truth, sir. [This he often repeated.] I came
here to betther myself, to knock out something betther; but I wish
to God I’d been buried before I buried my wife and children. I do,
indeed, sir. I was a labourer in Ireland, working in farms and gardens
for anybody. My wages warn’t much, only 3_s._ a-week, and my datal
house (that is, a house rent-free), and two meals of victuals a-day,
sometimes ’taties and milk for meals, and sometimes ’taties and fish,
and sometimes--aye, often--’taties and nothing. My wife and me, and
four children, came from Cork--it was in the county Cork I lived--to
Wales. I don’t know the name of the part; they’ve such queer names
there; sure, then, they have, sir. It cost me half-a-crown a-piece
for the six of us. I raised the money partly by digging up a garden I
had, and selling what stuff there was, and the rest was made up by the
farmers in the neighbourhood giving their 3_d._ or 6_d._ a-piece to me,
so that I might lave. I wasn’t on the poor-law rate, but I soon might.
When I got to Wales, I had only 6_d._ left. I went to the workhouse for
a night’s lodging, to be sure--what else? I started next day for London
with my wife and children, begging as we came, and going from workhouse
to workhouse; and very badly we got along. It finished a fortnight to
get to London. When we got to London (that’s about four years agone) we
got work at peas-picking, my wife and me, in the gardens about. That
is for the summer. In the winter we sold oranges in the streets while
she lived, and we had nothing from the parishes. I can’t complain of
the living till this time, sir; it was better than I knew in Ireland. I
don’t know what we got, she managed all. Last autumn we went into the
hop county, to Ellis’s farm. I don’t know the town nearest; and there
my wife and two children died of the cholera at the farm. The three of
them wern’t a week ill. The parish kept them and buried them. Since
that I’ve been worse off than ever, and will always be worse off than
ever, for I’ve lost a good wife. Since her death I jobbed about in the
country, living very bare, me and the children, till the frost came,
and then we came to London. I was knocking about for a fortnight, and
begged a little; but sorrow a much I got by that. How did I know of
this place? Musha, all the neighbours know about it.”
The younger man, who was tall and gaunt, more intelligent than the
other, and less squalid in his appearance, said:--“I have been in
England two years in August. I came to better my living. I tilled a
portion of land in Ireland. It was 30_l._ a-year rent, and forty acres.
That was in the county Cork, parish of Kilmeen. I rented the land of a
middleman, and he was very severe. My family and I couldn’t live under
him. I had a wife and three children. We all came to England, from Cork
to Bristol. I kept a little substance back to pay my way to England.
The voyage cost 25_s._ From Bristol I went to Cardiff, as I got no work
at Bristol. At Cardiff I worked on the railway at 2_s._ 6_d._ a-day.
I did well for a couple of months. I would like to continue at that,
or at 1_s._ a-day here, better than in Ireland these times. I worked
in Cardiff town with a bricklayer, after I’d done on the railway,
at 12_s._ a-week. I next year had a twelvemonth’s work, on and off,
with a farmer near Bristol, at 10_s._ a-week, and was still plenty
comfortable. I made for London at the hay-harvest. I had a little money
to start with, but I got no hay-work, only a trifle of work at the
Docks. In corn-harvest, near Brighton, I worked for six weeks, making
10_s._ an acre for cutting wheat by piece-work, and 7_s._ for oats,
and 2_s._ for any day’s work. I made 4_l._ altogether. I got back to
London with 40_s._ I could get no work at all, but five days’ work at a
stone-yard, at 1_s._ a-day. I sold a few things in the streets, oranges
and apples; so did my wife. It helped to keep us. All was gone at last,
so I got in here with one child (a fine boy). My wife’s got three with
her. She’s in a lodging in Gray’s-inn-lane. She’s starving, I’m afraid;
but she wished me to come in here with the child, as I could do nothing
at night-time. I don’t know how many came over about the time I did.
The gentry give poor men money, or did give it to them, to send them
over here, to free the land from its expenses.”
To complete the picture of this Irish destitution, I add the following.
One wretched creature had come to the Refuge with her four children.
She herself was habited in a large blue cloth cloak, her toes were
through the end of her shoes, and her gown clung tight to her limbs,
telling that she was utterly destitute of under-clothing. In her
arms she carried an infant, round which were wound some old woollen
rags. As the little thing sucked at its mother’s breast, it breathed
so hard that it needed no words to tell of its long exposure to the
cold. Though the mother was half-clad, still there was the little
bit of clean net inside the old rusty straw bonnet. The children
were respectively eleven, six, and three years old. The eldest (a
good-looking grey-eyed girl, who stood with her forefinger in her
mouth, half simple) was covered with a tattered plaid shawl. This, at
her mother’s bidding, she drew from her shoulder with an ostentation
of poverty, to show that what had before appeared a gown beneath was
nothing more than a bombazine petticoat. On her feet were a pair of
women’s old fashionable shoes, tied on with string. These had been
given in charity to her by a servant a week back. The next child--a
boy--laughed as I looked at him, and seemed, though only six years old,
to have been made prematurely “knowing” by his early street education.
He put out his foot as he saw my eye glance downward to his shoes, to
show me that he had one boot and one shoe on. He was clad in all kinds
of rags, and held in his hand a faded velvet cap. The youngest boy was
almost a dwarf. He was three years old, but so stunted that he seemed
scarce half that age.
“I come from the county of Corruk, the worst and the poorest part of
it--yes, indeed, sir, it is,” said the woman; “and the gintlemen know
that I do. When I had it to do, I manufactured at flax and wool. I knit
and sewed, to be sure I did; but God Almighty was plazed to deprive me
of it. It was there I was married. My husband was a miner. Distress and
want, and hunger and poverty--nothing else--druv us to this counthry.
It was the will of God--glory be to his holy and blessed name!--to fail
the ’taties. To be sure, I couldn’t dig one out of the ground not fit
to ate. We lived on ’taties, and milk, and fish, and eggs. We used to
have hins then. And the mining failed, too; and the captains came over
here. Yes, to be sure; for here they lived, sir. Yes, sir, indeed; and
I could tell you that I used to be eight days--yes, that I did--before
I could get one ha’porth to ate--barring the wather I boiled and drank
to keep the life in myself and children. It was Doctor O’Donovan that
paid for our passage. When he see all the hunger, and distress, and
want--yes, indeed, sir--that I went through, he gave a letther to the
stame-packet office, and then they brought me and my three childer
over. It was here that this baby was borrun. My husband was here before
me, he was, about seven or eight months. He hadn’t sent me any money,
for he couldn’t a penny. He wrote home to see if I lived, for he didn’t
think I lived; and then I showed the letther to Dr. O’Donovan. My
husband niver got a day’s work since he came over; indeed, he couldn’t
give the childer their breakfast the next morning after they came. I
came to London-bridge, and met my husband there. Well, indeed, that is
nearly three years agone. Oh, thin, I had nothing to do since but what
little we done at the harvest. It was tin weeks before Christmas that
I came over, and I don’t know what month it was, for I don’t read or
write, you know. Oh, thin, indeed, we had to live by begging from that
up to harvest time. I had to beg for him sooner than let him die with
the hunger. He didn’t do any work, but he’d be glad of a sixpence he’d
earn. He’d rather have it that way than if he’d begged tin pound--it
would be more plisure. Never a day’s work could he get; and many beside
him. Oh, Lord, there is many, sir. He never does anything but at the
harvest-time, and then he works at raping the corrun. I know nothing
else that he does; and I bind the shaves afther him. Why, indeed, we
get work then for about a fortnight or three weeks--it don’t howld a
month. Oh no, sir, no; how could my children do anything, but as fast
as we’d earn it to ate it? I declare I don’t know how much we’d make
a-week then. They got only eight shillings an acre last year for it. I
declare I don’t know what we made; but whatever we had, we hadn’t two
shillings laving it. Ah, indeed, I had to beg all the rest of my time.
My husband doesn’t beg--I’ll tell you the thruth. The thruth is the
best. When he has e’er a penny, he tries to sell a handful of oranges;
and, indeed, he had to lave off silling, for he couldn’t buy half a
hundred of ’em to sill back. He done pritty well when the onions were
in season, he did, sir; but there’s so many silling oranges, he can’t
sill one of ’em. Now he does nothing, for he has nothing to reach half
a hundred of limons with, and that isn’t much. When I gets a pinny to
pay for the lodgings, then we lodges and sleeps together; but when
I can’t, I must go about this way with my children. When I go out
begging, he remains at home in the lodging-house; he has nothing else
to do, sir. I always go out with my childer; sure I couldn’t look at
’em die with hunger. Where’s the use of laving them with the husband;
what has he to give them? Indeed, if I had left them last night with
him, he couldn’t have give them as much as they’d put in their mouths
onced. Indeed, I take them out in the cowld to big with me to get a
bit of victuals for ’em. Sure God knows I can’t hilp it--he knows I
can’t--glory be to his holy name! Indeed, I have a part of the brid I
got here last night to carry to my poor husband, for I know he wanted
it. Oh, if I’m to go to the gallows, I’m telling you the thruth. Oh, to
be sure, yes, sir; there’s many a one would give a bit to the childer
when they wouldn’t to me--sure the world knows that; and maybe the
childer will get ha’pence, and that will pay my lodging or buy a loaf
of brid for ’em. Oh, sir, to be sure, you know I’d get more with all my
little childer out than I would with one, and that’s the rason indeed.
Yes, indeed, that’s why I take them out! Oh, then, that’s what you want
to know! Why, there’s some people wouldn’t believe I’d have so many.
Maybe, some days I wouldn’t get a pinny, and maybe I’d git a shilling.
I met a gintleman the other day that gave me a shilling together. I’d
all my childer out with me then. The sister carries the little fellow
on her back, no more would he stop afther me nayther. Only twice I’ve
left him at home. Oh thin, indeed, he do cry with the cowld, and often
again with the hunger; and some of the people says to me it’s myself
that makes him cry; but thin, indeed, it ain’t. Maybe I’ve no home to
give my husband, maybe it’s at some union he slept last night. My
husband niver goes bigging, he didn’t, sir--I won’t tell a lie--he
didn’t, indeed; but he sinds me out in the cowld, and in the wit, and
in the hate, too: but thin he can’t help it. He’s the best man that
iver put a hat on his hid, and the kindest.”
She persisted in asseverating this, being apparently totally incapable
of perceiving the inhumanity of her husband’s conduct.
“He don’t force me--he don’t, indeed--but he sits idle at home while
I go out. Ah, if you knew what I suffers! Oh, yes, he’d rather work,
if I’d got a guinea in gowld for him to-night; and yesterday morning
he prayed to God Almighty to put something in his way to give him a
day’s work. I was in prison onced for bigging. My children was taken
away from me, and sint to some union. I don’t know the name of it. That
was the time my husband was silling the limons. He niver came to spake
for me when I was going to prison, and he doesn’t know whether I’m in
prisin to-night. Ah, I beg your honour’s pardon, he would care, but he
can’t help me. I thought I’d ind my life in the prisin, for I wouldn’t
be allowed to spake a word. The poor man, my husband, can’t help it.
He was niver counted lazy in his counthry; but God Almighty plazed to
deprive him of his work, and what can he do?”
The next was a rather tall and well-spoken woman of fifty-eight.
“When I was young,” she said, “I used to go out to day’s works, or
charing, and sometimes as a laundress. I went charing till five years
ago, sometimes doing middling, often very badly, when I burst a
blood-vessel in lifting a weight--a pail of water to fill a copper.
I fell down all at once, and bled at the ears and nose. I was taken
to St. Bartholomew’s, and was there four months. When I came out, I
took to sell things in the street. I could do nothing else. I have
no friends in London--none in the world. Sometimes I picked up a
living by selling laces, and iron-holders, and memorandum-books,
in the City. I made the memorandum-books myself--penny books. The
pincushions I made myself. I never had anything from my parish, or
rather my husband’s--that’s Bristol. He was a bricklayer, but I
chared when he was out of work. He died eighteen years ago. I was
known by ladies and others in the City, who would sometimes give me
a sixpence for a lace. I was working two months back--it was the
general thanksgiving-day--when I was working at a fishmonger’s in
Gresham-street, and fell down the cellar stairs and broke my arm. I was
again three weeks in Bartholomew’s hospital. I have been destitute ever
since. I have made away with everything. A little quilt is all I have
left, and that would have gone last night if I hadn’t got in here.”
The poor woman whom I next accosted was a widow (her husband having
died only a few months before). She had altogether what I may call a
faded look; even her widow’s cap was limp and flat, and her look was
miserably subdued. She said:--
“My husband was a journeyman shoemaker. Sometimes he would earn 20_s._
a-week; but we were badly off, for he drank; but he did not ill-use
me--not much. During his last illness we raised 5_l._ on a raffle for a
silk handkerchief among the shoemakers, and 10_s._ from the Mendicity
Society, and a few shillings from the clergyman of the parish. The
trade buried him. I didn’t get 1_s._ as his widow--only 5_l._ to bury
him; but there was arrears of rent to pay, and about a month after his
death I hadn’t a farthing, and I took the cholera, and was eight days
in St. Bartholomew’s, the parish officers sending me there in a cab.
I lived in furnished lodgings before that, and had nothing to call my
own, when I had pawned my black for my husband. When I got out I helped
a neighbour at shoe-binding. One time I have earned 15_s._ a-week at
shoe-binding for ----, Regent-street. Now I can only earn 5_s._ with
full work. I have seldom earned 3_s._ of late weeks. I had to leave my
neighbour, because I felt that I was a burden, and was imposing upon
her. I then had a shelter with a young woman I once lodged with, but I
couldn’t stay there any longer. She was poor, and had nothing for me
to do. So, on Saturday last, I had no work, no money, no friends, and
I thought I would try and get in here, as another poor woman had done.
Here I’ve had a shelter.”
A pretty, pleasant-spoken young woman, very tidy in her poor attire,
which was an old cloak wrapped close round her, to cover her scanty
dress, gave me the following statement very modestly:--
“I am twenty-two; my mother died six years ago; my father I never
knew, for I’m an unlawful child. My mother had a small income from my
father, and kept me at school. I can’t even guess who my father was. I
am an only child. I was taken from school to wait upon my mother; very
kind indeed she was to me, but she died in three weeks after I came
from school. She’d been in a consumption for six years; she fretted
sadly about me. She never told me I was an unlawful child. My aunt, my
mother’s sister, told me one day afterwards. My mother always said my
father lived in the country. I loved my mother, so I seldom spoke of
my father, for she would say, ‘I don’t wish to hear about him.’ There
was nothing for me at my mother’s death, so I put myself to learn
fancy-box-making for grocers and pastrycooks, for their sweetmeats, and
for scents. My aunt assisted me. She is now poor, and a widow. I could
never earn more than 3_s._ or 4_s._ a-week at box-making, the pay is so
bad. I lived this way for four or five years, lodging with my aunt, and
giving her all I earned, and she kept me for it. I then went to learn
the Macintosh-coat-making. I went into lodgings, my aunt being unable
to help me any longer, as at my uncle’s death she could only keep a
room for herself and children. She makes pill-boxes. I could earn at
the Macintoshes only 4_s._ a-week and my tea, when in full work, and
when work was bad, I earned only 2_s._ 6_d._ It was 8_d._ a-day and
my tea. I parted with a good box of clothes to keep myself; first one
bit of dress went, and another. I was exposed to many a temptation,
but I have kept my character, I am happy to say. On Monday night I
was in the streets all night--I hardly knew in what part, I was so
miserable--having no place to put my head in, and frightened to death
almost. I couldn’t pay my lodgings, and so lost them--I was locked out.
I went to the station-house, and asked to sit there for a shelter, but
the policeman said it was no place for me, as I was not guilty of any
offence; they could do nothing for me: they were all very civil. I
walked the streets all that cold night; I feel the cold of that night
in my limbs still. I thought it never would be over. I wasn’t exposed
to any insults. I had to walk about all Tuesday, without a bite either
Monday or Tuesday. On Tuesday evening I got admitted into this place,
and was very thankful. Next day I tried for work, but got none. I had a
cup of tea from my aunt to live on that day.”
This girl wished to get into the parish, in order to be sent out as an
emigrant, or anything of that kind; but her illegitimacy was a bar, as
no settlement could be proved.
It was not difficult to see, by the looks of the poor woman whom I
next addressed, the distress and privation she had endured. Her eyes
were full of tears, and there was a plaintiveness in her voice that
was most touching. She was clad in rusty black, and had on a black
straw bonnet with a few old crape flowers in it; but still, in all
her poverty, there was a neatness in her appearance that told she was
much unused to such abject misery as had now come upon her. Hers was,
indeed, a wretched story--the victim of her husband’s ill treatment
and neglect:--“I have been working at needlework ever since the end
of August. My husband is living; but he has deserted me, and I don’t
know where he is at present. He had been a gentleman’s servant, but
he could attend to a garden, and of late years he had done so. I have
been married nine years next April. I never did live happily with
him. He drank a very great deal, and when tipsy he used to beat me
sorely. He had been out of work for a long time before he got his last
situation, and there he had 18_s._ a-week. He lost his place before
that through drink. Oh, sir, perhaps he’d give me all his money at the
end of the week within three shillings; but then he’d have more than
half of it back again--not every week alike, of course, but that was
mostly the case--and in particular, for the last year and a half, for
since then he had been worse. While he was with me I have gone out for
a day’s charing occasionally, but then I found I was no for’arder at
the week’s end, and so I didn’t strive so much as I might have done,
for if I earned two shillings he’d be sure to have it from me. I was
a servant, before he married me, in a respectable tradesman’s family.
I lived three years and a half at my master’s house out of town, and
that was where I fell in with my husband. He was a shopman then. I
lived with him more than eight years, and always acted a wife’s part
to him. I never drank myself, and was never untrue to him; but he
has been too untrue to me, and I have had to suffer for it. I bore
all his unkindness until August last, when he treated me so badly.
I cannot mention to you how--but he deceived me and injured me in
the worst possible manner. I have one child, a boy, seven years old
last September; but this boy is with him, and I don’t know where. I
have striven to find him out, but cannot. When I found out how he had
deceived me we had words, and he then swore he wouldn’t come home any
more to me, and he has kept to his oath, for I haven’t set eyes on him
since. My boy was down at a friend’s house at Cambridge, and they gave
him up to the father without my knowledge. When he went away I had no
money in the house. Nothing but a few things--tables, and chairs, and
a bed in a room. I kept them as long as I could, but at last they went
to find me in food. After he had gone I got a bit of needle-work. I
worked at the dress-making and several different kinds of work since
he left me. Then I used to earn about five shillings a-week; sometimes
not so much. Sometimes I have made only two shillings, and lately--that
is, within the last six weeks--I have earned scarcely anything. About
October last I was obliged to sell my things to pay off my rent and
get myself something to eat. After that I went to lodge with a person,
and there I stopped till very lately, when I had scarce nothing, and
couldn’t afford to pay my rent. Then I was turned out of there, and I
went and made shift with a friend by lying down on the boards, beside
her children. I lay down with my clothes on. I had nothing to cover me,
and no bed under me. They was very poor people. At last my friend and
her husband didn’t like to have people about in the room where they
slept; and besides, I was so poor I was obliged to beg a bit of what
they had, and they was so poor they couldn’t afford to spare it to
me. They were very good and kind to me so long as they could hold out
anyhow, but at last I was obliged to leave, and walk about the streets.
This I did for two whole nights--last Sunday and Monday nights. It was
bitter cold, and freezing sharp. I did go and sit on the stairs of a
lodging-house on Monday night, till I was that cold I could scarcely
move a limb. On Tuesday night I slept in the Borough. A lady in the
street gave me threepence. I asked her if she could give me a ticket to
go anywhere. I told her I was in the deepest distress, and she gave me
all the halfpence she had, and I thought I would go and have a night’s
lodging with the money. All these three days and nights I had only a
piece of bread to keep down my hunger. Yesterday I was walking about
these parts, and I see a lot of people standing about here, and I asked
them if there was anything being given away. They told me it was the
Refuge, or else I shouldn’t have known there was such a place. Had I
been aware of it, I shouldn’t have been out in the streets all night as
I was on Sunday and Monday. When I leave here (and they’ll only keep me
for three nights) I don’t know what I shall do, for I have so parted
with my things that I ain’t respectable enough to go after needlework,
and they do look at you so. My clothes are all gone to live upon. If
I could make myself look a little decent, I might perhaps get some
work. I wish I could get into service again. I wish I’d never left it,
indeed: but I want things. If I can’t get any things, I must try in
such as I have got on: and if I can’t get work, I shall be obliged to
see if the parish will do anything for me; but I’m afraid they won’t. I
am thirty-three years old, and very miserable indeed.”
From the opening of the Refuges for the Houseless in 1820, until 1852,
as many as 189,223 homeless individuals received “nightly shelter”
there, being an average of upwards of 6000 a-year. Some of these have
remained three or four nights in the same establishment; so that,
altogether, no less than 1,141,558 nights’ lodgings were afforded to
the very poor, and 2,778,153 lbs., or nearly 25,000 cwt. of bread
distributed among them.