HOUSING THE POOR
And now, so far as this book is concerned, I have done with prisoners
and criminals, so I turn right gladly to the other side of my life. For
my life is dual, one half being given to sinners and the other to
saints. I have spoken freely about the difficulties of prisoners and
with prisoners; let me now tell of the struggles, difficulties, and
virtues of the industrious poor. I will draw a veil over the ignorance,
the drunkenness, the wastefulness, and the cupidity of the very poor.
Other people may find these matters congenial, and may dilate upon them,
but such a task is not for me. I know these things exist--I do not
wonder at their existence--but other things exist also--things that warm
my heart and stir my blood--and of them I want to tell. And I have some
right to speak, for I know the very poor as few can know them. From
personal touch and friendly communion my experience has been acquired,
and I am proud to think that at least twelve hundred of London's poorest
but most industrious women look upon me as their friend and adviser.
When I gave up police-court work, I thought to devote the remainder of
my days absolutely to the London home-workers; but Providence willed it
otherwise, so only one-half of a very busy life is at their service. Of
what that half reveals I cannot be silent, though I would that some far
abler pen than mine would essay the task of describing the difficulties
and perils that environ the lives of the industrious poor. I want and
mean to be a faithful witness, so I will tell of nothing that I have not
seen, I will describe no person that does not exist, and no narrative
shall sully my pages that is not true in fact and detail. Imagination is
of no service to me. I am as zealous for mere facts as was Mr. Gradgrind
himself, and my facts shall be real, self-sufficing facts, out-vying
imagination, and conveying their own lesson. If I carry my readers with
me, we shall go into strange places and see strange sights and hear
piteous stories; but I shall ask my readers to be heedless of all that
is unpleasant, not to be alarmed at forbidding neighbourhoods or
disgusted with frowzy women, but to contemplate with me the difficulties
and the virtues of the industrious poor, and then, if they will, to
worship with me at the shrine of poor humanity.
Quite recently I was invited to take sixty of my poor industrious women
to spend a day at Sevenoaks. Among the party was a widow aged sixty and
her daughter of thirty-five. They were makers of women's costumes, and
had worked till half-past four that very morning in order to have the
day's outing. I had known them for years, and many times had I been in
their poor home watching them as, side by side, they sat at their
machines. Happy were they in recent years when their united earnings
amounted to twenty-one shillings for a week's work of eighty hours.
"Tell me," I said to the widow, "how long have you lived in your present
house?" "Forty years," said the widow. "Emmy was born in it, and my
husband was buried from it. I have been reckoning up, and find that I
have paid more than twelve hundred pounds in rent, besides the rates."
"Impossible," I said, "out of your earnings!" She said: "We let off part
of the house, and that pays the rates and a little over, but we always
have to find ten shillings a week for rent." Ten shillings out of
twenty-one shillings, when twenty-one was forthcoming, which was by no
means the case every week. "We cannot do with less than three rooms--one
to work in, one to sleep in, and the little kitchen. I cannot get
anything cheaper in the neighbourhood."
Here we come at once upon one of the greatest difficulties of the
industrious poor. If they wish to live in any way decently, one-half
their earnings disappears in rent.
"We have nowhere to go." The difficulties the poor have in finding
suitable--or, indeed, any--rooms that may serve as a shelter for
themselves and their children, and be dignified by the name of "home,"
are almost past belief. All sorts of subterfuges are resorted to, and it
is no uncommon thing for a woman, when applying for one or more rooms,
to state the number of her children to be less than half what it is in
reality. Sometimes, it must be confessed, the people who obtain rooms
by such means are not desirable tenants; but it is also true that even
decent people have to resort to some kind of deception if they are to
find shelter at all.
Day after day in London police-courts the difficulty is made manifest.
Houses altogether unfit for human habitation have to be closed by order
of the authorities; but, wretched and insanitary as those dwellings are,
dangerous to the health and well-being of the community as they may be,
they are full to overflowing of poor humanity seeking some cover. But
they must "clear out." Their landlords say so, the sanitary authorities
say so, and the magistrate confirms the landlord and the sanitary
authorities. The one cry, the one plea of all the poor who are to be
ejected is: "Where are we to go? We can't get another place." The kindly
magistrate generally allows a few weeks' grace, and tells them to do
their best meanwhile to procure other rooms. For some this is a
possibility, but for others the period of grace will pass, and on an
appointed day an officer of the court will be in Paradise Row or Angel
Court, as the case may be, to see that the tenants are ejected without
undue violence, and that their miserable belongings are deposited safely
in the street.
On dark November days, with the rain coming steadily down, I have
frequently seen the débris of such homes, the children keeping watch,
and shivering as they watched. I have spoken to the children, asked them
about their mother, and their reply has been: "Mother has gone with the
baby to look for another place."
Heaven help that mother in her forlorn hope and desperate search! I can
imagine her clutching the babe tightly to her, holding in her closed
hand the shilling that is to act as a deposit for binding a tenancy, her
last rent-book in her bosom to show her _bona fides_, going from street
to street, from house to house, climbing staircase after staircase,
exploring and appealing time after time. She will stoutly declare that
she has but two children, when she has six; she will declare that her
husband is a good, sober man, and in regular work, neither of which will
be true. Ultimately, she will promise to pay an impossible rent, and
tremulously hand over the shilling to bind the contract; then she will
return to the "things," and tell the children of their new home. This is
no imaginary picture. It is so very true, so very common, that it does
not strike our imagination. The cry of the very poor is ever sounding in
our ears: "We have nowhere to live! We don't know where to go!"
This fear of being homeless, of not being allowed to live in such
wretched places as they now inhabit, haunts the very poor through life,
and pursues them to the grave. And this worry, anxiety, and trouble
falls upon the woman, adding untold suffering to her onerous life; for
it is the woman that has to meet the rent-collector, whose visits come
round all too quickly; she has to mollify him when a few shillings
remain unpaid. The wife has to procure other rooms when her husband has
fallen out of work, and she receives the inevitable notice to quit when
there appears to be a possibility of the family becoming still more
numerous. If sickness, contagious or otherwise, comes upon any of the
children, and the shadow of death enters the home, upon the wife comes
the heart-breaking task of seeking a new home and conveying her children
and "things" to another place. This is no light task. The expense is a
consideration, and the old home, bad as it was, had become in many ways
dear to her. What more pitiful sight can be imagined than the removal?
No pantechnicon is required--a hired barrow is sufficient; and when
night has well advanced the goods are conveyed in semi-darkness from the
old home to the new.
Think for a moment what a life she lives, to what shifts she is reduced,
what privations she endures! Is it any wonder that the children born of
her have poor bodies and strange minds?
"The children born of thee are fire and sword,
Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws,"
Tennyson makes King Arthur to say. In many respects these words are true
of poor mothers in London. The houses in which they live, the conditions
under which they exist, the ceaseless worries and nameless fears they
endure, make it absolutely certain that many of the children born will
be strange creatures.
And right up to the verge of eternity the fear of being homeless haunts
the poor. Let one instance suffice. I was visiting a young married woman
whose husband had been sent to prison for some months. She lived in one
room, for which she paid, or should have paid, four shillings and
sixpence weekly. The street was a very poor street, and the house a very
small house. It stood, without any forecourt, close up to the street
pavement. While I was speaking to the young woman a message came that
the landlady, who lived downstairs, wanted to speak to me; so down the
narrow stairs I went. There being only one room below, I rapped at the
door, and a very queer voice told me to "Come in." I went in, and found
a very small room, occupied chiefly by a bed, a small table, and several
broken chairs. On the bed lay an old woman. Her face was puckered with
age, her forehead was deeply furrowed, her eyes were dim, and the hands
lying on the quilt were more like claws than human hands. As I stood
over her, she looked up and said: "Are you Mr. Holmes? I want my rent."
Her voice was so strange and thin that I had some difficulty in
understanding her, but I found that the tenant upstairs owed her five
weeks' rent, and that, now her husband was in prison, the poor old woman
was afraid of losing it. As the matter seemed to trouble her greatly, I
told her that I would pay the arrears of her rent. "But I want it now,"
she went on. "The collector is coming to-morrow, and I shall be put
out--I shall be put out." I stroked her thin hair, and told her that I
would call early the next morning and give her the money. But the poor
woman looked worried and doubtful. I called early the next morning, and
found the old woman expecting me. "Have you brought my rent?" were the
first words I heard on entering the room. I took up one of her thin
hands and opened it, and put a sovereign in it. "That is a sovereign," I
said. She held it up, and tried to look at it; but she was not
satisfied, for she said to her daughter, who was standing by: "Jane, is
this a sovereign?" When Jane assured her that it was, the old hand
closed convulsively upon it. "Hold out your other hand," I said. She
held it open, and I counted five shillings into it. Then that hand
closed, and the old head lay a bit closer to the pillow, and an
expression of restful satisfaction passed over her withered face. A week
later I called at the same house, but the old woman was not there,
neither had she been "put out." She had paid the rent-collector when he
called, and her rent-book was duly signed; but the Great Collector had
not forgotten her, for He also had called and given her a receipt in
full. Her worries were ended.
If we would but think--think of the effect that such anxieties must have
upon the present and future generations--I believe that we should
realize that first and foremost of all questions affecting the health
and happiness of the nation stands the one great question of "housing
the very poor"; for the chivalry of our men, the womanliness of our
women, the sweetness of our daughters, and the brave hearts of our lads
depend upon it.
But if the fear of being "put out" has its terrors, none the less has
the continuous occupation of one room its attendant evils. It is so easy
for humanity to get used to wretched homes and vile environments, so
easy to get accustomed to dirt, thick air, and insanitary conditions,
that one does not wonder that poor people who have lived for years under
such conditions prefer those conditions to any other. And this holds
true even with those who have known the bracing effect of cold water on
their bodies, and have felt the breath of God in their lungs. The return
path to dirt is always alluring to the human body. Time and again I have
gone into places where I hardly dared to breathe, and in which I could
only with the greatest difficulty stay for a few minutes; and when I
have sometimes ventured to open a window a look of astonishment crossed
the faces of those I had called on, for even the thick atmosphere had
become natural.
And other results follow--mental as well as physical. To become, through
bad but frightfully dear housing, gradually used to dirt and bad air,
till these are looked upon as natural, carries along with it, as part
and parcel of itself, another deadening influence. Filth raises no
feeling of disgust; high rents produce no sense of injustice, no
feelings of resentment: for the poor become absolutely passive. Yes, and
passive in more ways than one; for they, without question or demur,
accept any payment that may be given them for such services as they can
render. Inevitably, they become the prey of the sweater, and work for
endless hours at three halfpence per hour; and if the payment for the
work they do should, without their permission, be reduced, it only means
that a couple of hours more must be added to the long day already
worked.
It is this passivity of the poor that appals me. Their negative virtues
astonish me, for I find in them no bitterness, no sense of wrong, no
idea of rebellion, no burning resentment--not even the feeling that
something is wrong, though they know not what. Their only ambition is
to live their little lives in their very little homes; to be ready
weekly with their four shillings for their wretched room in a wretched
house; to have plenty of poorly-paid work, though they sit up all night
to do it; and to sit in poverty and hunger when sufficient work is not
to hand, to suffer silently, to bear with passive heroism, and to die
unburied by the parish.
Such is the life of many London home-workers, of whom some are my
personal friends. But what becomes of this life? The death of
aspiration. A machine-like perseverance and endurance is gradually
developed; but the hope of better things dies: hope cannot exist where
oxygen is absent. Then comes the desire to be let alone, and alone to
die.
I have met women who had become so used to the terrible conditions under
which they lived that no amount of persuasion could induce them to move
out of those conditions. Again I draw upon my experience.
One cold day in February a young married man was charged with stealing a
piece of pork. I had some conversation with him, and he told me that he
was out of work, that his wife and children were starving, and that his
widowed mother, who lived in the same house, was in much the same
condition. He gave me their address--a poor street in Haggerston--so I
visited the family. It was a terrible street even for Haggerston, but it
was crowded with humanity. I found the house, and went up the rotten
staircase to the first-floor back. There I found the prisoner's wife,
sitting at a machine making babies' boots. In the room was an old
broken perambulator, in which were two children, one asleep and the
other with that everlasting deceit, a "baby's comforter," in its mouth.
As the child fed on the thick air it looked at me with wondering eyes,
and the mother kept on working. Presently she stopped and answered my
questions. Yes, it was true her husband was out of work. He was good to
her, and a sober, industrious man. They paid three and sixpence weekly
for their room, when they could. Would I excuse her? She must get on
with her work; she wanted to take it in. I excused her, and, leaving her
a few shillings, went in search of the older woman.
I found her in another small room; but, small as the room was, there
were two beds in it, which were covered with match-boxes. A small table
and two old chairs completed the furniture. She was seated making
match-boxes as I entered, and I saw her hands moving with that
dreadfully automatic movement that has so often made me shudder.
She looked up at me, but on she went. I spoke to her of her son, told
her my business, and ultimately sat down and watched her. Poor old
woman! She was fifty-six, she told me. She might have been any age over
seventy. She was a widow. She had lived in that room thirteen years,
having come to it soon after her husband's death. Whilst I was speaking
to her she got up from her boxes, took a small saucepan off the
miserable fire, and out of it took some boiled rice, put it in an old
saucer, sat down, and ate it. It was her dinner.
Afterwards she put the remaining rice in a saucer, covered it with
another, and placed it in front of the fire. I soon saw why. A lanky boy
of nearly fourteen came in from school, and she pointed to the saucer.
He took it, and swallowed the rice, and looked at me. I looked at the
boy, and read the history of his life in his face and body. He had been
born in that room; that was his bed in the corner covered with
match-boxes. The old woman was his mother. Three and sixpence every week
had she paid for that room. Nearly three days of the week she had worked
for interminable hours to earn the money that paid for the shelter for
herself and the boy.
I will not describe the boy. Was he a boy at all? All his life he had
lived, moved, and had his being in that room; had fed as I saw him feed,
and had breathed the air I was breathing.
He went back to school, and I talked to his mother. She owed no rent;
she had received no parish help. She never went to church or chapel. She
wanted nothing from anybody. That little room had become her world, and
her only recreation was taking her boxes to the factory. Grimy and
yellow were the old hands that kept on with the boxes. I offered her a
holiday and rest. There was the rent to be paid. I would pay the rent.
She had no clothes suitable. Mrs. Holmes would send her the clothes.
There was the boy to be seen to. I would arrange for him. No; she would
not go. Her last word was that she did not wish or care to leave her
home. Neither did she. And though years have passed since my first
visit to that one-roomed house, out of it the old woman has not passed,
excepting on her usual errand. And fresh air, clean sheets, and
relaxation meant nothing to her.
I sat in the dark, damp kitchen of a house in one of the narrow streets
of Hoxton. Over my head some very poor clothing was hanging to dry. It
was winter-time, and the gloom outside only added to the gloom within,
and through a small window the horrors of a London back-yard were
suggested rather than revealed.
As I sat watching the widow at her work, and wondered much at the
mechanical accuracy of her movements, I felt something touch my leg,
and, looking down, found a silent child, about three years of age, on
the floor at my feet. I had been in the room some few minutes, and had
not previously seen or heard the child, it was so horribly quiet. I
picked it up, and placed it on my knee, but it was passive and open-eyed
as a big doll. The child had been born in that kitchen on a little
substitute for a bed that half-filled the room. Its father was dead, and
the widowed mother got a "living" for herself and her children by
attaching bits of string to luggage labels, for which interesting work
she got fourpence per thousand. In her spare time she took in washing,
and the clothes over my head belonged to neighbours.
Fifteen years she had lived in that house. It was her first home after
marriage. Till his death, which occurred three years before, her husband
had been tenant of the whole house, but always "let off" the upper part,
which consisted of two rooms, it being a two-storied house.
He died of consumption in the other room on the ground-floor, which
abutted the street pavement. Her child was born in the kitchen as her
husband lay dying a few feet away in the front-room. So that wretched
house was dear to her, for love, death, and life had been among its
visitants, and it became to her a sacred and a solemn place. She became
tenant of the house, and continued to let off the two upper rooms; and
with her children round her she continued her life in the lower rooms.
The rent was 13s. weekly. She received 7s. 6d. weekly for the two upper
rooms, leaving 5s. 6d. weekly to be the burden and anxiety of her life;
so she tied knots and took in washing. The very sight of the knot-tying
soon tired me, and the dark, damp atmosphere soon satisfied me. As I
rose to leave, the widow invited me to "look at her boy in the other
room." We went into the room in front. It was now quite dark, and the
only light in the room came through the window from a street-lamp. The
widow spoke to someone, but no answer came. I struck a wax match and
held it aloft. A glance was enough. I asked the widow to get a lamp, and
one of those cheap, dangerous abominations provided for the poor was
brought to me.
On the bed lay a strange-looking boy of nine, twisted and deformed in
body, wizened in features, suffering writ all over him, yet
apathetically and unconcernedly waiting for the end. With the lamp in my
hand, I bent over him and spoke kindly to him. He looked at me, then
turned away from me; he would not speak to me. Poor little fellow! He
had suffered so long and so much that he expected nothing else. He knew
that he was dying. What did it matter? The mothers in London streets are
not squeamish, and their young children are very soon made acquainted
with the mysteries of life and death.
"He has been in two hospitals, and I have fetched him home to die," said
the widow to me. "How long has he lain like this?" I asked. "Three
months." "Who sleeps in that bed with him?" "I do, and the little boy
you saw in the kitchen." "Who sleeps in the kitchen?" "Only George: he
is fourteen."
On inquiry, I was told that the dying boy had always been weak and
ailing, and also that, when five years of age, he had been knocked down
in the street by a cyclist, and that he had been crippled and twisted
ever since.
Nearly five years of suffering, and now he had "come home to die." Poor
little fellow! What a life for him! What a death for him! Born in a dark
kitchen while his father lay dying; four years of joyless poverty in a
London street; five years of suffering, in and out of hospitals; and now
"home to die." And he knew it, and waited for the end with contemptuous
indifference. But he had not much longer to wait, for in three weeks'
time the blessed end came.
But the widow still takes in washing, damp clothes still hang in her
dark kitchen, and by the faint light of her evil-smelling lamp she
continues to "tie her knots"; and the silent child is now acquiring some
power of expression in the gutter.
Slum property sometimes gets into queer hands. Sometimes it is almost
impossible to find the real owners, and the fixing of responsibility
becomes a great difficulty.
A SLUM PROPERTY HOLDER.
An old woman, dressed in greasy black silk, with a bonnet of ancient
date, often appeared in one of our courts for process against some of
her many tenants. Her hair, plastered with grease, hung round her head
in long ringlets; her face never showed any signs of having been washed;
a long black veil hung from her old bonnet, and black cotton gloves
covered her hands. She was the widow of a well-to-do jeweller, and owned
some rows of cottage property in one of our poorest neighbourhoods.
After her husband's death, she decided to live in one of her cottages
and collect her own rents. She brought with her much jewellery, etc.,
that had not been sold, and there in the slums, with her wealth around
her, and all alone, lived the quaint old creature. Week by week she
appeared at the court for "orders" against tenants who had not paid
their rent. Though seventy-three, she would have no agent; she could
manage her own business. Suddenly she appeared as an applicant for
advice. She had married: her husband was a carpenter, aged twenty-one.
They had been married but a few days, and her husband refused to go to
work--so she told the magistrate. "Well, you know, madam, that you have
plenty for both," said the magistrate. "That's what he says, but I tell
him that I did not marry him that I might keep him." She got neither
help nor comfort from the magistrate, so she tottered out of the court,
grumbling as she went. In a few days she appeared again. "My husband has
stolen some of my jewellery." Again she got no comfort. Still again she
complained. "My husband has been collecting my rents." "Send a notice to
your tenants warning them not to pay your husband." She did so; the
husband did the same, warning the tenants not to pay his wife. This
suited the tenants admirably: they paid neither. Never were such times
till the old woman applied for ejectment orders wholesale. While these
things were going on the youthful husband wasted her substance in
riotous living, and showed a decided preference for younger women. This
aroused the old woman's jealousy; she couldn't put up with it. Packing
her jewels and valuables in a portmanteau, she left her house. When her
husband returned at night the wife of his bosom was gone; neither did
she return. He was disconsolate, and sought her sorrowing. Some miles
away she had a poor widowed sister, and there the old woman found
shelter.
But there paralysis seized her, and a doctor had to be called in. He
acted in the double capacity of doctor and lawyer, for he drew up a
will, put a pen into her hands, and guided her gently while she signed
it. "All her worldly goods were left to her sister." Ultimately the
husband found out where she was located, and frequently called at the
house, but the door was barred against him. It was winter-time, and the
snow lay on the ground. At midnight a cab drew softly up to the house
where the old woman lay. Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door,
and the sister came down to answer. Thoughtlessly she opened the door,
when she was seized by two men, who locked her in the front parlour
while they ran upstairs, rolled the old woman in warm blankets, carried
her to the cab, and away they went. A nice room and another doctor were
awaiting her. Another will was drawn up, which the old woman signed.
"All her worldly goods were left to her dear husband." Next morning the
sister applied for a summons against the young husband, but the
magistrate decided that the man had a right to run away with his own
wife. All might have gone merrily for the husband, but the old lady
died. The sister went to the police, who arrested him for causing his
wife's death. For many days the case was before the court, half a dozen
doctors on each side expressing very decided opinions. Ultimately he was
committed for trial. Doctors and counsel galore were concerned, but the
jury acquitted him at last. And then came another trial. Counsel and
doctors were again concerned. Which will was to stand? I don't know how
they settled it, but one thing I am sure about--when the doctors and
lawyers had got their share, and the counsel had had a good picking,
there was not much left for the loving husband and the dear sister.
Since writing the above, the following paragraphs have appeared in the
daily press:
"WIDOWER'S PATHETIC PLIGHT.
"'My wife is lying dead in the house, and the landlord threatens to
eject me at twelve o'clock if I am not out. What can I do?' Thus asked a
respectable-looking working man of Mr. d'Eyncourt at Clerkenwell
Police-Court. 'Has he given you notice?' 'Yes; but how can I go just
now? The funeral is to-morrow, and I have offered to go on Wednesday,
but he says he will put me in the street to-day.' 'Well, he's legally
entitled to do so, I am afraid. I can do nothing.' 'I thought that
perhaps you might ask him to let me stay for a day or two.' 'No, that is
a matter for you. I cannot interfere,' the magistrate observed in
conclusion."
"LONDON LAND WITHOUT AN OWNER.
"Mr. H. Sherwin White requested Mr. Marsham at Bow Street Police-Court
to appoint someone under the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act to
determine the value of the forecourts of five houses in Coldharbour
Lane, Brixton, which had been required for tramway purposes. He added
that the owner of the houses could not be found. Mr. Marsham appointed
Mr. A. L. Guy to be valuer."