IN THE WARD.
My next interview was with the rector of a church west of Yonge street,
the congregation of which, although attended by many of the elite in
Toronto uppertendom, mainly consists of the lower middle class, and of
the respectable inhabitants of the St. John’s ward streets. In this
church, as in a few others in the city, it may be said in the words of
the oldest poetry, “The rich and the poor meet together, for the Lord is
the maker of them all.”
This clergyman does not wish his name published, but states his readiness
to do so in a letter to THE NEWS should any doubt be expressed as to the
accuracy of the facts reported.
The portion of Toronto from whence his congregation is drawn covers the
poorest and least reputable part of St. John’s ward—Teraulay, Elizabeth,
and University streets, with the stretch of lanes and alleys between
them, east and west; but north and south from these lanes extend smaller
lanes, or rather rearages between the houses in the front streets,
and occupying the place of the closets and woodsheds. In this network
of slums comes and goes a fluctuating population of pauperism, the
enfants perdus of the city, all those broken down by vice or poverty or
misfortune.
One morning at the early hour of three this clergyman was awakened by a
hard knock at his door. He put his head out of the first window and asked
what was the matter. A man on the door-step said that his wife was dying,
would Mr. ⸺ visit her? The clergyman hurriedly dressed, and accompanied
his guide, who was far-gone in liquor, to a yard in the rear of one of
the bye lanes alluded to above. As they entered the yard a number of
small curs about the various premises began to bark, on which Mr. ⸺
beheld to his astonishment, several old wooden boxes gradually raised up,
from each of which, like the head of a turtle from its shell, protruded
the head of a boy who had chosen this strange sleeping-place, the bare
ground for his mattress,
AN OLD BOX FOR HIS BED-CLOTHES!
Satisfied that no danger was to be feared, the unkempt little heads were
withdrawn under their boxes.
They entered a room, full of men and women, on a table in which, covered
with a scanty rag, was laid the corpse of the woman, who, the clergyman
soon ascertained, had been dead for three hours. The husband, he shrewdly
suspected, had asked for this visit in order to obtain drink-money,
under pretence of assistance towards funeral expenses. The occupants
of the room, male and female, were, most of them, more or less drunk;
they belonged to the lowest type of Irish hoodlum; in the center of the
room near the table on which lay the corpse, sat up a skinny old hag,
repulsive and horrible in her mirth. Mr. A⸺ was soon pressed for a small
immediate sum of money, “jist to make things dacent.” But my friend Mr. ⸺
is possessed, not only of great shrewdness and resolution, but has also
the physical strength so necessary in visiting such dens. He refused
their request for money, but said he would come next day and help. This
kind announcement was by no means received with enthusiasm. The old crone
in the bed exclaimed “musha, lave the gintleman alone; sure to-morrow
we’ll sind to the ladies at the convint, and it’s they will do the dacent
thing for us!” This appeal to the odium theologicum was judged to be
ill-timed by the others, one of whom gave the old lady a dig in the ribs
which sent her flying from the bed to the floor.
Next day he purchased a plain but neatly got up coffin at a cost of six
dollars, with a shroud to match, and sent it to the house of mourning.
But when this warm-hearted clergyman later in the day met the bereaved
husband the latter broke out with “Arrah, tare ’an ages! did yer
riverence think me woife’ud be buried in a thing like that, and she a
rale lady born? Sure it ’ud disgrace the honor of the family!” On being
thus rebuffed, Mr. ⸺ told the man
TO RETURN THE COFFIN
and its accompaniments to the undertaker. He learned that same morning
that the widower’s plea of poverty was, as it often proved to be with
the occupants of those slum-tenements, a mere pretence. The bereaved
descendant of Irish royalty had $12 due on that week’s work, besides
$39 in a savings bank. The man returned the coffin, etc., that morning
to the undertaker, telling him that his reverence Mr. ⸺ thought it not
good enough for the lady, and that a twenty-dollar coffin should be
sent, along with a hearse and two carriages. For payment Mr. ⸺ would be
accountable; the widower had agreed to repay him by weekly instalments.
The ingenious ruse did not succeed, for the undertaker went straight to
Mr. ⸺. Whereon the disappointed and bereaved husband went on a week’s
hard drink. The body would have been left unburied, had not Mr. ⸺ ordered
back the original cheap coffin and seen to the interment. This is the
most typical case of one type of pauperism peculiar, I believe, to the
lowest type of Irish and English paupers. It is not the opinion of this
clergyman that such abject forms of mean and servile ingratitude are
found among the most degraded class of our native Canadian tramps. It
results from social conditions which exist in the old country but not
here.
Another instance related by Mr. ⸺ illustrates what has been said already
about drunkenness being at once the source and the solace of so many of
the slum miseries; it is the atmosphere of their life, the pabulum on
which they feed, the destroyer for whom they sacrifice wife, child, and
finally life. The slum drunkenness is not that of the graceful orgies of
an opera scene—it is terribly realistic, it is the sullen sodden ivresse
of our Canadian rendering of L’Assomoir?
I proceed to tell Mr. ⸺’s terrible but true tale of women drunk on the
floor at a funeral. Mr. ⸺ was asked to undertake to read prayers at a
house in a lane out of one of the streets in St. John’s ward. On reaching
the house he found every preparation duly made, a hearse at the door, a
plain black-painted shell, with the body duly laid out within it on a
table. The people in the room were
A ROUGH-LOOKING CROWD
of both sexes, some of them younger and apparently less hardened than the
rest; all had been drinking heavily, but they received the clergyman with
high good humor, which they carried so far as to interrupt Mr. ⸺ when
he began the funeral service with groans, sighs, and remarks which were
judged appropriate. Thus the versicle, “Man that is born of a woman is
full of trouble.” Mr. ⸺ was interrupted by remarks such as, “Thrue for
yer riverence, and its meself knows it!” “His riverence is right, and
may the hivens be his bed.” All went tolerably well till Mr. ⸺ proposed
to offer a prayer, and requested all present to kneel. Now all the
assistants at this strange funeral were sufficiently sober to keep their
feet, and had the Presbyterian ritual been observed, all would have gone
well. The men managed to kneel—but the women, once they tried to kneel,
lost the center of gravity and toppled over on the floor, whereon when
Mr. ⸺ left the place, they were sprawling in the vain effort to rise!
The clergyman whose opinions I am now quoting was convinced that in
slum-life there are many cases of guiltless, undeserved poverty, not due
to drink nor to vice, but to other causes. As an instance of this, he
told me that he had been informed that a poor, hardworking widow and her
three little girls, living in a room in a tenement house on ⸺ street,
were in a state of destitution. He proceeded thither at once. In a bare,
unfurnished room, without a spark of fire, though it was February of a
severe winter, were three little girls, each covered by a single ragged
cotton garment. Their father was in a drunkard’s grave; their mother, a
frail, weak woman, was out of work. She could not earn enough to pay her
weekly rent for that poor place and provide a loaf of bread daily for her
children. It lay on the table ready for them to help themselves, but the
poor little things had but little appetite. The youngest was five years
old, the eldest seven. They lay in bed all day under the shelter of a
single coverlet, for they had
NO CLOTHES, NO SHOES, THAT WINTER DAY.
The kind-hearted clergyman at once gave good food and fuel. Grateful
warmth and nourishment followed in his wake, the little girls revived,
and in the words of the Book, whose lessons his life is devoted to carry
out, “The widow’s heart was made to sing for joy.”
A CHARLTON BILL CASE.
One of the saddest cases that had come under his experience this
clergyman related to me as follows: It will be remembered that his parish
includes that street stretching from Yonge street to College avenue,
which may well be termed the vicus sceleratus, the Wicked Street, of
Toronto. Several years ago a young lady visited him at his vestry, who
was evidently in great distress. She had the manners and appearance of
one who had been carefully and respectably brought up. Her story was
soon told. Her parents held a good position in the town of ⸺, Ontario.
She was engaged to be married to a young gentleman of good professional
prospects. Within a week of their appointed marriage, when the wedding
trousseau had been provided, he forced the unsuspecting girl to yield to
his wishes, then made an excuse for postponing the wedding day. After
several months of this deception her condition necessitated flight. He
took her to Toronto and placed her as a boarder in one of those nefarious
“high-toned” fast houses where the Mother of Infamy entertains the
daughters of death. When the girl found out the character of the place in
which she had been left by her lover, who had now wholly abandoned her,
she at once ran away, and obtained work as servant at a hotel. A day or
so afterwards she was followed by the woman (the word seems misapplied)
who kept the “high-toned” den from which she had fled. This wretch
informed the poor, trembling girl that she knew her entire history, and
would expose her if she did not return. Most unhappily the girl had not
the presence of mind either to appeal to police protection, or to throw
herself, surely not in vain, on the womanly goodness of the hotelkeeper’s
wife. She yielded, and became once more the slave of the procuress. She
now appealed to the Rev. Mr. ⸺ for aid to escape
A LIFE WHICH SHE ABHORRED.
He gave her money to go at once to London and a letter to a kind-hearted
Church of England clergyman in that city, promising to send further help
on receiving news of her arrival. He heard from her several times. Two
years afterwards he saw her again in Toronto, driving in a cab with two
other girls. She turned her face away. Once more he was summoned to visit
her. She was ill in a poor cottage on Elm street. For the last time he
visited her, when on her deathbed in a wretched tenement on Teraulay
street. She was dying, not from any disease, but simply from exhaustion,
worn out with sorrow and despair. A name that is not her own is inscribed
on the humble tombstone above her grave. Her parents, who are respectable
people in good circumstances, have never known what has become of their
lost daughter. “And the man whose selfish lust has brought about this
ruin,” said the Rev. Mr. ⸺, as he concluded the above sad and over true
story, “still walks the streets of Toronto prosperous and respected;
still has the entree of the best Toronto society. I am a clergyman but
there are times when I feel like taking a horse-whip and teaching that
fellow a lesson which in this country can only be taught by lynch law.
The Charlton Bill for making seduction a criminal offence, is necessary
if private vengeance is not to be practically legalized. It is all
nonsense to talk about the danger of black-mailing; a jury can always
judge of facts and discriminate between cases of real moral turpitude and
those which may be got up for the sake of money or intimidation.”
A BABY FARM.
A Methodist minister of much experience among the Toronto poor
corroborated to a great extent the views of his brethren. Among his more
novel experiences the following was communicated in reply to questions
about baby farming:
“Some of my most painful experiences have been in visiting ‘baby-farms,’
poor and generally narrow premises, for the most part situated in one
or other of the slums. I think the popular idea about these places is
erroneous—they are not intentionally shambles for infant lives, and
poor as their accommodation for the little waifs and strays may be, are
the only refuge of a vicious or unfortunate mother—a degree, at least,
above desertion or infanticide! I was sent for last March to visit a
sick child at one of these places, a cottage on St. David street, in the
eastern part of the city. The cottage was a small frame building of but
three rooms, in the largest of which, the ‘living room,’ were stowed
seven infants, three playing about the floor, the rest in bed. Most of
the children were pale and unhealthy-looking; they seemed to have none
of the exuberant vitality of healthy childhood; even in their play they
were languid. The little one I was called to visit was a child of six,
whose pecky, shrunken face, large dark eyes, and unnatural development of
forehead betokened the form of cerebral disease peculiar to childhood,
‘water on the brain.’ She was a gentle and intelligent little girl, and
joined in the simple prayer I offered with a winning, gentle and tired,
but earnest voice. It was her greatest wish to pass away from the world
which had been to her one busy scene of suffering, unrelieved by any
home or love beyond the casual kindness of strangers. A few days after
my visit she sank quietly into sleep—her last. She was the illegitimate
child of a young person in respectable position in society in a town
of Ontario. Her mother paid regularly for her keep, but never visited
her. Poor little Nellie! had her cradle known a mother’s knee, the first
symptoms of her sickness been met by a mother’s care, she might have
grown into a bright girl; affectionate and true I feel sure she would
have proved. But perhaps it is best so, and the heathen saying, ‘Those
whom the gods love die young,’ might be adopted as a motto by most baby
farms.”