THE PEG
But, after carrying the banner all night, I did not sleep in Green Park
when morning dawned. I was wet to the skin, it is true, and I had had
no sleep for twenty-four hours; but, still adventuring as a penniless
man looking for work, I had to look about me, first for a breakfast,
and next for the work.
During the night I had heard of a place over on the Surrey side of the
Thames, where the Salvation Army every Sunday morning gave away a
breakfast to the unwashed. (And, by the way, the men who carry the
banner are unwashed in the morning, and unless it is raining they do
not have much show for a wash, either.) This, thought I, is the very
thing—breakfast in the morning, and then the whole day in which to look
for work.
It was a weary walk. Down St. James Street I dragged my tired legs,
along Pall Mall, past Trafalgar Square, to the Strand. I crossed the
Waterloo Bridge to the Surrey side, cut across to Blackfriars Road,
coming out near the Surrey Theatre, and arrived at the Salvation Army
barracks before seven o’clock. This was “the peg.” And by “the peg,” in
the argot, is meant the place where a free meal may be obtained.
Here was a motley crowd of woebegone wretches who had spent the night
in the rain. Such prodigious misery! and so much of it! Old men, young
men, all manner of men, and boys to boot, and all manner of boys. Some
were drowsing standing up; half a score of them were stretched out on
the stone steps in most painful postures, all of them sound asleep, the
skin of their bodies showing red through the holes, and rents in their
rags. And up and down the street and across the street for a block
either way, each doorstep had from two to three occupants, all asleep,
their heads bent forward on their knees. And, it must be remembered,
these are not hard times in England. Things are going on very much as
they ordinarily do, and times are neither hard nor easy.
And then came the policeman. “Get outa that, you bloomin’ swine! Eigh!
eigh! Get out now!” And like swine he drove them from the doorways and
scattered them to the four winds of Surrey. But when he encountered the
crowd asleep on the steps he was astounded. “Shocking!” he exclaimed.
“Shocking! And of a Sunday morning! A pretty sight! Eigh! eigh! Get
outa that, you bleeding nuisances!”
Of course it was a shocking sight, I was shocked myself. And I should
not care to have my own daughter pollute her eyes with such a sight, or
come within half a mile of it; but—and there we were, and there you
are, and “but” is all that can be said.
The policeman passed on, and back we clustered, like flies around a
honey jar. For was there not that wonderful thing, a breakfast,
awaiting us? We could not have clustered more persistently and
desperately had they been giving away million-dollar bank-notes. Some
were already off to sleep, when back came the policeman and away we
scattered only to return again as soon as the coast was clear.
At half-past seven a little door opened, and a Salvation Army soldier
stuck out his head. “Ayn’t no sense blockin’ the wy up that wy,” he
said. “Those as ’as tickets cawn come hin now, an’ those as ’asn’t
cawn’t come hin till nine.”
Oh, that breakfast! Nine o’clock! An hour and a half longer! The men
who held tickets were greatly envied. They were permitted to go inside,
have a wash, and sit down and rest until breakfast, while we waited for
the same breakfast on the street. The tickets had been distributed the
previous night on the streets and along the Embankment, and the
possession of them was not a matter of merit, but of chance.
At eight-thirty, more men with tickets were admitted, and by nine the
little gate was opened to us. We crushed through somehow, and found
ourselves packed in a courtyard like sardines. On more occasions than
one, as a Yankee tramp in Yankeeland, I have had to work for my
breakfast; but for no breakfast did I ever work so hard as for this
one. For over two hours I had waited outside, and for over another hour
I waited in this packed courtyard. I had had nothing to eat all night,
and I was weak and faint, while the smell of the soiled clothes and
unwashed bodies, steaming from pent animal heat, and blocked solidly
about me, nearly turned my stomach. So tightly were we packed, that a
number of the men took advantage of the opportunity and went soundly
asleep standing up.
Now, about the Salvation Army in general I know nothing, and whatever
criticism I shall make here is of that particular portion of the
Salvation Army which does business on Blackfriars Road near the Surrey
Theatre. In the first place, this forcing of men who have been up all
night to stand on their feet for hours longer, is as cruel as it is
needless. We were weak, famished, and exhausted from our night’s
hardship and lack of sleep, and yet there we stood, and stood, and
stood, without rhyme or reason.
Sailors were very plentiful in this crowd. It seemed to me that one man
in four was looking for a ship, and I found at least a dozen of them to
be American sailors. In accounting for their being “on the beach,” I
received the same story from each and all, and from my knowledge of sea
affairs this story rang true. English ships sign their sailors for the
voyage, which means the round trip, sometimes lasting as long as three
years; and they cannot sign off and receive their discharges until they
reach the home port, which is England. Their wages are low, their food
is bad, and their treatment worse. Very often they are really forced by
their captains to desert in the New World or the colonies, leaving a
handsome sum of wages behind them—a distinct gain, either to the
captain or the owners, or to both. But whether for this reason alone or
not, it is a fact that large numbers of them desert. Then, for the home
voyage, the ship engages whatever sailors it can find on the beach.
These men are engaged at the somewhat higher wages that obtain in other
portions of the world, under the agreement that they shall sign off on
reaching England. The reason for this is obvious; for it would be poor
business policy to sign them for any longer time, since seamen’s wages
are low in England, and England is always crowded with sailormen on the
beach. So this fully accounted for the American seamen at the Salvation
Army barracks. To get off the beach in other outlandish places they had
come to England, and gone on the beach in the most outlandish place of
all.
There were fully a score of Americans in the crowd, the non-sailors
being “tramps royal,” the men whose “mate is the wind that tramps the
world.” They were all cheerful, facing things with the pluck which is
their chief characteristic and which seems never to desert them, withal
they were cursing the country with lurid metaphors quite refreshing
after a month of unimaginative, monotonous Cockney swearing. The
Cockney has one oath, and one oath only, the most indecent in the
language, which he uses on any and every occasion. Far different is the
luminous and varied Western swearing, which runs to blasphemy rather
than indecency. And after all, since men will swear, I think I prefer
blasphemy to indecency; there is an audacity about it, an
adventurousness and defiance that is better than sheer filthiness.
There was one American tramp royal whom I found particularly enjoyable.
I first noticed him on the street, asleep in a doorway, his head on his
knees, but a hat on his head that one does not meet this side of the
Western Ocean. When the policeman routed him out, he got up slowly and
deliberately, looked at the policeman, yawned and stretched himself,
looked at the policeman again as much as to say he didn’t know whether
he would or wouldn’t, and then sauntered leisurely down the sidewalk.
At the outset I was sure of the hat, but this made me sure of the
wearer of the hat.
In the jam inside I found myself alongside of him, and we had quite a
chat. He had been through Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and France, and
had accomplished the practically impossible feat of beating his way
three hundred miles on a French railway without being caught at the
finish. Where was I hanging out? he asked. And how did I manage for
“kipping”?—which means sleeping. Did I know the rounds yet? He was
getting on, though the country was “horstyl” and the cities were “bum.”
Fierce, wasn’t it? Couldn’t “batter” (beg) anywhere without being
“pinched.” But he wasn’t going to quit it. Buffalo Bill’s Show was
coming over soon, and a man who could drive eight horses was sure of a
job any time. These mugs over here didn’t know beans about driving
anything more than a span. What was the matter with me hanging on and
waiting for Buffalo Bill? He was sure I could ring in somehow.
And so, after all, blood is thicker than water. We were
fellow-countrymen and strangers in a strange land. I had warmed to his
battered old hat at sight of it, and he was as solicitous for my
welfare as if we were blood brothers. We swapped all manner of useful
information concerning the country and the ways of its people, methods
by which to obtain food and shelter and what not, and we parted
genuinely sorry at having to say good-bye.
One thing particularly conspicuous in this crowd was the shortness of
stature. I, who am but of medium height, looked over the heads of nine
out of ten. The natives were all short, as were the foreign sailors.
There were only five or six in the crowd who could be called fairly
tall, and they were Scandinavians and Americans. The tallest man there,
however, was an exception. He was an Englishman, though not a Londoner.
“Candidate for the Life Guards,” I remarked to him. “You’ve hit it,
mate,” was his reply; “I’ve served my bit in that same, and the way
things are I’ll be back at it before long.”
For an hour we stood quietly in this packed courtyard. Then the men
began to grow restless. There was pushing and shoving forward, and a
mild hubbub of voices. Nothing rough, however, nor violent; merely the
restlessness of weary and hungry men. At this juncture forth came the
adjutant. I did not like him. His eyes were not good. There was nothing
of the lowly Galilean about him, but a great deal of the centurion who
said: “For I am a man in authority, having soldiers under me; and I say
to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and
to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.”
Well, he looked at us in just that way, and those nearest to him
quailed. Then he lifted his voice.
“Stop this ’ere, now, or I’ll turn you the other wy an’ march you out,
an’ you’ll get no breakfast.”
I cannot convey by printed speech the insufferable way in which he said
this. He seemed to me to revel in that he was a man in authority, able
to say to half a thousand ragged wretches, “you may eat or go hungry,
as I elect.”
To deny us our breakfast after standing for hours! It was an awful
threat, and the pitiful, abject silence which instantly fell attested
its awfulness. And it was a cowardly threat. We could not strike back,
for we were starving; and it is the way of the world that when one man
feeds another he is that man’s master. But the centurion—I mean the
adjutant—was not satisfied. In the dead silence he raised his voice
again, and repeated the threat, and amplified it.
At last we were permitted to enter the feasting hall, where we found
the “ticket men” washed but unfed. All told, there must have been
nearly seven hundred of us who sat down—not to meat or bread, but to
speech, song, and prayer. From all of which I am convinced that
Tantalus suffers in many guises this side of the infernal regions. The
adjutant made the prayer, but I did not take note of it, being too
engrossed with the massed picture of misery before me. But the speech
ran something like this: “You will feast in Paradise. No matter how you
starve and suffer here, you will feast in Paradise, that is, if you
will follow the directions.” And so forth and so forth. A clever bit of
propaganda, I took it, but rendered of no avail for two reasons. First,
the men who received it were unimaginative and materialistic, unaware
of the existence of any Unseen, and too inured to hell on earth to be
frightened by hell to come. And second, weary and exhausted from the
night’s sleeplessness and hardship, suffering from the long wait upon
their feet, and faint from hunger, they were yearning, not for
salvation, but for grub. The “soul-snatchers” (as these men call all
religious propagandists), should study the physiological basis of
psychology a little, if they wish to make their efforts more effective.
All in good time, about eleven o’clock, breakfast arrived. It arrived,
not on plates, but in paper parcels. I did not have all I wanted, and I
am sure that no man there had all he wanted, or half of what he wanted
or needed. I gave part of my bread to the tramp royal who was waiting
for Buffalo Bill, and he was as ravenous at the end as he was in the
beginning. This is the breakfast: two slices of bread, one small piece
of bread with raisins in it and called “cake,” a wafer of cheese, and a
mug of “water bewitched.” Numbers of the men had been waiting since
five o’clock for it, while all of us had waited at least four hours;
and in addition, we had been herded like swine, packed like sardines,
and treated like curs, and been preached at, and sung to, and prayed
for. Nor was that all.
No sooner was breakfast over (and it was over almost as quickly as it
takes to tell), than the tired heads began to nod and droop, and in
five minutes half of us were sound asleep. There were no signs of our
being dismissed, while there were unmistakable signs of preparation for
a meeting. I looked at a small clock hanging on the wall. It indicated
twenty-five minutes to twelve. Heigh-ho, thought I, time is flying, and
I have yet to look for work.
“I want to go,” I said to a couple of waking men near me.
“Got ter sty fer the service,” was the answer.
“Do you want to stay?” I asked.
They shook their heads.
“Then let us go and tell them we want to get out,” I continued. “Come
on.”
But the poor creatures were aghast. So I left them to their fate, and
went up to the nearest Salvation Army man.
“I want to go,” I said. “I came here for breakfast in order that I
might be in shape to look for work. I didn’t think it would take so
long to get breakfast. I think I have a chance for work in Stepney, and
the sooner I start, the better chance I’ll have of getting it.”
He was really a good fellow, though he was startled by my request.
“Wy,” he said, “we’re goin’ to ’old services, and you’d better sty.”
“But that will spoil my chances for work,” I urged. “And work is the
most important thing for me just now.”
As he was only a private, he referred me to the adjutant, and to the
adjutant I repeated my reasons for wishing to go, and politely
requested that he let me go.
“But it cawn’t be done,” he said, waxing virtuously indignant at such
ingratitude. “The idea!” he snorted. “The idea!”
“Do you mean to say that I can’t get out of here?” I demanded. “That
you will keep me here against my will?”
“Yes,” he snorted.
I do not know what might have happened, for I was waxing indignant
myself; but the “congregation” had “piped” the situation, and he drew
me over to a corner of the room, and then into another room. Here he
again demanded my reasons for wishing to go.
“I want to go,” I said, “because I wish to look for work over in
Stepney, and every hour lessens my chance of finding work. It is now
twenty-five minutes to twelve. I did not think when I came in that it
would take so long to get a breakfast.”
“You ’ave business, eh?” he sneered. “A man of business you are, eh?
Then wot did you come ’ere for?”
“I was out all night, and I needed a breakfast in order to strengthen
me to find work. That is why I came here.”
“A nice thing to do,” he went on in the same sneering manner. “A man
with business shouldn’t come ’ere. You’ve tyken some poor man’s
breakfast ’ere this morning, that’s wot you’ve done.”
Which was a lie, for every mother’s son of us had come in.
Now I submit, was this Christian-like, or even honest?—after I had
plainly stated that I was homeless and hungry, and that I wished to
look for work, for him to call my looking for work “business,” to call
me therefore a business man, and to draw the corollary that a man of
business, and well off, did not require a charity breakfast, and that
by taking a charity breakfast I had robbed some hungry waif who was not
a man of business.
I kept my temper, but I went over the facts again, and clearly and
concisely demonstrated to him how unjust he was and how he had
perverted the facts. As I manifested no signs of backing down (and I am
sure my eyes were beginning to snap), he led me to the rear of the
building where, in an open court, stood a tent. In the same sneering
tone he informed a couple of privates standing there that “’ere is a
fellow that ’as business an’ ’e wants to go before services.”
They were duly shocked, of course, and they looked unutterable horror
while he went into the tent and brought out the major. Still in the
same sneering manner, laying particular stress on the “business,” he
brought my case before the commanding officer. The major was of a
different stamp of man. I liked him as soon as I saw him, and to him I
stated my case in the same fashion as before.
“Didn’t you know you had to stay for services?” he asked.
“Certainly not,” I answered, “or I should have gone without my
breakfast. You have no placards posted to that effect, nor was I so
informed when I entered the place.”
He meditated a moment. “You can go,” he said.
It was twelve o’clock when I gained the street, and I couldn’t quite
make up my mind whether I had been in the army or in prison. The day
was half gone, and it was a far fetch to Stepney. And besides, it was
Sunday, and why should even a starving man look for work on Sunday?
Furthermore, it was my judgment that I had done a hard night’s work
walking the streets, and a hard day’s work getting my breakfast; so I
disconnected myself from my working hypothesis of a starving young man
in search of employment, hailed a bus, and climbed aboard.
After a shave and a bath, with my clothes all off, I got in between
clean white sheets and went to sleep. It was six in the evening when I
closed my eyes. When they opened again, the clocks were striking nine
next morning. I had slept fifteen straight hours. And as I lay there
drowsily, my mind went back to the seven hundred unfortunates I had
left waiting for services. No bath, no shave for them, no clean white
sheets and all clothes off, and fifteen hours’ straight sleep. Services
over, it was the weary streets again, the problem of a crust of bread
ere night, and the long sleepless night in the streets, and the
pondering of the problem of how to obtain a crust at dawn.