It is risky to go home with some of the company from the Chequers, for
good-fellowship is by no means fostered in the atmosphere of a
public-house. The creatures who write about the cheerful glass, and the
jovial evening, and the drink that mellows the heart, know nothing of
the sad work that goes on in a boozing-place, while the persons who draw
wild pictures of impossible horrors are worse than the hired men who
write in publican's papers. It is the plain truth that is wanted, and
one year of life in a public-house teaches a man more than all the
strained lectures and colourless statistics. I am going to give a series
of pictures that will set forth every phase of public-house life. It is
useless to step casually into a bar, and then turn out a flashy
article. If you want to know how Drink really acts on the inner life of
this nation you must actually live among the forlorn folk who drink
Circe's draught, and you must live as their equal, their friend, their
confidant. I am a Loafer, and not one of the gang at The Chequers would
ever dream of regarding me as anything but an equal. My friend Donkey
Perkins, the fighting man, curses me with perfect affability and I am on
easy terms with about one hundred costermongers. If a "gentleman" went
among them he could learn nothing. Observe the hush that falls on the
babble of a tap-room if any well-dressed person goes in; listen to the
hum of warning, and then notice the laboured hypocrisy of the talk that
goes on so long as the stranger is there. I have seen that odd change
scores of times, and I know that nothing can be more curious than the
contrast between the scrappy, harmless chat that goes on while the
representative of respectability is there, and the stupid, frank
brutalities which the advent of the visitor silenced.
At nights I go home with one after another of my set, and at merry
seasons we stay together till early morning. They throw off all disguise
before me, and even the thieves are not afraid. When once you are on
level terms with the community you begin to see what is the true result
of drink. The clergyman, the district visitor, the professional
slummer--all the people who "patronise"--never learn the truth, and they
positively invite the wastrel classes to lie.
Some time ago I read some "revelations" which made a great stir in the
country. The writer was accused of publishing obscenities, but what
struck me most in his work was its absolute display of ignorance. The
poor, innocent man had listened to stories which were told in the
dialect that is used to impress outsiders, and I laughed as I seemed to
hear the very tones of some shady gentry of my own acquaintance. The
unhappy vendor of revelations went among his subjects of study for six
weeks, and then set up as an authority. Of course, the acute, sleazy
dogs whom he questioned kept back everything that was essential, and
filled their victim's mind with concoctions which amused professional
blackguards for a month. Could that literary adventurer only have heard
the criticism which daily met my ear, he would have found that many
eager souls were longing for a chance to plunder such an obvious "mug."
Another writer, whose works appear in a morning journal, professes to
make flying visits to various queer places, and his articles are
published as facts; but I had the chance of testing the truth of two
tales which dealt with official business, and I found that these two
were false from end to end. Not only were they false, but they
illustrate nothing, for the writer did not know the conditions of the
life which he pretended to describe, and his fiction misled many
thousands. Experience, then--sordid, miserable, long experience--is
needed before anyone can speak the truth concerning the life of what
Carlyle called "the scoundrel classes." The same experience only can
teach you anything about the poor. The scoundrels do not actually
confide in anybody, and I never yet knew one of them who would not turn
on a confederate; but they exhibit themselves freely before people to
whom they have become used. It unfortunately happens that the
scoundrels and the dissolute poor are much thrown together. A man may
be a hopeless drunkard without being a rascal, but the rascals and the
boozers are generally taken in the lump by persons of a descriptive turn
of mind. That is faulty natural history. The chances are always ten to
one in favour of the boozer's becoming a criminal; but we must
distinguish between those who have taken the last bad step and those who
are merely qualifying. And now for our history.