would, I believe, when confining themselves to a much smaller one, be
led, if not to very unexpected conclusions, at least to very curious
problems. In dealing with a large number of cases the urgency is so
great, one passes over the most difficult questions to work where sight
is clear; and one is apt to forget Sissy Jupe's quick sympathetic
perception that percentage signifies literally nothing to the friends
of the special sufferer, who surely is not worth less than a sparrow.
The individual case, if we cared enough for it, would often give us the
key to many.
Whoever will limit his gaze to a few persons, and try to solve the
problems of their lives--planning, for instance, definitely, how
he, even with superior advantages of education, self-control, and
knowledge, could bring up a given family on given wages, allowing the
smallest amount conceivably sufficient for food, rent, clothes, fuel,
and the rest--he may find it in most cases a much more difficult thing
than he had ever thought, and sometimes may be an impossibility. It may
lead to strange self-questioning about wages. Again, if people will
watch carefully the different effect of self-help and of alms, how the
latter, like the out-door relief system under the old Poor-Law, tends
to lower wages, undermines the providence of the poor, it may make them
put some searching questions to themselves upon the wisdom of backing
up wages with gifts. Then they may begin to consider practically
whether in their own small sphere they can form no schemes of help,
which shall be life-giving, stimulating hope, energy, foresight,
self-denial, and choice of right rather than wrong expenditure.
They may earnestly strive to discover plans of help which shall
free them from the oppressive responsibility of deciding whether
aid is deserved--a question often complicated inextricably with
another, namely, whether at a given moment there is a probability of
reformation. All of us have felt the impossibility of deciding either
question fairly, yet we have been convinced that gifts coming at the
wrong time are often deadly. Earnest workers feel a heavy weight on
their hearts and consciences from the conviction that the old command
"Judge not" is a divine one, and yet that the distribution of alms
irrespective of character is fatal. These difficulties lead to variable
action, which is particularly disastrous with the poor. But there
are plans which cultivate the qualities wherein they are habitually
wanting, namely, self-control, energy, prudence, and industry; and such
plans, if we will do our part, may be ready at any moment for even the
least deserving, and for those who have fallen lowest.
Further details as to modes of help must vary infinitely with
circumstances and character. But I may mention a few laws which become
clearer and clearer to me as I work.
It is best strictly to enforce fulfillment of all such duties as
payment of rent, etc.
It is far better to give work than either money or goods.
It is most helpful of all to strengthen by sympathy and counsel the
energetic effort which shall bear fruit in time to come.
It is essential to remember that each man has his own view of his life,
and must be free to fulfill it; that in many ways he is a far better
judge of it than we, as he has lived through and felt what we have only
seen. Our work is rather to bring him to the point of considering, and
to the spirit of judging rightly, than to consider or judge for him.
The poor of London (as of all large towns) need the development of
every power which can open to them noble sources of joy.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] The ultimate step taken to enforce payment of rent is to send in a
broker to distrain.
BLANK COURT; OR, LANDLORDS AND TENANTS.
_October, 1871._
Three ladies were standing, not long ago, in a poor and dingy court
in London, when a group of dirty-faced urchins exclaimed, in a tone,
partly of impudence and partly of fun: "What a lot o' landladies, this
morning!"
The words set me thinking, for I felt that the boys' mirth was excited,
not only by the number of landladies (or of ladies acting as such), but
also, probably, by the contrast between these ladies and the landladies
they usually saw. For the landlady to the London poor is too often a
struggling, cheated, much-worried, long-suffering woman; soured by
constant dealing with untrustworthy people; embittered by loss; a prey
to the worst lodgers, whom she allows to fall into debt, and is afraid
to turn out, lest she should lose the amount they owe her; without
spirit or education to enable her to devise improvements, or capital to
execute them--never able, in short, to use the power given her by her
position to bring order into the lives of her tenants: being, indeed,
too frequently entirely under their control. There is a numerous class
of landladies worse even than this--bullying, violent, passionate,
revengeful, and cowardly. They alternately cajole and threaten, but
rarely intend to carry out either their promises or their threats.
Severe without principle, weakly indulgent towards evil, given to lying
and swearing, too covetous to be drunken, yet indulgent to any lodger
who will "treat" them; their influence is incalculably mischievous.
Ought this to be the idea suggested by the word "landlady" to the
poor of our cities? The old word "landlord" is a proud one to many
an English gentleman, who holds dominion over the neat cottage, with
its well-stocked garden; over the comfortable farm-house; over broad,
sloping parks, and rich farm-lands. It is a delight to him to keep
thus fair the part of the earth over which it has been given him to
rule. And, as to his people, he would think it shameful to receive
the rents from his well-managed estates in the country, year by year,
without some slight recognition of his tenantry--at least on birthdays
or at Christmas.
But where are the owners, or lords, or ladies, of most courts like
that in which I stood with my two fellow-workers? Who holds dominion
there? Who heads the tenants there? If any among the nobly born, or
better educated, own them, do they bear the mark of their hands? And
if they do _not_ own them, might they not do so? There are in those
courts as loyal English hearts as ever loved or reverenced the squire
in the village, only they have been so forgotten. Dark under the level
ground, in kitchens damp with foulest moisture, there they huddle in
multitudes, and no one loves or raises them. It must not be thought
that the over-worked clergymen and missionaries, heroic as they often
are, can do all that might be done for them. They count their flock by
thousands, and these people want watching one by one. The clergy have
no control over these places, nor have they half the power of directing
labor to useful ends, which those might have who owned the houses, and
were constantly brought into direct contact with the people.
How this relation of landlord and tenant might be established in some
of the lowest districts of London, and with what results, I am about to
describe by relating what has been done in the last two years in Blank
Court. I have already, in these pages,[4] given an account of my former
efforts to establish this relation on a healthy footing in another
London court; of the details of my plan of action; and of its success.
I am not, therefore, in what follows, putting forth anything new in its
main idea, but am simply insisting on principles of the truth of which
every day's experience only makes me the more deeply assured, and
recounting the history of an attempt to spread those principles to a
class still lower than that alluded to in my former paper.
It was near the end of 1869 that I first heard that a good many houses
in Blank Court were to be disposed of. Eventually, in the course of
that year, six ten-roomed houses were bought by the Countess of Ducie,
and five more by another lady, and placed partially under my care.
I was especially glad to obtain some influence here, as I knew this
place to be one of the worst in Marylebone; its inhabitants were mainly
costermongers and small hawkers, and were almost the poorest class of
those amongst our population who have any settled home, the next grade
below them being vagrants who sleep in common lodging-houses; and I
knew that its moral standing was equally low. Its reputation had long
been familiar to me; for when unruly and hopeless tenants were sent
away from other houses in the district, I had often heard that they had
gone to Blank Court, the tone in which it was said implying that they
had now sunk to the lowest depths of degradation. A lawyer friend had
also said to me, on hearing that it was proposed to buy houses there,
"Blank Court! why, that is the place one is always noticing in the
police reports for its rows."
Yet its outward appearance would not have led a casual observer to
guess its real character. Blank Court is not far from Cavendish
Square, and daily in the season, scores of carriages, with their gayly
dressed occupants, pass the end of it. Should such look down it, they
would little divine its inner life. Seen from the outside, and in the
daytime, it is a quiet-looking place, the houses a moderate size, and
the space between them tolerably wide. It has no roadway, but is nicely
enough paved, and old furniture stands out for sale on the pavement, in
front of the few shops.
But if any one had entered those houses with me two years ago, he
would have seen enough to surprise and horrify him. In many of the
houses the dustbins were utterly unapproachable, and cabbage-leaves,
stale fish, and every sort of dirt were lying in the passages and on
the stairs; in some the back kitchen had been used as a dustbin, but
had not been emptied for years, and the dust filtered through into
the front kitchens, which were the sole living and sleeping rooms of
some families; in some, the kitchen stairs were many inches thick with
dirt, which was so hardened that a shovel had to be used to get it
off; in some there was hardly any water to be had; the wood was eaten
away, and broken away; windows were smashed; and the rain was coming
through the roofs. At night it was still worse; and during the first
winter I had to collect the rents chiefly then, as the inhabitants,
being principally costermongers, were out nearly all day, and they
were afraid to entrust their rent to their neighbors. It was then that
I saw the houses in their most dreadful aspect. I well remember wet,
foggy, Monday nights, when I turned down the dingy court, past the
brilliantly-lighted public-house at the corner, past the old furniture
outside the shops, and dived into the dark, yawning, passage ways. The
front doors stood open day and night, and as I felt my way down the
kitchen stairs, broken, and rounded by the hardened mud upon them, the
foul smells which the heavy, foggy air would not allow to rise, met
me as I descended, and the plaster rattled down with a hollow sound
as I groped along. It was truly appalling to think that there were
human beings who lived habitually in such an atmosphere, with such
surroundings. Sometimes I had to open the kitchen door myself, after
knocking several times in vain, when a woman, quite drunk, would be
lying on the floor on some black mass which served as a bed; sometimes,
in answer to my knocks, a half-drunken man would swear, and thrust the
rent-money out to me through a chink of the door, placing his foot
against it, so as to prevent it from opening wide enough to admit me.
Always it would be shut again without a light being offered to guide
me up the pitch-dark stairs. Such was Blank Court in the winter of
1869. Truly, a wild, lawless, desolate little kingdom to come to rule
over.
On what principles was I to rule these people? On the same that I had
already tried, and tried with success, in other places, and which I may
sum up as the two following: firstly, to demand a strict fulfillment of
their duties to me,--one of the chief of which would be the punctual
payment of rent; and secondly, to endeavor to be so unfailingly just
and patient, that they should learn to trust the rule that was over
them.
With regard to details, I would make a few improvements at once--such,
for example, as the laying on of water and repairing of dustbins, but,
for the most part, improvements should be made only by degrees, as the
people became more capable of valuing and not abusing them. I would
have the rooms distempered, and thoroughly cleansed, as they became
vacant, and then they should be offered to the more cleanly of the
tenants. I would have such repairs as were not immediately needed,
used as a means of giving work to the men in times of distress. I
would draft the occupants of the underground kitchens into the upstair
rooms, and would ultimately convert the kitchens into bath-rooms and
wash-houses. I would have the landlady's portion of the house--_i.
e._ the stairs and passages--at once repaired and distempered, and
they should be regularly scrubbed, and, as far as possible, made
models of cleanliness, for I knew, from former experience, that the
example of this would, in time, silently spread itself to the rooms
themselves, and that payment for this work would give me some hold
over the elder girls. I would collect savings personally, not trust
to their being taken to distant banks or saving clubs. And finally,
I knew that I should learn to feel these people as my friends, and
so should instinctively feel the same respect for their privacy and
their independence, and should treat them with the same courtesy that
I should show towards any other personal friends. There would be no
interference, no entering their rooms uninvited, no offer of money or
the necessaries of life. But when occasion presented itself, I should
give them any help I could, such as I might offer without insult to
other friends--sympathy in their distresses; advice, help, and counsel
in their difficulties; introductions that might be of use to them;
means of education; visits to the country; a lent book when not able
to work; a bunch of flowers brought on purpose; an invitation to any
entertainment, in a room built at the back of my own house, which would
be likely to give them pleasure. I am convinced that one of the evils
of much that is done for the poor springs from the want of delicacy
felt, and courtesy shown, towards them, and that we cannot beneficially
help them in any spirit different to that in which we help those who
are better off. The help may differ in amount, because their needs are
greater. It should not differ in kind.
To sum up: my endeavors in ruling these people should be to maintain
perfect strictness in our business relations, perfect respectfulness in
our personal relations.
These principles of government and plans of action were not
theoretical: they had not been _thought out_ in the study, but had been
_worked out_ in the course of practical dealings with individual cases.
And though I am able thus to formulate them, I want it understood that
they are essentially living, that they are not mere dead rules, but
principles the application of which is varying from day to day. I can
say, for example, "It is our plan to keep some repairs as employment
for men out of work;" but it needs the true instinct to apply this plan
beneficially--the time to give the work, its kind, its amount, above
all the mode of offering it, have to be felt out fresh on each fresh
occasion, and the circumstances and characters vary so that each case
is new.
The practical carrying out in Blank Court of these various plans of
action involved, as may readily be imagined, a great deal of personal
supervision. Hence the "lot o' landladies" which excited the attention
of the street boys. Several ladies, whether owners of houses or not,
have worked there energetically with me since the property was bought;
and when I use the word "we," I would have it understood to apply to
these ladies and myself: it is often upon them that much of the detail
of the work devolves.
But to proceed with the history of Blank Court. Our first step on
obtaining possession was to call on all the inhabitants to establish
our claim to receive rents. We accepted or refused the people as
tenants, made their acquaintance, and learnt all they might be disposed
to tell us about themselves and their families. We came upon strange
scenes sometimes. In one room a handsome, black, tangle-haired, ragged
boy and girl, of about nine and ten, with wild dark eyes, were always
to be found, sometimes squatting near the fire, watching a great black
pot, sometimes amusing themselves with cutting paper into strips with
scissors. It was difficult to extract a word: the money and dirty
rent-book were generally pushed to us in silence. No grown person was
ever to be seen. For months I never saw these children in the open air.
Often they would lie in bed all day long; and I believe they were too
ignorant and indolent to care to leave the house except at night, when
the boy, as we afterwards found, would creep like a cat along the roofs
of the outbuildings to steal lumps of coal from a neighboring shed.
At one room we had to call again and again, always finding the door
locked. At last, after weeks of vain effort, I found the woman who
owned the room at home. She was sitting on the floor at tea with
another woman, the tea being served on an inverted hamper. I sat down
on an opposite hamper, which was the only other piece of furniture in
the room, and told her I was sorry that I had never been able to make
her acquaintance before. To which she replied, with rather a grand air
and a merry twinkle in her eye, that she had been "unavoidably absent:"
in other words, some weeks in prison,--not a rare occurrence for her.
When we set about our repairs and alterations, there was much that
was discouraging. The better class of people in the court were
hopeless of any permanent improvement. When one of the tenants of the
shops saw that we were sending workmen into the empty rooms, he said
considerately, "I'll tell you what it is, Miss, it'll cost you a lot o'
money to repair them places, and it's no good. The women's 'eads 'll be
druv through the door panels again in no time, and the place is good
enough for such cattle as them there." But we were not to be deterred.
On the other hand, we were not to be hurried in our action by threats.
These were not wanting. For no sooner did the tenants see the workmen
about than they seemed to think that if they only clamored enough they
would get their own rooms put to rights. Nothing had been done for
years. Now, they thought, was their opportunity. More than one woman
locked me in her room with her, the better to rave and storm. She
would shake the rent in her pocket to tempt me with the sound of the
money, and roar out "that never a farthing of it would she pay till her
grate was set," or her floor was mended, as the case might be. Perfect
silence would make her voice drop lower and lower, until at last she
would stop, wondering that no violent answers were hurled back at her,
and a pause would ensue. I felt that promises would be little believed
in, and, besides, I wished to feel free to do as much, and only as
much, as seemed best to me; so that my plan was to trust to my deeds to
speak for themselves, and inspire confidence as time went on. In such
a pause, therefore, I once said to a handsome, gypsy-like Irishwoman,
"How long have you lived here?" "More than four years," she replied,
her voice swelling again at the remembrance of her wrongs; "and always
was a good tenant, and paid my way, and never a thing done! And my
grate, etc., etc., etc." "And how long have I had the houses?" "Well,
I suppose since Monday week," in a gruff but somewhat mollified tone.
"Very well, Mrs. L----, just think over quietly what has been done
in the houses since then; and if you like to leave and think you can
suit yourself better, I am glad you should make yourself comfortable.
Meantime, of course, while you stay, you pay rent. I will call for it
this evening if it doesn't suit you to pay now. Good morning."
Almost immediately after the purchase of the houses, we had the
accumulated refuse of years carted away, the pavement in the yards
and front areas were repaired, dustbins cleared, the drains put in
order, and water supplied. Such improvements as these are tolerably
unspoilable, but for any of a more destructible nature it was better
to wait. The importance of advancing slowly, and of gaining some hold
over the people as a necessary accompaniment to any real improvement
in their dwellings, was perpetually apparent. Their habits were so
degraded that we had to work a change in these before they would make
any proper use of the improved surroundings we were prepared to give
them. We had locks torn off, windows broken, drains stopped, dustbins
misused in every possible manner, even pipes broken, and water-taps
wrenched away. This was sometimes the result of carelessness, and
deeply-rooted habit of dirt and untidiness; sometimes the damage was
willful. Our remedy was to watch the right moment for furnishing these
appliances, to persevere in supplying them, and to get the people by
degrees to work with us for their preservation. I have learned to know
that people are ashamed to abuse a place they find cared for. They
will add dirt to dirt till a place is pestilential, but the more they
find done for it, the more they will respect it, till at last order
and cleanliness prevail. It is this feeling of theirs, coupled with
the fact that they do not like those whom they have learned to love,
and whose standard is higher than their own, to see things which would
grieve them, which has enabled us to accomplish nearly every reform
of outward things that we have achieved; so that the surest way to
have any place kept clean is to go through it often yourself. First I
go at regular times, and then they clean to receive me, and have the
pleasure of preparing for me, and seeing my satisfaction; then I go at
unexpected times to raise them to the power of having it always clean.
Our plan of removing the inhabitants of the miserable underground
kitchens to rooms in the upper parts of the houses, did not, strange as
it may seem, meet with any approbation at first. They had been so long
in the semidarkness that they felt it an effort to move. One woman, in
particular, I remember, pleaded hard with me to let her stop, saying,
"My bits of things won't look _anything_ if you bring them to the
light." By degrees, however, we effected the change.
I mentioned in my summary of our plan of operations, our custom of
using some of the necessary, yet not immediately wanted repairs, as
a means of affording work to the tenants in slack times. I lay great
stress upon this. Though the men are not mechanics, there are many
rough jobs of plastering, distempering, glazing, or sweeping away and
removing rubbish which they can do. When, therefore, a tenant is out of
work, instead of reducing his energy by any gifts of money, we simply,
whenever the funds at our disposal allow it, employ him in restoring
and purifying the houses. And what a difference five shillings worth of
work in a bad week will make to a family! The father, instead of idling
listlessly at the corner of the street, sets busily and happily to
work, prepares the whitewash, mends the plaster, distempers the room;
the wife bethinks herself of having a turn-out of musty corners or
drawers, untouched, maybe, for months, of cleaning her windows, perhaps
even of putting up a clean blind; and thus a sense of decency, the hope
of beginning afresh and doing better, comes like new life into the home.
The same cheering and encouraging sort of influence, though in a less
degree, is exercised by our plan of having a little band of scrubbers.
We have each passage scrubbed twice a week by one of the elder girls.
The sixpence thus earned is a stimulus, and they often take an extreme
interest in the work itself. One little girl was so proud of her first
cleaning that she stood two hours watching her passage lest the boys,
whom she considered as the natural enemies of order and cleanliness,
should spoil it before I came to see it. And one woman remarked to her
neighbor how nice the stairs looked. "They haven't been cleaned," she
added, "since ever I came into this house." She had been there six
years! The effect of these clean passages frequently spreads to the
rooms, as the dark line of demarkation between the cleaned passage and
the still dirty room arouses the attention, and begins to trouble the
minds, of its inmates.